The (New & Improved) HYENA KITCHEN

  In a time, where another musician/celeb’s passing is as commonplace as another mass shooting, dying in the shadow of B.J. Thomas, Gavin MacLeod, and Eric Carle, has to be tough on the best blues musician you never heard of   James Harman , bluesman, storyteller. . .and harmonica player, passed away last week. And yes, I am prejudice, because he was my friend - but all you have to do is listen to know I’m right. The exact date ranging from the 19 th to 23 rd , depending on the source - quite fitting for a blues legend - with nary a word from anyone outside the blues community.   Fitting, but unfair.   Fitting because it is the blues community - already hit hard in the past months with the loss of Paul Oscher (Muddy Waters Band) and Gene Taylor (The Fabulous Thunderbirds, The Blasters) - because it’s there the loss is unimaginable. Unfair, because Harman was the hardest working man in show biz, this side of James Brown his own damn-self, besides he had a fifty-seven-year career that

  Hi gang, welcome to “old” Music Friday.   Why? Well, because today and tomorrow mark an important day in Rock and Roll History.   On March 12 th and 13 th , the Johnny Winter and Elvin Bishop bands played a show at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East in New York.   The newspaper ad read: Extra added appearance - Allman Brothers. A relatively new band - two albums as Hourglass and two as The Allman Brothers Band - they were still being described as “an integrated band from the Deep South.”   The band was supporting their second album Idlewild South and new single “Midnight Rider” - not the version you know, Greg Allman would hit #19 in 1974 with his solo cover - sadly, the original would garner little radio attention.   These ground-breaking blues/“Southern Rock” pioneers recorded their four sets that weekend, that come July, would be released as The Allman Brothers at Filmore East - the best live album ever made - until of course, it was re-released as complete, then reissued again to incl

  “Alterations” by James Patrick Lockett                 The pages were brittle, as were the words - it took her breath away. She ran her fingertips across the last page, as if the ink held some final magic that she’d missed.   She closed the book and cradled it gently on her lap - it was an old thing, and she’d been taught to treat it with respect.   Sara could smell the past that the pages held.   How could it be possible? Was there really a time when people were hated just because of the color of their skin?   It was unimaginable to her.   Things had changed so much in just two generations, as soon as D’alting became offered to those who could afford it, race was no longer an issue. Nor was gender, or age. The medical alternation of DNA - first called “Clipping”- had seen to that.   It was supposed to make things better.             Sara hated that word - better .   Nothing was better , only different. Altered. So very different from the worlds that existed in her books.

                  Hiya, Kids.   Welcome to this week’s “No” Music Friday.   I look forward every week to New Music Friday on NPR and am constantly dismayed - I cannot believe that Robin Hilton, et al at NPR spend their days (and nights) listening to Hip Hop and overproduced/auto tune pabulum that they pass off as important. Artists whose names (in all caps) read like the latest product from Big Pharma, or better yet simply a typography glyph, I guess it’s my curmudgeon showing.   So in light of this, join me, won’t you, in Old Music Friday in celebration of my Anniversary - as we travel back 27 years and blow the cobwebs off a few (now) oldies. To a time when radio still offered a mix of grunge, rock, hip hop, and Mariah Carey; a world that still offered new music from Prince, Bowie, Cobain and Tom Petty; when everything seemed…well, you know.                 First off, I give you Ben Harper ’s Welcome to the Cruel World , his prophetic 1994 debut album. Who knew the title track, “Ho

  Pretty Words for the "ICONOCLASS" of 20/20 a collection of COVID Prose (written during quarantine) is now available as part of Sour Grapes Press Chapbook Series.  Available in indie bookstores across Northwestern Washington or from Sour Grapes Press (www.sourgrapespress.com). Trade edition (February 2021):  $10.00 Sold Out Limited Lettered/Folio case edition (January 2021) $20.00 Sold Out Limited number of each available from here in the kitchen with $5.00 S/H via PayPal: jlockett59@gmail.com.  (Shipping maybe delayed due to COVID restrictions, but I'll let you know via email)

        Hey there gang, welcome back to New Music Friday , it’s been a while since we did a big one, so whether you’re celebrating this weekend’s Puppy Bowl or the [insert shameless plug here] release of my new poetry chapbook Pretty Words for the “Iconoclass” of 2020 (available wherever fine Covid-prose is sold) - there is a great batch of quarantine produced music out there to get you through, so let’s get to it   First up, those benevolent fighters of all things Foo have a beautiful new CD - Medicine at Midnight ( Roswell/RCA )- a departure? Sort of? More of a late 70’s rock sound - which I love - plenty of Dave and Taylor drums throughout with distinctive Foo Fighters sound in “Waiting on a War.” Just wait until you hear the Beach Boy-esque “Chasing Birds.” Wow, who knew?   Speaking of who knew, Paramore lead singer and cryptic social media honey Hayley Williams has been busy in lockdown proving herself as a singer/songwriter with the stripped down, Flowers for Vases/descanso

  A s we age, we see clearer the things that influenced us in our youth.   The genius that we were exposed to that we took for granted. Two such groups, seemingly unrelated, had a monumental impact on how I looked at words - as wordplay and as lyrics.   The comedy sketch troupe, The Firesign Theater and the band, Little Fea t.   Individually, both genius in their own right. Firesign - collectively, Proctor, Bergman, Ossman, and Austin - masters of double-entendre, the parody of meaning, and of delivery.   O n the other hand, Lowell George - with his Brian Wilson-like quest to capture the ‘sound in his head’ - offered a mastery in alliteration and “cartoon consciousness” with his lyrics. “Lady in a turban in a cocaine tree” would fit right into any Firesign sketch, as every Little Feat song should be playing on the way to Future Fair.   B oth battled with a short-sighted record label unsure of how to market them; and both were best when listened to as a whole. The sum of the pa

 

      I recently saw a “meme/self-help affirmashit” about not being in competition with others, that I felt compelled (distracted) to comment on.   I have no time or desire to compete with others, it is enough to compete with myself.   The battle between my demons and my muses - oh, that right there, gives me a new story idea, that will never come to fruition - see, I can easily be distracted by the excitement of a new idea.   I am filled with a desire to be productive, but what I should be doing is charging admission to the cage match starring my procrastination/laziness and my ambition/ imagination. The words come, whether I ask for them or not - writing them down is merely a reliving of pressure that threatens to blow some internal seal.   In a perfect world, I’d be content to sip coffee, read, listen to music and never leave the house.   I think of “writers” like James Patterson Incorporated - with file drawers full of story ideas and shelves of house-pseudonyms - and would rathe