Sunday, January 3rd, 2010: Arlington, TX
AMERICAN JUNKYARD JOURNAL: THAT WHICH DOES NOT DESTROY US

I try to keep faith in Nietzsche's words, "That which does not destroy us only makes us stronger."  Some of you know I have been dealing with a vocal disorder that affects my ability to sing (correctly).  A problem that has worsened over the past few years, it took a poor turn in 2009 after a seasonal bout of laryngitis.  Some of you may also know that Texas legend Johnny Bush suffers from a vocal condition called "Spasmodic Dysphonia".  SD, as it is called, causes constrictions in the vocal cords when one talks (or sings, in my case).  Johnny took me under his wing some time back to try to help me get the problem diagnosed and fixed.  There is no cure for SD.  Johnny Bush and other sufferers of this condition have regular Botox injections into their vocal cords which work thus: for a period of time just after the injection, the voice is gone altogether.  Then, after a few days or weeks the voice becomes strong again and the constriction symptoms are greatly reduced.  The singer will typically be close to normal voice for another few weeks, then the voice starts constricting again and it is necessary to do another Botox injection.

After seeing several ear, nose, throat doctors and voice specialists around D/FW, buying several hundred dollars worth of medical books to research these voice disorders for myself, and trying a number of medicinal and nutritional ideas, nothing helped.  Thanks to Johnny Bush and his lovely wife Lynda, in early December I was able to see Dr. Blake Simpson, a renowned vocal specialist at UT Medical Center in San Antonio.  Dr. Simpson diagnosed me with two conditions: Spasmodic Dysphonia (SD) and essential vocal tremor.  In my case, the essential tremor is the worse of the two conditions, but the problem with my singing voice is a combination of the two.  There are many variables with these conditions and their treatment with Botox: precisely where to inject the toxin, what dosage may or may not work, etc.  In short, Dr. Simpson believes my symptoms can be lessened to a limited degree by the injections, but we have to go through a two-week window where I can be expected to be able neither to talk or sing.  I am planning to have that treatment done in early summer, after which the doctor informs me I will be completely unable to yell at my wife for a couple of weeks, but she will still be able to yell at me.  Remember Nietzsche's words!

My wife Veronica feels that I should not mention the disorder publicly during my shows (and I will honor her wish), but I feel I owe my fans, friends, and supporters an explanation of why my voice is not up to par.  Most say they don't even notice it, a few say they do but I still sing well, yet others no longer come out to my shows.  At this point I am trying a number of last-minute tactics to lessen the problem until I am able to start the Botox therapy this summer.  Meanwhile, I am committed, as always, to doing the very best shows I can.  Some days (nights) my voice is stronger than on others, but I never know until I start singing.  Probably nobody notices the problem as much as I do, but it does affect the dynamics of what I can project from the stage, and can be considerably stressful.  It affects not only voice control, but also range, and in particular, the ability to hold out a note.

I continue to perform, to write new songs, and to receive the support and encouragement of some of the artists I work with.  I am especially indebted to Davin James for his care and concern, but I am most grateful for the help, support, and encouragement of Johnny Bush who has made a priority of helping me and others with SD and similar vocal disorders.  I plan to keep writing the best songs I can write, recording the best records I can record (and I truly think American Junkyard is my best work to date).  I can report that I have been back in the studio over the past couple of days, and I'm excited about new BB songs you will be hearing in the coming months.

I cherish each and every one of my fans, friends, and supporters, and I can promise that as long as you all keep supporting me, I will continue  making the best music I can.  Please ask your favorite radio stations to play your favorite tracks off of American Junkyard this year.  God bless you all, and may you have a happy and prosperous 2010!

Sincerely,
Brian Burns

Bear with me here, folks…  

BATTLE, TEXAS.  Battle, once known as Battle Institute, is between State Highway 164 and Farm Road 2957 three miles northwest of Mart in eastern McLennan County. The area was settled about 1880 and named for Nicholas William Battle, who donated land for a school and two churches. A post office called Battle Institute was established in 1886 with James Riggs as postmaster. The name was changed to Battle in 1890, when the community had a general store and a population of eleven; the principal occupation of area residents was stock raising. Battle became the focus of a common school district in 1891. In 1896 the district had two teachers and 139 students, and the community had Baptist and Methodist churches and two general stores to serve its ninety residents. The International-Great Northern Railroad laid track from Marlin through Battle to Waco in 1902. The population rose to 113 by the early 1900s. Improved roads and the new rail service enabled residents to shop in nearby Mart or Waco. This circumstance greatly reduced Battle's reliance on local businesses, with the result that local establishments soon faded. The post office was discontinued in 1906, and mail for the community was sent to Mart. The Battle school district was consolidated with the Mart Independent School District in 1927. By the mid-1940s Battle had a church, a few residences, a cemetery, and a population of fifty. Maps from the 1970s showed several houses and a cemetery, as well as some new development along the shore of a nearby lake. The community was still listed in 1990, but without census figures. In 2000 the population was listed as 100. --From The Handbook Of Texas Online

My Uncle Leon took his kids (my cousins) and me swimming at Battle Lake in 1972 (I’m just guessing at the year, it was sometime around then anyway).  Just off a gravel road, it was this HUMONGOUS body of water with a l-o-o-o-o-n-g pier stretching out into the distance, just inviting nine-year-olds in bathing suits to take a running retreat from the 105 degree heat and dive off to the right into the cool water.  I say dive off to the right because Battle Lake was one of the strangest bodies of water I’ve ever laid eyes on: the left side of the lake (to the left of the old wooden “diving pier”) was dark, murky, and choked with a thick, black growth of underwater weeds.  Yet, the right side was the most clear, crystalline, inviting swimming water you’ve ever seen.  Even while you were splashing, lollygagging, gallivanting, laughing, and trying to determine how long you could hold your cousin’s head under water before an uncle or mom started yelling at you from the shore, you were always watching the other side of the pier lest the Creature From The Black Lagoon suddenly emerge from that black… shit… on the other side.  Scare me!

Well, that was ’72 (I’m just guessing at the year, it was sometime around then anyway).  A few years ago I started trying to recall just where Battle Lake was… I wanted to go out there and see if it looked like I remembered it.  I knew it was somewhere between Waco and Mart, maybe off of Highway 6.  Once or twice a year, I’d be on my way to or from Houston or such with a half-hour to kill, so I’d exit off of Highway 6 and waste some time getting myself lost on the twisting and turning farm-to-market roads of McLennan County, but no luck… if you pass the old Branch Davidian compound, you’ve gone too far; that much I knew.

You all know me: once I set my mind to a task, whether it be pinball collecting, finding a suitable (second) wife, seeing how many miles I can drive in a year, or finding a weird little Texas lake…

Well, thanks to Google Earth, GPS, and The Handbook Of Texas Online… I FOUND Battle Lake last February.  I also learned that if I had done a search for “Battle Lake Golf Course”, that gravel road I remembered is now a paved road between State Highway 164 and FM 2957, and Battle Lake rests serenely about two blocks behind the present-day golf course.

The memory is pristine and vivid; yet the lake, as it exists today, is common and featureless, as if convoluted by the cruel hands of time and the ugliness and indifference of the world that has developed around it (much as I see before me when I look in a mirror).  It’s tiny… no larger than a stock tank on a large Texas ranch… amazing how the scale of things changes between the ages of 9 and 47.  Gone is the old iron swing set and merry-go-round that once stood on the bank, along with the wooden pier that once jutted out into the water.  I wanted to walk down by the shore to see if the “lake” was still bifurcated with clear water on one side and murky water on the other, but I realized that it was now private property.  It was a muddy day, and the people whose yards and putting greens I had just driven across might decide to come down and disturb my historic revelry if I didn’t leave fairly quickly.

Most people see history as dry, remote, irrelevant masses of subject matter – like Delaware tax code, or The Differential Calculus.  I see it as a living, breathing - and very personal - accounting of who we are, how we got here, and who brought us here.  Each year I have the distinct privilege of telling approximately 100,000 Texas school children that history is quite simply the story of our families.  It is not only what we read about what other people did, but what we did.  The American Junkyard contains relics of the great moments (battleship flags from WWII, rocks from the moon, Waylon Jennings recordings), along with the incidentals (mood rings and marbles in Mason jars, commemorative Dr. Pepper bottles, eight-track tapes).

I recently saw a photo of an American astronaut in spacewalk above the earth in 1972 (I’m just guessing at the year, it was sometime around then anyway).  It is amazing what that astronaut is doing, but almost more amazing is what's happening below him on that big, blue, bustling panorama.  I am tempted to yell past the astronaut and tell several folks, who were down there at the time, how much I love them.  Where are you in that photo?  We've just moved into a new house... five men have just been arrested for breaking into the Watergate office complex in Washington… a brilliant coin-op game designer named Ed Krynski is developing a new pinball machine called Wild Life for D. Gottlieb & Co. in Chicago… John Russell (“Hondo”) Crouch has just purchased a German community in the Texas Hill Country called Luckenbach... and a skinny little Texas kid is hoping his parents will buy him a guitar so he can learn to play some Marty Robbins songs, but he ain’t worried about that right now, ‘cause he’s running down the pier toward a headlong plunge into the middle of BATTLE LAKE… dive to the RIGHT!!!

That's our history for today, kids.
--BB

GOD BLESS RUSTY WIER (Part IV)

I was sitting at this very spot yesterday when I learned that Rusty Wier had lost the earthly battle.  I tried to go on about my business, but I kept having to stop and wipe my eyes.  Then it suddenly dawned on me: Rusty Wier will never die. He's playing on my iTunes as I write this, and he sounds very much immortal.  He'll always be playing on whatever device happens to be the "playeur du jour" as technology progresses, throughout the remainder of my lifetime and beyond.  One night, hundreds, maybe thousands of years from now, some lone, strange, hairless coyote will be howling at the moon in what was once known as The Texas Hill Country (trying to convey, in wolf dialect, "don't it make you wanna dance, don't it make you wanna smile")... and a sudden, ancient human echo will bounce back off of those hills to interrupt his lonesome moan... "when you're down, down, down in the country pick and sing awhile..."  The coyote will freak.  With any luck, you and I will just giggle.  That's what I think.  Long live Rusty Wier.

Sunday, July 26th, 2009: Arlington, TX

GOD BLESS RUSTY WIER (Part I)

Summer, 1975 (or so)...

I was about 12 years old, must have been a Saturday... Mama had rented a booth at the flea market in Waco.  I was there with her that day, and my running buddies and I'd go running around from booth to booth, terrorizing the merchants, looking for a place to sneak a cigarette, you know (although we were yet a couple of years away from discovering "inhaling").  I noticed a couple of older guys in cowboy hats in this one booth listening to music and cackling with laughter, so my friend Gerald and I edged our way over toward that booth to learn more about the source of their glee.  The song was "I Heard You Been Layin' My Old Lady", and Gerald and I were soon caught up in a fit of laughter right along with the two cowboys manning the booth.  One of them noticed us and said, "that's some funny shit, ain't it?"  Having a keen curiosity about anything musical, I laughed, "Hell yeah!  Who is that?"  The fellow cocked his cowboy hat back a couple of inches and said, "son, that's Rusty Wier.  He's from Austin, and we got all his music for sale here, along with lots of other good stuff."  I listened as the song continued:

"I heard you been layin' my old lady.
Boy Joe, times must be gettin' tough
everwhey-hey-heyer..."

"What does that mean, layin' my old lady," I asked?  My innocent inquiry sent the two cowboys into an even bigger fit of laughter, after which one of them explained, "son, that means screwin'... 'nother guy been screwin' his old lady, and he done found out and wrote a song about it."  At that point, my friend Gerald and I both hit the ground... the original <ROFLAO>.  I finally composed myself, got up, fanned some of the flea market dust out of my shirt, and asked "How much is that eight-track?"  "Three dollars," the fellow replied.  Well, I didn't have three dollars.  Despite my desperate pleas, my mother wasn't willing to donate three dollars, so my discovery of Rusty Wier's music would have to wait awhile longer. 

But I made a point that day to remember the name Rusty Wier, because I knew that any singer/songwriter who could send cowboys (and innocent kids) into fits of laughter by writing an irreverent song about some other guy "layin'" his old lady HAD to be worth checking into.

GOD BLESS RUSTY WIER (Part II)

Summer, 1976 (or so)...

It was the height of the "progressive country" movement, and Willie & Waylon were on top of everything.  They would soon take country music by storm, turn it on its head, then start crossing over into other formats.  There were peripheral artists around them that we were discovering on an almost daily basis: Jerry Jeff Walker, Michael Murphey, David Allan Coe, and many, many more.  But I was still interested in this Rusty Wier character, so I was delighted one afternoon when a friend of my big brother's gave me a Rusty Wier LP entitled, "Stoned, Slow, Rugged".

Now at this time, I was fully tuned in to "progressive country", but I was playing drums for a traditional, honky-tonk country band.  I'd earn $20.00, sometimes $30.00 a gig, then go spend the money on LPs.  That's when my diversity in musical taste started blooming; I'd be listening to Willie & Waylon one day, but then I'd have to have the new Peter Frampton or Grand Funk Railroad LP.  I'd close the door to my room, turn the stereo up to "11", crawl behind my drum set, and play along... loudly, I hasten to add (Mom used to direct people to our address by telling them to look for the house with the pulsating roof -- she put up with the noise, though, because I was becoming a pretty accomplished drummer, and she knew it).

Well, I got home that day with my free copy of the Rusty record, and as soon as the first (overdriven) guitar riffs started, I was blown away.  This was rockin' progressive country!  I'd turn the album up and play drums through the entirety.  Pretty soon, I'd decided that Rusty might just be the cream of the crop in this new outlaw music.  Great stuff!  So I started watching the newspaper for any opportunity to see Rusty perform live around Waco.

Rusty was at the height of his game, and he rocked the house that night at Geneva Hall in Elm Mott.  My friend Sonny Cathey (who is now a  powerful and devoted evangelist) and I stood in awe as Rusty went through the now familiar process of making each and every one of the hundreds of folks in attendance that night feel like he was their new best friend.  Hell, he was!  Well, Sonny and I decided we had to get backstage to talk to Rusty.  Somehow, we managed to get into the "green room" where it was just Rusty, my friend Sonny, and me.  Rusty acted like we were his long, lost friends... talked to us a good while.  When drumming was brought up, Rusty talked about how he had started out as a drummer, so I mentioned that I also wrote songs.  Then, in what I now consider to be a breach of proper song-plugging etiquette, I mentioned that I'd like to send him some of my stuff.  He reached into his pocket, pulled out a business card, and started writing on it.  "Send them songs to this address and I'll sure listen to 'em," he said, handing me the card.  Everyone was completely stunned that night, not only by Rusty's powerful stage presence and stellar performance, but also his charismatic, yet down-to-earth persona... just a helluva nice guy.  At some point, someone took a picture, and from a 33-year-old snapshot... Brother Sonny Cathey, Rusty Wier, and some awkward 14-year-old (with a fashionable Kiss belt buckle):

GOD BLESS RUSTY WIER (Part III)

The 80s...

Whenever they'd let me, I was singing lead in various Waco bands throughout the 1980s, and it was always cool to get to open for Rusty whenever he came through town.  In 1986, Willie Nelson held his Farm Aid II concert at Manor Downs near Austin, and we were invited to perform on the big stage.  Well, we drove down the night before to partake in some of the many peripheral parties around Austin leading up to the big concert.  I ended up in a jam session at a place called Alley-Oops down on Sixth Street, along with B.W. Stevenson, Rusty, and about a dozen other Texas legends.  I don't remember much about that night, except playing drums behind Rusty on "Don't It Make You Wanna Dance".  Knowing he was a drummer himself, and a pretty demanding bandleader, I was greatly relieved each time he turned around and gave me that shit-eatin' Rusty grin.

Now, much of the 1980s are a blur to me.  I don't know how else to express it other than to say I just made the 1980s way too much fun for myself.  I do know that I, along with various bands I was in, warmed up stages for quite a few of the top-charting national country acts of that decade.  But the best times, to me, were always the times we got to work with fellow Texans like B.W., Gary P., and Rusty.  I can't help but believe I was privileged to be in those places in those times... those experiences brought me to a point where my songwriting started gaining a bit of attention.

George Strait had one of my songs "on hold" in '86 (never ended up recording it, of course)... but playing the drums behind Rusty that night in Austin meant as much... well, almost as much... to me as had George recorded my song, and that's the honest-to-God truth.

Austin drummer Rusty Wier - 1969

GOD BLESS RUSTY WIER (Part IV)

The 90s...

By the time the 90s rolled around, I'd moved from Waco to D/FW.  Initially, I figured there was no kind of music scene in D/FW that would accommodate the style of music I was writing so, music-wise, '90 and '91 were rather lonely for me up here.  Then one day I happened to tune in to 89.3 KNON... and they were playing Gary P. Nunn doing one of my songs.  Not only that, they were playing Rusty Wier, Tommy Alverson, Willie, Waylon, Tom Russell...  I discovered that there was a burgeoning resurgence of Texas Music not only in Dallas, but "everywhere, man" (except in Waco).  Over the next few years I had the privilege of sharing the stage with Rusty on many an occasion.  Now, lots of people have shared the stage with Rusty, and each and every one of them would also tell you it was special... very cool, indeed.

Rusty and I were on the same bill in Port Aransas one night, late 90s.  We'd had some kind of disagreement a few months before which was (a). my fault, (b). inconsequential, and (c). brought out one of those things Rusty seemed to have an infinite capacity for: forgiveness.  That night as Rusty was leaving the parking lot, he saw me carrying my guitar to the van and stopped to say goodnight.  "Brian, I've still got that cassette tape of them songs you sent me a long time ago.  That's some good shit, and I still listen to it."

GOD BLESS RUSTY WIER (Part V)

...and onward...

Having watched my mother lose the battle with lung cancer in August of 2007, it was an especially forceful punch in the gut for me when I learned later that year that Rusty had cancer.  Well, in case you haven't figured it out by now, I am a lifelong and eternal member of The Rusty Wier Fan Club, as I'm sure you are, and I fully want and expect Rusty Wier to live forever.  To me, he is as much a part of Texas as The Alamo, Sunrise on Port Aransas, or a cold Big Red on a 110 degree day at Barton Springs.  At the ripe old age of 46 (going on 13 again), I don't need the light of my own time growing any dimmer.

And in my heart I'm singin'  "Ride on, safe from all danger.
Where have you been for so long?
I've been waiting for another star to rise in my night again.
Give me a reason... we all must carry on.
Where have the heroes gone?"

I can think of no other great singer/songwriter/entertainer who has taught me as much about my chosen line of work than Rusty Wier.  Mama, I don't wanna lay this guitar down.

Back in early 2008, we were all gathered at Poor David's Pub in Dallas for a benefit show to help raise money for Rusty's medical bills.  Rusty showed up that night, and someone helped him up onto the stage for the evening's closing song.  Now, although Rusty might need some help getting on the stage these days, once he gets up there and gets that guitar strapped around his neck... cancer and weakness be goddamned to hell, he's still an unconquerably soulful, energetic, and charismatic presence.

So there we are... Rusty... me... half-a-dozen Texas legends... an emotionally charged and captivated audience.  Rusty strums his guitar and sings, "Well, I been gone for so long... sho feels good to git back home..." and one more time, all of us up on stage are just completely grooving on how cool it is to be up there with Rusty... "when you're down, down, down in the country..."  I look over at Rusty, anticipating when to pump back into the G-chord... he kicks his leg up and raises that one finger... "I said when you get down, down, down in the country..."  I look down at my guitar to make sure I'm landing a good four on the downbeat... "Yeeeeeeeaaaahhh, I said when you get down, down, down..." Rusty looks over at me with that shit-eatin' grin, and notices me trying to hide the big ol' stream of tears welling up in my eyes, some of 'em already dripping down the side of my nose...

At some point that evening, Kat Vickers snapped the photo below which, by way of Father Time's relentless hand, is the quintessential update of the 1975(ish) photo above in Part II of this blog.

Later that night, Rusty and I were out on the sidewalk talking.  "Sumbitch, I saw you tear up on that song," he grinned, "you almost got me."  I just nodded, "hell, Rusty, I think everybody teared up a little bit."  He laughed, pulled me into a big Rusty bear hug, then, he looked at me for, perhaps, the first time ever without the big grin... first time in all the years I've known him that he had a totally serious look on his face... "Brian," he said, hesitating for a second or two before uttering five of the simplest words, so characteristic of Rusty and everything he stands for... five of the simplest, yet most sincere and humble words:

"It's good to have friends ."