musings from boston

Sun Blood Stories and their Strange New Journey

On February 26, 2017

Sun Blood Stories

We first introduced you to the cosmic sounds of Boise-based Sun Blood Stories back in 2015. Their music should warm the heart of anyone with a special fondness for ’70s spacey prog rock. We’re pleased to announce their upcoming (third) album, It Runs Around the Room with Us, which is due out on April 21. If you’re not afraid to lose your mind for about six minutes, feast your eyes and ears on the first single, “Great Destroyer.” This mind-melting video is by Jason Sievers.

The new album begins as an ocean odyssey, drifting along in mysterious waters, as one can feel oneself being slowly engulfed by subconscious thoughts and distant memories. There are languid contemplations like “Step Softly Ghost” that gradually build to epic proportions, with tribal rhythms ushering in wailing guitars, keyboards and other less familiar sounds. Gentle human voices offer calming and a tether to the shore amidst a maelstrom of aural exploration. At times peacefully drifting, at other times violently shrieking, It Runs Around the Room with Us stretches to the farthest reaches of the imagination and then says farewell, to venture out to explore new galaxies. The musical environment is otherworldly. Some of the songs become quite intense (most especially the aptly named “Burn” and the closer, “The Enemy”). What begins as a friendly and comforting choral gathering is infiltrated by swearing belligerence. It’s a strange yet enjoyable ride.

It Runs Around the Room with Us can be preordered on Bandcamp. It will be available on vinyl, cassette and compact disk, in addition to digital download.

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Missing Class

By julie

On February 19, 2017

In Inspired by Dreams

MissingClass_1000darker

Such a classic, in a classroom;
I gathered materials for school.
Two bags of random things, but no backpack with books.

I tried to find or read a schedule,
as it felt like I was missing a class

or was supposed to be somewhere else
after the class I was now in
but I couldn’t remember what it was.

Upset and discombobulated,
I watched other students with their books,
going on about their typical school day.
What happened to my school books?

I was miserable with my heavy burden.
Why must I carry all this “stuff”

that had nothing to do
with the classes I was taking?
Good lord; I don’t even know where I am!

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Soulmate at the Restaurant

By julie

On February 12, 2017

In Inspired by Dreams

SoulmateAtTheRestaurant3_1000

Here, at a small table, in a small restaurant
Alone.
Other tables, other people, lively conversation
Alone.
To my right, at another table, 10-12 feet away,
a couple, rapt in each other’s company.
Alone.

The woman? I can’t recall.
The man, clean shaven, shoulder length hair, good-looking.
As they spoke to each other, I suddenly felt odd.
I looked over.
The man was staring at me; our eyes met.

It was intense, a type of spirit communication.
Piercing dark eyes,
and my own eyes, quickly back to my food.
He was difficult to put out of my mind.
Those dark eyes.

The jolt of excitement revived me.
Was this the soulmate I had asked for?
But he was still with another,
and I was, as always, the outsider.
But the experience gave me hope,
as if the universe said, “Yes, such a thing exists.
Such a thing is possible. Don’t despair.”
It wasn’t just in my mind.
And then… I awoke. It was just in my mind.

My mind. Alone.

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Lost Children Sleeping on Cots in a City Bus Station

By julie

On February 5, 2017

In Inspired by Dreams

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I was in a bus station, or possibly a train station. It felt like I was traveling somewhere, as I had an enormous backpack filled with stuff. But there was also some kind of electronic thing I needed, and I was told to go to a certain store or I knew that this place would have it. I also knew that they had a store in a nearby shopping center or mall located in this station. But I couldn’t remember the name of the store. This is how I found myself in a strange station, headed to nowhere, with a pile of belongings.

Trying to Lighten My Load

I was sitting in this waiting room area where a few people were checking schedules, making phone calls or doing some work while they waited. I was trying to consolidate all my stuff and get rid of what I didn’t need to make my load lighter. I suddenly came upon a bag of papers and all this shit I didn’t need. I don’t know why I had even taken all this stuff with me. I started going through it, putting aside everything that I would throw away.

A Child’s Bedroom

Meanwhile, there were two young children sleeping in there on cots. I thought this was quite odd – a boy and I guess his younger sister. They said something about me being in their bedroom. I tried to find out why they were in that place, and it seemed like it had something to do with their mother. I asked if they had run away, and they said, “not exactly.” They went back to sleep while I looked through my bags.

The Freedom to Drive Away

In a while, a woman, perhaps their mother, came to get them. And suddenly I was in my car with someone; not sure who. I don’t know if the car had been brought to me, but I felt happy and relieved, and I was opening windows and the sunroof as I started it up. I saw the kids with their mom, also getting ready to leave (I think we were in the parking lot). And I waved to them, but they didn’t look very happy. Maybe they were envious of me as they saw me in my car, free to leave as I wished.

As we drove away, I remembered the electronics store, and the reason I had been at the station in the first place. Was the electronics store Circuit City? That may have been the name I was trying to remember, but I don’t think they exist anymore.

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The Dog in a Small Box, and a Desire to be Somewhere Else

By julie

On January 29, 2017

In Inspired by Dreams

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A tale of freedom and responsibility?

I was headed to work somewhere, with my pocketbook, another bag and a small box. I went to a train station, putting quarters into a machine at the turnstile. The entrance was very narrow and I didn’t think I could fit through it. I turned sideways and pushed. At first, the turnstile was stuck, but with some effort, I was able to squeeze through. I was then on the platform, about to get on a train. But suddenly, I realized I didn’t have my laptop! I wouldn’t be able to do any work! I was very upset that I had forgotten it, and I realized I needed to go back home and get it.

Dog in a Box

I started walking back, out of the station, and realized that I had this small box with me. At my car, I opened the box, and inside were a few things including a live dog that had been tightly packed in there. I don’t even know how it had fit. I took the dog out of the box and started to pet it, and after a short while it began to give me little licks, little kisses of gratitude, I guess, for being freed. I put the dog on the passenger seat of the car and tried to secure him to make sure he wouldn’t crawl out or get hurt. I was thinking I needed to feed him because he probably hadn’t eaten in a long time. It felt like a huge responsibility, but the animal was so appreciative and loving. Someone there told me what kind of food he needed – it was something like “foundation”?

What Price Freedom? A Bit of Hair

I was then inside the car, driving, with the dog by my side. There had been a mylar balloon in the box with the dog. It had gotten loose and was attached by a string but had gone into the sky and was being pulled by the wind as we went along. I soon realized it was attached to my hair somehow and it was pulling at my head. Finally, it broke free and pulled a bit of my hair out. I was a little sad it was gone, as it floated into the sky, but it was for the best that I was free of it, because now I was unencumbered. Or was I?

I was still thinking that I needed to get the dog food right away, but it may have been the person, perhaps a spirit guide, who said that affection was more important than food right now.

Can’t Slow Down

I kept zooming down the streets, and it felt like I wasn’t sure where I was going. It also felt like things were moving too fast, but I wasn’t able to slow down. It seemed like we were in a lousy city, but I don’t know where.

Road Trip into the Vast Blue Ocean

Suddenly, the road was very wet, and I soon realized I had driven out into a vast ocean. Quickly there was no land in sight and I realized “oh god, that’s it then, it’s over,” even though the car was still moving at a high speed through the water.

Just then, as I thought it was over, I was on a highway again and the water fell away. I found myself thinking, “California!” The highway continued, and I thought maybe I was in Los Angeles, but then I started noticing a small amount of snow on the road. I didn’t want this (to be in a cold environment), so I woke myself up.

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Introducing… Sarah Beatty (and Belle Starr)

By julie

On January 22, 2017

In Indie Music

Sarah Beatty

In her new album Bandit Queen, Sarah Beatty tells the story of 19th-century American outlaw Belle Starr, who provided the inspiration for this sultry new music. By all accounts, Ms. Starr was one tough lady, convicted as a horse thief in 1883 and shot dead under mysterious circumstances in 1889. She’s pictured in her Wikipedia entry wearing long skirts and holding a revolver. This title track, the lead single from Beatty’s upcoming album, conveys an appropriate mood of danger and moxie.

Based in Hamilton, Canada, Beatty’s debut album, Black Gramophone, was released in 2012. Her style is a smooth blend of folk music and country with touches of jazz. Her delivery is bluesy, soulful and a bit wicked. You can hear the devilish gleam in her eye. On the new album, she’s joined by co-conspirators Matty Simpson on electric guitar and Justine Fischer on upright bass (both are from The Fred Eaglesmith Band), plus Dave Clark (Rheostatics, The Woodshed Orchestra) on drums.

Beatty’s mission on Bandit Queen, and in particular on this first single, is to help listeners discover their own “inner outlaw” and to share the historical account of a woman who was both powerful and flawed. It’s the kind of story not frequently told about women, even now. As she explains it, “I wanted to invite the dark parts into the storyline and inspire listeners to be their whole, real, bodacious, outlawed selves.”

Bandit Queen can be ordered on iTunes.

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On Making the Unknown Known

By julie

On January 15, 2017

In Musings

J. Stoller

Alone in the company of friends. These are strange times. I’m ashamed of the weariness I feel, worried by the emptiness and the confusion. I find I’m forcing myself to make smalltalk, feeling like a fraud as I do so. Bereft of what was once familiar, I wander around the ornate rooms as conversation swirls around me. But maybe that’s exactly the point and what must necessarily come before progress?

“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing — and keeping the unknown always beyond you.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

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Clinging To What No Longer Serves

By julie

On January 13, 2017

In Musings

by J. Stoller

In times of trouble, people cling to the mundane and to the familiar company of family and friends. They gravitate to comfortable surroundings, to deeply-entrenched ideas and attitudes. They hold on tightly to old and tattered possessions to which they are accustomed, even if these objects no longer serve a purpose.

When feeling challenged and under siege, people will embrace what they already believe to be true, speaking in the same language, however tired or inappropriate for the new situation at hand.

Surrounding oneself with the theatrical props of stability is not the same as feeling stable, safe and secure in your heart. What is needed is a paradigm shift.

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What if… What then?

By julie

On January 9, 2017

In Musings

What if, just like MySpace, Twitter suddenly changed their code or shut down completely, and all of those clever things you thought up, all the people who “liked” you and made you an internet sensation for 24 hours, all of that disappeared into the ether. Erased from Earth’s fragile history, you’re left alone in your basement room, with your dusty books and hardened mind, while the real people you shut out of your life have drifted away to find more satisfying conversation and a more reciprocal love. What then?

These are false communications, as transient as a Tibetan sand mandala. But unlike the mandala, whose essense remains in the collective unconscious, your clever thoughts, in the morning light? No one will remember them.

Indeed, we are all fleeting, we are all grains of sand, though we disappear without a trace or our essence remains based upon the decisions we make — whether to truly communicate, or to build an emotional wall.

As you slowly discover that the old proverb is true, you reap what you sow, betray and betrayal, abandon and abandonment, disregard and disregarded — What now?

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Was 2016 The Year Mental Health Came Out Of The Closet?

By julie

On December 31, 2016

In Mental Health, Musings

Mental Health in the News

Overburdened law enforcement, soldiers and PTSD, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, celebrities coming forward and election anxiety

The stigmatization of mental illness and the tendency to push mental health issues under the carpet is far from over, but the conversation has begun. The year 2016 has been chock-full of news stories, discussions and public figures in solidarity or coming out of the closet with their personal struggles. Whether your daily news source is the local newspaper, network television, NPR or Facebook and Twitter, it’s hard not to notice that mental health issues have been popping up with great frequency. Read more on Medium.com >>

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