Discovered In November 2023 Mixed Tape
Released in 2023 And Here For You Now
We bid adios to the 11th Month of 2023.
Here are just a few albums that I recommend for this month.
Enjoy the playlist of some top songs that also entered my ears.
We are sliding peacefully into the silly season.
Be safe, BE SILLY.
You don’t get too many chances to really be silly.
Let your silly flag fly.
Enjoy the music and the playlist and don’t do any shopping this year.
The planet does not need more STUFF.
Hope to see you this season or early in the New Year.
Album Of The Month
Jeffrey Martin- Thank God We Left The Garden- Daniel Donato had an album of the month as I started writing this piece, but I forgot about Martin’s stark, masterpiece of guitar playing, singing, and intricate songcraft.
Recorded and self-produced/engineered in a shack in Portland, Oregon
Let me know if you love it or not.
Martin is a former high-school English teacher who loved his work and hated to leave it for touring and music, but he could not do both. I am sure he left a mark on some students.
DO NOT GO PAST THIS RECORD.
“People find a lot of joy in a sad song.”-Jeffrey Martin
Daniel Donato-Reflector-Guitar whiz born in New Jersey, raised in Tennessee and now down home in Nashville, 28-year-old Donato calls his music….wait for it….Cosmic Country. His fan club is called “The Cosmic Country Club”.
When I was a teenager one of my friends, I think it was Glenn Larsen, referred to something I was listening to as “more Paul Busch music”.
This can firmly be placed in that bucket.
“I think Cosmic Country is a tale as old as time, really,” Donato explains. “It’s yin and yang in a musical form. It’s three chords and the truth, and then on the other side, it’s exploration and bravery. I really went through a lot of years of grinding, and still am, to achieve this sound which is a vehicle for my personality, and the personality is a vehicle for my soul. So (Reflector) is more that than any other record I ever put out.” (Note lot of years grinding….he is 28….more to come!)
And he is a bit of a Dead Head, too.
Some more records below that follow a similar trail….
Dusk-Glass Pastures- Hailing from one of the coldest states in America, Wisconsin, this little band has delivered a beautiful cosmic rockin’ record. You can place this directly next to your Flying Burrito Brothers and Rolling Stones 70’s discs.
This sextet hails from Appleton in Wisconsin which is known for the first Edison hydroelectric plant in the world and the hometown of Harry Houdini.
Abracadabra Winnebago! I cast a spell on you.
“When we all kind of brought our songs together, we made a plan to rehearse a lot ahead of time and just be ready and then record a live thing,” Blair says. “With all the mics and guitars being around the house, there was definitely some problem-solving when we had to mix the record. But it turned out well in the end. We really tackled it as a team,” she says. “It was a satisfying experience because we were really trying to present ourselves as we are. It was a challenge worth doing.”-Julia Blair/Dusk
Garrett T. Capps and NASA Country-People Are Beautiful- Dipping my toes into the twangin’ and celestial steel sounds of Mr. Capps makes me feel at home. You only have to look at the name of his backing band to know where this record goes. Mostly written during the pandemic San Antonio Capps and his band of astronauts deliver something a little bit different.
Van Morrison-Accentuate The Positive-A cracking band, Van The man in excellent voice, and top-shelf songs like You Are My Sunshine, Flip Flop and Fly, Lucille, and Blueberry Hill and you have his second ‘tribute’ record of the year. As you may recall, or not, he put out a Skiffle record earlier in 2023.
This record sounds much better than that last tribute. How good would it be to see Van do this in an RSL somewhere?
Morrison has also started his own record label, Orangefield Records, to release music from his archives. The first release was some previously magnetised motherfuckers that no has ever heard.
According to a post on Van's website, the album will take “listeners on a mesmerizing journey into one of the world's most admired archives.”
Lost Planet Airmen-Back From The Ozone- Commander, George Frayne, may have left us on the launching pad before a reunion of his Airmen occurred, but it did happen.
I was lucky enough to catch some of this outfit in 2022 and although we did not have Frayne pounding the keys and prowling the stage, they certainly proved they could still deliver.
The ’22 crew on board for this comprised John Tichy, Bill Kirchen, Bruce Barlow, Andy Stein, Bobby Black, Peter Siegel, Austin de Lone and Paul Revelli. The first 5 names were all part of that swing, rock, country band called…oh you know who they are.
Hearing them do Oh, Momma Momma is a joy. That is one song that can get me shaking whenever I do come across it, which is often.
A waterfall of memories comes flooding back when I listen to these songs. Long gone people, long gone time, but joyous, raucous moments.
Bob Dylan- THE COMPLETE BUDOKAN 1978 4CD -56 tracks and 36 that have never been released.
Can’t say most Dylan fans were enamoured with Bob Dylan at Budokan when it was released in August of 1978. I recall just about everyone bagging it.
But if you live long enough and have a huge body of work some gets revisited and there are some gems here amongst the stones.
It’s Bob Dylan.
Sink your teeth in and see how it hits you now.
Bassist Rob Stoner, who played on the Rolling Thunder Revue and stayed on through the 1978 world tour, remembered that “Weintraub told Bob, ‘If you want to take it to the bank, you gotta do one of these slick, money-making tours. Just go out for a year, bust your ass, then you can go back to doing whatever you want.”
See ya next month with the last installment of 2023….and then we will see what happens here in outsidemyinside.com