12/20/2020> We already scribed liner notes for "Mare" (track 8 of Herd of Birds) so no post today, no 8 maids a milking.

12/21/2020> No 9 ladies dancing neither... we already blogged liner notes for the 9th track ("Totem #9") when we released it as a single, tho we didn't inkloot the lyrics:

TOTEM #9

we found a blue hatchet buried in dandelion weeds
who's to say coyote don't do good deeds?

we let it slip further down in the folds
evil is also in the eye that beholds

even if a tree never even falls
sum 1's bound to claim they herd it all

please sir, kin we have back our yellow ball?
y'all don't need no wall

we beseech u police not to be besieged
no 1's free 'til every 1 else is free

kin u look past your uniform
to the suit y'all wore when u were nuborn

badge or flag don't mean u kin beat us black + blue
no 1 kin take your childhood away from u

when the bruise heals it shines yellow + green
a black eye in the mirror sees past what's being seen
doubly conscious as coined by W. E. B. Du Bois
the hickory tree don't see but can here the saw

same wood used for axe or baton
hurry the batch to keep hurrying on

police sir, kin we have back our yellow ball?
y'all don't need no wall

we'll play your game if u level the field
we won't ride no bus w/ u at the wheel

finders keepers
losers weepers
winner winner
chicken dinner

wood u hear the shot herd round the whirled
if the ball curves foul?

> Sum folks out there probly wonder why we bother @ all if no 1 listens to our music (or reads this blog). Or perhaps sum wonder if instead of whining about it if we're making a concerted effort to promote our selves + the answer is yes, we send our album around best as we know how, to music mags or blogs... we know about that submithub site + have sent various tracks from Herd of Birds to a 100 or more places + receive nothing but rejections... "declined to share," w/ the exception of 1 or 2 shout-outs from minor places. Then again, we go to the popular sites + look @ what they're promoting + are glad we ain't associated w/ this auto-tune pop crap that 99% of the world listens to these days. 1 reviewer even said they liked our music + that it was a diffrent+ fresh relief from the same ol' boring crap they keep receiving, but nevertheless they seem to have an obligation to promote the same ol' boring crap cuz that's what's expected. The only site we'd even want to be reviewed by is The Quietus but we don't know nobody there + our emails to them probly just disappear into the ether. Sure there's millions of musicians out there in the same boat (or maybe it's just us being truly bad?). We sent out physical (vinyl) copies of our album to a few dozen ppl + even our friends don't even bother to acknowledge they even received them... we'd think maybe the USPS wasn't delivering them but 1 or 2 ppl did say they got a package but hadn't had time to open it or don't have a record player. So now we just give out our album free in those little book boxes around town (the digital albums are also available free, just put $0 when bandcamp asks u to name the price). If we could we'd put a negative amount (pay folks for the time + trouble of listening to our music) we would. We ain't a stranger to failure (see post #619), been dealing w/ rejection our entire lives, w/ our music + our writing. 30 years ago (when we had thinner skin) we stopped making tapes cuz of it, but now we figure (or justify) that it frees us up to just make music how we want to make music cuz no 1 else cares what we do anyway.

> Bookwise, still trudging through Nick Land's Fanged Nuomena... not sure we'll make it. We read Geronimo's autobiograpy ("His Own Story"), which was fascinating, specially to us since we spent a lot of time climbing + hiking in Geronimo's neck of the woods (the Chiricahuas, Dragoons + elsewhere in SE AZ, the journals of which we've recently transcribed). He's a complicated character, a bad ass for sure (his fashion sense + renegade punk way in pertickler, marching to his own drum), but sadly there was just no place for Apaches like him in the white man's world. But it was the Mexican's Geronimo mostly had a problem with (rightfully so since they killed his 1st wife + kids + took subsequent wives/kids hostage as prisoners). His modus operandus was to just go across the border into Mexico + indiscriminately kill whoever + steal cattle or whatever else, that was the only life he knew. He (or they if 1 considers Geronimo a spokesperson for) would of been fine living in small roaming bands in this desolate + inhospitable terrain, but they just couldn't compromise their lifestyle to settle down + get along w/ other groups of ppl (+ shouldn't of had to). While "Totem #9" is a Black Lives Matter song of sorts (tho when we see the acronym BLM we still think of Bureau of Land Management... a carry over from our climbing + surveying days in the southwest when we often had to worry about access rights on BLM land), it is also a Red Lives Matter song. Spose if there is anything positive about 2020 it's that the Washington football team finally got rid of its stupid name so we can actually root for them + now so did Cleveland's baseball team + Biden just appointed the 1st Native American cabinet secretary to head the Interior Department (Deb Haaland).

> Happy winter solstice y'all, dayzzz are getting lighter from here on out into 2021.