"Early Blue" & other comfort food tunes
sensitive souls with meandering minds massaging the body with gentle songs
This mix went out as a subscriber-only post just before Thanksgiving. It was popular so I’m sending it to the rest of you in a shorter, reformulated form. My previous post contains a short guide to highlights in the AHB’s Goodies archive. If you’re looking for something to listen to during the upcoming holiday zone-out, may I suggest that you dip in. As always paid subscriptions encourage me to devote more time & attention to this mixtape delivery service.
# of Tracks: about three dozen
Length: 120 minutes
Themes: mostly acoustic, mostly dudes ~ intermittently tragic figures in a self-inflicted harm kind of way ~ pairs of tracks by Ted Lucas, Loudon Wainwright III, Neil Young, Carriers, JJ Cale, Bill Callahan & Michael Hurley1 ~ longing & depressive uplift are a common theme ~ almost exclusively North American artists ~ the warm, squelched sound of 1970s recording technology
Links: Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube
Since November 5th, I have been using this playlist to regulate my nervous system a bit, and occasionally settle myself to sleep. (Yeah I’m upset, too.)
If there’s one thing this election cycle proved, it’s that anyone hoping for a warmer, kinder world needs to dream up new ways of getting there. These recordings are not a roadmap to that “better world.” Rather, I think of them as a warm hug to get your bearings and restore your inner reserves.
The title of the playlist comes from “Early Blue,” a vibey gem by the deeply obscure musician F.J. McMahon.2 It includes the lyric: "From my window / In the morning’s light / I try to hide from people.” That’s no way to live a life but sometimes it is okay to lay low and recover. I considered naming this post “Sad Bangers.” It didn’t quite fit, but I like the image it brings to mind: an epic sort of melancholy.
Find the playlist on… Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube
The playlist includes songs such as…
^ F.J. McMahon: “Early Blue”
^ Blaze Foley: “Election Day”
^ Willie Dunn: “I Pity the Country”
^ Roy Harper: “Another Day”
Extra credit:
• Carriers “Sometimes”: There is one notable addition to this playlist since last week’s version—a just-released song by a new Brassland signing known as Carriers (aka Cincinnati’s own Curt Kiser3). Recommended If You Like: Big Thief, Tom Petty, Dire Straits and other examples of big heart music that also sounds freaking fantastic blasting out of a stereo while driving long distances.
I’ve been developing a plan of attack with Curt about how to release his new music since 2022. An EP evolved into an LP and, all of a sudden, it feels like a very culturally relevant project because Curt represents a cooler, kinder, not authoritarian version of Ohio.4 More importantly, by my estimation (and that of several people I’ve shared Carriers forthcoming LP with already), it’s one of the best albums my label has ever released. I say this sheepishly because I’m a pretty hype-averse person but I encourage you to follow along as Curt’s journey proceeds.
• More music for our time in the chrysalis after the crushing disappointment of the American presidential election: Aka a bit more about music for recovery & transformation: First, I’d like to point you toward one band whose music I did not include on my new playlist. Ida are a kind of indie-folk family band active since the mid-90s and now based in upstate New York. Listening to them has helped bolster my spirit this November. I particularly recommend their initial trio of LPs, all of which contain music of slow power, rich harmonies, and quiet confidence: Tales of Brave Ida (1994), I Know About You (1996), and Ten Small Paces (1997). Click over to the original version of this post for a bit more background on the group.
Second, credit due to the song that inspired me to hit publish on this month’s playlist. (It had been germinating in draft form for upwards of a year, initially seeded by my discovery of “Early Blue.”)
I discovered Taylor Ashton’s “Strong Hands” in real life while attending the debut performance of the Brooklyn Choir Project just days after the election. In our era of strong arm tactics and strong man leaders, I like how Ashton’s song re-frames the idea of strength. The original version of this post has more context—and a gentle suggestion about one key to surviving the second reign of Aspiring Emperor Orange Doofus.5 To summarize: Pursue IRL experiences with people who you primarily interact offline so you can create authentic community not mediated by a screen, a computer, an algorithm. It’s that simple.
Here’s a tip jar for anyone that enjoys the AHB’s Goodies mixtape delivery service but finds recurring subscriptions…hella annoying: ⤵ ⤵ ⤵
People Who Died: Alice Brock
Since this playlist originally went out just before the holiday, I also included an evergreen Thanksgiving playlist which I first assembled in 2017. I began the mix with a pretty rare thing: a piece of seasonal music pegged to Thanksgiving. I am speaking, of course, about one of the 1960s most unlikely one-hit wonders, the song commonly referred to as Alice’s Restaurant,6 by Arlo Guthrie, son of legendary American folksinger Woody.
The tune is the emotional center of any progressive Thanksgiving soundtrack. Unexpectedly it triggered a memory for a European recipient of AHB’s Goodies! I heard from a distant acquaintance, a superb graphic artist, currently based in Spain, who contacted me by email with this feedback:
…I really wanted to thank you for reminding me about Alice’s Restaurant! My father used to play that for me as a kid and I played it over and over and could sing the whole damn thing! I’d totally forgotten about it, but I realise7 that the song instilled in the young, impressionable me a number of very heathy attitudes towards stuff. My boys are getting to the age that I was, so it’s time for me start putting it on repeat for them.
Anyhow the best of health to you and yours
This warmed my heart. That kind of response is more or less why I have chosen a life in music—the way this most ephemeral of arts can inspire memory, political engagement, community, human development and, yes, friendships—both of the intimate and the occasional/cyclical variety.
Anyway back to the song: the events described in “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” take place on Thanksgiving day at a deconsecrated church in Western Massachusetts where Alice lives—Alice being a friend of the song’s narrator, a version of Arlo Guthrie himself. Here’s a pic of the real-life Arlo and the real-life Alice Brock, hanging out in a cafe together. (Cigarettes in hand, naturally. The photo is from 1977.)
Upon release in 1967, “Alice’s Restaurant" Massacree” became an instant cultural touchstone. By 1969, Arlo Guthrie’s LP of the same name (minus the word massacree) went gold and had inspired spin-off projects like a feature film and a cookbook. In 2017, the original tune was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
It hit the zeitgeist from several angles. The lyrics were a comic public protest against the unpopular Vietnam War draft. The song’s 18-minute length filled the entire side of a vinyl LP just as the artistic possibilities of that format were being fully explored. And Arlo’s narration—by turns hyper then laidback, zany then existential—captured the personality of hippie culture, then its apex.
In reality, the song’s namesake is only a minor character in the song’s shaggy dog storyline. But no one who hears it will ever forget her because of the melody line that punctuates Arlo’s largely spoken word narration: “You can get anything you want / at Alice's restaurant" — again and again, like a commercial jingle punctuating his hippie rant.
Alice died last week, just in time for us to hold her in our thoughts over the holiday. As the hippies might say: Peace to her.
I did not include any music by the great Texas songwriter Townes Van Zandt which could be considered an oversight. So here he is performing “Waiting Around To Die.” The song kicks in around the 1:00 minute mark.
I described some of the artists included on this Early Blue mixtape as “intermittently tragic.” Maybe that disqualifies Van Zandt because the modifier “intermittent” is unnecessary in his case?
Here’s a vintage pic of F.J. McMahon, presumably from the same era when he created “Early Blue":
I’m one of those weirdos who still believe newspapers can be useful barometers. So it was pretty cool to see Carriers’ hometown alt-weekly Cincinnati CityBeat stepping out as one of the first outlets to praise his new single.
The good kind of Ohio. F*ck this guy: ⤵ ⤵ ⤵
Using the actual name of America’s 47th president leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Most folks omit the word Massaceree when recalling the song’s title. I always thought of “massacree” as some kind of eccentric portmanteau word that Arlo Guthrie made up—combining the words “massacre” and the indigenous American tribe known as the “Cree.” However, it turns out massacree is its own damn word, possibly originating from the Ozark Mountains, a corruption of a Missouri French dialect: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Deep gratitude, Alex! Amazing collection.