When Chris and I completed the Great Plains Alternative Rock Album after eighteen months writing and composing the music in 2000-2001 it seemed that as independent artists our music would find it hard going to get a listening audience with the major record labels operating at that time. It was frowned upon by the powers that be if artists were prepared to work in all areas of the creative processes. It was also the early years of the internet and there were few music sites established at that time. The album was then put on the back burner and there it remained for over twelve years until early in 2014 when I uploaded the eleven tracks in cyberspace to established music websites ReverbNation, iTunes, SoundCloud and NumberOneMusic. I also created still image video clips from my travel images and created "Great Plains: a Journey in Words and Music on the popular YouTube and Vimeo websites. When Chris and I caught up in late January 2016 after a fifteen year break I mentioned to him that we would be celebrating the 15th anniversary of the album later that year. It was decided over a coffee or two that we would re-arrange two of my Native American lyrics from 2009 Coyote Man and Buffalo Medicine Horns and record them as our way of celebrating our Great Plains album. On the 27th and 28th of August we spent the weekend recording both tracks with engineer/producer Adam Barns at Nick Irving's One Flight Up recording Studios in the Sydney suburb of St. Peters. We all had a magic time as artists and were extremely proud of the music we created that weekend. Both the new songs Coyote Man and Buffalo Medicine Horns have now been online in cyberspace for around two weeks and the response to our new offerings has been amazing. When Chris and I started out in mid June 2000 to collaborate together we had only designs on writing and recording one song only. And now a decade and a half later we have a thirteen track album that tells the inspiring stories of the Lakota-Sioux and Cheyenne Freedom Fighters who fought to save their culture and way of life in the mid to 19th Century from the advancement of white Americans Manifest Destiny. Chris and I would like to thank everyone one who has supported the songs over the last eight months and we hope you continue to enjoy the Great Plains album for years to come. Below are the stories for both new songs Coyote Man and Buffalo Medicine Horns. And the stories for the original eleven Great Plains songs can be viewed in the lyrics section on the NumberOneMusic website. Coyote Man: This is my tribute to the man who confirmed the existence of and helped me understand those shadows in my romantic childhood dreams. Raised on a steady diet of movies and television series about the wild west I wondered why the Indians were always cast as the bad guys, generally relegated to a treacherous mob and where did they go after their daring and deadly deeds? As a child and a Scot living under British rule I intrinsically understood that we were breaking their spirit, stealing their land and destroying their culture. It had happened to our people too. Fast forward twenty years and finding myself a casualty of Thatcher’s Britain I ventured onto the Great Plains with no particular purpose other than to have a look around. No not a potential redemption story but idle time put to good use with the expectation of nothing in return. Early in my journey I met Jack Little a full blood Oglala-Brulé-Lakota from the Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota. Born in 1920 in an eighteen pole framed tepee, named in the traditional way by a Lakota holy man and descended from survivors of the infamous 1890 Wounded Knee massacre Jack’s life like so many of his contemporaries would follow a previously unchartered path. A traditional man in an untraditional world. Our friendship engaged me with a reality much greater than the cowboys and Indians of my childhood in fact an epic story of conquerers versus the conquered, rich versus poor, the powerful versus powerless experienced by and witnessed through one man’s life. It showed me that if you believe in the Great Spirit or a God if you prefer that term then the measure of a man’s life is more likely to be judged in the here and now, in the small kindnesses, how you conduct yourself in everyday transactions during both the good times and the bad. One of the great challenges in life is to make the complex easy to understand. In Jack Little’s story is a man’s life played out against the background of unprecedented change, unimaginable loss and institutionalised disadvantage approached with honesty, dignity and integrity. A staunch advocate with a generous heart for his people, culture and the land not afraid to speak out against the greed, paucity of spirit and often destructive nature of our society. In such a changing world Jack Little did not have the honour of earning his warrior’s name but like the coyote a master of adaptation his spirit lives on in his people the Lakota. A hard life no doubt but a life well lived. Andrew Hogarth. Buffalo Medicine Horns: These lyrics are quite dark and urgent and can be interpreted on more than one level. In a literal sense the verses describe the breakdown of a relationship leaving the enigma of the chorus but as a whole the song describes more of a metaphysical experience, the existence of good and bad spirit medicine. The Great Plains are full of stories if you stop long enough to make acquaintance of the people and allow the stories to be revealed. A story told to me by a well respected trader in the late 1990’s has long remained in my consciousness. It is the story of a pair of buffalo medicine horns that were traded around the American West for many years. Ill fortune from significant loss of property through fire, exploding cars and woes of a more personal nature variously plagued each of the owners of these horns. After five years and driving through a heavy rain storm hoping to change his fortune the most recent owner of the horns presented them for sale. Assessing the extraordinarily stressed man and his offering the above mentioned trader left his counter and shortly returned with a shovel advising him “Do yourself a favour and dig a deep hole in a field and bury the horns forever. Forget about making money on a sale it’s not worth it.” Of unknown origin the buffalo medicine horns had never been deconsecrated and held bad spirit medicine. The man followed this advice and his good fortune slowly returned. This is a true story and an allegorical introduction to the issues of acquisition, custodianship and repatriation of sacred and cultural objects. On a lighter note buffalo do not shed their horns so exit that relationship with grace and dignity while there is still a semblance of life. Andrew Hogarth.