Melodic storytelling...folk/rock from the brotherhood

12 MP3 Songs
POP: Folky Pop, ROCK: Folk Rock



Details:
Hello to you from Boo Kay Jack in general and B. Hullfish in particular.

Boo Kay Jack is the name of a knife in a poem called "The Singing Knives" by the late surveyor/writer/oracle Frank Stanford, who shot himself in the heart three times with a .22 toward what would be the end of his late-twenties.

This album is a tribute to Frank, the kind of poet Huckleberry Finn might have been had he lived to light out to the territories and chant down all those dark visions. Had Huck not himself been shot in the heart by accident that night in Reno. Now I never knew Frank, or Huck for that matter, but I have nonetheless pitched my share of pennies with them. "Knifethrower's Blues" and "Silver Temple Waltz" were written very much with Stanford's visions in mind. His knives. His midgets. Hogs named The Holy Ghost being ridden to church. Fish swiped from lines. Dimes shining.



Track Two - Run Brother Run

Not that a good song ever benefitted from someone's explaining, I feel compelled to tell you "Run Brother Run" was written to put some demons out of my head.

See, my elder brother was on the railroad tracks by way of a long boxcar named Addiction. He was walking with an associate of his when this man saw three youths running toward them. "Run!" he said, and took off.

Well my brother, though normally streetwise, decided "hell I don't know these guys and haven't burned them in any way so why should I waste my breath running?"

Bad decision.

They knocked him down and proceeded with the kicking for awhile. Two of the guys backed off eventually, but not the third guy. The third guy was more vicious. He spotted a lead pipe alongside the tracks and he took it up. Rearing back with the pipe, he brought it down at my brother's head. His right hand held above his head, my brother caught most of the blow with the webbing of his thumb. The pipe then glanced off his orbital bone.

The damage? A ripped open hand. A black eye that lasted six months. Various contusions. Abrasions.

All from a pipe. The lead one. And of course especially the little glass one which preceeded it.

So for months and months I had visions of my brother being attacked on the tracks. Sometimes I would yell to him to look out. To run. Other times I'd rush in from the blindside and start swinging haymakers. Finally it was enough I guess of those poisonous daydreams and I had to get them out and trap them cage them corral them into a song.

Sometimes a song is nothing but a snakebite kit. And Run Broham Run is one of those type of tunes.

The other thing about this track is that it perhaps best represents the hard work and genius of Jim Glinski, who mixed and produced it.

I'll leave it at that for now and will come back later to talk a bit about, perhaps, and why not, Atomic Lullabye.