Archive
Another new song….So Yea So What
Another new one. So Yea So What
features the soon to be immortal lyric..
came home to a note on the wall / and a Romney sticker in the hall
full lyrics are here
Love and Streets – sneak peak at the new record..
First taste of the new record. “Love and Streets”.
Lyrics are here
New solo record…..coming
Can’t wait to get deep into this. I got a batch of songs….and the Home Office is ready.
It he’d only kept playing
It’s early. Well it’s early for me. Barely midnight. All I’ve got for company as I write this is Mark Knopfler’s new double CD called Privateering….which seems plenty. My internet has been up and down (mostly down) for the last 3 days. Even since the guy came out to “fix” our phone and ended up breaking just about everything else that goes along with it. A new guy showed up today and installed a new modem, which worked perfectly until his truck pulled away. Then it started to re-set itself every 10 minutes, just like the modem he replaced had been doing. I had to call a third time, and now the company is gonna send another electronic genius out to the house on Tuesday, to kick the tires or something. All of these guys are nice, respectful, and work hard. The issue is most of the time they have no fucking clue with the problem is, so they grab whatever band aids they have in the truck and slap ‘em on. Then they bolt and hope that when I call back it’s not them that has to come visit again and put up with my withering stares. By the way, when I called to schedule visit number three, not 2 hours after visit 2 had ended, I had to remind the person on the phone that our original issue, our phone sometimes dropping out for 5 or 10 seconds, has now morphed into us not being able to use the phone at all. So not only have they not fixed what appeared to be a minor problem, they’ve managed to make it about 50 times worse. And people wonder why when I hear the word “corporation” I sneer and start spewing profanities. I swear things would be better if I lived in a tree and learned to play the flute.
Recently I was at a gathering where I was the only person not wearing tie dye, the only person not dancing in front of the band like Grace Slick on acid, and the only person not baked on the kind of weed that can make eyeballs switch sides. In short, if it wasn’t so dark I’d have been taken as a narc for sure. But I still felt like it would be a nice place to escape to. Living up in the mountains dressed like Ritchie Havens singing “Freedom” to all the Garcia disciples…keeping the world at bay with spliffs, a sleeping bag in the backseat, and a guitar in the trunk. You think these people give a fuck about Paul Ryan? They’re more concerned with Che Guevara, who even though he’s been dead for 45 years is still more intelligent than a neo-fascist like Paul Ryan, with his Ipod filled with Rage Against the Machine tunes…which is the equivalent of Deadheads sitting around a campfire swapping songs with Ted Nugent. Perhaps a good “Friend of the Devil”/”Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” medley would ease the chasm, that is unless Ted was armed and decided the spray the place first with automatic weapon fire. To be uber patriotic.
Stream of conscious stuff perhaps. I’m not happy with the way things are going, and my non-stop battles with the cable company is just like somebody with a black sharpie filling the margins of my favorite book up with mindless graffiti. Another pain in the ass that seems bigger than it is ‘cause it reminds me that most of the friends I thought I had now treat me much the same as the cable company does.
The people I thought I could trust I can’t trust anymore, for a variety of reasons. I suspect I’ve burned some bridges, and even incinerated others, but my patience, something I usually hide well, is pretty much vacant. I’ve reached out and helped lots of folks when I could. Lately I’m the one who has needed a few hands to help me off the deck, and the airwaves have gone silent. This is when I get real shortsighted and start wiring the roads.
I want music to save me. I still think it can, but my chances are being picked off like pigeons in Hegins.
I made what I still think is a great rock and roll record. It has gone exactly nowhere. A few glowing reviews, a few initial sales…that’s been that. I can’t get the band booked because we haven’t done any shows. Oh we’ve tried. Our first gig was canceled when the guy walked out of his club with the key and never came back. Our second gig was a whopper, a TV show in HD quality. An hour set of all original material that was canceled a week before it was scheduled, forcing me to deliver the bad news to the band and to all the folks I’d badgered into coming. There’s some great PR there for a band willing to sell its soul for 10 minutes of “My Generation” just to show these “established bands” that we’ll destroy them on a level playing field. We’re like the horse that gets crammed into the starting gate……and when it opens takes 5 steps and snaps its leg. And all the while I’m thinking to myself (and others are saying)….”I’m/You’re too old for this shit.”
I’ve had 2 people visit just about every live music venue in the area…armed with pretty incredible reviews of the record…..and the record itself. And offers of discounted gigs. Acoustic gigs if you don’t have the room. A set list to die for. (Who, Kinks, Clash…some ravers that’ll make your ass levitate. This is not kid stuff. This band is the real deal.) Number of call backs? None. Meanwhile, in trolling bars checking out our competition, I’ve heard enough ghastly music to last the lives of my new cat. After a while all I can do is try not to intentionally drive into a brick wall on my way home.
I don’t feel too old. I only feel old when I’m not holding a guitar….because the guitar is the real fountain of youth. Search your whole life looking for it in foreign lands. Go ahead, wash yourself in every stream you can find. You may be squeaky clean but still infested with gray and bent over from arthritis. You’re gonna feel stupid when you find out you can buy this fountain of youth at a Wal-Mart for $125, and this includes the little amplifier to announce your regression to your neighbors. I would suggest a place like Wades World or Guitar Center, but I know most of you don’t get out on the fringes all that much.
This guy or that guy. There’s been so many “this guy or that guys”. All want something. All have grandiose plans. Some follow up, take from me what they need to get started, and I never hear from them again. Others will say, “I’ve got a great idea. We’ll do this, that, and the other thing”. And I’ll say, “sure man….I’m great at this that and the other thing. But I’m tired of driving the fucking bus while everybody else gets to drink the beer and fondle the groupies. So you call me when you’re really serious, which I suspect you rarely are.”
Geez. How many of those calls am I still waiting on? Maybe I offend them with my honesty. I’ll lie about tons of things but music ain’t one of ‘em
So what do you got at the end of the day when the support around you has crumbled? What do you got when you can’t even trust the guys you have to trust anymore. This all seemed like such a good idea at the time. But more and more when I get close to it I feel like I’m trying to push 2 magnets together.
From what I can see we’ve got one more chance. And even if we tear the house down, what will we get out of it? It’s a biz filled with territorial tightasses. There is no “community”. Anybody tells you otherwise is a liar. They have what you want. We want what they have. A calendar is a finite thing. To get on it you need to be certified cool first. Being perennially pissed off and armed with a photographic memory for slights won’t get you to the cool kids table.
I’m writing songs again. I’m going to record them in my basement with just my guitar. I’m going to make the best record I’ve ever made in my life. I want a legacy. I don’t want my songs in drawers. I’m going to tell stories. I’m going to be characters. I’m going down swinging. I don’t care if anybody listens or not. I’m doing this one for me. And then I’ll decide what comes next. I’m pissed off so I intend the songs to be as well. Pissed off songs work for me. When the blues get a grip on me….I see red. The “black dog” Churchill called it. Lincoln referred to these dark places as “the tired spot”. When it hits it doesn’t bludgeon. It’s more like being waterboarded. If you think you know what it’s like to be in this place, then you don’t know what it’s like.
Writing is therapy, of course. I can’t write the blues out of my system, but I can control them within a song…..if the song reaches the height its supposed to. Nick Drake was a miserable little English twit who rarely left his bedroom in his parent’s house. But when he wrote and played and sang on his “Pink Moon” record…..for a little less than a half hour he managed to escape the hellhound on his trail. This was white blues music every bit as powerful as what Robert Johnson had put down. I can’t help thinking that Drake was incandescently happy until the last notes of “From the Morning” drifted away. Then he went back into his room…..self medicated…..and went to sleep and never woke up again. If he’d only kept playing.
You can’t stop. ‘ Cause that’s what they want you to do. One of Drake’s last songs was “Black-Eyed Dog”…..an almost impossibly creepy song about “growing old” and “wanting to go home”. A song about dying. He captured the moment when he gave up and decided to frame it in 3 and a half minutes of raz0r sharp fingerpicking and a voice above it all fighting not to shatter like a glass on the bar. If there’s a scarier song in the english language I’ve never heard it. Robert Johnson was running from the devils…..women/drink. Drake was entirely alone. He fought himself. And lost.
I don’t want to stop. I don’t care…..but I still don’t want to stop.
Who can you trust? Who is there for you? Who’s got your back?
Anyone?
In a bit..
–tf
Feature article about the band in the Citizen’s Voice
Here’s the original article online…
Storyteller finds musical outlet
These days the Archbald resident is putting his tales to music, backed by three other performers. The group, called Tom Flannery and the Shillelaghs, recently released its first studio recording, “Teen Angst and Green Flannel.”
Inspired by musical greats Pete Townshend and Woody Guthrie, Flannery has been toying with songwriting since the ’80s, but it took a while before he was willing to share the tunes.
“The first time I noticed that what I was writing wasn’t terrible was the mid ’90s, and it took three years after that until the songs were good enough to let other people hear them. That was ‘Song About a Train’ in 1998, a record that I’m still very proud of,” Flannery said.
Though the creative process is different for everyone, for Flannery the lyrics always come first. He has an assortment of notebooks full of ideas, sometimes potential song titles, sometimes a verse or a chorus. For the most part though, he likes to let the full story pour out.
“Mostly I’ll sit down and try to write a complete lyric. From there I’ll either grab my guitar or sit at the piano and try to find a melody that fits. I may tweak the lyrics some, but for the most part the melody is created to fit the lyrics,” Flannery said. “But when the songs come, they come fast. Sometimes they don’t come, but when they do, I find that most of my records are written in short bursts of time, in a frenzy almost.”
Once the songs and lyrics are down, Flannery adds the band to the frenzy.
The Shillelaghs – Joseph “Wiggy” Wegleski (guitars and ukulele), Lenny Mecca (bass and background vocals) and Chris Condel (drums) – supplement Flannery’s lead vocals, guitar, and harmonica. After working as a solo artist for so long, Flannery is first to admit the band provides him with some necessary restraint.
“The songs are still mine, but I’ve got to discipline myself. It’s not just me and the guitar anymore, so I can’t veer off on tangents like I’m used to, four bars here instead of two, sing the chorus twice instead of once,” Flannery said. “I’ve got to remember there are three guys behind me expecting certain things in a certain way, and they’re all holding things they can and will throw at me. They’re all quite violent and don’t like surprises.”
All kidding aside, Flannery said he is thrilled to be part of the gang.
“I’d made all acoustic records for 10 years, not because the songs weren’t suited to a band, but because I couldn’t afford a band. So I’d write rock and roll songs and just adapt them to myself,” he said.
When Flannery could no longer control his impulse to “make loud noises,” he saved his pennies and called Wegleski. Wiggy agreed to the gig, and said he had two other musicians in mind.
“I had no idea they were Chris Condel and Lenny Mecca, probably the best rhythm section in the area,” Flannery said. “It was all sorts of surreal. I went from sitting in my basement writing 16 verse ballads about coal mining disasters to being stared at by the best pick-up band around with looks that said ‘You better show us something folk-boy.'”
The first thing Flannery showed them was “If Only I Knew,” the opening song on the band’s debut recording, “Teen Angst and Green Flannel.”
“It opens the record. It sets the table,” Flannery said. “It’s the first song I wrote for the record, and the first song we recorded. We did two takes. Done. I hadn’t even met the band yet. Chris was banging away and I didn’t even know his name. He scared me. I had no idea what I was doing. I played that riff so hard my finger started to bleed.”
The rest of the songs on the CD, including “I Don’t Want to Go Home Anymore,” and “Now She’s Gone” rock just as hard, and string together to tell the story of lost teen Jimmy, who is on the outside looking in.
“I used to be a teen, and now I’m the father of a teen. I could spend the next 20 years writing about teenagers. They fascinate me,” Flannery said.
The band’s upcoming gigs include a live recording session at WVIA in Pittston on Sept. 6 and a show at the V-Spot on Providence Road in Scranton on Sept. 29. Both shows are open to the public. CDs and downloads are available for purchase through the band’s website, http://www.theshillelaghs.com.
“My goal is not to have any copies left in my basement a year from now,” Flannery said. “And for it to replace Huckleberry Finn in schools.”
punch-drunk from too much bible…chicken and religion
So the chick-fil-a guy doesn’t like gays. He supports multiple organizations that don’t like gays. He gives his money to organizations who don’t like gays. Most Americans mind their own business and if a guy falls in love with a guy or a girl falls in love with a girl, well…good for them. We hope it works out for you.
This guy is punch-drunk from too much bible. He makes news because he’s rich. His 15 minutes will be up soon, thanfully. I wish we weren’t so fixated on rich people. Most are very unpleasant little cretins.
It’s not against the law to be an unpleasant cretin. It’s his restaurant. He can do whatever he wants. If you think he’s some sort of free speech martyr then go eat some of his fucking chicken and try not to choke on the little bones. That’s your right too. If you think he’s just a bigoted asshole and don’t like the idea of your money going to some shadowy hate organizations, then don’t go to his restaurant.
If you feel so strongly about his stand that you actually want to encourage people to eat at chick-fil-a, that’s your right. Have fun trolling for homophobes. If you are appalled by all this, it’s perfectly within your right to move in the other direction and organize a boycott. Or try to.
In America we’ve got rights. You can’t chip away at the first amendment. If you do, it’s only a matter of time before it crumbles. Once you start down a slope, it’s already slippery. You can’t legislate hate, mostly because what most people consider “hateful” others call “religion”. And so it goes. We’re free to practice any religion we choose….or none at all. A lot of religions use hate as a way to keep the masses in control…and to keep them dropping silver in the collection tray. Organized religions spend so much time damning others to hell you wonder when they’ll find the time to ensure their own spot in heaven.
For me it comes down to this. Mind your own business. If in practicing your religion you hurt others, find another fucking religion to practice. Or better yet, start dropping silver into baskets of actual poor people. I never knew Jesus was so perpetually in need of funds.
In a bit..
–tf
Video for “If I Only Knew” from “Teen Angst and the Green Flannel”
Our first video. Directed by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Bruce David Janu. Filmed in Chicago over a few days this month. Our teen is Tony Fragale. And pay attention to when Annette calls. Check out that number. Dial it up. You’ll be glad you did.
We are today’s featured band on Strummerville – The Joe Strummer foundation for new music
Strummerville is a registered charity that gives support to aspiring musicians and help to projects that help change the world through music.
Set up by the friends and family of Joe Strummer in the year after his death, the charity seeks to reflect Joe’s unique contribution to the music world by offering support, resources and performance opportunities to artists who would not normally have access to them.
Visit our page over at Strummerville. We’ve posted our track “Maybe It’s True”. This is a huge honor for us. Joe Strummer is one of the main reasons I do what I do.
In a bit..
–tf
Tales from the Clubhouse – vol XI (new blog post is up)
The Death of Joe Strummer (wanted to hear this one again)
The Death of Joe Strummer
(Tom Flannery)
from 2004’s release “Auctioneer“
What happens when the heart is too big for the chest
and it just can’t keep up with all the rest
what happens when it takes you on
and wears you down until you’re gone
what do we take from that Joe?
what do we take from that Joe?
now that you’re gone
I got these sounds in my head
they make no sense so we’re stuck instead
with recycled trash and computer chips
rock and roll for food and tips
what do we take from that Joe?
what do we take from that Joe?
now that you’re gone
You were Woody Guthrie with a mowhawk
and a scratching loud guitar
a ravaged voice from screaming
telling us where we are
now you’re knocking at the backstage door
trying to get in
panhandling on the boardwalk
wondering what might have been
It still don’t feel right that you’re gone
without the blaze of glory of a deathbed song
so used to watching ’em waste away
eaten to the bone by a brand new day
what do we take from that Joe?
what do we take from that Joe?
now that you’re gone
Tom Flannery and the Shillelaghs
A Good Night Was Had For Days
Available Now
10 new songs
Tom Flannery and Bret Alexander
Available Now
10 new songs
Tom Flannery and the Shillelaghs
Available Now
11 new songs
Tom Flannery and Bret Alexander
Available Now
11 new songs
Tom Flannery and Bret Alexander
Available
Now
Some of the best storytelling and wit
this side of John Prine and Loudon Wainwright.....
more great work from a prolific talent
–Mike Naydock / OurTownRadio
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Now!!
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