I contemplate these very liner passages aboard a boeing 737 a few miles above bowling green en route to a slightly used new york. From a vision cocked view I sway between an anxiety and an ecstasy that only god is supposed to see, chiseled dolly madison clouds, fractal geodesic farmlands, and nothing short of being shot over an enlarged pan of brownies, lit with powdered sugar. I wheeled into a dream state reading about the rehearsal methods of the late hermetic piano genius glenn gould. he would, it is said, drive into the woods, park his studebaker and close his eyes. he would then search for a state of competing with the forest for stillness, only imagining himself playing and opening himself to the feeling and smell of ivory as more essential than real, as he wove through some hypnotic bach partita. I was awoken from my dream by avelvet topped housewife with yellow beads seriously asking me if I was songwriter steve goodman. "no, why, do I look dead"! I laughed out loud because I actually looked at her breast expecting to see the mandolin that I had just seen in my sleep.
the dream that i was jarred from i will now regard as a prophetic vision addressing the birth of the present contribution of darol anger, mike marshall, todd phillips, david grier and tony trischka. a contribution of a samsonlike tonal pivot that, if listened to correctly, will usher us and the thought of stringed instruments, with the faces of trees, vaulting into the twenty-first century.
the dreamscape sceniario consisted of bill monroe performing at johnny depp's 'viper room' in hollywood. he wore a cotton hospital gown and played a pink flamed mandolin intently hopped up on morphine. the backing ensemble was john coltrane's hottest immortal band, lit up kind of a shade of strip mall blue. the interpretation of the vision poses several questions on a gray truck route in fontana california. why is it in this big and splendid world, bubbling with evident genius, that nobody would dream of teaming bill monroe "the father of bluegrass music" with john coltrane " the holy ghost of black classical music". how these two could have never met is the prophetic part of the story. the tone quenching and hope laden reality that springs beyond the death of coltrane ( and steve goodman, for that matter) is that the psychograss men have, from the most unlikely backgrounds, succeeded in doing just that. they have i believe, on many levels, willed the impossible into being, and that's what catches my attention. and I say that because it does seriously remind us of the long and myriadly forgotten original intent and power of music, peering from its original golden cradle, much closer to heaven than... even my flight attendant.
Music can & does give the soul of the past a firefly like quality, but the dedication required to move in this substrata tells me that these unassuming musicians are in fact in disguise. the final clincher was that when i finally recieved the test pressing of the CD you so respectfully clutch in all its glassy glory, is that it was the very first music from the frequent flyer dreamscape. for a first listen I might recommend you to put a copy of carl jung's dream interpretations along with some aboriginal mythological texts into a blender and spread it in paste form all over the body and lay on an indian blanket in the dark holding two of jimmy martin's old beer cans in your hands. if my past experience with music therapy serves me correctly the music should then deeply arouse the mind without it resting on anything.
P.S. the folks at sugar hill are to be in no way held responsible for what happens to us next.
-Patrick Brayer