Inspired by the Moooos: Bootlegs from the barn

Collection Contents

#		Title	Length
1		A Red, Red Rose -- Robert Burns	4:01	Play
2		Snow-Flakes -- H.W.Longfellow	2:17	Play
3		Solitude -- E.W.Wilcox	3:21	Play
4		Poet Cows -- Allan Wolf/The Dead Poets	5:06	Play
5		Life is fine -- Langston Hughes	4:05	Play

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Description

This is our second release, a limited edition, 5-song EP, and since we recorded and mixed it ourselves (in Tom's barn), what you get here is the naked truth (with just enough reverb thrown in for modesty). Close your eyes, and you could be sitting in the chaise next to the wood stove.

We set our vocations aside when we pick up our instruments, immersing ourselves in the lilt and rhythms of verse. And that's what we're sharing with you; the fruits of our unlabored playing, of our love of harmony and the well-turned heel of a beautiful phrase, of our amusement with ourselves, and of our joy when we find that groove and converse in a deeper language, a rich vein in the shared ore of experience.

But let's talk about the songs:

Robert Burns was the poet laureate of Scotland, and the author of "Auld Lang Syne" and "Comin' thro the rye," among other classics. We thought his wonderful homage to love and longing, "A Red, Red Rose," had an interesting feel when sung with a slightly on-the-off-beat West African flavor when Tom introduced it. Allan's boom-clickety dumbeck playing counterpoints with Alex's bowed bass to form an nice backdrop to Tom's finger picking on the guitar. It's not so much Scottish as it is a kind of Irish-African lilt. We think it's lovely, whatever you want to call it.

"Snow-flakes," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with its lush, sensual imagery, is rendered as a gentle, haunting psalm in two- and three-part harmony. "Out of the bosom of the air," it starts, with no preamble. We thought a bowed bass would give it an especially plaintive feeling; you can hear it easing in after the first stanza.

We were warming up for a performance in an art gallery in West Jefferson, North Carolina, when Allan introduced Ella Wheeler Wilcox's "Solitude," and its slightly Latin rhythms immediately struck a chord (so to speak).
----Laugh, and the world laughs with you
----Weep, and you weep alone...
It'd be especially cool with a full rhythm section as backup, but even with just the three of us, it still has a catchy groove.

And it was while Allan was supposed to be working on his book, "New Found Land" (Candlewick Press) that he came up with the title track, "Poet Cows Inspired by the Moooos." It starts out, "She was a heffer from El Paso...", and goes on to tell the pun-ridden tale of two highly-literate bovines with a penchant for rhyme. It's the story of cowboy poetry from the OTHER side of the fence. Both the song and Allan's book are now available for your pleasure.

Finally, "Life is Fine" was born out of a jam we'd often drift into while rehearsing. Tom would scat a bit over a simple but infectious two-chord guitar riff, then Allan came up with a driving two-over-two beat on the floor tom, which Alex rounded out with a Violent Femmes-style bassline. All that was left was to find a poem that fit. Allan had been reading a lot of Langston Hughes (the dominant voice of the Harlem Renaissance), and the final song on this EP is the result.

We have a lot of fun, which anyone who's ever seen us live can attest. Listen to the tracks and tell us what you think!

(We have a new recording in the works right now, which will feature Poe, Kipling, and possibly Plath -- as a polka! You're going to love it!)