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• Firewater The Golden Hour

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For 23 years this has been my dream: for a generation of learners who turn to their screens for answers, I want to put the very best information at their fingertips. We stand with Wikipedians, librarians and creators to provide enduring access to the world’s most trustworthy knowledge. We’re dedicated to reader privacy so we never track you.

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Thank you.— Brewster Kahle, Founder, Internet Archive. Donor challenge:Your donation will be matched 2-to-1 right now. Your $5 gift becomes $15!Dear Internet Archive Community,I’ll get right to it: please support the Internet Archive today. Right now, we have a 2-to-1 Matching Gift Campaign, so you can triple your impact, but time is running out! The average donation is $45.

If everyone reading this chips in just $5, we can keep this website going for free, and free of ads. That's right, all we need is the price of a paperback book to sustain a non-profit website the whole world depends on. For 23 years this has been my dream: for a generation of learners who turn to their screens for answers, I want to put the very best information at their fingertips. We stand with Wikipedians, librarians and creators to provide enduring access to the world’s most trustworthy knowledge.

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If everyone reading this chips in just $5, we can keep this website going for free, and free of ads. That's right, all we need is the price of a paperback book to sustain a non-profit website the whole world depends on. For 23 years this has been my dream: for a generation of learners who turn to their screens for answers, I want to put the very best information at their fingertips. We’re dedicated to reader privacy so we never track you. We don’t accept ads. But we still need to pay for servers and staff.

Firewater The Golden Hour

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In 2005, Firewater's Tod A embarked on what would become a three yearsabbatical through the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent and SouthEast Asia. He had recently split with his wife; George W. Bush had justbeen re-elected; New York, his home for the last 20 years, had become acold and foreign place. He wasn't even sure he wanted to make musicanymore. 'I was extremely depressed.

The NYC skyline looked like badwallpaper to me. It was either kill myself or hit the road,' he says.He put everything he owned in storage and left NYC with a few clothesand a laptop.The journey Tod undertook would challenge himcreatively in ways he couldn't have imagined in its planning stages. 'Itraveled overland starting in Delhi, India, across the Thar Desert,then through Rajasthan, onward through the Punjab, and into Pakistan,'he recounts. 'I had originally planned to continue overland throughAfghanistan, Iran and Turkey, ending in Istanbul.' But things didn't goexactly as planned. Along the way he was drugged, robbed, detained, andlater struck down with severe intestinal problems. Travelers weredisappearing along the road to Kabul.

As Tod puts it, 'I was forced toend my trip at the Khyber Pass on the Afghan border, due to general illhealth and the unnerving likelihood of kidnapping.' Recordingwith a single microphone and a laptop in his pack, he capturedperformances with a vast array of musicians across India andPakistan-and eventually Turkey and Israel.

Bhangra and sufi percussionwould form the basis for the songs he wrote along the way-songs aboutthe world he left behind ('This Is My Life', 'Electric City'), politics('Borneo', 'Hey Clown'), and dislocation ('6:45', 'Feels like the Endof the World'). Tod's acerbic wit shines on The Golden Hour, elucidating both the beauty and the absurdity of the world.Firewater drummer Tamir Muskat (now also of Balkan Beat Box)produced, mixed and played on the album, along with a strange cast ofcharacters from 5 different countries. Tod tells the story of the tripin a short video, which includes footage from his travels.

He alsochronicled his experiences on his travel blog, Postcards from the Other Side of the World.(From ).

In photography, the golden hour is when the sunlight is at the perfect angle to capture beautiful images; in the medical world, it's the window of time where a life can still be saved after severe injuries. Both meanings could apply to, 's first album of original material in four years: it's a musical travelogue of the three years spent in India, Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia (which he also chronicled in the blog Postcards from the Edge of the World) after his divorce and the reelection of in 2004, and each song is like a vibrant, sometimes violent, snapshot along the way. 's travels were no vacation - if anything, there's a sharper edge to his songwriting here than in years, and combined with the contributions of local musicians from each country, is some of 's most consistently potent music. The album underscores its concept by kicking off with 'Borneo,' a jaunty, pissed-off exit song listing all the reasons for leaving the U.S.

('You got a monkey for a president' is near the top) with theatrical flair, and from there, and crew - including drummer/producer of - find ways to dance on their troubles with quintessentially songs like 'Hey Clown,' 'Already Gone,' and 'Three Legged Dog.' The band ups the ante with 'This Is My Life,' where the tumba, chimta, and dholki of the native musicians (many of whom normally play in the backing bands for belly dancers) add an extra spark to the song's already fiery rhythm. But for every brash moment on, there is an equally vulnerable one, whether it's the cautionary tales of 'Paradise' and 'A Place Not So Unkind' or 'Six Forty Five,' an elegant ballad filled with emptiness as it wanders from sunset to sunrise. On 'Weird to Be Back,' notes that 'everything's the same or maybe just a little worse,' but that can't be said of - it's some of 's angriest, most poignant, and most accomplished music.