A number of Douglas McQueen’s masks are featured in the newly released Callers album Fortune, though regrettably, this particular documentation [above] didn’t make the cut. Sarah Lucas, the band’s lead singer, sports one of the smaller West African inspired masks in McQueen’s collection, and appears every bit the performer I’ve witnessed live. Speaking of which, as I have previously mentioned, I’ve been listening to the soulful voice of Lucas, and Ryan Seaton’s spare guitar just outside my office for close to a year now. I’m inclined to think the fact that I don’t yet hate them for their ceaseless practicing is a tribute to their success as musicians, but feel free to disregard the plug for my roommate’s band as completely without objectivity. Or not. You can purchase their new album Fortune at Western Vinyl!
In unremarkable coincidences, Douglas McQueen, Sarah Lucas and Ryan Seaton first met in New Orleans, a location that also happens to be the subject of this issue’s Triple Canopy. Not to overstate my enjoyment of the publication, but they are an excellent example of why I prefer web produced material; you can’t play an mp3 in print, and their writing matches or betters those of well known literary magazines. In particular, Ben Phelps-Rohrs and Brian Rosa’s audio-photo essay I Knew Then It Was All On Me, provides a powerful look at the loses suffered by those in New Orleans, specifically the 9th ward. Charles Myles describes the framed pictures he took off the wall and saved by putting them in plastic bags, David Lee Fountain provides the quote titling the essay when talks about returning to his home knowing he’d have to fix it without support, and Betty Morgan speaks about being a single mother, and the necessity of not reflecting on her troubles very often because it becomes too hard to function otherwise. The stories are truly gripping and profoundly sad.
Comments on this entry are closed.