My new investment strategy.

In the not-too-distant past – say five years ago – I was an ardent investor. I read lots of books on the subject, bought and sold quite a few stocks, lost money, made money, lost money, all in the misguided hope of getting rich someday. I say misguided because if you had asked me back then why I wanted to be rich, I would have answered with some drivel about not having to worry about money anymore. Well, not having to worry about money – or anything else, really – is not a good reason to be alive. Worse, money is like subtraction soup, in that the more you have, the more you want. And for what? To count? To buy baubles? To eat fancy meals?

Yet there I sat day after day, scrutinizing schwab.com, my portfolio tracker on Quicken, Yahoo Finance message boards, the Wall Street Journal. I even subscribed to an investment newsletter (still do, two actually!). I read them all and I discussed their content and implications on stocks with anyone who could put up with me. I made bold predictions and I put my money where my mouth was. I was obsessed. But again, if you had asked me why, I could not have answered in a satisfactory way, because deep down, while I might have had a reason, it was not a good one. Actually, let me rephrase that: it’s not that my reason wasn’t good, it’s that it was only half a reason. Here’s why: I told my myself I didn’t want to have to worry about money anymore, but that was it; I couldn’t answer, “Then what?”

And then I fell and hit my head.

As I recovered, I started to look at the world differently and several of my obsessions faded, including investing. I think the reason is that the accident separated me from my everyday life and let me observe it from the sidelines. As such, I was much more objective in my judgment of my values, and I did not like what I saw. I was spending all my doing things that brought me no joy. What to do instead? I had no clue. But one day, maybe three or four months after the accident, I started watching a DVD of Tom Petty that my friend Toby had given me. When it was over, I headed out for a cup of coffee and on the way back home, I was feeling incredibly sorry for myself when suddenly a lyric idea popped into my head. When I got back home I was fueled up with caffeine and Petty and that lyric, and so I picked up my Steinberger and hummed “too many demons and too few saints”. A chord progression materialized (Petty MIGHT have had something to do with it), then more lyrics, then more chords and before I knew it I had a roughed out tune. Here's the final version:

It took awhile, but I finally realized that I had something new to invest in. Songs. And nowadays, while I still check stocks daily (okay, multiple times per hour, while the markets are open), and I still read my investment newsletters and even an occasional book, my new obsession is songs. And when I get ahead by a few bucks (rare these days), I plough the money into making music. If this investment doesn’t pay-off in dollars, it will be my second biggest investing loss, eclipsed only by the money I have sunk into private placement securities (over $75K, poof, gone, just like that, although someday, one or more might pay out, someday…). But here’s the great part: whether I get my money back or not, it will represent my biggest gain ever. Because writing songs gives me one thing investing never has: joy.

Oh, and here's the final version of Demons and Saints:



A fellow musical traveller takes wing.

As I've trundled along with my album project, I've kept a reasonably vigilant eye out there for others also trying to realize a musical dream. I've perused countless MySpace pages, blogs, web sites, tweets, and Facebook fan pages, but most of the people who've caught my eye have failed to catch my ear. Yup, most suck. I hate to say that, but it's true (and plenty of people think I suck too, I am sure).

Anyway, one person who has held my attention is Kim Vermillion Boekbinder. I can't remember how I came across her blog, but into my Googe Reader it went and there it has stayed. Over the past year, maybe a little longer, I've read her posts, as she wrote about her music and her life, and the few musical things she posted were always pretty cool. Well, today, she's posted something REALLY cool, a preview track from her first album, which is called The Impossible Girl. Give it a listen, if you have a moment, you won't be disappointed.

 

Hanging up my scrubs.

Today was the last day of my hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). For those who don’t know what HBOT is – and why would you? – it’s pretty simple. You lie inside a big glass tube, which is filled with pressurized pure oxygen. The theory is that the pure, pressurized oxygen environment pushes more oxygen into your cells, where it helps them regenerate and otherwise run smoothly. Obviously, I had high hopes that post-HBOT I would be as good as new, with all of my remaining cerebellar cells functioning flawlessly and augmented by lots of new ones. My dizziness would be gone. Weird nerve issues a thing of the past. No twitchiness.

No such luck.

But I do think it helped. Mainly, I notice that my stamina is a little better. Now, if I work for a few days or go into the recording studio for several hours, I am not a headache-ridden, twitchy, slightly nauseated mess afterwards. I still don’t feel my normal, robust 53%-self, mind you, but I can at least be productive without being overly destructive.

The best part about HBOT? To pass all that time, I watched every last episode of the original Star Trek series. I’ve seen them all numerous times before – when I was a kid, Star Trek was My Show – but it was, as Spock would say, fascinating to see them one right after the other. The overall themes just SHOUT at you – reason wins, human beings need to be creative, emotions are the most human of our qualities, race doesn’t mean a thing, women can work right alongside men, hate gets you nowhere, love gets you everywhere. All these years later, we can still learn a lot from Trek.



If first you don't succeed, revise, revise, revise.

Yesterday, I posted about Thursday’s studio session, during which vocalist Josh Fix pointed out that Borderline Love, the song we were working on, felt like two songs crammed together. He was right. And though I felt waves of frustration, anger and hopelessness as Josh explained why the song was failing, all of my emotions were directed at myself. I KNEW going into the session that the song wasn’t quite right. Knew it. But it took Josh’s not-so-nuanced takedown of the song to make me finally accept reality.

After writing a note to my friend Dave Tutin, who is the co-writer of the tune, and explaining what was going on, I waited with a little apprehension to hear back. As is so often the case, all my apprehension was for naught. Dave’s attitude could be pretty much summed in the phrase I trust you. How great is that?

So, fears put to rest, I have set about reworking the song in time for a session coming up this Thursday with drummer Andy Korn (who has been my go-to drummer for almost every song I’ve recorded because he is simply the most musical drummer I have ever worked with). To get myself into a proper writing mood, I used to pour a small glass of scotch and take it into the living room, where I can sit comfortably on the couch and look out over the lights of the San Franciso Bay. But I’ve given up scotch and cut way back on my other favorite libation, wine, so for the last two nights, I just poured myself a glass of Hetch Hetchy’s finest and knocked back a few slugs as I noodled on the guitar. And I think I have a fix (couldn’t resist) for the song.

Today, I’ll put my solution to the test by creating a rough demo. Wish me luck!

Separating the baby from the bathwater. (Ah, the joys of recording.)

Studio C at Hyde Street is probably not what you would imagine a pro recording studio to be. There are no black leather couches, no assistants asking if you would like anything to drink, no platters of cold cuts to nibble on. The equipment, while all top end, does not scream, “I’m expensive, don’t touch me, don’t even look at me.” The carpet is stained.

And yesterday, several hours into a song called Borderline Love, I’m pretty sure Hyde Street’s relaxed vibe went a long way toward saving me from having a brain aneurysm. Here’s what happened.

We were about ¾ of the way through the song when vocalist Josh Fix, who was laying down harmonies, entered the control room for some listenbacks. I was sprawled on the couch, Jaime Durr was at the board. Jaime pressed “play”. We all were all listening intently as the song rolled and as the second guitar solo commenced after the middle 8 Josh waved his hands and said, “Whoa! What the hell?” At first, I thought he was simply blown away by the solo -- which, honestly, he kinda was – but then he pointed out how that the song’s structure was, um, deconstructing. I tensed up. I mean, I could feel my jaw clench, my lips lose all expression, my lower back spasm slightly, heat. Worse than all this, though, was that I knew deep down that Josh was right. I had fooled myself into thinking that the song’s structure was innovative and different, when in fact, I knew it was a mess.

Worst of all, the true source of my resistance to Josh’s insight emanated from my Lazy Gene. Yup, I just did not want to have to do the hard yards of fixing the song, which would mean, at the very least, rerecording it. I had waltzed into yesterday’s session confident that putting harmonies on Borderline Love would be a fast, easy process. Sure, deep down there was a gnawing feeling that the song needed more work, but I was doing a very fine job of keeping my unease comfortable.

Then things got really bad. Josh pointed out that the second guitar solo probably had to go. NO. I LOVE THAT SOLO. IT’S MY BABY (even though I’m not playing it). I resolved to simply lop off the last verse and pre-chorus and just redo the song with the end chorus coming out of the precious solo and I said as much. Josh agreed. Woo hoo! So I left Hyde Street, feeling certain that while the day had been hard, the song could be saved – solo and all! Back home, though, reality set in. The music in the solo just did not transition well to the chorus. The solo would have to be thrown out. Have to.

And so it will be.

I think.

Fact is, Borderline Love is a song I co-wrote with Dave Tutin, so I can’t just change it on the fly. I have an email into Dave outlining the issues and I think he will agree with me. Stay tuned.



Finishing.

The photo to the left is of the last few hundred feet of my run. I like to finish up along the water, running on the sand, possibly humming a little Vangelis. I’m not a strong finisher, though. No, right as I enter this last segment of my run my mind starts going over all the good excuses for stopping a touch early:

“You’ve done the bulk of the run,” it intones.
“What difference would it make in the long run to stop now?”
“Bored.”

But when I ignore my mind and make it to the end of the bleachers, which I mostly do, I am always glad for it. To stop short never leaves me with a good feeling. Ever.

I’m keeping this simple fact foremost in my thoughts as I near the finish line for my album. This is the month, I am at the metaphorical “last hundred feet” of the process and all I have to do is push on for a few more moments.

Just a few more sessions.
Some I’s and T’s to cross.
A couple of decisions about the design of the cover art.

I. Will. Finish.



How do the world’s great songwriters write songs?

I can’t remember where I first read about Paul Zollo’s book, Songwriters on Songwriting, but wherever it was, I was instantly intrigued and downloaded it to my Kindle. I started reading. The book is a simple collection of richly complex interviews with the likes of Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty, Madonna and many, many other songwriters, a lot of whom I’d never heard of. I thought the book would be a quick read, but after several weeks of near daily reading, I was still at it, with many more interviews to go. Chalk it up to a quirk of the Kindle: you truly cannot judge a Kindle book by its cover or by its size, as these are not at all immediately apparent. (I suppose you could look at the page count, but that didn’t occur to me!) Anyway, deep into the book, I decided I had to have the hard copy, so I could flip back through to the most interesting bits easily, a hard task on a Kindle. When my paperback edition arrived, I was stunned at its bulk. This is a BIG BOOK. But its big size is dwarfed by its massive content. Never before have I felt so informed by a book on songwriting. Never.

So, what’s the answer? How do the world’s greatest songwriters do it? As with so many of life’s finest pursuits, there is no set path. But there are commonalities among the various ways to go. And here they are (obviously, this list is not definitive, merely my takeaway from Zollo’s peerless interviews).

1)    Be receptive. All this notion means is to keep your antenna up, so when those song ideas float by or bubble up from within, you capture them.

2)    Be disciplined. Songwriting is art, to be sure, but it is also craft, and you get better at it the more you do it. Some folks in Zollo’s book write every day for several hours, others work more sporadically, but all of the work a LOT.

3)    Be fearless. Sounds corny, I know, but all this idea means is to TRY stuff. Got a weird lyric that somehow feels like a real direction? Go for it. Got a chord that defies music theory but sounds good to you, go for it. Got a melody or a rhythm that feels strange, but right. Go for it. You have nothing to loose and everything to gain.

4)    Be respectful of the greats. Sure, you want to march to your own beat, but don’t ignore those who have gone before you. After all, how will you know whether you’re onto something new if you have no clue about the old?

5)    Be relentless. Many songwriters in the book talk of songs that took them YEARS to write, so if a song is proving to be a tough nut to crack, but you think it’s worth cracking, keep at it.

6)    Be selfish. All I mean by this observation is put yourself before others as you work. Because if you’re not happy with your output, does it really matter if others are?

The agony of defeat.

Over the past few days, I’ve been working on a freelance ad job and today was the Big Presentation. Sadly, I just heard that the idea my art director partner and I came up with did not prevail. When I first heard the news, I wasn’t that affected, but within minutes the Disease of Defeat spread through me. I felt a little sweaty, on edge, anxious, and then came the requisite flood of self doubt: I suck, I’ll never do anything great, I suck, why do I bother, I suck, and so on.

Now, losing a creative shootout hasn’t happened to me in a long, long time -- most likely because I haven’t been working much! – so why should today’s news get to me so? I should be able to tell myself, “Well, can’t win ‘em all,” but I do want to win them all. Always have, always will.

At least the idea that did win was good. I first saw it yesterday, and I remember thinking at first that it sucked. But I took a closer look and, I admit, it was cool. And I’m sure it was even cooler today, given the polish it received into the night.

Obviously, I wonder if I hadn’t had to leave early several times becasue of headaches, dizziness and excess twitchiness, would I have come up with something better? Would I have pushed harder at the internal meetings? Who knows? Probably. But the days of working 10, 12, 14 hours are behind me, I just can’t do it anymore. Maybe someday, but certainly not someday soon. I'm lucky to make it to six hours.

Here’s the question, though: why doesn’t this Disease of Defeat course through me after a song of mine gets rejected? I mean, for the most part, when I have received rejection notices, I have brushed them off easily, knowing I didn’t write a treacly ballad sung by a whiney vocalist who sounds like a parody of American Idol performances! But with ads, it’s different. I look back on my creations and suddenly see all their flaws, all the ways they suck, how wrong I was, what a fool I was to ever think the idea was a good one.

And that’s what I’m doing today. I know tomorrow will be better, and by Saturday I will struggle to remember what I was so upset about, but right now, I’m wallowing in self-pity. And will be for the next several hours.



Creating creativity.

I was just reading a new post on Creativity Unbound -- a GREAT blog, by the way – about creating creativity. Specifically, the post is about “Thomas Vogel, an Emerson College professor currently on sabbatical to research and write a book on” creativity. According to the post, Vogel will look at three things:

1. Techniques for identifying creative talent.

2. Whether a culture or environment can encourage creativity.

3. How to evaluate creative ideas.

I will want to read the book and I wish Mr. Vogel well in his endeavor, but I wonder if he isn’t chasing a chimera. I, for one, don’t believe there is any definitive way to reliably be creative. And if there is, it’s competition. I come from the ad world, so I base this observation on creative departments I have known, but I can comfortably say that the more competitive the group the better the outcome. Once some creative ideas had sprouted into being, then a more collaborative environment was good, because the talent of the full group could be brought to bear on the ideas showing the most promise. But to get those raw seeds of brilliance discord was better than concord. I wish this weren’t so, I truly do, but its truth has been demonstrated too many times. Especially in music.

Whenever I read that a new album just “came together”, that everyone involved was on the same page and ideas just flowed, I can be pretty sure it’s going to suck. Whereas the difficult albums (Axl Rose’s Chinese Democracy being a notable exception) are the great ones. Competition doesn’t always have to be ugly, either. Think back on the Stones and Beatles. They weren’t slinging mud at each other, but they sure as hell were trying to outdo each other. Even within the bands there was competition. Lennon vs. McCartney, Jagger vs. Richards. These guys weren’t all loveydovey. They were hell bent on being the best. Now consider a band that used to be competitive but is less so today, Metallica. I watched “Some Kind of Monster” with utter dismay, knowing that a creative process in which everyone has an equal voice is sure to result in mush.

No, the truth great creativity only happens when the individuals involved feel something is at stake and want to win and are willing to fight like hell (civilly, of course) to prevail.

More to come one this, but right now I gotta go be creative!

Stasis kills.

Mornings aren’t what they used to be. Granted, I have never been one to bound out of bed humming Ride of the Valkyries and charge forth upon the day with verve and gusto, but at least my first thought wasn’t, “Yup, still dizzy.”

So in my woe-is-I state this morning, I sat down at my computer to read whatever, and noticed a post in my reader titled “Lean forward.” It was on a site called Please Feed the Animals, which bills itself as “a blog for the recently unemployed advertising professional”.

The post tells the tale of a whitewater rafting trip almost gone wrong. The author, Erik Proulx, recounts how a boat he and some friends were in got hung up on a rock and he panicked and hopped out of the boat to stand on the rock. The rushing water drowned out all voices, so as he stood there wondering what to do, the cries of the guide and other rafters to get back in the boat did not make it to his ears. Finally, he finally figured out what the guide wanted him to do: GET BACK IN THE BOAT AND LEAN FORWARD. It was counterintuitive, to say the least, as there were big, jagged rocks straight ahead, but get back in the boat and lean forward Proulx did, and all ended in beer-soaked revelry (Erik doesn’t write this last bit, but I figure it’s a safe bet).

The moral of Erik’s story, of course, is that stasis is deadly. You just can’t stand still, you have to do something, and often that something is the very thing you least want to do. My situation is not as desperate as Erik’s was. I mean, I’m not facing imminent death if I don’t move forward. But I have been feeling that sense of being frozen, a damned-if-I-do-damned-if-I-don’t sensation. Recording is a typical scenario: if I book the session and head off to the studio, I will most likely feel more bad on return. Plus, the session won’t be fun, in that I don’t’ get to really rock out and all; instead, I sit on the studio’s couch and rally toward the mixing board only when necessary. However, if I don’t book the session, I can avoid all the discomfort, but obviously make no progress whatsoever on my album. Sigh. 

So, to quote Townes Van Zandt, recording, for all of its miseries, is still “easier than just a-waitin' 'round to die”, which is why starting today, I am re-motivating myself to finish my album. I have already sent out a few emails, and after sending out a few more, I will have put the wheels in motion to finish my very first album, which has been a dream of mine ever since I first heard The Beatles Second Album way back in the very early 70s.

Lean forward, indeed.

For a better way to record demos, I went back to the future.

One of favorite lines in all of lyric-dom is “Look out, Honey, ‘cause I’m using technology”, penned by the mighty Iggy Pop for a song called Search and Destroy (which, by the way, is one of the most potent doses of music ever administered to the general public). I love the line because it’s just so damn true. I mean, if you’re using technology – especially back in the dark ages of the 70s – you’re serious about your task. Plus, the line sings with sneering brilliance.

But, like everything else, technology is usually best in moderation and more is never better in the short term (what I mean here is, imagine you’ve built a nuclear power plant but you have to keep adding technology to it to get it to work right, not cool). Why is all this on my mind? Because I think I have started to overuse technology a bit in my demo making progress. Specifically, I have become obsessed with guitar amp simulators. I own Amplitube 2 and Ampeg SVX, both by software plug-ins by IK Multimedia, and I’ve recently been eying Softube Vintage Amp Room and Digidesign Eleven Rack (not a plug-in).

The appeal of these things is that they let me re-create the sound of virtually any amplifier ever made without getting evicted. Neat. But they are not perfect, not by a long shot. First, they don’t measure up to the real thing; they are thinner, less dynamic, less complex, less musical. More important, they can bring even a modern computer to a halt, as they ask so much of the processor. I can’t count the times I’ve had to stop recording and make some adjustments, in order to give my poor processor some relief. In the case of Amplitube 2, processor problems have gotten so bad, the plug-in has become unusable. Eleven Rack solves the processor problem by having its own speedy chip, but tone-wise, it’s a far cry from the real thing once you put it into a mix, which is unacceptable, given how much it costs. So what to do?

SansAmp (see above!).

I bought my first SansAmp right when they came out. I was living in Germany, and I’m pretty sure I had the thing shipped to me. To this day, it is a very cool sounding product. And simple. Yet mine has been sitting unused in a drawer for years, well over a decade, in fact. No more! I got my SansAmp out the other day, and I plan on making it my go-to guitar thingy for demo purposes. Sure, the siren song of amp simulators will probably remain strong, but I will resist! And for the record, I’m still using technology. Just better technology.

Of Wine and Song.

After posting about the greatness of Gallo’s 1997 Estate Cabernet, I got thinking a little more about wine. Specifically, I got to thinking about the similarities between making great wine and writing a great song. Both seem to arise from duress. Truly, when you read about wine being made, you read of the stress the vines were under, the bout of bad weather that led to some sort of glorious transformation, the desperate reach of the roots into the soil, which is often rocky and dry, how the best vines are the old ones, gnarled and twisted, stunted from season after season of being pruned. You read of the grapes being crushed and then of how the juice is confined and isolated in small barrels for sometimes years. Now think about songs: like great wine, the good ones come from a hard place. Sure, there are exceptions to this rule, songs that burst forth on a tide of joy. And I love these songs and would love to write more happy songs and to write them quickly and well. But such is not my lot. No, my good songs are written after fights, after accidents, after the feeling of having lost something. They are written overlooking a foggy bay, or black waters at night, or under clouds and in wind. And yet, like wine, songs are something I would not want to live without. And I think the main reason is this: they both represent triumph over adversity. Equally important, they admit that adversity is a necessity, but that it can be embraced --filtered, fined, picked and written – into the greatest of all human achievements: art.

Off-topic: how Gallo helped free me from the shackles of wine branding.

We are all victims of a brand-oriented culture. We almost always judge a book by its cover, and while brands help us filter and choose and overcome the despair of infinity that today’s plethora of product creates, sometimes we pass up something that could be truly great because it either is not a brand we know of, or it is but we perceive it to be not something we want to spend our hard earned money on.

In my opinion – and speaking from experience – the wine market is one of the most brand-oriented on the planet. And by brand I mean everything from the maker, to the varietal, to the vintage, to the origin, to the price, to the seal (screw cap or cork). If any one of these things isn’t up to snuff, the true wine snob turns up his nose before ever deigning to sniff or, god forbid, sip.

I was once a true wine snob. I read the Wine Spectator and The Wine Advocate. I also subscribed to Burghound. For me, the only word worth a damn was the word of these so-called experts.

Over the years, many events have served to mellow my wine snobbery, with the most dramatic being my brain injury. I can’t explain it, but after whacking my cerebellum in 2006, I simply stopped caring about wine. I still drink it, I still enjoy it, I’m still picky, but I don’t read about wine anymore, and when I buy it, I either get it from my friend Toby’s winery (which is a GREAT winery, by the way!) or I ask the guy who runs a wine store near me and who has grown to know my tastes.

But perhaps my brain injury is not the sole reason for my emancipation from wine brands. Maybe Gallo is up there, too. Let me tell you why:

Last night, for Valentine’s Day, I opened a special bottle of wine. If you’re a wine snob, you will no doubt first scoff at the label. “Gallo!” you splutter. “Where does this guy live? De Moines?” I get it. No way, no how could Gallo, of Hearty Burgundy yore, ever make a wine worthy of a truly special occasion, unless that occasion were drinking before going out drinking. Wrong.

In Ernest and Julio’s waning years, the duo decided that jug wine was not an appropriate legacy. So they took advantage of their being one of the largest landowners in Sonoma and set to planting grapes. But this was just the beginning. They also bought the earth moving equipment used to build the Alaska pipeline and used it to shape the contours of their land in order to create microclimates matched to varietals. They also invented (I think it was Gallo) a new kind of press, as the existing “technology” was designed to squeeze all the juice out of the grapes, and E&J wanted only the best juice for their legacy. The wines were first marketed under the name Earnest & Julio Gallo Signature (pretty sure about this but not 100%), then the name was changed to Gallo of Sonoma Estate. Despite glorious reviews, the wines were a complete flop, and to my knowledge, were not produced after 1997. Folks just couldn’t get past the brand, especially for a retail price north of $60.

I tried my first bottle of these wines, a 1996 cabernet, on a trip to Canada with Catherine. As I perused the wine list, I saw the name Gallo and mused to myself that I might like to try a bottle. I knew a bit about how the wines were made, because I had worked on pitching the Gallo account at my first ad agency gig, and the story was compelling, to say the least. But, c’mon, we were on vacation and the Canadian dollar was cheap. I wanted to splurge, dammit. Then I saw the price. Sixty bux, CANADIAN. I had to try the Gallo. The wine steward didn’t laugh, he fetched the wine, opened it, poured, I sniffed, a sip and HOLY S—T! (That’s a very technical wine phrase.) I asked the wine steward whether anyone else had ordered the stuff. He sighed and said no. He had three bottles, now two, and couldn’t sell ‘em to a drunk.

After that fateful night, I kept an eye out for the wine, smug in my knowledge that it was an amazing deal, and fully intending to buy more, but no one carried it. I came across a few bottles in Virginia Beach, of all places, bought them, and came across a few more elsewhere, bought them, too. Over the years, Catherine and I have drunk almost all of my small stash. The 1996 went first, and I confess, the last bottle had not aged very well. Last night I opened the very last of my Gallo cabernet, a 1997, and it was incredible. Truly, one of the greatest wines I have ever had. Catherine and I drank every last drop.

And while I am still in thrall to numerous brands, I know I should not be. I mean, what else am I missing? What other Earnest and Julio Gallo cabernets are out there? Hmmm… something to think about over a glass of wine.

My first video, but not of me.

It seems like eons ago since this was "filmed". According to the date on the clip, it was shot on Saturday, January 12, 2008 at 4:22 AM, which is clearly wrong, because I haven't been up till 4:00 AM since my accident. But I do think 2008 is the right year...

Anyway, a little background: when I finally decided to do an album, I knew I would need a lot of help and my friend Toby was the perfect guy to turn to. He's a great singer and guitarist and has always been one of the most talented songwriters on the planet. Toby wouldn't accept any money for his efforts, so I decided to foot the bill for recording an EP of his. We produced it together and the result is called Inconsolable (download it here, it's am amazing album). The track in the video, My Psychiatrist, is on the EP, so you can hear it here in ragged glory or via the link in just plain old glory.

Oh, and here is a track of mine that Toby sings:

Is that a finish line or just the horizon?

I cannot believe the date when I look at it. February 12, 2010? Can’t be. But it is, which means it has been over four years since I fell and smooshed a part of my brain, and only a few months less than that since I started writing songs. My memory is not what it once was (which isn’t saying much!), but I remember pretty clearly thinking I’d be done with my little album project by early 2008. In fact, I still remember that first recording session, when I visited David Hearst’s home studio in mid-2008 with something like eight songs. The plan was to record drums and bass for all of them over a weekend, then slap on some guitars and vocals and – presto! -- an album! Didn’t work out that way. I’m not complaining, really, but, man… it’s February 2010?

It is.

And if I’m right (never a good bet), I should have my first album recorded, mixed and mastered by the end of March. Here’s where the songs stand:

Demons & Saints – needs mastering
Yo Yo – needs mastering
Love & Hate – needs mastering
I Got Drunk – needs mastering
Borderline Love – needs harmony vocals, mixing, mastering
43@22– needs harmony vocals, mixing, mastering
Money, Money, Money – need to replace my lame guitar with Tim’s smokin’ guitar, also need to mix and master
Happiness – needs lead vocal, mixing, mastering
Talking – minor edits, needs mastering
Indecision – needs harmony vocals, mixing, mastering
Here Comes the Weather – needs mastering

You’ll notice the song count goes to 11. Pleased about that.

Stay tuned.

Unfinished music.

In the novel Housekeeping, by Marilyn Robinson, a book that holds some of the greatest English prose ever written, there is a passage that describes the layers of water that make up a mountain lake: there is the groundwater, the water in the lake itself and then the water aloft that rises and dissipates high above the mountains that ring the lake.

I thought of this passage the other afternoon, when I was out walking by the Bay. There had been rain, and as I looked out on the seawater, the fog above and the clouds higher, I mused that the suspended water was like my songs, a thing in-between, transient, unresolved, uncertain.

I cannot put into words how desperately I want to finish/record all the songs I have written and started writing. Sadly, the finish line seems to be something I can only ever get halfway closer to. I was SURE I would be finished with at least one collection of songs by now, but I had to cut the last recording session short for health reasons, and so I am still ever so close, but ever so far.

Argh… this has happened to me so many times and I confess I am tired of it. But, onward, right?  And in time, my dissipated, unformed, mist-like music will coalesce into something solid, possibly even something vinyl.

Why Philz coffee is like rock and roll.

Every morning, these days, I head to my hyperbaric oxygen treatments (HBOT) and then afterwards, I head over to the nearby Philz.

For those who have not been to Philz -- ye of spiritual desolation -- it is a chain of coffee shops in San Francisco and it serves the best coffee I have ever had. Why? Because it’s just like rock and roll: the ingredients are simple, anybody can create it if they care enough, and it’s still great after a zillion times.

What’s the magic ingredient? Love. Just as every rock song of note was recorded by people who deeply loved what they were doing, so is every cup of Philz brewed by people who love making coffee. Go ahead. Sip a Starbucks, then head over to Philz. At first, you might be a little overwhelmed, as you will be forced to pick your brew from as many as 19 different beans. To ease your mind, the Philz staff will actually talk to you about what you like (something no rock band will do, I admit!), then your cup will be made individually. And just as a great rock band transforms simple elements into something transcendent, so does a cup of Philz, taking water, beans and a little technique to something way beyond any brew you have ever had.

Go to Philz. And rock out!

Getting passed: More thoughts on running.

I’ve been a runner since my teens. Not a serious one – I’ve never done a marathon or a half marathon or even a 10K – but I’m reasonably dedicated. Why do I like running? Two reasons: it helps my health and it helps me think, and it’s that latter reason that is the more important of the two. What do I hate about running? Getting passed.

Before my accident, I almost never got passed, and when I did, I stopped thinking about whatever it was I was thinking about and sped up, passed the bastard who passed me, then kept going hard until I was far enough ahead that I could turn onto a side street and, more often than not, stop and heave heavy breaths for a good long time. Stupid, I know. After my accident, I was just glad to be out there running, and if someone passed me – even a girl, god forbid – I would remind myself that I had a brain injury, dammit. 

But lately, getting passed has started to irk me again, only it’s not for the reasons you might think. Honestly, it doesn’t bother me that I’m a bit slower than I used to be. As I’ve made clear, I have a brain injury and it’s a pretty solid excuse, I think. No, what bothers me is that those runners passing me by have become metaphors for life passing me by. Some are career opportunities, some are simple, feel-good situations free of dizziness, some are just plain old what-ifs that are no longer what-ifs for me. It’s upsetting.

But I’m not going to stop running. It remains one of my favorite and best times to think. And now when someone passes me, as though I am walking, I no longer snap out of my running reverie and transform into some sort of competitive crackpot. Instead, I try to count my blessings: I remind myself that I could be so much worse off, given the nature of my injury; I remind myself that I am loved and in love; I remind myself that I am writing songs again after years of not writing a single one; I remind myself that I have grown closer to my parents, that I got my Les Paul back, that I live in beautiful city — and most important of all, I remind myself that life is still very much worth living. And then I speed up, just a little.

Reflections on “It Might Get Loud.”

Last night, I watched "It Might Get Loud". To look at the DVD cover, you might think the documentary is a paean to Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White, but the true subject and star of the film is a powered plank with six strings.

Watching the movie I felt vindicated. All my life, the electric guitar has been the one instrument that has truly inspired me. Violins, pianos, cellos, trumpets, they’re all fine, but I never stare at them in wonder. I never dream of them. I never hold them and imagine entire worlds unfolding, refolding and unfolding again.

If you rent "It Might Get Loud" to see three legends rock out, you will be disappointed. The magic is not in the notes, but in the words, for when the movie soars – as it often does – you are not listening to someone play, you are listening to someone talk. And as each player describes the electric guitar and the role it has played in his life, you hear stories of first purchases, of custom creations, of sound and feel. I was enthralled. Here finally is the electric guitar being venerated the way it should be, up there with respectable instruments like violins and pianos. And what of acoustic guitars? Hardly a word, though each player plays one in the movie. No, as cameras float over pick-ups, knobs, switches and chipped, cracked finishes and the voice over speaks in tones of wonder, the object of desire is the electric guitar.

When I first wanted to learn an instrument, I’m pretty sure I wanted to learn the electric guitar. But I was expected to show interest in a “real” instrument before I could get in touch with my inner rock star, and so, I learned the accordion. Then, dues partially paid, I was allowed to start with the guitar. Not an electric, mind you, an acoustic. I lost interest. Nothing against the acoustic guitar, but I have just never been as enamored of acoustics the way I am of electrics. Also, why should the acoustic be the more respectable instrument, the one “real” musicians play? I’ll tell you why: culture. When I was a kid, the electric guitar was more of a novelty than an instrument, and the people who played them more performers than musicians. Thankfully, culture is changing. And "It Might Get Loud" is a positively glowing ember of evidence that the old view has burned down.

Long live the electric guitar.

Interlude: a song revisited after more than 20 years.

Everyone on the planet who pursues a creative path for love or money has a trove of old ideas. Some are unfinished, some are crying out to be rescued and revised, some are better left behind for good.

Back in 1987, I wrote a song with my friend Jeff Tuttle that I have been wanting to revisit ever since. We originally recorded it in our garage/studio in San Francisco, with me playing all the instruments and supplying my trademark, over-busy drum programming, and Jeff doing the singing, along with a co-worker of his. Truth be told, the original version has a lot of charm for Jeff and me, because of the memories it brings back. But I always wished the playing were better, the drums real and the lyrics a little more polished (we wrote them after smoking a bit of pot, a rare thing for both of us, and the words suffered for it)

Jeff and I have stayed best of friends over the years, and every now and then, usually after a glass or four of wine, we’d muse on digging up “that old tune”, which was aptly titled “Indecision”. Well, just the other day, Jeff was in town and he stayed with Catherine and me over the weekend, giving us ample time to finally act on our musical musings. Instead of going into Hyde Street Studios, we kept things casual and used a yoga studio for recording new vocals. I’d already worked with Tim Young and Andy Korn on re-doing the rhythm tracks, so all Jeff had to do was belt out the latest lyrics. We’re both English majors, so the lyrics got one more pass, but I am happy to report that after more than two decades, an old idea finally got it’s due.

The session, however, was not without a requisite recording freak-out.  Jeff and I had just arrived at the yoga studio and gotten set up, when I plugged in my fancy new microphone. I hit record and… nothing. I had purchased the mic on ebay, so I was worried I’d been had – to the tune of $450! Angry and worried, I plugged in my old Teac mic for test purposes and it worked fine. But my Teac doesn’t have a wind-screen, so it’s not good for vocals. ARGH. I decided to drive home to get my trusty Shure SM-57. Man, I was so peeved and very, very depressed (the week prior had been especially rough). Back home, I read the owner’s manual for my new mic and learned it needed a certain kind of power supply. I called Guitar Center to ask if they had one in stock and the guy on the phone, sounding a little confused, asked me about my gear. I explained I had an MBox 2 Pro, to which he replied, “Just press the 48V switch on the front and you’re good to go, dude.” He was right.

I’ll post both versions of the song when the new one is fully mixed. Stay tuned!

PS - I'll finish for For love or money series soon.