Oscar Hummel (spoon river demo)

continued from Julia Miller (spoon river demo)

            It's not that I necessarily trust in Memory any more or less than Present Moment — each of those shady characters have their own rose-colored monocle — one foot in & one out of perceived reality, both dancing around that asshole Regret.

However, there are connections that can be reviewed for what they are — lost periods that surround questionable who-knows? — facts behind facts — their cagey destinations: bottomless. Thus, we arrive back at Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology.

This week's post/recording is an example of that conditional state: the poem Oscar Hummel — an innocent caught in a tangle that lingers well-past his demise.

When I was assembling the characters for The Hill, I submitted to concentrated constraints & settled on Oscar Hummel & A.D. Blood as a pared-down song-pairing to keep it lean. But, Spoon River Anthology is so interwoven, I want to graze an adjoining third characterization which I hold as a personal association.

Some would call this above-read "vibration" as a divined madness — a decided preference — sadly, even by the possessed themselves in times of personal drought. The dark confines of the commonly accepted cosmos are reluctant to make exceptions &, unfortunately, can reflect back blindingly, raining down on the conscious & forgotten. But, inspiration can’t be hunted-down with determination, as if a mere choice. To be pursued by imagination requires a naturally wondrous disposition.

The last line of the poem: "And not a single regret." can ring dually true, only at odds depending on time of night & where, like Oscar Hummel, toleration may inadvertently take someone.

            Before this last heat wave showed up, when it was still possible to enter my attic, I found yet another CD of Spoon River Demos which contains this version of Oscar Hummel.

The performance appears to be a physical attempt to model a boozy gait in the guitar stumble-strumming & slack, meandering string bends to represent that crapulous state of mind. It's also possible I was just dishing out noodles — I'll leave that judgment up to a more discerning taste.

Again, I was working on my Yamaha eight-track minidisc recorder with an ART tube mic pre & probably just a Shure SM58 on the voice & some string-end-jiggling acoustic guitar long-since consigned to oblivion. The electric guitars are most likely Danelectro re-issues plugged in direct through Boss pedals. I faintly hear shakers & maybe even a far-back harmony vocal, but I'm not sure — after I made mixes as references for the 1999 Wavelab recording session in Tucson, I erased the discs so I could reuse them. Your guess is as good as mine. We're in this Present Moment together, so Memory will have to take its rightful place in the back of the braincage with no room for Regret.

This is my slurred read of Oscar Hummel (spoon river demo):