Tim O'Brien Road Journal

[mr2bur]

Jackson told me the guitarist in Ben Folds band came into Bongo Java in Nashville where he works, and he told him I had snagged the holy grail of sideman gigs. I have to agree with him.

Seems pretty happy to me?

MK is of course more laid back these days (no sauseges for nothing), but I can still imagine him being pissed off about Tim forgetting the words, after all it's quite a big honour for Tim to be asked to sing that, none of the other "regular" band members ever got the chance. GF could do it well I'm sure.

Judging by this quote from 6 May, poor Tim still hadn't nailed the words to STP after botching them about 3 weeks earlier in Eugene:
"The gig was at the beautiful United Palace Theater, the home of Reverend Ike, and still owned by his congregation. It was exciting playing in the Big Apple in that sold out theater in Spanish Harlem. The crowd was wonderful. I choke up a little when singing Sailing To Philadelphiaon the line where the character of Charlie Mason sings "This baker's boy from the north country would join the royal society".

I was at the United Palace show and Tim didn't botch anything that night. Listen to the recording - he sings the line correctly. What he botches are a couple of journal entries that he published 6 weeks after he stopped playing with MK and has moved on to playing his own material again.

Regarding Tim O singing the STP part instead of Guy Fletcher; I believe that MK felt that Tim O'Brien's lower register tenor / baritone voice better suited and closer resembled the original James Taylor part of STP as opposed to Guy Fletcher's seemingly higher pitched voice. All I know is that the 3 times I heard Tim sing STP he nailed the song each time. Listen to the recordings.

[Rollergirl]

MK is of course more laid back these days (no sauseges for nothing), but I can still imagine him being pissed off about Tim forgetting the words, after all it's quite a big honour for Tim to be asked to sing that, none of the other "regular" band members ever got the chance. GF could do it well I'm sure.

Yeah Dusty, I did think it odd that Guy didn't get the STP vocal -  nearly mentioned it elsewhere but got didn't in case certaiun people thought it was "soooo boring" or an invalid opinion cops I wasn't there!

Hey Jimbo! I hope I don't scare you into saying what you think   I don't bite you know (well, it was a one off and a long time ago    ) . And, anyway as The President, I would agree with you, GF would be great on sailing to Philly!

[FenderBender]

Jackson told me the guitarist in Ben Folds band came into Bongo Java in Nashville where he works, and he told him I had snagged the holy grail of sideman gigs. I have to agree with him.

Seems pretty happy to me?

MK is of course more laid back these days (no sauseges for nothing), but I can still imagine him being pissed off about Tim forgetting the words, after all it's quite a big honour for Tim to be asked to sing that, none of the other "regular" band members ever got the chance. GF could do it well I'm sure.

Judging by this quote from 6 May, poor Tim still hadn't nailed the words to STP after botching them about 3 weeks earlier in Eugene:
"The gig was at the beautiful United Palace Theater, the home of Reverend Ike, and still owned by his congregation. It was exciting playing in the Big Apple in that sold out theater in Spanish Harlem. The crowd was wonderful. I choke up a little when singing Sailing To Philadelphiaon the line where the character of Charlie Mason sings "This baker's boy from the north country would join the royal society".

I was at the United Palace show and Tim didn't botch anything that night. Listen to the recording - he sings the line correctly. What he botches are a couple of journal entries that he published 6 weeks after he stopped playing with MK and has moved on to playing his own material again.

Regarding Tim O singing the STP part instead of Guy Fletcher; I believe that MK felt that Tim O'Brien's lower register tenor / baritone voice better suited and closer resembled the original James Taylor part of STP as opposed to Guy Fletcher's seemingly higher pitched voice. All I know is that the 3 times I heard Tim sing STP he nailed the song each time. Listen to the recordings.

Sorry, I was attempting to be humorous. I won't make that mistake again. I'll just stick to being controversial!

[jimbobaby]

Hey Jimbo! I hope I don't scare you into saying what you think   I don't bite you know (well, it was a one off and a long time ago    ) . And, anyway as The President, I would agree with you, GF would be great on sailing to Philly!

Hey RG.  Don't worry I'm only teasing

[Love Expresso]

Somewhere in one of these diaries (was it the other one, from the other guy, I do not remember his name...) I really found it astonishing how he talked about the songs - TR "is an epic song about industrialisation and so on..." For all of us these songs and their lyrics are the I Ging, the mantra, the prayer whatever. But these guys didn't seem to be into Mark's music too much and thought they had to tell us about what the lyrics were....

Almost every forumer knows more about Mark's music than these guests, I am sure. However, I cannot play cittern, guitar, flute or anything, only yo-yo!  But I know the lyrics!

LE