Let inspiration flow.
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
© 2021 Thoughts On The Dead
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
© 2021 Thoughts On The Dead
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
Honestly, if I could have ANY job in the world, I would have wanted Hunter’s. BEST GIG EVAR!!!!
But, good goddamn, was he so, so, so, SO, SO, SO very good at it.
Hi ho the carrion crow . . .
When I was homeless in San Francisco, I heard that he was playing over at the American Music Hall, or rather, he was just going to read his poetry with someone who I hadn’t heard of playing piano. (Ray Manzarek accompanied the opening poet). I have very little recollection of the actual show. As I was trying to sell a wire wrapped crystal after the show, who should come wandering out but the guy who we were all there to see. He was at a chunky point in ’92 and he wandered up to me and the young couple who were selling bead work necklaces that were, objectively, MUCH, nicer than the things I was making at the time. He pulls out a one hundred dollar bill and asks what we’re going to do with it. So the young couple talked about there dream of buying a school bus to live in, and when it was my turn I said that I was just going to keep on going, and that I would give them the bill if it were me.
AND???
he gave it to them, whata you think?
he wasn’t falling for my reverse psychology bullshit.
Farewell, Hunter. Listening to 11/30/73 at Boston Music Hall (the Wang, now – Imagine the Wall of Sound inside the Wang!) and remembering goosebumps when I got to see Hunter next door at a quarter-full Wilbur in 2013. As far as I can tell the man was never much of a performer and hadn’t steadied with age, but whatever: A rare moment to hear “Ripple” sung by the man who wrote those words.
For a lot of us, Hunter’s mastery of the vaguely biblical and Shakespearean, timeless and placeless, weepy American ballad is the prime reason we know anything about Jerry, Lindley Meadow, Veneta, toppermosts, or any of the rest of it.