Sunday, January 25, 2009

This is Rock & Roll

There is no way you won't be disappointed if you stop watching before it's over.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Don't bother concealing your thievery


This isn't the first thing I've stolen from Even Cleveland. Danielle recommends it for Clevelanders and nonClevelanders alike.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Love is a burning thing.

Danielle's worst nightmare involves having her teeth smashed out. Sometimes I dream that I'm mysteriously missing a tooth, but I never know why.

Figuratively, my worst nightmare might involve a never-ending episode of Laurence Welk.

The Cincinnati Pops opened a new performance center in the first months of my first year of college, and in true Welk-fashion the grand finale was the Pops playing 76 Trombones, which they brought in part of my college marching band for (I didn't get a choice about being in the marching band).

Ray Charles played a few of his most recognizable songs too, but he didn't play this:

Friday, January 9, 2009

I wrote a simple song.

I shouldn't kid myself, everything I write is simple. Billy Preston, on the other hand, is a damn liar.

We started recording maybe our simplest song yet last night. Danielle also tracked new vocals, and we continued tweaking mixes, most notably of the trumpet parts on Emptiness Swallows Heaven and Earth. Three new versions of songs are up in the player.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Those funny little plans that never work quite right...

"When the Beatles were depressed-thinking the group is going nowhere, and this is a shitty deal, and we're in a shitty dressing room-I'd say, 'Where are we going, fellas?' And they'd go, 'To the top Johnny!' And I'd say, 'Where's that fellas?' and they'd say, 'To the toppermost of the poppermost!' and I'd say 'Right!' Then we'd all sort of cheer up."

A few days before Christmas marked a year of recording for us, but that's deceptive. For the most part, it's been a few hours here and there, and waiting for the mailman to bring new parts from elsewhere, or paychecks to cover expenses.

Everything was inspired by Richard Brautigan, and in no small part, Jimi Hendrix (really), and almost everything was guitar driven, most of it by the same strumming pattern that everyone uses for six/eight. Our first sketches of the songs didn't have any bass (although Chris played bass lines on a 7-string guitar), and only one song had drums.

I read a lot about the music industry. I'm not sure if Napster and Kazaa really killed it, but even if they did, I still think Lars Ulrich prick. That said, confronted with the numbers for pressing and printing, as well as distribution, I'm pretty sure that there's no way I could make an EP work.

In June we started recording 6 more songs, so we could release an album. I'm not sure we have an album. The difference between songs written when there were no plans for them, and songs written when you know you'll be supported by the kind of players we've been lucky enough to surround ourselves with is a lot of distance to close.

I'm focused on the full length, with the latest recordings, and two nights from now we'll be in the studio starting to record the songs that will flesh out the album.

I suppose delays are inevitable. I hope it all proves worth the wait.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

This is the New Year (Bandido Americano)

New Year's Eve has never meant much to me, I only really have a clear memory of one of mine. My parents took me and my brother to a hibachi restaurant where I was convinced every woman at our crescent-shaped table was a prostitute, before dumping us off on a slightly older cousin with odd ideas about child-rearing and age appropriateness, who took us to screening of short animation films, most of which were pornographic, terribly violent, or both. Back at the hotel, Oliver and I fought as we always did, it could have been over anything, but most likely about who got control of the tv remote. I stormed out, headed downstairs to the lobby, which was across from a ballroom where people were doing the electric slide. Women who should have known better justified offering me drinks because it was New Year's. I couldn't have been more than twelve.

I remember my friend Bob's New Year's (the year 2000?) better than my own. He got up early and went to airport to watch the sunrise.

Bob's a lot cooler than I am. He did a remix of a Sound of Arrows song that ended up being used on Gossip Girl, and he didn't even know what the show was (although he has been living in Japan the entire time it's been on - listen to his own music at Bobcat).

I resoluted last night to watch the sunrise over Cleveland from Lakewood park this morning. Some of the pictures turned out a little like Mark Rothko paintings, and probably better than seeing the sunrise in person.

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Only one other person came down to the park. I'm not sure if they didn't want to jump the chainlink fence (which I learned today isn't that easy to do with snow boots on), or if I scared them, I kind of gave off the air of a crazy Vietnam veteran with my militaryesque coat and scarf across my face. I know I looked nothing like him, but for a second I thought about Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy in Bolivia.

I saw the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean, from a plane, once. With the curve of the earth, the night sky was still starry and dark behind us, with a perfect sun rise in front. It wasn't that far off of pictures from space, I'm not sure any other sun rise will ever compare.