Drag the river

Been a musically fruitful time again. This past weekend was one of getting into "playing shape" again; my voice and my hands seem to be back to the level of quality playing they were at a few years ago. Am hoping to make further inroads this upcoming weekend. I'm sure the inspiration will be there after seeing this man.

Speaking of inspiration... Went to a show last Thursday, which was important for a few reasons. First, I haven't been to a show in a while. Second, it was a band I'd never heard of before (which makes it even more interesting). Third, and most important, it was the opening act who really struck me. He goes by the moniker "The Tallest Man On Earth"; he's a Swedish singer/songwriter who was a cross (to me) between Dylan and Lloyd Cole and an amazing acoustic guitarist. I bought his CD, Shallow Grave, before we left the theatre--one of the best albums I've heard in a long time. A voice, a guitar and great lyrical power--absolutely pure. The headlining band, Bon Iver, didn't do it for me. The songs were dirgy and sprawling; the singing was too close to sounding like Chris Martin from Coldplay (a band I really do not like) and the vocals were slurred, harkening back to the early days of R.E.M. Not my kind of thing at all.

The whole spirit of acoustic playing has led me to do an about-face once again to use the 12-string as the foundation to the songs I'm now working on for Last Stop... It's the mainstay of the "Rob Ross sound", so to speak--why deny or try to get away from something so natural?