Out of thin air

Last night i went to Jeff's studio and 4 new songs appeared out thin air..like snowflakes.. songs that did not exist yesterday morning are now among us. 1. The Girl Next Door   2. I miss Old Mexico   3. The Big Emptiness  4. I love Camouflage. Can't wait for you to hear them...soon...keith

15 My Life Ain't Over

15 My Life Ain't Over

Timing

We wait in Advent..
Advent-ure continues..
The story never gets old
but the waiting sure does.
Learning to laugh in the waiting..
to pray in the waiting..
to love in the waiting..
to embrace frustration in the waiting..
to trust in the waiting..
waiting to see something never seen
to taste something never tasted
to feel something never felt
to laugh with the joy of detachment...
not needing so much we thought we did..
not so much of this or that..
and then..
He comes in some kind of unexplainable way.
and the waiting begins again..

wkm
nashville
for stjoftc

A Dream?

She hovers above him..

her bare feet dangle a few feet above the foot of the bed.
More beautiful than anything he has ever seen.
Silent and Other..So what does a man say to an angel?.
to a Being of light?
"How goes it?", "What's up?"..
That's a strange dream Jim.
Jimmy sat down and placed his head in his hands..
I am not sure if it is a dream bro,
it seems real.
Does she say anything?
Nothing..she just hovers for a few seconds,
her wings barely moving..
she has a slight smile with very relaxed dark eyes.
Weird bro.
Tommy called for his Basset Hound Faulkner and walked to the front door,
How many nights in a row now?
Jimmy sat back and looked at his watch as if that had anything to do with anything..
3.
Tommy and Faulkner walked out into the humid winter morning.
Cool enough for a jacket, but not really,
you'll be sweating in this humidity in a minute,
even with it around 57 degrees..
It's hard to get comfortable some days in a Mississippi winter.
He picked up Faulkner and put him on the passenger seat..

wkm
Where's Rilke?

Where's Rilke?

I am going to put the dogs in the car,
drive just across County Road 202,
enter the field of Bermuda interspersed with brown winter weeds,
park near the tree line.
I will go to the house trailer on the property and ask permission,
hoping they will allow my dogs and me to walk on their property.
I am tired of parks with leash laws, controlled environments, perfectly dressed upper middle class humans,
angry looks from hyper sensitive shallow soul ignoring boobs because i refuse to leash...
i refuse to leash...
If the people in the trailer allow us,
I will get them out of the car and walk through a narrow opening in a wall of Kudzu.
I do not know what is on the other side of this slight opening,
But it seems to be filled with light..In my imagination I have already seen it,
it will be as the door in Lewis' wardrobe..
opening to a field of tall brown weeds and low moving clouds..
Jack will see and chase many squirrels!
Pig will run with abandon, stretching, reaching, bounding with exuberance!
I will find silence one only finds while lost in an unknown field with his dogs.

wkm
Oxford

Crow Community

When I walk outside at dawn in Oxford, there are crows.
Not a few, but an entire community..
They live where we live.
Once I counted 57 before they flew and changed trees.
The sound is a cacophony, a symphony warming up..
Conversations show personality and emotion.
Some caw slowly and then listen..I call them the Listeners.
Some caw like my aunts speak to each other at a family reunion,
with rapid staccato words and tones of complaint and laughter.
I call them the Gossips.
Their jet black color fills the stark bare gray trees of winter...
it is beautiful.
I have joined the conversation a few times..
Some are humored by my attempt to caw like they do.
One flew toward me, coming very close.
We made eye contact..
I think he was more than curious.
His single caw as he passed sounded friendly.
I calmly lifted my left hand and waved with two fingers.
"Peace" i said.

wkm

Painting by Bob Orsillo

The Moon (Le Luna)

Walking by the old mill pond after midnight
Tuesday night alone with all these tangled thoughts
Have you noticed, you don't hear a crow caw after midnight?
Wind is cold upon face and in my heart.

I see you up there shining
how you reflect the light of the sun
You make the waves roll high on the deep blue ocean
You make the wolf howl sadly for the coming dawn

The Moon ( Silver sister of the sun)
The Moon ( Playing games with every one)
I can't stop staring at her soft beguiling beauty..
There is no sound except my broken beating heart

How do we get to these lonely places in the journey?
My father never took the time to talk to me..
I am man now with a son and now I wonder
no matter what I do, how will my son look at  me?

The Moon ( Silver sister of the sun)
The Moon (Playing games with every one )
I can't stop staring at her soft beguiling beauty..
There is no sound except my broken beating heart

bridge:

The red wine in my coffee mug smells of flowers
A hillside of vineyards in a world far from here
A dog barks in the cooling night so distant calling
I feel the need to howl within my fear

I see you up there shining
Reflecting the light of the sun
You make the waves roll high on the deep blue ocean
You make the wolf howl sadly for the coming dawn

The Moon ( Silver sister of the sun)
The Moon ( Playing games with every one)
I can't stop staring at her soft beguiling beauty..
There is no sound except my broken beating heart

lyrics by keith and music by Jeff

Jeff Gordon JeffGordon@carlinnashville.com via eigbox.net	Nov 1 (5 days ago)
to me

This is the most brilliant thing you have ever written. It made the hair stand up on my arm, just the words. We’re writing this tomorrow night. Out of your anguish comes magic. It’s like I can hear the music already. Amazing Keith!!! Jeff

Impossible Beauty

Go here to hear this new one!  

http://soundcloud.com/the-wineskins/impossible-beauty-3

Impossible Beauty

Hello Hello Mr. So and So
Can I take you for a ride?
down the roads we're all still living
a forgotten world of blacks and whites

An ignored impossible beauty
full of healing possibilites
more stories more poems more music
and more Kudzu than the eye can see

Take you down to Billy Rays Farm

Maybe glimpse Mr. Larry Brown's soul
Take you down to the Juke Joint rockin
Where Elvis learned to rock and roll

Take you down to Faulkner's "Mansion"
Where Shelby Foote once spent the night
Come on down to the Catfish frying
Where Walker's Moviegoer feels alright

we'll drive on down to Tennessee WIlliams

His Sun burned the old tin roof

Drive on down to Yazoo City

Where Jerry Clower is laughing proof

Come on down to Eudora Welty
see her driving round this Jackson town
92 and full of childlike wonder
wish Ms Eudora was still around..

Take you down to Junior Kimbrough,
Asie Payton B.B. King
We'll take HWY 61 and revisit
this haunting beauty holding everything

Bridge

If this red clay soil could sing

it'd be a frightening hopeful thing
fools politicians preachers and poets

the blood of sinners saints and slaves

Civil war and civil strife
old wounds still hold this mystical place
Like a mother holds a freakish childand dare not behold it's tepid face
 

CH

Hello Hello Mr. So and So
Can I take you for a ride?
down the roads we're all still living

a forgotten world of blacks and whites 

Take you down to Billy Rays Farm

Maybe glimpse Mr. Larry Brown's soul
Take you down to the Juke Joint rockin
Where Elvis learned to rock and roll 

Lyrics by W. Keith Moore, Music by Jeff Gordon
Oxford MS

That Afternoon

 That Afternoon

It was raining
We went walking
That afternoon

You were singing
You were dancing
That afternoon

Thunder shook the hillside fair
Soaked to the bone, we did not care

I told stories
about my family
That afternoon

You laughed so hard
and called them crazy
That afternoon

Summer rain so soft and warm
Ain't nothing like a southern storm

Wooooo

I had called you
To talk
that afternoon

I'd waited for you
to walk
that afternoon

You gave your heart and soul so true
I gave my trembling life to you..

Wooooo

w. keith moore

Le Luna ( The Moon)

Walking by the old mill pond after midnight
Tuesday night alone with all these tangled thoughts
Have you noticed, you don't hear a crow caw after sundown?
Wind is cold upon my face and in my heart.

I see you up there shining
how you reflect the light of the sun
You make the waves roll high on the deep blue ocean
You make the wolf howl sadly for the coming dawn

The Moon ( Silver sister of the sun)
The Moon ( Playing games with every one)
I can't stop staring at her soft beguiling beauty..
There is no sound except my broken beating heart

How do we get to these lonely places in the journey?
My father never took the time to talk to me..
I am man now with a son and now I wonder
no matter what I do, how will my son look at  me?

The Moon ( Silver sister of the sun)
The Moon (Playing games with every one )
I can't stop staring at her soft beguiling beauty..
There is no sound except my broken beating heart

bridge:

The red wine in my coffee mug smells of flowers
A hillside of vineyards in a world far from here
A dog barks in the cooling night so distant calling
I feel the need to howl within my fear

I see you up there shining
Reflecting the light of the sun
You make the waves roll high on the deep blue ocean
You make the wolf howl sadly for the coming dawn

The Moon ( Silver sister of the sun)
The Moon ( Playing games with every one)
I can't stop staring at her soft beguiling beauty..
There is no sound except my broken beating heart

keith

Well Read Redneck

The low rumble of a the soul's conscience reminds me of a fox hunt.

The sound plays on the mind's ears akin to a big rig idling at a truck stop..

 Our music continues to explore this sound through humor and wonder..

A new song appeared this week called "A Well Read Redneck".

It is a touching distorted guitar laden back beat about a southern man labeled by the culture

And he really doesn't care, as he finds reading, his wife, and his beer are simply enough.---keith

Checking In

The Wineskins sure do appreciate all the love and when you "LIKE" us it gets us all emotional.. Be sure and give the tunes a listen.. The album is coming together like some kind of musical puzzle of sounds, words, and groove. Don't forget, you can download all the tunes we have put up on http://soundcloud.com/the-wineskins for a short time for free. You will have them forever in their infant stage; for soon they will be toddlers.

peace,
keith
http://www.facebook.com/thewineskins

Sanctuary

http://soundcloud.com/the-wineskins/10-sanctuary

This is one of those tunes you can drive to..keith

Down Here I'm Free

We have 21 tunes written for the new album!! They just keep coming.. and they are all an important piece to the puzzle..

Down Here I'm Free is about that awesome feeling you get when you're home.. that place your soul can breathe.. That place you can laugh in a way you don't laugh anywhere else..

We will post it soon.

Peace,
Keith and Jeff

Thank You So Far...

 To all the hundreds of humans who have joined in...thank you folks!! Jeff and Keith  http://soundcloud.com/the-wineskins

Jeff and Keith

Several new tunes...

http://soundcloud.com/the-wineskins

We put several of the new tunes in their innocent raw form....hope you find one you want to sing with..keith

Arkansas Side

http://soundcloud.com/you/tracks  

Check out "Arkansas Side"....I wrote the lyrics after Jeff told me about going to visit Benny when he was in the hospital. He almost died...We wrote this back in June. We recorded this version last night..


keith

The Next Step

We are about to be digging in on the production. We have 20 songs...You have heard a few here and other places, you have heard them in their most raw stage. Some will stay that way, some won't. We are writing one more tomorrow night. Then we move on to the next step....Producing is like painting..We are picking up the brushes of sounds, beats, and barks.  ----keith

The song....

a couple a weeks ago I wrote about this tune...a dangerous tune... here it is...

http://www.facebook.com/w.keith.moore?ref=profile#!/thewineskins

Last night..

Last night, Renee' and I were sitting in the screened-in porch listening to the new tunes Jeff and I have been writing. Sipping on a clear drink, swinging in the swing. I have recorded a lot of music in my life, written a bunch of songs, but nothing has come my way like these songs. Being back with Jeff has created a landslide of poetry and melody. I sure hope a bunch of you folks out there get to hear this music. But somehow that is out of our hands..we will put it out and do our limited things we can do to get it to you, but really it is up to timing, placement, luck, God, the wind, and the "right" efforts...hard work. We want you to discover us.. we want to be your band.

The album will be called "Benny," -- a guy who is Jeff's and my dear friend and was once a fellow Wineskin..It is somehow about Benny, but not really..because Benny represents all of us. The true "everyman"...born in the deep south, raised in the confusing bewildering families we are all given, a drunk, sober, kind hearted, lost, unable to break the chain, able to break the chain..funny as hell, sad as hades, trying to live as best he can...and often failing...loves deeply, loved deeply..confused, frustrated, curious, almost tasting lasting happiness, all of us.--keith

Rattle My Faith

I was home in Oxford this past Friday. I had just finished "A Miracle of Catfish" by Larry Brown, the last thing he wrote before he left this "Impossible Beauty". My cell phone vibrated and I saw it was Jeff calling. He tells me an idea about the idea of faith. About how an undamaged confident faith is not really a faith that holds much water. Something to that affect.. I already knew the lyric..I rushed to the computer and tried to keep up with the words appearing on the screen. I sent it to Jeff within minutes of his call and he responded with excitement as to another song landing on our window seal . It's a dangerous song to be sure.

Last night I arrived at Jeff's office on Music Row and he was waiting outside. Usually when I get there Jeff is wanting to stand out back of the house for a few minutes, unwind, and sip a beer. His routine becomes my routine and we relax and talk about life in general. Not last night! When I got out of my car he said, "I've got to show you the music I came up with for "Rattle My Faith" right now! As he started playing the beautiful chords and showed me the haunting melody, I knew the song as if we had played it a hundred times..Within 5 minutes of sitting down we recorded the song. When you dear folks hear this song, you will hear that moment..you will hear that vibe of that song being born. It all went down at once.--keith

Mississippi Will

I was thinking tonight about the first song we wrote when we got back together this past June. It was June 5, 2011....I had been back in Nashville part time for 1 year. I had almost given up on trying to find you..On June 1 I went to the old building where we used to write. You were gone..I ran in to Ronnie as I was leaving, whom I haven't seen in 11 years, and he told me where you were. We set up a meeting and the day we were to meet I sent you the lyric, "Mississippi Will"..You came up with the basic melody and we wrote it that night.. That was a good sign..Keith

Pablo YEA!

The sounds of Pablo's farm that day inspired us to no end! The goats, horses, chickens, birds, Roosters..And Pablo's passion for his art. He uses the red clay soil we grew up in to make the finest pottery. Our songs must be adorned with the sounds we have "dug" out of the ground as Pablo dug every brick out of the ground for his Kiln. As we drove back to Nashville that Sunday, the song formed among us as we drove down the road.."Be like Pablo, be like Pablo, be like Pablo YEA!" This is going to be a blast to create together. Can't wait to play it for Pablo! --Keith

Pablo, the Spanish conqueror

You know we're going to have to put this song, Pablo, together the way he would do it. We'll take...instead of old bricks, we'll take sounds, like Pablo fetches a bottle or a stone from the ditch like a beggar, we'll collect all the thrown away sounds. Well use them to create a symphony. I'm going to loop the crickets we recorded at his house. And perhaps we should, instead of using horns or any other conventional instruments, we should use the towboat whistle we recorded. I can change the pitch and we can play it like a keyboard on different tracks to make chords. We could even do that with the sound of Pablo's horse. It's only fitting that we figure out how to finish our tribute to him using only the sounds that are out there, lying around collecting dust, nobody much cares about. Jeff

A Place to Put My Fear

Are lions truly courageous? Is it a thing of merit to be at the top of the
food chain? Perhaps the short answer is yes. Will a buzzard eat a dead
buzzard? There’s one in the road that runs beside my house, road kill’s
road kill. Or so I assume, the middle of the road would be an odd place to
die of old age. I’ve been keeping an eye on him and so far the answer is
no. I’ve been so humane to my dog he’s almost human and even though Orwell
warned about it, I rooted for the red army, not because they were right,
but because I miss my enemy and a place to put my fear.
Jeff
9/11/11

Scary

Last night we wrote a new tune called "Look up at the Stars"...I think it may be the best song we've written so far..The simplicity and sparse approach came upon us like a dream. We played it one time..and this is what you will hear on the album..or as a single song we release.  Jeff and I are stumbling upon something with how we are writing and recording this stuff...it is all about capturing the moment the song is written in. It is scary and incredibly enjoyable.--keith

Groovy Bugs

Jeff and I spent a lot of time recording bugs. Jeff is turning into a mad scientist of bug sounds. Not only does Jeff come up with some amazingly beautiful melodies, he is truly a talented guitarist and producer,,,and now I should add, a kind of Bug Whisperer. He has his creatures now..his sounds we recorded over two days in Mississippi..... I believe Mississippi bugs know and are proud of their roots. They make their sounds with an accent unlike the accents of other southern states. They make a deeply melancholic music with a 70's groove, a purely analog tone, rich with grit and romance. These Mississippi bugs have refused to lose their soul to digital. I find that very refreshing. They were happy when Jeff told them we were releasing the album on vinyl.  They groove differently than Tennessee bugs for sure..Tennessee bugs are more structured and business like..not Mississippi bugs. Take my word for it. Jeff recorded long moments of these southern singing creatures. We are going to employ them in the making of our new album. I even saw him getting a mailing address from one strange looking bug to send royalty checks once the record "takes off". He recorded this too. I would play it for you but the bug insisted on privacy..sorry.---keith

The Morons of Oxy

The Wineskins

The first time we played live a big fat guy came up from the back of the
club and turned the juke box on. He stood there with a pool cue in his
hand staring right at us. Then our drummer jumped off the stage and
started beating the crap out of him. Or he would have I guess, if we’d had
a drummer. But we didn’t, we had two acoustic guitars and a mandolin. So
we just kept on playing, miming to a really loud version of Alabama’s
“Whisper To Me Softly”. It was kind of sad.

A year later we got a better gig at a club overlooking the Cumberland
River in downtown Nashville. The club owner was a skinny old hippie that
wouldn’t allow any amps or electric instruments. So we added the biggest
ones we could find, cello and string bass. The next thing you know we were
up and running, thumping away to a packed house every weekend. We would
practice and write songs during the week and then do our show on the
weekend. The Wineskins had arrived.

Any musician in Nashville will tell you that supply is way ahead of
demand. It’s always been that way. Thus getting a descent live gig is
tough if not impossible, but recording……….well now that’s a different
story. We had access to the best studios, engineers and players, and
quickly we began to learn how to capture the acoustic sound of The
Wineskins.

To us though, success meant getting a record deal, and we put a lot of our
energy into courting various labels and management companies. That’s when
it started to suck. Nashville can be one of the worst places to develop as
an artist, because you’re always in the shadow of the music industry, and
industry and art is an oxymoron. So we changed our name to The Morons of
Oxy (not really) and we fizzled, we flopped, we despaired, we moved back
to Mississippi.

But still, the founders of the band, the guys that once mimed to a juke
box, kept writing, and writing, and writing and eventually something
happened, an epiphany. We began to write songs because we had something to
say. It sounds simple, but it can be one of the most difficult things for
an artist to remember, to tell the truth, to use your talent as an
expression, to heal yourself with the things that you create. The world is
cluttered with good, but everything great is made this way.....Jeff

The Dogs

I pulled into Oxford last night about 9:00..my beautiful wife was waiting with a glass of wine in each hand..my dogs ran as fast as they could throuh the yard, happy that I was home. Ain't nothing like coming home. Nothing like being loved. It's like a miracle.

Jeff and I wrote two new songs this week. "Benny" and "Be Like Pablo".. songs inspired by our journey last weekend through this haunted place called Mississippi..Home.

I played the songs for wife this morning....she loved them.

wkm

Bricks

We just keep gathering bricks wherever we can find them. Bricks to build with. Like Pablo and his Kiln. Where he makes the most beautiful pottery, right there in Yocona Mississippi, where me and my family lived for 11 years. He uses the red clay soil for his art. He gathered hundreds of bricks without the help of any one. In obscurity he saw the Kiln, the barn..and one plank and brick at a time, he built it. He raises his own food..chickens, goats, a garden so brilliant it makes you feel good just looking at it.  He inspired Jeff and me to keep gathering our bricks to build this thing we dream of. The Wineskins is our dream..our Kiln....from it comes songs, sounds, images..our pottery is our music. And no one is going to help us. No music business person will get this music..they are not going to help us build this. No one else sees this and no one else wills this, just the two of us. Jeff and I see it, and it gets clearer every day. And one day, we will find the way to get this music to folks..and when it happens, we will all be glad we did.    k

Down in Mississippi

This past weekend Jeff and I traveled to Oxford, Marks, Clarksdale, Cleveland, and Greenville Mississippi. We recorded with an incredible audio recorder and a very high tech video recorder. We always had both of them running..meeting folks, eating in cool places like Abe's BBQ in Clarksdale. All for the album we have been writing for since June 5 of this year. We saw our former band mate Brian down in Greenville. It was great seeing him again. It had been a while for me. I don't get down to Greenville much. It is a place all unto itself. It has a haunted pastel quality..makes me think of Walker Percy and Shelby Foote.. when we met up with Brian he had arranged for us to record a Tow Boat horn...it was pretty cool.

We will update you on how the album is coming...

peace,
Keith

It's about living..

When you hear a song that really moves you, you remember it. You want to hear it again. Same thing with great literature, you get upset when a great story is about to end.

The Wineskins are a combination of music and words with soaring melodies and words you feel something about.

The Wineskins are back...good things to come..

The Wineskins are writing and putting together something special. It's been a while, but it looks like it is going to be worth the wait.

http://www.facebook.com/w.keith.moore?ref=profile#!/pages/The-Wineskins/156067664461713