Happy Valentine’s Day lovely people!

Once upon a time I made a record that for me was very unusual in many ways. First I had no deadline. Being the typically overachieving goal oriented kind of person this was a challenge for me. I wanted the record to unfold, allow it to come into the world on it’s own time. I hired some amazing musicians, and changed my line up, changed my approach to the sonics of the session and dove into the morass.

I wrote the songs, did a co-write or two, did a few pre production meetings, took a few days to make the record…and then things got strange.

As some of you may have heard, artists are a mercurial bunch of people, and I include myself in that description. So, when the drama hit the fan I shelved the record. I needed the dust to settle and the final curing, melding, maturing process to happen while it did so in it’s digital womb for what seems like many years.

So finally here it is in all it’s odd artistic style. The songwriting is dark and sarcastic, angry and sad, and looking back I guess I just needed to get a few things off my chest. The sounds are dark and ugly, cryptic and lovely, and this will not be the record for those of you looking for another Bluebird Tattoo. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

As my gift to you when you leave a comment on this post I will send you a link to download the record for free, for some arbitrary time until I decide otherwise. Mercurial see?

And so I release my sixth record Vonnegut’s Wife on Valentine’s Day wishing you all love.

K-town Sunshine

There are a few days a year like this one

The sun is shining and the air is cool and moving

One of those days where everything looks clean

Even dirty streets and bus stops

Broken windows and stone doorways

Antique buildings that line the streets of Korea town

Where everyone looks sad even when they are smiling

Where happiness is present

In the firm grim acceptance of one’s lot in life

And to merely notice the moving

Setting sun is a triumph of will

One of those rare days of urban clarity

Where everything is good and right

And everyone is too tired to fight anymore

Written by Circe Link

Copyright 2010

What is it about Folkies?

If Folkies had saying it would be “If you love it set it free, if it plugs in hunt it down and kill it.”

Kidding. But not, kind of.

These seemingly sweet natured banjo picking, mando wielding aficionados of the unplugged seem to have serious issues about the growth of an artist.

Take, for instance Bob Dylan, when Bob, Lord and King to many a Folkie and Rocker alike, decided to expand his palette of sounds his former zealots wanted him hanged. Turing rabid his flipped out fanatics bleary eyed and booing became hateful and violent at shows they paid good money to get into! All because Bob wanted to say more, and in return they gave him death threats.

I have a friend who has had the hardest time with me developing as an artist. And that is what provoked my tiny but sweet natured rant about Folkies, as he is indeed one.

He tells me my first record was my best, and that I was so pure, so real and that my lyrics were so much more about me and therefore resonated with the listener on a deeper level.

So let me fill all of you in, that record, “More Songs from Circe Link”, really only has one song whose lyrics apply to me in truth. And that song is called “I Like Knowing You Miss Me”, it’s a love song. Kidding.

Other than that song, in my neophyte stages of writing I found it more fun to write about others, still do actually. Rather than writing about myself I chose archetypical metaphors as homage to a specific style with which I was flirting, savvy?

Had I ever had a blue bird tattoo?

Had I ever been a ghost?

Had I ever had my husband die?

Take a wild guess.

And by the way, that song is not about dead babies. I say this because once a squeaky fan after a show excitedly told me she loved my dead baby song! (Lift eyebrow here.)

The last record “Moody Girl” and the new record “Vonnegut’s Wife” hold more intimate details and inner musings than I have ever cared or dared to express in song form. Which, one day I will probably regret, as will any of you that the songs are written about, C’est la vie.

Now don’t get me wrong I love a good old-fashioned folk song. I love my 501’s, waving golden meadows and a bare foot home down hoe down hootenannies but sheesh guys it seems someone’s got a problem with change.

So to my Folkie friend who sits in his wooded solitude, shunning the evolving world, almost a musical Luddite, I say with love and affection the poem is not the poet.

I say trying to tell this storm not to shift is bad for the crops. Trying to fight the waves will get you a lunch of sand and saltwater. I choose impressionism and realism, I choose cola and un-cola, I choose yes and no and everything in between. And if you don’t like it then keep your symbolic chocolate out of my lyrical peanut butter.

Ok so the mind of this obsessive artist is always on and ready for an opportunity to catch something good. Like fishing or surfing sometime it’s a matter of being present.

So the other day I am getting on the freeway, traffic is heavy, the sun is climbing to it’s tower top to yell about the climate change all day long, and he works a long shift in the summer don’t cha ya know.

And then there it is, off to the side of the road, in the shade but there, tiny and unassuming. I wonder if anyone else sees, but then of course someone must. I am sure I can not be alone in this beauty. Off to the side of the road one single yellow petaled daisy stands alone.

Such a reward to see, that I will not attempt to speak of its impact on me here. But there it was, alone and great, small and silent. One single, standing, reaching growing proud little daisy along the freeway on ramp.

I’ve been driving lately. Out far into the wilds of suburbia, to the home of the ever so talented Michael Sherwood. If you are not familiar with his work see the bio for him under the drop down menu on the Musicians page.

Well now, it’s getting to be a habit. Michael and I have combined forces to create a little treasure trove of very jazzy numbers. So it is decided we will make a record, why not?

I have always wanted to do a primarily Jazz record and now the gods have given the big nod in sweet swinging time.

Each song so far has had it’s own process. I know for many writers that process can be, or often must be, a particular way. Incense, candles, wine and soft lights, some need the blues or a good heartbreak to hear the cosmic songs. Some writers require the pre-requisite suffering artist angst and pain.

Not for this girl, life is hard enough and beautiful enough to cherry pick ideas with careful ease if you just know where to look, or is it listen….

Anyhow, I think the future holds a very jazzy pie for us all.

HUCKLEBERRY

Black as the huckleberry night

All things swoon in the cities darkness

The streets and eyes, tar and moon

The shoes and dogs of endless suburban neighborhoods

Where hot winds blow and strange dreams grow

Wild in the alleys and side yards, unattended

Sweet as a huckleberry a gift from the forgotten past

Seeps wet and weird across my lips

As if to say the season is changing

While dark caterpillars driven with desire for self improvement

Mad for metamorphosis make their way

Along brave distanced journeys to secret retreats

Where a future unnamed and limitless awaits them

Smooth as a huckleberry my eyes revolve black pupils

A shudder and shade upon this soul

Leaves it’s mark like the brand of a cattleman

Somehow tender in it’s violence of protection

And all things yearning forward towards their finality

All things leaning in from the vertigo of gods own art

Mysterious and grand unknowable and fathomless,

Yet common like the green of this fruited thicket

Written By Circe Link 05/19/04

Copyright Circe Link 2004

Welcome kiddies to the new temporary site. I am learning so bear with me as I go.

I will be adding lyrics, music, poetry and art band bios and more, so stick around why don’t cha?

Saturdaynight. Hedwig amazing. Driving home. AM radio. Satellite falling with toxic loads. Rapists prowling for fresh young women leaving them dead exposed to the sky and frozen fields lonely in the night. Oscar has taken over Hollywood. Deadly shootings a few miles from my home.

Full on existential nausea overtakes me. Home shower. Song arrives.

No one is listening. So I will say what I feel. No consequence and no remorse. Monday. Preproduction. Album number six. Song becomes real. No hokey hallmark. Real magic spontaneous all of us feel it. Drive home. AM radio. Satellite safely shot down.

Irony.