Being sick is fun. I take it as a sign to slow down, stop what I am doing. Rest.
My brain has been on overload too fast too much, not enough getting done, never enough getting done. So here I am, in my bed, writing on a laptop.
Music has been coming along though. It’s funny how it always takes a bit of chopping and reworking, no matter how long you do it. As I get more experience with recording music I realize that it is a good thing to be hyper critical of the end product.
Working out some songs here… I like this one, it’s a keeper. Maybe not in this form. But again, the vocals + cello thing is beginning to mesh pretty well. It is more of a challenge for me personally to not add any other instrumentation, which is part of why I am doing it!
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It has been a long busy and good week for me. And yet, I have not shared much music. I like the beginnings of this song, and especially I like the way that just cello and voice is going to work on the just cello and voice album I’ll be releasing this year.
Last second I know, but tomorrow night I shall be playing a little cello ambient music for Kate’s art opening in Sacramento.
Practicing tonight, working it out. Here is a short sampling of what might happen… Here I am playing the cello (with my hands) and the beatbox (with my feet).
Some of you may have noticed that over on the page for “Midnight Door” I am now allowing you to listen to the whole album. Yay! Enjoy!! Let me know how you feel about this. I always love feedback.
Also, I imported into this site my blog that was used for traveling the states a couple years back. What that means is just that in the archives are all kinds of writings that I had previously kept separate from this site. I don’t really see the point though, of keeping this site “impersonal”. I have tried to to some extent, but, be forewarned: I no longer really care whether it is my persona or not, if it is cool, or not, et cetera. If you like the music, that is all that really matters.
I can always label my posts “personalisms” and then you’ll know. Yeah.
So on that note, March is here and the daffodils are cautiously blooming. My brother Nate came to visit this weekend which was rad. He is so great to hang out with, and he got me out of the house. I really love the rapport we have together, all us brothers.
My life has felt busy but also fulfilling lately. It has been difficult to get much recording done, as our small little one bedroom apartment is currently in painting frenzy mode, as Kate is getting ready for a show which opens this weekend. That is fine by me though. It can be good to lay off, let the ideas sort of settle, and then go again, in terms of writing.
Also, a sort of revelation today… was listening to A Very Serious Conversation today and there was a discussion of the state of the recording industry these days. In short, they talked about how major labels are screwed, no news there, but what strikes me about it is two things, both sort of tunnel vision so forgive that…
1. Major labels are not “Bad” per se, and in some ways it is sad that the industry is so desperately affected right now. It means less rock ‘n roll, no matter which way you look at it. Now, whether that rock and roll is crappy, commercial, fake, overblown, horrid, et cetera, is certainly debatable… but what it means for the sphere of music is that less people strive for a music career, which is sad, and that less money will be put into (this has already happened) promising artists. If any.
2. I personally am going to take this revelation to focus a lot less, if at all, on the ultimate goal of “getting signed”. I’ve always had this resolution in the back of my mind, and have legitimately embraced my independence. For better or for worse. But, honestly, if the goal is to simply play and share music with as many people as possible, to give something to the world, without the faux and ill disguised intention of “getting signed”, I personally will be a lot better off.
Yes, obviously, I want to, and plan on making a living from music. And I would certainly hope that I am continuously as blessed and lucky as I have been to be able to write songs, play with people, record, make my own albums. It is a joy that completes me. But this doesn’t really change anything in that sense… in fact it makes me more likely to get on with it and do it!
Really, am I not better off accepting the obvious, which is that I’m on my own in terms of promotion and marketing? And that, in being in that state, that I have freedom to make it whatever I so choose?
I really love and appreciate everybody that has supported me in this. You know, every so often I get a comment about the music that I make that makes me feel so honored and fulfilled. Last night Kat played some songs on KVMR… and its like… thank you. What more do I want? This is it. I want… I should say I would like for this music to echo about, and maybe give people the (life saving) meaning that music has given me in my life.
OK, this is ranty… but you get the point. Onward. More music. Less phony ideals.
This version of Porcelain Backdrop (track 8 off of ‘Midnight Door’) is really only slightly different than the version that made it onto the album. I have to admit that the difference is very subtle. You see I had grown slightly weary of… not of the sound… but of *relying* on the dual vocals thing that I blatantly borrowed from Elliott Smith.
When Elliott Smith recorded ‘Either/Or’ and other albums, he often doubled up on his vocals… ie., he recorded the same vocals singing the same words and notes twice. For me what it did is made hushed vocals louder and more present. It also accentuates rather than avoids the very natural inclination that humans have to being not perfectly “in tune”. When the two slightly imperfect vocals cross paths, they create a very human sound, since, when two real human beings sing together, they tend to be slightly “out of tune”, and thus, they sound HUMAN. (I rant because so much music that you hear is not really people’s voices, but computer “fixed” vocals).
When I record cello for other people’s projects, I like to double up, and record two versions of the same melodies to be played at once, so that the sound of my less than computer cellos adds up to a human sounding orchestral type of thing.
So I got addicted to doing the same thing with vocals. Which is what you’ll find on the original version of Porcelain Backrop off the album. But I almost released it with only one vocal, so that you could hear the sort of rawness of the lyrics, against the very deluxe backdrop of sound.
Porcelain Backdrop was named so because… well, it kind of just stuck. I did however, record that song after returning home from my epic road trip. I was trying to write a song, which is something I never do, I usually say: “I’m inspired… NOW is the time to write a song”…. and I wanted to write about how grateful I was for finding
1. answers to some of the more simple problems facing me regarding moroseness (“I think that I can see through… the shortening of the days”),
and
2. a person who really wanted to share with me in the experience of living in the way that Kate did on our road trip. (“you saved my boat from sinking… you made my nights complete”)
Without further ado, Porcelain Backdrop as never heard before with one vocal track instead of dueling:
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Remember: Porcelain Backdrop Live
Also: Listen to the album version
Dear Nevada City,
Last night I was out in your wilds and down at the old Chief Crazy Horse bar. Casual Fog was playing and the room was full of young people, and old people, the bartenders were frantically busy. It was an electric night.
It reminded me so much of the first night I spent here, New Year’s Eve a couple years back, when we stumbled accidentally into Cooper’s to watch the Rolling Stones cover band. That night was so invigorating. Kate and I were so new to everything, the world, apartments, a town, a home, all seemed so far away but necessary. In Cooper’s that night the scene was crowded with people, so young and together and excited about music that it felt like it could have been a scene from any big city in the United States, not some little tiny town up in the Sierra Foothills. It swayed us to move here, we were within throwing distance of San Francisco, Sacramento was there if we needed it. We could continue our road trip somehow with a stop along the way, in the last destination our road trip had taken us: Nevada City.
We stopped in Nevada City in the first place because it was on the way to Auburn, where Kate would settle for a couple of weeks at her parent’s house in time for Thanksgiving. Most campsites had long since closed for the season, and we just saw on the map National Forest campsites along the North Fork of the Yuba River, which meant: open to camp. We spent one night there on the Yuba, and then drove down into Nevada City. I remember reading about the town as we had always done on the trip from our guidebook. It said a lot about how many bookstores there were. How charming the town was. How it was a haven for bohemian artists and poets from the 60’s.
We found it to be pleasant in November. It felt like an island in the trees. I could sense the rest of California around it, which made me happy. We had coffee from the Mekka, walked around the little streets. We got some groceries and went to spend our last night of the trip camping on the shores of the reservoir up Hwy. 20.
That was a sad night. All the moves we knew so well, gathering wood, preparing dinner out in the chilly open air on the campstove. Snuggling up in the back of the truck, getting up to the crisp morning.
We moved here to Nevada City because of that New Year’s Eve. We had been looking for a place to live for a month, unable to pull the trigger on going anywhere it seemed… San Francisco was too expensive and too big. Portland too familiar. Mendocino we had done, and it was the smallness of that place that made us leave in the first place.
Luck made us find a charming little apartment on Deer Creek. Bohemian and old, dirty and cold, but charming all the same. It would be our art studio/recording studio. We would have all kinds of friends our age, they would stop by to visit us since we were right in town. We would find jobs and walk across the bridge to them.
It was so hard though. I spent four months unemployed. How I survived I don’t know. It was depressing. And then I did get a crummy job waiting tables at a mediocre restaurant in town. I couldn’t even eat the greasy food, the tips weren’t that great. There was nothing glamorous about it. Not fine dining, not historical, just a place.
And I didn’t really meet people. We made a few good friends, but there was no getting in with the kids in this town. If you were a stranger here, you were just an outsider. You were mistaken to be here or you were somehow taking advantage of it by existing here. We’d go to a couple parties when Cody would invite us, but all we ever got asked is how we came to be here. From there it didn’t really matter. We weren’t from here.
I finished my album. I met another couple of really good friends, and got a new job at the extremely shoddy local paper. Things could have gone so well. I was ready to make podcasts and write stories and do great design. But any new voices couldn’t be heard at that paper. The “entertainment editor” was severely out of touch with reality, extremely uninspired, and closed off to the real music scene that was happening here. Such a sad waste of talent that place. Kate found a job at the cool hip gallery in town, but it quickly dissolved because of some very strange lack of communication. I hadn’t heard from the guy I had framed photographs for for months… out of the blue he just didn’t call. I still haven’t heard from him. All the promise of this town would go up the roller coaster, and then swoop down terribly.
I coped by taking long drives into the mountains. I missed Mendocino (and still do) terribly. We may not have had many friends, but at least they weren’t even there, anywhere to be found. In Nevada City there were so many people we could know, but the roller coaster always swooped back down.
Things rolled here and there. I recorded with some of the amazing musicians in this town. Truly there is real artistry coming out of this place, be it an after effect of the previous generation, the bonding of small town shared stories, the air, the river, the trees, I don’t know, but it is unique, thoughtful, intelligent, anti cool, refreshing. I know that it is because I play an instrument that is in demand, but that’s fine, I loved the opportunity to create with people.
Aaron Ross and Cody Coyote are so amazingly dear to me. Aaron is the most talented songwriter I have known personally, Cody is sweet, cool, and has such an amazing voice. Alela was kind and courteous for her recording session, Mariee a sweetheart and so modest. Joanna Newsom dancing to the Moore Brothers on a random Saturday night at Cooper’s. Dana kept calling me for recording sessions, hopefully he still will! Dan Elkin, so driven, talented, and passionate. David Torch a humble, incredible person. Jonathan Hischke, truly gifted, Neil Morgan, a person who I felt great affinity for in only 30 minutes of conversation. In other words… such an incredible group of people!
I was able to finish my album here. And when I did, Eric Dickerson helped me really cull it down, and inspired me in the process. I wanted to play. And I have, a little. I got a new job. Things feel better now.
And yet, last night, I just wanted you to know that I am so enamored with you, but feel that I will never truly know you Nevada City. Casual Fog encompasses everything I love about the town, a band of not just really talented people, but a group of some of the nicest people you’ll meet. I want it all to shine, I want something magical to come of this place, but dammit I want to be a part of it somehow. I want to FEEL like I belong.
There are so many blessings, I got to meet, thanks to Laura Brown, Gary Snyder! A life long dream. Just to meet him. And one day I’m up at his table in the house he built while he pours me coffee he brewed. Amazing.
There just is no permanence here. I don’t know what I’m missing. But I either want it all to come together in a hurry or I’ve got to get out. I feel like I’ve been courting you, Nevada City, for two years. And I’m waiting for something to happen, a sign. A glimmer.
I have a good job, I love it in fact. And yet it is not music. I have so many wonderful blessings all around me. I just wanted to write this. A sort of plea for connection. For things to make sense somehow. I want to in writing this snap out of the hazy in between that you’ve held me in. I feel like I’m inside a washing machine, being cleansed, abused, and spun around all at once. I want to either love you or hate you, either way, to take more chances, feel more alive.
So that’s that. I don’t know why exactly I wrote this. I just felt like I needed to. Thank you for everything, thank you for last night, and how beautiful it was. I almost don’t feel like a spectator sometimes in moments like that. People are coming together. They are hopeful and alive. They are creating amazing things. And that’s how it is.
Life moves on. Last weekend I watched Tchaikovsky being played wonderfully by the S.F. Symphony, and it was really inspiring. Sat up in the front row while the conductor grimaced and ohhhed.
February is the longest shortest month. The narcissus are blooming in my kitchen now. Reading Jung. Currently listening to Refused. Cinco the dog lies on the floor patiently. Kate works on paintings.
Here is a rework of the demo song still in demo form, All Right Now.
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Another sketch, this one rough
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This is a track from way back. This is one of my first shows where I used the cello for half my set. I had my beatbox, and was playing at the Medicine Hat, this beautiful underground type spot on NE Alberta St., in Portland. It was a quiet night, like a Wednesday or so, but I remember that several of my friends were there. We probably ate at the Vita Cafe. I know that I had left my cello pickup back at my apartment on SE Hawthorne, and was frantic to make it all happen for this show.
So it was the beginnings of making the cello and beats thing work. This recording was done nicely by the sound engineer. Its an old song too, one off of “Still Dream” I believe.
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More sketch action.
Trying to shake out the old beatbox.
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More songs that are warming up.
This one is about
the storm
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Last night’s show at Hot Rod Ink in Newcastle, CA, was amazing.
So many good people turned out to check out the newly hung art, and Alice Ann welcomed all to her tattoo shop warmly. The atmosphere was excited, and everyone was into the music as well.
Here is an excerpt from my live performance that night, playing cello and beats.
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Interesting show tonight, another art opening, this one though, not in a salon but a tattoo parlor.
It actually sounds really awesome to me, and I’m looking forward to it a lot. Cody Coyote will be playing, and I’ll be doing my cello beat mashup madness.
It starts at 6pm in Newcastle, and I’ll do some recording for those who can’t be there…
I finally found myself a decent mic, actually two, to begin work on my new albums.
This one I got in the mail yesterday I am very happy with. Simple to set up, a Blue USB mic (Snowball) and no hum, which is the bane of my digital recording existence.
I kind of love this mic. I sat down to test the sound out last night and just sort of spewed and man, without any special setup, and without a whole lot of adjustments, recording vocals and guitar at the same time it produced an exceptionally clean and full sound.
So that plus another mic and I am good to go beginning recording.
This is a song that I improvised last night. I like to just let words roll and try and not repeat myself and sound cliche. I know that all of it makes 100% sense… but some lines surprise me and I’ll save them, re-write them. Its so much more honest, these lyrics are, for me than sitting down and straining over what clever lines to put.
I said I didn’t have to tweak the sound at all, but of course I did, I added reverb. I am addicted to reverb and I know.
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I’m “writing” songs so much lately… well, not the craft of writing right now, but sketching them out and jotting down ideas at a rapid clip. Its a good way to clear out your mind and influences before recording, which I will start in earnest soon.
My ideas for the next (not kidding) 4 albums, to be released in 2008 are:
Solo cello and voice
Solo guitar or piano and voice
Instrumental Electronica with Cello/other sounds
Fully orchestrated cello, beats, guitar, voices, synths et cetera
All could be started now. And if I had more time, all could be finished in 2 months. But you know, must get money, endless quest, et cetera.
Anyways, here is a sketch:
It was crazy. It ruled. You were there? No? Well just listen to this then.
PS – Sorry about the sound quality.
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so now you don’t even have to work to get my new music posts… feeds are at:
You can paste that link into iTunes: go to advanced, click on “Subscribe To Podcast…” and paste that link above. And from there you will get all the new music I post here. Brilliant.
Will be in other spots on the interweb as well. Thank You.
such as:
My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-0d73c6a0495535b73e13f8a4601429b3}
