Great to be back home after the East Coast run. We finished on a real high note at the Visualite in Charlotte. Great room, with a top notch crew. The crowd was fantastic. Here is a link to some great photos taken by our friend Adam.
This past weekend I played a festival in Dripping Springs, TX (40 minutes west of Austin) with Deadeye, a killer Grateful Dead tribute band. Papa Mali, who played before us, felt the spirit and sat in on Dylan’s “Tom Thumb’s Blues”. I was amazed that he could remember all the words without a chart. Through his association with Bill Kreutzman and their band, 7 walkers, and his songwriting with Robert Hunter, he is a part of the Dead saga. So it was good mojo all around!
This week’s musical recommendations:
Eddie Hinton, Dear Y’all. Unheralded, never got his due, etc but damn this man was just brilliant as a writer, musician (he played everything) and singer (he’s like a white Otis Redding). Check him out.
Dawes, North Hills. This band is incredible…reminiscent of The Band (they backed Robbie Robertson on a recent tour) and CSNY (the first track on the album reminds me of Neil Young’s “Out On The Weekend”). This is their first record from 2008, produced by Jonathan Wilson who is a real talent in his own right. Going to see them here in Austin on the 24th…can’t wait.
High today in Austin: 105, low 78. I swear its been the same forecast for over 6 weeks. No rain at all the entire time.
“For the wise, who have risen above the ordinary faults of human life, it matters little if they find fault, but they are the ones who do not criticize. They, as a rule, overlook all that seems undesirable, and that action of overlooking itself prevents all the undesirable impressions from penetrating through their hearts…If man only knew what harm is brought to one’s being by letting any undesirable impression enter the heart, he also would adopt the above-mentioned policy of the wise, to overlook.
The more the self learns, the more it overlooks the evil in others. It does not mean that the evil is not in others; it only means that one finds in oneself the enemy which one was seeing outwardly. And the worst enemy one was faced with in outer life one finds to be in one’s own heart. It makes one feel humiliated, but it teaches the true lesson: one finds oneself having the same element which one wishes to resist in another.” ~Hazrat Inayat Khan.
Tolerance and patience are never-ending lessons to be learned.
TN