stalkingthemuse

One of my favorite songwriters (and not just in Nashville) is Justin Earle. His live shows are great. He had been doing a series here in town at The Basement called For The Sake Of The Song (named for the Townes Van Zandt song - btw, Justin's dad, Steve, gave him Townes as a middle name), where he would play in the round with 2 other singer/songwriters. These were cool shows, but he usually blew the other people he was on stage with off the stage. And these were usually well known people (e.g. Neilson Hubbard, Matthew Ryan, Garrison Starr) His stories through song are often highly emotive, and his emotional delivery makes them all the more salient.

He recently wrote a story for Stalking The Muse about a night he spent in Chicago's Rogers Park:

"I had just turned eighteen and having grown bored with my home town I decided to follow my dream of becoming the next Mance Lipscombe to the fair city of Chicago. Now here, I made two nearly fatal mistakes: one being that I am a southern boy and was not at all prepared for the Midwestern lake side January that awaited me; and two, that I had become a bit of a knuckle head and was bound for a town where the dope was stronger, the streets were meaner, and no one had any patience for a loud mouth like me.

"There were several things that happened on this detour that would change my life for ever; such as my heart being broken for the first time, the start of what would become a long and dark struggle with heroin and cocaine, and me spending my first night in Rogers Park. I remember it very clearly because it was like nothing I had ever seen. It was right after sundown and the shadows of the huge old homes that had long since broken in to multi-family dwellings littered Touhy Avenue mingled with the street lights in an almost sexual fashion. It was cold, but the streets seemed to be crawling with life. I watched money change hands from pimps and pushers to johns and junkies and the girls climbing out of one car to jockey for the next and every time I thought I'd seen it all, some new fascination would emerge from the shadows. I sat there for what seemed like a lifetime, high enough to hunt ducks with a rake and letting my cigarettes succumb to the ashtray while the lake threw a snow so fine that it looked like all the stars had exploded and were showering down on god's misfortunes. It was breath taking.

"I remember feeling that night like I would never leave. Not just Chicago or the park, but that very spot were I sat practically lifeless for all those hours. In my window watching my new world turn like a dirty snow globe I guess I felt like I had finally stumbled home. In a way I had, but due to my theories of better living through chemistry, I didn't last too long and now it all just seems like a dream.

"So in closing I'll say that there are two things I know for sure: one that heroin is the purest evil on earth; and two I won't die in Rogers Park."

*He recently released his first EP, Yuma. I can't stop listening to it. I'll upload the title track. You can also go to the Stalking The Muse myspace page to listen to one of two unreleased demos, "Rogers Park", plus a few others from Yuma.