Norma Jean

Mephis Will be Laid To Waste

A bracelet made of gold and scarlet
thread around her wrist.

And everything was wrong so we
sang sentimental songs.

Oh how seldom we belong but
how elegant our kiss.

And we painted crooked lies but we
danced in perfect time to a love so much refined, we
know not what it is until like a dullen wine we pour
into a grief we know before but it's never quite like this.

Never quite like this.

The End of All Things Will Be Televised

Your day will come
Turn the page, embrace your
Comforting company
The sun beats down on your
Comforting company
Everything is burning because
Tonight the south is on fire!
The south is on fire.
Creation waits in eager expectation.

Anxious.

Patient.
Heaven will pause.

I am excited to write this entry because its time to write about the band that itroduced me to a whole new world of music and culture that I still imbrace and support today. Being a 13 year old in mid Wales, before my family owned a computor of our own and having to get most of my alternative musical knowledge from the weekly Kerrang, it was hard to listen to anything other than Korn or Slipknot. My sister returned from a school exchange to North Carolina with ‘Bless The Martyr and Kiss The Child’ in her Cd Wallet which was Norma Jean’s first major release. She played me a song named ‘The Shotgun Message’ and from that moment forward I was hooked. I finally new there was noise being created in a time signature I couldn’t comprehend and a young adolescent man screaming poetry and questions in a way I had never heard before. Even with line up changes Norma Jean still take the ‘Noisecore’ genre they helped shape to new hights today. Now with five LP’s released on Solid State, Tooth and Nail they definitly hold carry the torch for the group of bands that carry the ‘Chirstian Rock’ label.

www.normajeannoise.com

William Elliot Whitmore

Midnight

And the bluebird can sing but the crow’s got the soul
and I’m a dog among kings with no self-control
and the only thing left’s to try to live
these things on my back no one could forgive

Hell Or High Water 

Smoke um if you got um.

Drink your glasses to the bottom.

And toast me on another year.

Another year of hope.

Another year of holding on.

For you drinkers by day who are bastards by dawn.

And I hope I will see you soon.

And I'll be home come hell or high water.

And I know I will see you soon.

And I’m a dog among kings with no self-control

And the only thing left’s to try to live

These things on my back no one could forgive.

Sometimes I like to think that if Tom Waits and Sea-sick Steve procreated a child and made Screaming Jay-Hawkins the godfather then the result would be none other than William Elliot Whitemore.

The 32 year old from Lee County, Iowa disguised behind the voice of someone much older and unhealthier is one of my favorite singer songwriters around at the moment. My sister introduced me to him when she used to cover one of his accapella songs he opens his ‘Hymns For The Hopeless’ album with. After that I was hooked.


www.williamelliottwhitmore.com

The Felice Brothers

Whiskey In My Whiskey

I put some whiskey into my whiskey

I put some heartbreak into my heart

I put my boots on that ole dance floor

I put three rounds Lord, in my 44

Murder By Mistletoe 

A murder by mistletoe
Drunks in the falling snow
She left him by the night arcade
And turned his heart into a spade
He turned that lovely blue eyed Jane
To a homicide on Campbell Lane
Hearing the sirens croon
In a familiar room
Laying with last year's love
High as the moon above

Three brothers and their friends from New York making raggedy gypsy folk. Great Songs, combining the charming harmonica and sometimes questionable singing style that Dylan created mixed with modern American Folk and country guitar and drums with a honky-tonk piano thrown in for good measure.

The Felice Brothers just take the ‘family band’ thing to a whole new level.

http://www.thefelicebrothers.com