Rigor Mortis Sets In...the last few songs for Vigilantes of Love; a writer remembers
Category: Writing and Poetry

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW/HAT IN HAND  by bill mallonee           (archives)
This song is up at the myspace site. http://myspace.com/billmallonee

""Way too much living in the minor key..."
You embrace the grieving before the actual death
the chunk of intro...
(please excuse the lump in the throat...)
hat in hand...all invested...all in ruins...
the buildings burning and crashing round...fire crews
off for the evening...

"Hat in Hand" has always held an incredible sad magic for me...
the passion and despair of a 6 string drag...
the untamed and too-loud-in-the-mix-feedback...
a song made for no one...but our lost selves.

At the plate and still swinging for the fences...
the game, as we knew it anyway, forever lost...and long since decided...

The throaty-turbulent-warmth of hollow-body guitars...
the ratty-ass-drone-snarl of a fender tweed deluxe.
speakers crushed and howling.
the new baptized high and lonesome.
feed back and back and back...tubes blister hot and rattling...
"live," to be sure, still, one foot from the grave...
with shit for monitors.

s'all untamed and riotous; mid-tempoed and lazy-loud;
unapologetic and blasphemous...
another round bartender...
"this is our last one and y'all have been wonderful;
thank y'all for showing up..."
but you can't mean it any longer...

This is one of my favorite songs...lyrically, musically...delivery on all fronts is almost "perfect" in its fractured, ragged glory.
It was a paean to the wreckage on the highway of what was Vigilantes of Love.  Lots of records (16) and big dreams over 10 years.
Generally speaking, sir, all for naught.
It was more than just a bad day.
a strange prolonged nightmare of disappointments; bad luck at the table; the cards you drew falling like chunks of plaster.
till buried.

Redemption?
Resurrection
sure...count me in.
But that tends to hide in shadows; reveal itself in glimpses...and make a get-away.
For me anyway, there were not enough tears left to pack the van for the last time, look them in the eye...and say goodbye, forever...
A journey back to a sort of emptiness began.
'pretty broke and pretty fractured
couldn' elude the hounds of capture
heard a record going 'round
fell in love with the sound;
with the sky and with the wind...
with the river underneath your skin."-- bill mallonee (blindside)

i hope folks can "get inside" the  heavy-hearted-ness of what this song meant, at least to me.
Alligencies all asunder...faith's hour-glass sand long run out.
dust bowl heart and bastard luck...
The whole world seemed changed.

"Hat and Hand" and "Going South" were the eulogies i wrote for Vigilantes of Love...
you embrace the grieving before the cessation of life...before the death rattle settles in.
But you're like to hear the pulmonaries thickening;
this life's veil is sheer and thinning...
"last verse...and then home chorus, kid."
Now, the room is full of angels and the ceiling has flown away...
now, it's only stars for prayers
and empty spaces at the end of climbing-stairs...
drag that snare one more time, if ya' will, kevin.

10 years was how long it took to wake up to...
i don't even know anymore.
Now, all rolled up in the outro...
Last song...and we're history...signing off...
play back on...
body count...
here's your cut
over and out...

To play this song on stage, with jake stalwart with slight grin, and Kevin Heuer's studied drunken drumming, my Gibson's over-driven, dragged and limping and cranked...tears and sweat on the fret board...past the 12th fret and long past bottoming out...the local house sound man cursing us now, for pegging red...his faders all down...ours wide open...lost in the roar.
"Dirt lot kids making doing dirt lot deeds...
way too much living in the minor key..
burn all these sins in a love so grand
shuffle forward...'

...the clang and jangle...the sweetness of guitar drone and symphony...

In the beginning was the basement.
damp moldy, concrete and steel for a womb
the bloody afterbirth from whence we came too soon
...and to basement dust we shall return...
God bless the bruised, the discouraged and the worthless...
God bless us, the failed...the stupid and the gullible.
God bless the sonic dishevelled...
never sitting straight on industry bevel
God bless the used up and used
coat and cap, scarf askew...
speech slurred...
siren's voices heard...
faith's starry-eyed-bleary but stayed
be it the bullet or the blade
stumble-skinned, and numb; blinkered-doubter-dammed
shuffle forward...your hat in hand
be ye warmed...

-bill mallonee
reposted Sept. 2008

1:13 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

HAT IN HAND....

"Way too much living in the minior key..."
You embrace the grieving before the actual death
the chunk of intro...
(please excuse the lump in the throat...)
hat in hand...all invested...all in ruins...
the buildings burning and crashing round...fire crews
off for the evening...

"Hat in Hand" has always held an incredible sad magic for me...
the passion and despair of a 6 string drag...
the untamed and too-loud-in-the-mix-feedback...
a song made for no one...but our lost selves.

At the plate and still swinging for the fences...
the game, as we knew it anyway, forever lost...and long since decided...

The throaty-turbulent-warmth of hollow-body guitars...
the ratty-ass-drone-snarl of a fender tweed deluxe.
speakers crushed and howling.
the new baptized high and lonesome.
feed back and back and back...tubes blister hot and rattling...
"live," to be sure, still, one foot from the grave...
with shit for monitors.

s'all untamed and riotous; mid-tempoed and lazy-loud;
unapologetic and blasphemous...
another round bartender...
"this is our last one and y'all have been wonderful;
thank y'all for showing up..."
but you can't mean it any longer...

This is one of my favorite songs...lyrically, musically...delivery on all fronts is almost "perfect" in its fractured, ragged glory.
It was a paean to the wreckage on the highway of what was Vigilantes of Love.  Lots of records (16) and big dreams over 10 years.
Generally speaking, sir, all for naught.
It was more than just a bad day.
a strange prolonged nightmare of disappointments; bad luck at the table; the cards you drew falling like chunks of plaster.
till buried.

Redemption?
Resurrection
sure...count me in.
But that tends to hide in shadows; reveal itself in glimpses...and make a get-away.
For me anyway, there were not enough tears left to pack the van for the last time, look them in the eye...and say goodbye, forever...
A journey back to a sort of emptiness began.
'pretty broke and pretty fractured
couldn' elude the hounds of capture
heard a record going 'round
fell in love with the sound;
with the sky and with the wind...
with the river underneath your skin."-- bill mallonee (blindside)

i hope folks can "get inside" the  heavy-hearted-ness of what this song meant, at least to me.
Alligencies all asunder...faith's hour-glass sand long run out.
dust bowl heart and bastard luck...
The whole world seemed changed.

"Hat and Hand" and "Going South" were the eulogies i wrote for Vigilantes of Love...
you embrace the grieving before the cessation of life...before the death rattle settles in.
But you're like to hear the pulmonaries thickening;
this life's veil is sheer and thinning...
"last verse...and then home chorus, kid."
Now, the room is full of angels and the ceiling has flown away...
now, it's only stars for prayers
and empty spaces at the end of climbing-stairs...
drag that snare one more time, if ya' will, kevin.

10 years was how long it took to wake up to...
i don't even know anymore.
Now, all rolled up in the outro...
Last song...and we're history...signing off...
play back on...
body count...
here's your cut
over and out...

To play this song on stage, with jake stalwart with slight grin, and Kevin Heuer's studied drunken drumming, my Gibson's over-driven, dragged and limping and cranked...tears and sweat on the fret board...past the 12th fret and long past bottoming out...the local house sound man cursing us now, for pegging red...his faders all down...ours wide open...lost in the roar.
"Dirt lot kids making doing dirt lot deeds...
way too much living in the minor key..
burn all these sins in a love so grand
shuffle forward...'

...the clang and jangle...the sweetness of guitar drone and symphony...

In the beginning was the basement.
damp moldy, concrete and steel for a womb
the bloody afterbirth from whence we came too soon
...and to basement dust we shall return...
God bless the bruised, the discouraged and the worthless...
God bless us, the failed...the stupid and the gullible.
God bless the sonic dishevelled...
never sitting straight on industry bevel
God bless the used up and used
coat and cap, scarf askew...
speech slurred...
siren's voices heard...
faith's starry-eyed-bleary but stayed
be it the bullet or the blade
stumble-skinned, and numb; blinkered-doubter-dammed
shuffle forward...your hat in hand

-bill mallonee
may 2008

5:41 PM - 4 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

NEW BILL MALLONEE INTERVIEW ON SONG-WRITING, ART, AND THE REFINER’S FIRE

INTERVIEW ABOUT SONG WRITING, LIFE, ART, AND THE REFINING FIRE
WITH BILL MALLONEE

Mike Kanski says:

Maybe you're on to something!(Kanski is refering to the minimalist approach of 
Bill's monthly subscription service, www.billtunes.com) All these thoughts and 
questions about the current state of affairs [in your life} by which you're forced into putting 
out your songs through the only means available - a "live feed" direct
from artist's kitchen onto 2-track and into our ears. In one or two takes, bare 
soul, minor mistakes and all! Sure, it's risky. Might not live up to people's 
audio expectations. Surely won't live up to(current) industry standards.

Bill Mallonee: 
Mike, we've been friends a long spell now...i sincerely appreciate the insight 
into the direction the work is taking,  forced or otherwise...yeah, the industry 
and the folks i've been associated with over the years have left me pretty 
ham-strung. Fate? Bad luck? i dunno anymore. i guess it's just life...i'm in the 
50 something club,and living close to poverty. Remember, I picked up a guitar for the first time when i was 31, had a 
record deal at 37 and have done about 25 records and lots of EPs extra songs since then...
I love songwriting and singing.  I'm "committed" as they say. But if you love 
something and you feel it's truly what you're suppose to be doing,  then you do 
it...by whatever resources are available...whatever the "results."

Obviously if you listen to the 15 months or so, i guess i've probably written 
about,  i dunno, 75 new songs or more? That's a good output...i'm proud of the 
current work! i went over to www.parting-shot.com, the band archive, the other night and just 
indiscriminately popped in on songs i hadn't seen the lyrics to in years.  Jason Horst has done 
and incredible job there of organizing things and making it cool and 
interesting. Thematically, it all still rings true. It still feels deep and 
visceral. It's very gratifying, after 20 years of this, to be able to step back 
and see it all with a measured "objectivity." My feelings are that i love what i've 
said through out the years and i love how i went about saying it.

 The whole point of the last 16 months or so of "Billtunes" has been to make  
art that is honest. The less-is-more approach is not shackled by a goal;  it's 
not driven by some attempt to reach a particular demographic.  
It's driven by a simple faith...
And i suppose that faith is this: 
If i can reach into those parts of what makes me a human and describe it 
passionately, then it's my hope that it will resonate (horribly over-used word!) 
with others who are walking in the same skin...of course i happen to think we 
all are. When you feel failed at life, or just become  fed up with you are that 
ALSO means looking at things unblinkingly...which ain't fun...but i think it 
makes for good songs.  I tend to be a "confessional" sort of writer/observer.

That means you see some days, nay moments, with faith; some with despair and 
doubt; many with confusion, and fear...even denial; you'll see all moments 
pierced through with a certain heartache...a yearning. 
Is what i'm trying to get at "intangible?" 
Yes. That's part of mystery.
s it "indescribable?"
I don't think so...
It's what i've come to think "Art's" main point is. To lend some flesh to the 
bones of our existence by describing the contours of our living and breathing in 
all it's incongruity and messiness.

Anyway, THAT's something of what i've been committed to as i write the monthly 
Billtunes 
installments.<<<<

MK: 
But what else does it provide? A flash-frame glimpse into an artist's soul? 
Most assuredly. An immediate connection of a searching man's heart and mind to 
his listener?  Yes, indeed! Much like a lightning flash that suddenly and 
without warning illuminates the surrounding countryside, this kind of raw, direct approach of 
throwing the song out in almost instant time brings about this same kind of unexpected 
awe to us, the recipients.

BILL:
Well, it'd be great to think there was a lot of awe-inspiring responses going 
on. I don't really know. They are definitely the most passionate and revealing 
songs i've ever written. EVERY month  i ask Muriah at least once: "Should i put this 
on there? It's pretty wounded type stuff."
So, the trouble, at least for the listener, is really that to "get inside" these 
sort of songs, and their more transparent delivery. That takes a bit more work on the part of 
the listener.

That being said, I think the folks who've "signed on" for this ride, so to 
speak, are very heroic to listen as they do. It's not what's surrounding them most of 
the time as far as music goes. I think they're (te new songs) are very 
rewarding, personally, but maybe not for everyone. Still, if you liked VOL for 
the "right" reasons, in my opinion, folks will "get" these songs pretty readily.

These last year of billtunes songs are, i dunno, more "mature,"in my 
estimation,  And they really require a certain mood and open-ness of the 
listener. It sounds like you've been able to get inside the mood the songs were 
written in, Mike...that means a lot to me because it shows me that my gut 
instinct about this approach might be on target. LOL!

Sure, the magnifying glass of the moment (not to mention the deadline aspect)  
forces one into a "write it as it comes" mode. But, I've written this way for 
years now.

But here's HOW i think www.Billtunes.com differs:  It has forced me to not 2nd guess 
"where" a song is coming from and "where" it  might wind up. It's generally just 
a voice and guitar, some harmonica and some 
of  Muriah's voice and piano on occasion.  (We're planning on more duets but 
life's been too busy as of late!) They (the songs) are a real-time look into the 
soul. That's how i see them.

Artistically, I'm finding little "golden moments." I began, a couple years ago, 
to notice "little things" that tend to give a song it's "mystery and power." They are the parts of a 
song's "soul." I started to notice what a difference a certain nuance in a 
breath makes in a song;  or a particular inflection on a single word.  It is a 
beautiful process. I think it's a great place to be. 
Now, i find myself actually having dreams while asleep about what sort of 
colors would surround  one of these songs?  A string section here? a pedal steel there?
Maybe an oboe or a solitary fiddle? Delayed guitars, perhaps? Many of these 
songs definitely seem to work in they're more minimalistic settings and in my 
mind's ear, so to speak, they seem to lean towards what i call a 
"neo-orchestral" surrounding. But at the end of the day, it's the lyrics that 
have to "speak."<<<<

MK: 
The very dilemma which necessitated a make-shift method of releasing music 
became the catalyst for producing something unexpectedly wonderful. Music that 
is so inspiring and from the heart. Not choked by business executives,  or 
over-thinking/-over-planning, or too many cooks spoiling the stew,  or the 
common nemesis: over-production. None of that here. 
These are newly-born songs delivered still kicking and screaming with the fresh  
excitement of inspired creation. The guitar sounds jump on us like we're in the  
room and you just picked it up and started playing, and the words you sing are 
as riveting and real as music gets! Maybe this is the way it should be done.

BILL:
i like your "new-born kicking and screaming" metaphor Mike! Very good!
and very....arresting. Hopefully they come out kicking and screaming and not 
"still-born!" 
Part of this process is to NOT CHASE a song if it doesn't "give itself up."
If it doesn't surrender some element of itself in the first 10 minutes. Then i 
tend to let the "sleeping dog lie." That takes a certain discipline;  to NOT 
overwork an idea lyrically or musically. Muriah was saying the other day: "Hey, 
that song needs a bridge!"
So, i wrote one, a simple 2 chord movement, more just to let the ear "rest" from 
the 6 long verses of words...but i felt that to do much more than that would be 
to push the song off course. But here at least with billtunes,  you get the 
whole ball of wax before a "real" producer starts hacking away at it. lol!

MK: 
I'm told many of the best artists knew this secret. Or at least instinctively 
practiced this kind of get-it-raw recording, albeit on a much larger budget - 
Dylan, Neil Young, Springsteen, Johnny Cash... I don't really know. 

BILL: 
All those artist's seemed to trust their voice and gut about how to interpret a 
song. And see, Mike i love the work of all those artists. Those very artists are 
the ones who have set the standard i shoot for every time i write and sing and 
perform...it's passionate authentic self-revealing.
That's the kind of work i'm trying to create...i think billtunes has given me 
that kind of platform to create from. I've been at this awhile, ya' know? So, I 
should know some of my strengths by 
now."

MK: Only that your Billtunes songs have that same eternal,  universal quality as 
their music. More than those, these songs possess a brave soul-bearing honesty 
which lets one in on very private and painful observations, like listening to 
someone's inner-most thoughts, to the point where I sometimes feel like I'm 
trespassing on private property. 

BILL: well, of course you're not trespassing.  To be sure, i have 
to get in a certain to write the more personal stuff.....it really is 
cathartic...these songs have been part of my healing over the last 2 years. But 
it's gotta be artistic too...it has to stand on it's own.
My themes are personal but they hopefully walk a razor's edge. 
What are you hearing?
Is it the song or the artist?
Are they the same thing at some point? 
Should they be?
I DO think memorable song writing is about RISKING something.
If i have to say what these new songs do it's precisely that:
They RISK shame, exposure, even ridicule...by attempting to tell a truth.
I need to tell myself that truth, or i'd have never written the tune.
I need to hear it born out and given breath.

MK:
So, do I hope you never again get the budget to do a "real" record? Well, that 
would be pretty mean, wouldn't it? Of course I don't really. I know you know 
this secret anyway, and that quality will always be there, for richer or for poorer. But I am extremely grateful to be a 
part of this grand experiment. This unfortunate happy accident called No Record 
Label. I totally agree with what you've been saying Bill, that this past year of 
Billtunes output has been some of the best stuff you've ever done. Given your 
previous body of work, this is really, really quite a statement!

BILL:
Well, i count it a privilege to do what i do...sure,it's been so lean these last few years. 
But i'm feeling good about life again..even good about myself on occasion.
as you know the whole VOL thing was always driven by a handful of 
go-to-the-wall-for-you-kinda-fans. I appreciate that. Hopefully, there will be 
enough of that support to live a life on...maybe even to a new studio recording! 
I take their faith in what i do seriously. 

MK: 
My fervent hope is that every hearer will recognize the privilege you've allowed 
us. And that word will spread. Maybe the gamble will pay off and this won't seem 
like such a crazy desperate idea after
all. Maybe someday lots of artists will be putting their songs out this way and 
people will be saying "That Bill Mallonee was a great pioneer." I don't know. 
But I just listened to the latest batch of
Billtunes and I honestly think they may be your best yet.

Bill:
well, i'm glad some people have made a nice place for my work in their lives. 
There's certainly a lot out there these days to compete with...
but i think if folks will check out a little of what i do, they'll
come back for more...i guess that's more faith involved there!
Thanks for the time, Mike...

MK: We wish you well, Bill

1:04 PM - 0 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Dark Horse Bets-a sermon on new SONGS, 15 years of recording, touring and what i learned.

DARK-HORSE BETS
The setting:
I've been writing at a clip of about 5 songs a month for the last 6 months...it's been a way to reach both inside and out to something bigger than myself. There are moments when to draw another breath and extend a measure of mercy towards yourself is...the greatest act of faith imaginable.
There are days when the skin we live in is wrecked and crying from it's own disappointment/disgust with itself. I've been posting these songs about 5 at a time through a monthly subscription service at my website. www.billmallonee.net

    I made up many of these songs (save for "Undertaker") the Winter of 2006. In those days of diminishing light I think a particular kind of mood is reinforced. The world is going dormant...the last leaf shaken from the stern Giacometti-like branches of the trees. Even the monochromatic elements of dusk's light lend to a lump in the throat or a heavy sigh. The incongruity of life's heaviness juxtaposed against Advent promise is almost a spiritual strain.
    We  are not made of such stern stuff. Perhaps we sense our mortality and failures with a greater clarity in the cold, darkening months.  It is the stuff of pain to be sure, and Lord willing, a whisper of rebirth and change.
    
The scene without:
    I recorded these songs on an old DAT player I got in '93, right when Vigilantes of Love, the americana-college band i was part of for 10 years was beginning to take off.  DAT players are pretty antiquated by anybody's standards these days what with newer, faster, better digital technology.
    Me? I dunno. I don't really know how to use computers to make music with and I was fortunate enough to avoid being both engineer and artist when it came to making most of the recordings  I've made. Call it the luxury of being able to be completely subjective. I got to sit on one side of the glass and open a vein while some other  fella  lovingly nuance the myriad of knobs and buttons and blinking lights to your benefit. I'm a little leery anyway of interposing luminous screens and computer keyboards between a song, it's birth and it's archiving. But shoot, what do I know?
    The scene within:
    So these new recordings are "live." One favored  take preserved. I believe  there's the feel of something "fresh" happening by doing it this way.
As I played and sang through each chord change and the phrasing of each lyric I noticed something interesting.  There was the constant feeling of chasing something and trying to capture it. Or the feeling that something bigger than oneself was trying to be born. Something being born. I tend to live for those moments these days. I remember the late-great Mark Heard saying something similar in some liner notes he wrote once.
    What will you find? I'm working it out. Messy and bloody and hurtful. I think most of these songs are suffused with a sense of failure and loss. Of sadness and regret. Call it the "human condition." Looking at what lives under our skin requires a certain sobriety, at least it does looking at mine.
Those of you who are familiar with my story from A to B won't find it, as Joni Mitchell would say, "the stuff of popular song." But then again, from a different angle, maybe it is the stuff of "everyman's song."
    For in the old days popular songs helped us do things like fall in love and stay in love. They helped us travel and adventure without leaving home.
The music of Woody Guthrie made real to us the plight of Dust Bowl farmers, wheelin' and dealin' hobos, and down-on-their-luck-factory workers. They spoke of the electricity of first love and the joys of family and adventure.
    Early Dylan took us to a place of "exploded consciousness" and explored the strange and inexplicable complexity of love relationships.
And each of these songwriters spoke with an attitude of authority that made me feel that, no matter how deep the quandary, something "good and generous" would carry the day. In essence, they built my faith. I hope something of such building is here.

Looking back on crude paintings on cave walls in diminishing light:
    I've tended to see most of my work as a yearning, a quest, a journey. An awakening to something undeserved. I think that must be why the image and metaphor of the road, both literally and figuratively, figure so large in my songs. The road became a 2nd home for me for the better part of 20 years and 25 records. In the long run, it was never all that  good to me. And yes, there are costs for buying such dubious property. Those many years of viewing the world from inside a van or a car can change the way you look at the world...and more n' likely they'll change you, too.
    Of course the lack of what they call "commercial success" was seen as a certain badge of honor. The argument running something like: "It must be good 'cause the masses (dem asses) aren't buyin' it." I suppose one can romanticize such concepts for a spell. It's a subtle way of lying to yourself.  In the face of another round of disappointments you live in a certain denial that sounds like: "Oh, THAT didn't hurt...didn't feel a thing." And you soldier on, cause that's what you're suppose to do. And you can become vulnerable to a lot of things. You're desperately trying to fill up a deeper well. And, in my case, the compromises and alibis...can become sensational. A lot of folks can get hurt. Houses of cards always falls in the end. Pride is insidious, it seems.
    Such events destroyed a marriage. And later the remorse and grinding poverty made such romantic notions as "artistic integrity vs. lack of commercial success" wear threadbare. Me? I never knew what I was made of until I was tested...and after 20 years the road, being a sort of laboratory herself, showed me deficient in painful ways.
    All of that to say, if there's anything remotely  redemptive here, maybe it's to say that these blood-in-the-vein-songs are my own. Tainted or not. Perhaps that means that these new song's authenticity is vouched for in some sad-but-true way. I humbly hope they will be helpful, in some way, to all.
    There is a place where one can fall to and (after having fallen) learn the freedom of never having to point a finger at anyone again,  much less throw a stone. It makes the journey quite a bit lighter. Arms at one's side and hands free of the excess weight.
    To bathe in clear streams of mercy:
    A journey still? Why, yes indeed. A yearning? Oh yes, and an ache like never before...An ache for mercy, joy and something like peace. In these all-too-often darker days (in which many of these songs were written) I find myself just wishing the hurting would cease...but doubting it ever will.
    Like it or no, we all have tapes spinning loud and long in our hearts. Some folks seem to have found some secret in their journey, some formula/answer for attaining a consistency in life. Such secrets, as I look back, seemed to have been  known at times by my head but rarely by my heart, if that makes sense. Without meaning to sound even remotely cynical, I truly say that I'm glad for those folks who receive more emotional assurances that they are Divinely loved. To be honest, such experiences have seemed so very elusive for me. I'm glad for folks who experience the voice of extravagant Love  instead of one that seems to taunt them with their worthlessness at every turn. The latter was my growing up and almost all of my adult life. When I found a guitar and a blank page to write on, it was like pick-axing a Hoover dam of the emotions of confusion, depression and worthlessness. Writing songs has enabled me to hear, in some measure, what kind of tapes where spinning in my head.
    Mercy, joy and peace were always elusive graces when I was growing up. They remained fairly so even after I became convinced that God was in the world and "up to something wonderful" in the Person and work of His Son, Jesus. I still believe that.
    But you needn't have shared  the same view to appreciate the songs...nor do you now. My wager (or hope anyway) is that it'll still resonate. Resonate because it seems to me no matter what faith (or lack thereof) you live on, that we're all still stumblin' around in the same, sad skin. Falling down in the same old bag of bones we hope will steer us. I do often wonder: Why does God deigned to freight so much expectation on such weak scaffolding as our cold-as-concrete-dispositions encased in human flesh?
    You gotta wonder at the risk of it all sometimes...
Is it worth it to Him these repeated dark-horse bets He takes on each of us? In my own case, never was there a sorrier, more-half-hearted, unconvinced believer...than I. One who, sadly, is working it out...messy, bloody, hurtful.

bill mallonee
Lent 2007



   

 

8:19 PM - 12 Comments - 22 Kudos - Add Comment

BILL MALLONEE/VICTORY GARDEN's "PERMAFROST" RELEASE UP FOR PERUSAL!!!!
Category: Music

TWO OF THE SONGS FROM THE NEW BILL MALLONEE/VICTORY GARDEN ALBUM "PERMAFROST" ARE UP FOR YOUR CONSUMPTION AT THE BILL MALLONEE MYSPACE SITE!

WE HOPE YOU LIKE IT! SO FAR THE RESPONSE HAS BEEN QUITE GOOD. THIS IS BILL'S FIRST BAND FORAY SINCE VIGILANTES OF LOVE IN 2002. SINCE THEN HIS 7 SOLO RECORDS HAVE KEPT HIM PRETTY BUSY (AND DIRT POOR.)

(btw: YOU CAN CONTACT HIM AT MYSPACEUNDERTHATBRIDGE.COM)

AHEM, THE RECORD IS DUE OUT IN EARLY JUNE...BUT YOU CAN HAVE A LOOK-SEE RIGHT NOW AT TWO OF THE SONGS...

"POUR, KID..." (THE PROGRAMMER MISPELLED THE TITLE, BTW)
and "FLOWERS" ARE NOW IN PLACE...

IF YOU LIKE WHACHA HEAR, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ORDER UP A COPY AT: http://www.billmallonee.net/ CLICK ON 'MALL'. AND FOLLOW DIRECTIONS FROM THERE.

THIS HAS BEEN A TOTAL INDIE HOME-GROWN EFFORT!
THANKS FOR KEEPING IT REAL...

ENJOY,
BILL

5:32 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Phil Walden Dies-Signed Otis Redding, the Allman's....and me

Obituaries
Phil Walden: Influential record producer

April 26, 2006

ATLANTA -- Phil Walden, the Capricorn Records founder who launched the careers of Otis Redding and the Allman Brothers Band, died Sunday at his home after a long battle with cancer, a family friend said Monday. He was 66.

His record label, based in Macon, Ga., was influential in creating the Southern rock sound of the 1970s.

Over a long career, Mr. Walden also promoted groups including the Charlie Daniels Band and Wet Willie.

Mr. Walden's two most famous artists, Redding and guitarist Duane Allman, both died tragically, Redding in a plane crash in 1967 at 26 and Allman in a motorcycle accident in 1971 at age 24.

During the 1970s, Mr. Walden was an early backer of then-Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter. He provided financial support to Carter's upstart bid for the presidency, as did the Allmans and other Capricorn groups, who played benefit shows.

In a statement Monday, Carter called Mr. Walden "one of the preeminent producers of great music in America."

By the Associated Press

_________________________________________________________________________
____________________
bill mallonee here:

i am saddened with the news of Phil Walden's passing; he was a huge source of encouragement for me during the early years of VOL.
When Vigilantes of Love showed up in Austin, Tx in spring of 1992, at Phil's request, the "Struggleville band" had just learned the material off Killing Floor and was playing pretty incendiary shows just in and around Athens and Atlanta, Ga. Word had trickled up to Phil somehow. He was in Nashville at the time. I remember chatting with him on the phone before SXSW in Austin. He was very excited about the newly reformed Capricorn Records...Cake, Widespread Panic, 311, and the Freddie Jones band (from Chicago) were already there and experiencing good success. Phil told me he was looking for a song writer type. Thought i was the one. He was a gracious southern gentleman in the best sense of the word. i knew of his involvement with Otis Redding, popularizing Redding's muscular soul music in the late '60's to white audiences. And i knew of his discovery of the Allman Brother's Band, one of THE quintessential great southern rock bands of all time. At the time Athens, Ga., with all of it's pretentious art school hipsters, would have looked warily at such a relationship for a young band. It's a town obcessed with it's own coolness. Even folks there will say such. We jumped in the van, drove to Austin and played a really great set (i think) at a little place called the Jelly Club (no longer there).
It was packed to capacity and then some.

A journalist with Rolling Stone later describe Vigilantes of Love as, "scrappy literate, folk-rock." (thank you, sir!)
We played a ripping 45 minute set on something like a Fischer-Price PA, got burned on the skin by a light bank about 4 feet from the stage...and won Mr. Walden's approval.

I can still see him, all 6'4" of him, standing at the back door, beaming that generous smile and saying in that southern drawl: "We'd like to talk to you boys."
His arm was outstretched towards a limo...we got in...went to the hotel...talked about our signing. Phil was always so encouraging and optimistic. One month later we were in a studio with producer Jim Scott, who was taking time out from Tom Petty's "Wildflowers" album with Rick Rubin, to record VOL. Jim later went on to mix Lucinda Williams "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," and lot of other cool stuff.
Yeah, it was pretty surreal.

It's a great, scary, strange place to be when you sign to a label...For me it was like watching my life pass in front of my eyes...i don't know if anyone really thinks they are ever up to the task. Capricorn was well-respected, up and flourishing and feeling it's game. Vigilantes, at the time, was a rag-tag college outfit with a singer-song writer who was terrified of the next step, which basically meant getting in a crappy van for 180 plus shows a year for the next 4 years, recording 4 records, leaving wife and sons to tour with people you normally wouldn't pick as friends. Nor would they have picked me either, if the truth be told. But rock we did. We showed up all over a newly emerging format called Adult Alternative Album (AAA). With songs like "Welcome to Struggleville" and "Real Down Town," We had a real foot in the door in every major U.S. city. The Triple A format, though, soon showed itself to be great for radio listeners, but no place to move large units of records. We soon felt the backlash of this dynamic. Various incarnations of the band splintered, reformed and splintered again. I've heard the same story countless times from bands in the mid '90's just getting going. A lot of singer-song writer types have simply learned to swim, or tread water when necessary. You try and learn to stay away from the sharks.

But even those grim moments turned out to be the proving ground for REAL experiences and stuff that can't be manufactured or purchased. It all goes back into the tunes...into something substantial and real...and even bigger than your shitty little self...

All those stupid gigs and pointless ventures into God-knows-what makes one...well, different inside. You become both wise and vulnerable, cynical and child-like...you take grace as it comes...in little seemingly insignificant things...you drink it all in...

It's all risk on most days...crazy dark risk and full of lies...and hope you live to tell about it...
But all that experience? It all went back into my tunes...you become them and they become you...and it becomes as easy as breathing air...

you make mistakes...and you hope you learn from those too...you hope folks forgive.

And it was those intangible things like faith and, hope and love that grew up in me over those next 15 years and 20 some records...

so, yeah, i wrote songs before i met Phil Walden...But Phil gave me the chance to BECOME a song writer...
And i value that...with all my heart.

Thank you, Phil.

rest in blessed peace.

bill mallonee

9:51 AM - 3 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

WISHING YOU GOOD THINGS-Bill Mallonee

My 23rd or so record called PERMAFROST will be out soon...i'm going under the name VICTORY GARDEN these days,....well, the new upcoming record is getting all "gussied up" and such and shows up at the end of May 2006, we think...
it's all indie and what not....
(yawn)
Pre-orders are as usual,  feeding the chain, the plant ,the nurturing aspects of this glorified cottage industry...But thank you all...th eresponse has been great!

i don't know why 180 plus shows a year in some piece o' crap car or van appeal to me, but they do...i never hardly made it out of the state of georgia til i was 30...then all heck breaks loose...we go and get signed as Vigilantes of Love in Austin in 1992, make a record with Jim Scott, who was recording Tom Petty at the time, doing a bunch of records for minor/major Capricorn, become top 100 "triple A" radio stars for a spell...then back to indie status after 3 years...
(enjoyed the ride!)
Then we dive into making about two albums a year, tour the UK extensively, make a great record (Audible Sigh) with wondrous guitar player Buddy Miller and his sweetheart wife Julie...all to eventually splatter all over the pavement as we're told consistently by labels that "Americana music ain't what sells."

"Tell that to Wilco and Son Volt, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, " i said...

One thing you find out is just how many "gatekeepers" there are in life...
but i do honestly love ilife...it takes some time to work through sad dark things, of course...but i got more than i deserve...and on top of that, the songs just keep coming and i love this world that God has made in it's crazy rich fractured diversity...

i am learning what it means to be a deeply flawed human...and still breathe...
Please don't even remotely think i'm bitter...nope...i'm not...at least i don't think i am...

i love the good old simple pleasures and i've been so very fortunate to record a lot, write, tour, make a living of sorts and play to a small handfull of very appreciative fans...more n' i deserve...like i said!

this world seems to be one big broken, tangled mass of misunderstanding and illusions that we all labor to operate under...we get our all-important little feelings so hurt; our all-too-sensitive little toes stepped upon...sometimes i reckon, we ask for it...other times i suspect it's like a fog we're tryin' to peer through...it's not so easy when your heart feels like it's high beams aren't working...
why do we resist doing good to ourselves and others...?
we hedge our bets everywhere when it comes to charity...at least i do...
"you first...maybe the waters too cold..."

grace is risking all to save the un-savable...

Number 23?
Permafrost....
a joy to make...Americana pop here, Beatles-esque rockers and a good dose of self-deprecating folk songs...i like my lyrics as usual...

last year was a year of deep sadness...for me...this year too...
i hope yours was joy...
my personal life and not been exemplary as of late...i wonder who i am and why i am capable of doing such harm...
a lot of folks get hurt when one is selfish...and i, not Paul, am the chief of sinners...
i thank God for grace every day...
i am unworthy, to be sure...i am so very sorry for the folks i've disappointed and hurt...
sometimes it  (grace) shows up in the form of one unsuspected person who has some charity to offer, a smile, a call or some words of wisdom to help me...i was reading Paslm 103...
Me?
i want to cast off this dark-sad-mantle called depression that has plagued me since i was about 6 years old and get on with life...because already it has destroyed much...even parts of me...
i think there was SO MUCH crap i never dealt with in my youth...i know this is so much more common...you "think" you've defined it, named it, sentenced it and are "dealing with it."
and then that all sorta proved false to me last year...
(sorry for the code, y'all)
It's amazing what kind of stuff runs under one's skin...for long periods undetected and undisclosed...

Then you get tested somewhere in life. All the little boxes and categories seem to not fit...and you are storm tossed...sucker punched...reelin' about.

you pray...but wonder if they are answered...( i believe that no prayer goes unhear) but there is such a thing as agony and it is usually very quiet and has no tongue to speak it's core with.)

Then there are those times you let yourself down over and over...
why?
why the self-destruction...?
16 years of writing something like 1,000 songs and living on the road with a guitar  was a proving ground...and something of a gallows...

it's amazing what sunlight and blue sky and some new songs can do to revive one...

please cherish all that speaks of life and love and goodness...give thanks...

thanks for taking time to read this drivel (if you made it)
...i KNOW we all live in an A.D.D. world these days...
God Bless you...

bill mallonee

...

4:17 PM - 12 Comments - 15 Kudos - Add Comment