Persistence, Patience and Personal Integrity

All the year-end news stories are about what has been big this year, what "blew up." So many things that no one could have imagined a year ago and no one will remember a year from now. But these are the things that have made conversation this year, so they are temporarily news. 

I am reminded of how many conversations I've had with fellow musicians and business people about how we can "blow up." We want to figure out how to become the topic of converstion, to catch the wave of a current trend or maybe start a new one. 

But I am struck by the temporary nature of it. If we are trendy, what will we do 5 or 10 years from now? I feel the desire to slow down and to find what I believe in strongly enough to fight for it through thick and thin. What is there in myself that is uniquely me? What is true about my art and my personality? What will I keep doing whether it is fashionable or not? 

I must seek these parts of myself. The parts that are true, that are strong, that are unshakable. I must be patient, persistent and true to myself. 

Limitless Creativity

I often wonder about where creativity comes from. Why does it come so naturally to some, especially children, and not to others. Is it a skill? Is it a gift from some unknown being? Even defining creativity is a challenge. Is a painter more creative than a scientist? A musician more than a politician? Every line of work requires dealing with unforeseen situations and coming up with brand new solutions. That is the very definition of creativity: making something that was not there before. 

Mystery. A deep, bottomless well. If creativity comes from within us; if we know the boundaries, then we can be certain that it is limited. That it will run out someday, perhaps soon, perhaps a long time from now. But if we acknowledge the mystery of creativity, if we are humble about its origins, if we do not claim to know where it comes from or how, then it is boundless. It is a product of the universe. It is limitless. 

Simple Man

Yesterday we spent the day at the beautiful Blast House Studios in Madison mixing the new record "Simple Man". Here is the cover. Eleven songs in their purest form. No trickery, synthesizers, just a man, a guitar, a harmonica and some words. Stripped down to the essence of song. You can listen to two tracks from the album with the little player at the top of the page. "Simple Man" and "Dakota" are available. The whole album will be released on December 10th.

Recording, Day 5

DAY 5: It has been vocals vocals vocals. The hardest (and most fun) part is getting into the right character for each different song. During "Highwaysong" I was dancing and shuffling around, being goofy and lighthearted. Then during "Letters" I almost started crying because of the loss in the song. For "Straight Up Crooked" I imagined myself with boots, a cowboy hat and a six-shooter. It is so strange to hear the songs becoming reality. Out of my head and into the world.

Recording, Day 4

DAY 4: Back to work today recording Simple Man. More vocals today. I sang as much as I could, which ended up being three songs worth. My voice started to give out a bit while trying to sing "Simple Man". So we stopped the singing and switched to harmonica. We had to do a fair bit of futzing to get it to sound good. We tried a few different microphones and ended up with a (clean) sock over the mic. After our work today, we are approaching half done. Have to cut out early to go play a gig with Ida tonight.

Recording, Day 3

I can't believe it has been a week since I last worked on the Simple Man recording. I had a busy weekend playing for the Rock Your Cause benefit with Bello. And I've been playing catch-up with some other composing, producing and recording projects. But I couldn't be happier to be back working on Simple Man. Today was a super-productive day. We recorded guitar for the remaining 8 songs, stopping only to tune and settle on the new tempo. It went pretty quickly. We were feeling so good that, after a break for lunch, we took a stab at some vocals. We got good results for two songs, but a third was horrible. We'll have to come back to that one on another day. Now, as the gigging weekend approaches, I worry that it will be a few days until I get another chance to record. Fingers crossed.

Recording, Day 2

Today was a day of rehearsing and going over the lyrics with a fine toothed comb. I got out all of my old lyric sheets, written with pens, pencils, crayons and markers on various things: in notebooks, on loose sheets, sideways in the margins of other papers. I had to make sure I am 100% on every lyric of every song before I start recording the vocals in a day or two. It is better if I catch clumsy lines now than when I am supposed to be laying them down. My favorite lyrics as of today are: "I'd rather be angry than wrong" from Right Through Me and "The fantasies ride first class, the truth gets left behind" from Old As Stone.