FRESH WIND SESSION No. 42
Crow aka Paul (or Pawl) Crow Willis
Recording Date: 27 August 2025
Substack Premiere: 3 September 2025
As I move towards wrapping up the Fresh Wind project, I’ve been seeking out musicians in Taos to round out the roster of artists I’ve documented over the past four years, and have placed an emphasis on recording sessions with people who I feel are emblematic of the complex sonic and artistic melting pot that I’ve found in New Mexico. An obvious choice for me was a mysterious Taos-based musician who goes by the name of Crow. I’ve seen him play a handful of times with his improvisational jazz-punk group Daily Winter Crow over the past few years, but I only recently had the opportunity to hear him perform his solo compositions at one of the Sunset Series concerts I’ve been running with Sarah Hart (which also, for now, are winding down).
Crow’s solo musical style is hard to pin down. To begin, he accompanies himself on a homemade fretless bass - moving between riffs and bar chords to support his melodies. Crow got his start performing bass in the heavy (and idiosyncratic) Austin band Agony Column, and his voice and vocal technique on the songs we recorded for this session remind me of other singers from heavy groups (think the more melodic and melancholy breakdowns in Korn or Metallica songs). But, when it comes to his lyrics, they evoke the at-times-uncomfortable-and-unexpected directness of songwriters like Mark Kozelek and Morrissey.
This session contains five original songs, and they tell a wide variety of stories. “Chicken” tells the tale of a beloved dog dying in Crow’s arms. “Starshine” illustrates an LSD journey’s revelations about the end of a long relationship. “Elephant” enigmatically offers commentary on the current political situation in the United States. “Cohomology” is perhaps the most Kozelek-ian of the tracks, moving between stories about his relationship with his mother, father, son, and best friend. The lyrics read:
“My dad moved to the desert after I was gone
He said the pollen was too much for him
He left with a woman who was not my mom
The woman who worked for him since she’d been in the ninth grade
I hear they’re happy now, they’re both realtors
And my mom still lives up in Arkansas
I try to see her when I can
She married a friend of mine
He treated her right, and he was an older man
She’ll be all alone this year, she is 74
And I will never go home again
I will never go home again
My best friend Tom Smith got killed at my bachelor party
It was my wife’s birthday
I know that sounds dramatic, but every word is true
I don’t see any of those people anymore
They’ve all gone away
And I will never go home again
I will never go home again
I didn’t mean to, but now I’ve got a son of my own
I hope things work out for him
Me and his mom didn’t get along half the time
The other half I was gone
I know things will turn out just fine, ‘cause that’s what life is for
But I will never go home again
No, I will never go home again”
A man of many interests and passions, in my various conversations with him over the years I have found Crow to also be a man of many words. I block out three hours for the Fresh Wind recording sessions, documenting the songs first and then diving into the interview portion of the podcast. With Crow, we quickly got takes down of the 6 songs included in the session (25 minutes of music in total). Then, before I could even appropriately offer an introduction to the interview portion of the show, Crow dove right into telling fragmented stories of his life. When we hit three hours, I quickly brought the interview portion to a close - though I’m sure it could have gone on much longer if I had not stuck to the original time allotment.
In a way, this session plays as an experience not completely dissimilar to being cornered by a verbose stranger at a party. But, on another level I found myself inspired by Crow’s stories and the larger image they evoke of the man behind the enigmatic music - someone who has a drive to explore all of his interests at full throttle, and little interest in conforming to any kind of status quo. I think my listeners will be inspired as well, if they take the time to enter into Crow’s vortex, and let themselves drop into the strange southern flow of his voice. Folks who make it to the end of the session will even have the gift of hearing Crow cover a song by The Postal Service.
Because of how delighted I was by the weird quality of this session, I’m excited to be airing it later tonight on KNCE 93.5FM - the home of my former One More Song radio show - from 10PM to 1AM Mountain Time. Tune in if you’re in Taos!
