I was told something Wednesday night that made me really happy: Paul K now has a copy of our first poetry score CD, Crossing America by Leo Connellan.
I had completely forgotten, but a guy I know from the St. Louis music scene is good friends with Paul K, of Lexington, Kentucky - otherwise known as "the Lexington love junky," when I used to kick around Kentucky and run in the same circles as Paul.
The local guy, a City cop named Mike, and I swapped Paul K stories one night (at CBGB, I think), and apparently I gave him a copy of the Leo score to give to Paul, the next time he saw the man. I managed to forget, but Mike remembered, bless him. On Wednesday at Fred Friction's gig at The Tap Room, Mike was thoughtful enough to tell me he had made the handoff to the Lexington love junky.
This nickname for Paul K, which I picked up from mutual friends in the Louisville music scene, owed to his being handsome (or so the ladies said) and either a junky or a recovering junky, depending on whom you asked and when you asked them. The Louisville scene was full of mythology and danger, when I stumbled into it in the early 1990s, which I have to admit I appreciated - I thought rock & roll was supposed to have love junkies shrouded in local mythologies.
None of that matters, of course, if you can't write and play - and good God, can Paul K write and play. The Afghan Whigs used to cover him ("Amphetamines and Coffee"), and he is always ripe for a major rediscovery that would vault him into the class of world-class lyrical rock songwriters where he belongs - I am talking Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen. Let me say a prayer to the rock gods, right now: May Band of Horses or My Morning Jacket or frigging Wilco cover Paul K and put him into the money and onto the road.
When I knew Paul K in Kentucky, he had a few CDs out on indie labels that didn't quite capture his thing, and he sold hissy cassette recordings of his live gigs out of a suitcase that did capture his songs and his sound, despite the hiss, though I have lost all of the ones I bought, over the years of hard traveling.
But let me make it really, really, really easy for you. Mike told me that Paul K has uploaded his entire discopgraphy for open source downloads on archive.org. I can't believe this is true, but it is! Check out the Paul K and the Weathermen website for a list of links to archive.org. If you like rock music, you won't be sorry!
Tell you what, though. Let me make it even easier. Take Mike's advice, as I did, and start with A Wilderness of Mirrors. I am listening to it right now and it is utterly sublime - the best representation of this enormous talent I have ever heard on a recording.
So, now I am wondering why I wanted Paul K to hear our score of Leo Connellan, other than I would like for him to know what I am up to. If he remembers me, and he should.
I remember running into Paul K out on the road once, when I was on tour with Enormous Richard and he was on the tour with the Weathermen. Comparing notes, we discovered that he would play St. Louis before I got back home, so I gave him the key to my house - 2115 Marconi St., on The Hill, across from St. Ambrose's. And so the Lexington love junky spent a night in my house in Italian town, right across the street from the monsignor. He left my key under the doormat and an ashtray on my mattress to remember him by.
Oh, yeah! I must have also wanted him to do some composing for Poetry Scores! Good idea. I'll send Paul K a link to this post and see where it leads. Thanks for the music, man! You rock! Get in touch!
*
Photo from the Paul K and the Weathermen MySpace page.
I had completely forgotten, but a guy I know from the St. Louis music scene is good friends with Paul K, of Lexington, Kentucky - otherwise known as "the Lexington love junky," when I used to kick around Kentucky and run in the same circles as Paul.
The local guy, a City cop named Mike, and I swapped Paul K stories one night (at CBGB, I think), and apparently I gave him a copy of the Leo score to give to Paul, the next time he saw the man. I managed to forget, but Mike remembered, bless him. On Wednesday at Fred Friction's gig at The Tap Room, Mike was thoughtful enough to tell me he had made the handoff to the Lexington love junky.
This nickname for Paul K, which I picked up from mutual friends in the Louisville music scene, owed to his being handsome (or so the ladies said) and either a junky or a recovering junky, depending on whom you asked and when you asked them. The Louisville scene was full of mythology and danger, when I stumbled into it in the early 1990s, which I have to admit I appreciated - I thought rock & roll was supposed to have love junkies shrouded in local mythologies.
None of that matters, of course, if you can't write and play - and good God, can Paul K write and play. The Afghan Whigs used to cover him ("Amphetamines and Coffee"), and he is always ripe for a major rediscovery that would vault him into the class of world-class lyrical rock songwriters where he belongs - I am talking Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen. Let me say a prayer to the rock gods, right now: May Band of Horses or My Morning Jacket or frigging Wilco cover Paul K and put him into the money and onto the road.
When I knew Paul K in Kentucky, he had a few CDs out on indie labels that didn't quite capture his thing, and he sold hissy cassette recordings of his live gigs out of a suitcase that did capture his songs and his sound, despite the hiss, though I have lost all of the ones I bought, over the years of hard traveling.
But let me make it really, really, really easy for you. Mike told me that Paul K has uploaded his entire discopgraphy for open source downloads on archive.org. I can't believe this is true, but it is! Check out the Paul K and the Weathermen website for a list of links to archive.org. If you like rock music, you won't be sorry!
Tell you what, though. Let me make it even easier. Take Mike's advice, as I did, and start with A Wilderness of Mirrors. I am listening to it right now and it is utterly sublime - the best representation of this enormous talent I have ever heard on a recording.
So, now I am wondering why I wanted Paul K to hear our score of Leo Connellan, other than I would like for him to know what I am up to. If he remembers me, and he should.
I remember running into Paul K out on the road once, when I was on tour with Enormous Richard and he was on the tour with the Weathermen. Comparing notes, we discovered that he would play St. Louis before I got back home, so I gave him the key to my house - 2115 Marconi St., on The Hill, across from St. Ambrose's. And so the Lexington love junky spent a night in my house in Italian town, right across the street from the monsignor. He left my key under the doormat and an ashtray on my mattress to remember him by.
Oh, yeah! I must have also wanted him to do some composing for Poetry Scores! Good idea. I'll send Paul K a link to this post and see where it leads. Thanks for the music, man! You rock! Get in touch!
*
Photo from the Paul K and the Weathermen MySpace page.
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1 comment:
You were right, some excellent music there......
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