• Home
  • Blog
  • Discography
  • Song History

Patrick John Brayer

~ Fieldnotes from Wrongtario

Patrick John Brayer

Tag Archives: Influences

Aside

Waltzing Kokopelli to the Greek

24 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by patrickjohnbrayer in Profiles

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Influences, Memories, Michael Hedges

Remembering Michael Hedges by Patrick Brayer 2020

There is no present moment in time.  Case closed. The present is much quicker and stealthier than that.  The actual present is just a sword swish.  Try to be too present in that and you might well lose an arm.  Venus de Milo is a classic example.  The past, which is usually the sole barking subject of memoir, is just a string quartet of smoke, knee-deep in the ghosts of iron and ice.  Things die from day one, and then we find, using rationale, that we haven’t a sturdy enough shelf for the resulting mystery.  That in a nutshell is the human condition. I conclude that all great works are based more on mystery than on fact, despite contrary belief. Upon reflection I guess you could see this piece as a 23-year late sequel to my Starseed Eulogy (1997).

PBPh Hedges Martin Bass copy.jpg

(Martin prototype Bass / Speech and Hearing Clinic, Mendocino CA 1997 Photo: Patrick Brayer)

Our mystery here starts on August 10, 1996, the day I got a call from my pal Michael Hedges on my ruby red rotary-dial telephone.  He was inviting me to meet up with him at The Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, and asking if I might escort him later that day to the Greek Amphitheatre.  He was scheduled to open up for Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and suggested that I might pick up some jalapeno chilis at the store on the way, for us to juice with some carrots that he had brought.  I gassed up my crumpled eggshell pale Ford Courier, pushed back some of the springs ‘jack-in-the-boxing’ through the red vinyl upholstery, and climbed us, the jalopy and I, onto the west bound I-10.  It was as a vehicle, Tom Joad worthy, but it had plenty of room for a couple of siamese-twin shaped harp-guitars.  My bumper sticker read loud and clear, “Give Me Ralph Stanley or Give Me Death”.  My friend, photographer Robert Morrow (City of Quartz) once said that he would like to get one of those stickers himself, but that he was afraid, it being Fontana, that someone might take him up on the deal.  Both were wise men.

Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Christopher Lloyd Darrow (1944-2020) Remembrance

17 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by patrickjohnbrayer in Profiles

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Chris Darrow, Influences, Influential, Local Music, Memories, Obituaries and Memorials, Songwriting

63294_451537522763_4414085_n.jpg

(photo: Robert Morrow)

It is with a bound and aching heart that I announce the passing of my dear friend Christopher Lloyd Darrow on January 15, 2020. He stood for me, as he did with many, as a treasured friend, mentor, brother-figure, father-figure, and professorial inspiration as to the inner workings of the artistic lifestyle. He had one of the most original voice stylings I’ve ever witnessed, tone somehow filtered through the jowls. “King of the jowl singers” I like to say. That originality spread over into everything he touched, be it slide guitar, fiddle, photography, or a self-realized philosophy. It was all one thing to him. Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Frizz Fuller: Sitting On the Dock of the Way

06 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by patrickjohnbrayer in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Brayer Writing, Influences, Inland Empire, Inland Empire Hall of Fame, Local Music, Songwriting

Frizz Fuller: Sitting on the Dock of the Way

By Patrick Brayer 1996

Making the pilgrimage from the mattress to the writing typer, I look back briefly to distinguish a fossil in the sheets in the shape of a coiled man. I greet you with wet hair and only the best intentions, like as if I were jazz bassist Sam Jones distracting a listener, with rodeo clown flourishes, from an unbeknownst outside world. I’ve been to Vegas, stayed at a motel where only colorless fighter pilots stay. Its’ not as if they’re boring, or that they keep CD’s exposed in the blistering heat on the dashboard of their industrial looking muscle cars for no good reason. Perhaps it’s just that the U.F.O. creatures have removed the portion to their brain that buys into a great deal of the adult contemporary acoustic shinola. We can only hope.

Frizz Paint orig copy.jpg(photo: Patrick Brayer)

Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Chris Darrow / Under My Own Disguise

18 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by patrickjohnbrayer in Profiles

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Brayer Writing, Chris Darrow, Influences, Influential, Inland Empire, liner notes, Local Music

pbph-darrow-by-brayer.jpg
(photo: Patrick Brayer)

Chris Darrow / Under My Own Disguise / limited edition box set

Everloving Records 2009

In the form of a lavish LP-sized box set from Everloving Records, Chris Darrow / Under My Own Disguise (re-release produced by J.P. Plunier), we have the American re-emergence of two prime and pristine examples of straightforward Vietnam era country rock and folk from the forsaken vaults of United Artists. Part one contains the self-titled Chris Darrow (The Grey Album) from 1973. Part two contains Under My Own Disguise from 1974 (with one additional bonus track). The graffiti inspired box comes with a set of two CDs, two 180 gram vinyl LPs, a forty eight page booklet including within it an array of archival photos by Steve Cahill, and a full sized replica of the Darrow mask used on the cover of the Disguise album. The set lists for $80.00.

Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Brayer Archives Signed Instrument Museum

05 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by patrickjohnbrayer in Instruments, Music

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Influences, Instruments

I’ve always allowed the musical instruments of my life to influence me more than I did actual people. Then at one point I thought to maybe somehow join the two, to adhere the human influence with the tone wood. When they are all put together like this I feel that they tell an extra-dimensional story to and beyond me, which affirms in it’s own biography, of what I have been pointing myself at, and into, as far back as I can even remember, that maybe, just maybe, all this is not a fluke.

When debating with long time friend John York about the subject of what we ourselves are actually doing in the arts, we kept coming back to the same conclusion, that what we do is plain and simple “beauty recognition”. There is no higher job, nor one more transparent to the ego. Just even the story of the history of the luthier’s craft here, and the voice given to a sawn tree, should be enough in itself. But I like layers and layers there are. For me, it’s not just the fact that they represent periods of American history, they are embedded with my own particular time phases, and then, not to mention the songs I’ve written on them, which there contain little head-of-a-pin portraits of threadbare family and foothill friendships, swaying naturally, because no one is watching. All this ending in, or bottoming out, in a sort of mythological lore.

Sometimes I was inspired by the shear humor of it, like getting author Joan Didion to sign my Dan Electro Longhorn bass. Still profound, perhaps diamond witted, but it was worth it just for the devilishly sweet cut-eye look in her eyes.

bradbury-chirango.jpg

Ray Bradbury wrote The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, and The New York Times once heralded him as “the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream.”

Continue reading →

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Online Music Store

https://patrickbrayer.bandcamp.com/music

Pages

  • Brayerian Blog Introduction
  • Patrick Brayer : The Father of Dank Country
  • Short Chronological Trip to the Attribute Farm
  • Patrick Brayer Song History
  • Patrick Brayer Song Adaptation and Sessionography
  • The Secret Hits of Patrick Brayer Discography
  • Brayer Interview: Valley Daily Bulletin Sept. 2008
  • Patrick Brayer Acoustic Guitar Magazine Oct. 2001
  • Patrick Brayer: Video and Music Samples
  • New 2022 CD Available / Cabbage and Kings
  • Brayer Photos: Heroes in My Camp
  • Patrick Brayer Blog: Fieldnotes from Wrongtario

Recent Posts

  • Mike Davis (1946-2022) Fontana’s Own
  • Patrick Brayer: Unhinged and Unmistakable
  • Brayer: Cabbage and Kings / quotes and testimony
  • Patrick Brayer: Cabbage and Kings Lyrics and Commentary
  • Dick Barnes: Creosote Speaks
  • The Starvation Cafe Posters
  • Tim Weed: Calfskin Wonder
  • Saving the Dust for Last / Song analysis January 2021

Categories

  • Home
  • Journal
  • Music
  • Literature
  • Profiles
  • Southern California

Tags

Alison Krauss Autobiographical Brayer Family History Brayer History Brayers Brayer Writing Charlie Williams Childhood Chris Darrow Concert Correspondence Fontana Hardmans Historical Fontana Influences Influential Influential Writer Inland Empire Inland Empire Hall of Fame Instruments John Brayer Kim Fowley liner notes Literature Local Music lyrics Memories Michael Hedges Nutters Obituaries and Memorials published liner notes Secret Hits Song Back Story Song Interpretation Songwriting Starvation Cafe Union Station Writers
Follow Patrick John Brayer on WordPress.com

Discography and Resources

https://patrickbrayer.bandcamp.com https://patrickbrayer.com

Recent Comments

mitchpowell on Mike Davis (1946-2022) Fontana…
Suzi Silver on Letters To Hardy
Deborah on Brayer: Cabbage and Kings / qu…
Pat Cloud on Brayer: Cabbage and Kings / qu…
carlamcgill on Patrick Brayer: Cabbage and Ki…

Recent Posts

  • Mike Davis (1946-2022) Fontana’s Own
  • Patrick Brayer: Unhinged and Unmistakable
  • Brayer: Cabbage and Kings / quotes and testimony
  • Patrick Brayer: Cabbage and Kings Lyrics and Commentary
  • Dick Barnes: Creosote Speaks
  • The Starvation Cafe Posters
  • Tim Weed: Calfskin Wonder
  • Saving the Dust for Last / Song analysis January 2021

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Patrick John Brayer
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Patrick John Brayer
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: