Picaflor Blog

Interview with Taylor Hollingsworth

interview by Justin Brooke
Picaflor proudly invites Taylor Hollingsworth on June 5 to our studio as part of The Southeastern Songwriter Showcase.

Taylor Hollingsworth is a singer, songwriter and guitar-slayer. I
recently spoke to him via telephone. I think he was grocery shopping.
I warned him that I’d never interviewed anyone before. Then we bonded
over the Dexateens (who rule).

JB: Your latest album, Life with a Slow Ear is definitely a much more
acoustic record than its predecessor, Bad Little Kitty. Less of a
garage rock affair. Did you consciously want to distance yourself from
the ‘garage rock’ label?

TH: Yeah, I did. I still really love Bad Little Kitty, but y’know
everything today is: ‘What are you?’ You have to fit into some kind of
genre. But if you keep making the same type thing, it becomes: ‘Oh,
this is what you are’. I just didn’t want to be stuck into that, even
though I still really love that kind of music.

JB: I love your acoustic guitar-playing on the song ‘I Didn‘t Know it
was the Devil.’ Reminds me of a cross between Skip James and Paul
Simon. Do you dig on Skip James?

TH: Yeah, I do. That’s part of what made me want to make this record
– so I could play shows completely solo like Skip James or Mance
Lipscomb did. That was one of the things I didn’t feel I could do
before. I grew this appreciation for somebody who could stand up there
by himself and not sound like he’s missing something. It really made
me want to be able to do that. That’s what led me to the
fingerpicking-style guitar. In some ways it’s more limiting, but in
some ways it’s the opposite. You can do whatever you want if you’re by
yourself.

JB: Do you play the song ‘Assassinate the President’ anymore?

TH: No, not really.

JB: I assume it’s about George W. Bush.

TH: (Laughs). Yeah, you got it. I get a little scared now for some
reason. Like I don’t want to be added to some no-fly list. In some
ways I look at that song as slightly… immature. But really, I just
thought of it one day. I heard Neil Young’s ‘Impeach the President‘,
and I thought, somebody needs to write just fuckin’ straight-up
‘Assassinate the President’. Then I was like, wait… I write songs. I
guess I should be the one to do this.

JB: I like that song.

TH: I like it, too. It’s just sort of blunt. I don’t want people to
get the wrong idea, like I’m gonna go out and kill anybody. But fuck,
that dude seriously is responsible for so many deaths. It pisses me
off. I just hope people don’t take it the wrong way. I don’t want it
to influence killers or anything. But it’s freedom of speech, y’know?
Anybody should be able to make a bold statement, so I decided to go
ahead and take the plunge.

JB: Here’s a really good question: Do you have any nicknames?

TH: Somehow I acquired “Paper”. I don’t really know how that came
about. I think it was a Conor Oberst-coined name, but I never
understood what it meant or where it came from. We used to tell people
it was because I was always on acid, but it’s not true. I haven’t done
acid since I was a teenager.

Watch Taylor Hollingsworth’s video here:

Friday May 14 - Collection Plate

AT MASQUERADE!!! Aug 13 and 14 - Strange Days -seeking artists

Picaflor is proud to be the arts sponsor for Strange Days!

The Strange Daze Music and Arts Festival is an event with a purpose. For two days this summer, The Moon and Pluto, an Atlanta-based music-centric community, will shine a light on the exemplary musical talent in the region. In an effort to focus on originality, diversity, and substance, meticulous and extensive consideration has been granted to the applicants for this year’s festival.

For more information, visit The Moon and Pluto

June 5 - Southeastern Songwriter Showcase w Taylor Hollingsworth, Young John Goodman, Efren, Corey Pallon

Picaflor Presents: Now See This!

Painter/Carpenter Chris Bell is one of 5 local Atlanta artists showing at Picaflor on March 6th. A SCAD graduate, Bell makes use of his technical training in truly unique and organic mediums.

Feb 3 - Picaflor sponsors Benefit for Haiti at The Earl

Driven by a desire to help in some way, however big or small, with the current crisis in Haiti, Grand Prize Winners from Last Year, Los Buenos, and Book of Colors will perform a benefit show at the EARL February 03, with all proceeds going to the Atlanta-based CARE International and their relief efforts in Haiti.

“None of us have much money and we realized any donation we made personally would be minor and might not make much of a difference,” said Justin Sias, singer and bassist for Los Buenos and a co-organizer of the event. “We wanted to help give East Atlanta and the folks in our small scene a chance to get involved in helping those whose lives have been devastated by the massive earthquake, and all the small ones that have followed, in Haiti.”

A global humanitarian nonprofit, CARE International is dedicated to fighting issues surrounding poverty.

“CARE came to our attention because they are an amazing international group based right here in Atlanta and has been helping impoverished nations and people for years,” Sias said. “They’ve been there for Haitians since the earthquake hit, and we want to support them however we can.”

Aqiyl Thomas will DJ, and there will be an auction of arts and services at the event, including original art by the infamous Gutterpop and photography services from XXX. Pine Magazine, See Through Souls, Picaflor Studio, Containment Theory Records and the Moon and Pluto are among the many sponsors of this worthy event.

“We’re hoping that everyone can make it out and bring a friend ’cause these folks need our help,” said Believe, a member of the Grand Prize Winners from Last Year and a co-organizer of the event. “Help us make this an amazing event.”

Advance tickets are on sale now for $5, and will be $7 the day of show. Go to www.badearl.com to learn more about the show, and learn more about CARE at care.org.

What: Benefit show for Haiti relief through CARE International featuring Los Buenos, Grand Prize Winners from Last Year and Book of Colors

Where: The EARL, 488 Flat Shoals Ave SE, Atlanta, GA 30316

When: Wednesday, February 3, at 9:30 p.m.

How much: $5 before the show, $7 the day of the show

More details: There will be an art auction and raffle, with all proceeds going to CARE Intl. Pine Magazine, See Through Souls, Picaflor Studio, Containment Theory Records, the Moon and Pluto, Gutterpop, ISP, Dry Ink, are helping sponsor the event.

Jan 29 - Pine Magazine Presents a Photography Exhibit with Alana Goldstein, Dave Batterman, Karen Shacham - music by today the moon tomorrow the sun, club awesome, this piano plays itself,

Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, by David Kirby.

Book review by Justin Brooke

In the introduction to his new Little Richard biography, poet David Kirby lets us know right off what kind of book this is going to be, declaring: “If this book were a car, it’d be a hooptie — an Oldsmobile 88, say.”

Kirby proceeds to take us on a fast and bumpy (yet stylin’) ride through the mad career of The Georgia Peach himself: Richard Wayne Penniman. Along the way we’re treated to Kirby’s witty, poetical musings on pop music, the 1950s, the “Old, Weird America”, Gay Macon, and the occasional Chuck Berry zinger. In fact Kirby drives us right into the heart — I mean the birth — of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Strangely, it’s not so much the biography of a man, but the biography of a song. “Tutti Frutti” was Richard’s breakout 1955 single. It must have horrified people when it first erupted from A.M. radios. Kirby asks: how exactly did a song like that come to be?

He begins with Richard’s magical incantation: A wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a lop-bam-boom, a phrase born in the dish pit of the Macon Greyhound Station, where young Richard used it as a way to curse out his boss. We see it evolve from there into a bar song about anal sex, and then (as Kirby claims) into the world’s first Rock ’n’ Roll song.

Try as he might, Kirby is never able to nail down an interview with The Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll himself. The closest he gets is a phone conversation with the man at the home of Willie Ruth Howard, Richard’s cousin. Here, in a hilarious exchange, Little Richard tricks Kirby into giving Willie Ruth 88 dollars.

Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll is a funny, strange, and totally fitting tribute to a long-overlooked genius. Was “Tutti Frutti” really the “first” Rock ‘n’ Roll song, as Kirby insists? Sure, I’ll buy that. And even if you disagree, I think you’ll love this book anyway. Any musician, music-lover, or lover of weirdness should hop on in.

Justin Brooke is a guitarist and one of the frontmen in the Atlanta based band Howlies