New Material

The pieces are slowly coming together. Here a piece, there a piece, everywhere a piece... piece.

I've got a few songs stocked up from the last year--since Time for Change went into production. There are a few songs still coming together a little at a time.

The overarching concept this time is simplicity. It's so easy for me to get carried away with over-complicating the sound. I keep remind myself it's the song that matters most. Capturing some piece of truth... writing something beautiful and simple. It sounds easy. But, I swear, the moment I try to write something like that I get in my own way. Too much intention can be a bad thing. Sometimes you just have to... let it go.

I remember a day a few years ago. I had been working and trying all day to write a song. Nothing was coming to me. I got so frustrated about the process. I became infuriated at the writing block. I gave up. And then... bam. I wrote "Go" in a matter of about 10 minutes ... once I quit trying.

So much about art is trying, giving up, trying again... over and over. I suppose if artists never got past the blocks you could consider them mentally insane. But, eventually, we do move beyond the blockages, books are published, songs are written. Are there artists out there who are not for the most part, most of the time, obsessed with success, expression, creation?

Willow Tree Festival

Just got back from the Willow Tree Festival up in Nebraska. Good times. Nice folks. Chilly weather. Very small town. Played with Dave Nezat on drums and Wes Heilman on bass. Got to know the guys on the way up and back. There was plenty of time to think.

How many tiny towns there are in the world. How many people grow up, work, and grow old all across this giant country. Old houses. Generations of families sprouting and withering. How each tiny community has its churches, schools, restaurants, streets. How the culture can be so completely different just a few hours' drive away. Metropolis to dusty wooden barn. Skyscraper to corn field. How narrow my view becomes when I'm stuck in my home town.

Humanity is impressive. I walked into an antique store in the town of Gordon. The store was an old house so stuffed with old things that the air smelled old. Dusty. I could hardly navigate around all the old stuff in the place: things of metal and glass and old wood and leather. Humanity's old possessions: old watches that no longer ticked, ice cream churns from the time before ice. The place redefined eclecticism. It reminded me, in a way, of the Catacombs beneath Paris where human bones are stacked to the ceiling and run back and across as far as you can see into the darkness. The antique store is that epitome of human remains.

Steamboat Wine Festival

Had a blast at the Steamboat Wine Festival. If you made it up, I'm sure you did too. Beautiful day playing my songs on the lawn. You don't get to play enough gigs with your shoes off. Went camping afterward. The nice people at the wine festival left me with a couple of good bottles. Roasted a few hot dogs over the fire. Went to Strawberry Park Hot Springs the following day. I highly recommend this experience to everyone. Seriously.

I Hate Valentine's Day... now in theaters

It's pretty exciting. I watched the I Hate Valentine's Day flick with my song "Dream a Better Way." The song comes in during the last scene and plays into the credits. It was fun to watch. It felt a bit different than a tv feature, more permanent, more important. It's the first time I've had a song in a film so I'm pretty excited about it. IHVD is available in some indie theaters in the US. I watched it off Comcast On Demand. Happy viewing.

Writing

I've been working on a new song the past couple of days, a wedding song. I mentioned a couple of days ago that I'd started writing again, now that I have some free time. Well, the first song I wrote took three days and I'm pretty sure it's terrible. This newer one is better, I think. It has meaning--always good to put that in a song. Really, it means something to me. Sometimes I'll start writing a song that isn't very meaningful to me or my life and I'll either run into a dead end or finish it and then never play it. But, I find when I write something that means something to me personally, then I tend to have a much easier time with it and that I end up liking the song much more. My fiance is always reminding me of this. This new song may become my wedding song. I'm getting married in a couple of weeks. I'm thinking about singing it instead of writing vows since it has become sort of an amalgam of adventures that my fiance and I have been through. This new song doesn't have a name yet, but I'll let you know when it does, and maybe I'll post an acoustic rough for you. I still have to work out a verse and the bridge lyrics.

Awkward Beginnings

I've been writing songs since the day I received my first guitar. I was always fascinated with music, always wanted to be able to play music. Since the moment I got my first guitar I couldn't put it down. It was May of 1995, the month I graduated from high school. I wrote constantly. I spent most of my life at that point in the basement. I would record into this old RCA boom box through its built-in microphone. I must have fifty cassette tapes in a box in the garage. A couple of years later, I moved to the four track. I've probably got 100 hours of old songs and song ideas on tape. I blush to admit some part of me always wondered whether those tapes would one day become valuable, like the love letters that Keats wrote to Fanny Brawne. Moreover, I recorded to hear myself. Perhaps that's narcissistic, too--like looking in the mirror, or better yet, like looking in the mirror so that others will look and see you. The writer writes for others to read; the performer performs for others to witness. We all seek a measure of approval and want notice to be taken. I intend to share some of these old tapes with you in the coming days, to post an audio timeline of sorts. It is as much for me as it is for you. How can I argue otherwise?

Anatomy of a Song

For those of you interested in the writing and production process of one songwriter, namely this one, proceed to the bottom half of the page and check out the newest addition to the blog, Anatomy of a Song. The course I take from writing to mixing is all there in rough mix audio for your listening curiosity.

Turning the Crank

I have been writing some lately.  Finished a song a couple of days ago.  Feeling a bit rusty.  Getting back into writing is like turning the crank on some enormous machine.  Bloop, there's a song.  It's a machine that makes pancakes.  The first one is always just a test.  Too buttery.  Like a late night metaphor--one so mixed it has to lose sense just to find it.

Needless to say, and I say it anyway, this is the first post of this new blog.  I have been pushing my new record, Time for Change, day in and day out.  The record was named for its title track, a song about my high school days, about the Baker house, days of romantic poetry and tree drawings, the days after my dad died, the trampoline, the fireplace.  I thought I'd post the first draft of lyrics for you.  There was only the one draft, scribbled over, noted with production ideas and melodies.