Tag: william faulkner

BGS 5+5: American Aquarium

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Artist: American Aquarium
Hometown: Raleigh, North Carolina
Latest album: Lamentations

Answers provided by BJ Barham

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

I can confidently say that I wouldn’t be the songwriter I am today if it weren’t for the discovery of Bruce Springsteen and his music in my early twenties. A friend played me Nebraska and I was floored. Must have listened to that album for a month straight. He was one of the first artists I have a clear memory of hearing and saying, “I want to do that.”

He writes these elaborate short stories set to music. The songs are expansive and cinematic. The characters are all people we know personally. Intimate snapshots into the lives of the working class. He speaks the universal language in a way not many people will ever be able to. There is something so simple, yet so complex about the way he tells stories. I don’t trust a songwriter who says they aren’t a fan of Springsteen.

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

I read a lot. I usually prefer fiction, but I’ll occasionally do a deep dive into a music-related autobiography. I tend to go for Southern writers and gravitate to the darker side of the genre. My songs take place in the darker corners of the Southern experience, so it doesn’t surprise me that my literary taste tend to go there as well. Faulkner, O’Connor, Harper Lee. The greats are what sucked me in.

I’ve been reading a lot of Cormac McCarthy, David Joy and Barry Hannah as of late. There is a familiarity of place that I really enjoy about them. I think a lot of the flaws in the characters of my songs are a direct result of the books I read in my leisure time. In my lifetime, literature has informed so much of what I know about people, I would be lying if I said it didn’t have an effect on me as a writer.

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

The first time I played songs in front of people I was hooked. I was double majoring in political science and history at NC State University with every intention of going to law school after my undergraduate work. Then I fell in love with songs. I remember the first show like it was yesterday. Me and some friends from high school played (horribly) at Tate Street Coffee in Greensboro, North Carolina, in front of about 20 people. I was hooked. I became a student of every aspect of the trade. Songwriting. Performing. Business. There was no looking back after that first show. I had found my calling.

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

I played a lot of sports growing up and every time I would complain about a loss or another player just getting a “lucky” shot, my father always said that “luck was the product of hard work” and that is something that has always stuck with me. Work Hard. Get Lucky. It’s so simple, yet so profound. I have those words tattooed across my chest to remind me every morning that luck is not just something that happens to people. There’s a really great quote about luck being the intersection of hard work and opportunity. I think that was what my Dad was trying to say all those years ago, just a little less poetic.

When I started this band back in 2005, I knew I wasn’t the best writer. I knew I didn’t have the best voice. The one thing I did have control over was how hard I was willing to work. I truly believe that willingness to outwork anyone that was better than me is the only reason that I am where I am today. I get to earn a living from writing songs and playing them for people because I dedicated myself to the craft of songwriting and refused to take no for an answer. Some friends always say that I’m so lucky to be able to play music for a living. I just smile and silently thank my father for the lessons he instilled in me at such an early age.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

When I first started writing songs, they were extremely detailed and autobiographical accounts of my youth. The partying, the mistakes, the love lost. As I got older, I started moving more toward character based fictional narrative. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a little bit of myself in every single one of my characters. Some more than others. I believe it’s important to always add those dashes of personal experience into the songs. It makes them more believable to the listener and allows you to fall into those characters as you perform these songs every night.

The fiction is where you have the ability to make the songs universal and not just about you. The bigger picture versus the guy looking back at you in the mirror. I think part of the craft of songwriting is learning that balance. The greats came out of the gate with that gift. The rest of us had to learn it the hard way. It took me quite a few years to stop writing about the person that I currently am and start writing about the better versions of myself that I hope to become.

Photo Credit: Cal & Aly

BGS 5+5: The Band of Heathens

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Artist Name: The Band of Heathens
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Latest Album: A Message From The People, Revisited

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

Literature has been a strong influence on music and life in general. I really fell in love with reading at a young age, devouring everything from Inside Pro Football 1985 to The Three Investigators series. I had a great 20th century literature course in high school with a teacher named Chuck Wettergreen, who really encouraged me to fuse my love of playing music and writing songs with literature. We tackled everything from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible to As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. Writers such as Kerouac, Burroughs, and Hunter S. Thompson have been life-long companions that have inspired me in the songwriting process.

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

I think I always knew that I wanted to play music. The first time I performed in front of an audience was in pre-school. My teacher somehow got Ella Jenkins (The First-Lady of Children’s Folk Songs) to visit our class and play music for us. I somehow ended up with a guitar in my hand at some point during the presentation and performed for my class. I was hooked from that point on!

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

Paul McCartney + Lebanese Food in Beirut. I am of Lebanese descent and grew up loving the cuisine. Additionally, I’ve never been to Beirut and I understand that’s it’s a magnificent city. Oh yeah, I’ve also never met or dined with Paul McCartney, so it would probably be cool to talk about The Beatles and some other stuff.

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

Independence. The whole idea of making music and living my life as a creative person is based on an idea of freedom. The freedom to be independent to live a life of your choosing; from the hours you keep, to the friends you have, to the way you look and the clothes you wear. I know we live in a country where we are free to pursue anything we want, but I’ve always felt that this lifestyle was a way for me to manifest that idea and truly live it.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

I’ve been living in Asheville, North Carolina, for about 5 years now and we are sandwiched between two national parks and have access to all sorts of natural wonder and beauty. I really enjoy hiking and exploring in the Pisgah National Forest, it really offers me a great opportunity to deep-breathe some fresh air and escape the everyday sounds of life. I’ve found that it really clears my head and makes room for creating song ideas. So many of my best initial ideas have come while I’ve been walking through and old growth forest, in the morning as the fog is lifting.

LISTEN: Trout Steak Revival, ‘Take Heart’

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Artist: Trout Steak Revival
Hometown: Denver, CO
Song: “Take Heart”
Album: Spirit to the Sea
Release Date: November 3, 2017

In Their Words: “I wrote it as a letter to my grandfather — about my grandmother and remembering her funeral in Anamosa, Iowa. He couldn’t say her name for years without crying. This song has become a chance to explore our connection with the spiritual world and to the feminine. Maybe it’s better explained by someone else — the quote that began all of it for me was from William Faulkner: ‘The past isn’t dead. It’s not even past.'” — Travis McNamara

Photo credit: Scott McCormick

A Few of Our Favorite Things from William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak

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Tucked away in a lush, wooded pocket of the otherwise bustling college town of Oxford, Mississippi, is Rowan Oak, the home of William Faulkner. Built in 1844 and purchased by Faulkner in 1930, the stately white antebellum home sits on 29 wooded acres. Faulkner, one of the most celebrated Southern authors of all time, purchased the then-vacant property for himself, his wife Estelle, and her two children. The property was originally owned by Irish planter Colonel Robert Sheegog and served as Faulkner's home until his death from complications following a horseback riding accident in 1962. 

The home is full of Faullkner artifacts — original artwork, clothing and accessories, and many of the supplies the author used in writing such famous novels as Absalom, Absalom!, The Unvanquished, and Go Down, Moses. The grounds, which are connected to a short hiking trail that leads to the University of Mississippi campus, feature a number of Faulkner's outdoor buildings, as well as remnants of original landscaping. 

The University of Mississippi now owns the property, and the house is open to the public for tours. We checked it out, and below are a few highlights from our visit.

Paintings by Maud Butler Falkner

Faulkner’s mother, Maud Butler Falkner (the “u” in Faulkner’s last name wasn’t added until 1918), painted frequently, and several of her paintings are displayed at Rowan Oak, including one of Faulkner, himself. Falkner often painted copies of famous works of art. 

Hand-written Plot Notes

Faulkner had an unusual writing practice — drafting plots for his novels on his walls. The walls of his office at Rowan Oak show a day-by-day plot breakdown of his 1954 novel, A Fable. That book would go on to net Faulkner both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award in 1955. 

Estelle Faulkner’s Painting Supplies

Like Faulkner’s mother, his wife Estelle loved to paint. Her bedroom, separate from his, features a painting area bathed in natural light. Estelle's and William's bedrooms were separate, though right next door to one another.

Faulkner’s Riding Boots

Faulkner was an avid rider, as shown by Rowan Oak’s stables and the assortment of riding equipment still found in his bedroom. He died following a thrombosis-related heart attack after suffering a major riding accident in 1962. He previously had a serious accident in 1959.

Cedar and Rowan Trees

Adding to the majesty of the house is a row of tall, thin cedar trees flanking the driveway, a landscaping feature that was prominent around the time of the home’s construction. Though the property was originally called "The Bailey Place" (named for the surrounding Bailey's Woods), Faulkner dubbed it Rowan Oak in homage to its numerous rowan trees.

Circle Garden

Added by its original owner, the garden was a feature of the property that had grown dilapidated by the time Faulkner purchased Rowan Oak, but he kept the remaining assortment of bricks, shrubs, and trees in tact. An avid teller of ghost stories and tall tales, Faulkner asserted that the garden was protected by the ghost of Judith Sheegog, the alleged daughter of Colonel Robert Sheegog. Legend has it, Judith flung herself to her death out of the home's second story window after a love affair gone wrong, and that her body is buried on the property.

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7 of the Best Independent Bookstores in the U.S. of A.

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It's back to school season already, so your Summer reading days may be behind you, but there's still time to get some good reads in … even if they are for class. If you aren't into supporting Amazon, independent bookstores are a great way to find new reading material while supporting local businesses. Plus, the actual humans who work in those stores probably give better recommendations than some algorithm, anyway. Here are seven of our favorite independent bookstores in the U.S.

City Lights Books — San Francisco, CA

Photo credit: Mobilus In Mobili via Foter.com / CC BY

Beat Generation figure and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti founded this bookshop, which is known for its progressivism as much as it is its poetry section, in 1953. You'll also find the most extensive selection of Beat literature and poetry around.

Faulkner House Books — New Orleans, LA

Photo via Facebook

Oxford may have Rowan Oak, but New Orelans has Faulkner House Books, an indie bookstore housed in — you guessed it — a former home of William Faulkner's. Located right in the French Quarter, this shop is a welcome breather from some of New Orleans' less book-centric activities.

Housing Works Bookstore Café — New York, NY

Photo via Facebook

Housing Works Bookstore Café is connected to Housing Works, a non-profit fighting both homelessness and HIV/AIDS. All of the profits from their bookstore benefits their mission. Books and a good cause? Sign us up.

Powell's — Portland, OR

Photo credit: dog97209 via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Nicknamed the "City of Books," Powell's is the ultimate indie bookstore, offering used and new books by the thousands. If you can't find it at Powell's, you probably can't find it anywhere.

Sundog Books — Seaside, FL

Photo credit: Aprile C via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Is there anything that sounds better than a walk on the beach followed by a trip to the bookstore? How about a trip to a bookstore situated directly below a record shop? Yep, that's what you'll find at Sundog Books, and it's pretty darn hard to beat.

Square Books — Oxford, MS

Oxford's Square Books has been around since 1979, a mainstay on the main drag of Faulkner's hometown, with a Faulkner section to prove it. Look for offshoots Square Books Jr. and Off the Square, both just short walks from the original, three-story location.

Parnassus Books — Nashville, TN

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Nashville's literary scene got a much-needed kick in the pants when renowned author Ann Patchett opened Parnassus in 2011. Five years later, the store itself has expanded, with the city's literary community following suit. Parnassus is your one-stop shop for books, author events, and, most importantly, shop dogs.

 

Because we know you also love music, check out our favorite indie record stores.

Lede photo credit: visitmississippi via Foter.com / CC BY-ND

Summer Southern Lit Reads That Aren’t William Faulkner

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When it comes to Southern literature, William Faulkner reigns supreme. His tales of Yoknapatawpha County have, since his first novel, Soldiers’ Play, came out in 1926, helped shape the contemporary mythology of what it means to live in the South (as well as the less talked about mythology of just how long a sentence can be). But there’s so much more to Southern literature than Faulkner, and there is a talented, diverse array of authors currently adding to and reshaping some of those Southern ideals first grown in the fertile soil of Faulkner’s Mississippi. Here are six of our favorite works of contemporary Southern literature, just in time for the Summer reading season.

Southern Cross the Dog by Bill Cheng

Queens-born Chinese-American Bill Cheng offers an imaginative take on life in pre-Depression Mississippi in his debut novel about the state’s devatating 1927 flood, recalling Southern lit luminaries like Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O’Connor.

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Released six years after Hurrican Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, Jesmyn Ward’s National Book Award-winning novel, Salvage the Bones, explores the lives of a Mississippi family in the days preceding and following the historic storm.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

A finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize, Miami native Karen Russell’s second novel is the magical realist take on alligator wrestling theme parks you never knew you needed.

Erasure by Percival Everett

Since his debut novel, Suder, came out in 1983, Georgia-born Percival Everett has established himself as one of the most important voices in Southern literature. His must-read Erasure (from 2001) is a scathing take on writing, race, and their often unfortunate intersections.

Soil by Jamie Kornegay

A farmer fears he’s been framed for murder in this novel, an essential piece of Southern literature for the farm-to-table age, from Mississippi native Jamie Kornegay.

Citrus County by John Brandon

Florida native John Brandon dives into the criminal antics for which his home state is known in this novel of kidnapping, murder, and, of course, high school geography. Brandon follows in the footsteps of fellow Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor by injecting the novel with a healthy dose of humor, making for an entertaining read and a well-crafted piece of satire.

Lede photo credit: Photographing Travis via Interior Design / CC BY

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