This past weekend, I was caught up another one of Nature’s details in the middle of a Virginia pasture along the Virginia Creeper Trail.
It was a crisp Saturday morning with no one around for miles and one my favorite musicians of the animal kingdom was echoing a glorious mashup of some of the greatest songs of the South.
The Mockingbird is one of my favorite sounds near to hear in Tennessee and Virginia and this mimic was jumping up and down in the top of a cedar tree reveling in the warm air. It appeared to have a nest, but I marveled for about 30 minutes at the range of songs and melodies this bird brought to my morning ride.
There must have been a hundred different sounds this little bard sang that morning and I was amazed at the reverie and the color which this little guy added to the day before darting off into a field to look for more food.
The moment I posted my status about attending classes at The Berklee School of Music on Facebook, a few of my friends wondered what was up? Most questioned whether or not the reset button was pushed and my bags were packed on the way to Boston to pursue a music degree.
Not really, but the thought of absorbing anything from Berklee is intriguing. After all – as a musician – this is one of the top schools in the nation. The fact it was a deep dive into eight weeks of music studies – left me no choice. Besides, I might come out on the other end a little better at my craft and naturalized for higher education in the connected age.
Over the past several months, I’ve been watching with great interest the free classes offered by from Coursera.org and others. When Berklee announced they were offering music classes, it seemed like the perfect obligation to redirect my obsessions and introduce me to something new to explore.
The courses promised six weeks of instruction for music production and songwriting and all for free. All I had to invest was 8 to 10 hours per week and take advantage of world class instruction. Little did I know I would be walking into another torrent of information – but I’m glad I did. (more…)
Jared Bentley passed along the recordings the the WETS-FM Studio One recordings from a couple of weeks ago.
This terrific public broadcasting radio station along with Dave Carter and Mike Strickland continue to provide a wonderful platform for local musicians to share their music with listeners in Northeast Tennessee, Southwest, Virginia and Western North Carolina.
Dave welcomed The JV Squad on a rainy Saturday morning – April 14th, 2013. We arrived early in the morning, poured a cup of coffee and setup the studio for the live broadcast which airs at 1pm every Saturday. He’s an excellent interviewer and over the past 20 plus years, Dave has presented hundreds of artists in a relaxed professional setting.
I’ve been honored to be a part of that legacy and always enjoy sitting next to Dave as he reveals the creative and talented musicians in our region.
The tracks below are the outakes from several of the moments from this morning interview/performance. Jared and Vanessa did a great job that day. Mike Sams and Lance McCloud supported the vocals and my playing with a solid backbeat and we had a lot of fun.
Please enjoy these tracks, share them with your friends and follow us on Soundcloud as we continue to build out the discography. Please enjoy and let me know what you think.
The first time I heard Daniel Davis sing with Folk Soul Revival, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Maybe it was the rug-like beard or the gauged ear rings and tattoos scrawled across his forearms. He was a curious package indeed, but as he sang “Sweet Virginia” from the Piedmont stage at Bristol Rhythm and Roots back in 2008, I’ve always wanted to know the songwriter – what makes him tick and the reason why his songs resonate so much to the fans who follow the band.
For the past several months, I’ve been inspired by what it means to be a songwriter as Daniel and the guys in Folk Soul continue to build fans beyond East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. And the reason why they’re gaining ground across the Southeast is how their songs are gaining recognition among professionals in the industry. (more…)
One of the things I like most about playing with Folk Soul Revival is the fact I never know what to expect.
Last week, drummer Dan Witt sent a text message and invited me to a session in Big Stone Gap, Virginia to record a soundtrack for a documentary. That’s all the information I had going in, but the instructions were simply “10am to ???” at Maggard Studios.
Maggard Studios is located on Railroad Avenue. It’s a tiny side-street in Southwest Virginia and one of the early studios I ever recorded with. It was 1985 when the gospel group Unity rolled into this small studio for a full length “cassette.” Several years later, The Watch would record a DVD and film a small documentary for PBS in this humble room with the late Charlie Maggard and his son Alan on the mixing console.
Since then, “Maggard’s” has garnered amazing success recording gospel, bluegrass and traditional mountain music. There’s even a Grammy nomination for this mountain studio with a great big heart.
It was a beautiful Saturday morning driving up Highway 23 North to Big Stone. As usual, my memory was a bit foggy as to where the studio was located, but an iPhone easily picked up the trail. In a few moments, we were unloading our gear outside the small block building with the hand-drawn letters on the front that read “Maggard Studios.”
Kevin Jackson was out front smoking a cigarette and enthusiastic about playing another gig together. We met each other several years ago while working with Reagan Boggs and it’s always good to see my talented fiddle friend.
We didn’t waste anytime either, it seemed a matter of minutes before we had unpacked the van and setup all the instruments while Alan suggested our placement in the various rooms.
Andy Moynehan introduced himself with a handshake and a “royal” English accent. Chelsea Brodsky his partner/producer also made a warm greeting while pointing us to a table of food and drinks prepared for the day.
As we settled into the studio, Andy told us about the project.
Big Moccasin is a film documentary for these two New York film makers that began as a Kickstarter program to document among other things, Chelsea’s grandmother Geraldine Fraizer. Geraldine had lung cancer and she was dying. Chelsea recalled many summer vacations to the mountains of Nickelsville and as a film student, she wanted to capture the unique culture of her youth.
Together with her boyfriend Andy, they have been in the mountains for several months and “living among the people.”
Along the way, they became friends with some amazing and entertaining characters. My friends in the mountains know exactly what I’m talking about too. There are some colorful people in the hill country. What they lack in conspicuous consumption they make up with deep felt stories and tales that link the past and present.
As musicians, we were introduced to the characters via a flat screen television in the center of the studio. We watched the first 30 minutes and got a feel for the scenery shot on a Canon 5D SLR camera and met the characters which included Geraldine, Polo and “Mouse.”
There were various scenes of mountain hillsides, small houses with typical Appalachian surroundings: cows, horses, children, barns, pickup trunks, camouflaged clothing and plenty of storytelling in the background.
As the video footage set the mood, the guys in Folk Soul would take time to explore their original music and see if any of the scenes played well to the album material. However, for most scenes, we were trying to improvise and capture the mood and emotion of the story. I found that incredibly satisfying too – looking at a screen, finding a particular mood, harmony and melody is a wonderful way to make music.
Alan was in the control room, dictating the digital recording session using Pro Tools software and piping in the words “rolling” all afternoon and into the night.
After 11 hours and plenty of food, exploration and diving into the Big Moccasin story, we were finished around 9.00pm.
Andy and Chelsea were amazing companions on this journey and I particularly appreciate their passion for the project.
I imagine some people may look at the movie and wonder whether this type of film is perpetuating an Appalachian stereotype. But I agree with Alan – “the truth is the truth.”
Big Moccasin is a wonderful story, from what I could tell. We didn’t get to see the full hour and forty minutes and instead tried to capture the various vignettes with an original soundtrack and I’m excited to see and hear the final project.
It was a long day, but the music of Folk Soul Revival and stories from this project will be another mark on history and I was thrilled to be part of the project.
Had a great time last Saturday revisiting a recording studio that first made an impression on my life back in 1984/85.
One of my first recording sessions was at Maggard Studios in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Alan Maggard recorded a gospel group I used to play with named Unity. Back then, he was working with reels. Somewhere in the early nineties, I was back with The Watch and this past weekend, Folk Soul Revival.
Alan is a grammy-nominated engineer who’s recorded hundreds of terrific projects over the years and this was session was first of its kind.
Folk Soul Revival invited me and Kevin Jackson to record a soundtrack for an upcoming film called Moccasin Gap.
Here’s an outake from their Kickstarter project that funded the film. More on this later.
Paul Miller is coming back to the Internet after almost a year off-line. I dont suppose he’s going to come back with an epiphanies from the hallowed halls of sanctuary, but he’s already inspired a few ideas for me.
Paul is a writer for The Verge. This is one my many online tech feeds I watch with interest. Besides their elegant design, the articles and content curation they provide stands out above the rest.
One of the most interesting articles that fell across my social stream last year was about the fact Paul was going to vanish from the Internet for a year….and keep his job!
Since Paul is a journalist, I thought it would be interesting to follow his stories as life without a connection might give him a different perspective – besides, I secretly admire him for having the luxury.
Well Paul has been offline for a year now and it looks like he’s excited to get jacked back into the Matrix. In fact, the programmers at The Verge have developed an app that’s counting him down to that day - 12:00:01 AM on May 1st.
Watching Paul’s posts have been enlightening too. First, I like his candid honesty – that’s something I’m going to strive for in the coming days. There’s something interesting about reading something that is transparent and real. Paul wrestles with dating, music, porn and a buffet of other digital things that have just become a part of our everyday life. I especially enjoyed his recent post on dating – my own will be coming up shortly.
I’m sure they’ll plan a party too. Paul’s departure was recorded on YouTube last year, so I expect the return to be even more of a welcome back party.
Steve was certain the story he was telling was true.
Laughing with all certainty, his larger-than-life tales about our “college days” are hilarious.
Unfortunately, the more he tells them, the more he’s wrong. The characters, the place and the time were certainly not part of my memory in regard to his bombastic review.
Over the years, the stories my friends recite about their recollection of past events are becoming questionable. In all fairness, maybe mine are subject to scrutiny and yours are too.
I don’t mean to offend anyone with eidetic faculties. In fact, some in my circle continue to surprise me daily bringing up sentences from the past – so we’re not all the same.
However, in his book, “The Self Illusion,” Bruce Hood makes a case that some people regard memory as an accurate recording of experiences.
“Psychologists Dan Simons and Chris Chabris recently surveyed 1,500 U.S. adults and discovered fundamental misunderstandings held by the general public. Two out of three adults (63%) thought that memory works ike a video camera, recording experiences that can be played back later.”
Faced with the possibility memories fade with age, we’re forced to recognize – instead of imprinting our minds with a factual and indelible database – our memories – as Hood alludes to in his book are more like a compost pile.
Our lives are certainly a rich garden of experiences.
Under the heat of the sun our adventure, sadness, failures, hope, love and all of the human conditions bloom like a thousand…billion episodes. Moving forward, the moments are stashed, processed, slept on, recalled and worked over and over again.
Without thinking, we’re raking those memories onto a mountain that exists somewhere between this very moment and yesterday.
And just like a compost pile, the heat of the day, the changing seasons will bake, steam and disintegrate any organic material right back into the ground around us – a fertile place indeed.
It’s not uncommon to hear older storytellers admit their memories are failing – turning to mush. In fact, our worst fears are the loss of memory – particularly ahead of our own physical atrophy in the case of Alzheimer’s.
My treaty is not an existential opinion. Instead, it’s important to consider the brevity of this possibility as it relates to our own telling of stories.
Who knows, just like fine wine – perhaps are stories get better with age as the fertilizers of past and present mix in the form of language?
Interestingly, Memory has a place among the Gods of Greek mythology.
Mnemosyne was the daughter of Oruanos (Heaven) and Gaia (The Earth). With one foot in heaven and another in time, she was also the Mother of the nine muses – which bring so much joy to our existence.
In the stories about Mnemosysne, there’s a river in Hades called Lethe. It’s here that spirits pass through that erases memory as souls on to the afterlife and ultimately reincarnation.
That’s at least refreshing to me as it relates to the divine comedy of errors we make when we recall our past experiences.
Perhaps our inability to recite accurate interpretations in the past is simply a river of rain, tears from hueaven running under the compost?
Memory, hither come,
And tune your merry notes;
And, while upon the wind
Your music floats,
I’ll pore upon the stream
Where sighing lovers dream,
And fish for fancies as they pass
Within the watery glass.
I’ll drink of the clear stream,
And hear the linnet’s song;
And there I’ll lie and dream
The day along:
And, when night comes, I’ll go
To places fit for woe,
Walking along the darken’d valley
With silent Melancholy.
William Blake
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Hello
Here's where you'll find the occasional perspective and archive of thoughts and expressions of David Cate. A media vanguard and musician located in Northeast Tennessee. This is my personal playground of random thoughts and episodes that give context to this short sweet life and a celebration and expose of experiences and effects of a lifetime.
Here's where you'll find the occasional perspective and archive of thoughts and expressions of David Cate. A media vanguard and musician located in Northeast Tennessee. This is my personal playground of random thoughts and episodes that give context to this short sweet life and a celebration and expose of experiences and effects of a lifetime.
