News on writing for a change

Basic to the tunes shortly... but first some "bidness" of a sort...

Y'all may have noticed that I write a bit (see my bio and one of the links hereabouts for more on how to order said critters). I've been in a bit of a dry spell but today I was accepted for an anthology with a publisher I've tried to crack before. The story is about ghosts and general weirdness up in the mountains of western North Carolina and features on of my all time favorite spots and tales in one... Brown Mountain.

In honor of that, here's Lula Belle and Scotty Wiseman doing the Brown Mountain Lights... recorded in Charlotte NC by Arthur Smith (SALUTE!)  in 1962... One of 4 different versions I have of the song. Still trying to get Daddy Spanky to put his version on wax with me telling the tale. One of these days...

The Fine Art of Buying Decent CDs for Less Than What a Song Costs on iTunes

Welcome back folks! Most of y'all know that I am not just poor, but cheap too. BUT I still enjoy some of the better things in life. How, pray tell? In large part thanks to the fine folks at Goodwill, though Manifest (one of the best stores going and Charlotte and Columbia are both BLESSED to have one, sorry Greenville, but Earshot stinks) is a mother load too. Before their "most recent move stuff around at random", the Manifest in Charlotte had a whole wall of used CDs that were 2 for a dollar. Now, I KNOW what you're thinking... all that crap ain't worth a dollar, much less worth wading through. And you'd be wrong! BUT you must have a strategy. Mine is simple: most songs on iTunes are now $1.29, so if you get 1 decent song from a CD for a buck, you win. So here are my "triggers" for a good deal on cheap CDs. Ghosts, JFK, trains, camping/ hiking, the South/ South Carolina, any band I've heard of, and cool cover art or album title. Now, I ain't gonna lie and say all I ever buy is wonderment, BUT it's not like I'm dropping ten bucks for garbage,  So, here are 15 tracks off bargain CDs for you to track down... legally natch. Genres will be blurred.

1- Absence of Photographs by Norfolk & Western (trains)
2-Aching Bones by Catalpa Boys (my knees were barking that day)
3-Ain't It a Shame by the B-52s (heard of them)
4-The Odd Couple Theme by JFK and the Conspirators (JFK... and it's ska yo!)
5- Life is Large by The Kennedys (JFK)
6-All in the Mind by Mother and the Addicts (cool cover)
7-The Backward Step by Hammock (the only way to camp)
8-Camping Next to Water by Badly Drawn Boy (based on where my hammock gets hung more often than not)
9-Darling Nikki by Asylum Street Spankers (heard of both and thought it might be weird enough to work and it do)
10-Elementary, My Dear Watson by William Indelli and his Orchestra (I like Jeremy Brett as Holmes and the wife LOVES Cumberbatch... I like the song and she don't...lol)
11-Face the Fear by Ghostfog (ghosts)
12- Get Your Priest on by Hot One (cool cover)
13- Hadrians Wall by Maxim (ghost)
14- Killer in Texas by Ghoultown (South, ghosts, cool cover)
15- The Death of Me by Dex Romweber Trio (cool title and cover)

10 new (to me at least) tunes...

These are the last 10 songs I've added to my iTunes Library.  Videos to follow later (I hope), but most are from soundowl.com and other online sites.

Lake Song by The Decemberists
Our Town by Iris Dement
May the Bird of Paradise by Little Jimmy Dickens (RIP)
This Guy's In Love With You by Herb Alpert (CD)
The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man on Earth
Your Own Religion by TV Girl
Walk On By by Leroy Van Dyke (CD)
On Peak Hill by Stars
To the Stars With All We've Got by Pee Wee Gaskins (NOT the mass murder from SC)
El Paso by Marty Robbins (CD)

Dig them up and enjoy!

Intro...

Welcome to what I hope will be a worthy experiment in cross promotion. Due to my travels in con circles, life as a storyteller and author and basic fan of good things, I have become friends with dozens of some amazingly talented folks in all walks of the arts. I am also a king-Hell music fan on a TIGHT budget with over 11 thousand songs on my iTunes list. Hopefully, this will be a place for to find good music, excellent art and literature and some basic tips on living the good life. Hit me up on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/tally.johnson.3, on twitter at tallyjohnson535, at google + at https://plus.google.com/116799181230819943101/posts?hl=en and online at http://tallyjohnson.wix.com/sc-ghost-talker. Remember, buy my books and leave kind-hearted reviews at amazon.com.  More to come...