MIXTAPE: Sam Blasucci’s Life Forms in Live Performance

Coming early 2025, I will be releasing a live concert film of my new record, Real Life Thing. The film runs like a play of sorts, including different set changes and moods for each song as we run down the entire track list of the album. To me, live performance is the reason for making music. It’s the best way for me to tap into something deep in myself with those that have come out to do the same. It’s also the way that I make my trade as a human; I think live performance already brings an honest and vulnerable energy since it is our livelihood.

Songs evolve each time they’re performed live and each instrument reflects a current mood. It’s an endless mixed bag of potential outcomes. So much of a performance is pulled from all of the energies involved – the crowd, the band, the venue and the ghosts that live there, the time of year, etc. It’s the most exciting part of music to me and that’s why I decided to make my playlist all live performances of some of my favorite songs. – Sam Blasucci

“If I Was Your Girlfriend” Live In Utrecht (2020 Remaster) – Prince

I could have made this entire playlist just live Prince recordings that blow my mind, but that might only be fun for me. I especially love this version because it’s a song he wrote as his alter ego persona Camilla, who sang it on the album (Prince pitched his voice up to sound higher). But in this version, you just get Prince in Europe with his natural voice and it’s one of my favorite recordings of his ever.

“Hey That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” Live in London – Leonard Cohen

I think this is Leonard Cohen’s best album of any, live or in the studio. He was better and better with age. This is the cute version of Leonard as an old man finally, singing this song in the way it feels like it should have always been sung. Of any live performance on this list, this is the one I would have loved to see most in person.

“LA FAMA” Live en el Palau Sant Jordi – Rosalía

Some live versions I think are better than the studio versions and this is one of those cases, although I love the studio versions of all the MOTOMAMI songs. When Rosalía released this on the deluxe version of the album, it gave the song another side and clicked with me even more.

“Hunter” (Live) – Björk

If the purpose of a live performance is to tap in to something, Björk never missed. She’s the hunter.

“Knock On Wood” Live; 2005 Mix; 2016 Remaster – David Bowie

This is my favorite era of David Bowie (Cracked Actor). I especially love his vocal performance in this version. It’s not easy to cover a classic song like this and have it feel tastefully ramped up, but I think he brought it and crushed it.

“Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)” – Donny Hathaway

Willie Weeks may be my favorite bass player and his solo section toward the end of this is widely known as one of the coolest bass moments, and with good reason. I suppose it shouldn’t be that hard to tap in when Donny Hathaway is leading the band.

“17 Days” Piano & A Microphone 1983 Version – Prince

When you can strip it all down to a single instrument and a voice and come through with so much power and spirit, that must be the true peak of live performance. When there is nothing else in the pot, all the secret parts of the music come out and make magic.

“Hot Burrito #2” Live at Lafayette’s Music Room – Big Star

I always thought Alex Chilton had some similarities with Gram Parsons. They sort of sing in a similar way and they both show so much emotion in their songs. I think that’s why he could make this version hit so hard. Chilton is at the top of my list of guitar players as well, and this song is a reason why.

“Ventura” Live 2003/The Fillmore, San Francisco – Lucinda Williams

This was recorded on my birthday in 2003. Although I was in 3rd grade and not in attendance for the show, I’d like to think I helped with the vibes. This one sounds like November in SF to me. Another amazing thing about live performance is capturing the energy surrounding the show.

“Woman of Heart and Mind” Live at Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA, 8/14-17, 1974 – Joni Mitchell

Another version that I prefer to the studio cut. The sound of the night and the live acoustic guitar; Joni’s semi-confrontational and conversational writing style seem to be designed for an in-person type of listening.

“Angel Eyes” Live In Toronto/1975 – Jim Hall

Jim Hall is another one of my favorite guitar players. I learned about this song years ago on tour in Colorado and it has ever since remained one of my favorites.

“Stay a Little Longer” Live at Harrah’s Casino, Lake Tahoe, NV April 1978 – Willie Nelson

This feels like a good burning ender to this playlist, although it is the very opening of the concert it was taken from. Willie’s recipe is 3x the speed of the original, a couple out of control solos, and likely some exotic mood modifiers.


Photo Credit: Jo Anna Edmison

BGS 5+5: Blitzen Trapper

Artist: Blitzen Trapper
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Latest album: Holy Smokes Future Jokes
Release Date: September 25, 2020

Answers provided by Eric Earley

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Michael Stipe was my favorite songwriter as a kid, his lyrics were so strange and uncanny. I’m thinking of Reckoning and Murmur, some of the most anachronistic lyrical content ever. There were no lyric sheets or online lookups back then so I was always trying to figure out what he was saying. His songs always had the feeling of a riddle or a magical text, the imagery was dreamlike and over the years I’ve tried to emulate that in certain ways. Tom Waits was a large influence later in my twenties, his bizarre comical lyrical storytelling and character voices were inspiring, I’m thinking of Rain Dogs in particular.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

There isn’t any favorite, lots of weird amazing ones for sure, playing “Heard It Thru the Grapevine” with Stephen Malkmus trading weird, collapsing solos with Stephen as he made up the words because we were too lazy to learn the lyrics. I think we were in Cleveland, but I could be wrong. Playing Big Star’s “Feel” with Jody Stephens on drums and Mike Mills on backing vocals in Austin, Texas, that was surreal.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

Most of my favorite songs have literary origins, whether it’s a particular Cormac McCarthy novel like Blood Meridian (“Black River Killer”) or a general religious text like the Bardo Thodol (the new record is based largely on this book). Biblical imagery has made its way into countless songs I’ve written as a result of childhood influences and pervasive cultural resonances. I’ve also started writing a lot of songs from reading specific poets, using their wordplay to inspire different turns of phrase. Seamus Heaney, Mary Oliver, to name a couple, I’ve also used Finnegan’s Wake and Gravity’s Rainbow to generate wordplay and imagery.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I’ve been playing music since I was a child, so being a musician was never really a choice. I didn’t think of it as a career for a long time. I went to college for physics and math, studied painting, learned classical fingerstyle, became a sous chef. Finally in my late twenties I decided to drop everything and play music, mostly because all the songs I was writing were keeping me up at night, but I didn’t have any vision for the business part of it. Spent seven years playing unattended shows in Portland. Got a record deal off a random song on Myspace and suddenly was touring and making money.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

Experimentation is the only way to realize the vision of reality you want to hear, so never grow static in style or voice, always move forward, never sit still sonically. Don’t write angry, only from a place of emptiness without sentimentality, nostalgia without regret. Don’t try to please anyone, only follow your instincts.


Photo credit: Jason Quigley

MIXTAPE: John Murry’s Southern Soundtrack

When we needed a Mixtape selected for a Southern soundtrack, we knew John Murry was our guy. After all, he is related to William Faulkner.

The Connells — “Lay Me Down”

A song from a pair of North Carolina attorneys and their band about a child they knew who received a bicycle for his 11th birthday, rode it away from home on his own for the first time the next day, fell into a ditch, and broke both of his legs. It rained. The little guy slowly drowned as the water rose.

Lead Belly — “You Don’t Know My Mind”

Though he sang his way out of prison not once, but twice, I seriously doubt it was this song that he sang for his white captors to gain his release — a song now white-washed and remembered fully in circles that have kept a tradition alive, added meaning and mirth to his verses by adding theirs while reviving and performing his original verses. Kenny Brown is a legend in Mississippi. His earliest version, recorded for Fat Possum, is still a touchstone for me.

Furry Lewis — “Judge Harsh Blues”

Another song about law and (dis)order, written by a man who preferred to be known as the one-legged street sweeper of Beale Street in Memphis than a bluesman. The Rolling Stones and U2 both gave him gifts of expensive guitars while he was still alive, living at the top of Beale. He pawned both the day he got them. FTW. RIP, Furry. Universality? All arrestees will soon (or do now) know about 11 months, 29 days … I can’t sign my name either, Furry. I have never known it.

Vic Chesnutt — “Isadora Duncan”

To dream he was dancing with Isadora, the woman who unabashedly danced and — with a sash pulled by the dance and the dancer — first exposed her bare breast to a stupefied, stupefying, and puritanical public … and to write of that dream from a wheelchair. Dance on, Vic. What beauty, what timelessness, what a gift he gave us (though “we” weren’t ready, perhaps, to be exposed to his transcendent and righteous indignation and powerfully fragile poetry).

Big Star — “Holocaust”

In honour and in memoriam of LX Chilton and Chris Bell (though not on this recording), I intend to drop acid later today and report back to no one. Big Star did not simply pave the way for “jangly indie pop”; they created powerful, powerful music with the help of the legend that was Mr. Jim Dickinson (living on, mister!) despite the “obstacles” Ardent and an entire industry placed in their way. Memphis was dying, Elvis was dead, and those listening were “… a wasted breath, you’re a sad eye, you’re a holocaust.” Basketballs, deflated, served as percussion, as there’s no need for a formal drum kit (just ask Stephen Merritt — or anyone who stomps while singing — or any kid in a kitchen with pots and pans and wooden spoons) when heart, broken or bruised, and soul are captured on tape, just as living and gone ghosts on celluloid prints were. William Eggleston playing piano on “Sister Lovers”? Magic. All of it was magic. And this kind of magic terrifies. What happened to them in that place that necessitated this bit of “horror”? No one ever asks the right questions, I suppose.

Jim Dickinson — “Wild Bill Jones”

Jim was the moral compass Southern music needed after the Civil Rights Movement, after Elvis’s death, after Yankee A&R folks no longer visited Memphis — “the capital of Mississippi” — anymore in search of “that” thing the South breeds. The master had tamed the beautiful beast, or so the beautiful beast would have their “master” believe. Bob Frank wrote this one. Kinda. He’s the greatest songwriter you’ve never heard.

Lost Sounds — “Ship of Monsters”  (Not on Spotify)

Jay Reatard was an incredibly complicated person, a lover and a fighter, as sensitive as they come, capable of an empathy that can only lead — in our world — to those blood visions that took him from us too early. I slept most nights at the People’s Temple near the old 616, making prank calls with Jay and the Oscars, and playing shows as a fake straight-edge hardcore band while inebriated. This record was being recorded at the time in the space at the bottom of the warehouse. Scott Patterson and I would listen to “Scenic” on the roof. Abe and I would listen to “Art Bell” in the kitchen. Jay broke a fucker’s arm with a bass for trying to attack him (and us). To fear goodness is silly. But common now. Leaves many stranded. He fought. For me, this was a record that attacked the core of something I lived inside, the first to do so. It taught me. Jay and Alicja Trout are that decency and violence the world needed and still demands. A better vision. No wave. Wtf that means.

Johnny Cash — “Delia’s Gone”

So many have done this. Christ, he did it justice, though. There’s a chair, a gun, suspicion, paranoia, direct Biblical allusions, and death. There ya go.

O.V. Wright — “A Nickel and a Nail”

His life was cut short by heroin, and his career defined by an ever-lurking fear; but he sang of it so well — of the terror of a twilight existence.

Townes Van Zandt — “Waiting Around to Die”“

He wrote this song after he was married. His new bride came to collect him to go to their wedding reception. He needed to finish writing a song down. He did. This is it.

Bob Dylan — “Mississippi”

Written at Zebra Ranch in Mississippi, this song is one that tells a universal truth — at least for those of us from *that* universe. How does Bob know? Same place, different centuries … “I stayed in Mississippi a day too long,” and can’t figure out what sin I committed I must now atone for. He somehow knows place as decay. As stagnant water in motion.

Sparklehorse — “Rainmaker”

Mark Linkous … His life, his words, his melodies simply resonate with me and reverberate in eerie ways. The rainmaker IS coming. He wasn’t “like” Wm Blake; he was cut of the same cloth. Wm Blake was “like” him, too. How odd we are, to see time as distances measurable. “All you’ve got to do is look in the sky and wish.”

Neutral Milk Hotel — “King of Carrot Flowers Pt 2 & 3”

Jeff used to borrow my amp and wrestle — and bite — my 110-pound labrador. This song is one I think I knew before I heard it. It’s that brilliant. “… and dad would dream of all the different ways to die.”

Reigning Sound — “Can’t Hold On” (Not on Spotify)

If ever a man was born out of time, it’s Greg Cartwright. Just listen.