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Why it isn’t you -Marc SchusterExclusive interview! John Gilbert catches up with Marc SchusterWhy it takes 5 years to make an album sometimes Dino DiMuroA unique encounter in Texarkana -Max KintnerThe first issueThe Treasure Chest- August 2026 Thoughts on balance and Pink Floyd -Chris Triggs Promote what you love -Ultimate Rick JonesTips from Bear Country -BK Birge Coping Mechanisms -Caroline in the Garden Food to make at home: Spanikopita August 2026
The Treasure Chest- August 2026The Horse’s Mouth Issue #1, Aug 2026Editor: Kelly Kintner Editor: Keri Kintner Illustrations: Chris Triggs House Band: Unstable Stable Table of Contents Treasure Chest August 2026 QR Code Below -Some writers are contributing their voices so you can hear their piece from The Horse’s Mouth as well as read it! -Credits, photos, links to contributers and writers. -Unstable Stable made some exclusive music only available in The Treasure Chest! Note from the Editor....................... Finding Life and Meaning in Texarkana......................................... It’s Not You...................................... Promote What You Love................ Interview: Step Away from that Machinery........................................ A Word from our Sponsors............ This is Bear Country....................... Why did my Simple Rock Album take 5 yrs?....................................... How do we cope when “nothing’s happening”...................................... The Act of Balance......................... We Have Food At Home!!.............. 1 2 4 7 11 19 20 25 27 29 32
A Note from the Editor: Why the Horse’s Mouth??I’ve changed. I used to love social media and online conversations. These days, I communicate mostly through email. Along with that shift, I’ve rediscovered the value of learning without a screen. I’ve even removed screens from my music room. That’s how this magazine came to be. I still love people. I still love conversation. What I don’t love is having those conversations filtered or steered by algorithms, campaigns, or bots. I’d rather decide for myself what’s worth reading and talking about. That’s also why this magazine exists in print. It doesn’t compete with an algorithm—it simply arrives in your mailbox. Everyone receives the same magazine. No personalized feeds. No engagement tricks. Just the same pages, shared with every reader. That’s where the name The Horse’s Mouth comes from. You hear directly from the source. Every piece appears as the writer intended, and the audio in the Treasure Chest is read by the writers themselves. Their voices and words remain their own—not rewritten to chase clicks or satisfy a platform. My job as editor isn’t to make every voice sound the same. It’s to bring them together into a magazine that’s thoughtful, coherent, and true to its principles while preserving each contributor’s authenticity. I’m creating the kind of publication I wish I could find online: one built on genuine voices, direct communication, and the belief that honest ideas don’t need an algorithm to matter. Thank you to everyone who made this first issue possible. To our contributors: thank you for trusting us with your work. Your honesty, creativity, and generosity brought these pages to life. And to you, the reader: thank you for spending your time with us. I hope you find something here that makes you think, laugh, disagree, wonder, or feel a little less alone. Most of all, I hope this magazine reminds us that real conversations still matter—and that hearing something straight from the horse’s mouth is still the best way to hear it. Thank you for reading. — Kelly Kintner Editor, The Horse’s Mouth 1
Texarkana. Late winter evening, 2003. Half-mile north of I-35. East side of Highway 71. Super 71 Motel. Curry smell in the lobby beats out the paper mill stench outside. Check in. Throw the duffel on the bed and go to the bar. Two stools open. I take one Next to a fortyish country boy. Sun brown face, three-day stubble. TSC gimme hat. Marlboro 100s and red Bic lighter. Carhartt work jacket over the back of his barstool. Right off he swivels his stool toward me. Says he’s been waiting an hour for Somebody to talk to. My name is Bowem Jeremiah Johnson he says. But call me BJ. He’s on the way home from Monroe Louisiana. A business trip turned out good. He’s feeling generous. Tells the bartender he’ll catch my next beer. Turns out he catches the next five too. Pretty quick on he says, I’m mostly Chickasaw. A little Choctaw. Some white blood. From Bromide Oklahoma. How about you? I say there’s no story to tell. Generic white boy. No history. No culture. Born here in Texarkana. Arkansas side of State Street in the Old St. Michael’s Hospital. Live in New Orleans now. Aunt who raised me lives here in a Retirement center. I visit her when I can. Business trip I say. What business you in? Chickens. Exotic breeds. Hatch and Law Grey, McClean and Leiper. Birds that would go extinct without people like me keeping the bloodlines going. Beautiful birds. You want to see a picture? He reaches behind him into an Inside chest pocket of his jacket, pulls out a plastic photo album. A dozen glossy four-by-sixes of big roosters. Some black, orange breasts and heads. Others with white heads. Some shine Iridescent green in the sun. Bright yellow beaks, red cocks. Yellow legs or white legs. Furious eyes. Long orange or white tails. Shot of BJ in a field with long rows of hip-high Wooden tents, a rooster tied to each one by the ankle with a blue nylon string. Got to keep’em tied up, he says. They’d kill each other otherwise. They’d only be one left standing at the end, and he’d be mortally wounded. I’ll tell you, Man, these birds got heart. I love these birds. I live for these birds. They’re my whole life. Finding Life and Meaning in Texarkana: 2003 By Max Kintner Texarkana is a pair of twin cities that sit directly on the state border between Texas and Arkansas. 2
I sit quiet for a minute, imagining what it would look like to see A hundred shrieking berserk bloody roosters fighting to the death all at once. You breed these birds to fight or to sell? Oh, you got to fight one now and then. Keep your foot in the game and show what your birds can do. Ain’t no living in it, though. Not anymore. But people still pay good money for’em. Took ten birds today to a guy that Lives down by Monroe. Averaged out to $350 per bird. Where I come from that’s a good Payday. Oh yeah, I say. That’d be a good payday where I come from too. I guess you keep’em tied up real good at home, I say. Oh, I do. You got to do that. For their own good. Then a shrug. Sad thing is, I reckon I can’t keep my birds much longer. New law last year says it’s a felony to fight birds in Oklahoma. Still legal in Louisiana. I can sell’em there. But an Oklahoma judge could give me four years just for transporting Fighting birds. I did one stretch in the pen, already. I ain’t aiming to do another. I kind of want to hear that story too. But it’s three hours later, and I’m seven beers Into a good buzz. I need to get up early. So, I say Well BJ I got to turn in. It was Nice talking to you. Thank you for the beers. You take care of those chickens. I’ll do it, he says. Enjoyed talking with you, too. I’m just gonna have another beer Or two before I hit the hay. We shake hands and I leave him there. A few months later I visit my aunt again. Waiting for her in the parlor of the retirement center. A Texarkana Gazette on the coffee table. On page 2 a little headline, 27 Roosters Seized; Oklahoma Man Arrested at State Border. Three paragraphs. Sure enough, there’s his name. Bowem Jeremiah Johnson. I wonder if he will get a long sentence. How he’ll hold up in jail. And what will he live for without those chickens. Max Kintner- a self described chronically immature just-past-middle-age guy with a checkerboard past. 3
I’m sorry, but I’m not going to attend your Bandcamp Listening Party. It’s no reflection on your music. I just can’t do it. It’s not you. It’s me. I totally get it. You spent months — years, maybe — on your album, agonizing over every little detail. Lyrics, melodies, chord progressions. Arrangements, instrumentation, rehearsals. Mic placement, performance, technique. Take after take. Then comping and mixing and mastering. So many details. So many decisions. I get it because I’ve been there myself. I spent two solid years figuring out how to record live drums in my basement. Now no one in the world can record my particular drum kit in my particular basement better than I can. So when I record anything, I want the world to hear it. I want the world to stop for a second and say, Hey! Those drums sound good! Not out loud, of course. And maybe not everyone. But if a handful of people would only get the word out and tell their friends how good I got my drums to sound in my modest little recording space, wouldn’t that be great? Better yet, if a handful of people could tell me all at roughly the same time that they love the drums, love the lyrics, love the melodies, love the arrangements and performances of the songs I’ve recorded, that they can actually hear the care I put into placing my microphones and the work that went into dialing in the perfect combination of compression and EQ on my snare drum? If that could happen, wouldn’t all of the effort have been worthwhile? So, yeah, when I upload my album to Bandcamp and Bandcamp says, Hey! You should hold a Bandcamp Listening Party!, a big part of me thinks Bandcamp is right: I should hold a Bandcamp listening party! I mean, here’s what Bandcamp has to say about it: “Hear it first, together, in a Listening Party. Celebrate your album release with your biggest fans, and watch the love (and sales) flow in.” It’s not you.... by Marc Schuster 4
Love (and sales)? I’m in! But then I remember what it actually feels like for me to attend a Bandcamp Listening Party. The problem is that I have to block off at least a half-hour of whatever day the artist has chosen to release the album. And it’s always on a Friday night. You want to know what I want to do on a Friday night? Absolutely nothing. I’ve been working all week and I’m exhausted. The last thing I want to do is sit down in front of my computer and listen to a full album for the first time—and comment on what I’m hearing. And switching it over to Saturday or Sunday or any other day of the week isn’t going to help matters. Look, I know I’m starting to sound cranky here, but I feel like I need to explain myself: I’m really glad that you recorded an album. I wish more people would record albums or write novels or paint murals. The world would be a much better place for it. But I want to listen to your album on my own timeline and in my own way. Depending on what I know about your music, I may need to ease into it, listening to the first few seconds of each song and skipping ahead until I find one I can really get into, then exploring the others from that point. Or maybe I’ll put your album on in the background and let it sink in while I do laundry or clean the house. There are million ways into an album, and, for me, the Bandcamp listening party is not one of them. In addition to the whole scheduling issue, there’s the comment section. I don’t know how your brain works, but I can’t listen and read at the same time, and I certainly can’t listen, read, and write at the same time, and that’s what a Bandcamp listening party is asking me to do: Hey! Sit down and listen to this album, and read what other people are saying about it, and respond to what they’re saying and what you’re hearing in real time! There’s way too much going on for my feeble brain to handle. And who are we trying to kid? The whole purpose of this exercise is to stroke the artist’s ego. Only a psychopath would shit-talk an album during a listening party, so the worst an artist can expect from the experience will be faint praise. More likely, though, the friends who attend, being friends, will say incredibly positive things—as they should: Amazing track! Legend! Sick beats! Fire emoji! 5
But the cynic in me knows that they’re just saying what they’re supposed to say. And that I would just be saying what I’m supposed to say if I were to attend. In other words, we all become puppets, playing out the roles of the fawning public and the grateful artist because that’s how this kind of space works. Which is fine. We live in a polite society, and certain spaces require certain types of behavior. I’d be the last person to wear a white dress to someone else’s wedding, after all, and like I said before, I’m all about supporting artists of all stripes. But at the end of the day, I can’t shake the feeling that Bandcamp Listening Parties are ultimately a ploy to get more people onto the platform. They know that you want people to hear your music and say nice things about it, so they offer a platform where that’s the only outcome. You set it up, you go on social media to invite everyone you know to attend, and a bunch of people show up. If they’re like me, they try to listen but also try to read the comments at the same time, so they’re not really listening and can therefore only offer vague but heartfelt praise without ever once mentioning how good your drum kit sounds. Maybe a handful of the people at your party have never been on Bandcamp, and maybe a smattering of those will come back to buy music or host their own Bandcamp Listening Parties. And that’s how the platform increases its market share. But, again, that’s the cynic in me talking. The artist is incredibly excited for you and is eager to hear your music. I just need to hear it on my own time and listen to it under conditions that don’t divide my attention or force me into the role of a cloying sycophant. You took your time to create your album. Give me mine to get to know it. More on Marc Schuster on page 14. 6
Promote What You Love Can the way you talk about a thing change the way you think about a thing? I think it can. I was at least willing to give it a try. There’s a Buddhist principle that I find fascinating, called Right Speech. It basically says that we could talk a lot less than we do, and that the world might be better off if we did. It suggests the only time to speak is when what we have to say is helpful, truthful and kind.* When I think about most of what comes out of my mouth, I’m usually not clearing that bar. So, I gave it a shot, but I started small. Rather than say that a song, or movie, or any other piece of art, is ‘bad,’ or ‘sucks,’ or spouting some other bland negativity about it, now I just try to say, “it’s not for me.” Or just noting it and moving on. Not everything requires my detailed commentary. And of course, not everything is—for me. Or for any of us. The infamous ‘bean soup theory’ abounds on the internet, and with good reason. In online forums and on social media, people frequently demand that content--that they are clearly NOT the audience for—be customized and modified to fit their preferences. As I understand it, the theory takes its name from an incident where someone replied to a recipe for bean soup posted online, by saying they didn’t like beans and how could we make this bean soup without beans. A lot of people don’t understand the concept of ‘audience.’ I think art has an audience, whether the person who created that piece of art gave that audience much thought or not. And I think ‘audience’ isn’t nearly as passive a role in the artistic process as it sounds. So what do you ‘owe’ a work of art as its audience? What do you bring to it? Well, your attention, at a minimum. If you’re going to engage with it, then really engage with it. The so-called ‘attention economy’ is real and there are lots of things competing for your eyes and ears at any given moment. Give yourself a fair shake with a piece 7
of art and that attention might lead to genuine connection with the work. And that connection can be a rich deep well. Depending on the piece there are often lots of ways and levels that you can connect. In a very real way, the listener is a song’s final collaborator. Now, I’m not suggesting that you never explore or contend with some art that’s new to you, or art that feels outside your comfort zone. I encourage everyone to stomp around in whatever artistic gardens you find yourself in. Try something new. Try something you stumble on. Try something you tried a long time ago and didn’t like back then but may like now. Let new stuff in. And then? Promote what you love. You can keep quiet about the rest. Really. The notion that every opinion— especially negative opinions--must be trumpeted to the heavens? Nah. Negativity is like Spanish Fly on social media . . .a dash of negative snark and things just get hotter and hotter. But the online feeding frenzy and the psychology of doom scrolling aside, most of us don’t care that much about what you don’t like. We have our own lifetime of flinty opinions, disappointments, and sharpened grievances to hone. Not that there isn’t some cool pleasure to be found in commiserating in a unified fashion against something you just don’t like. Thus the old adage, if you don’t have anything nice to say, sit next to me. But if we indulge our human lust for acrimony--to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw--we indulge it at the expense of our human character (it makes us assholes). I don’t care about what you think is the worst album from your favorite artist. Or about a band everyone seems to love but that you can’t stand. Or what’s your least favorite Monet painting. But I honestly can’t wait to hear about what you love. The song you can’t get out of your head. The song you wake up singing at 2AM. The guitar solo that slides around like melted butter in your brain. That drum beat you can’t stop slapping out on the steering wheel. The songwriter who put it just the way you would have put it. Or, even better, the songwriter who put it a way you never thought to put it.
This isn’t intended to be a ‘hit piece’ on the notion of criticism. I’m not qualified to unpack its history and trajectory over time to our current age. And good criticism encourages engagement every bit as much as it discourages it I think. And I’m sure for lots of folks, it remains a useful endeavor to write and engage with. But I am not a critic. I don’t want to be a critic. And I’m not terribly interested in what critics have to say at this point in my life. Most of my observations here focus on indie music because that’s the art I most commonly engage with now. But it really applies to anything human hands can make. I make music and art, and I’m fascinated by other people who make stuff. The word ‘content’ rears its head a time or two here as well. I think there’s a debate to be had about what ‘content’ is and where it fits in, but I’ll leave that debate for others. = For my purposes here, I believe it also has an intended audience. The world may feel grim and dark, but it’s also vast and teems with life, with people kicking to share, to connect. To live. I want to plug into this, and someone telling me what they don’t like doesn’t help me do that. I’m much more interested in a world of librarians than a world of critics right now. And not just because of the lady librarians’ with their cool glasses and that little chain thing that clips on their sweaters, although all that is what first comes to mind. It’s because there’s so much cool art, but also, so much noise. So much vitriol. And with this crush of information now, I look for guides, librarians, people who can help me navigate and make sense of that crush of data. So, has this small shift in language and habit changed my thinking at all? I find, if nothing else, it has forced me to be more thoughtful. To pause and really collect some thoughts on a piece of work before I start running my mouth about it. I have found it serves to buoy up my general attitude about new work, it’s a process of discovery and wonder now. Stuff that doesn’t speak to me gets set aside more quickly and dwelt on less. When I comment on someone else’s work now, I stop and wonder . . . is what I’m saying true? Kind? Helpful? Turns out I now leave a lot of comments on the cutting room floor that don’t meet this criteria. 9
I’m a firm believer that this isn’t a one- size-fits-all world. What works great for me may not work as great for you. Your mileage may vary. But I found, just changing the way I speak to myself about other people’s work has had a noticeable effect on my behavior, even my attitude. There’s a lot of negativity in the world. Promote what you love. *I’m no Buddhist and no Buddhist scholar, so this is a big oversimplification. Right Speech is one component of the Eightfold Path to Enlightenment (if you’re into that sorta thing.) _____________________________________________________________________________________ I wrote a song for an exclusive Treasure Chest release, and somewhere along the way I started to like it a lot more than I expected. So I asked Keri and John Gilbert to help me really do it up. It’s called “God of the Day.” It’s about what happens when we put fanaticism ahead of the people standing right in front of us. I’m not just talking about religion. Brand names, corporations, politics—they all compete for our attention using the same playbook, treating everything like it’s life or death because that’s what drives ratings, clicks, and engagement. It pulls us apart, and that makes us easier to manipulate. The antidote isn’t another ideology. It’s each other. Our friends, our neighbors, and the people we choose to care for are what make us stronger. Thanks, K 10
Marc Schuster is a filmmaker, musician, photographer, visual artist, and writer, but this list could surely contain additional avocations. He embodies a restless creative spirit, with interests that vary widely and often. What follows is a longform discussion of his creative outlets, as well as the meaning and process of creativity in the 21st century.Step Away from That Machinery: A Conversation with Marc Schuster by John Gilbert Looking at your discography, 2021 started a very prolific and creative period for you that has continued to this day. What were some of the conditions that prompted this? Have any of your other artistic endeavors been as busy? If I had to guess, that’s probably when I was in the thick of what I was calling the Tweetcore scene at the time, blogging about artists I found or who found me on social media and playing their music on my radio show. Which would also mean that around that time I was talking pretty regularly with Bart Coleman, who runs AMS Radio, which hosted my radio show. He also puts out music through Audio Mirage Studios and started putting my music out, so it was like getting signed to a label. The confluence of those two things—feeling like I was part of a scene and having someone enjoy my music enough to put out whatever I recorded—gave me the confidence I needed to know that I wasn’t in it alone, which, in turn, allowed me to think of myself as an artist. Your discography includes a number of singles. What is your criteria for either releasing them on their own or holding on to them for an album or EP? I think it’s more a matter of my mood than any criteria I’m applying. Whenever I’ve recorded and released an entire album, I’ve probably just read a book about an album or about a band that’s known for its albums. Then I’ll get it in my head that I’d like to record an album myself. With the singles, I’ll probably go into it thinking I’ll record an album and then life will get in the way, and I’ll forget what I had in mind for the album in terms of the big picture, so I’ll just release the songs as singles. If I’m going to release an album, though, I want it to be more than just a collection of songs. It doesn’t have to tell a story, necessarily, but I like to give some thought to how the songs build on each other or create an emotional arc. 11
Tell us about your involvement with AMS (Audio Mirage Studios) Radio. How does this tie in with your blog, Abominations? If I remember correctly, Bart asked on Twitter whether anyone wanted a radio show, and I said that I did. A few days later, the first episode of The Tweetcore Radio Hour went out. The show tied in nicely with what I was already doing on Abominations — interviewing indie artists. It gave me a chance to share their music with a broader audience and also to connect with a lot of them on another level. You're a frequent collaborator. What are some criteria for embarking on a collaboration? What are some qualities you find beneficial in a creative partnership, and what are some characteristics you have that have proven useful? That’s a good question! Mainly, I have to like what the other artist is doing, and it also helps if we’re within a few pages of each other politically. Often the two go hand-in-hand. If you’re looking at a collaboration as a means to getting ahead or writing a hit song— whatever those things mean—then you’re probably looking at music in a way that won’t really gel with my approach, and there’s a good chance that you’re a little to the right of me on the political spectrum. But if you’re looking at a collaboration as an opportunity to create something new or just want to see what kind of sound we might make together, then we could be on to something. Personally, I like to think of myself as a “yes, and…” kind of person when it comes to collaboration in the sense that I’ll build on whatever the other artist proposes. That’s mainly because, for me, the whole point of collaborating is to come up with something new. I know what kind of sound I can make on my own. It’s being open to the other person’s sound that leads us down an interesting path. And that goes both ways. Ideally the other person is taking a “yes, and…” approach, too. There’s certainly room for dialog and negotiation, but ideally, it’s a matter of two or more artists building on each other’s ideas rather than insisting on their own ideas.
Are you as gear-obsessed as many of your fellow musicians? Other than discussing your Electro Harmonix Mel9 with me and seeing your trusty Hofner bass guitar, I don't often read about your equipment choices. Any new tools or software that you're excited about lately, or wishlist items? I think it comes in waves. Last summer, I got into outboard analog recording gear for a while. I got some preamps, an eq, a couple of compressors, and a saturator. I was doing a lot of research while I was acquiring them, trying to get good deals and find gear that would be good for the sound I was going for. And I actually sold that Mel9 to buy one of the preamps. Now I’m in more of a learning-to-use-it phase. Beyond that, I get really excited over really basic stuff. Nick Cervini gave me a box of XLR cables and a Shure SM58 microphone a while back, and it was like Christmas for me. He gave me a couple of mic stands, too. Anything with an obvious, practical application is usually at the top of my wish list. Nick is the drummer in DelCobras, by the way. We're both admirers of David Lynch, who, despite leading what appeared to be a happy life, used his art (film, paintings, music) to engage with often dark and challenging ideas. Do you relate to this and does it have anything to do with the various projects that you take on? Absolutely! There’s a great quote from Laura Dern, I forget where I read it, but I wrote it down, and what she said about working with David Lynch is that if you’re in it for the result, then you can’t experiment, but if you’re there to redefine art, you can do anything. As far as engaging with dark and challenging ideas, I feel like that’s what’s missing from a lot of what passes for art these days. Mainstream explorations of dark themes tend to end with at least a provisional degree of triumph. Light needs to win in the end, or it won’t sell. What I love about David Lynch is that he was okay with ending on an ambivalent or even ambiguous note. That’s what makes the end of Twin Peaks: The Return so powerful. You hear a scream, the lights go out, and it’s over. If anything, I feel like my own music can stand to lean even more heavily in that direction. 13
Is Art still as important to you as during your formative years? How much deep listening, reading, or viewing do you make time for in a typical week? Any recommendations for music, reading, or viewing? Probably more so. It’s less a question of hours per week than just trying to see the world from oblique angles or with what I’d like to think of as an artist’s critical eye. Which might just be a way of saying that I get pissed off whenever I bump up against cliches, which is pretty much all the time. Just a second ago, my local NPR station ran a station ID with their new tagline, “Meaningful moments matter.” Yeah, like no f*cking shit. Did somebody get paid for that? Then another local station’s slogan is “Belong to the beat.” They’re both going for alliteration, which is fine, I guess, until you realize that everyone is going for alliteration, usually at the expense of saying anything meaningful, just because it rolls off the tongue and, more than likely, because it plays well on social media. I mean, they give you the slogan that’s easy to digest and easy to repeat, and they do it in the name of staying informed or being part of the in- crowd that knows good music, but the way they do it is all on page one of the idiot-consumerist playbook, which makes me suspicious of the entire enterprise. At that point, the system is doing the thinking for you, which is what art fights against. So I guess what I’m saying is that art is important to me in a negative sense: I’m always attuned to its absence. As a result, I’m often told that I’m overly critical, which is fair. But I really liked a movie called The Last Showgirl. I saw it a few days ago. Pamela Anderson plays an aging Vegas showgirl whose show has been canceled. The story is told on a small, personal scale and isn’t flashy at all. Jamie Lee Curtis is in it, too. She’s been on a real tear lately. Great roles that explore what it means to be human. Maybe what we need is more art that does that. I get why people want uplifting movies and whatnot, but maybe we’d all have more empathy if we got some more human frailty into our media diet. Realistic movies about people making do with their shitty lives might provide a serviceable antidote to the overly slick and polished fantasies that social media influencers all want us to believe in. 14
Please discuss the nearly covert release for your latest album, In the Weeds. I initially had the idea that I wanted it to be this completely underground thing—a handful of MP3 files in a folder somewhere. I was incredibly selective about who I sent it to because I wanted it to resonate. I wanted everyone who received the link to know they were getting it because I really wanted them to hear the music and thought there was something in at least one or two of the songs that would resonate with them. It wasn’t music for the masses. It was music for a very select group of people. I wrote individual emails to everyone I reached out to, and for the most part, everyone wrote back with their thoughts and reactions, which was incredibly rewarding, far more so than posting a Spotify link on social media and getting a bunch of thumbs- up emojis in return. But a few friends mentioned that it would be a lot easier for them to listen to the album if I put it on streaming services and I eventually acquiesced. For the most part, anyway, in that I put it everywhere but Spotify. Is the title indicative of your state of mind or the material? A little bit of both, I’d say. I wrote and recorded a good deal of it early in the year, which was a rough period. My father-in-law passed away after a long illness, and I was feeling pretty down. Layer on top of that the ongoing shit- show of American politics and the looming intellectual apocalypse that AI represents, not to mention the fact that I had taken on three more courses than I usually teach, and you can see how I might have personally been in the weeds at the time. And the material on the album reflects it, especially that first song. The rest—I suppose the narrative arc— of the album is about climbing out of that hole. 15
so I can layer it on top of another photo to add texture. I keep them in a folder called “Interesting Textures.” I’ll also experiment with layering different combinations of photos in Photoshop. Mainly it’s a matter of adding and subtracting images from the mix and trying different ways of allowing light to pass through them. Sometimes, for example, I’ll let a lower layer shine through the darker portions of an upper layer, or through a brighter portion. Or I’ll just lay a translucent layer on top of a solid layer. I’ll just keep experimenting with combinations of images and methods until I think it looks cool. The album cover is actually several images of tangled brush layered on top of each other. For the images in the booklet, I wasn’t necessarily going for a one-to-one relationship between the song and the image. It was more of a feeling. The series of images in the booklet felt to me like images in a dream, or like a photographic record of the geography of my imagination. One of my favorites is the image that goes with the lyrics to “Something’s Changed.” It’s an abandoned shack in Saugerites layered over the corner of a room in an old mansion in Charleston. It feels to me like two worlds layered on top of each other, and I like that idea—the idea that multiple realities can coexist. How long did you spend writing and recording these songs? I still have the text that inspired the first song. I was meeting my friend Tim Simmons at a local restaurant, and he sent me a text that said, “Im in the way back when you get here.” That was on December 27 of last year, and the album came out, what? In the middle of May? So I guess four or five months, though “Good News” was left over from my previous album, and I’d originally written “The Old Days” for DelCobras, but it wasn’t a great fit, so I took it back. The digital booklet included with In the Weeds includes some remarkable photos, with several double exposures. Most appear to have been taken in fall or winter, with some displaying noticeable decay. Please discuss your method for photography and how these relate to the songs on the album? Thanks for noticing! I took most of those photos in late March on a visit to Mohonk Mountain in New Paltz, New York, though I took a couple in Charleston, South Carolina, and a couple of others in Saugerties, New York. I love taking photos of anything with texture. Sometimes I’ll even take photos of tabletops or upholstery just
Please compare the writing process on your solo releases to that of your band Del Cobras. Writing with DelCobras is much more of a team effort in that we all contribute to the songs. We’re not the kind of band that works songs out in rehearsals or in the studio, though. It’s more a matter of sharing files online. One of us will have an idea, and the others build on it. By the time we get together to record it, we’ve pretty much worked everything out and know our parts, so we can get it down in two or three takes. And we’re always writing with the idea that we’ll probably be playing the songs live, which is different from when I write and record my solo material. I can definitely play some of it live, but tracks like “Good News” or “Mists of Mohonk” wouldn’t work in a live setting. I do a lot more experimentation on my own, gradually building songs around beats or grooves or sounds. I also lean a little more heavily into production technique and shaping the sound when I’m writing and recording on my own. Jim Lorino handles more of that end of things with DelCobras. The creative arts have always been a challenge and often a struggle. Discuss challenges that artists face today as creators of music, film and books. Are you optimistic about the arts? Is community still meaningful and important for artists? I think one of the biggest obstacles has always been the drive to commodify art. For the past decade or so, that drive has intensified immeasurably. Basically, social media and, more broadly, the tech world turned everyone into a mini entrepreneur. The vast majority of “how to” material you’ll find about art online has to do with selling it. For musicians, it often takes the form of “here’s how to make your music sound like a bunch of other music that’s already out there and selling pretty well.” It’s because we’ve all been hoodwinked into believing that the purpose of doing anything is to make money. And the big reason behind that is that tech companies need us to believe it in order to buy all the services they’re selling us while simultaneously creating free content for them to foist upon the world. But now the tech giants have AI, so maybe they’ll replace all the humans with self- sustaining perpetual garbage generators. Which will free artists to do what they’ve always done best, which is to explore what it means to be human and to create artifacts that allow us to empathize with each other on a human scale. In that respect, I’m optimistic for the arts. 17
As someone that moves from one creative medium to another, do you believe reinvention is necessary for an artist? It’s definitely helpful. For me, it’s a matter of staying engaged. A friend of mine once described me as having weaponized ADD since I have a tendency to juggle multiple projects, ping-ponging back and forth and working a little bit on each at a time. And I suppose that bouncing between projects results in a degree of reinvention as each project informs the others in one way or another. More broadly, I think being open to reinvention keeps us all alive and open to new ideas. We live in a world that says we all need to think of ourselves as brands—to figure out what makes us unique so that we can slot ourselves into the social media ecosystem and become the shiniest version of whatever that thing is. But the minute you start playing that game, you stop being alive. You just atrophy. You become static. And look where it’s gotten us. Everyone is so dug-in with their positions and personas that there’s no room for real dialog or transformation anymore. But when you step away from that machinery, you can be anything. The Interviewer John Gilbert -a musician with a lot of questions. 18
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Three Ways to Sound Less like a Bedroom Producer So, Kelly asked me to write something for his and Keri’s new newsletter that you presumably hold in your hot, sexy hands right now. When I asked what I should write about, he said, “I don’t know, probably music related. Just like when you send emails. Not that NASA or circus shit. One to two thousand words. Need it in a week.” Since there’s not much going on here in the woods other than power tool accidents and wondering when the seasonal bears will arrive, I said yes. Let’s ease into this with some home recording rules of thumb. That way I don’t have to do any research or think too hard. Besides, I’m old now. My opinions carry the weight of authority. That’s how it works. Tip #1 Ditch the Fake Drums! Yeah, I know. The drum sounds that came with your DAW sound “sooo good!” You don’t play drums. You don’t own mics. Maybe you make rap or EDM and layered 808 kicks are what you need. Fine. Some of that we can’t do anything about. But… if you are working in a musical realm where you want real drums you should make the effort to have them. Drum recording is not as difficult as people tend to think. I’ll expand on that in future columns. However, there are ways to get real drums without playing them yourself or resorting to canned samples that sound like every other bedroom producer out there. The easy button is to get a friend to play them and send you tracks. Playing drums over pre-recorded music is a surprisingly specialized skill, not something I recommend unless you have access to a world-class drummer. On the other hand, getting a friend to play drums over a guide track and then you re-track your other parts to fit their feel is a tried and true method that’s all over great records. But for god’s sake provide a click track, Kelly. You can also hire out someone to do the drums at a pro level. A lot of studio drummers do remote session work, many at reasonable prices. So, if you want Kenny Aronoff on your banger, go for it. I’d provide links but you can find them easily enough, at all budget levels, and, well … see paragraph 2. 20
The other approach is to do it yourself. We (the royal we) are all big on DIY here. It’s tremendously rewarding… eventually. You don’t play drums? Learn! You don’t need a drum set either. Start with, oh I don’t know, a djembe and pawn shop cymbal with a lo-fi cheap ass mic. Get funky with it. Enlist friends. Release it with your newsletter. Real drums played by real humans will always sound more interesting than pristine samples locked to a grid. Note I didn’t say ‘better’. The DAW provided drum samples often sound amazing. But everyone uses them, so you’ll sound like everyone else. Me? I want the human element in my tracks, I want the minor mistakes, the weird squeaks and rattles that haven’t been massaged out. High fidelity does not automatically mean high musicality. Think about that. Tip #2 Spend More Time On Vocals If I had to pick one area that really separates an obvious home recording from a professional release it’s this, vocal delivery. Pitch. Timing. Phrasing. Breath. Even “simple” vocals aren’t simple. I’m not talking about fidelity of recording. That’s a topic for another time, and many people have written about the ins and outs of the engineering aspect of voice capture. What I’m talking about is the production portion. I routinely receive tracks from people that have spent ages getting their guitars or keyboards played and arranged perfectly yet seem to have just done a quick run through on the vocals. Rule of thumb: expect to spend at least as much time on the lead vocal as you spent tracking every other instrument combined. Obviously, this only applies to music that has vocals, so if you are making the 10% of popular music that doesn’t then feel free to get a beverage. Bring me one on the way back. It’s the performance, it’s the arrangement. Voice is an instrument like any other, it needs its space in the song. And for genres where it’s the driving part, it needs conviction. Nothing kills a demo faster than a singer who doesn’t believe a word of what they are singing. Pitch is important too, but there are plenty of examples of great vocal performances that are not that great pitch-wise, looking at you Dylan. Of course, in rap the spoken word must carry conviction and power on its own. 21
Good vocals usually involve a little acting. You aren’t reading lyrics off a page. You are telling a story. Sometimes this is your personal truth and emotion, other times it is an imagined portrayal, but always with conviction. This is something everyone can do with practice, no magic pipes necessary. Even the Grammy-winning singers will sit in the studio and go over multiple takes (usually at that level they are all fantastic) and have clear preferences for their impact and feel. So, spend a little more time hacking away at those vocals, you’ll be glad you did. Tip #3 Get it Right at the Source Back in the day*, it was a common joke or warning to say, “We’ll fix it in the mix” during tough sessions. It seems it is often the unironic default approach nowadays (cue old man yells at cloud meme). Our computers are powerful. We can rescue performances, replace drums, change arrangements, tune vocals, all kinds of crazy shenanigans. That’s great, until it becomes an excuse to avoid decisions and we have 50 tracks with 100 plugins while still trying to find a song buried there. All those vintage records everyone claims they want to emulate did not do things that way. They worked on arrangements before they hit record. They made permanent decisions and that was what made it to tape. That’s now the iconic sound. Happy accidents come from intentional preparation. They didn’t have a choice but to work that way, but that’s also a massive part of why those records sound like they do. I wouldn’t trade my modern workflow for the limitations of the past. But limitations have a funny way of forcing good decisions. The farther upstream you make those decisions, the better your mixes tend to be. This leads to the actual tip, simply, get it right at the source. There are dozens of different ways to apply that concept, and we’ll dive face first into that tub of hot sauce in future columns. Boiled down its essence, it just means getting something you are happy with before you put it down on a recording 22
Let’s take acoustic guitar as an example, notoriously unforgiving to even the smallest engineering mistakes. I pull out my ‘vintage’ Kay (or was it a Harmony?) guitar from the 70’s. It has high action but makes up for it by also having strings old enough that I’m a little worried about tetanus. And I’m playing it in my kitchen using an AKG C1000 condenser pointed directly at the sound hole. And I don’t know the song, but I have a chord sheet. Somehow, it doesn’t sound like a pro recording. It’s boomy yet harshly bright, lacking in clarity but has plenty of noise from my refrigerator and AC. Lots of pick sounds and little discernible tone. And kind of boring. To overcome those limitations, I’ll do multiple takes to get it to sound ‘bigger’. Now that’s a sound for sure. It could work for some things, but isn’t what I wanted. If I run with it I’ll then maybe spend hours layering plugin after plugin and chances are I’ll never be quite satisfied. Plus, who wants to spend all that time mousing instead of playing? Using the “get it right at the source” philosophy avoids that. I still use my trusty 70’s Harmony (or was it a Kay?) but only after I got it back from the bench with an action adjustment and fresh strings. It feels good under the hands now. I also swapped out the thin pick for a medium and learned to hold it more relaxed to bring out more tone and less string scrapes. I leave the kitchen for a quieter area with no buzzes and hums or terrible reflections, trade out the overly harsh microphone for one with less top end and ‘reach’, and point it at around the 12 fret instead of the sound hole to get more tone and less boom. th More importantly I play the song repeatedly until I know it by heart. In the process I’ve discovered a couple cool things I can add to the playing that make the performance more exciting and that in turn boosts my enthusiasm and *that* shows up on the recording as a lively decidedly not-boring track. And I didn’t need to stack multiple takes. The other saying besides ‘fix it in the mix” that people used to say is “can’t polish a turd”. Try not to start with the turd. 23
For your next song, limit yourself to 8 tracks total, each track mono or stereo is fine. No post processing allowed. No 2-bus mastering, no track compression or post-EQ. Only during the recording can you use EQ or compression. Once it is recorded you have to live with your choices. At mix time only engage volume and pan, that’s it. I suspect you’ll learn more about recording in one weekend doing this than you will by buying another plugin. Have fun and share the results! *April 3 , 1979rd Well, that’s enough for now. Music production is an art and a craft and we’ll dive into both aspects from time to time. Hope some of these tips are useful for y’all and if you want more, let Kelly know. I’m nothing if not an unlimited source of opinions and happy to share. I also reserve the right to talk about NASA and circus stuff. Until next time… Oh shit… I think there’s a bear outside. 24
This is a story about my love for music, and my first wife who did everything in her power to thwart it. I married Julie in early 1994 after five years of dating. Let's say Julie had a problematic relationship with my music almost from the start. When we met, I was finishing my third indie cassette of the year called "Sunday At The Airport". Julie's voice appears on it, and she helped me mail out tapes and cover letters. But then I began work on an ambitious and complex album called "Gower Street" about the place where I grew up, which was to be my first professionally duplicated cassette. "Gower" had lots of complex keyboard parts, and I worked closely with my piano teacher to master them. Overdubs took months. When "Gower" was finally completed, it had taken three years, which was unheard-of for an indie tape artist.The final two-week push took up all my free time after work. Gower got incredible reviews, press and comments.WHY DID MY SIMPLE ROCK ALBUM TAKE FIVE YEARS TO FINISH? by Dino DiMuro A large majority of the 500 tape copies went out to listeners. It was truly the peak of my nascent musical career. But in the midst of all this, Julie asked: "You're all done now, right?" I answered: "Yes, until the next one." Her face literally turned white. "The... NEXT one?” That next one was meant to be a bare-bones rock album, though it got more complicated as time went on. Designed for cassette, in the end it became my first CD release. In contrast to Gower Street, "The Simple Chance of Life" took "just" two years to complete. Things moved slower in those days, and when the discs arrived from the printer, I was still riding a wave of goodwill from Gower. Reviews were again very good. But Julie gave birth to our son Friday just eight months after the album's release, and with only about 90 copies distributed, the rest of the CDswere pushed under the bed while we dealt with a constantly crying baby (whom we loved very much!). 25
lunchtimes, as if I were having an affair. One day I played Julie the finished CD on a blaster at the kitchen table. "How did you do that?" she asked. I proudly admitted that I had done it behind her back. For CD duplication and printing I used the cheapest places I could find, and put the CDs together myself. It had taken almost exactly five years to complete this simple rock album. The response was okay, though there was an undercurrent of "Why did THIS take five years?" most notably by Eugene Chadbourne in his online review. At least two songs designed for the CD never got finished in time. When the dust had settled, Julie made a rare mea culpa: "I need you to stop blaming me for this. I didn't know how complicated it would be to have a child. I need you to give me a clean slate." She actually "allowed" me to start recording on Saturdays again, and I also began staying at work to record on their digital system. I don't know if it would have continued like this as Julie passed away from a car accident, but I've never again had someone actively attempt to block my music.I wasn't expecting much music time those first few parental months, and I didn't get any. But then my Grandmother passed and left me $5,000. Julie had a moment of kindness and said: "It's your money - I want you to make the CD of your dreams!" So I began planning (yes) another stripped-down rock album with lots of guests that could be finished more quickly. First I took a few months to write the songs, then tracked live drums at a 24-track studio. I recorded my guitar parts at home, then went back to the studio to add my guests to the multitracks. But then Julie started raiding my $5k recording fund for home improvements. Eventually there was no money to continue recording, and since the half-finished tapes were 24-track, I absolutely needed a pro studio. We did get a large tax refund, but Julie said: "Why should YOU get that money?" "Because you promised me." "SO?" I seriously considered burning the tapes as a sort of Art Statement. Instead, I sold 2/3 of my vinyl and CD collection to afford even a little studio time at $55/hour, and I maximized every second. Somehow I was able to complete all the parts except for bass. Without telling Julie, I paid my mixer friend Judson Leach a lump sum and went to his 8 track digital studio atDino DiMuro 26
There is a pattern that I have discovered in myself and I’m curious if it pops up for others too: Striving leads to stalls I know many of you, like me, have creative passions and entrepreneurial pursuits that tend towards all- consuming. For instance, I wake up in the morning and my very first thought is, “How can I further my music career today?” I don’t know if this is a good thing. It becomes especially tricky when it feels like my growth has stalled out. There are times when no opportunities are coming in, no one is getting back to me, and all of my balls are stuck in other people’s courts. Historically, I have never been deterred by this. When confronted with a closed door, I would just continue to walk into it over and over like a wind-up toy. Nothing’s happening. Quick! I need to make something happen! How do we cope when "nothing's happening" By Caroline in the Garden [CUT TO: churning out shitty content, “following up” for the thousandth time, sinking into thankless hours of “how to hack the algorithm” or “how to go viral” blogs and videos] This year I’ve noticed that when “furthering my music career” starts becoming more about goals and striving and busy work, and less about fun, the tap runs dry on any momentum I might have been experiencing. The more I scratch and claw, the fewer things happen, which makes me scratch and claw harder! I’ll take steps BACKWARDS, just to feel like I’m taking steps! 27
Social media exacerbates my anxiety over this, because when I’m scrolling it seems like happenings are happening for everyone else but me and I get real salty about it. (Another reason why I took the apps off my phone!) Having now realized this pattern, and having become fed up with clamoring (and its constipating effect on my career), I’m approaching these ebbs differently now. It took a couple of years but I finally remembered that I am a multi-faceted human with a delightful family and many varied interests. So now when nothing is happening on the music front, I indulge one of my other passions. [ CUT TO: writing, dancing, taking my kids to cool places, learning about medieval and renaissance history, going to dinner with my husband, reading, listening to music, playing classical piano, practicing barre chords on guitar, studying astrology, giving tarot card readings, etc…] Because if nothing is happening, I might as well enjoy my life until it does! Caroline in the Garden is the imaginative pop project of singer/songwriter and producer Caroline Milby. Known for warm minor chord energy, off- kilter piano hooks and lush orchestrations, Caroline explores what it means to unhinge yourself from societies' expectations after spending decades on the capitalist conveyor belt. She is heavily influenced by Kate Bush, Tori Amos, and other 90s Lilith Fair icons. Her debut album Act Two has been called “both groundbreaking and familiar at the same time” and is available now everywhere you listen to music. "Auspicious debut albums of this caliber are few and far between. Savor it." – Creative Loafing, April 23, 2026 28
THE ACT OF BALANCE by Chris Triggs of The La-La-Lettes. Aged 57 and a bit, from Colwyn Bay in North Wales.The Horse’s MouthIssue 1By means that we will only live by two formats. ‘Up and Down’. It’s how you play the game to keep the ‘Balance’. If you want to be pedantic, you could say ‘In or Out’, there’s no preference here, it depends on what song you’re listening to. Read on. On the song ‘Up and Down’ on Dark Side of the Moon, the 1973 much applauded album by Pink Floyd, they go through many avenues of where things go UP and things go DOWN. They obviously went round and round too, but the basis was clear, you’re still going either that way or that way, and whatever you do to get to the top, it’s the same road as going obviously the other way, to the bottom.You need a balance within to be famous, to take the rough with the smooth, unfortunately some don’t find the balance and fade away. Former Floyd member Syd Barrett, I believe, saw right through the bullshit of fame when he was 21, decided he didn’t want any part of it, took a load of hallucinogens and quite rightly buggered off the edge of the planet. Curiously, he found Balance by not conforming to the mainstream of music and committed himself by returning to his version of a normal life. He was lucky, unfortunately there were those who weren’t allowed to let go, and suffered for years in mental freefall, i.e. Beach Boy Brian Wilson. People should be ashamed of the way he was treated, and I truly wonder if poor Brian ever found a balance in his personal life.You can think what you like about how your life is different to everyone else’s, when actually we are all on the same thread that deliver the streams to us in the same way an ocean tides it way around the globe from the gravity of the moon.The same figure applies on ‘Have a Cigar’ on their ‘Wish you were here’ LP. You start off wanting the fame and adulation, but then the down side is, you’ll get punished by greedy leaders and soft shoe shufflers. 29
DEEP POOP So, this takes us to Depression, you’re either up or down, the hard part of course is keeping the ‘Balance’. Unfortunately, when you’re down, you don’t know how long you’re going to be there, (same actually as when you’re up), and you will need assistance to get up (or down). Actually, there’s no way of doing it on your own, you will need help. For some, sadly they ‘give up’ and think ‘people will be better off without me’, that’s the tragedy, and you become a statistic. Yet, if you believe in yourself and ignore what you think people are saying about you the better. “It’s none of your business what people say about you”. When you find your way to this point, you’ll find shrugging your shoulders is easier, and walking away from those who think they know what’s best for you. You’ll soon notice your mood improving, your positivity will rise, your smile returns, and you’ll have the right balance to get on with YOUR LIFE! You need, no actually, you deserve that balance! Similarly, children enjoy being ‘Up’ when playing on a See Saw for instance, they laugh up there in the sky, but then like life, it hurts when you hit the bottom. There’s only so much you can take being on a See- Saw, yet like life, it has its answers, and either way, when you get off, you feel a bit better, no one won, lost, it was a balance, see! (I’ve just remembered while editing this, Pink Floyd had a song called See-Saw!) and yet some of their episodes are considered weak. Not everyone gets it right, except maybe ‘Fawlty Towers’, 12 episodes of absolute comedy joy, yet the balance is, after you’ve watched it 50 times, you know it’s time to move on and look for something else. Not everything what you know is good, can make you happy all of the time. American TV in the 60s, right through to the 90s and sometimes beyond, you had shows that had up to 24/26 episodes per season. Even the greatest of TV shows had clunker episodes, and at times after so many seasons, shows become so tired with ideas it’s not really worth watching anymore (X Files, ‘FRIENDS’!. BUT, you still remember the classic eps, “don’t you”!. Balance. ENTERTAINMENT There are many of examples of balance in television, music, sport and politics. From the point of view of Television, there are shows which are deemed classic, Music of course is the same. From some opinions The Beatles didn’t make one duff album, some may believe that the UK album ‘Beatles for Sale’ is a bit naff, and because of media scrutiny, many think it’s their weakest LP. This is of course is, pure rubbish!!, it took me years to appreciate it’s Rock n Roll beauty, and when I realised that my own opinion counted more than anyone’s, it was easier to enjoy. The same thing applies to many other albums, specifically ‘Rumours’ by Fleetwood Mac. In the world of some people, it’s the greatest thing ever, but balance has a funny way of applying itself. 30
ruled the NFL, 4 super bowl triumps in 6 years (I think), they followed the likes of the Green Bay Packers and the Miami Dolphins, the NFL! It was a global sensation, then the 80’s, the Steelers, Packers, Dolphins had flatlined. It was the 49ers turn, and so on, ‘Cowboys’, ‘Buccs’ etc. Where we’re going here is that the NFL, NBA, NHL have what you call the draft system, where the best young and gifted players go to the worst teams before the start of a new season, of course there’s a bit of money flying around, offering millions of dollars on one guy, but you can have this guy instead. Even the Trade system is balanced. The situation is, everyone will have the opportunity at some point to have their turn in the sunlight. Well, except maybe the Detroit Lions, but they had a decent season last year reaching the Play-offs for the first time since Nixon was cutting up tapes, so, YOU NEVER KNOW. I myself love Ice Hockey, and the NHL team I follow are the New Jersey Devils, previously they were known as the Scouts from Kansas City, then for 6 years, they were the Colorado Rockies, before moving to New Jersey in 1982. For years they were an also ran team, brief flirtations with the playoffs, they were a non-threatening team from a busy North Atlantic Coastal league, making up the numbers away from the teams of New York. Then out of nowhere in the 90s, they won a Stanley Cup. DANG DANG DAAAAAAHHHH POLITICS!!!!! I’m not going to even to go through things regarding the Malignant Orange Turd that squats in the White House, but his day will come, things will ‘Balance Out’, in such an artistic fashion, you’ll think you’re dreaming. Possibly a complete shock, but really, no it wasn’t, things like this happen all the time in American Sport, and for a team the size of the Devils to win 3 Stanley Cups, it will keep their fans happy for many years. The same happened to St Louis, Washington, even Vegas!!!, they’ve all had their turn as champs, legends are formed, shirt numbers retired, history is celebrated, and crucially, everyone’s happy, and the balance remains, ‘across the League’. The NBA is a clever one though, you’ve got the L.A. Lakers and the Boston Celtics on one side, interestingly, on opposite shores of the U.S. (balance), and then the rest of the league together keeping things even. Balance!, has its answers, you have to believe in it. All Things Must Pass, an album title and song by Beatle George Harrison in 1970 tells us again that even though things are bad (or good) now, it will get better (or worse) later. Which brings us to…. 4TH QUARTER ANYWAY, Sport. The Balance here of course is whose turn is it now, the American system of sport is all about, “you guessed it”, BALANCE. Years ago in the 70s, the Pittsburgh Steelers 31
When Kelly asked if I’d be interested in writing a recipe column for The Horse’s Mouth magazine, my first thought was, I’m not exactly a chef. But I am the person who cooks most of the meals in our house, so I’ve collected a handful of tried- and-true recipes over the years. And I figure if I can make them, you can too. First on the menu is Spanakopita. It’s one of my favorite recipes because it’s incredibly versatile and surprisingly forgiving—unless you let the phyllo dough dry out. Then you might be in trouble! The ingredient list is refreshingly simple: phyllo dough, feta cheese, spinach, butter, an egg, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a few spices. You simply mix together the filling, wrap it in buttery layers of phyllo dough, and bake it until it’s beautifully golden brown and irresistibly flaky. The result is a savory, crispy pastry that’s every bit as delicious as it looks. Whether you serve it as an appetizer, a light lunch, or alongside your favorite meal, it’s always a crowd-pleaser. I hope you’ll give it a try and discover just how easy it is to make. Who knows— it just might become one of those recipes you find yourself making again and again. Happy cooking! Extra idea: switch out the filling with something non traditional like apple filling or taco meat. Possibilities are endless. I forgot to take a picture when I took them out of the oven, but I did get these. From the kitchen of Keri Kintner Cute, cartoon me is drawn by Chris Triggs. 32
2 (10-ounce) packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1 teaspoon dried parsley 1 teaspoon dried basil 1 large egg, lightly beaten 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 1 (8-ounce) package feta cheese, crumbled 24 sheets frozen phyllo pastry, thawed 1 cup melted butter Directions: 1.Position rack in center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. 2.Drain the thawed spinach in a collander and squeeze out any excess water. 3.Place the spinach in a medium mixing bowl. Add the salt, pepper, oregano, parsley, and basil. Stir in the beaten egg, olive oil, and lemon juice. Add the feta cheese and mix well to combine. Set aside. 4.Gently unfold the phyllo dough. Lay 1 sheet of phyllo on a large cutting board and gently brush with the melted butter. Repeat 3 more times until you have a stack of 4 phyllo sheets with butter brushed between the layers. 5.Using a sharp knife, cut the phyllo sheets lengthwise into 3 strips. Place 2 tablespoons of the spinach filling 1 inch from the bottom end of each strip. 6.Take the bottom right corner of the strip between your thumb and finger and fold over the spinach filling to the left to make a triangle. Gently pull up the bottom left corner and fold up to make a second triangle. Continue folding until you reach the top. Place the triangle, seam side down, on the prepared baking sheet. Brush the completed triangle lightly with butter. 7.Repeat with the remaining strips and phyllo sheets until all of the filling is used. 8.Arrange the triangles 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Bake for 15-30 minutes, until golden and heated all the way through. Remove the spanakopita from the oven and cool slightly on the baking sheet. Note *It is important to keep a piece of plastic wrap and a damp cloth or paper towel over the phyllo sheets that you are not working with to keep them from drying out. Dinner of Spanikopita and roasted potatoes. Spanikopita recipe 33