cash dreams from home

My cousin Morgan Evans, a fantastic musician in New York, has posted a post on his website which I liked so much I'm posting it here. We all love Cash in Baroque Mansions. Morgan writes:

Hi Everyone.

So weird.

I had a dream last night of a Johnny Cash concert and he was being backed by this band who featured a complimentary singer who looked like, but wasn't, Gram Parsons.

I am a big fan of Cash and Parsons, the latter of the two my ex-girlfriend really got me into.

The cool part is that after I was really into Gram's music like "Grievous Angel" and all that, I remembered that my friend Quillan Dunlop had always talked about Gram. It turns out my old Woodstock/Phoenicia pal's uncle Ian had played music with Gram for years as Gram was up and coming in the 70's.

Anyway, back to the dream... In the dream the band was playing "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" with Johnny. But Johnny's voice wasn't hacking it and so the other singer was doing most of the leads. The crowd started calling for Johnny though and he managed to come back in and everyone roared. I had a view from behind a drum riser.

I don't know what it meant. It was just a cool concert dream but it felt so vividly like I was there.

The reason I am writing about it though is it is the second Cash related dream I've ever had. The first one is the spooky one, though.

It was a few days before cash died, and I swear I dreamt that I was burying him in the yard of my parent's house near Woodstock, NY. He was looking up at me and I was mournful and suddenly it was a switched vantage point and I could see through Cash's eyes and he was lookign up at me as I lowered him down, then closed and shoveled dirt on his pine box.
I told my friend Nicole the next day at the health food store I worked at and she said "you're weird!" and laughed. But then a few days later my friend Ryan Cohn who plays in the great NYC band the Stalkers told me Cash and John Ritter had died. We drank some shots of whiskey to them at the Landau in Woodstock and the next day when I went back to work Nicole said "you're REALLY weird!"

I remember it vividly. What does it all mean? I can't tell you. But you should read the CASH autobiography. They left some deep and touching stuff out of the Walk The Line film, though I loved that.

They also left out Johnny fighting a God Damned ostrich!
Anyway, go to myspace.com/neutralmilkhotel

I rediscovered them through a Dax Rigg's (of Acid Bath and Deadboy & The Elephantmen fame) cover of "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea"and can't get enough of their 2nd album. It is quirky, moving, psychedelic folk-pop and the lyrics range from Anne Frank to love and death and two headed babies in jars. Every song balances wit and lyricism , serious themes and bright possibilities remarkably well. It isn't all one mood, just like life.

The title track in particular of "In The Aeroplane..." has some of the best lyrics I've ever read including the so simple but true line "can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all".
So true.

The new band is called Pontius Pilate Sales Pitch, inspired by - well, you can read it on their site, see link to the right. It's all good, though. They're recording some fabulous stuff. Here they are; Morgan's on the left. Pic by Yvonne Allaway.