A.S. Coomer's Blog, page 5

heartwood—Live Reading from Serendipity Woods

This poem—heartwood—was originally published in Maladjusted Live. You can read it here. You can watch a live reading of the poem from Serendipity Woods on YouTube.

The A.S. Coomer Band at BARD & BUSKER Fest 2024

Me and the boys kicked off the inaugural BARD & BUSKER Festival in Owensboro, KY on 4/27/24 at Brew Bridge. Here’s a portion of our set, which we started out with my poem, “Sing While You Can.”

The A.S. Coomer Band:

Ethan Coomer — drums & sanging

Cam Chaney — guitar & sanging

Andrew Critchelow — bass & sanging

A.S. Coomer — guitar & sanging

Big thanks to Joseph Fulkerson of Laughing Ronin Press for all his hard work in organizing this wonderful festival.

I wrote all these songs. I hope you enjoy them.

Videos from 4/18/24 BBT Interview & Performance

I sat down with Luie Brangers of Frequency Independent for a live one-on-one interview at the Bourbon Barrel Tavern in Elizabethtown, KY on 4/18/24. We talked poetry, songs, & making art.

One-on-one interview

After we finished chatting I slung a half-hour of my songs.

All songs written & performed by A.S. Coomer

After my acoustic performance there was a night of local, original music. Luie asked me to close the night with some poetry.

picking flowers for the dead – out now

My six-song psychedelic americana EP, picking flowers for the dead, is out now at all the usual digital places (Youtube, Spotify, Apple, Deezer, etc.). It’s also available on my Bandcamp page where you can purchase/download the hi-res tracks.

This is one of my most personal releases. Writing & recording these songs felt like the roughest parts of therapy. And, like good therapy, I feel a bit lighter for all the heavy lifting. There’s joy here. There’s absolute desperation. Spaces of liminality where you’re fully submerged & not sure which way is up.

My good buddy, Cam Chaney, of Flying Saucer Records fame, was kind enough to make a visualizer for the entire EP. You can watch it on Youtube, Facebook, or Instagram.

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Thanks for listening!

picking flowers for the dead – full EP visualizer

My new EP, picking flowers for the dead, comes out tomorrow at 11:11am EST on all the major streaming platforms as well as the A.S. Coomer Bandcamp page (where you can purchase/download the hi-res tracks). I hope you take a few minutes and listen to this experimental psychedelic americana record. I did everything myself. These might be some of the most personal songs I’ve ever written. I’d love to hear y’all’s thoughts.

My good buddy Cam Chaney (of Flying Saucer Records fame) was kind enough to make a visualizer for the entire EP. Here it is. Nod yer heads.

#ASCoomer #PickingFlowersForTheDead #KentuckyMusic #Visualizer #FlyingSaucerRecords

GAS Reading

Yesterday some poets from around the globe got together on Zoom & shared some poetry. This event, hosted by poet/artist Belinda Subraman, is now on YouTube. You can watch me read windsong from SONGS FOR LEAVING around the 10 minute mark.

A little later on I read a couple more poems: heartwood (which was recently pub’d by the good folks of Maladjusted Live) & sing while you can.

The other featured poets were Susan Ward Mickelberry (who has a new book on Roadside Press), Bengt O Björklund, Kenneth Lumpkin, Scot D. Young (who also has a new book on Roadside Press & runs Rusty Truck/One Poet One Poem) & the host Belinda Subraman (who also has a book out on Roadside Press).

Thanks for looking/listening!

-A.S. Coomer

“heartwood” in Maladjusted Live

Good morning,

You have to allow yourself to fail. Pushing boundaries, trying the new, it all comes with failure as the shadow you must ignore if you are to progress. “heartwood” is a rumination on our speckspace existence in The Big Bad Nothing and the pursuit of Art with its glimmers of Beauty.

The good folks at Maladjusted Live picked up a couple poems of mine. The first they put out is “heartwood” and is available to read here.

Some more poems will be out in Maladjusted in the near future, so be on the lookout! Big thanks to editors Michael Kilcorse and Dominic Raths.

Thanks for reading, y’all!

All the best,

A.S. Coomer

picking flowers for the dead

picking flowers for the dead

an EP by a.s. coomer

4/20/24

11:11am EST

preorder the EP on bandcamp for access to “endless advertising“.

thanks for listening!

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RIP 2023

I started this year with a little mini tour for SONGS FOR LEAVING, which is now out of print. This collection of poems was published in Nov. of 2022 by Gutter Snob Books (RIP). I have the last remaining copies, so hit me up if you want one.

Signed Paperback Copy of SONGS FOR LEAVING by A.S. Coomer

$15 includes US shipping.

$15.00

Click here to purchase.

The audio version of the collection is available wherever you stream your music (& on Bandcamp). I recorded myself reading the poems then added instrumentation and noise. 25 poems; 25 songs all for your listening pleasure.

The good folks over at The Grind Stone asked me for some poems. I came up with a little chapbook called SING WHILE YOU CAN. This was an extremely limited release and has since sold out.

We had a release reading to celebrate SING WHILE YOU CAN at Evansville, Indiana’s coolest bookstore Your Brother’s Bookstore. Here’s a video of my entire set.

I brought both books with me as I crisscrossed the world, reading poems from the Islands of Greece and the United Kingdom, ancient places of the Yucatan, the banks of the Nolin River, the woods of rural central Kentucky, public libraries & bookstores, bars and stages across the US, and a whole slew of places in between. I’m so thankful for the people and places I’ve gotten to know along this strange, twisting country backroad we call life.

I dabbled in video production this year. I made a couple of videos. Here’s one I made for my poem/song WINDSONG, which is included in SONGS FOR LEAVING.

I spent a little time in Tulum, Mexico earlier this year. I wrote two songs there: an aubade and a nocturne. You can pick up the tracks from my Bandcamp page. You can also stream the two songs wherever you normally do that.

In June I drove down to Byhalia, Mississippi, just south of Memphis, Tennessee, to hang out and make some music with my good friend Patrick McGee. If you’re not familiar with Patrick’s work, he’s an incredible painter (he painted the cover), excellent songwriter, & a mighty fine guitar picker. He put out two great records in the last couple of years: Midnight Choirs and Cabarets & Serenading the Muse (both of which are streaming on all the major services now). Anyway, I went down there & set up some microphones & we recorded four songs; two of Patrick’s (I Been A Miner & Memphis Bound) & two of mine (Ludlow Lullabies & Cumberland Gap). We made all the sounds you hear, from wailing on the electric guitar in trading solos to banging on a busted snare with paint brushes while dancing with Patrick’s mischievous doggo Dullahan (who bites). My brother Ethan Coomer (an amazing songwriter & multi-instrumentalist) mixed & mastered the songs for us. You can stream the EP everywhere. Pick up a copy on Bandcamp and get access to behind-the-scenes photos, lyrics, & more.

I moved back home to Hardin County. I’m currently living in Glendale, KY. I made a record to document my time here called THE GLENDALE TAPES. This collection of three aubades & three nocturnes was written & recorded in Glendale, KY 4/19/23 – 5/1/23 as the weather shifted & the days piled up like sun-cured kindling. This EP is arranged with the spin of the world: day to night & back again. You’ll start your day in Glendale with Glendale with Aubade #3: Fuzzy-Tongued Sun’s Song of Reprisal & stream on down the minutes until your time in Glendale ends with Glendale Nocturne #3: Slow Dance of Stars & Satellites. There are moments of joy and grief, quite a bit of the liminal too. There are tears here to hear, both varieties, often within in the same song (see: Glendale Nocturne #2: Light-Headed Night Exhales Breathless Dawn). My motto for this record was: Do More With Less. I did my best to keep it simple, like the way things often are here in Glendale. Thanks for stopping by. All six songs are now available to stream at all the usual places. The local paper THE NEWS-ENTERPRISE showed me a little kindness and ran a feature for the EP, which included my ugly mug on the front page.

The second edition of my collaborative haiku collection SWAY was published by the good folks at Laughing Ronin Press. This edition contains ten new poems from Michael Grover and ten from yours truly. Pick up a copy today!

SWAY 2nd Edition Paperback Signed by A.S. Coomer

$11 gets you a signed (by A.S. Coomer only!) paperback copy of SWAY 2nd Edition. This new printing has twenty new haiku (ten from Grover; ten from Coomer).

$11.00

Click here to purchase.

I had two poems published in Rusty Truck: of a tuesday morning & future fires. You can read them here.

I did a lot of recording and music production in 2023. One of my releases is a 6-song EP called AIN’T IT HARD?. This rock record was a lot of fun to make. I made all the sounds you hear. You can download it from Bandcamp (which includes some extra goodies like a digital lyric booklet) and/or stream it at all the usual places.

Cam Chaney, an amazing artist/musician friend of mine (check out Mr. Morning), was kind enough to make a visualizer for ain’t it hard?. Check it out.

A.S. Coomer graphic made by Phil Chaney

Used To Be Even (Now So Odd)

This song has homages to a few of my “heroes”. There are verses for Warren Zevon, Mark Linkous, Charles Bukowski, & Tom Petty. The song was written on an acoustic guitar but I found I liked the sounds of the electric more, so that’s what ended up on the recording.

Like the rest of the songs on ain’t it hard? I did everything myself. I wrote the song, recorded the instrumentation, sang the main vocal, etc. I did have my beautiful wife sing some harmonies though.

You can stream it everywhere you do that, including Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, etc.

You can read the lyrics on the A.S. Coomer Bandcamp page.

You can also watch and listen to the song in a visualizer for the entirety of ain’t it hard? that was made by Cam Chaney of Flying Saucer Records. Be sure to check out his music and visual work. His brother, Phil Chaney, made the new A.S. Coomer logo, which is featured in Cam’s visualizer.