www.thirdroot.bandcamp.com www.avar-the-star.com

DOWN SOUTH featuring Avar the Star & Gil Scott-Heron

This track was recorded during our "Dirty Genes" sessions. The label at the time said it was too long and abstract to make the album.  We were listening to a lot of B.B. King at the time.  In memory of "Blues Boy" King, we decided to release it today. RIP B.B.

Mojoe x Mingo Fishtrap "The TRILL Is Gone" [Unreleased 2008]

11.10.15 (Pronounced too-SAHNT)

“Songs are better than people.” – David Maechese

I sat down to eulogize. To say thank you
To say hello. And say goodbye
I turned off the lights to write
But what started off as one hazy night of diligent survey
Turned into a long walk along the wooden floors of Sunday
At the pew I huddled over the patient carvings you’d made
Like hieroglyphs, stories, documents (proof)
In the rocks of the holy mountain of sound – YOU WERE HERE
Some I knew but had never heard
Or heard but had never known like
Mardi Gras or French Quarter or Preservation Hall
You name precedes your art; the nature of iconicity
Guilty and grateful, I just assumed you were always Saint

From your Christening in Gert Town to your last sermon in Madrid
Always Saint
From Southern Nights to Mississippi Bright
Consistently Saint
From LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade” to UGK’s “Chrome Plated Woman”
Timeless Saint
From Reasonable Doubt’s “D’Evils” to Stankonia’s “We Luv Deez Hoez”
Forever Saint

I sat down to reflect. To pay homage
To exhume. And lay to rest
I sparked up to write
Just my pen and a Red Stripe
Cold and mute outside
This laptop screen my only light
Hunting words. Hungry for focus but …

in the week since Spain indented the first paragraph of your epilogue
ISIS turned the streets of Paris into a graveyard
Panic and terror and pain and tears and paranoia and tyranny and
Condemning such a cowardly work of calculated evil by waving the French flag is trendy now
But since receiving news of your exit 
I’ve been in my head
Mourning; missing the point of humans
So brilliantly clueless
And all the protest I can muster is …
If every human played your records every night
How much better the world would be

But that’s too simple
Greed and power – too complicated
Too profitable to be defeated by your dandy style 
Your open top piano
Your sole weapon
Your five loaves and two fish
Your song “Cruel Way to Go Down”
Wraps me like a blanket
Thirty-six but a baby: my bottle and my night light
Crucified “a hippy” by those I love. Insight

Not sure if I’ll ever be able to communicate in any other language
But song
I sat down to eulogize but 
People 
Won’t leave me alone


11.10.15 (Pronounced too-SAHNT)

From the film Freeword: Moment of Impact (https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/freeword)
Produced by SK the Greatest
Arranged by Easy Lee and SK
Written by Easy Lee and Tawheedah
Bass Guitar: Roger Blevins Jr.
(ASCAP/BMI)

Easy Lee

Popular tracks