I’m out of coffee so I’m drinking hot chocolate with breakfast instead. I love the hot chocolate, but it does not have the caffeine kick. I fell asleep before I could write. Then in the middle of the afternoon I started writing. I got a little way in when Kathy told me that there was an issue with my Mixcloud. It doesn’t give a track listing. I could see them when I looked. So, we Zoomed to see if I can figure out what was going on. I couldn’t but I told her that I’d be giving the track listing here in Wise Madness. The problem is that we had so much fun talking that I didn’t have time to do it because I then went to watch the Chicks With Dip New Year’s Eve show. There is not much that’s more of a home game for me than the Chicks with Dip. I’m going to do something dangerous and see if I can remember all the Chicks that participated, Sharon Goldman, Meg Braun, Aimee van Dyne, Karyn Oliver, Allison Scola, Elisa Peimer, and Carolann Solebello. Who knows how I remembered them all? If you watched the video you might recognize that as the order they appeared on the screen top row then bottom. That’s how my memory works, geographically and visually. That is easier in two dimensions on a TV show than it is when I’m at a live show and have to mentally scan the room.
Yesterday the Gord’s Gold Albums of 2020 show was aired yesterday on Folk Music Notebook. Notice I just said Albums not Top Albums, that’s because it would be presumptuous to think my picks are subjective opinion. We all know that my opinions are absolute truths, but we’ll make believe I’m modest and can’t say that. The shows were at noon, 6PM, and midnight EST. That means the last show was today, not yesterday. Notice I always say noon and midnight not 12 AM and 12 PM. Know why? It’s the only correct way of saying it. AM means before noon, PM means after noon. How can noon be before or after noon? It is noon. You might say let’s not be pedantic and just use common sense. By common sense we’d go from 10 AM to 11 AM to 12 AM, right? The problem with that is if noon is 12 AM a minute later it’s 12:01 PM. It is after noon after all. So, we avoid all that by saying 12 noon and 12 midnight. Just get used to it. What was I talking about? Oh right, Gord’s Gold. My eyes were glowing during that explanation.
Now we come to what you paid your money to see. You did pay money right? I’m not doing this for free am I? Stop it, you already did the going of on a tangent bit. You shouldn’t do it twice in one entry. Who says? It’s my blog and I’ll go off on a tangent if I want to. Fine, nobody is reading this anyway. You lost them in the horology lecture.
No more joking, here is my list of Top albums of the year. This is in the all-important order I played them in based on what I thought would flow nicely.
Flyover Country – Susan Werner: Pro tip, if Susan has a new album you can’t go wrong putting it on your top album list. Now you too can be a world-famous music blogger and DJ. I think of this as her follow-up to Hayseed, going back to her Iowa roots. You know what to expect from Susan, the lovechild of Woody Guthrie and Cole Porter. Heartfelt lyrics that are as clever as the rhymes. She plays piano, guitar, and sings better than either of them. She’s also cuter, I’ve proposed to her. Yes she’s gay, and yes she’s attached, but I don’t let little things stop me.
I’m pressed for time and I can’t cheat and just post my script from the radio as I didn’t use a script on the radio. I’m now discovering the downside. I have to do the writing now. Wait, no I don’t. I’m going to let you listen to the entire show so all I have to do here is give the list of albums and the songs I played from each.
The Moon is an Ashtray – Miss Tess
The Information Age (Part 1) – John Elliott
Nonet – The Mammals
Unscripted – Mari Black & Cory Pesaturo
Eve – Sarah Jarosz
Cowboy – The Ladles
Open Country – Fred Smith
10,000 Miles – Bonny Light Horseman
That’s the 9 albums that are in a 9-way tie for second. My Top Album of the year was Luxumbra – South for Winter. I knew from the first time I heard it that it would be on my list. Why? It’s not an intellectual process. Some music just pops and takes over my brain. It has echoes of Barnaby Bright and Renaissance, two of my favorite bands. It has murder ballads. Its title is Latin. I’m not going to translate it I’ll just tell you to think of Fiat Lux and Umbrella.
Let’s do a gender breakdown of the artists. I never think about this when choosing what to play but I always double check to make sure I’m not being biased. Katherine Etzel did a gender breakdown of artists at Folk Festivals and it was strikingly biased towards men. Let’s see if I do better.
Women 9 – Men 15. I can see you don’t understand that you look at the names and it looks pretty even. That’s because I counted everyone that’s given credit and 8 of the 9 members of the Mammals are men. If I didn’t count the 7 members that aren’t Mike + Ruthy it would be Women 9 – Men 8. That’s how we most often think about it. The preponderance of men over women as side players is huge. This is self-perpetuating. As women don’t see women as side players fewer enter the field. I urge my musician friends to go out of your way to look for skilled women musicians to play with you. You don’t have to sacrifice quality, but it will take an effort on your part to find the women you need. If I only counted lead vocalists, the score would be Women 8 – Men 5. So much comes down to the way you count. None is right or wrong. They all have meaning.
In additions to the Top albums, I named to more tops.
Top EP – Stomping on Eggshells – The Chicks with Dip
Top Song – $20 Bill (For George Floyd) – Tom Prasado-Rao
Here’s the complete setlist including the songs played from the show.
# Song – Artist – Album
1 Snake Oil – Susan Werner – Flyover Country
2 Take it Easy – Miss Tess – The Moon is an Ashtray
3 Sanctuary – John Elliott – The Information Age (Part 1)
4 If You Could Hear Me Now – The Mammals – Nonet
5 Benny was a Good Man – Mari Black & Cory Pesaturo – Unscripted
6 Eve – Sarah Jarosz – World on the Ground
7 Cowboy – The Ladles – The Line
8 Open Country – Fred Smith – Domestic
9 10,000 Miles – Bonny Light Horseman – Bonny Light Horseman
10 Black Widow in White Lace – South for Winter – Luxumbra
11 Girls Like Me – Chicks With Dip – Stomping on Eggs
12 $20 Bill (For George Floyd) – Tom Prasada-Rao
Now you can listen to the entire show on Mixcloud. The problem that Kathy pointed out to me was that you can’t see the play list on the site. I did some investigating and found that it’s because I have the free membership. I can’t afford to have a pro membership, but there is a way I might be able to. I just discovered this now. If I get a pro and become a select creator people can subscribe to my channel. The artists I play with get 60% of the money, that’s way better than they do on the streaming services. I get 18%, the rest goes to Mixcloud and fees for the rights companies. You can subscribe for $3.00 a month or more if you like. If you subscribe you get to see my play list right on the site. You don’t get any ads. And you can download the show to the Mixcloud App and listen as if it were a podcast. If I get $83.34 of subscriptions that will pay for my going pro. I get a month free so I’m going to try this out. This is my version of a Patreon except I will be happy if it just covers the costs, not that I wouldn’t love to make more. If I got a million subscribers I’d be set. I don’t see that happening. Maybe Steve Wozniak with subscribe he’s a folk music fan. If he subscribed for $50,000/month I could live off that. If you know the Woz, we’re going to be close so I can call him that, send him the link. You can all still listen for free. I might come up with premia for subscribers. I’m doing this all on the fly now. I did it. It’s set up. Wish me luck. Even more important, just listen. This is music you need to know.
Wise Madness 