Saturday, January 4, 2014

The Patience EP: A musical primer



For the past year I've been working on The Patience EP, a collection of songs I wrote from May-December 2012. The six-song project, a collaboration with my brother Parker, is in many ways a creative leap forward for me. I've been performing the songs solo for more than a year now, with the hope of sharing these full-band recordings eventually  once the recordings felt complete. This process took longer than expected, but The Patience EP is finally recorded, mixed, and mastered. And it will be coming your way very soon.

Before you hear it, though, I wanted to share some context, at least sonically. The following five songs, and the musicians involved, had a sizable impact on The Patience EP. These songs and these artists helped me find my own voice; my own sound; my own musical confidence. Sharing The Patience EP without sharing these songs would be an incomplete reveal.

Allen Stone: "Unaware"



Here We Go Magic: "Made To Be Old"



Lianne La Havas: "Lost & Found"



Tingsek: "Six Years"



Jessie Ware: "Night Light"



Monday, June 24, 2013

Good news, everyone...





Starting next week, I'll be the new Features Writer for the Daily Herald, a newspaper based here in Utah County. As part of my job I'll be covering Arts & Entertainment in the area. I'll also be covering other fun events, as well as feature stories on interesting things/people in the community.

A lot of you who are reading this also live in the area, and are involved with all types of interesting local endeavors. If that's you, please be my eyes and ears. If you come across or are involved with something newsworthy, let me know! I'll be producing a lot of content, so I'm welcome to all ideas. 

Let's do this!

-Court


Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Digging Ditches and Watching Goat Rape


Here’s a true story about goat rape.

Let me clarify. This may just be a story about goat sex. After all, how often is sex between two goats — or any two animals, for that matter — actually consensual? I don’t know the percentages.

This particular instance, though, was undoubtedly 100-percent non-consensual. And I have reflected on it a surprising amount.

After my freshman year of college I returned home to Oregon and worked on a farm for a few months. One hot and sunny day, my boss had me dig some ditches for irrigation pipes. Behind me was a large enclosed goat pen. I didn’t pay it much attention at first, but that soon changed.

At some point in my ditch digging, one of the goats slipped its head through the wire fence — an easy action considering the large, square pattern of the wire, which squares were just about the size of a goat head. Getting her own head out, though, well that proved more difficult. Her horns angled back, getting caught every time she tried to free herself.



Now, I know what you’re thinking: Court, you keep referring to this goat as ‘she.’ How did you discern its gender from your vantage point?

Well, it’s an assumption I’m making based on events that followed. I could be wrong, and maybe I shouldn’t assume. Perhaps you see where this is going. Let’s get back to the story.

I looked at the goat as it struggled, and decided to continue working on my ditch.  The goat would probably squirm her way out eventually. And if she didn’t, well, I wouldn’t know how to get her head out either. Plus, this ditch wasn’t going to dig itself.

The sounds of rustling, fidgeting and struggling continued behind me as I sunk my shovel into the hard topsoil. After a while it began to sound more agitated. I turned around. The goat had company: another goat. An excited goat. The new addition repeatedly tried mounting the trapped goat from behind. An opportunist, if ever there was one.

With her head still caught in the fence, the stuck goat frantically swung her body back and forth, doing her best to fend off the other’s advances, all the while with an expression that seemed to say, “OH, WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO?!?”

This went on for a little while, the victim valiantly, desperately avoiding the inevitable. Oddly, my gut reaction wasn’t one of shock or disgust. It was amusement. It made me laugh. And, as I watched these two goats in their twisted pas de deux, I contemplated my hilarity. The very thought of rape, among humans, instantly fills me with queasy revulsion and even shame, that we are capable of such barbarism; such selfish disregard for another’s dignity. Such disregard for our own dignity. Yet I watched these goats and none of that dread entered my heart. It was only amusement.

Should I feel bad for feeling this way? I thought. Is it wrong for me to find only humor in this scenario? Maybe it was the eager, foiled attempts of the hind goat that really got me laughing. I don’t think I’d find a successful attempt as funny. Or captivating.

Soon another farm worker came by — a short, round, middle-aged, leather-skinned Mexican man named Celestino. Walking over to the fence, Celestino spit on the palms of his hands, grabbed the goat’s horns and eased her head out of the wire fence. The goat ran off, relieved and unmolested, and Celestino sauntered back my way. He spoke almost no English, but he looked at me, chuckled heartily as he wiped his hands on his jeans, then walked away.

It was funny to him, too. And in that, somehow, I don’t feel so bad.



Saturday, November 3, 2012

Thursday, October 11, 2012

New song from yours truly

Here's a demo of a new song I wrote. Not bad for a demo, I think. Much thanks to my brother, Parker Mann, for his production/mixing/organ work. (Click below)

My Darkness (Demo)

Thursday, August 2, 2012

The New Obsession Playlist

Here are some artists whose catalogs I've discovered and obsessed over during the past few months. (Though I'm surely a late-comer to most of it). In particular, these songs have been on constant repeat.


The Belle Brigade:



Allen Stone: 



Here We Go Magic: 



Laura Marling:



Bill Withers: 



D'Angelo:


Friday, July 6, 2012

Visitors, ice cream, and realizing my parents were liars


The Thompsons came to visit us in Oregon. About five years earlier, our family had left the Thompsons, and others, in Arizona. Reunited, our respective families did a number of activities together that week. I hadn’t remembered the Thompsons terribly well — I was only three when we moved to Oregon — and thus felt no real allegiance to them. But their visit brought a number of fun activities, like hiking and paddle boating, and in this instance, lunch at a restaurant; so I had no real objection to it all.

We finished our lunches, and the grownups sat and talked about who knows what. Nothing interesting to me; probably catching up on things and reminiscing. Their conversation meandered, and all I could think about was the possibility of dessert. I don’t remember if lunch was satisfying or not, but when your age is still in single digits, there’s always room for treats.

I poked my mom. “I want dessert!” I whispered, not that quietly.

“We have ice cream at home, in the big freezer downstairs,” she dismissed. “You can wait till we get home.”

The adults carried on, and I sat there slightly more patient than before, my stomach anticipating the big freezer’s goodies. The restaurant was pretty far from home — farther than I would prefer given the circumstances. But what’s a powerless kid to do?

My parents dropped me off at the house, then drove away to spend more time with the Thompsons. I swung open the front door and scurried to the basement, to our big white freezer. Hoisting up the freezer door, I peered inside, eyes darting to the normal spot where we kept the ice cream.

Strangely, there sat only frozen loaves of white bread.

How odd. No matter. Someone must have put the ice cream elsewhere in the freezer. I reached my arm in and rummaged under the frozen bread. Nothing there.

Under the frozen fruit, perhaps.

Still, nothing. It was a deep freezer — maybe the ice cream was buried somewhere beyond my reach. Unlikely, though. Ice cream was a treasured commodity in our house. It would never stay in our freezer long enough to get buried underneath some frozen bread.

The smaller freezer in our kitchen! Of course. All this worry for nothing. I rushed back upstairs, opened the freezer door high above my head, and craned my neck upward looking for an indication of ice cream. No sign. I scooted the stool over and hopped on, bringing me eye level with the freezer. More rummaging, but still no luck.

At this point, I started to worry.

There was one more spot: a second freezer in the basement, that, as I could remember, never stored anything immediately edible. A long shot, sure, but the treats had to be somewhere. Right? I walked back downstairs, my little shred of hope fighting a losing battle with growing skepticism.

As I suspected, the second basement freezer was ice cream-less. With a heavy heart, I retraced my steps, digging methodically through each freezer. But it was a lost cause. I sat down, my growing hunger pains mingled with confusion. Why had my mom made such claims about ice cream in the big freezer? There was none there — of that I was now certain. At the restaurant, she sounded so reassuring; so confident. This gross parental error left my faith shaken. I mean, what kind of mom doesn’t know the status of ice cream in her own home? If I couldn’t trust her with this, what other parental duties were now in question? My young mind was deeply troubled as I waited in silence for them to return home.

Eventually, my parents pulled into the driveway, and I nervously anticipated the impending conversation. Somehow, I knew I sat on the cusp of facts that would forever change my worldview.

My gut was right. I asked my mom about the location of the “ice cream,” and she told me we didn’t have any. This only caused me more confusion. If she knew we didn’t have ice cream, why did she say we did? She explained that the Thompsons paid for lunch that day, and to make them buy me dessert would have been rude. But her explanation didn’t console me. This realization, that my mom had lied to me, hurt deeply, in a particular way I had never before experienced. I felt betrayed, and the sting lingered throughout the afternoon. Perhaps longer.

Realizing that my parents were capable of lying to me was life changing. And, though I couldn’t identify it at the time, a deeper hurt came from seeing how quickly my parents would lie to me when it was socially convenient.

In retrospect, though, I appreciate my mother’s decision to come clean with me, and explain why she lied. After all, it would have been easier for her, when confronted by her hungry, confused son, to lie again and say she mistakenly thought we had ice cream. Or something like that. And, looking back, I can remember all the times my parents chose honesty with me, even when it was markedly inconvenient. 

Sure, my parents are liars. But so am I. So is everybody. Gratefully, though, my parents' honesty far, far outweighs their deceit, to a degree I can only dream of matching when I have kids. But I won't get ahead of myself here. It's 2 a.m., and I could really go for some ice cream. If only I had some in my freezer...