and again (of course) Kostas turns up trumps and introduces us (well me!) to new face and a new voice . . . .
sheesh is there no limit to the deaths of my lack of knowledge and I pretend to know about music
subscribe to Urbanaspirines and find out otherwise
Kostas says:
Dallas Michael John Albert Green (born September 29, 1980) is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter and record producer who records under the name City and Colour. He is also known for his contributions as a singer, rhythm guitarist, songwriter, and co-founder of the post-hardcore band Alexisonfire. In 2005,
he debuted his first full-length album, Sometimes, which achieved platinum certification in 2006. City and Colour began performing in small intimate venues between Alexisonfire tours.The name City and Colour comes from his own name: Dallas, a city, and Green, a colour. His reasoning for the name was that he felt uneasy "putting the album out under the name Dallas Green". Representing the solo work of Canadian musician Dallas Green, City and Colour emerged in the late 2000s, offering an outlet for the singer/songwriter's more introspective, acoustic work.
Dallas Green (City and Colour) - "Hello, I'm In Delaware"
Dallas Green (City and Colour) - "Hello, I'm In Delaware”
No method, no guru, no teacher… just a series of photos from Tenerife that may (or may not) signify something beyond the image.
“Los Cristianos: Still life with vent…” : [ Image (c) John Callaway 2026]
“Los Cristianos: Another green world?…” : [ Image (c) John Callaway 2026]
” El Teide. First there is a mountain” : [ Image (c) John Callaway 2026]
Rarer than the usual (preferred?) black & white but none the less for that . . . . he is at home in the dark of music venues to pastures further abroad . . . . . he started following what I was up to when he was in Nepal I think, or was it Katmandu ? Johnny?
The passing of Gram Parsons in 1973 at the age of 26 was a shock to all in the musicworld, but a surprise to no one.
The architect of ‘cosmic American music’ had been on a downward spiral for years. His brush with fame in The Byrds introduced him to the dark side of rock stardom, which directly led to him developing a heroin addiction in 1970 that would dog him for the rest of his days. Parsons became erratic and unreliable, yet he was given chance after chance, both due to his effortlessly charming nature and the fact that the music he was creating was some of the best of the entire decade.
It’s a look into the specific kind of strange naivety the music industry had back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Within a few years, the music industry would clamp down on the likes of Parsons and fellow mercurially talented fuckup Townes Van Zandt. The kind of artists who were unreliable messes that made music the public didn’t care about, but a few important people saw genuine greatness in.
Parsons, in particular, could have been one of the biggest names in music had he got his act together, but try as he might, he just couldn’t.
Thus, while his passing made headlines in the music world, the vast majority of people, even within the industry, wouldn’t have been able to hum a tune he’d made solo or in The Flying Burrito Brothers, the band built to launch him into the mainstream. Those who could, however, worshipped the ground he walked on. I’m not even exaggerating that much, Parsons’ cult following sometimes came across like exactly that, a cult. Y’know what cultists do when their leader dies?
They get even weirder than normal.
A few months before the passing of Gram Parsons, he and his road manager, Phil Kaufman, went to the funeral of his ex-Byrds bandmate Clarence White. Kaufman maintains that Parsons got freaked out by the pomp and circumstance of the funeral, and later recounted to Classic Rock that the songwriter turned to him and said, “This is bullshit. If I die I want somebody to have a few beers, take me out to the desert and burn my body.” Kaufman said “All right, it’s a deal.”
Then came the fateful night of September 19th, 1973, when he overdosed on alcohol and morphine while on holiday in Joshua Tree, California. Despite the best efforts of his friends, including an ice cube suppositoryfrom his girlfriend Margaret Fisher, he passed away in a matter of hours. Despite supposedly confiding in Kaufman what his wishes were, Parsons’ stepfather, Robert Parsons, took over and began organising what happened next.
He began organising a more official funeral to be held in New Orleans, and stationed his step-son’s body in a California funeral home before chartering a plane from Los Angeles International Airport to deliver him a few days after his death. Kaufman and a few of Parsons’ inner circle couldn’t let that happen. So, after Gram Parsons was moved from the funeral home to a cargo terminal in LAX, hours before he was due to fly out, his friends talked their way past the cops while out of their minds on whiskey, loaded him up into a hearse that belonged to one of their girlfriends and made off with him.
Together, they drove two and a half hours back out to Joshua Tree. Once they’d reached the desert, they loaded him back out and took the lid off the coffin, poured five gallons of gasoline on his corpse and, after one last toast in his name, they lit the coffin. Meaning that Gram Parsons wasn’t so much cremated as he was exploded.
Fucking rad.
Kaufman and Michael Martin both somehow made it home despite nearly being arrested for driving while intoxicated. After a few days, though, the hearse they were driving was identified, leaving the scene where what remained of Gram Parsons’ body was found, leading to the arrest of both Martin and Kaufman. However, they got off on the most bizarre technicality possible, despite Robert Parsons presumably wanting them both strung up.
It turns out that in the letter of Californian law in 1973, a corpse had no financial value. Thus, Martin and Kaufman could only be actually charged with stealing the coffin in a court of law. For their troubles, they were given a fine of $300 each and were ordered to pay the restitution costs to the funeral home. The duo threw a wake for Parsons as a way of raising the money for the fines called the “Kaufman Koffin Kaper Koncert”.
This celebrated his life in a way that probably made the man himself much, much happier than his actual funeral, which went ahead in New Orleanswith the charred remains of Parsons’ body.
I think the issue I have with AI (amongst many; expense, water usage scaremongering conspiracy theories notwithstanding) is that it can sound awful samey when people make music and videos with certain AI tools . . . now I have mention this with Kelley Boesch’s work before and the fact she chooses a particular voice and the visuals tend towards being merely surreal for surrealism's sake gives me doubts . . . .BUT then she goes and does this, genuine emotive nuances about grief and loss and what it is to clear out some belongings of those who may have died or left us threw me another curved ball . . . . this could be a film?! Is it?
I will call it ‘Final Departure' as Kelly doesn’t title it and the last section is called that . . . .
"Evangeline" originally belonged to Emmylou Harris on The Band, she cut it with the group in November 1976, and it later showed up in The Last Waltz. Here, Sheryl Crow stepped into that same role, taking the female lead alongside Helm at the Ryman.
The Ryman show, Helm bringing his weekly "Midnight Ramble" out of his Woodstock barn and onto a real stage, was stacked with guests: Buddy Miller, John Hiatt, Sam Bush, George Receli, and Billy Bob Thornton, who introduced the band that night before they opened with "Ophelia." Crow also joined on the Carter Family's "No Depression in Heaven" during the same set. The full show came out on DVD in 2009 and later as the 2011 live album Ramble at the Ryman, produced by Larry Campbell.
It came at a genuine high point for Helm, just months after his Dirt Farmer album won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album, and not far removed from his fight to reclaim his voice after throat cancer treatment years earlier.
