Cantina

I have a new EP out.

It’s called Cantina and it has five new songs I wrote this summer.

If you so choose to listen to Cantina, with each song…

Picture this:

I WONDER

Middle of summer. You find yourself at a small town rodeo. Certifiable wild time. After the rodeo you hit the bar. Next morning you’re sweatin’ it out on the road bike up a mountain road. You’re alone on the road.

You’re mind is wanderin’…

You start wondering… about that girl… the one you met at bar last night…

Is she thinking about you?

Like the way you’re thinking about her?

ONCE UPON A TIME IN JACKSON HOLE

You and your pal drive from Banff to Colorado to ski. Jackson Hole is the halfway stop after thirteen hours on the road. You arrive and you absolutely need a happy hour drink.

You walk downtown.

You take a seat in the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar.

Teton Cowgirls all around.

One of them smiles at you…

But watch out mister, this one might mean trouble for you…

See that banker who just came in from the cold? He’s wondering why his Teton Cowgirl is talking with you. Dancing with you.

Of course you had no idea…

OIL TOWN

You’re a puritan farm boy in 1920’s Oklahoma.

You were raised on the Calvinist work ethic. Thus far you’ve had yourself a very Grant Wood American Gothic upbringing.

You do what you're told.

Truth is, you’re bored to tears. You can’t believe that this is all that life has to offer.

That’s because you’ve heard about the fast money, fast woman, fast life a hundred miles down the road in…

Oil Town.

Where business is boomin’.

You can’t help but be curios. You’re a red-blooded male in your early twenties.

So you go. Didn’t even bother telling your folks. They would never understand you getting all tangled up with Ol’ Lucifer.

In Oil Town you saw her walking down Main Street in Fifth Avenue fashion. Rumour has it she’s been in the pictures. You’ve never seen such lustful beauty.

Not long before she’s taken a liking to you… You think to yourself, can this actually be happening?

Many years later, you’ll wonder why nobody told you that in Oil Town, she caused seven civil wars and two revolutions before torpedoing your heart.

Well that’s because in Oil Town, you’re on your own pal.

Woody Guthrie had an oil town. So did Bobby Bare when he sang about Detroit City. Detroit made cars but it’s all the same. It’s the promise of a better life. Greener pastures. It’s leaving home and taking a risk. That’s an oil town. Tom Wolfe said the only real reason anyone wants to move to New York City is because it’s the city of ambition. You don’t move to New York expecting to have a view of a tree from your kitchen window. It’s about landing in a bigger pond and becoming a Big Fish. Achieving status. Becoming a Somebody. If you can make it in oil town, you can make it anywhere. Sinatra had an oil town. Bud Fox had an oil town. Hemingway had an oil town. They all had an oil town.

For some it works out. For others it doesn’t.

JOANNE

You know the guy. Or at least you’ve heard of him.

Looks like he’s got it all. The best of everything. Cars, houses, food and wine. He’s in a sexy industry. Sexy everything.

From the outside looking in, he’s the guy all guys wanna be and all women wanna be with.

His people are the Jay Gatsby’s of the world. The larger than life type A wrecking balls who think they can bend the world beneath their will.

Truth is, he’s empty inside. He’s nothing. He yearns for that which he doesn’t have. A soul. He looks at the starving artist with utmost envy. Like that one who lives Low Rent across town, the one who has that girl, her name is Joanne.

He saw them walking from afar one day while waiting for his sports car at the car wash.

You meet him in a bar one night and he tells you after God knows how many rounds that he spent every waking hour to acquire all that he has thinking that was his ticket to that girl on the hip of that starving artist.

You tell him: Sorry pal, this whole time you had it wrong.

So what’s our man to do?

It is the age of Aquarius after all…

STAMPEDE QUEEN

You at the Calgary Stampede.

In the Cowboys Tent.

You meet a Stampede Queen.

Not the actual Stampede Queen, but to you, what’s the difference?

She’s got on her cow print skirt. Her pink leather jacket, pink tassels and all.

She takes a liking to your old boots and your pair of jeans.

While Sam Hunt croons Nashville pop-country on stage.

While Townes Van Zandt rolls over in his grave.

It is the best of times with your Stampede Queen.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery.

Live in the moment.

Let it be you and her’s forever.

Doesn’t matter if you’ll never see her again.

She was your Stampede Queen.

And you were her broncin’ buck.