Fargo
Mar 22, 2010

I am really sorry that I wasn’t able to play in Fargo last night. The promoter recommended we postpone the show due to flooding and I trust him since he is there and I am not. I really hope that the flooding subsides and that you all who live up there are safe and your homes and businesses are left dry. The drive home from Sioux Falls yesterday was wicked with
the water level coming right up to the highway in some places. Amazing to see forests of trees coming out of water.

Thanks for understanding and I look forward to seeing you on May 7.

Mason

Questions
Mar 16, 2010

Sorry it’s been a minute. I am back now, was down South visiting family and am now home in the melting snow. The fog is crazy. From where I sit up on the hill I can’t even see across the lake. Good thing I got in my winter drive-on-the-lake a couple weeks ago. I maybe cut it a bit close, I thought I was gonna get stuck out there for a minute. I even saw an ice
fisherman stand up in my rearview mirror and start towards my flailing vehicle. Then, magically I was back on land. Three people speaking Japanese watched me drive up off the lake like I was driving up the side of a wall. Shaking their heads.

I have been working a lot these days, getting a new studio set up, going through the live recordings from last Fall, and also going through a lot of my old tapes and picking out songs I wrote to potentially record for a second volume of Simple Life. It’s been a lot of fun. We’ll see what comes of it….

I have been enjoying playing these solo shows this season too and am looking forward to the ones coming up. It’s been fun pulling out some rare songs and playing more intimate venues.

Oh yeah, that reminds me…I am not the most computer savvy guy but I try to check these sites from time to time. I just thought I would put it out there that if anybody has any questions they’d like to ask me that I will check in on Facebook in the next couple weeks and try to answer them. The one thing about being off the road more is that I miss getting a chance to connect with you all. So, how have you been? What’s been on your mind?

I hope all is well and hope you all are enjoying “The Unlocking” as Kurt Vonnegut called this 6th season. It’s the Equinox this week! Yay! Bring on The Equinox! That sounds funny. Like I am gonna have to battle a monster with a helmet. Or have a dance off with Kid N Play. Or something like that.

Happy Spring,
Mason
Foggy Hill, Minnesota
3/12/10

Towers
Feb 15, 2010

When I was out in LA last week to play at the premiere for Kelly Slater’s new 3-D surf movie (which ruled by the way) my friend Dan took me to the Watts Towers. For those of you who have never heard of them, they are towers that a man named Simon Rodia built out of the top of his house using left over materials from his construction job: cement, plates, glass all kinds of stuff. He built it for 34 years!!! They were really moving to behold. Looking up at the blue sky, the world hasn’t changed at all since he built them years ago and I could imagine him scaling the sides and working up there at dusk looking out over the city of angels. The house has since burnt down but the towers remain as a park. Check it out!

Back to the surf movie: It was fun talking with Kelly about surfing. In the movie they mentioned that he is the best surfer that ever lived and they speculated that the reason for this is because he loves it the most. Sounds right. I asked him if he ever thinks while he is surfing. I heard Keith Richards once say that the stage is not for thinking it is for feeling. Kelly says he doesn’t have time to think on the big waves, it is all reaction. He said on the long barrel waves he can look down the barrel and envision what he will do because there is more time but, for the most part he is just reacting. That certainly rings true for me with music. I can barely remember being onstage. At first that was troubling but then it seemed to make sense. Letting it come through me. One of the great drummers I worked with a few years back, Peter Leggett, always said that every movement when you are playing the drums should originate behind your body and pass through it on the way forward and out. That feels right too. That stuff totally fascinates me.

On a last note, the Olympics are in full swing which is so fun. I love that I am home for them this time around. I just wanted to comment on the way NBC handled the death of the Georgian Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. I thought it was covered very poorly and disrespectfully. I turned on the TV with my wife and two young sons to watch the opening ceremonies in time for their broadcaster to mention that the next scenes were gruesome. I quickly turned the channel, waited five minutes and turned it back to a photo of a bloody face being given mouth to mouth. I turned the channel again for 2 minutes and came back to an image of the luger’s body flying through the air. Welcome to the Olympics, kids. I turned the TV off and came back a half hour later. My question is this: Why on earth would they show a person being killed on television? What motive other than ratings could have prompted them to show that? How would that feel if that was your son or brother or friend? Why is TV turning into Faces Of Death? Why do I have to change the channels at 7pm during commercials because most of the images on the commercials are too violent for my kids? The only thing I can think of is because images of Death grab your attention (through horror) more than any other image besides maybe porn. So, since TV is a free medium I expect that things will only get worse and more terrifying on TV and its advertising as they attempt to compete with the internet and cable. Brutal.

Well, in most ways things certainly are the same as they always were. The root of this issue is the same as most issues before it: human nature. Maybe it is time to start building more towers out of the tops of our houses. I will look for you all across the trees. Above the metropolitan roofs and bloody antennas and satellite dishes full of fear. Up where the air is clean and the sky is the last word before Outerspace. Up where it still feels good to make something for fun out of our hands.

Mason
Frozen Lake Country, Minnesota
2.15.10

Free Download of Machines Via Kashi
Feb 09, 2010

Make sure you pick up a box of Kashi ® cereal to get a chance to download Mason’s song Machines from the 180° SOUTH soundtrack.  The films documents an environmentally aware adventure in Patagonia.

The Game
Jan 27, 2010

Ok, pre warning: this blog is all about football (which I love), in case
you don’t enjoy the sport etc…..

I am and have been a huge football fan my whole life. The game has
always fascinated me. The theater of it, the strategy, the real time
in-the-moment unfolding. I have always thought it is a sport that helps
us face our own deaths. Every team loses in the end but one and then the
next season that team loses too. So with death comes life, it teaches us
how to live. Well, in all my years I have never seen a game that has
stuck with me and bothered me like the Vikings NFC Championship game
this past Sunday. I just can’t for some reason wrap my head around it.

If it was a movie I would have gotten over it. But, that is why I love
football. It is a collective drama that is real and holds secrets and
clues to our own lives. Allows us to work out our own issues with our
own limited humanity. The game on Sunday was so painful for me I think
because it was centered around mistakes. The Vikings kept making
mistakes, they turned the ball over 5 times and had 3 other fumbles on
top of that. And they kept on fighting and kept coming back to score and
tie the game.
Which was so amazing. And then a severely battered, 40 year old Brett
Favre brought the team to within field goal range with 18 seconds left.
And suddenly the Vikings got a penalty for 12 men in the huddle. What???
Then he threw a late pass across his body which was intercepted and that
was it. He never got another pass. The Saints won in overtime. Now,
Favre ended his Packers and Jets careers with interceptions. He ended
the Championship game 2 years ago with an interception…..why did he
throw it?

Well, because he is human. And I guess that is what is hard for me to
face. No story ever written would have the hero do that. He wanted to
win the game, and he didn’t. It is not pretty at all. But, that is
sports.
That is the beauty of it. So many times in life things happen that we
can’t get back. we make mistakes. People get hurt. We sometimes make the
same mistake we have always made and then have to live with it. That is
where grace comes in. Who knows what the bigger picture is for us. We
have no idea. Only our higher powers know that and the turning over of
our wills to a higher power is an amazing thing. Profound change and
growth comes from that.

So, thank you Brett and the rest of you Vikings. It was a wonderful
season and a profound last game. Blessings to you all.

Mason
Minnesota
1/26/10