Tea Newbs Blog
Sletter #7
Bought a busted autoharp recently from a man named — man, I wish I could say it but won't because of internet and privacy and who knows who may not want to be identified as the one who sold me this at a legendary shed I'll give no more details about except it’s across the alley from us on peoples’ route to the farmer's market and the mummified hairless cat is not for sale — and he also performs experimental music occasionally under another name I won't say, but I want you to know that both names are so perfect — you'd have no doubt this busted autoharp has excellent pedigree if I said them. But I've been using it as percussion for some music I've been working on and
those who would like to hear the busted autoharp
can do so here
and those who would like to hear music I've been enjoying lately can do so below
Tea Newbs Whatever Hour Vol. 7
Listen on Spotify, and if you know how I can share a link for other platforms, please let me know!
Anthropologica - No. 2 – Marconi Notaro \ Soon-To-Be Innocent Fun/Let's See – Arthur Russell \ Pedra Templo Animal – Lula Côrtes, Zé Ramalho \ Complexo de épico (Reprise) – Tom Zé \ Troisième livre de pièces de clavecin: 6ème ordre - Les Barricades Mystérieuses – François Couperin, Marina Baranova \ Low Delights – Valentina Magaletti \ Stay – Officer John \ Todos os olhos – Tom Zé \ 005 MAGIK – ONYX GARDEN \ Menina Mulher Da Pele Preta – Jorge Ben Jor \ Amazonas – Naná Vasconcelos \ The Cosmic Piano – Matthew Shipp \ Coisas Do Mundo, Minha Nêga – Nara Leão
Sletter #6
In a dense forest, shaded by all the leaves of summer, we are standing, you and I, in a shallow creek. Flowing cold over our feet and ankles — all other online content. We have this moment; I open my mouth to sing to you
and what you get is this thing
I made while I was in Florida. My brother, Brady — of Nervous Monks, whose record release I was in attendance for, happily — set me up one day with his four track tape recorder and pedal board while he went down to Miami. I made this, thirteen minutes long; his twelve string guitar became an eleven string guitar in the process. (This is the initial rough thing — we did more with it later, which I still need to sort through; endless delays and reverses and unspooling realities)
It is called Ocean Rocks Ocean.
The new Nervous Monks record is called As You Like It.
I wrote this blurb for the album (as if still writing for the weekly rag New Times), a couple months ago when Brady first gave me the files to listen to via Google Drive:
The Nervous Monks take on Florida — and there’s nobody more capable & equipped. With garage spirit, masterful craft, tenderness, and wit, the locals erode a century of cheap construction to re-empower the birds, kids, and fishes.
I've included a couple of my favorite songs in the most recent playlists on this blog — the combo of songs which close Side A so wonderfully — the title track, "As You Like It," and "(Theme From) Cuckoo Bananas". You'll find the latter below, amongst ample Brian Wilson, some Sly, and other things I've been listening to lately. The Weavers doing “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” is better listened to on vinyl at Brady’s over breakfast, but if it’s 1’s and 0’s we’ve got, that’s what we’ll use — we’re sailing!
Tea Newbs Whatever Hour Vol. 6
Listen on Spotify, and if you know how I can share a link for other platforms, please let me know!
God Only Knows - Instrumental Stereo Mix - The Beach Boys \ Just Like a Baby - Sly & The Family Stone \ (Theme From) Cuckoo Bananas - Nervous Monks \ Berkeley DX7 Etude #1 - Sun Ra \ Hiding Your Present From You - Arthur Russell \ The Elements: Fire (Mrs. O'Leary's Cow) - The Beach Boys \ Vega-Tables - The Beach Boys \ Surf's Up 1967 - Solo Version/The Smile Sessions Version - The Beach Boys \ L'éléphant - Henri Texier \ Loose Booty - Sly & The Family Stone \ Stray Voltage #411 - The Unknown - Sun Ra \ Love On the Big Screen - Animal Collective \ Do You Like Worms (Roll Plymouth Rock) - The Beach Boys \ Michael Row the Boat Ashore - The Weavers \ Life - Sly & The Family Stone
Sletter #5
I'm not sure what I'm up to in this stream of unfolding appearance as the buddhists would say, but something, and this is it, adding up to — another crumb, a big loaf, cosmic crumb. Commitment — keeps things popping up, but a very loose concept of goal, goodness thanks. I'll not go on long, won't keep you — this is not a message blown into the void, it's a little note, as promised, to a peculiar group — some of whom I invited, and others are surprise guests. It's an experiment. What happens in the space you only know you'll show up to. Improvisation is. New. New. That's two News.
This is what I have for you
A jingle inspired by Colorado men's fashion
And here is some music I've been listening to:
Tea Newbs Whatever Hour Vol. 5
Listen on Spotify, and if you know how I can share a link for other platforms, please let me know!
As You Like It – Nervous Monks \ Procession of the Equinox – Angel Bat Dawid, Naima Nefertari \ A Perspective with No End – Tomaga \ Oh No, My My – Michael Yonkers \ Event—September 12, 1998, Merce Cunningham Studio – Takehisa Kosugi, Jim O'Rourke, Christian Wolff \ Commerce Server – Oval \ A Year In A Minute – Fennesz \ Boys, You're Welcome – Mississippi John Hurt \ Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues (from Shadow Kingdom) – Bob Dylan \ Stormy Walk From Zhiyun Temple – Theresa Wong, Lao Dan, John McCowen \ Tamalpais High (At About 3) – David Crosby \ Eye Ink – Irene Bianco
A jingle inspired by Colorado men's fashion
recorded on a bus from Lafayette to Boulder and overdubbed twice at my kitchen table just now
Sletter #4
And you don't have to read it. It is like a painting of a newsletter you can look at if other newsletters are looking too real. "Imaginary gardens with real toads in them." I'm a gin, a ry; are you? I feel like I should tidy things up if you are, but I am hungry, always bargaining minutes. I need to go eat oatmeal now — I guess that's the news. I should offer you something — something as real as oatmeal. There is a cat sitting beside the computer (more news!). I give her food and medicine a few times a day. She needs it, and accepts. I could leave it at that, but it's too dull — colors are lurking within the mundane, and this is just a little reveal, a peek or wink or something, into what we share that is a bit beyond; I am not behind the curtain, I am a dumb lover of wonder, rebelling, by even trying, rebelling against protective instincts, unhiding, for what. I recently wrote this in my notebook: "Poetry goals — ha!" But if I just rolled with the basic need for gathering resources and resting, that would be it. So I have this here, like a stone — no, like an iron abstraction tossed into a perfectly fine stream just because I have hands for it, and I want to meet eyes with anyone momentarily and hold it a bit longer, while the stream, with imaginary toads in it, rushes past, and it feels cool — is this cool? Are we cool? I will eat oatmeal now and you are eating what I have to offer, but it's not quite that. And this is not quite the news. The old poets said "Make it new." I don't know what I am making, so it must be new to me at least. I'm fascinated by the ferns opening into life in spiral form. I'm sure there's a name for it, but you've read enough
Real newsletters unfurling on my block (left); Imaginary ferns (detail) from a poster I bought recently (right)
Also
Here is a recording of song I've been working on: Cross Tense (2025.04.22)
And here is some music I've been listening to:
Tea Newbs Whatever Hour Vol. 4
Listen on Spotify, and if you know how I can share a link for other platforms, please let me know!
Abatatchen Hoy - Alemu Aga \ I Paint a Design - Michael Hurley \ Ptah, The El Daoud - Alice Coltrane \ Air - 2010 Remaster - The Incredible String Band \ The Garden of Jane Delawney - Trees \ Fasiribo (Apala) - The Lijadu Sisters \ Meatus - Hello Ocho \ Hatonal 2 - Merzbow \ Route 5 - Live in Seattle - Maher Shalal Hash Baz
Thanks for looking. Did I make you? I thought I had grown out of that, but have found a career in marketing, so made you look is my livelihood it turns out
Sletter #3
Drift / islands. Accentuating currents to make danceable; eroding beaches for new castles. At the crossroads (the meaning of my name), surfing occurs. Seeking songs between castles and fathomless depth. Artifacts as signposts or portals, made idols by tradition.
Come to life. Not anticipating the fossil of a lung — is that impossible? The breath of song. Sometimes dusting off the oldies to find fresh air.
Hank Williams has always seemed like kind of a cartoon to me, but I recently sang one of his songs for the first time and it was a transmission. Ginsberg used to say a written poem is a blueprint for an energetic/emotional experience to be unlocked by some future person's body and breath. At the David Grisman 80th birthday bash, Joe Craven — the magical emcee “sound farmer” bongo player — said "All tradition begins as innovation. All innovation comes out of tradition."
Head(y)line(s)
Evening poem
Morning poem
Tea Newbs Whatever Hour Vol. 3
Listen on Spotify, and if you know how I can share a link for other platforms, please let me know!
I Felt the Evening Come Through the Window - Yves Jarvis \ Seismic - Mid-Air Thief \ Sunspot - Van 2 - Northampton, MA - 06/10/01 - Sunburned Hand Of The Man \ I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - Hank Williams \ Springtime Again - Sun Ra & His Arkestra \ Jerusalem - Simon Finn \ Ain't No Tellin' - Mississippi John Hurt \ Reservoir - Young Jesus \ My Bucket's Got A Hole In It - Hank Williams, Drifting Cowboys \ I Don't Love Nobody - Elizabeth Cotten \ Better Git It in Your Soul - Charles Mingus \ Dark Hollow - Bill Monroe, The Blue Grass Boys \ I Hear It's the Best - Sun City Girls \ Hillbilly French - The Savage Young Taterbug \ God Only Knows - The Langley Schools Music Project
The silence of a falling star / Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
Sletter #2
Rain returned after too-dry January — omega block over the Pacific Northwest, want for weeping — now, spring cometh. Mary my guitar back in my arms after long injury and repair — like rain returning to the skylight, the woods, reparenting softening bricks by drizzle, moss gently triumphs.
Bring on the flowers.
New(thing)!
Finished up work on a poetry chapbook, Outside and Inside, featuring poems I wrote here in Seattle from Dec '23–Feb '24. You can look through it here, or order a physical copy here.
The first poem in there (most are typed, easier to read) seems like a good way to mark the year of the snake (Losar Tashi Delek to those who observe!).
Tea Newbs Whatever Hour Vol. 2
I wish I knew how to create a link for you to listen on any platform, but all I can share is a link for Spotify. If you know how, please let me know!
Newbin Time - Anastasia Coope \ Several More Happened - Pauline Oliveros, Timothy Hill \ YahhYahh MMANN YohhYohh IN ZINNT - Charlemagne Palestine \ Goatbrain - Goat \ Mistadobalina - Del The Funky Homosapien \ Athens New Guinea Gas Can Japan - Matmos \ I Cover The Waterfront (Live) - Billie Holiday \ Destination (Dr. Yusef Lateef) - Angel Bat Dawid \ Spiral in Houston - Frances Chang \ Four Leaf Clover - Peel Dream Magazine \ anything - Adrianne Lenker \ Body Stories - Pauline Oliveros \ Absolutely Cuckoo - The Magnetic Fields \ Earth Angels - Woo
Get Wet and Keep Wondering
Sletter #1
There is a show whose face is it anyway kind of energy and why not play with, and, not so secretly hope, that some engagement — as in face showing — may lead to face liking (not at all booking, though maybe shows) and more time supported to do it.
I was listening to Clark Coolidge and Bernadette Mayer and Coolidge said something about artistic impulse to do what you’re not allowed to — by your own rules or others’ — as in, Stein’s prohibition on memory and Mayer doing it like a score for improvisation. I feel a couple decades late to the festival.
Anyway, it may get easier or worse. It's just the name of waiting, discarded.
Open Studio
Recently “Released”
Songs from the Box (2024)
Songs written 2021-22; record in collaboration with Brady Newbill.
It’s up on Bandcamp and all the streaming platforms.
DJ Newbs Whatever Hour Vol. 1
I wish I knew how to create a link for you to listen on any platform, but all I can share is a link for Spotify. If you know how, please let me know!
Call Me Back - Martha Skye Murphy \ The Homesick Waltz - His Name Is Alive \ Breaking Bread - Matmos \ Moisture - The Residents \ Brain System - Matthew Shipp \ All Our Base Are Belong To Them - The Books \ Baby reign - DORIS \ Third Planet - Sun Ra, Sun Ra & His Arkestra \ Indiana - Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek \ Goin' down the Road Feeling Bad (Live) - Grateful Dead, Merle Saunders \ PS - The Books \ Semen Song for James Bidgood - Matmos \ flight fm - Joy Orbison \ You Sleep On - AGF, Craig Armstrong \ Midwinter Swimmers - The Innocence Mission