Some of my favorite memories of high school include driving to the city and listening to a girl with a surprisingly powerful, absolutely beautiful voice play her own folk songs at Galileo’s on the weekends. I even bought a little 5-song CD from her, with a wonderful, hand-crafted paper case made from the pages of an old children’s book. Then the world fell in love with Samantha Crain. You will too, if you haven’t already.

Where are you from?
Shawnee, OK (that’d be where Pretty Boy Floyd layed that deputy down), but I seem to have vehement affairs with the cities I call home. I’ve been shackin’ up with Grand Rapids, MI, Martha’s Vineyard, MA, Concord, NC, Portland, OR, and Greenville, IL over the past 3 or 4 years.

What do you do?
Ah little of this, ah little of that….mainly making music, drawing pictures, shooting air rifles, and typing letters. I also spend a lot of time taking things apart to see how to put them back together.

Who or what do you use for inspiration?
I am a VERY active sleeper. I used to walk and talk in my sleep but that has since been phased out and replaced with super vivid and invovled dreaming. So my dreams provide me with a wealth of material to write about. Other things I get inspiration from: science textbooks, silent movies, Radiolab, Anais Nin, traveling, astronomy and astrology, rap music, Buckminster Fuller, and flea markets.

What artists do you respect right now?
I assume that this is asking what artists I like right now….because, being an artist, its hard for me to really respect artists, knowing that the world has all the great art it probably will ever need and understanding that being an artist is pretty much the most egotistical and unproductive thing you could do with your life. I respect car mechanics and preachers much more than I respect artists (this of course makes me an impossible contradiction but Que sera sera)….BUT artists that are smothering my radar right now are Reinhardt Sobye, Jason Molina, Wes Freed, Joey Lemon (of Berry), Kyle Field, Michael Hurley, Dr.Dog, Phil Elverum, Nate Henricks, Theodore, Zeb Dewar, and Tim Lowly.

What are you sick of?
Expectations, bad string arrangements, greed, and Taylor Swift.

What music are you listening to recently?
Leadbelly, Withered Hand, Mount Eerie, Student Film, Roger Miller, Eric Satie, Bunk Johnson, Cass McCombs.

What is your first creative memory?
Drawing on the driveway with a melting purple popsicle.

What is your favorite food/drank spot in Norman?
I don’t really hang out in Norman much…If I am in Oklahoma, I’m probably in Shawnee and my favorite spots there are Hamburger King and Benedict Street Market.

Anything else?
I’m recording a new album right now….it’ll be out in the spring of 2010. Also, http://www.oklahomafood.coop/