Mike Cooley Show Was One Week Ago Tonight...

... at Tractor Tavern in Ballard, and after a lovely stop just down the avenue at the bar at Hattie's Hat, Danielle and I were first in line at the door.  We sat in the front row, basically dead center, about ten feet from Mike.  He played for an hour and forty-five minutes, just him and his guitar.  And, of course, last week in these very pages I promoted four or five (six?) of his songs so, if you'd care to get a sense of what it's like to see him solo...

The show was fantastic and I think I only teared up twice, though it could have been three - just incredible to hear these stripped down versions of his Drive-By Truckers songs.  Danielle, who is not as familiar with the DBT catalogue as I, turned to me at one point and said, "He's a fine lyricist."  So, if you don't believe me...

Also, it was a pleasure to briefly meet him afterward.  He is very quiet, almost shy, though he agreed to a picture.  Then, immediately, Danielle asked if his wife could join us in the snap and his face lit up.  "Honey get on over here," he said.

Finally, cheers to Bill Woten (a gentleman unknown to me until that evening) for taking this picture on his much better camera, and sending it to me the next day.

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"The Angriest Saviour in the World"

Original IBL art - ink, colored pencil and lipstick on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2/24/13.

Infection By Light - Working Hard For YOU

All from last night, detail to follow.

"Birthday Boy", Mike Cooley

On 3/21/12, right around the time I saw the Drive-By Truckers at the Showbox here in Seattle, I posted their song Birthday Boy, a Cooley composition, in these very pages (I also included the lyrics).  If this isn't my favorite DBT song, then it certainly has a fixed spot in my top 5.  In any event, I ran across this acoustic version and present it now for comparative purposes; and, also, because I think it has a lyrical passage as good as any I've heard in any song before - a description of the young women who might just wind up taking off a significant portion of their clothes for the birthday boy and his pals...

The pretty girls from the smallest towns
Get remembered like storms and droughts
The old men talk about for years to come
I guess that's why they give us names
So a few old men can say they saw us rain when we were young

Birthday Boy - music at 1:10; good sound, crappy video...

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"Gravity's Gone", Mike Cooley

Yep, it's a lot of Mike Cooley to have on your blog, I get that.  Likely there will be more, too...

Gravity's Gone...


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"Pulaski", Mike Cooley

One of my absolute favorites...

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"Cartoon Gold", Mike Cooley

Solo acoustic...

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(Untitled Original IBL Art)

Crayon, felt pen and ink on cocktail napkin, 4.75 x 4.75 inches, 2/17,18/13.















This one's for you, Charles Gee.

Pull Tabs High Pay Out -

Enough said, really.

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My Personal Gift to MOMA's Collection

In truth, it seems criminal to create all of this fine art and, then, send some of it to the odd friend, sure; post a few photos of said fine art in this space; let a great deal of it accumulate in a plastic drawer in our living room.  So I have, quite rightly, decided to share a tiny bit of the wealth with MOMA...

A few weeks ago a phrase popped into my head and I jotted it down on a scrap of paper.  A couple of days later I found the scrap laying on the counter and took a quick photo, which you can find in these very pages, 1/26/13.  I held on to the paper and a few weeks later added a sort of imprimatur I've been working on, a "variation" of the Black Sheets of Rain "series" I was doing early last year (check out 3/22/12 for a reminder, or simply search Black Sheets of Rain).  The imprimatur comes with a cross at times - other times it is cross-free.

As MOMA thoughtfully provided us with this pre-paid envelope (I will add the extra two cents), and the piece in question fits inside quite nicely, I have decided to send it out in Tuesday's post for inclusion in their permanent collection.

A generous gift if I do say so myself...


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"The Weakest Man", Mike Cooley

Mike Cooley is one of the two singer/songwriters who currently front Drive-By Truckers (Patterson Hood the other).  It is fair to say, I should think, that DBT are IBL's favorite rock band.  And by that I mean favorite, period.  In any event, the front men occasionally do solo tours, and this week Mike Cooley comes to the Tractor Tavern in Seattle, just him and his guitar (I saw Patterson Hood and the Downtown Ramblers last October at the Tractor, one of the finer shows I have seen in awhile).  To say we are excited about this Thursday's Mike Cooley show would be an extreme understatement.

And, so, the first of several I will be putting out there this week, DBT songs that Cooley is doing on his own -

The Weakest Man


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"Goodbye, Columbus"

Original IBL art - crayon, felt pen and pencil on cocktail napkin, 5 x 5 inches, 1/21/13

"Traced Cross"

Original IBL art - crayon and felt pen on cocktail napkin, 5 x 5 inches, 1/22/13.

"Follow You Down", Gin Blossoms

I hadn't thought about this song in years and years and, then, Steve Earle played it last weekend on his radio show on Outlaw Country (I know - he likes to stray sometimes).

Would that all pop songs were this well made...

Follow You Down...


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A Little Put Out by the Pope Quitting, I Am

I mean there's a reason I follow him on Twitter: to learn about this via CNN.com? In a word - disgraceful.

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"Pull Tabs $10"

Original IBL art - crayon, ink and lipstick on Christopher Norwood donated coaster (including the titular note to himself), 3.5 x 3.5 inches, initiated 2/8/13, completed 2/10/13.

"Leviathan"

Original IBL art - ink and torn Hattie's Hat receipt glued to found coaster with pre-drawn image, 3.5 x 3.5 inches, pondered for several months, completed 2/10/13.

McSweeney's #39 and #38

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A Note from Senator Patty Murray, Democrat, WA

On 1/16/13 in this very space I shared a letter I'd written to President Obama requesting he end the drone strike program in Pakistan.  I also sent copies of the letter to my Washington senators, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray.  Senator Murray has responded -

A humble thing but thine own...

Everybody in, nobody out.


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McSweeney's #40

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McSweeney's #41

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McSweeney's #42

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The Tree of Life

From the summer of 2011 at the Fletcher House in Tacoma - snapped by Danielle; cross shaped from entire spilled box of Life cereal by yours truly (cereal spilled by Bid Daddy); Chester brung the hunger.

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And So It Begins...

The first extant photograph of a pair of collages Infection By Light has commissioned of Geoffrey Bankowski...

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My Father's Final Christmas List

I recently found this in a box of stuff I hadn't been through in awhile.  He was very sick at the time and, unfortunately for all involved, was not able to keep the promise about the diary, not even close.

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Douglas Caine, Esquire

Risking it all one misty evening on the hard scrabble streets of Belltown, Seattle.

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