The City at Night is a multimedia mashup of words, electric guitar and still photography and live action video that I captured in my travels on the streets of Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland and Ocala, Florida.
"The secret to successful songwriting is the ability to paint a picture." – Paul McCartney
Whether or not I have succeeded is debatable, but this is what I've tried to do with many of my songs, including the one I've posted here called "Mojo Bungalow." SYDNEY, Australia – Two Australian Aboriginal street musicians introduced me to the musical instrumental known as the didgeridoo, and I knew immediately that I had to incorporate it into my music. Its primal growl made me feel like I was being transported back to the beginning of time.
What was it like living in an abandoned New Orleans in the weeks after Hurricane Katrina? Inspired by the emails one New Orleans photographer sent to his evacuated friends, my song “Katrinaville” is an attempt to capture the surreal nature of that moment in history,
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana – While touring the hurricane-torn Lower Ninth Ward here this week, I saw the flooded home of the music legend, Fats Domino, who never moved from the poor neighborhood where he grew up. Friends and fans scrawled a heartfelt goodbye to the man they loved and thought they had lost – "R.I.P Fats, you will be missed" – but as it turns out, Fats survived.
Got my first up-close view of the Colorado mountains in the early '80s, and it's been a favorite travel destination ever since. I even got a chance to live there for a couple years when I took a job as the editor-in-chief of The New Brewer, a trade magazine for the American craft brewing industry. (Yeah, sometime you just get lucky...) My time there in the foothills inspired me to write a song called "Groovy Town" and you can take the ride with me here. Just hit "play" above.
Amsterdam is an intoxicating jumble of old and new, a place where street art, sex shops and cannabis cafes coexist with world-class art museums, well-preserved Golden Age architecture and traditional bruine kroeg (brown cafes).
This instrumental tune was inspired by long drives along the Great River Road in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. It is not one "road" really, but a series of connected highways that have been designated a National Scenic Byway Route through the coordination of the states and municipalities bordering America's great waterway, the Mississippi River.
There's a serene, Old World beauty even in the most mundane street scene on the Greek island of Santorini. Everywhere you look there is the striking contrast of blue and white.
|
I REMEMBER TRAVELJourneys in sight and sound by Mike Starling categories
All
archives
April 2022
All text, images and music in the I Remember Travel weblog ©Mike Starling unless otherwise noted. Music published by Bean Hoy Music (BMI). All rights reserved.
|