By Bill Croke on 8.14.07 @ 12:08AM
Singing for the joy of it far away from the confines of Big Music.
Be it prose or poetry, the first rule of good writing is to
write of what you know about, and I think that standard might be
applied to songwriting as well. As a lifelong listener to multiple
American musical genres, I'm now appalled by the banality of
contemporary "lyricism," and in the last few years have mostly just
followed the Western regional music scene.
Bluegrass and other acoustic forms thrive in the West (as they
do in the South and Appalachia), as local artists produce their own
CDs and market them on the Internet or out of the trunk of a car
after a show. Outdoor summer festivals are increasingly popular,
and make for lucrative impromptu retail markets.
Large corporate record companies ("Big Music"?) find this trend
-- along with the illegal downloading of music online --
disturbing. It's a plain fact that most musical artists (for
example, like most novelists seeking a book deal) will never have a
contract with a major label. But the production and marketing
landscape has certainly changed. Maybe the best analogy would be
blogging. If the mainstream media doesn't like it, so what, do it
anyway.
A current enthusiasm of mine is "Montana Tunesmith," a brothers
duo from Red Lodge, Montana. It's hard to believe that Tim and Mike
Nordstrom aren't fulltime "professional" musicians, because in the
last few years they've put out two CDs ("Under Yellowstone Skies,"
1999, and "Life is for the Living," 2005), and a third is
forthcoming. Primary tunesmith Tim is a bioterrorism coordinator in
a Billings hospital. Brother Mike is an X-Ray technician at the
hospital in Red Lodge.
The Nordstroms are fifth generation residents of this
picturesque town at the foot of the Beartooth Mountains, and this
fact in itself lends credibility to the substance of their work.
From the song "Comin' Home": "There's room here for our biggest
dreams/ and you should see these mountains, see these streams."
Life in the Northern Rockies comes alive in Montana Tunesmith's
songs, whether they're writing of hunting and fishing ("Dyin' on
Line Creek" and "Castin' for Cutthroats"), Saturday night antics in
a local watering hole ("Montana Bar"), family life ("Little
Aurora"), or weather and life on the land ("Strips of Wheat") --
they know of what they write. This from "First Snow": "Out on the
edge of town cornfields cut down/ The scarecrow's job is over
now."
The world of work is a favorite theme, especially hard,
dangerous work. "Smith Mine" recounts the true story of the Smith
Mine coal mine disaster near Red Lodge in 1943, where 74 men
perished in an explosion and cave-in. The Nordstroms grandfather
was one of the rescuers laboring at the near futile and
heartbreaking task of trying to save friends and relatives. There
were three survivors. "Why does this happen to the best of men?/
The odds are it could happen again."
Tim and Mike Nordstrom are writing about a part of the country
that is undergoing tremendous demographic change. The farms and
ranches of their youth are now being subdivided, as the first great
wave of retiring Baby Boomers is starting to alter the face of a
place that was once both wild and agriculturally settled. In the
end, the Nordstroms' songs have a subliminal sad, nostalgic tinge
to them. One tune following this theme and lamenting the
disappearance of the old homesteads, simply ends: "They're
gone."
I saw Montana Tunesmith's live show in City Park one evening
recently as part of the summertime Cody free concert series, and
their easygoing stage presence was a crowd pleaser. Jokes and
banter are the norm. It was a cool night, and this caused their
acoustic guitars to easily go out of tune after every few songs,
thus leaving much time for chatter. This stage device comes from
bluegrass music, as banjo players must spend an inordinate amount
of time tuning up during a show. For instance, Bill Monroe and his
Bluegrass Boys would turn an evening at the Grand Ol' Opry into a
combination of great music and vaudeville comedy.
The evening was a success. Tim and Mike closed with one of their
original tunes that seemed to sum up their enterprise: "In Pursuit
of Happiness." Afterwards, they visited with concert-goers and sold
a few of their CDs.
They seemed to be having a good time, as if that was how it
should be.
topics:
Mainstream Media, NATO
