Why song moments are like sunsets -- but not.

On nights when moisture is mostly in the water and not in the air and the sun is at the right angle, I could look outside the kitchen or living room window and snap the above photo. But I don’t. Because while this scene is common, in that it happens on the majority of evenings, it is also rare in that I so often fail to see it, or if I do see it, I am too busy to grab the camera and the tripod and do the scene justice with proper equipment.

Ideas for good songs are similar. They, too, happen every day, but mostly I miss them.

Of course, unlike a sunset, song ideas cannot simply be captured and remembered forever in under a second, regardless of your equipment, so even if I do notice them, they still, mostly, slip away.

There is another key way that song ideas are unlike sunsets: song ideas can’t be immediately sized up and judged. You have to capture them, cage them, tame them and then observe them for a little while. Then you have to be brutally honest with yourself and ask whether the idea is really any good. In my experience, mostly they are not. For every song I finish and feel good about there are at least 10 I finish and feel bad about. More important, for every song idea I capture and tame, there are probably hundreds I never even bother with.

The toughest thing about song ideas? They could care less about any sort of schedule whatsoever and their appearances are utterly random. Sunsets are much more considerate that way.

My favorite bridges.

Many of my favorite songs are thus because they have a great bridge, or middle 8, which is the term I prefer. And when I write tunes, the middle 8 is often my favorite part to tackle (if I think the song needs one, because not all songs need a middle 8).

So, without further babble, here are the songs that contain my favorite bridges/middle 8s. It’s not a definitive list, I suppose, but after much mulling, it’s at least definitive for me today.

No Reply, The Beatles, Beatles For Sale

Another Girl, The Beatles, Help

You’re Gonna Lose That Girl, The Beatles, Help

Don’t Let Me Down, The Beatles, B-Side to Get Back

Jack and Diane, John Cougar, American Fool

Lola, The Kinks, Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One

I Married Her Just Because She Looks Like You, Lyle Lovett, Lyle Lovett and His Large Band

Cinnamon Girl, Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

American Tune, Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin’ Simon

Stuck in a Moment, U2, All That You Can’t Leave Behind

In a Little While, U2, All That You Can’t Leave Behind

Anyone else out there have some favorite middle 8’s?

So that's why I write songs... (Thank you, Robert Scoble!)

(NOTE: TO WATCH THE VIDEO AND ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO SEE, MOUSE OVER IT AND CLICK ON THE TOP TO GO TO YOUTUBE OR CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO GO TO SCOBLE'S BLOG.)

Recently, I was told that a company for which I write advertising wanted a "purpose driven brand". As is my wont, I scoffed. Then I read the brief and scoffed harder. I asked around the agency, "What the hell is a purpose-driven brand?" No one could answer me very well.

Now, I confess, I can be pretty dense. I'm also very, very cynical toward all-things advertising/marketing, so to this day, I'm still pretty positive that the Great Powers at the agency who wrote the brief and the Great Powers at the client who approved it still don't really know what they mean by "purpose driven" or how to put the notion into practice. But after watching the above video, which I found on Robert Scoble's blog,  I now "get" and agree with the concept.

Most important, the video puts into words and pictures why I work so hard on my songs. I'm not after money (though it would be nice!). I'm after a sense of purpose. When I write an ad, I always try my very hardest to make it great and completely torture myself over every little detail. However, on completion of an ad I'm always a touch ashamed, because I don't think I'm doing anything the world really wants or needs. But a song, well, to me, it's the greatest contribution I can make to the universe.

Deep Salvage emerges and flies off to New York.

Sometime around 4:00 PM PST, the final, final, final, final, final mixes for Deep Salvage took off for New York, where they will be mastered by John Cuniberti. The process should take about a week, and once Mr. Cuniberti has worked his magic, I will be ready to send the tunes off to Oasis Disc Manufacturing, who will manufacture the CD and sleeve (no jewel case for me, I'm going green with an eco-friendly wallet design!). 

Man, what a process this has been. How people ever did this coked up, stoned, drunk and hallucinating on LSD is beyond me!

Of wine, song and the unpredictability of life.

A few days ago, I posted that I was finished with the mixes for Deep Salvage. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was lying. After the “final” mix session, I listened a bit more and heard a few things I wanted to change, as did Dave and Jaime, so all of the songs were put through one more round of changes. The latest mixes arrived in my inbox yesterday, and after downloading them, I put them on my iPod (uncompressed, of course!) and plugged it in to my big stereo. But before I pressed play, I picked a wine to sip while listening.

I chose a Wellington syrah, made by my friend Toby Germano. No other wine could have been a more appropriate choice. Not only is Toby a great winemaker, but he is also one of my best and oldest friends and the singer of the first song on my album (which will be out soon, I promise). As I sipped Toby’s wine and listened to the Deep Salvage tracks, I thought about how long some of life’s journeys truly are and how their destinations can never really be predicted. If you had asked Toby and me back in our teens what we would be doing today, neither one of us would have predicted what is actually taking place. Toby never would have said he would be a winemaker in Sonoma. And I never would have said I’d be making an album (or two). Equally true, if you had asked Dave and me back in 2005 if we’d soon be writing songs and making records together, we would have laughed. I mean, he was in New York, I was in SF and, most important, the topic had simply never come up.

But there I was, sipping Toby’s wine, listening to music I’d helped write with Dave and watching the sun set. Good songs, good drink, good night (even if Crystal Bowersox didn’t win Idol!).

And, yes, the mixes are DONE.

Did the powers that be at American Idol sabotage Lee’s chances?

(SORRY ABOUT THE FORMATTING. SQUARESPACE IS SUCKING TODAY.)

I tuned into American Idol last night with great anticipation (after waiting 30 minutes, so I could skip the commercials, Tivo, I love you!). To my mind, the right two singers were competing, and I was ready for a CONTEST.

Before I go on, let me be clear: there is no comparison between Lee Dewyze and Crystal Bowersox. Lee has a great voice, but he’s not an artist – yet. Crystal, on the other hand, is the ONLY singer I have ever seen on American Idol who can actually sing with soul and originality.

The rules for the night were as follows: 

- for song one, sing a song you’ve already sung this year

- for song two, sing what Idol producer Simon Fuller tells you to sing

- and for song three, sing the song that would be your first single if you win.

The show opened with Lee singing The Boxer. I was bored and bummed. First, in order to fit the song into the show’s format, the arrangement had to be butchered, killing the song’s build. Worse, Lee did his own thing with the melody and proved without a doubt why he’s no Paul Simon.

Next Crystal sang Bobby Me and Bobby McGee, and though she, too, had to mutilate her song’s arrangement, her performance was great.

Lee followed “The Pillow Fighter” with “Everybody Hurts”, by REM. At first I mumbled to Catherine, “Hmmm, inspired choice.” But I quickly ate my words. Lee just does not have Michael Stipe’s low end and as he dipped down in his register he faded to nothing.

Crystal’s second tune was “Red Velvet”, which she belted but seemed disengaged by. And no wonder, it was a lousy song choice for her.

Finally, Lee was up for his last Idol performance and for it he sang U2’s Beautiful Day. As I watched him sing, I sensed a thought bubble above his head stating very simply, “WTF?” WTF indeed.

Crystal could have closed the show with the theme song from Barney and still clobbered Lee, but instead, she sang a gospel-type song that fit her to a tee.

As the roar of the crowd faded, I thought to myself that something seemed fishy. I mean, the song choices for Lee were so bad. Here’s my theory: Idol wanted Crystal to win, because it would allow Simon to leave the show on a true high, the discovery of a real artist, not just a melodious mannequin. Nothing against Lee, he’s good, but Crystal is something special. Hope she takes it all tonight.

Farewell, MySpace.

Way back in the stone age of Web 2.0, MySpace exploded out of nowhere to squash Friendster and become the number one social networking site on the planet. When I first tried it -- probably around 2006, but I honestly don’t remember -- I thought it was a mess. I was stunned that something so, to get technical, shitty could be so revered. I mean, everyone raved about MySpace, even saying that its crappy code was somehow key to its success because it intrigued visitors and forced them to explore. Whatever. For me, it was an easy place to post tunes, so that’s what I did. Then, out of the blue, I went to a conference where Ethan Diamond, founder of bandcamp, spoke and he told everyone how his horrible experience with MySpace had motivated him to start something better. Since that day, I have had a presence on bandcamp and I have never once looked back on MySpace with anything but scorn. However, until just a few hours ago, my MySpace page was still alive, a sad, forgotten thing clinging to existence on nothing more than a diet of web crawlers. To put it out of its misery, I wanted to grab a .44, but that would have been ineffective. Instead of hollow points, I opted for a few well-placed mouse clicks.

Farewell, my MySpace page. I never really knew you. But I’m not sure I care!

Has it really been 50 years?

On Sunday evening, Catherine and I took my parents to dinner to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.

50th.

We chose Contigo for our dining establishment, because I think it truly reflects who my parents are: not too fancy but very discriminating. As with most nights with my folks, the conversation flowed easily, sometimes all four of us on the same topic, sometimes my Dad and me on one thread, while my Mom and Catherine chased another or vice versa. During one of my threads with my Dad, another common event happened, which was his referencing a luminary from the past whom I had never heard of. For this momentous occasion – 50th wedding anniversaries are momentous! – he unveiled a doozy: Claude Shannon, who wrote the mathematical theories that comprise information theory. Naturally, I listened for a bit and then pronounced Shannon’s ideas to have been made irrelevant by the Internet. Um, I was wrong. On getting home I read more about the guy and while most of his ideas are over my head, his theory clearly remains very, very relevant. But back to my folks and the evening. We all had a grand time and I look forward to many, many more get-togethers.

Congratulations Mom and Dad!

Stepping onto wishing ground.

The other day I posted about stepping onto wishing ground, which is a Southern expression to describe a place one has never been to before. For me, this "place" is the hallowed ground on which only people who have made records can stand. The above video shows me taking the final step onto wishing ground, as Jaimeson Durr and I make the last mix tweaks to Deep Salvage. We finished around six on Friday and now all that remains is mastering and pressing, but as I far as I'm concerned, I'm on wishing ground.

Killing ghosts on my way to wishing ground.

Being married to a Southerner has introduced me to a lot of evocative language, but of all of the expressions I’ve learned from Catherine, I would say “wishing ground” is the best. It means a place you have not been before, and come tomorrow, if all goes according to plan, I will be firmly on wishing ground. Not physically, but mentally, as tomorrow is the day I will finish Deep Salvage. And from then on I will stand on the ground of people who have made records. It’s a place I’ve wanted to be since I first heard The Beatles Second Album way back in 1971. I can’ wait.

To prep for my arrival, I’m killing ghosts. All over the web there are vestiges of my various false starts at creating a presence for myself. There’s a reverbnation site, a myspace page, a few dead-end blogs, some URLs I’ve bought but will never use. All have to be laid to rest, except maybe broadjam, jango and thesixtyone. When I’m done, I will have this blog, two bandcamp pages (one for my stuff and one for Deep Salvage) and a PFK on Sonicbids. I might also keep my Facebook page, because it was a major pain in the ass to set up. Besides, no one can find it, including me, so taking it down would hardly make a difference.

Going forward, the only wishing ground structures really up for debate are presences on Amazon and iTunes. As of right now, I plan to be on both through Tunecore, but I confess, I’m not totally convinced I should be. Yes, if I put my music on these sites it increases my chances of someone hearing it and maybe buying it, but if they do buy it, I truly get next to nothing, maybe 2-3% of the total sale. On bandcamp, however, if someone pays a dollar, the whole dollar goes to me (and Dave for Deep Salvage sales). 

Well, I’m not going stress about it now. I’m off to wishing ground.

Am I tortured enough to have my name in lights? (part two of two)

For part one of this post, I started off by mentioning Erik Proulx, who is an advertising copywriter trying make it the world of art. He has a Big Idea. He’s made a movie called Lemondade about adfolk who have had to re-boot their lives after being booted out of adland during the economic meltdown. Now he’s in the process of writing a book on the same subject, only he’s expanded the subject matter to include some non-adfolk, I think, as well as extending the Lemonade film idea to other industries (for example, he’s currently working on Lemonade Detroit).

On Monday of this week, Erik posted about how stressed he is, as the pressures of everyday life mount (kids, mortgage payments, wife, etc.), while his bank account dwindles and his debt rises.  At first I kind of saw myself in Erik’s shoes, as I pursue music after being punted from adland following a severe traumatic brain injury. But in thinking about it more, I’m not in his shoes at all. I’m not choosing between melodies and mortgage payments, lyrics and lullabies, or rhythms and relationships. In fact, I’m not sacrificing much of anything. And this got me to thinking, am I tortured enough to call myself an artist?

In yesterday’s post, I gave a short answer of no. But I hinted at a longer answer that showed more promise in revealing the true depth of my angst. And if you read Genie’s comment, you already know what that longer answer is. Here is part of what she wrote:

“In my case, not creating the art, whether I'm sacrificing or not, leaves me unbelievably cranky and bereft -- as if I'm missing some critical piece of myself.”

That’s it! Truly, if I’m not working on a song or two or three or ten, the ideas bottle up inside me and create pressure. Like Genie, my mood slips into an even worse state than normal, as my levels of tolerance drop to zero, my depressive tendencies get really excited about the opportunities before them, and my coffee consumption rises. It’s a horrible cycle, broken only by taking a long moment to work on music. Best is if I can pick up the Maton, plop on the living room couch and let my mind wander as ships drift by in the bay outside. Next best is writing lyrics in a café. I also get some relief by going for a run and just working out song ideas in my head.

What would I do in if I were in Erik’s shoes, tortured not just because of the art inside me trying to push its way out, but also because of externalities, such as debt and children, holding my art in by constantly forcing me to choose between it and Real Life? I don’t know, but if I had to guess, I would say I would give up on the art  thing and go back to work and raise some money and then pursue the art from a more comfortable place. Years later, I might have some money, and most certainly no art. And then I’d be really tortured.

Erik, you rock! And I hope you make every movie and write every book you can dream up.

Am I tortured enough to have my name in lights? (part one of two)

Yesterday, Erik Proulx posted about how stressed he is as he pursues his art. As I started reading, I thought, wow, I can relate! Like Erik, I am trying to do something with my life besides advertising. For me, it’s music, for Erik it’s making films and writing books (he is the creative force behind Lemonade, a movie about adfolk who have lost their jobs and rebooted their lives by pursuing something different from making ads).

But after finishing the piece, I found I couldn’t actually relate, or more accurately, I couldn’t honestly say that my state of mind is the same as Erik's. Unlike he is, I am not risking much to pursue my art. Erik is married, has kids, a mortgage, increasing debt… and as he chases his dream, his best source of income, from what I can gather, is reimbursement for travel fees. I, on the other hand, do not have a mortgage, do not have a kid and do not have debt of any kind (not counting debts of gratitude). What’s more, my wife is probably The Best Account Person on Earth and holds a high-level job with a big agency and runs a Massive account, the office’s biggest By Far, so our bank account is in ship-shape. Yes, I have brain damage, perpetual lightheadedness, and very little prospect of ever holding a big job again, but these aren’t things I can do much about. I don’t have to choose between music and getting another creative director job. I don’t have to open a mortgage bill and think to myself, “Damn, maybe it’s time to give up on this music thing and go find a job.”

In fact, the more I think about it, I’m not really risking anything by making an album or two, and I wonder, am I tortured enough to do anything of note? Am I sacrificing Anything? The short answer is no. But the longer answer is more promising.

Stay tuned.

Long live rock and roll.

On Sunday, May 16, Ronnie James Dio died. Stomach cancer killed him. Fuck you, stomach cancer.

For those who don’t know Dio, he was an unbelievably great hard rock singer and a primary creative force behind one of my favorite albums of all time, Rainbow’s Long Live Rock and Roll. He was also the lead singer on Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell, another killer album from days gone by.

For me, Dio was everything a hard rock singer should be. He had range, power, pitch and ‘tude. And from everything I’ve read, he was a very, very warm and decent human being. What a loss.

To honor his passing, I’m going to listen to a lot of his music today. Man on the Silver Mountain, LA Connection, Wishing Well and, of course, Long Live Rock and Roll.

As Slash said, "Ronnie died at 7:45 a.m. this morning, but his music will live for eternity." 

The last mile. (Or, nearing the final leg of my journey to making an album.)

Over the course my too-many-yeared advertising career, I have learned about and written about a whole lotta Internet stuff. Go ahead, ask me about MPLS, packets, TCP/IP. You could probably partially stump me on some of the truly esoteric stuff, or if you wanted to go deep and quiz me on just exactly how a teensy piece of silicon can transmit a mighty Led Zeppelin riff from my house to a friend’s, I might draw a blank, but overall, I’ve got more than a little geek cred in my tech terminology talents. 

Anyway, one of the few tech terms stored away in my brain that feel a touch poetic is “the last mile”. Wiki defines it as the “final leg of delivering connectivity from a communications provider to a customer”. Sounds simple, right? Like, oh, this is the easy part, isn’t it? Nope. The last mile is the hardest distance to travel in all of communicationdom. It’s where fast meets slow, optical meets copper, new meets old, neat meets messy. A tangled web, you might say. And exactly what my brain feels like (see photo) as I near the release of my first album with my friend Dave Tutin.

Why all the coalescing confusion, you ask. Sadly, I’m a perfectionist and just as anything can only ever get halfway closer to the speed of light, I can only ever get halfway to perfect. My last mile is forever only half-way there. Still, I am pressing on. Knowing there are flaws, things I would like to change, parts I would like to adjust ever so slightly, I am doing my very best to simply stop very near to Perfect and say, “Finished!”

All that remains to be “perfected” is the harmony arrangement in the chorus of one song. Jaime Durr is tweaking my third thought on this, and if all goes according to plan, he will send over a mix today, and with it, I will be able to send everything off the to mastering service!

The last mile will be traversed at last.

A finished unfinished song...

Last week was nuts, but this week I've had a bit more free time, so I've been going through my lyric folders on Google docs. I have three for my stuff: Finished, Unfinished, Old Versions and Too Dumb To Bother With. As of today, I have gone through my Finished folder (and made a few tweaks!), and one of the 31 lyrics completely escapes my memory. Truly, I cannot recall writing it at all. Weird... Anyway, it will be moving to the Unfinished folder because this mess isn't a song. Yet.

IT'S ALL BEEN SAID

It's all been said
It's all been done
There's nothing you can win
That hasn't been won

You can try
To turn a phrase
Make up a new word 
Or sing your lover's praise

You can whisper
You can scream
You can shout
About your dreams

But put pen to paper
Fingers to strings
Open your mouth
Start hitting things
Build something up 
Tear something down
What you're trying to express
Is as old as sound

But you'll do it anyway
You'll do it till your blue
Because it hasn't been done
Till it's been done by you

Driving Deep Salvage.

This morning, I drove down to Woodside to meet my Dad for breakfast. I took 280, probably the most beautiful 8-lane freeway in the world. Heading south, the mountains on your right hold back the Pacific Ocean and on the left they hold back suburbia. The valley in between, through which 280 runs, is the San Andreas Fault. 

I have driven this stretch of road a thousand times, but today, I saw it anew, as it provided the backdrop to my first ever start-to-end playthrough of Deep Salvage, the album I'm making with Dave Tutin. The songs are not totally 100% mixed yet, but all are just about 99.9% ready, so I figured I'd throw caution to the wind and give the album an ever-so-slightly premature listen.

All in all, I'm pleased. Dave's words are great, the performances are all peerless, my music is solid. I wishwishwish I could just be ecstatic about the result, but even I were to paint the Mona Lisa, I would nitpick, it's just the way I am. However, despite my triathlete level of self criticism, I -- at certain points -- found myself just listening to the songs and tapping my foot and playing my steering wheel drum set and taking in the view.

I hope, down the road, that a lot of people have a similar experience to the record (without the self-criticism part!). 

Deep Salvage will be available in about 2 weeks as a digital download, a little longer for all the Luddites out there (hey, I'm one!) who still like physical media.

Here's to your health! (Obamacare, pt. 2-- what I would have done instead.)

(Obamacare, Pt 1 is here.)

A little while back I posted that I was against Obamacare. I prattled on about its flaws and then promised to offer up what I would have done instead. Initially, I thought this would be easy, I thought I had honed my talking points pretty well, as a result of numerous debates and discussions with all sorts of different folks. Hah! After much thought, I have decided that all of my original ideas were wrong, or at least not necessary yet. What triggered my self-doubt? A blog post on The Next Great Generation, in which the writer talked about how health insurance companies don’t really have to compete, because they are protected from federal anti-trust laws. WHAT? Well, the author was right. So now, armed with this new info, here’s what I REALLY think I would have done if I had been in Obama’s shoes about a year ago.

But before I get into my Plan, let me start by laying out what I believe works in general:

• Free markets governed by clearly written laws with reasonably clear consequences if you break them

• Decentralized power

• Equal rights

Now, against these principals of mine, here is what I think was wrong with health insurance BEFORE Obama.

• No free markets

• Centralized power

• No equal rights

Here’s why I think these conditions existed in health insurance. It all started during WWII (from Wiki):

“Employer-sponsored health insurance plans dramatically expanded as a result of wage controls during World War II. The labor market was tight because of the increased demand for goods and decreased supply of workers during the war. Federally imposed wage and price controls prohibited manufacturers and other employers raising wages high enough to attract sufficient workers. When the War Labor Board declared that fringe benefits, such as sick leave and health insurance, did not count as wages for the purpose of wage controls, employers responded with significantly increased benefits.”

As anyone with any common sense whatsoever knows, price controls distort markets and lead to far more trouble then they solve. To experience firsthand the effect of a price control, place a pot of water on boil, seal it, and open a steam valve. As the room starts to get too steamy, go ahead a put a price-control on steam and watch it magically disappear. When you wake up in the hospital with shrapnel wounds, as yourself if a price control was really the best idea you could have come up with. But I digress…

So there we were, back in the 1940s, enacting price controls and experiencing that nice short-term result -- companies could now attract workers – but setting the stage for catastrophe.

Next we passed the McCarran–Ferguson Act, which, according to Wiki, “exempts the business of insurance from most federal regulation, including federal anti-trust laws to a limited extent.”

Together, these two acts of government (sure, corrupt government, but ALL government is corrupt) created a situation that was not cool.

How these two factors affected free markets:

Wage controls distorted the health insurance market by in two ways: expanding the market for health insurance and hiding its real cost. McCarran-Feingold distorted it further by allowing near monopoly power within states, and encouraging behavior that would be illegal under the nation’s anti-trust laws.

How these two factors created centralized power:

As the majority of Americans sought jobs with big companies providing health insurance, those companies gained tremendous clout and were able to negotiate deals that gave their employees great coverage, at the expense of everyone else. McCarren-Feingold centralized power, by allowing state level monopolies to maintain their monopolies with practices that would be illegal under anti-trust law.

How these two factors affected equal rights:

Unless I work for a company such as IBM or GE – any big company will do – I am a second-class citizen in the health insurance market. I think this is discrimination. As for McCarren-Feingold, it pours biohazard waste all over equal rights, by allowing insurance companies to pick and choose their customers, based on what is going on genetically with people (unless, you are of the anointed and work for a big company).

So, given all of the above, what would I have tried to do if I were Obama?

Well, I would have done the hard work of changing McCarran-Ferguson by writing a new federal law to override it. My federal law would have been simple: states could still regulate their own insurance, but federal anti-trust laws would stand tall, forcing real competition and innovation, not the lip service we see today. (And we KNOW it’s lip service, because health insurance companies don’t really have to compete.)

And that’s it. Following my repeal of anti-trust protection, health insurance companies would beat each other bloody, and I would simply sit on the sidelines for a few years and watch what happens as the distortions of McCarren-Ferguson fade and a clearer picture of the market emerges. THEN, with a clearer view of what health insurance could actually be in a market-driven system, I would either leave it all well enough alone, or seek to pass some new laws to address true problems

Just to remind you, here’s what Obama did: First, he completely ignored a — maybe THE — fundamental flaw of our health insurance system and simply proclaimed that he knew that the system needed to be fixed. (This is akin to being aboard a ship that is taking on water and announcing that the ship MUST be made to sail more efficiently, but without acknowledging the leak.) Then he delegated the responsibility of figuring out how to fix the system to others. Then he exhorted everyone in government that doing something was better than doing nothing. Government complied in spades. And today, we have a multi-thousand page document that “reforms” health insurance.

What a joke.

Obama fixed nothing , in my opinion, and most likely made things way worse. And he did this because he neither understands nor believes in markets, decentralized power or the communal benefits of individual rights. Rather, he believes in central planning, centralized authority and community over individuals.

And I think he’s wrong.

10 tips for cooking up better songs. I think.

There's a blog I follow called Songwright, and recently the author posted a request for readers to contribute 10 tips for songwriters. I love this kind of thing, so here are my ten! (As you read these, please keep in mind that I am a total nobody without a single hit song to his credit.)

BE ABLE TO SING ON KEY
If you’re gong to write songs with melodies, this is critical, I think, yet an amazing number of songwriters cannot do this.

KNOW AT LEAST ONE CHORDAL INSTRUMENT PRETTY WELL
For better or for worse, pop/rock songs tend to be single note melodies set against rhythmic chord progressions, and if you want to write in this genre, you should know how to create those chord progressions. I like the guitar, but piano/keys should do the trick, too.

IF YOU’RE GOING TO WRITE LYRICS, LEARN HOW TO WRITE PROSE
The best book on writing I have ever bought is The Writer’s Art, by James Kilpatrick. It’s not about lyrics, but writing period, and it has helped me immensely over the years. Books on lyrics are probably helpful, but I’ve never found a good one. Rhyming dictionaries are a great idea, especially Rhymezone, which can be accessed from a smart phone or computer.

FORGET THE TAU, YOU WANT THE DAW
Time waits for no one, so anything you can do to accelerate your writing process, do it. Maybe you’re fastest playing into a cassette deck, I dunno, but for me, nothing beats a DAW (digital audio workstation). My fave is Pro Tools 

LEARN FROM THE PEOPLE YOU ADMIRE
If there are songwriters out there you really admire, learn how to play your favorite songs by them. Write down the structures they use (verse, chorus, etc.), borrow, steal (a little bit) and hold your stuff up to theirs. Sure, you might never be able to say your stuff is as good, but does it at least compare on some basic levels. It should.

HAVE A FEW BRUTALLY HONEST CRITICS YOU TRUST

(AND BE WILLING TO MAKE CHANGES BASED ON CRITICISCM)

Unless you only plan to play your songs for you, yourself and you, find a few people whose judgment you trust and play them your stuff. Do it for strangers, even, say at a song-screening. But here’s the most important part: listen to what they say and be prepared to admit that they might be right. Obviously, you need to stay true to yourself, but if others around you are offering good advice, take it.

HAVE A CREATIVE BRIEF FOR EACH SONG

I confess, I’m one of those people for whom a song has to make sense. Not every song, I can listen to works by others that totally mystify me, but for my own compositions, I have to know what they’re about. To do this, once I’ve made some progress on a tune, I clarify and commit to its meaning by completing the sentence “this song is about _________________.” I try fill in the blank as specifically as possible, while keeping my answer to one sentence. In advertising, this sentence would be the Key Message in the creative brief, which is the document given to art directors and copywriters at the beginning of every project. 

KEEP YOUR ANTENNAE UP AT ALL TIMES AND HAVE A WAY OF CAPTURING WHATEVER YOU PICK UP

Ideas for songs can come anytime, anywhere, and you have to be ready. You can’t expect your ideas to come when you have time for them. For me, it’s a Blackberry. I always have mine with me and, since my ideas tend to start as lyrics, it’s perfect. If your ideas are more melodic, a phone is still key, as you can call yourself and leave a singing voicemail.

SING IT IN YOUR HEAD

This last one is a doozey and not one I can always do, but I find it to be hugely helpful. If you can sing your song to yourself – in your head, no instrument – and it sounds pretty good, you’re onto something. If you can’t, you’re probably not finished by a long shot.

LEARN A LITTLE THEORY

You don’t need to be the kind of person who can play an F#mb6, but you should know the basics around the I, IV, IV progression and how to modulate a bit. Not absolutely necessary – but helpful.

READ SONGWRITERS ON SONGWRITING, BY PAUL ZOLLO

The best book on songwriting I have ever read. It’s not a “how to”, just a “how others do” and deeply great. Get yours here.

KILL YOUR BABIES

If you are working on a song and there’s a part of it that you LOVE but know in your heart does not fit, kill it. Hard to do, but oh-so-worth it.

 

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

I’ve written a lot on my blog about my Dad. We spend more time together than my Mom and I do, but I’m lucky in that I consider myself equally close to both my parents. I also think they truly are -- for better or worse! – equally responsible for who I am. And if I am who I think I am – an odd combination of capitalist and artist – my Mom is the one behind my art side.

Growing up, I remember how my Mom was always involved in something artistic. There was knitting, and piano and macramé and gardening. Nowadays, quilting is her passion and has been for a while. (She would never admit it, but her quilts are works of art, masterful plays of patterns and color.) She was also the one who, all through grade school and on through high school and college and the years beyond, critiqued my writing and helped my get better an this most impossible of all arts.

Today, Catherine and I took my Mom and Dad to Flea Street Café for Mother’s Day (see pic!). We’re back home now, and as I look around the living room at my guitars, and camera and lyric sheets and picks and pens and pencils, I have my Mom to thank for it all, for she is the one who made the A in my DNA stand for Art. So, here’s to you, Mom! Thank you for passing on a bit of your artistic talent to me — and for being the best Mom on the planet!



Deep Salvage Volume I is DONE! (almost)

Yesterday evening, while I was out taking a few photos of a not-so-spectacular sunset (the pic of the bird above was better than all sunset snaps), the incomperable Josh Fix was layering up harmonies on Borderline Love. He sent over his final tracks past midnight and... they rock. Next step: Jaime Durr will add them to the mix, then everythign is off to be mastered and Deep Salvage, the album I'm working on with Dave Tutin, will be done.

For a preview of Deep Salvage, click here!