The Drowning Lovers
July 23, 2009 Filed in: Recording
On July 22, Meredith, Paul, and John from the Drowning Lovers stopped by the studio to record a couple tunes.
My favorite sessions are the ones that are mostly captured live. For these two songs, the band set up in a circle (or, in this case, more of a triangle). I ran cables and microphones around the players and, eventually, pressed the record button. Everything just came together.
Great band!
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An Unexpected Journey
July 21, 2009 Filed in: Songwriting
Joni Mitchell’s 1976
album Hejira has a mysterious magical quality to
it. True, it sounds unmistakably “70’s,” but, aside
from that, there’s this ghostly majesty to it. The
lore behind Hejira is that it was mostly written on a
cross-country car trip. The lyrics have a lonely,
restless quality to them.
“Hejira” is an approximation of the Arabic word for “journey” (Hijra). The term originally referred to the prophet Muhammad’s travel from Mecca to Medina in 622. In a 1998 concert, Painting with Words and Music, Mitchell commented that “Hejira” has mostly a traveling context for her; and, that the word just looked cool.
Sometimes, I just fall into writing. I don’t understand the how and the why of it, but that’s usually how it happens. While watching my car get fixed, I wrote “October.” While sitting in a hotel room on Sunset Blvd, having all but given up on trying to finish writing the album that would become Dirty Wake, I wrote “Wonderland” on a Pollo Loco napkin. My best work is often unplanned.
Last week, my wife and I did a considerable amount of traveling. We left Greensboro on Friday, July 10 and drove to Bald Head Island for a wedding. From BHI, we drove to the Smokey Mountains for a week of vacationing with her parents, siblings, and our nephews and niece.
For me, vacationing has a restless quality. I enjoy many activities, outings, and departures while out on the road. It’s the downtime that I have difficulty with. I always feel like I should be doing something. Last Friday, while staring at the random patterns on the hotel ceiling, tired from a first venture to the island, I felt compelled to write in a Moleskine notebook. I wrote down the things I saw, the ideas I had, and the images that came to mind.
In a college poetry writing class, I learned of the importance of keeping an Aleph List. This imagery bank provides a jumping off point for when one actually sits down to right poetry or, in my case, lyrics for music. In this way, using images creates a “show don’t tell” aspect to lyrics that I crave. In a more personal sense, an Aleph List from a vacation can create a compelling alternative to a photo album or home movie.
A few days later, as the entries in my Aleph List grew, as did the experiences and memories from the trip, I began dumping my favorite images into my lyric notebook. Sometimes the images re-appeared as-is. Sometimes they were altered. Sometimes new ones were created from their reimagining. The images began to change. They took on meter and rhyme. “Oh, crap,” I thought. This vacation is turning into a writing trip.
I just happened to have a guitar, a mandolin, and a four-track recorder in my bag. I had intended to get caught up on recording my long overdue podcast. The lyrics inspired music, which inspired more lyrics.
Something about Joni’s guitar playing during the Hejira period inspired me to totally de-tune my guitar. As I approached each set of lyrics, I opted to transmogrify the pitch of the guitar for each song. Aside from making sure to catalog what I had tuned each song to, I have know idea how some of the tunings emerged. I recall a few that absolutely make no sense, but somehow, still work for the song. For me, that’s what being creative is all about.
As the days rolled on, so did the completed, demoed three-track recordings of new songs. I used only three tracks, starting with a main guitar track, then adding a vocal, then adding supporting mandolin. The result has been, for lack of a better term, quite interesting.
I am still trying to comprehend the prolific week. It has been a struggle to write with any degree of authenticity in the past year. Out of 22 or so new songs, I had only championed two or three. The others aren’t bad, but they certainly had been written before, certainly by me.
The Return of Spring is about 75% complete. I wonder if these new writings merit a new and separate recording. The chief proponent of working on these new songs is that they resemble a coherent work that comes from a singular source. The Return of Spring, while a grand undertaking in and of itself, is more or less a “best of” collection of unreleased songs. “Hey, Angel” didn’t fit the scope of Gravity Affects Me. “Two Shadows” was left over from the Candelabra Sessions. “Nightmares” was left off of The Lessons of Autumn because it was too lyrically similar to “October.” I have to wonder if the odds and sods quality of Spring is what’s holding back it’s completion.
The obvious drawback to working on these is that it obfuscates my already long laundry list of recordings-to-make. This isn’t at all what I want right now. Although, I have to wonder if maybe this is what I need.
In recent days, I’ve been told by very different people how much they like the song “November.” Unsolicited compliments like that have to make me wonder if I’m receiving a sign. These new songs all resemble “November” in that they are de-tuned, finger picked, generally pensive, and ineluctably dark.
I’ve been told that I’m a conscious person. I feel things intensely, and, sometimes before they happen. That old saying from Star Wars, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” is something I’ve grown to trust. I wonder if the outpouring of creativity last week was actually a grand distraction from what was really going on at home while I was away.
My relationship with fear has greatly improved over the past year. On one hand, I am completely able to accept the fact that all fear exists within the mind. It’s not real, but imagined stress. Most of that imagined stress is the focal point of mere possibilities, which are also not real. Improbabilities are not impossibilities. On a long enough time line, even the most improbable of events will occur absolutely.
That fear of mine, that while I’m out of town, my water heater will crack and drip water onto my studio floor, slowly building to a flow, slowly building to an uncontrollable gush, seems to have been an irrational fear. Sure, it could happen, but what are the odds?
Apparently, the odds were precisely 349 to 1. And, my number was up.
The wave of shock that came over me on Thursday night was immediately quelled by a wave of gratitude. I have neighbors that were thoughtful enough to call me and tell me that water was pouring out of the side of my house. Also, they were willing to let me walk them through the worst-case-scenario procedure I had outlined.
In the frenzy, it was difficult to discern exactly how bad the situation was. Sure, water was spilling out of the side of my house, but exactly what did that mean? Thankfully, I knew it meant either: a) my house was completely flooded, or b) that water had pooled under my water heater and that the catch pan and piping I installed last August was doing it’s job. Fate chose “b.”
All of the experts I had consulted had said that a catch pan would offset 90% of the damage of a serious water-heater failure. They were right. Aside from an exorbitant water bill, the cost of a few sheets of drywall, and a box fan, the cost of the damage was minimal.
Upon leaving Tennessee, I had one song that was unfinished, needing only a second verse. This experience helped round out the trip well. I got my second verse. I got a lot more than I bargained for. I left Greensboro last week with no intensions or expectations. What I got was a new collection of songs and the experience of having faced my greatest fear.
Perhaps the best way for me to express my gratitude is to share these writings with those who would care to listen. Or, perhaps just being grateful is enough.
“Hejira” is an approximation of the Arabic word for “journey” (Hijra). The term originally referred to the prophet Muhammad’s travel from Mecca to Medina in 622. In a 1998 concert, Painting with Words and Music, Mitchell commented that “Hejira” has mostly a traveling context for her; and, that the word just looked cool.
Sometimes, I just fall into writing. I don’t understand the how and the why of it, but that’s usually how it happens. While watching my car get fixed, I wrote “October.” While sitting in a hotel room on Sunset Blvd, having all but given up on trying to finish writing the album that would become Dirty Wake, I wrote “Wonderland” on a Pollo Loco napkin. My best work is often unplanned.
Last week, my wife and I did a considerable amount of traveling. We left Greensboro on Friday, July 10 and drove to Bald Head Island for a wedding. From BHI, we drove to the Smokey Mountains for a week of vacationing with her parents, siblings, and our nephews and niece.
For me, vacationing has a restless quality. I enjoy many activities, outings, and departures while out on the road. It’s the downtime that I have difficulty with. I always feel like I should be doing something. Last Friday, while staring at the random patterns on the hotel ceiling, tired from a first venture to the island, I felt compelled to write in a Moleskine notebook. I wrote down the things I saw, the ideas I had, and the images that came to mind.
In a college poetry writing class, I learned of the importance of keeping an Aleph List. This imagery bank provides a jumping off point for when one actually sits down to right poetry or, in my case, lyrics for music. In this way, using images creates a “show don’t tell” aspect to lyrics that I crave. In a more personal sense, an Aleph List from a vacation can create a compelling alternative to a photo album or home movie.
A few days later, as the entries in my Aleph List grew, as did the experiences and memories from the trip, I began dumping my favorite images into my lyric notebook. Sometimes the images re-appeared as-is. Sometimes they were altered. Sometimes new ones were created from their reimagining. The images began to change. They took on meter and rhyme. “Oh, crap,” I thought. This vacation is turning into a writing trip.
I just happened to have a guitar, a mandolin, and a four-track recorder in my bag. I had intended to get caught up on recording my long overdue podcast. The lyrics inspired music, which inspired more lyrics.
Something about Joni’s guitar playing during the Hejira period inspired me to totally de-tune my guitar. As I approached each set of lyrics, I opted to transmogrify the pitch of the guitar for each song. Aside from making sure to catalog what I had tuned each song to, I have know idea how some of the tunings emerged. I recall a few that absolutely make no sense, but somehow, still work for the song. For me, that’s what being creative is all about.
As the days rolled on, so did the completed, demoed three-track recordings of new songs. I used only three tracks, starting with a main guitar track, then adding a vocal, then adding supporting mandolin. The result has been, for lack of a better term, quite interesting.
I am still trying to comprehend the prolific week. It has been a struggle to write with any degree of authenticity in the past year. Out of 22 or so new songs, I had only championed two or three. The others aren’t bad, but they certainly had been written before, certainly by me.
The Return of Spring is about 75% complete. I wonder if these new writings merit a new and separate recording. The chief proponent of working on these new songs is that they resemble a coherent work that comes from a singular source. The Return of Spring, while a grand undertaking in and of itself, is more or less a “best of” collection of unreleased songs. “Hey, Angel” didn’t fit the scope of Gravity Affects Me. “Two Shadows” was left over from the Candelabra Sessions. “Nightmares” was left off of The Lessons of Autumn because it was too lyrically similar to “October.” I have to wonder if the odds and sods quality of Spring is what’s holding back it’s completion.
The obvious drawback to working on these is that it obfuscates my already long laundry list of recordings-to-make. This isn’t at all what I want right now. Although, I have to wonder if maybe this is what I need.
In recent days, I’ve been told by very different people how much they like the song “November.” Unsolicited compliments like that have to make me wonder if I’m receiving a sign. These new songs all resemble “November” in that they are de-tuned, finger picked, generally pensive, and ineluctably dark.
I’ve been told that I’m a conscious person. I feel things intensely, and, sometimes before they happen. That old saying from Star Wars, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” is something I’ve grown to trust. I wonder if the outpouring of creativity last week was actually a grand distraction from what was really going on at home while I was away.
My relationship with fear has greatly improved over the past year. On one hand, I am completely able to accept the fact that all fear exists within the mind. It’s not real, but imagined stress. Most of that imagined stress is the focal point of mere possibilities, which are also not real. Improbabilities are not impossibilities. On a long enough time line, even the most improbable of events will occur absolutely.
That fear of mine, that while I’m out of town, my water heater will crack and drip water onto my studio floor, slowly building to a flow, slowly building to an uncontrollable gush, seems to have been an irrational fear. Sure, it could happen, but what are the odds?
Apparently, the odds were precisely 349 to 1. And, my number was up.
The wave of shock that came over me on Thursday night was immediately quelled by a wave of gratitude. I have neighbors that were thoughtful enough to call me and tell me that water was pouring out of the side of my house. Also, they were willing to let me walk them through the worst-case-scenario procedure I had outlined.
In the frenzy, it was difficult to discern exactly how bad the situation was. Sure, water was spilling out of the side of my house, but exactly what did that mean? Thankfully, I knew it meant either: a) my house was completely flooded, or b) that water had pooled under my water heater and that the catch pan and piping I installed last August was doing it’s job. Fate chose “b.”
All of the experts I had consulted had said that a catch pan would offset 90% of the damage of a serious water-heater failure. They were right. Aside from an exorbitant water bill, the cost of a few sheets of drywall, and a box fan, the cost of the damage was minimal.
Upon leaving Tennessee, I had one song that was unfinished, needing only a second verse. This experience helped round out the trip well. I got my second verse. I got a lot more than I bargained for. I left Greensboro last week with no intensions or expectations. What I got was a new collection of songs and the experience of having faced my greatest fear.
Perhaps the best way for me to express my gratitude is to share these writings with those who would care to listen. Or, perhaps just being grateful is enough.