The Hitchhiker

The hitchhiker looked like he might be the Vice-President of a bank. Conservative navy suit and tie with a white shirt. Late-fifties. Sixty pounds to the heavy side. Close-cropped gray hair. Nice shoes. Thumb out.

"Where you headed"

"Downtown?"

"I'm going to Pike and Boren"

"I'm going a block from there."

"Great. You can navigate me."

There was a boy with x--ray eyes
and people would say he could see through anything he likes.
He could see through stone he could see though skies.
He could see through himself so he couldn't tell a lie, so he couldn't tell a lie ...
You know somethin's comin' for you and it's comin' fast.

He settled in and buckled up as I pulled off of 205th onto I-5. The Whore Moans' Boy With X-ray Eyes played on the car stereo through my iPod. The window was down.

"Mind if I finish my cigarette?"

"Not at all. It's your car. My wife moved out and took both of ours. You'd think she could have left me one."

"I can relate. My wife and I separated last November."

"Hmmm. Sorry. This is round four for me."

"Ouch."

Shoreline and Edmonds has these huge 200-400 unit apartment complexes where every other person is recently divorced. You don't have to ask. You can smell it on them. They're like divorcee refugee camps. I'd just left mine and, apparently, passed his.

The extended opening feedback whine from Anthrax came through the speakers.

"Well, this is perfect then. What we're listening to? It's my divorce CD. It's called Thanksgiving. I made it for friends awhile ago and for some reason decided to put it on for the ride in. It's been months since I've played it. It's all songs I listened to over and over during the first few months. That was my selection criteria. It had to be music I'd put on repeat play. My therapist loved it. He'd never seen anyone make a CD as a coping strategy."

He laughed. "Who's this?"

"Gang of Four. They were a post-punk band from the early eighties. Very influential."

He grinned sheepishly. "I stopped paying attention in around '73 with Uriah Heep and Led Zeppelin."

"Well, you've got a lot of catching up to do, and we've got a good ride. We'll just turn it up and enjoy."

Woke up this morning desperation a.m.
What I've been saying won't say them again
My head's not empty, it's full with my brain
The thoughts I'm thinking
Like piss down a drain
And I feel like a beetle on its back
And there's no way for me to get up
Love'll get you like a case of anthrax
And that's something I don't want to catch
Ought to control what I do to my mind
Nothing in there but sunshades for the blind
Only yesterday I said to myself
The things I'm doing are not good
For my health.

He listened intently. "My son plays drums in a punk band. He's thirty and has tattoos all over."

"Sounds like he's got a fun life."

My new friend looked happy and far away. "Yeah. He does."

A moment passed. "I have twin five year olds."

"Boys? Girls?"

"Girls"

"Where are they?"

"We share."

"That's good."

He went silent as Elvis Costello sang Poor Napoleon. I can't lie on this bed anymore. It burns my skin. You can take the truthful things you said to me and put them on the head of a pin. I sang along softly like I have a hundred times. The evenly rising notes and Elvis' throaty voice make it irresistible.

"The lawyers are killing me."

"Tell me about it. My wife's on her second and goin' for broke. I'm broke, anyway. And you want to hear the punchline?"

He looked at me expectantly.

"She's a Quaker!"

My new friend stomped his feet, slapped the dash, and laughed himself pink. Pretty fuckin' funny, I guess.

The traffic slowed. I rolled my window back down and lit another cigarette, steering for a moment with my elbows.

Lucinda Williams sang.

I know what I think I saw
And what I thought I’d seen
And what was coming and what was going
And everything in between

And what I thought I heard you say
And what you really said
And what I thought you thought I thought
Was actually in your head

And what you meant to tell me
And what I meant to say
And what I said you said I said
And what went the other way

I know what you did to me
And I know what we did
And who did what to who and who
The hell were you trying to kid.

"I'm not really working today. Just going in for like half an hour. Stopping by to see the goats at Boren and Pike. I'm the Director of Real Change."

His eyes widened slightly and he put his hand out to shake. "It's a good thing you do. I just bought my first one last week."

"Well, you should read it. It's a great fuckin' paper."

"I will."

"My picture's on page two."

We took the Stewart Street exit and the left on Boren. I drove up the hill.

"I can get off up at the next light."

He got out at Pine. The opening riffs of Maggotbrain played. "Play it like your momma just died," Bootsy Collins said. He did. Electrified liquid anguish. Blues like blues had never been played.

I stopped. We shook hands again. "Get in touch sometime if you like. The main email in the paper is mine" He smiled warmly. "I will."

The light went green and I took the right onto Pike and parked in a no parking area. The engine ran while I watched the goats graze. I turned up the volume. David Thomas Broughton's otherworldly voice enveloped me in warm sound.

Put your finger, to your other finger.
While you're not a hundred-percent, you'll be feeling yourself again.

Divorce CD Playlist:
1. Glory Be, R.L. Burnside
2. X-ray Eyes, The Whore Moans
3. Anthrax [remastered], Gang of Four
4. Methamphetamine Blues, Mark Lanagan
5. Poor Napoleon, Elvis Costello/Bill Frisell
6. Explosions Were Heard, Kinetic Stereokids
7. Wrap My Head Around That, Lucinda Williams
8. Over and Out, The Narrows
9. Maggotbrain [remastered], Funkadelic
10. So Much Sin to Forgive, David Thomas Broughton
11. Lucy’s Ride, Wooden Shjips
12.) Acid Blues, Tim Harris

David Thomas Broughton Is In My Head.

Every few years or so, an artist so completely takes over my imagination that I can't stop the obsession. I'll listen nonstop, putting some tracks on repeat seven or eight times. So it is with Leeds artist David Thomas Broughton's It's In their Somewhere. Broughton uses loops and a drum machine along with whatever else he likes — this record, for example, elevates the duck call to a classical instrument — to create layered circles of meditative sound over darkly poetic lyrics, all offered in a strangely raw warble that, again, has taken up residence in my head.

The clip above from Madrid in 2007 begins with Broughton adding vocal loops to the hypnotically gorgeous One Day while he bangs off-tempo percussion off the mike stand with his finger. Then he rocks back and forth like an autistic child for a while and loops into So Much Sin by rapping his knuckles on his guitar. This is the place where madness, genius, and art meet.

Broughton's MySpace page offers another dirge-like live version of So Much Sin To Forgive, recorded in London's Holy Trinity Church with 7 Hertz (The second version. The first is even slower and plays over some sort of found sound sample.) that is typically haunting, but the recording on It's In There Somewhere is breathtakingly perfect. I should know. I've heard it maybe a hundred times over the past few weeks, not counting the times it wasn't actually playing.

And how can you argue with writing like this:

Put your finger, to your other finger
While you're not a hundred percent
You'll be feeling yourself again. ...
God loves a murderer
Because there's so much sin to forgive.

This one is on Birdwar Records ("making children cry since 2004"), and most of his work can be purchased online at www.boomcat.com. You can also download his debut EP, The Complete Guide to Insufficiency, at 99 cents a track from the MySpace page and, surprisingly, from iTunes at $4.95 for the EP. With five long tracks, it's a bargain. Here's the full review from the Plugresearch.com catalogue.

“The Complete Guide to Insufficiency stands as one hell of a debut, and easily one of the finest records of 2005.” – Coke Machine Glow

“Remarkable, like a timeless classic or an obscure LP you discovered in a dusty second hand shop.” – Angry Ape

In this day and age, where an artist’s merit is often judged by a snippet of an MP3, David Thomas Broughton has created an anomaly- a work that deserves your undivided attention. Spreading 5 tracks across 40 minutes, Broughton develops his eerie folk songs into epic mantras on death, war, love, and sex.

Seeking to capture the controlled chaos of David’s live show, the album was recorded in one complete take in Wrangthorn Church, Leeds, England, with minimal tweaking and tampering in the subsequent mix. The result is a truthful representation of Broughton’s music, warts and all.

The church is as integral a part of the sound as any other instrument, making its presence known in subtle ways throughout the album. Its ghostly reverb creates a solemnity and sense of isolation, and when Broughton sings “My body rots while she is weeping/And I’ll remain forever sleeping,” one can easily envision him calling from beyond the grave. The pealing church bells at Wrangthorn also create a chance moment of beauty at the end of “Unmarked Grave,” unexpectedly becoming part of Broughton’s vocal loop.

The Complete Guide to Insufficieny is comparable to such forebears as John Fahey and Nick Drake, as well as contemporaries Antony and the Johnsons and Neutral Milk Hotel, but even these comparisons don’t fully convey the scope and beauty of Broughton’s sound.

Using simple tools- an acoustic guitar, some looping pedals, a cheap drum machine - Broughton has created a singular statement of purpose and artistic intent. Long after “freak-folk” is no longer a trend, listeners will still be pulling The Complete Guide to Insufficiency off the shelf.