The death of shame, yet another possible reason for my newfound songwriting proclivities.

I think every artist fears sharing his work with others at some point in his career. And why not? People can be cruel, even if they don't mean to be. More important, when you've created something and you show it to others, you want them to like it. A lot.

But you fear they won't.

For years, I was paralyzed by this kind of fear, a fear constantly stoked in the furnace of adland. If you've worked as a creative in an agency, you know what I mean. If not, let me illustrate: as an adland creative you are ONLY AS GOOD AS WHAT YOU DID IN THE LAST NANOSECOND, ASSHOLE. Sorry, that's just how it works. If being treated this way bothers you -- as it did me -- tough shit. Asshole.

Okay, I'm exaggerating, ever so slightly, and truth be told, I worked for great people up until the year just before my head injury, so even though the criticism was relentless, I knew it was just part of the job, and I felt like a valuable team player (you know, like an oarsmen on a Viking combat vessel, with no water, under the blazing sun during the day, exposed to bitter cold in the night, eating turtles on occasion, but mostly salted meat, resorting to canibalism on an as-needed basis).

Anyway, getting back to my original point, as an artist (yes, I know that sounds pretentious) I have always feared sharing my creations with others (makes you wonder why I went into advertising). But post-BONK, I am much changed. If I had to pinpoint the one incident that made this change possible, it was peeing in a cup. Not a cup I was holding, mind you, but a cup Catherine (she really is amazing) was holding, because I could not stand up to pee. I had to roll onto my side to do the deed. Several times a day. For several days. Um, there were also occasions when I MIGHT have thrown up (not while peeing) into a larger cup.

On getting home, I needed sponge baths, I needed to use a cane, I routinely went into spastic fits in public places, I threw up, I started therapy, went on anti-depressants, um... there's more, but you get the idea. Nowadays, I really could care less what others think of me, and it has been a huge relief. In fact, I truly believe I am more creative for it, willing to fail where I wasn't before, willing to look like a complete fool, willing to SING for people (rarely), willing to take more chances.

I'm not sure my new shame-free attitude was quite worth a brain injury, but there are positives, as in more songs.

Possibly the most inspiring musical performance I've ever seen.

http://perezhilton.com/2009-04-12-susan-boyle

Bang your head. Wait, make that my head.

Bang your head. Wait, make that my head.

I heard the other day about some guy who’d had a head injury and had been suffering the effects for years, with little to no hope of improvement (sound familiar?). But one day, he smacked his head good and hard in an accident and, you guessed it, now he’s fine.

This got me to thinking.

What if I simply ran straight into a wall, or asked Catherine to whack me in the head with a frying pan, would I be cured? Sadly, I doubt it. In fact, I think the story I started this post with is an urban legend, because here’s what happens with a TBI (traumatic brain injury).

At the very, very least, some of your brain cells are stunned into silence, kind of like rational economists were when they first heard about Obama’s plan to borrow our way to lower deficits. The stunned cells gradually re-awaken, and within 3 to 6 months, they’re all back on line (unlike U.S. workers). If your accident is a little worse, some brain cells can die, and these do not come back (as we all know from our drinking years). Finally, if you have bleeding on the brain (which I did), the blood kills any cells it comes into contact with. And until some other part of your brain can take over their job, you’re going to miss them.

That last little detail about permanent cell death is especially key for me. Not because some of my cells died, but rather where they died, which was in the cerebellum. Why is cell death in the cerebellum somehow more deathly than elsewhere in the brain? Because the cerebellum is the part of your brain that teaches undamaged parts how to do what the damaged parts did. Tragic, no? One doctor told me it was as though I had killed the teacher (got me to thinking about high school, but I digress).

Long story short, more trauma to my brain is unlikely to cure what ails me. In fact, at this point, nothing will, and I confess, I really struggle with this fact.

Wait, that’s too doom and gloom. Time heals, it truly does, it’s just a three toed sloth in terms of how quickly its benefits can be felt.

But, here's the real point to all this: when you find yourself in a lousy situation healthwise, you will consider trying almost anything to get out of it. So while am not ready to bonk my head again, I have tried various Western meds, acupuncture, yoga, meditation, my BrainPort, and, um, uh, well, there's been other stuff too. And though none of it has cured me, some has helped, and I will continue to try stuff. I'm interested in bio-feedback, cranial sacral therapy, a stem cell injection and whatever else seems to offer the potential to help, without great risk of harm, which pretty much rules out more blunt force trauma. But I am not giving up.

What the T really stands for in TBI.

I know what you're thinkin', you're thinkin' the T stands for traumatic, as in traumatic brain injury. And you're right, sort of. But what does trauma really mean?

From Webster's, trauma means first and foremost:

an injury (as a wound) to living tissue caused by an extrinsic agent (in my case, a tile wall)

And if you're like I used to be, this is probably how you define trauma in the case of TBI. But take a look at the secondary definition:

a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury

Obviously, at the time of my accident, the first definition was definitive, as my head hurt, my neck hurt, I couldn't walk, thought I could fine but kinda couldn't. I had very clearly been bonked by an extrinsic agent.

But over time, the sensation of having been injured faded, and a new sensation took over, nicely described by Webster's secondary definition for trauma. And, I think... I think that this behavioral state is why I've been writing so many songs these past few years. Out of my disorder I am trying to create some order, in the form of verse/chorus/etc. No, my songs are not all about subdural hematomas. But they are about life's disorders, the things that are wrong, the stuff that gnaws and unsettles, as my condition certainly does.

Which brings me to what the T really means. It means tunes, at least in my case. Because tunes seem to be the true result of my brain injury (and vertigo, etc.). They are the blues of my cerebellum.

Why all the sad songs?

I snapped this photo the other day, and somehow it perfectly captures what I tend to write songs about: something sad, something that had its time but most likely won't again, something I'm not even sure I'd want to see come back. And yet...

I think Peter Gabriel expressed my songwriting process best when he wrote "digging in the dirt, to find the places we got hurt."

Of course I'm not alone with my morose muse. So many writers I know of -- whether in music or not -- tend toward the sad stuff. I wonder why.

For me, I think sadness is just the emotion I'm most in touch with, and most certainly it's the one that dominates my thinking. It's my richest creative vein, and it runs though my whole life, or past.

I wish this weren't the case. I wish my memories were dominated by all the good stuff -- there's been plenty -- and I wish the songwriting process was more like diving into a tropical pool than digging in the dirt. Why can't I look forward and write about, say, um, well, hmmmm.... See? I can't even think of anything. Nothing comes to mind.

And so, following a three year period in which mostly good stuff happened -- save for a litte brain injury -- I will have an album chock full of sad songs.

Doesn't make sense.

The ocean and creation.

I live near the sea. And over the last few years, I have often sat on some steps near the water, lyric book in hand, pen at the ready, possibly even a guitar by my side and waited. I've waited for the waters to feed the muse, and with each incoming wave, my hopes rise that the sea will spur a song title or a lyrical line or a melody or chord.

The waves are small where I sit, because my perch is a set of bleachers built into the hill above a bay. But I think these small waves have more to offer than the larger ones out beyond the Golden Gate, the break in the mountains that forms the entrance to the San Francisco Bay. For these are the waves that made it through that Gate, the pushed and survived against against the outflowing current, which is fed by the Delta, which is fed by the American and Sacramento rivers, which are fed by the Sierra Nevada mountains, and flow cold with snowmelt for much of the year.

As the small waves wash over the sand, they bring forth ideas, leave them for a minute on the sand, then replace them with new ones. It is a process of constant renewal. My job, like a lifeguard, is to jump after the ones worth saving, the ones strong enough to have survived the upcurrent journey through the Golden Gate, yet not so far gone that they are breaking -- literally -- as they hit shore.

And I confess, there is something else I do near water's edge. Every now and then, I take my shoes or sandals off, and I walk across the narrow beach and stand ankle deep in the ever-renewing waters. My hope: that somehow, someway, the water will renew me, fill me with health and wash away my vertigo and other discomforts. So far, no luck, but at the least the songs keep coming.

Why I run.

Yesterday evening, I was lamenting my condition (constant vertigo) and feeling somewhat sorry for myself. Or, just, you know, feeling really down. But instead of pouring myself a drink, lighting a cigarette and staring out the window from a darkening room upon the city as the harbor lights flickered on one by one -- which would have been very rock and roll of me -- I went for a run.

I took the route I usually take, and have taken hundreds of times these past few years. It starts out along a busy street, then cuts right, down to the water, and finally brings me home where Van Ness -- one of San Francisco's main thoroughfares -- dead-ends into a pier. There is so much beauty on this route, I never fail to feel a little better after taking it.

As I got underway, the sun was setting, but still well above the horizon and casting a warm orange glow over the streets and buildings. Normally, there is a strong headwind for the first half of this route, since it takes me directly toward the Golden Gate and the into the air currents flowing through the break in the mountains. But last night, the air was mostly still.

After a short bit along North Point Street and a brief jaunt up Van Ness, the route takes a right, heading along the edge of the park above Fort Mason, then a left, still along the park, down into a parking lot bordering a marina. At water's edge, the route is flat and becomes a wide path along the Marina. Here is where my mind starts to settle.

Yesterday, it settled on a song, after first pulling loose from my own private mental swamp, where constant verbiage about all my problems bubbles up endlessly from the murk and all that grows stems from seeds of doubt. The escape was not easy, it never is, but as I felt my stride lengthen, felt the easy wind, felt the surety of the asphalt under my feet, escape I did.

The song, oddly enough, given what I had just NOT done, is called I Got Drunk, and has to do with the kind of evening I would have had, had I poured myself something sturdy. But I wasn't focused on the words, just the arrangement. I needed to get from the second chorus back to the pre chorus, without plodding through yet another verse. I hummed, I visualized my guitar, thought about sounds, and ran. Ahead of me, the Golden Gate Bridge sat suffused in a soft, grainy light cast forth from a large yellow orb hanging nearly over the south tower.

At the end of the Marina Green, my route turns right, taking me back around the green and toward home. Alcatraz is off to my left, ahead is Fort Mason. I was still working on my song as I made the turn, but my mind was starting to drift. Seeing Alcatraz, I always think of the sheer cruelty of the place with its priceless view of the the most free thinking city in the world. Would I have swum for it? Doubtful, but I can see why some did.

Nearing Fort Mason, I am usually a little bored. How the hell do people run for hours? I just do not get it. Even surrounded by so much natural and manmade beauty and shone on by a perfect sunset, I could not help but think, "Enough already." Then I hit The Hill.

It's not long, maybe a 1/4 mile, it's not even that steep, but it is hard. The Hill focuses me again, as I tell myself to just get to the top. Sometimes I continue running past the crest and down to the water again, but last night I stopped at the top. I wanted to just enjoy the view. Behind me, there was the bridge, ahead Aquatic Park with its old sailing ships, tugs, sailboats and bouys, water to the left and The City to the right.

I walked down McDowell Road, as the path is called, and took a few more pictures. The song was no longer on my mind, my vertigo was there but weakened by my better state of mind, I was breathing normally again. I headed toward Ghirardelli and home, thankful I lived where I do, thankful for a lot more than I had been back in my living room.

Three things I really hate about vertigo.

The last time I wasn't dizzy, was January, 2006. For it was near the end of that month that I fell, bonked my head and did something impressively evil to my cerebellum.

The injury was the catalyst for my effort to make an album, and, while I don't want to whine, writing about the injury and its aftermath helps me cope, I think. And right now, I'm a little down and looking for a way to cope. So bring on the nouns and vowels.

The single most difficult aspect of my accident, by far, has been the constancy of the result. I mean, it's amazing, but I am always dizzy. Dizziness the first thing I feel waking up, the last thing I feel going to bed, and in between, it's strong enough that I am always aware of it.

Sadly, there is nothing to be done. No therapy seems to work, no drugs help, even time seems to be ineffective, although, I do confess, I feel better now than I did a few years ago.

Which brings me to the second toughest thing about my accident: there's no finish line, or at least not one I'm aware of. Doctors have said I could feel dizzy for months (ha!), years, decades, they don't know.

The third toughest thing (and after this, I'll shut up), is the unpredictability of my future. I mean, I could be better tomorrow, next year, or never. No amount of hope, or work, or magic will change this, which is really hard for me, since I hate feeling like I have no control over my life.

Regardless, I'm going to pick my sorry butt up off the couch now and go for a run (yes, I can run, which is a little weird, I admit). While on my run, I'm going to try to appreciate that it's a nice sunny day, that I live in a beautiful city, that I'm married to someone amazing, and that the wind will be at my back on my return.

Just why is music free?

As I gear up for worldwide pop superstardom with the pending release of my album, free music is on mind.

Why has such a fate as FREE befallen music? I mean, can you think of any other commercial thing in this world that is anything like music from the standpoint of value? I really tried the other day, and got nowhere. Even poetry still commands a price, though no one buys the stuff.

So what is it about music? Other things can be copied, right? A book? No sweat. A famous painting? Easy. In fact, fine art is an odd one. If you were to put a copy of a famous painting on your wall, and frame it so it looked reasonably authentic and not just like a poster, your friends would think you quite tacky. Put up an honest to god forgery and the police will want to have a word with you. But music? Christ, if you're so lame as to have bought a CD, people just look at you and say, "Dude, I coulda got that for you for free."

Yet music costs more to produce than almost any other art form. Sure, architecture might set you back more than a song, or large scale art, but, damn, music is COSTLY, if you want it to sound good and are incapable of playing everything yourself, as I most assuredly am.

Any ideas anyone? Please share your theories on why music is free, not whether it should be or not, just WHY is it?

I don't to die in a trailer park outside of Phoenix.

I just saw something that shocked me. It shouldn't have, but it did.

For reasons that will have to remain Top Secret for now, I was just walking near SF's Union Square and I thought I would duck into Virgin records for a minutes. But...

VIRGIN IS CLOSING.

Yes, always the last to know, I suppose, but, well, now I do know and I'm bummed. Next to Tower, Virgin is the record store with the most memories for me. I've ben to the one in New York, in Paris, in other cities, and Virgin was always my musical McDonald's, a place where I would feel right at home no matter how far away from ome I actually was.

The SF store was jammed. Of course it was. Everything was marked down. Bins full of CDs and DVDs beckoned, aisles of cut-outs and top sellers screamed silently, "DEALS!," and deal seekers bowed.

I picked up a few CDs, one by Steve Earle, a few others, but then I put them back. I'll order them from Amazon someday.

And I admit it, that knife in Virgin's back? My hand was on it.

So, what is next? iTunes? Perhaps. Lala, more likely. Or something new altogether. More important, though, where will music lovers gather in the future, besides concerts?

No idea.

Thinking about Natasha Richardson.

Last week Natasha Richardson fell, hit her head, suffered a traumatic brain injury and died. Her injury was what's called a subdural hematoma, which means there was bleeding on her brain. And because blood is toxic to brain cells, any bleeding inside the dura, the membrane that surrounds the brain, can kill you. Or leave you unscathed. Or somewhere in between, which is the case for me.

I feel deeply for her friends and family. The shock must be massive. And it will linger, probably for the rest of the lives of everyone who knew her. They will be going along with their daily trials and joys and suddenly, out of nowhere, a memory of her will surface and it will be hard. And it will never get any easier, I don't think.

Some people have asked me over the last several days how Natasha Rishardson's accident has affected me, since I, too, suffered a TBI. I confess, I marvel at my luck. Not only did my TBI not kill me, but it seems to have re-wired my brain ever so slightly, so that I can write songs more easily than before. And I feel a bit low about feeling lucky. I mean, why should I have survived and she died? But such musings are pointless. I do no believe in god, or fate, or any sort of master plan, or that things happen for a reason. As Clint said in Unforgiven, "Deserving's got nothing to do with it."

I send my deepest sympathies to Natasha Rishardson's family and friends. No one should ever have to go through something so awful. And I hope for all them that something good comes out of all this.

In the studio with Josh Fix, vocal volcano. And then a long walk home.

On Tuesday, I was in Hyde Street with Josh Fix and Jaime Durr to work on Yo Yo, which Josh sang the s---t out of. Really, the man has PIPES.

Afterward, I was pretty dizzy and I thought a long walk would do me good. As I was leaving, Josh offered to walk with me.

I'm a lot older than Josh, but as we were walking, I learned that he is far, far older than I am in music years.

He's been on the inside, in the houses of big shot producers, at bars with rock stars, in fancy hotels. In fact, he once got a call from Eddie Van Halen. Yes, that Eddie Van Halen.

He's been courted by labels.

Through it all, he's held true to his own vision, and turned down offers mortals such as myself would have taken in a heartbeat.

Oh, and he occasionally finds time to write scores for, oh, some outfit called Disney.

So, as we walked and Josh talked, I listened. What did I learn? That this business is hard.That success can be in your hands and still not yours. That there are hundreds, even thousands of folks out there with insane talent, insane connections, and insane drive -- all going nowhere.

All of which made me realize anew, that my goal for my album is the right one: Make it the very best I can make it. Everything else is completely out of my control.

• Back on track.

Not too long ago, I posted that my album was on hold. I am now glad to report that it is back on track, thanks to a loan from my very supportive folks (thank you, Mom and Dad!).

If all goes according plan, and I really think it will, the record will be ready in June. I will offer it primarily as a download, but I will also do a small run of physical CDs with nice packaging.

The songs on the record will be, in no particular order (links take you to The Listening Lounge, within this site):

Demons and Saints

43 @ 22

Here Comes the Weather (co-written with Sam Bevan)

Yo Yo (co-written with Tim Young)

Talking

Water Under The Bridge

Happiness

Money

Love & Hate

Borderline Love (co-written with Dave Tutin)

I Got Drunk (I think I will include this, not sure yet)

• I'm pretty Rhizomatic, but is that a good thing?

I just saw a post on musicthinktank about what it means to be rhizomatic, which is defined in the post as something "that extends in all directions and has multiple entryways". In other words, the internet. This concept is relevant to music, because in today's world, the goal seems to be to get your music into as many sites as possible and minimize the barriers to people being able to find and get your music.

Personally, I think I have a very sound plan for being highly rhizomatic, but here's the question: HOW THE HELL WILL I MAKE ANY MONEY?

Pundits say I should play live, and, well, I would, if I could, but health problems dictate otherwise. No, the best path for me would appear to be licensing deals, in which I would license my songs for use in TV/Film, as well to as artists who can't be bothered to write their own smash hits. I'm pursuing this through sonicbids.com, but if anyone out there in blogland has other good ideas, I am all ears. I've heard stuff about Taxi, intriguing, but what about going straight to HBO or something and trying to get a meeting? Or, where are the music buyers, anyone know?

I mean, I'm cool with being rhizomatic, but not if it's a synonym for broke-ass.

• When playing a tune for friends, it's nice to have NICE speakers.

To the left is a photo of a genuine JBL 4300 Series studio monitor, the series that has ruled recording studios for years, starting in the 1970s. I'm not sure of the exact model at left, but it doesn't really matter. All 4300 Series speakers rock. Still do, in fact.

I snapped this photo last night, after dinner had been et and I had cajoled my hosts into listening to a few numbers. I played Here Comes The Weather first, since it's the only track that's finished, and as Toppe Secret's voice emanated forth from these JBL jewels, I felt an oh-so-rare feeling for me when it comes to my music: a touch of pride. For these speakers pulled every nuance of emotion from every note of Sam Bevan's piano and bass, every hit Andy Korn's drums, every electrical signal of Jaime Durr's engineering and every breath of Toppe Secret's voice, and did my song true justice.

So, thank you JBL and thank you Fred, the mad Frenchman who owns the speakers. Oh, and thank you Sam, who made a truly amazing meal for me and Catherine, and set the perfect stage for a song. Or two.

• Digging in the dirt. And facing The Meshing.

Yesterday, I arrived at Hyde Street Studios with about 800 gigs worth of storage on two drives, and the false expectation of being able to get through it all in about four hours.

Yes, I can underestimatimate ever so slightly the time things can take. At the four-hour mark, we'd gotten through about three songs.

As engineer Jaime Durr and I began excavation proceedings, I was worried. First, I'm always nervous that I'm going to play something back and not like it anymore. But beyond that, I was nervous about The Meshing.

The Meshing had to be done for only one song, but it's a song I have the highest hopes for, and I was worried somehow something might not work out. For here is what we had to do: import the drum tracks, which were recorded in a home studio in L.A., import the guitar tracks, which were recorded in another home studio in LA, import the bass and piano tracks, which were recorded in my home studio, and combine them all with a scratch vocal from Hyde Street. Praise the lord for click tracks. Everything synched up nice and easy, and, more important, blossomed into a whole greater than the sum of its parts, which, after all, is what every decent song should do.

After The Meshing, we dug into a few other tracks, creating clean, organized master sessions. Then we tackled a song called I Got Drunk. It was heartbreaking, because, truth be told, I think I might have to start over on the tune, despite Jaime's masterful edits. We'll see. Jaime's going to put some more time into it, and then we'll decide together if we have something worth keeping. Or not.

And so it will go for the next few months, as Jaime and I build clean, finished master session files for each track, adding bits as needed, then mix, master and RELEASE.

I can't wait.

• Housekeeping.

The last few months have been hard. The economy has hit me below the belt, and I'm reeling a bit. Combined with my ever present health problems, let's just say the past few months haven't been filled with nothing but light and hope and optimism.

As a result of all my fretting -- and not on the guitar, ba-dump-bump -- my assorted Pro Tools sessions have become, um, organic. Too organic, growing without fertilizer everywhere I look -- the Drobo drive, my G-RAID, my Glyph drive, my iDisk, my DropBox. It's all starting look like a Madoff investment plan.

So today, I am headed to Hyde Street to work with ace engineer Jaime Durr on combining all the disparate elements into cohesive, coherent, ready-to-rock session files. I've allowed four hours for the task, and with luck, we will finish. More than four hours of this kind of detail-oriented, memory-taxing, concentration-concentrating work is just about the very max I can bear, without risking a counterattack from my addled brain in the form of increased dizziness, headaches and such.

Stay tuned for an update, and, if all goes according to plan, the Official Announcement of my album release date.

• Thinking about Buddy Miller.

Right now, Buddy Miller, the greatest country vocalist and guitarist I know of, is recovering from triple bypass surgery, following chest pains.

This happened nearly a month ago, but I only learned of it today though my friend Cory.

I'm distraught. Obviously, I'm very glad Buddy Miller is recovering, but the event is a cold, hard reminder that none of this is forever.

Buddy, here's to you. I wish you and Julie Miller the very best.

Oh, and the new album you two made, Written In Chalk? Magical.

• Home. Studio.

A recent comment from my friend Dave Tutin got me thinking, as his comments so often do.

He wrote about how today's technology makes recording at home a no-compromise solution, just so long as you're willing to go into a pro studio for mixing and mastering. I couldn't agree more.

But there's a deeper story here, at least for me. Ever since my parents bought me a Fostex four-track back in the late 1970s, I have dreamed of having a real home recording studio. But this was no easy dream. Until pretty darn recently, in fact, recording gear capable of producing pro sound quality was big, heavy, finicky and expensive. And anyone wanting a respectable home studio had to have a dedicated room, or better, a garage or, best of all, something detached.

I did my best. In college, I lugged my Tascam 8-track and accompanying mixer and limited outboard boxes half way across the country and set 'em all up in a closet. After college, the whole mess traveled with me to LA, and played a major decorative role in all four of my apartments during my time in the Paved Desert. Then it was back to SF, where some friends and I stole plywood at night to construct a "studio" in the garage of the house we shared. But when I decided to move to Europe, the recording gear had to stay behind.

For several years, I lived without it: no multitrack, no mixer, no mics, not a thing. When I moved back to the States, I was pent up with unrequirted recording lust, and I promptly purchased an ADAT and a Mackie board, hoping the recording process had finally been radically simplified. It had not. There were still wires everywhere, noise problems, tricky patching operations for routing signals through reverbs and the like. And amp emulation? Forget it. I used a SansAmp, which rocked, to be sure, but it was limited.

Around my ADAT period, I did some copywriting for a young company called Digidesign. They "paid" me with a Session 8 system, the first (I think) computer based recording system for amateurs. It was cool, but buggy and let's face it, computers were not ready for audio recording. So I bought a Roland VS something or other. It was cool... not. Too complex, tricky, frustrating. I gave up. Again. Got rid of everything, tried not to look back.

But I could not live without some multitrack gear. So, given the fact that my SF apartment was way too small for any sort of studio, I started dabbling in Digi stuff again. Despite major improvements, it still wasn't for me. I simply was not willing to invest in the kind of computer Digi required. Then I had my accident, Apple switched to Intel, my songwriting gene reawakened and the stars seemed to align.

Today, I sit before a simple monitor, connected to a laptop, connected to a Digi Mbox 2 Pro, connected to some drives, connected to some speakers. AND THAT'S IT. My entire studio weighs maybe 20 pounds. Incredible.

But here's the best part. After all these years I finally have a no-compromise home studio. Sure, I could get a vocal booth, weird, esoteric outboard gear, fancy cables, a console... but why? To get all that stuff, I just grab my little disk drive and head to the studio.

I feel like a writer with his cabin in Maine and writing room and wood desk, or a painter with his studio in Venice Beach or maybe Barcelona, or even, just ever so slightly, like a rock star who has finally constructed his dream studio outside London.

Or wait, here's what I really feel like: at home.

• From adversity comes melody.

I can't deny it: the economic crisis of late has been good to me.

Not money-wise, of course. In that regard, I'm in the same boat as most everyone else, bailing as fast as I can, yet sinking still.

Music-wise, though, it's a different story. For me, the crisis has created a sense of urgency to get my songs done, urgency that brings focus, energy, ideas. And my acute lack of money? Yup, it's a bummer, to be sure, but from monetary poverty comes creative wealth, and my dire straits on the dollar front have funneled my scattered studio ways into a tightly targeted plan for how to record sans bank account and actually get better results than I was getting before.

Here's what I mean:

Prior to being Bushwhacked on the financial front, I would blithely show up at Hyde Street studios with a decent idea of what I wanted to achieve, but not an exact idea, and weirdly calm about the fact that I was about to spend as much as $1500 for a single day of work.

My how times have changed.

Now, I'm doing as much as I can away from the studio, so that the studio isn't running while I'm picking my nose over a chord change. No, these days, I'm doing my very best to leverage all the killer recording gear in my hands, and in the hands of musicians I know, in order to create and capture the best performance possible with good, clear electrical signals, so that I can bring the tracks into Hyde Street, where they can be polished to a high sheen by ace engineer Jaime Durr.

But who cares about me?

On a more broad note, I'm hopeful that today's bastard of an economic climate actually inspires better art, as people are forced to do more with less, focus their thinking, do something meaningful. I think back on the 60s, when I was just a little kid, and, wow, the music... good times just don't offer the same muse. And the end of the 80s? Too cool, with Nirvana, Pearl Jam and ol' Neil putting out grand music. The last five years? Not so much.

So, here's to adversity. You force me, against my TV-watching-booze-drinking-late-sleeping inner self, to do something good. Maybe even great.

Stay tuned.

And remember: The Listening Lounge Is Open! (I'm plugging it because I'm worried that taking my songs off of the front page of this blog will alienate people!)