#billy johnstone

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[vertigoartgore]

Jennifer Connelly as Jenny Blake in The Rocketeer Movie (1991). Alongside the lesser known Billy Campbell as Clifford Secord).

[redhairclara]

Billie Dove photographed by Alfred Cheney Johnston, c. early 1920s

[vintagewarhol]

[coffeejoshy]

M. Ward - A Man in the Moon, or, An Attempt at Translation

Music, theatre, canvas, the ballet or the screen; these are luxuries for so many of us. ‘Privilege’ might even be more apt given the notion that art is largely seen as ‘a thing to be enjoyed but which is not essential; a frivolity’. Ethan Hawke (of all people) recently gave my favourite articulation of why the arts are so necessary: because until you experience a feeling so incredibly deep that gives you cause to wonder, to think “has anybody else ever really felt like this?”, you have no way of knowing just how essential art can be.

“That’s when art is not a luxury, it’s actually sustenance”, he puts it.

Recently I got to see M. Ward perform his 20th anniversary tribute to his indie-folk magnum opus ‘Transfiguration of Vincent’. It’s a dark album peppered with fleeting spots of bright, written in the throes of grieving after the titular Vincent O’Brien, a friend of Ward’s, passed away. We don’t learn much of anything specific about Vincent over the course of the album, and nor should we. What we do experience over the album’s course, however, is the breadth of emotions Ward experiences in relation to his friend, and the downward spiral that accompanies those feelings as he watches Vincent’s gradual slip from the mortal coil.

Describing the album is difficult for me, because I find it difficult to ‘rate’ (a silly thing music lovers occasionally do), or ‘praise’ a work of art so subsumed in the grief of its artist and the tragedy of its subject. Talking about art in this way feels insulting at times, and never more so than for works as intimate as this. These are songs to be felt, not described.

And yet here is the paradox; I feel so strongly about this album and its artist that not evangelising it feels as impossible a task as explaining the effect it has on me.

Anyway, here we are.

On stage, Ward has a curious presence. He’s more idiosyncratic than charismatic, and instead carries himself with quiet confidence, and his guitar with a crooked left elbow. He isn’t particularly talkative, but the little he did say gave the impression of an incredibly humble man, and his husky voice and greying hair gives him this air of folksy charm that’s really quite, well, charming.

In interviews this seems to be much the case as well; in one radio interview from 2009 when asked how he would describe his then new album ‘Hold Time’ he answered (hilariously) “well, it’s my new album and some people will like it, some people won’t”. Other interviews also see him coming across as reserved and painfully shy about his creative process, not because he’s afraid of giving away trade secrets, but because he’s almost dismissive of the validity of his methods and his art. He’s wilfully determined to refrain from explanations of his art’s ‘meanings’ beyond vague outlines, as was the case for 2020’s ‘Migration Stories’, in his words a “sci-fi fast-forward to a more silent night many generations from here to a maybe-era where movement is free again”.

While much of this likely amounts to wild postulation about a man’s internal feelings, if there’s one accusation that’s easy to level at Ward, it’s that he’s an old soul. He’s cited Neil Young, Daniel Johnston, Billie Holiday, Howlin’ Wolf, and John Mahey as influences (“Transfiguration” is a reference to a Mahey album with a similar title), he records everything analogue, and even completes his demos on a Tascam four-track that he’s owned since his teenage years. Sonically his music evokes shades of Nick Drake, early Dylan, Jackson C. Frank and even Bowie at times. In today’s context, even the model of a solo singer-songwriter writing intimate analogue guitar music feels like an archetype on the brink of extinction.

Above all, Ward seems captured by the task of creating music as timeless as that of his predecessors.

The point that I suppose I’ve been dancing around in all this exposition is that M. Ward’s music has affected me very deeply.

I’ve spent so much of recent years trying to consume as much music as I can, chasing new sounds and bizarre voices to fulfil some craving of curiosity that is never truly satiated for more than a short time. In all that noise, it’s a fortunate wonder I didn’t overlook Transfiguration of Vincent and other M. Ward projects for their unassuming modes. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully explain to someone the inward-puncturing existential grief that a song like “Dead Man”makes me feel, or the utter stillness that “Real Silence” gives me.

Crucially, though, I don’t think I need to try anymore. Writing this helps, for one, but it’s music like this that gives me the kind of unfathomable joys and sorrows that our friend Ethan Hawke was referring to. It’s music like M. Ward’s that reminds me why I need music, and though it may seem fairly obvious an observation (I suppose all the best ones are), it’s the reminder that some things cannot be described; they must be felt, transfigured by poets and writers into an essence distilled for the rest of us.

[pcificoceanblue]

brian wilson, bruce & harriet johnston, billy hinsche and david cassidy

[rhythmislifeandlifeisrhythm]

[ambersadventuresinwonderland]

The Rocketeer 🖤🎬🎥🎞️

[supermacaroniandsqueezeblr]

Art inspired by the music video for Beecake’s “Harbour”-one of my new favorite songs

[spilladabalia]

Billie Holiday - Pennies From Heaven

[filosofablogger]

♫ China Grove ♫

I just played this one last June, but back by special request … According to Doobie Brothers singer/guitarist Tom Johnston … “The words were written last, and they were made up around this whole idea of this wacky little town with a sheriff that had a Samurai Sword and all that sort of thing. The funny thing was that I found out in 1975 in a cab in Houston that there really was a China Grove,…

[asoftepiloguemylove]

Hi! Could you do a web weave of unreciprocated love?

Michelle K. But I am Selfish / Jane Seville Zero at the Bone / pinterest / Salma Deera Letters from Medea / Miles Johnston Disturbing Dreams / Sea Wolf The Garden That You Planted / Christa Wolf (tr. Jan van Heurck) Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays / Billie Eilish Billie Bossa Nova / Boygenius Bite the Hand / W.S. Merwin

[kristallbluemchen]

Okay! Ich hab Bock auf nen Thread für Nolin Songs (Happy, sad, destructive, hopeful, mir schnurz, alles was ihr mögt und für passend haltet!)

Haut eure favorites raus und lasst sie uns sammeln!

Love Situation (911) - Blanks

Ich würd‘ lügen - Kayef (irgendwie mehr Noah pov but still about them)

What you do to me - Blanks

love should be easy - Zoe Wees 

Hold on me - Ella Henderson

Back to December - Taylor Swift

Midnight Rain - Taylor Swift

You‘re losing me - Taylor Swift

Love lies - Khalid & Normani

Let somebody go - Coldplay & Selena Gomez

Letzter Song - Cro

Falling - Cro

Dich - Cro (OMG Leute! Hört den euch an und schaut dann noch mal Folge 1047!)

C'est La Vie (Graham Lake Edit) - Graham Lake

Scream - WTRGRL & Zhone

Just friends - Nuno Freitas

Gravity - Michael Johnston 

Just You and I - Tom Walker

Flash mich - Mark Forster (Ja, der obligatorische Mark Forster Song hat es auch in meine Playlist geschafft)

The heart wants what it wants - Selena Gomez

Sorry - Justin Bieber (fragt nicht)

Wish I could forget - SLANDER, Blackbear & bring me the Horizon

Dream Boy - Waterparks

Closer - Waterparks

Kiss me - Sixpence None the Richer

Smile again - Blackbear

You be love - Avicii ft. Billy Raffoul

Miss you - Oliver Tree & Robin Schulz

Lost without you - Kygo & Dean Lewis

Unendlichkeit - MilleniumKid & JBS

Mit dir - MilleniumKid

Dir ist es egal - MilleniumKid (AUA)

Until I found you - Steven Sanchez & Em Beihold (unser inoffizieller Endgame Song 💔)

Heaven - Bryan Adams

When you‘re gone - Bryan Adams ft. Melanie C.

Please forgive me - Bryan Adams

It must have been love - Roxette

Listen to your heart - Roxette

Liar - LOWLIVES

Let Em Go - Matt Hansen

Break my heart - Matt Hansen

Without you with me - Matt Hansen

Dead the day you‘re gone - Matt Hansen

Where you belong - Matt Hansen

Can‘t stop loving you - Phil Collins

True Colors - Phil Collins

Weißt du - Rowli

Durch die Nacht - Francis

Close to you - Dayglow

Had me @ Hello - Luke Benward (don‘t ask aber der Song ist gut)

Mine - Michael Gerow

Broken - Isak Danielson

Don‘t think twice - Hikaru Utada (any Kingdom hearts Fans here? 👀)

Alone Pt. II - Alan walker & Ava Max

Falling stars - Fabian Schuster

Missed chance - Fabian Schuster

Strangers - Jake Cornell

Count me out - HART (not really sure about that one but it kind of fits?)

Clarity - Zedd ft. Foxxes

I‘d rather die - Lost stars (das ist so Noah!)

Vertigo - Lost Stars

Something just like this - The Chainsmokers & Coldplay

no more days alone - Isaac Anderson

[garadinervi]

Billy in the Darbies: A Facsimile from the Manuscript of Herman Melville's 'Billy Budd, Sailor', [plate 4], Edited by Dennis Marnon, The Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA, 1991 [From the Collection of William Palmer Johnston. The Grolier Club, New York, NY]

Exhibitions: Melville's Billy Budd at 100, The Grolier Club, September 12 – November 9, 2024; Oberlin College & Conservatory Libraries, Oberlin, OH, November 17 – December 20, 2024

[lambdysphoria]

Working on my billy batson playlist makes me so autistic because it's like. Damn would Billy fuck with the ink spots? To make it 1940s accurate would be cute but God I know Billy would adore Daniel Johnston. He very much gives autistic music nerd vibes. He would love Cub too. Idk he probably had a foster parent that ruined his music taste by introducing him to gay dad rock so he'd love Joe Jackson.

Captain marvel is probably the more 1940s guy out of them. Could definitely outsing Frank Sinatra and adore swing music.

[lgbtqreads]

hi do you know of any queer fiction by canadian authors(i know a dark and hollow star and witchmark are)preferably fantasy but any genre would be fine thanks

Sure - try The Afterward by EK Johnston and Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao. (They also both have queer sci-fi works, as does Amal El-Mohtar - That Inevitable Victorian Thing, Iron Widow, and This is How You Lose the Time War, respectively.) Some other Canadian authors who write primarily/entirely queer fiction are Tom Ryan, Robin Stevenson, 'Nathan Burgoine, Jen Ferguson, Billy-Ray Belcourt, and M-E Girard.