MY SPLENDID ISOLATION
The founding member of Crosby, Stills & Nash on the joys of British acting and stunning country music
What I’m watching
I usually don’t give TV much time, but we’re watching more in lockdown. I watch current affairs comedians Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon and Trevor Noah. We’ve been watching the Star Trek drama Picard and caught up with Homeland and Ozark, which are pretty amazing.
The best I have seen recently are Fleabag and Killing Eve, both of which I was led to by Phoebe Wallerbridge, who is an incredible talent. Jodie Comer is the best new actress I’ve seen in years. We keep seeing wonderful actors coming out of England. I think it’s ’cause you raise them on Shakespeare.
What I’m listening to
I always listen to a lot of
music, so that hasn’t really changed. Steely Dan are sort of my favourite band. I like Snarky Puppy a lot – they remind me of Weather Report, probably my favourite jazz group of all time. I listen to Miles Davis frequently, Kind of Blue or Sketches of Spain. I listen to a lot of the American guitarist and composer Michael Hedges, who invented a unique style of playing. On another side, I’ve been listening to Jason Isbell, one of the best things to come out of the country pop area in a long time. And I’m listening to three women in a group called I’m With Her, Sara Watkins, Aoife O’donovan and Sarah Jarosz, who also has a solo album coming that is gonna blow your f------ minds. I listen to Jarosz probably every day.
Talent: David Crosby loves Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer, inset There’s more – that’s just a taste.
What I’m reading
I’ve been reading a lost novel by the great American science fiction writer Robert A
Heinlein: The Pursuit of
the Pankera. This is a treat for Heinlein fans: it’s kind of an alternative take on his 1980 novel The Number
of the Beast, “a parallel novel about parallel universes”. This is a good time to escape into another dimension.
A hobby I’ve taken up
I’m taking great pleasure in ordinary stuff: feeding the dogs, doing chores. In the evenings, I do what I’ve always done – I smoke pot and take my guitar off the wall and get hung up playing and writing words and music. I still love it. It’s hard for musicians; we are all out of work. There’s no money in records any more and streaming really doesn’t pay enough to live on. Most of us are living pay cheque to pay cheque and tour to tour. All of the musicians I know are in trouble. I just hope I don’t lose everything before I can go back to work.
The thing that made me laugh this week
If you watch the president’s White House briefings, you have to laugh or you’d cry. The response to the pandemic in the US has been completely misdirected, mishandled and misguided. It’s like riding in a bus with a drunk driver.
What I can’t wait to do once this is over
Vote the president out of office.
David Crosby’s latest album, Here If You Listen
(BMG), is available for streaming
‘It’s hard for musicians. All the ones I know are in trouble’