michaelCSmith & The Neighborhood

Bio:

A born storyteller, michaelCSmith carries with him the weight and legacy of his own American culture. Uniquely original, yet hauntingly familiar, he weaves his stories through the highways and back roads of the American conscious, like Steinbeck driving alongside the Joads or like Tom Waits traveling with his carnival tent show, like Springsteen walking through the dust and stories of today’s migrant workers or like Woody Guthrie on the banks of the Columbia River. Whether you catch him in a solo/acoustic gig or fronting a full band you are guaranteed to get an intimate and riveting experience. He captures all the communion and reflection of our best singer/songwriters, politics and humor of our best folk singers and the excitement, youthfulness and energy of great American Rock, all at once in a rich tapestry very much his own. His vocabulary is as large as the American landscape and his heart, soul, mind and body are singularly devoted to the craft he so willingly and lovingly nurtures and shares. He has been compared to Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Steve Earl, John Mellencamp, Johnny Cash, Lucinda Williams, and Hank Williams among others. He is a consummate songwriter and performer, unlike any other on the market today. ..You should create your own MySpace Layouts like me by using nUCLEArcENTURy.COM's MySpace Profile Editor!..

Member Since:

December 08, 2005

Members:

michaelCSmith: Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica & Footstomps Chris Poma: Bass Guitar Buddy Buttram: Drums Jordan Armstrong: Guitar, Backing Vocals

My dad and Bob Dylan are the same age. Both grew out of the first boom, the first rumblings of WWII American blues. There’s finality in that generation, a grand idea of life and a broad and far reaching understanding of dying. Dylan sang of dying on his first record; See That My Grave is Kept Clean he sang, an aching voice punching the air with an indefinite definition. Like purchasing a cemetery plot, like lighting another cigarette, like takin’ that first drink and knowin’ it’s the beginning of a life-long pursuit of the last one. My Dad and Bob Dylan are both poets; Bob on page and in song, my dad in the lines on his face and the legacy of hard work that is my inheritance. There’s Jesus in all three of us. People shy away from that these days. They shy away from the idea that the Creator of the Universe crippled His majesty to work as a carpenter, to bless the orphans, to feed the hungry, to question the authority, to whip the thieves from the temple, to overturn the tables, to disconnect the cables, to raise the dead, to bury the history and start fresh, to break open the tomb, to resurrect the womb, to take on the burdens, to split the curtains, to rip the veil of our fears, our shallow lines, to dig in the dirt, to bare the pain of the innocent, to take on the suffering, to take on the struggling, to sing with the unions, to pay the bills so others can be free, to strike the hammer like John Henry did, to carry the cross so that others don’t have to. My dad owns his own business, just like Bob, just like Jesus, just like I hope to. I’ve never seen my dad turn down a dollar or a meal to anybody that needed it, even when he didn’t have it to give. Someday I will inherit that business.

Influences:

in no particular order: John Steinbeck, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Gillian Welch, Hank Williams, Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, The Apostle E.F., Charles Bukowski, Keith Richards, Paul Westerberg, Chuck Berry, Ace Frehley, John Mellencamp, Lucinda Williams, Johnny Cash, U2, David Bowie, Elvis Presley, John Grimm, William Blake, Walt Whitman, his mom and dad, Bela Lugosi, Van Gough, the man on the street in LA in 1997, his wife, a good pair of converse and a thousand and one other people, places, things, events and ideas

Sounds Like: