What Matters Most   Barbara Butler grew up in a small town in upstate New York, and, with seven brothers and sisters, life was uproarious.

“My parents were very big on everyday, no matter what the weather–and, in upstate New York the weather can be terrible sometimes–we’d go outside to play.

“We were in this neighborhood with lots of kids, too.  So, I was really into running around outside and very fond of my trees and playing in trees.  We played lots of games.  We had swing sets.  We didn’t really have play structures at that point, but then we’d go up to the school and play on the play structures up there.

“I think what we really had was tons of freedom.  Basically, I just had to be home by dark.  We ran around kind of wild.  It was very fun and I realized when I went through college, my mom wanted me to be a lawyer then life started to look a little serious and I didn’t want to do that.  They were a little upset with me at first; they didn’t know why I was wanting to learn construction but I like that it was outdoors and then when I stumbled on the play structures, I really loved it.”

Play as Work

Barbara Butler stumbled on play structures accidentally.  “I was doing construction pretty much just to pay the bills, and I was being a fine art painter, and I was dabbling in writing and I was exploring being an artist.  I had started working for my brothers in D.C.; they had a contracting business renovating brownstones.

“I learned a lot from them, and then I moved to San Francisco and started a little backyard business with a friend, and we were doing decks and fences and hot tubs, trying to do a very artistic job of it but I was definitely seeing it as separate from my art.

“Then, I had a client, turns out it was Bobby McFerren, right at the point of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”  They hired us to do their backyard, which was classic San Francisco yard, about five stories tall and not a level spot in the yard.

“So, we were doing their decks and staircases, trying to make the yard useable.  They had said they wanted an unusual play structure.  I was immediately taken with the idea.  I went and I played on all the play structures in town, brought my play knowledge back up to speed, and came up with this design for them that was these carved totem poles and had wicky wacky angles to it.  I had a lot of fun with it.

“By the end of that, I was like, ’Okay, that’s it, that’s all I’m going to do from here on in.’  And everybody said, ‘You can’t do that!’  And I said, ‘Yes, you can!’ ”

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Pulling It Together

The McFerrin Project brought together all the different interests that Barbara Butler held near and dear:  love of the outdoors, art, using wood, her fond memories of her youth.

“It really did.  It just pulled everything together.  I couldn’t believe it.  The only thing it didn’t really pull together was an income.  It was really a hard way to make a living!

“So, it was sculpture.  It was art.  It was color.  I made my own stains.  It was all about play, thinking about kids running around it.  It just satisfied everything and I knew that this is what I wanted to do and I had trouble getting clients at first.  I mean it’s actually still a bit of  a hard sell.  People still want to know why they’re so expensive and why is it important to do.  But, I’ve persevered at it for twenty-two years now.”

Barbara offers suggestions for where to begin in your own backyard if you’re thinking about a treehouse or a play structure.

“I think the thing to do is start with looking at your yard.  Is there a place that’s not used at the moment?  Is there some place where nothing will grow under the trees?  Is there an odd little corner?  You can make something to fit to a funny little spot that you weren’t sure what to do with.

“Kids tend to be really delighted by that.  They like something a little mysterious.  So, I always recommend, don’t put it too close to the house.  When they’re two, you might think you want that but by the time they’re four or five,  you want it a little bit away from the house so the kids have a little distance and they can be really loud.  You want them to be having some place of their own and you want them to have some wild fun.  So, I think picking the site is a pretty important first step.

“And then, you decide: could it be a treehouse?  It’s always better if it’s a treehouse.

“So, that might be a little technically difficult for some people but I always encourage people to, if they can’t hire me then they could hire a local contractor and you can call us to buy parts or to buy plans or even just to help with the design.  I think there’s a lot of options there.  A contractor could come in and give an idea about what they could build for that area.

“Thinking about what to add for it, you shouldn’t underestimate slides and swings.  Kids just love those.

“Also, they want something up high to peer out to the world, a little bit of a lookout.   If they have a fast way down, which is a slide, and then some swinging, then some climbing back up.  You’ve really captured it all if you get that in.

Butler usually incorporates grips on a climbing wall.  “Kids are wild for those and you can put them all over.  You can do it as a wall that they can just go up and back down or you can have it go up and into the window.  You can have them go round and round on them.  They’re really fun to add.   And, I get those from a professional rock hold company and we have them add an extra screw hold so they can stand-up outdoors.  They’re fantastic to use.”

Importance of Play

Picasso said that it took him fifty years to unlearn what he learned, and Barbara agrees.  “I just have so many great memories of my childhood playing constantly.  I just want to keep making that happen for kids over and over.

“The importance of play is really easy to get swept under the carpet.  People are very concerned with academic achievement.  And, I think in this economy, people are worried a little about frivolous stuff.  But, I actually think play for kids is incredibly important. 

“We have to make these places outside.  We’ve restricted kids lives quite a bit in terms of they’re supervised, they’re scheduled, they’ve got to take interviews to get into kindergarten.  They’ve got stresses that we didn’t have as kids.  I think having a play space in the yard that’s not the same as the house is really important for kids well being.  They have someplace to go outside.  They can get dirty.  They can run around.  They can make mistakes.  They can climb up the rock wall and maybe they don’t make it the first time, and if they fall,  they’ve got bark chips for them to fall on.

“You’re setting up a place for kids to try things out and try out who they’re going to be as an adult.  You’re going to be encouraging creative play, combining that with physical activity.  It’s just a fantastic activity.  I hate the thought of people forgetting about it.

“I’m all for play and obviously I love building the playhouses and treehouses, and I encourage people to get the kids designing it with you and enjoy the whole process.

“The childhood will go so fast.  I just have so many great memories of my childhood playing constantly and I just want to keep making that for kids over and over.”

Justin Townes Earle’s new album, Midnight At the Movies, arrived on March 3rd

Down Home Radio’s Producer, Tom Landis covered Justin’s Pacific Northwest Tour Events at Silver Platters in Seattle,  Northshore Performing Arts Center in Bothell, and  The Wild Buffalo in Bellingham.

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Justin Townes Earle MySpace Music

“Like the late Van Zandt, Earle uses a base of acoustic blues and prewar folk to build his own brand of American roots music.”  ~Nashville Scene

Full Tour Schedule for Justin Townes Earle

Sophomore releases, such a bumpy road they tread, with expectations being expectations and the fickle nature of hype and short attention spans, how can they live up to the excitement generated by a stellar debut? Within the first song on Justin Townes Earle’s second album Midnight At the Movies, you just know you’re hearing something special, that you are party to the unknown and exhilarating paths being explored by an artist on the creative ascendancy. Midnight At The Movies displays an adeptness and musical sophistication of remarkable, organic breadth and is as lyrically sharp as a lover’s tongue as she is walking out the door.

If you didn’t look at the songwriting credits, you’d swear the songs were penned on the stoop of a one-pump filling station in dust bowl era Oklahoma, the smoke-filled song and dream factories of Tin Pan Alley, or at the back door of Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville. Justin effortlessly taps the romanticism imbued in the beaten-soled travelogues and mythos of Woody Guthrie; the lounging around a campfire at a work camp and the edgy angst of a wintry Minneapolis (yeah, just try to get that mandolin line from the cover of the ‘Mats’ “Can’t Hardly Wait” out of your head.)

Midnight at the Movies is held firm by Justin’s astonishing vision and conviction, yet roams o’er the vast landscape of American music without so much as a stumble. From the deft ear for orchestration and ambient arrangement reminiscent of Randy Newman right through, somehow, the countrypolitan cool of Lambchop and hipster retro vibes of Palace Brothers or Magnetic Fields (simply look to the title track for proof), to the amber smooth swing of the Ray Price smilin’ thru the heartache school of country (”What I Mean To You,” “Poor Fool”), to the immediacy and disarming simplicity of country blues (”They Killed John Henry”), to songs that tell a novel’s worth of emotion in a few lines (”Mama’s Eyes”), Justin Townes Earle pulls it all off with a confidence and candor that tells the listener that the daring exhibited on his debut album The Good Life only hinted at the growth to come.

Since the release of The Good Life in early 2008, Earle has been a busy man, occupying himself with such activities as performing on the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Fest, Chicago Country Music Festival, Americana Music Awards, Down Home in Norway and his debut on the Grand Ole Opry. He toured non-stop for the past year including pump-priming appearances in the UK, Australia and Scandinavia. Features on NPR’s Morning Edition, Mountain Stage and World Café caught the ears of millions of listeners and admiring ink ran in publications like New York Times, LA Times, Nashville Scene, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, American Songwriter and No Depression. The Good Life debuted on the Billboard Country Chart first week, no small feat for a new artist.

Midnight at the Movies was produced by RS Field and Steve Poulton at the legendary House of David studio. Justin was joined by his touring partner Cory Younts as well as longtime cohorts Bryan Davies, Pete Finney, Josh Hedley, Brian Owings and Skylar Wilson.

The Box

When I see driven nails I think of the hammer and the hand,

his mood, the weather, the time of year, what he packed

for lunch, how built up was the house,

the neighborhood, could he see another job from here?

And where was the lumber stacked, in what closet

stood the nail kegs, where did the boss unroll

the plans, which room was chosen for lunch?  And where

did the sun strike first?  Which wall cut the wind?

What was the picture in his mind as the hammer

hit the nail?  A conversation?  Another joke, a cigarette

or Friday, getting drunk, a woman, his wife, his youngest

kid or a side job he planned to make ends meet?

Maybe he pictured just the nail,

the slight swirl in the center of the head and raised

the hammer, and brought it down with fury and with skill

and sank it with a single blow.

Not a difficult trick for a journeyman, no harder

than figuring stairs or a hip-and-valley roof

or staking out a lot, but neither is a house,

a house is just a box fastened with thousands of nails.

What Matters Most   Dale Mulfinger lives in cabin world.  Amidst the lakes and forests of Minnesota and Wisconsin, he intimately knows about cabin life through owning his personal cabin and also by designing cabins for others.

“People generally pick a location [for their cabin] based on something they want to do there.  They may be trout fishermen, or they may be cross country skiers, or sailing people.  They’ll have some type of activity that draws them toward a particular location.  And once they’re drawn there, they’ll pick a very particular piece of land that has hills or trees associated with it…and, the specifics of that piece of land will really shape what the possibilities of the cabin can be.”

Mulfinger elaborates further, “We tend to go to remote cabin sites to enjoy an intimate friendship that we don’t often experience in our daily lives.”  Living the cabin life is an opportunity to enjoy each other’s camaraderie in a pristine location.  Cabins should be open-ended places that are easy to use and built for playful, relaxing comfort.

Dale reminds us that we’re not going to our local furniture store to furnish our cabin.  “I tend to call the style of this type of furniture ‘early attic.’  It’s those things that possibly went up into your attic for awhile or grandma’s attic for awhile, and then they were pulled out to go into the cabin.”

Cabins also become a place where you can “…recycle those windows and doors, kitchens cabinets and other things that are no longer beneficial to you in your place in the city but certainly can be used at your cabin.”  If you remodel your primary residence, then you can reuse products and materials at your cabin; it’s another way to practice green living.

“We all live a little bit differently.  We all have different sets of furniture and things we bring to the cabin.  We all have different needs in terms of how big a cabin should be and in terms of serving the people that we’re going to bring there with us.  So, all of that leads to a very personal interpretation of what size, shape and form a cabin is going to be right for you.”

Cabins give us a chance to get away from our normal routines.  We enjoy activities in the cabin that we don’t normally do in our primary residence.  Mulfinger continues, “I think it’s fun to step forward and do things that are a little unique, things that are possibly done only when you’re at your cabin.  Whether you’re cleaning fish or canning fruit or whatever you may be doing, it’s fun to do it at the cabin in a special way and make it something that others can participate in.”

No Single Best Way

From traditional to modern, cabins embrace a range of architectural styles.  “There are huge possibilities as to what we can build a cabin with today.  There are old systems that have been resurrected, such as loga and timber frame construction that are available to us.  There are also normative systems, which is building out of studs and rafters.  Or, you can build it out of SIP panels–structural insulated panels.”  Your personal taste, the local architecture and the knowledge of the local contractors will largely determine the method and style of construction.

There’s also an opportunity to hybrid a design combining elements of both traditional and modern styles.  There’s no single best way to build.  “What we have in our cabin in definitely a hybrid.  I think people would refer to it as a stick-built cabin but we expose a lot of the timbers in it so you get a bit of the timber look.  They [the timbers] are doing real work.  They’re not superflous.  They’re not just decoration.  They’re actually performing real structural tasks.  Some of the vertical columns are tree trunks so they add a whimsy and fun atmosphere to the place.”

Mulfinger also points out that the work of building a cabin doesn’t need to be accomplished in one summer.  Construction can be extended over several years.  “I think it’s a pretty common pattern, particularly for people who do it themselves that they build enough to make it habitable to begin with and then they gradually add to it.  Or, they might build the whole shell then gradually embellish the interior over time.  There are many possibilities for how you can invest over time at your cabin.”

It seems that most hideaways capture their unique appeal by assigning a cabin a distinctive name.  “Often times, you’ll give your cabin a name.  Or, if it’s your name, a family name that you’re going to put on it, you might extend that name to mean something.  So, it might be ‘Smith Haven’ or if your name might be Wood then it would be ‘Raven Wood.’  There might be some adaptation from your name to the name of this place that you think of going to for respite and retreat.”

Dale continues, “Naming not just your place is important but you might name rooms within your cabin.  In our case, our cabin has two bedrooms, one is called ‘The Maple Syrup Room’ and the other one is called ‘The Eagle’s Nest.’ ”

Building a Legacy

Cabins are also multi-generational and multi-family.  “The cabin I own currently, I share with another couple, not a relative just friends, and that has to do with the fact that our cabin is four hours from our home, and we’re not going to use it that much.  Therefore, it’s always beneficial to share those dollars with someone else and make sure that others have the opportunity to use it.

“Many cabins have been handed down so that a son and a daughter of an original owner now share that cabin and the grandchildren.  Sometimes that can be a problem out into the future as generations are no longer very close to one another.  They have a little thinking to put forth regarding how to see the future of the legacy of their cabin.

“I think a lot of having a cabin has to do with making sure it’s a place that really reflects the things that are important to you.  So, the cabin is a place where the art you hang on the wall often has a lot of meaning and it isn’t the kind of high art that you might think of hanging on the wall of your home in the city.  Somehow, in your home in the city, you often use art to create a sense of stature about yourself that demonstrates your learned knowledge of the art world.

“When you get to the cabin, something that Aunt Helen–some macarame she created–or Uncle Bob’s big fish that he caught, are all fair game to have up on your cabin wall.  So, I think the kind of art we have in a cabin is very different.  Each of those pieces of art tends to tell a story that is important to us, a story we want told in our cabin.”