It's Twine Time!

The Parliaments - Poor Willie

Been busy as a three-legged cat trying to bury its shit. Or, occupied. Certainly not focused.

To keep this blog / newsletter / romantic delusion going in any sort of routine way requires a focus, a dedication that I can’t really account for when asked about my goals with it. That’s an unfortunate result of our times, that every endeavor we pursue either needs to be turned into a hustle or it is dismissed as a hobby, which is really just a quaint way of saying “keep it to yourself, really”.

Paul Ray was an Austin staple that I’m sure most people discovered by accident. For almost 40 years he graced the radio airwaves with his fantastic taste in music, guiding listeners through the lesser-known history of American R & B, Soul and even Jazz, with the mantra that there hadn’t been any good music recorded since 1970.

His Saturday night show on KUT was “Twine Time”, which he took over from another DJ in 1979. And every show started with the Alvin Cash song it was named after. So, on Saturday nights, at home, doors open, the radio would get turned on, after dinner was digested and as the dishes were finally being done, and it sputtered in the background as a garble of chirps and twangs and hums, tuned down low in the spectrum of activity building up to the moment when that first after dinner beer was pulled from the refrigerator, the top popped, wisps of cold from the long neck hitting the hot Texas summer air, as the ten o’ clock siren called:

It’s twine time! Ooh, ahh, ooh ahh, ooh ahh

Listening to Paul Ray play records for you on a hot summer night with a cold beer in hand was always a true joy.

It’s people like that who guide my hand as I do this little thing, which isn’t a hobby, nor is it a hustle, but is the simple pleasure of giving you one of the most pure gifts I can give anyone in any capacity because the world has been shaped into a maze of social and capital transactions and objectives and expectations and the only most honest way I can connect with you is by giving you the same sounds that open up my yearning heart.

Like what what’s going on here? Bombs away in the comments!

Not into this song? Stick around for the next one, it may be what you didn’t know you needed! Remember, there are only two genres of music here at SERMONS!: good and bad, and I have too much to do to waste time on bad music.