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From The Desk Of Tim Easton: Alaska

TimEastonLogoTim Easton has been singing and writing songs since he was 14 years old. He never considered another career. After finishing college, Easton hit the road with his guitar and spent seven years singing and playing on European street corners. When he got back to Ohio, Easton joined the Haynes Boys, a roots-rock outfit that made one album before breaking up. Free again, Easton picked up his guitar and returned to the road, touching down long enough to make nine albums that earned him a loyal following with their blend of gritty roots-rock and heartfelt songwriting. Every LP took a slightly different approach and his latest, Not Cool, shows off his love of rockabilly and early R&B. Easton will be quest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on him.

Alaska

Easton: It’s no secret. Tim Easton loves Alaska. I currently enjoy stumping music business executives and interns alike with my yearly pilgramage to the last American frontier. It started out as a simple fascination that began when I first gazed upon the Chugach Mountains from an airplane en route to Tokyo during a layover in Anchorage. I was 10 years old, and it took me many years to finally get there. My traveling obsession probably started then, too. Some people like to take journeys, some don’t want to or simply can’t. Alaska turned into something more spiritual for me. There’s no other way to put it.

I wore a vintage Alaska T-shirt on the cover of one of my first records, and that led to an invitation to perform. Some of you may know that most of North America looks exactly the same now. I like to play a game with my fellow travelers where you open up your eyes in the car and pretend you don’t know where you are but had to guess where just by looking at what was around you. A knowledge of trees helps, if you can see them in between the Burger King or Walmart signs. This happens on the outskirts of Fairbanks or Anchorage, too, but it’s not but a few minutes drive until Alaska begins. Of course, city life there is also fascinating to me, but that’s probably more to do with my anthropology obsession, which is normal with anybody who writes. As with most great places, it’s the people and what you learn from them that eventually seals the deal. I learned a lot about love and survival. I like to tell musicians that there are really only a few gigs there, unless you enjoy leaving the beaten path. And nature? Well, let’s just say when you go for a walk in the woods in Alaska, you have a different sense of awareness than when you go for a walk in the woods in, say, Indiana. I was thinking about wearing a vintage Hawaii shirt on one of my next albums.

Video after the jump.