Snacks4theBrain!

Hey, ya’ll,

Welcome to episode number 75 of Snacks4theBrain! The featured snack this episode is audio from a talk I gave to Vanderbilt University faculty and staff by invitation from the “Digital VU” series from the Vanderbilt News and Media department. The title of the offering was “Engaging Podcast Content” and it featured a sideshow I put up at slideshare, so if you’re of a mind you can visit blogs.vanderbilt.edu/s4theb and follow along whilst you listen. Oh heck, let’s embed it below

The music this episode is a treat, at least for me; and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. It’s two songs delivered recently from a dear friend who recorded them in December of 1975 at a venue called the “Bread Factory.” Geoff Feiler, my good good friend, sat out front with a boombox and what you hear is what he heard, two guys with aggressive acoustic guitar styles and darned decent, well-practiced harmonies. You’ll also hear folks chatting over dinner in the small vegetarian restaurant that was the Bread Factory. It was a very hot spot in Anchorage, and I had been playing every Wednesday night for 75 dollars and tips. When Scott Miller came up to be with his betrothed, who was the owner of the restaurant, we hooked up and started rehearsing for fun. We liked what we made together, and we had a good run for a while performing for the folk music-loving denizens of 1975 Anchorage. Years later, when I was in Juneau (where Scott and Debbie had moved to open the “Fiddlehead Fern” restaurant there, Scott and I had a blast opening a church-venue show for Elizabeth Cotton, the 93 year-old creator of the folk classic “Freight Train,” which she played for us that night, finger-picking her classic holding her guitar upside-down and backwards, the way she’d taught herself decades earlier. Scott H. Miller, by the way, has a fabulous CD for sale at CDBaby!

The podcast’s songs are from Aztec Two Step and John Prine. I don’t know the first folks, but I do know John and I sincerely hope he’ll forgive my cover of his Rocky Mountain Time. I like the way I sing “saxophone.” Here it is.

I follow up the podcasting session with “Scott and Scott’s” cover of “Highway Song,” by Aztec Two-Step, Rex Fowler and Neal Shulman. This great duo took their name from an Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem and we definitely found much inspiration from their tight harmonies and beautiful thought-provoking lyrics. If you like the song, please visit aztectwostep.com and buy some of their music. Unlike “Scott and Scott,” they’re still going strong with their music. I’ll not say goodbye after, just get you on your way from this, episode number 75, of Snacks4theBrain!

Download episode 75 here!

Links:
Notice about the session on the Vanderbilt website

My blogpost that contains the slideshare slideshow

The slideshare slideshow

Scott H. Miller’s fantastic CD, “Letters to Myself”