12-10-2003

Daniel Burton - Early Day Miners

"Five digressions"

An American friend sent us Early Day Miners' debut cd, saying that we would most probably like it. And indeed, we drowned ourselves with pleasure in the quiet ocean waves of "Placer Found". A few years later, more records from the band (along with a second album from Daniel Burton's side project Ativin, and a collaboration with Chris Bennett and Unwed Sailor) have come to haunt our record collection.

These are the five words that Daniel Burton picked:
Stateless
Vacancy
Girlfriend
New Orleans, LA USA
Faulkner
+
Patina


# Stateless
I love this word. It essentially means calling no place your home, or having no place to call your home. You get this feeling a lot when touring, you don't really know where you are and you find yourself begining  to wonder who you are after a time. It becomes hard to relate to anyone because everywhere you look, people have a life in the place they're living and there's really no place for you in their world. You see people meeting at restaurants, train stations, bars, and they all live in and are a part of a community. Sometimes it's a nice, melancholy feeling, and you feel that the world is your home, that your a citizen of the world and there are friends everywhere. Other times it's the loneliest feeling, an indescribable hollowness. You wake up in Hong Kong and realize that you're completely dependent on the goodness of the people around you.


# Vacancy
You see this word a lot here in the USA on old hotel/motel signs from coast to coast. It sort of translates as emptiness. The hotel/motel is empty, the light is on, when it's full there is no vacancy. This sort of corrolates with Stateless explanation above. You're traveling and there is no one in your world, and there it is in bright, red flashing neon. Emmylou Harris has a great song on her new record called "Lost onto this World" which serves as a nice audio equivalent to this word.


# Girlfriend
I recently got married, and Jackie and I were talking the other day about how much more we like the word girlfriend/boyfriend than husband/wife. I think the whole husband/wife role has become loaded with insencerity and bullshit sentiment. You're no longer best friends, instead you're an owned commodity. I choose not to use the word wife when referring to my girlfriend.


# New Orleans, LA USA
My favorite city. I hope this city never catches up with the rest of the US. The town itself looks amazing, but the people in it are what make it truly unique. Art is everywhere, and I am continually amazed by the way it disassociates itself creatively from the rest of the country. It's a very complicated place and cannot adequately be described in words. If you come to the US, start here.


# Faulkner
My favorite writer, squarely rooted in the American Southern Gothic tradition. Much of his writing is barely discernable, and often I've given up on his books. His writing is a heady brew of elegance, rudimentary language, broken speech, downtrodden southern aristocrats, religious zealots, and well worn sharecroppers. Cool Shit!


# Patina
Natural decay. Improves with age. Historical. Plaster. Timeless. The anti-strip mall.