Halfway Home (TOTR 474)

 

-originally aired on WTTU 88.5 FM The Nest on Saturday, September 14, 2024
-the 17th anniversary edition with songs across the last 17 years
-inaugural episode was 9/11/2007
-advance apologies for all the technical difficulties
-thanks to former WTTU program director Kassi Thomas for the guest shoutout
-audio archive:

Stream episode Halfway Home - TOTR 474 - 17th Anniversary Episode by Teacher On The Radio podcast | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

2007
[The National - Fake Empire did not make it into the final cut, although it does get announced in the first talk-back as if it were]
TV On The Radio - Halfway Home
Wilco - Side with the Seeds
2008
Fleet Foxes - Blue Ridge Mountains
My Morning Jacket - Smokin From Shootin
R.E.M. - Supernatural Superserious
2009
U2 - Stand Up Comedy
2010
The Black Keys - Everlasting Light
2011
The Decemberists - Don’t Carry It All
2012 
Mumford & Sons - I Will Wait
2013
Vampire Weekend - Everlasting Arms
2014
Dawes - All Your Favorite Bands
2015
Jason Isbell - Speed Trap Town
2016
The Avett Brothers - True Sadness
2017
The Collection - Sing of the Moon
Tyler Childers - Universal Sound
2018 
Brandi Carlile - Every Time I Hear That Song
Father John Misty - Please Don’t Die
2019
Ondara - Lebanon
2020
Possessed By Paul James - When It Breaks
2021
Langhorne Slim - Morning Prayer
2022
Adeem The Artist - Painkillers & Magic
Willi Carlisle - Your Heart’s A Big Tent
Florence & The Machine - Free
2023
Susto - Rock On
Zach Bryan with The War & Treaty - Hey Driver

Sweet, spooky, & surreal: the fabulous country-folk fringe of Sierra Ferrell

Sierra Ferrell brings that old-timey earthy magic. Everything in Sierra’s expansive universe feels connected to ancient fairies & all things rock & feather, spirit & bone. Then there’s the voice, the singular lure. Go back past early Emmylou & Linda Ronstadt, past Loretta Lynn & queen Dolly Parton, past Patsy Cline & Wanda Jackson, to some secret carnie caravan, horse-drawn travelers, carriages covered in flowers, always flowers, said the forever flower child.

When Sierra Ferrell finally came into focus from past the edges of my peripheral vision, she was draped in flowers. A friend was at her Ryman show, & suddenly I asked myself why I wasn’t there. I am definitely not averse to something so deeply old-time, but I had not yet sipped from her cauldron of joy, all potion & passion.

For me from those first looks & first listens & now falling hard into forever fandom, Sierra will always be that voice & sound, but she is also everything that surrounds the sound: aura & ambiance, vibes & visions, the total & complete package, as much the siren of floral synergy, the bell-ringer of blossoms & blooms, a botanical salve & effervescent essence sure to heal what hurts & fill it with sudden & surreal sonic hope.

Sierra comes from the traveler scene: hitch-hiking, train-hopping,  rubber tramping, & busking at the street-corner forever party. Reminds me of watching & rewatching Wild & Into The Wild & my own traveling itch back in those eternal 1990s, the 90s that recalled the 1930s. Now seems a prescient time for all the tropes to resurface so profoundly.

Early in 2024, I was still reeling from the lyrics of Hurray For The Riff Raff’s recent retelling of America from the road. No longer some Kerouac-meets-Frodo bromance. No, these are “sisters of the road,” like I once read about in Boxcar Bertha back in my own transient road-tripping. As Alynda Segarra breaks past the binary, maybe we should say siblings of the road in the big circus tent I had already convened in, to kick off the year at the communes of Critterland, with a troubadour like Willi Carlisle. There’s no mistaking why these are my favorite records of the year, in part because they all conjure those prayers said in tents by candlelight & sung around campfires that lasted until pink predawn slipping into sunrise.

All these pieces are of a piece--country folk revivals on the fringes. Then, someone sent me the CBS Sunday morning micro-documentary of Sierra Ferrell’s roots & rise. She left poverty & pills in the West Virginia hills to hobo & busk here & there & everywhere, & especially in places like train towns in Utah or on the wistfully wicked streets of New Orleans. Every Sierra song is infused with such railroading roughness yet wrapped in the sweet sweetness of her flowery fashion & shimmering voice over such swinging sounds. Sure, it’s folk & country & Americana, but it’s also blues, jazz, ragtime, swing, & all of these are parts of the overall freakshow medicine show aura. The fringe vibe never leaves the frame. We’re all inside the spooky psychedelic hall of mirrors, like teens rolling or shrooming at the county fair.

But we need not glorify or romanticize her early independence & interdependence in what could be a traumatizing scene. In multiple interviews, I have heard her convey her near-death-experiences brought about by drug abuse. On one podcast, she recounted a vodka bender that bled into a physical fight with an ex, smashing his head with her guitar, he leaving her with broken bones & finally in a women’s shelter. Now that I am familiar with her story, it still gives me chills, for all the angels & unlikely miracles that watched over Sierra Ferrell to pull her through. I listened to a radio host say, “You give me the chills. It gives me the chills to tell you that you give me the chills.” That kind of spiritual energy is so freely available in Sierra’s performances & interviews, if only we will receive.

It’s tempting to get cute or trite about such a shero as this & her inspiring recovery story, to make her into the Netflix equivalent of an “after school special.” But don’t; the perils of addiction & abuse still haunt & taunt on the periphery. In the many conversations I have listened to or watched, Sierra maintains a happiness & gratitude & self-deprecating humor. She’s not that kind of super-serious performer that needs us to take her seriously. Just see how the compassion falls from her mouth, whether banter between songs or in these longer podcast formats. Sierra Ferrell is a beacon of outward & inward light, of care & self-care.

From my most recent show with her at the Evanston Folk Fest on the beach of Lake Michigan, her brief banter bespoke beloved community. It’s like each bit is a dopamine dose, an essential affirmation. She reminds us to self-love, not as selfishness but as a mirror to a wider compassion. Heck, she also asked everyone to go read the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Not every night, our favorite performers assign homework, but I for one can abide such nudges. 

Sierra Ferrell is humbly & hopefully self-making her own myth, not that far afield from pop phenomena like Taylor & Beyonce & Chappell Roan, but more so deeply aligned with Nashville, Bakersfield, & every Honky Tonk or Dollar Bill bar in-between. Her music soars & we soar with it. A trance that can translate to everyday joy. A flight into the stars that is also always grounded on this holy ground. 

[photos from the Evanston Folk Fest, 9-7-2024]

The Collection’s Last Tour - The Emotional Mindfulness Singalong That You Didn’t Know You Needed & Now

Hot summer day under a tent in a field in rural North Carolina. A man starts strumming a mandolin in a chair. Soon like the misfit choir that they are, the members of the Collection slowly make their way to the stage for an outburst of communal chaos & sweaty songcraft. Think early Edward Sharpe or early Arcade Fire or Nathaniel Rateliff or maybe or possibly the Polyphonic Spree or a punk-rock-Up With People. We were totally mesmerized as David Wimbish & the shaggy shambolic band called the Collection brought it all. 

Hot summer day some-12-years-later in an iconic Nashville dive, the same communal energy bears a lyrical folk-pop polish. David’s vocals & words have always reminded me of Chris Martin, but why are we in this covered-in-stickers-&-graffiti clubhouse & not at the sold-out Ryman or Ascend. The competitive pop music market is home to cosmic accidents & market vagaries, this we know. It can be hard out there. Another brilliant folkie lyricist friend is right now selling customized songs & hand-written lyrics on social media just to make some bills, because they haven’t been paid yet for their first overseas gigs. 

It’s rough out there economically for the artists on the festival downcard. Constant touring in a van that will break down at some point can be rough on the mental & emotional health of the artists. Experts of the vulnerable expression & catchy melody may also be more likely to struggle with neurodivergence or addiction or strained personal relationships.

Despite this tsunami of risk, live popular music is the greatest mindfulness hack, it’s like a religion without being one. So it is with this night seeing The Collection. They have just dropped an self-empowering medicinal mental-health album called Little Deaths, but they have also said this is their last tour ever, with this current ensemble, with at least bassist Hayden & horn player Graham having worked with Wimbish for more than a decade. 

Is it possible for music to be extremely joyful but devastatingly heart-wrenching at the same time. This will be the case with the transcendent pop anthems The Collection has brought us for years, rendered in mesmerizing live performances, whose intense intimacy merges into greatness that is measured in excess perspiration. Because this music doesn’t just move ya, it MOVES YA as it grooves ya!!! 

The Collection catalog as streamed or downloaded from your service of choice is some digital dopamine. But even millions -- yes millions -- of streams does not make the rock n roll touring life necessarily sustainable without other side hustles. As popular as the Collection have been, this hasn’t necessarily translated itself into long-term career-sustaining suitcases brimming with cash. Now I am only speculating here at what appears to be an early retirement for the band, as-band. Their social media posts suggest the internal chemistry is strong, but it is time to move on. 

I only speculate about these facts for how impactful these songs about mental health struggles are when you think about what the hard work is like from the other side of the performer-audience veil. Here is someone singing, jamming, tearing it up on stage, leaving it all out there on the stage, speaking from the heart about suicidal ideation & simply saying “you are worth it” through a song that says “I am worth it.”

The exuberant combination of keys, horns, guitars, bass, & drums convey that kind of over-the-top cup-runneth-over heart swell of orchestral pop, but it is held down every time by David Wimbish’s vocal intensity & confessional or therapeutic or theologically mystical lyrical messages that folks love to sing along with. When this tour is over, David assures us his solo career will continue. But if The Collection as The Collection are through, please try to catch them on this run, which goes through October. Please check out their entire catalog that is out there to stream. 

Collection tour dates:

Sep 4 Wed - New York, NY

Sep 5 Thu -Philadelphia, PA

Sep 6 Fri - Vienna, VA

Sep 7 Sat - Elkton, MD

Sep 21 Sat - Graham, NC

Sep 27 Fri - Columbus, OH

Sep 28 Sat - Cincinnati/Covington, KY, United States

Sep 29 Sun - Louisville, KY

Oct 1 Tue - St Louis, MO

Oct 2 Wed - St Paul, MN

Oct 3 Thu - Omaha, NE

Oct 4 Fri - Denver, CO

Oct 5 Sat - Salt Lake City, UT

Oct 7 Mon - Portland, OR

Oct 8 Tue - Seattle, WA

Oct 10 Thu - Albany, CA

Oct 11 Fri - Hollywood, CA

Oct 13 Sun - San Diego, CA

Oct 14 Mon - Phoenix, AZ

Oct 16 Wed - Taos, NM

Oct 19 Sat - Austin, TX

Oct 20 Sun - Dallas, TX

Oct 22 Tue -  Jackson, MS

Oct 23 Wed - New Orleans, LA

Oct 24 Thu - Memphis, TN

Oct 25 Fri - Atlanta, GA

Oct 26 Sat -Asheville, NC