White Winter Wisconsin

A resounding theme in my life- PERSPECTIVE.

This tends to come up more this time of year- how my perspective can completely shift my reality.

On Friday afternoon we found ourselves in a beautiful living room full of beautiful people- gathering for friends, family, music and food. High ceilings and organic sound. Many of these faces were familiar- some were new. The humbling experience of being brought into someone's home, into their family for the afternoon- it's one of the most rewarding things I get to be a part of.

And I just kept thinking, "Man, we're so lucky!"

This is the time of year we start really preparing ourselves for the coming winter months. Winter for me now means perfecting the art of dressing in layers so that I can be comfortable outside, in the van, in a stuffy bar, and playing music in a stuffy bar. This last weekend I found myself exchanging my wool socks for some cotton ones on stage right before our shows.

Yesterday we drove from Wausau to Madison. White Wisconsin winter, rural and flat and the orange sky during dusk which goes so quickly during the winter... we were driving right into it and if I can't be present in that moment I'm not so sure I'm alive anymore.

And a lot of things on the horizon we are looking forward to this winter! A new Daytrotter Session, a new music video, releasing our album again on a different format, playing with talented musicians, making new friends, seeing the countryside, seeing some cities, seeing new art, new energy (never really new,)  and swimming, swimming, swimming.

Fine Line Art

"I just do the things I do, I don't know why except that it makes me happy to do them."

It's a fine line for artists.

We don't want to make money off our art. We just want to make a living.

We love the road- new places, new people, new towns, new stages, new ideas and new ways of living.

But we all need a home... a place to lay our heads.

"After all, a man has to have something to tie to, something he can trust to be there in the morning."

And to our families and lovers- we want you to miss us, but we don't want you to miss us too much. Sometimes I feel like a stranger when I come home. Sometimes I feel like a stranger when I leave.

"Be still a moment... there's something here. You are afraid of it, but I know it. Somewhere, perhaps in an old dream, I have seen this place, or perhaps felt the feeling of this place... This is holy- and this is old. This is ancient- and holy."

This morning I feel so very encouraged by all the people I've met along the way who want to dedicate their life power to enabling the arts- dancing, painting, music making, theater... It's true- it's a hard life! But it's easy too. Trust me. And when it gets a little too trying, there's a million other souls doing the same thing you can draw from and feel connected to. Because on some level, we all really are doing the same thing.



Here's a video our friend, Nick put together for us. The audio track is off our new album:

PS: Quotes taken from the novel To a God Unknown by John Steinbeck

Women Music Producers?

I had a revelation and a little giggle tonight while I was listening to some mixes and was thinking about the recording process and where we might want to record our third album and whose influence we would like to have on it... and for some reason, I thought, "What would it be like to work with a woman producer?"

And then I thought... and I thought some more... and I realized I couldn't think of one producer that is a woman.

Which I think is pretty interesting!

From what I've observed, the role of a producer is never completely the same from one project to the next, and I imagine it's hard to know what you're getting into with any project. A good producer has to be pretty versatile from one role to the next.

And that's generally true when you're working with musicians- whether you're the sound guy (or girl!) or the person printing our flyers, or the person designing our flyers, or the person taking our order at the cafe... musicians are funny people and you never really know what you're going to get. Some weeks I spend about three or four days living out of a backpack with one or two showers and not brushing my hair, wearing dirty clothes, and the other three or four days of the week I walk around town with a laptop, drinking espresso, and feeling like some weird business lady. We play a lot of roles too.

Anyway, what I was getting at is that since their are so many different roles a producer could fill on any album, I'm surprised that there aren't more women producers. I'm curious... if there had been, say, if Bob Dylan had done some albums with a woman producer, or the Beatles, or Radiohead for that matter, I wonder how that could have changed music? And maybe it's not such a thing.. I mean, any person on any project being different, especially the producer, that would change everything regardless of gender.


It turns out there are some pretty cool women producers out there. A woman named Sylvia Massy produced Tool's Undertow. I also ran across a woman named Susan Rogers. Currently a professor at Berklee, she worked with David Byrne, Prince, Edie Brickell, Violent Femmes,... I did a little bit of research- there are actually quite a few articles about why there aren't many women producers. I found a list of the "50 Most Influential Producers" and not one was a woman. I found lots of speculation on why there aren't more women producers, all just speculation it seems.


I should also definitely mention a pretty rad recording engineer I personally know named Natalie Fores. She was our sound person for a while before she moved to Madison to do an internship at Paradyme Productions, where she recorded the audio for our video to "Eureka Bridge." She was a pleasure to work with at shows as well as in the studio.

And who knows, maybe I'm overlooking some well-known women producers. Do you know of any?


That's it for me.

Five Albums of My Infatuation

ALBUM INFATUATION/LOVE- A Preface

Every album is different, but in general I fall hard and fast. Whether it's a melody, word or string of words, rhythm, or some other aesthetic seasoning, I hear and feel and think and I am so quickly infatuated. I've fallen in love with many albums throughout my short life- all different kinds and for all different reasons- sometimes it lasts for a long time- continually finding new things to love about the music- and other times it's more short lived... Either way I'm thankful for all my relationships with music. In regards to music, I suppose you could call me a polyamorist?

So here we go- judge me or don't, try out these albums or don't, here are five noteworthy albums I've been infatuated with this summer:

                                                     1. Beck- Morning Phase 

Released in February of 2014, I first heard this record on vinyl on a sunny, lazy day in my apartment at the tail end of last winter. It's got a polished sound. It's slow, it's melodic, it's heartbreaking and captivating. I have had some of the most intense conversations of my life while listening to this album. I fell in love within the very moment I heard the first note- an indulgent symphonic chord. Morning Phase is so thick I could drown in it. It is music that makes my heart well way up to the brim and I can surrender to that.

                                                 2. Tallest Man on Earth- There's No Leaving Now

I've been enamored with Tallest Man on Earth since I first heard him around five or six years ago. The Pabst Theater was doing a run of free shows on Tuesdays. There were maybe 50 people there or less! I really enjoyed his first two albums, but "There's No Leaving Now" really stole my heart. The song-writing is over-all beautiful, but there are certain strings of words that really stick out to me. His nitty-gritty voice attracts me as well as his rhythmic and decorated guitar playing. Released in 2012, I have come back to this album time and again.

   

                                             3. Damien Jurado- Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son

This one is new to me and I haven't listened to it more than a couple of times. It's spiritual, interesting rhythmically. I don't really know what he's talking about, but I know what he's talking about! It's great driving music- especially on sunny September days. There are many layers to this album but it's not complicated. It makes my body flow with its rhythms. This is a feeling album primarily- sensual.. trippy.. instantaneous connection.

                                                      4. Radiohead- In Rainbows

Oh man! I re-stumbled onto this one again sometime in early summer. It made so much sense to me. It melted me into an excited little puddle of a girl. It's genius. It takes you for a ride that can become almost too intense at times depending on where you're at... This album is powerful and shakes me to my core.

                                                      5. Sun Kil Moon-Ghosts of the Great Highway

Of the five, this is sort of my soul mate album. It's got a timeless feeling, an organic vibe. The whole thing is consistently good. It's sort of simple and subtle as well as graceful and gentle. If it were landscape it would be gently rolling hills with a big open sky, sharp greens and blues and puffy white clouds. I fell in love with this album late spring-time this last year and soon after realized that it was recorded at Hyde Street Studio- where we recorded Space and Time. Beautiful Beautiful Beautiful. 

There they are! I could name several more but I wont. Well, I will make two more notable mentions! And they are:

Jim James- "Regions of Light and Sound"

Townes Van Zandt- "Our Mother the Mountain"

Cheers!

I Love Wisconsin Northwoods

I've never considered myself a city slicker.

I was born in a little town in the U.P.

Grew up in Oshkosh- current population 65,000ish

Lived in Milwaukee for a few years

Found myself back here in Oshkosh

And also on the road pretty consistently every weekend.


One of my favorite parts about being a musician is getting to see so much of Wisconsin in a bit more of a personal way than if I were to just drive through on my way to another place.

I've learned some things...

There are a lot of rural politics that happen often that don't make front page headlines even in smaller cities let alone Milwaukee or Madison. They don't get talked about much from what I can tell. A lot of times these rural politics affect things like farming and how we treat the land and the water and the resources.

I've realized this last year that I've spent my whole life in Wisconsin being pretty unaware...pretty unaware of how it all works in general. I've been a lot like many other Americans who are semi-informed on news and politics on a national level but when it comes to local politics there's quite a void.

I've researched a little bit and found a really interesting article about "rural versus urban politics" in Wisconsin. It's about a UW Madison political scientist named Katherine Cramer Walsh who has traveled around Wisconsin for the last five years- going to informal social groups all throughout the state- churches, local cafes, gas stations, etc. Check out that article here if you're interested. 


So there's politics and the farming stuff and the mining stuff and the rural people stuff...

And then there's the feel of it. The feel of northern Wisconsin... Last week I found myself way up north at Pete's cabin. West on highway 8 and then a few more miles on some gravel roads. No cell phone reception, no computers or screens of any kind to look at...

There were a few of us there and we took a walk- crossed the river on the stones. It was pretty easy for Pete- I'm pretty sure he does Parkour on the side of being in Dead Horses- for me it was a little trickier... slippery rocks and everything!

Me? I could call it a nature thing
I could call it a feeling thing
Or a solitude thing
Or getting back to the basics of things

But mostly I'd call it a spiritual thing.. in the way I experience it and the way I perceive other people experiencing it.

I Love Being a Musician in the Summer Time!

The summer sun, the mentality of Midwesterners in general, the outdoor aspect of shows, the extra sweat from the thick humidity, jumping in lakes and sweating, sweating, sweating. Warm nights and loads of stars and the zing zing energy that July brings...

From hearing the loons and seeing the stars in Minocqua, to seeing some of our oldest and dearest friends in Omro (they like the new "hippie bluegrass sound,") to meeting new friends and tasting new beer at Door County Brewing Company... and to top it all off a fun set at Sawdust Days here in our hometown on Sunday.

Being a musician means a lot of things, but one thing it usually means is traveling a LOT! I'd take the hottest of summer days over the polar vortex we traveled through in Minnesota last January!

And man we get tired, and we get dirty, and we get crabby, and I wonder how I'm going to answer the same question to so many different people and try to be present with each and every one of them, and guitar strings keep breaking cause it's so humid and I haven't even had a chance to unpack before packing again and sometimes you wonder how you're going to keep you're head on straight!

But..

I love the stretches of shows and the driving between and the endurance through the exhaustion and I love  making eye contact during the songs and the pure and true joy and love I feel... the genuine kindness shown to me and to us by complete strangers willing to support another human being. And I've been feeling so proud of Dan, Tim, and Pete when we're up there.

And I'm really looking forward to what we have going on these next few months- lots of traveling but lots of local community stuff! And I'm so excited to share our album with you all!  I hope you're all doing well out there and I hope we get to hang out with you at some shows.


PS! Our interview with Stephanie Elkins aired on Simply Folk last night! If you missed it you can stream it by clicking here: Dead Horses on Simply Folk

I Love Minocqua Brewing Company

Minocqua Brewing Company! Home of the infamous Whitey's Wheat Ale as well as several hand crafted beers and a fantastic food menu, beautiful setting, and great waitstaff.

It's July 3rd and I've found myself in Minocqua again. Last night I played a Rucksack Revolution show- opening for Charlie Parr at Minocqua Brewing Company.

The drive up here was beautiful. I felt my worries and tension leaving my body. Left rainy Oshkosh and the farther north I got the more the sun peaked through. By the time I got up here it was blue skies and clear waters.

There are a lot of neat venues and spots to play in northern Wisconsin but Minocqua Brewing Company is one of my favorites- definitely a gem. Musicians are treated very well here and that means a lot. It's a great setting for an intimate show and the green room is basically a dock on the lake. Last night I saw more stars than I've seen in quite a while!

And the show was just so much fun! The people in the room, the energy in the room- it really makes or breaks the show, and I felt honored to be able to play last night.

Watching Mr. Charlie Parr was soul-satisfying. And he even invited Adam and I up on the stage to play with him! One of the better musical moments of my life. There's something so very spiritual about what Charlie does on stage every time I've seen him perform. I feel that I could learn so much from him.

The kicker is that I get to play there again tonight with the full band! I can't wait for Dan, Pete, and Tim to get up here. I can't wait to get all plugged in and let the set begin. Making music with my brothers and feeling blessed.