Hearing Things

I spent this past weekend OFF, doing virtually nothing that pertained to furthering any musical pursuits that would normally have consumed the bulk of my time.

There's a fine art to making a good set-list...so many things to consider. Since the idea is to hold the audience's attention for the duration, the pace is crucial, but it can be difficult to forecast just how to approach a show on any given night, until you have actually assessed the crowd itself and their collective demeanor.

 

Not only thankless, but costly, as in many dollars and cents go out, fewer dollars and cents(occasionally just the cents) come in.

Yep, the urge has struck to make a new album.
 

Audience participation....it has its place, and "getting into it" isn't for everyone, obviously, but come on, would it kill you to clap once in a while? You see this sweat?? We didn't mist ourselves with a spray bottle for effect, trust me.
 

So, in my post-Best Of Seven career phase, I've made several trips back to Illinois, either as a solo acoustic act, fronting my bands fORMER or The Great Affairs, or as lead guitarist for Bombshell Crush, playing everywhere from dive bars, to town squares, to big outdoor stages. All Illinois adventures however, must be measured against the "gold standard" of our nights at a now-defunct joint in Macomb once known as Mueller's Bootlegger.
 

I've had a busy week, and very little time to collect my thoughts in the form of a blog, so for now, in lieu of my usual insights, I will offer a few asides...

So I'm at a screening of the new documentary Butch Walker: Out Of Focus, and seated just a few rows in front of me is the film's "star" Butch Walker.....

It's Sunday, and I'm decompressing from a long week away from home, with a SunDrop cola and a little Drivin N Cryin on the stereo.

My mind is a little scattered at the moment, but time isn't standing still for me, and I need to have one of these blogs up in the morning, so I'm just going to do that stream-of-consciousness thing again...sort of.
 

Nothing says "I've arrived!" like sleeping in the back of your vehicle in a Walmart parking lot somewhere between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Indianapolis, Indiana.  I can't recall exactly which backwater burg I deemed sufficiently hospitable for my low-rent layover, but since my eyelids were dangerously leaden by 4:30AM, and I had already logged a total of 8+ hours on the highway, en route to and from the evening's show, it seemed like the responsible solution to my fatigue.

Sure, I could've secured more accommodating lodgings.....
 

Well, I figured since I would be out on the road for a few days(BTW, I'll be at The Brass Rail on Farmington Rd. in Peoria on Tuesday, April 17th at 9PM...in case anyone would care to drop in.), doing the whole acoustic singer-songwriter bit, I might post a few of slightly tragic numbers from a handful of artists that tend to traffic in that type of fare with varying degrees of success.

Hopefully one or two of these will be new to your ears.

Who knew you could get so much more done if you just got out of bed at 8AM? Well, thanks to my neighbors having hired a tree service to top a 60-footer just outside my bedroom window on this fair morning, I do.
 

When Loveshine had run its course, our other guitarist Don Mabus & I spent a few months attempting to assemble a slightly edgier take on that band's sound, with the working moniker Thee Loved Ones. We recorded a mess of demos, while auditioning prospective rhythm sections to little avail, but somewhere in the midst of this process I sent a tape of some of these songs to my buddy Shane Tassart in Los Angeles.
 

My girlfriend's family suffered a tragic loss recently. While she was away tending to affairs, I was here in Nashville working on new material, in a quiet house, alone with my thoughts(at least as long as there wasn't a dog barking to be fed or let out that is), and one thing I spent some of my abundant solitude pondering was how often I've used music to get through rough patches in the road, at times when I was too insecure to share what I was feeling with someone who might've gladly offered a shoulder to cry on.

When my dad died a few years ago......

I thought I'd let the music do the talking this time out. I've been in the studio, in mixing mode all day, and the last thing I wanna think or talk about this evening is something I created, so here's my tip of the hat to ten great songs I think everyone should be as in love with as I am.
 

Well, I do now, apparently, starting with Joshua Ketchmark's "The Bittersweet" EP.

 I'd always wanted to produce an album, having taken the helm on plenty of my own projects over the years, but this was my first foray into shaping someone else's stuff in an official capacity.
 

“Stay hard, stay hungry, stay alive....and treat it like it’s all we have.”
-Bruce Springsteen, 2012 SXSW Keynote Address
 

GETTING THE CHEESE

We spend our lives adrift on a sea of variables. Some of us have a more stable existence, and while certain inevitabilities like our own expiration are non-negotiable, these individuals seem to struggle less with where the current is going to take them tomorrow. Maybe they married well, invested wisely, or lucked into an inheritance that'll keep the wheels greased long after they're gone. Whatever the case, I'm pretty sure they're a blissfully aimless minority, while the bulk of us are swinging away daily, hoping and praying to get a piece of whatever curveball, slider, or change-up is in store.
 

VEGAS PT. DEUX

Well, Vegas did not result in the massive financial windfall I had confidentially hoped for, but I did come out ahead by a few bones, and nothing scandalous happened that would precipitate the utterance of what is likely the most tired phrase in tourism history. Yeah, you know it, say it to yourself and save me the trouble of spelling it out. "Whatever happens, etc., etc."
 

I'm sitting here in my room, on the 6th floor of The Aria Hotel, trying to figure out what to do with the remainder of my first day in Vegas. I've got approximately 2 days left to squander, and I've already located and consumed menu items from Del Taco, witnessed a Hispanic street performer do a Flamenco-tinged take on Prince's "Erotic City", and truly pitied a gentleman who dropped an obviously pricey liquor-filled replica of The Eiffel Tower a few feet to the pavement, thus spilling its contents. Myself, being of sound balance and steady hand, toted a large beer throughout my travels, without incident.
 
 Oddly enough, despite all this surrounding spectacle, I found myself most excited by.....