A remembrance, and Mind Weeding

A few months ago I heard that Susumu Yokota had passed away. He was a wonderful producer, a lovely man, and I feel glad to have known him even a little. I send my condolences to his friends and family. He commissioned me to write many lyrics for his albums after we met at a gig at Dingwall's where both he and the band I was in at that time, Rothko, were playing. I also recorded vocals for several songs and various LPs, sometimes being told they were only needed as guide vocals for other singers, but later finding them on released versions, (note to self: never record 'guide vocals' with a bad cold). Today, after many months of putting it off, I am working through my lyrics for Yokota, Rothko, Tells, Delicate AWOL, Vaughan, Ripley, Mountain Men Anonymous and other various projects, and am posting the ones I still like on my other blog Mind Weeding which serves as a place for my writing which is not related to Great River, as if anything in one's life can be said to be separate from anything else...
     As anyone who knows me understands, I tend not to dwell on the past, but perhaps there has been an element of avoidance in this, so I am also listening back to all the music I was involved in, starting with Yokota and Rothko and trying to scout out backing vocals I did with Scatter, The Great Depression and others. Memory is failing me... I discovered our Wikipedia entry three days ago... lots of inaccuracies, but it will take a week or two to put things right. This re-engagement with writing, playing, singing, and re-membering is going to take a while and be an ongoing project. In the mean time if you like atmospheric music full of heart, then check out anything by Mark Beazley's Rothko: all the band's incarnations are great including the current one. Yokota's music is also full of life, great beats, and sometimes unlikely layers of sound.

I have also written a piece for the new Dark Mountain anthology, number 8, which will be out next month. It's a short piece about non-doing, in relation to T'ai Chi and life in general. I will soon post some of the bits I wrote that were not used in the article on the other blog too.