Most mornings are pretty much the same for me, with the only variable being when I roll out of bed. Some days it’s 6am or earlier, other days 8ish; it depends on how late the night before was for me. Regardless, I make and drink coffee, commune with Tyler the Cat, give him his medicine and, every other day, subcutaneous fluids. (He has thyroid and kidney issues.) Then I sit at my desk, check email, the news sites and social media, and listen to music for several hours. I often carry Tyler to check in on my wife, whose office is at the other end of the house, and scout for deer friends, whose visits have been scarcer this year than last.
Sometimes the albums and songs I play aren’t slated to hit the street for several months, other times I listen to a new release, and every so often I choose an old or recent favorite. Examples of the former include Canadian singer-songwriter Mo Kenney’s From Nowhere and Nashville-based Sophie Gault’s Baltic Street Hotel, both of which will be released in September and are—I feel safe in saying—among the year’s best albums; many, though certainly not all, of my “first impressions”-titled reviews follow dozens upon dozens of listens. Kaitlin Butts double-LP set, Roadrunner, and Neil Young’s archival Early Daze, which are both out today, are examples of new releases; preview copies didn’t come my way, sad to say, as not all labels see the benefit of publicizing via blogs, but I feel compelled to write about them. Recent favorites range from Hayley Reardon’s Live at Starseed Studios to Joana Serrat’s Big Wave, while old favorites are just too numerous to list; I often joke that my Top 10 Albums consist of 250 titles—there are a lot of ties!
All the while, I contemplate whether to write something for the blog. On a normal Friday, I’d be digging into the melodies, rhythms and rhymes of the Kaitlin Butts set, which is a modern spin on the Rodgers-Hammerstein musical Oklahoma!; Butts cites it as a childhood favorite that’s stuck with her into adulthood. I listened to it late last night, as the autographed set I ordered arrived a day early, and have to say: It’s phenomenal. Butts, for those unfamiliar with her, is a red dirt country singer and songwriter whose voice is a melodic firecracker; when she goes high, wow. Just wow. It’s a blast to listen to her. Tomorrow, if the weekend flowed as it normally does, I’d write about the Neil and Crazy Horse set, and possibly puncture the faux nostalgia that drives the Castellows’ otherwise catchy “Miss America” on Sunday.
This isn’t a normal Friday, however. First, staying up late to listen to Roadrunner has left me groggy today, as I got up early. All the coffee in the world has yet to fire up the synapses. We also have company coming tomorrow for a two-night stay, so cleaning and vacuuming needs to be done. (Heaven forbid if someone sees how we normally live!) And after today my office, aka the guest room, won’t be accessible to me until Monday afternoon, so—though I’d rather not, as I am a creature of habit, I’m taking the weekend off. I’ll listen to Kaitlin Butts in the interim, however, as well as Neil’s Early Daze, plus possibly a few other new albums and singles, and return to my routine on Tuesday morn.
The Old Grey Cat 