Words by Sean Moeller//Illustration by Ryan Flynn

Bill Baird was here a few days before Christmas, visiting us with some cans of chili, his guitar, a dog-eyed driver’s face and a batch of brand new songs, though an argument can be made that Blonde Bill — the bassist for Austin, Texas outfit Sound Team and the master of the ghost stare — is never anywhere, but always splintered off into a thousand directions. His thoughts sail around like the sperm of a dandelion taking to the breeze and getting as far as it has wings and some puffs behind it. He is a tumbleweed and an eccentric innovator preoccupied with abstract thoughts and making life the raddest it can possibly be for himself. You know that scene in Forest Gump, when the bearded Gump is out running, he gets splashed by a passing car with a wall of mud, a man hands him a yellow T-shirt to wipe the brown clean, it makes a smiley face imprint and he inadvertently coins the slogan “Shit Happens”? Sure, you do. I could see Baird having the same scenario play out. He seems to be infatuated with living to the fullest, white noise (or the pretty things you can hear inside the white noise), imagining his life as a Civil War battlefield, his nightlife as John Wilkes Booth and maximizing each of his endeavors with a water off a duck’s back dismissal, despite another infatuation with depressing matters. A DIY DVD — as he calls it — that he made, called “Sunset: Candlelit Television Eyes”, is full of bits and parts that are of the cut and paste variety and they’re utterly him. His mind, one can assume, is kind of the same thing as a channel surfer’s — chronically sped-forward and flipping like an out of control projectionist. It’s a scattered picture that still finds a way to come together. There are images of sunsets (naturally), Baird running frequently from vans toward huge as billboards, signs and colleges, a moment when it’s alluded that the many times over country music male entertainer of the year George Strait isn’t THE Satan, but A satan. There’s another moment when he’s standing in a fast food taco joint’s drive thru lane with an acoustic guitar singer to an employee that he wants a black bean taco…PLEASE (very tunefully, but to no avail, according to the blank stares and repeated mentions that he’ll have to come in and order). This past week, over the holiday, Baird went to Northern Mexico “with a smattering of friends and family, the ghost of William S. Burroughs, a worn copy of Knut Hamsun’s Pan, a dog named Townes (note: you‘ll see him on the DVD), and a man named Ruiz, who led me through the desert.” Find him here to get copies of his two fantabulous solo records. He is a Harry Smith character.

favorite things of late:
1. — Northern Mexico: Where to begin? So many sights, so difficult to grasp the awesomeness, in the truest sense of the word (inspiring awe). Let me begin: bright blue hot springs with known healing powers; 200-year-old-cantinas with 8-foot adobe walls, sizable arrowhead collections, a 50-year-old television set, transistor radio, and a gravel pit for a bathroom; pregnant dogs crossing the streets; Cuatrocienegas, home of Carranza and capitol of my heart; the entire state of Coahuila in fact; highway checkpoints tended by green-uniformed teenagers leaning against mounted machine guns behind sand-bagged bunkers; speed bumps in the middle of the highways; toothless women selling roasted corn, not taking “no” for an answer; a highway named “The Carbon Touristway,” and which, of course, have a coal-power plant somewhere along the route; centuries-old silver mines, now just 500-foot holes in the ground – 30 feet across, with no guard rail, no warning, and all the danger in the world; pilgrimage sites dedicated to the worship of the peyote cactus; cobblestone streets; mezcal – an unrefined version of tequila costing 1/10th the price and tasting about the same; the mummy museum in Guanajuato, featuring a corpse wearing Hanes underwear (no lie); and the easiest conversation, bright smiles, cheapest tacos, papelerias, and ballenas this side of anywhere.

2. — John Fahey – I’ve long been enamored of his open-tuning masterworks, but I’ve now realized his importance in bringing Bukka White to prominence. He also owned an amazing record label, Revenant Records, that all music lovers should familiarize themselves with.

3. — Harry Smith – Man, oh, man. The man spread himself far and wide, and made huge strides across a wide range of fields. A true innovator ! Especially of note: The Anthology of American Folk Music. This alone would be enough. But lovers of film might be happy to find…His experimental films, especially Early Abstractions,
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He also produced the Fugs first albums, had a collection of 30,000 Ukranian easter eggs, created his own book of Tarot cards, and was a notorious borrower, Kabbalist, flake, lover of beatnik poetry and the jazz of Dizzy Gillespie, and straight-up bad-ass inspiration for anyone attempting to synthesize divergent strains of thought.

4. — Brian Wilson, “Surf’s Up” – That original recording, with just him and piano? It’s right up there with “Rhapsody in Blue.” Van Dyke Parks helped with the lyrics.

5. — Jack Nitzsche – He removed the “e” from his name to distance himself from the famed philosopher. Nitzsche was the arranger for all the famed Phil Spector recordings and arguably surpassed his “master” by the late-60’s. Check out his work on Neil Young’s “Expecting to Fly” .... wow. He also did a number of hard-to-find soundtracks. Most notable: the eerie score to “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.”

Sound Team’s Daytrotter Session
Bill Baird
Sound Team