Transference

The new Spoon record, like all the Spoon records, is phenomenal. I brought home the LP, and then listened to it beginning to end with the lyric sheet in front of me. Like I used to when I was a teenager and my records would come in the mail from Dischord in D.C.



I think Britt Daniel has been watching "In Treatment." That makes two of us writing songs about it. That is just my guess.

Everyone who believes in the devil

is the devil. Why? Because the universe is composed of stories, not atoms. Because the universe is made of music, not matter.

Because there is a song in here, always.

For Broken Things, Raise Your Hand

With more free time on my hands, I've been writing new songs, but maybe not at the rate I once did when my hands were full.

The paradox is there -- when your time is precious, you use it well. When it's abundant, you laze on the beach. Last week I was so sick, with 6 days of fever -- I had hoped to write my very own "Cowgirl in the Sand." An unconscious masterwork brought on by a feverish, delusional state. This didn't happen, but when I got better, I did formulate two songs.

One is inspired by Leonard Cohen, the master of imperfection. When he sings that he couldn't help his greatness, that "he was born with a golden voice," it makes most people smile or laugh. Because it is true: his cracked, nearly tuneless voice is a gift. He just had the courage to recognize it and share it with the rest of us. And like all great art, his work is not everyone's cup of tea. Wasn't even mine till a few weeks ago.

I love finding new icons to add to my worship pile. Welcome aboard dear Mr. Cohen, I am a believer.

I call this new song "Don't Retouch Me" and it's for you, Leonard Cohen. Maybe I'll mail it to you one day. Gotta find a stamp.

E

Everything is singing. The whole universe is wobbling, warbling some kind of tune. Now more than ever what is required is that we each sing in our own peculiar way. In or out of tune. Tiny molecules all of us. In or out of tune.


No more auto tune!!!!!!

Fambly - take three

This was filmed on a lark, down in the basement of the Blue Star Arts Complex. Odie is running the camera.

Fambly - take two

Just before the new year my old friend and dial a song collaborator Wilton James came back to my town to visit. I was working on a recording with Joe Reyes one cold night in that nonspace between Xmas and new years eve when Wilton came over semi- unannounced. He had several friends with him and as that I was pretty depressed right then, the introductions, small talk and pleasantries felt like a horrible weight on me. I don't if you've ever felt that way, but at these moments, just paying attention to someone else, in that cursory polite introductory way feels like an asthma attack.

But once Wilton's pals cleared out things really got better. Joe and I had been working on a song called "fambly", a folky bare bones piece inspired by Shirley Jackson's novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It's a truly sad, creepy little book that deals with a family that has been poisoned by the strange, youngest daughter. "Fambly" speaks of this but also tries I hope to get at the beauty and comfort that emanates from family, even a dysfunctional one. The word "Fambly" looks kind of like "shambles" to me, and seems fitting as a title -- encompassing the fragility of family.

So we made this kind of ramshackle song, about the importance, the claustrophobia of family, and Wilton's seemingly boundless positivity started to fill the room and the session. He gave the song a listen, and then helped us capture a drum track. Joe beat on the drums while Wilton played the high hat... something that Joe couldn't do at the same time as play a complicated beat. Wilton has very detail oriented ears, and hears the finest details -- he has the ears of a compulsive producer, an obsessionist. Which I remember was a good compliment to my own chaotic maximizing tendendencies. I do the canvass, he does the details.

So Wilton helped us shape my piano part, and then played all the crazy psychadelic guitar overdubs during a key change at the very end of the song. All in all, he poured his heart into the song, very quickly, and made me laugh quite a bit. An antidote to darkness, I tell you.

You can hear the song here.

Fambly

Yesterday was another worry fraught day at the hospital. Lots of waiting and worrying. The musical moment relevant to this blog came when I went thru the drivethru to pick up coffee for the entire family. Good friend Adrian was with me and I was playing the newest Demitasse recording "fambly" for him. It was loud in the speakers when the barissta all radiant in the winter morning sun kinda leaned into my window and asked what music we were listening to. I told her "demitasse" and gave her the cd and she just beamed. Ah musical gifts. That made my day and hopefully hers.