Moses Atwood is a performer.

He sits in the chair with his lap steel and bounces from after-the-snow-falls quiet to middle-of-the-blizzard roars. He chats and rambles on stage. He's gregarious, open. He plays a soft guitar and contrasts that with a powerful tenor.

But he's not Moses Atwood.

Moses Atwood is dead and buried in Georgetown, Massachusetts. He was, in the 1880s, a household name as a maker of patent medicines. You could buy "Moses Atwood's Jaundice Bitters" all over the eastern seaboard.

If a patent medicine (like Simpson & Son's Revitalizing Tonic) was pushed as "bitters," that usually meant it was little more than cheap hooch mixed with bitters to avoid the alcohol tax.

Atwood's bitters were taken to the Supreme Court over trademark infringement. Atwood released his recipe (booze and bitters) to a number of different firms. "Nathan Wood's Jaundice Bitters" was sold in Portland, Maine and is mentioned in the Supreme Court case. In the end, the plaintiff lost as the recipe had been legitimately sold, or something.

Check out the Supreme Court Case in original, olde timey print or read about Moses Atwood's Jaundice Bitters for free on Google Books.

Atwood was also among the nation's first photographers, documenting his hometown of Georgetown, MA on daguerrotype.

Who, then, is our Moses Atwood? I've been listening to him for years and was shocked when I heard his real name. I'm not sure why, exactly. I'd always assumed that Moses was a stage name, but I'd never guessed Atwood would've been.

So when I heard his voicemail say, "You've reached Matthew Chase, leave me a message. And if you're looking for Moses Atwood leave me a message. And if you're confused... don't be," I was a little surprised.

And then he told me about the patent medicines and whatnot and it all made sense, I suppose. His music is temporally dissonant. His simple, direct lyrics and fine plucking and strumming harken to some Antebellum plantation. It's a good backdrop for a man in a white suit with a straw hat and red suspenders hawking panaceas for whatever it may be that ails you.

Also, please raise your hand if you think Moses' next album should be called "Jaundice Bitters."

So it makes sense, I suppose, that Mr. Chase took that name. And it makes sense that he keeps flocking South - painful though it may be.

Moses just spent our short winter here in Maine. He is heading back down South, Asheville way, to study... of all things... the psychology of performance. Which also makes sense. He has taken on a whole new persona. In some places it has replaced his actual personality. Many do not know he is Matthew Chase. For years, I knew of him only as Moses Atwood. I was introduced to him that way, in fact. He answers to it.

So it fits, then, that he's going back to school to look at performance and psychology and to see where those fit together.

Shooting Moses was an interesting experience all around. He is the first artist we've shot who didn't have a specific location to shoot. We invited him over to the lofty Dog and Pony Studios on Marshall Street and set him up by the window in our attic.

Also worthy of note: I think we spent more time chatting before the shoot with Moses than with any other artist. By an order of magnitude. Generally, our shoots involve a little chit-chat while we set up. Moses showed up, though, and we all had coffee and water and talked about the downfall of Detroit reflecting the downfall of America.

It goes like this: Moses, or Matthew, I'm not really sure which, had seen a program on PBS called "Blueprints of a Nation." In which, they profile the rise and fall of Detroit. How abundant resources near a large source of water led to a quick build up. How Detroit was a magnet for rails which led to an advanced rail system in the city. How the rail system led to a more business friendly environment, allowed for the building of a highway to cut through the thick inner city. How the highway allowed people to pass through Detroit and how Detroit bled out through the highway and the cars it built with all its resources.

And how America is modeled after Detroit.

That led to, of course, a conversation about zombies and what to do in case of a zombie apocalypse.

Then we got to shooting. He talked about listening to a lot of Randy Newman lately. Moses is intrigued by how easily and readily Newman writes songs about places. Moses wants to do a song about Detroit.

He borrowed a guitar he never used, favoring the infinite tones of his steely dobro. He apologized for his nasal cold but it adds a certain roughness to his voice. It's a roughness that suits his music. A roughness of campfires and fighting. He sings about a place here, about California, Manifest Destiny. About going West - Moses always sings about somewhere else and Matthew is always drawn South.

Chase talks about living various places around the country. Phoenix and Asheville, mostly. Phoenix is miserable, apparently. Hard packed heat stacked on black tar and people living in artificially cooled and watered homes around it. A hellhole. He doesn't like these planned and farmed cities, he likes the organic places.

Places like Detroit.

Moses is drawn to the organic. He tunes by ear. He often plays slide guitar which - mathematically - is more readily organically infinite in its tonal possibilities. He sings about simple human feelings. He's interested - it would seem - in the human and what makes humans tick.

So he tunes to his voice. So he says he's got a cold. So he tests the strings of his guitar and his vocal chords.

So he sings. He sings about better times and better places.

So, in the attic Moses Atwood performs.