Thursday
Jul212005
what time is it? 4:30! It's not late, nah, it's early, early!!
Thursday, July 21, 2005 at 02:55PM
It’s late Wednesday night and I should be in bed. I’ve been working on some different things for my new website, though, and am very excited. This week has been a good one so far, as well.
This past Thursday I played a small set at 12South, here in Nashville. It went pretty well, besides my incredibly stupid attempt to play a song I had written the night before, with only my chicken-scratch hand-written lyrics to go by. I had to stop it a couple times in the middle because I couldn’t read my own words. The song is a new favorite of mine, though. It’s called “early in the morning� and I finished it at about 5am Thursday morning, so it’s fitting. More on that later. Other than that, I played a couple “Photographs� songs, “Mother India� and another one from my album-in-progress, a rocker called “Santa Barbara.� My parents were in town for a few days then, so they got to see me play, which was nice. After the show, we came home and packed up for our trip to North Carolina, where Alison grew up.
We got back from Alison’s parents’ place on Monday, which was also Alison’s birthday. Ella was spent after all the traveling, and her second plane ride, and so she and I stayed home while Alison and her girl friends went out to dinner. I had a great time with Ella, and finished the new Harry Potter. Which was great.
Tuesday I spent most of the day in my studio, adding some extra guitar bits to an almost-finished Indelible Grace 4 cd. It’s sounding great, and there are some beautiful songs and inspired performances throughout.
Today I worked on that new song “early in the morning.� I had done the acoustic, some vocals, and part of a loop the day before, and picked up where I left off today, with Cason to help out. He added some great keyboard stuff, and really helped shape and define the loop a bit more. Jeremy Casella dropped by then and added a touch of piano and some really incredible background vocals. On one passage in particular, he totally amazed and surprised me. It’s always astounding what other people will bring to a work of art. I’ve been learning over the years that part of the craft of my own projects includes inviting friends I trust and respect and giving them the freedom to add what they feel. Anyway, Jeremy took a part which I wrote to be mainly a transition and put a breath of beauty on it to make it a moment. Very cool. And I don’t want it to sound like Cason didn’t add anything. The thing with Cason is, he does with every note he plays, so you kind of forget he’s a little genius after a while. I am smoke and mirrors without that guy, though, that’s for sure.
I really like this new tune. I wrote it when I couldn’t sleep the other night, hence the 5am, and really the idea of the song. I have this old guitar that Bobes’ dad gave me a year or so ago back in Normal. It’s a big, old acoustic, with no name on it, and a sort of home-made bridge. I leave it tuned down two steps and use it for a lot of writing. It just has this deep, resonant delicacy to it. This was the first song I wrote on it that I felt needed to be performed on it as well. The song is pretty much based around a melodic figure that just seems to belong to that particular guitar. So, thanks for the song, Bo, I have a feeling it’s been in that guitar for a while.
Lyrically, I based it, in structure more than substance, on an old novel of Steinbecks called “The Pasture of Heaven.� He tells story after story of this little town in Northern California, and it doesn’t seem to have a point until the last page of the last chapter. The way he tied it all together, from the random details to a sudden, and subtle, point, just really impressed me. I’ve tried to write a song about the book for a while, and never could. It turned out, the problem was I was trying to write a song about California, which I love, but don’t really know, when I should have been writing about my own neighborhood. The Lord knows how many songs are waiting to be written for the people on my own street. And Lord, please forgive me, for not getting to know them better during this time we’re sharing our little avenue. Anyway, I really like this song, and will probably post an acoustic version of it on the Drawing Board when this new site goes live.
Other than that, tomorrow Greg Adkins is coming back in. We’re on the way to being done with his record, and I’m really enjoying how it’s feeling. I hope that he’ll be as happy with it as I am. We’ll spend two days this week, and two days next, and I think we’ll be basically ready to go to mix.
Ella is just getting cuter by the minute, it seems. My dad was playing with her last week and buzzed his lips together for her, and she loved it. Now she just tries to do it all the time. It pretty much just ends up spreading slobber all over the house, but she just grins the whole time and it makes this great little noise, and we couldn’t love it anymore. It’s amazing how fast she’s gone from a newborn who sleeps all the time and barely opens her eyes, to a four-month old baby girl who smiles and grabs things and loves to look at pictures in books and her parent’s faces. It really is amazing, and I’m starting to see how it really is going to go too fast.
Well, that’s about it for me. I definitely need to be getting back to bed. Thanks for reading and I can’t wait for you to see the new site in just a couple of days.
This past Thursday I played a small set at 12South, here in Nashville. It went pretty well, besides my incredibly stupid attempt to play a song I had written the night before, with only my chicken-scratch hand-written lyrics to go by. I had to stop it a couple times in the middle because I couldn’t read my own words. The song is a new favorite of mine, though. It’s called “early in the morning� and I finished it at about 5am Thursday morning, so it’s fitting. More on that later. Other than that, I played a couple “Photographs� songs, “Mother India� and another one from my album-in-progress, a rocker called “Santa Barbara.� My parents were in town for a few days then, so they got to see me play, which was nice. After the show, we came home and packed up for our trip to North Carolina, where Alison grew up.
We got back from Alison’s parents’ place on Monday, which was also Alison’s birthday. Ella was spent after all the traveling, and her second plane ride, and so she and I stayed home while Alison and her girl friends went out to dinner. I had a great time with Ella, and finished the new Harry Potter. Which was great.
Tuesday I spent most of the day in my studio, adding some extra guitar bits to an almost-finished Indelible Grace 4 cd. It’s sounding great, and there are some beautiful songs and inspired performances throughout.
Today I worked on that new song “early in the morning.� I had done the acoustic, some vocals, and part of a loop the day before, and picked up where I left off today, with Cason to help out. He added some great keyboard stuff, and really helped shape and define the loop a bit more. Jeremy Casella dropped by then and added a touch of piano and some really incredible background vocals. On one passage in particular, he totally amazed and surprised me. It’s always astounding what other people will bring to a work of art. I’ve been learning over the years that part of the craft of my own projects includes inviting friends I trust and respect and giving them the freedom to add what they feel. Anyway, Jeremy took a part which I wrote to be mainly a transition and put a breath of beauty on it to make it a moment. Very cool. And I don’t want it to sound like Cason didn’t add anything. The thing with Cason is, he does with every note he plays, so you kind of forget he’s a little genius after a while. I am smoke and mirrors without that guy, though, that’s for sure.
I really like this new tune. I wrote it when I couldn’t sleep the other night, hence the 5am, and really the idea of the song. I have this old guitar that Bobes’ dad gave me a year or so ago back in Normal. It’s a big, old acoustic, with no name on it, and a sort of home-made bridge. I leave it tuned down two steps and use it for a lot of writing. It just has this deep, resonant delicacy to it. This was the first song I wrote on it that I felt needed to be performed on it as well. The song is pretty much based around a melodic figure that just seems to belong to that particular guitar. So, thanks for the song, Bo, I have a feeling it’s been in that guitar for a while.
Lyrically, I based it, in structure more than substance, on an old novel of Steinbecks called “The Pasture of Heaven.� He tells story after story of this little town in Northern California, and it doesn’t seem to have a point until the last page of the last chapter. The way he tied it all together, from the random details to a sudden, and subtle, point, just really impressed me. I’ve tried to write a song about the book for a while, and never could. It turned out, the problem was I was trying to write a song about California, which I love, but don’t really know, when I should have been writing about my own neighborhood. The Lord knows how many songs are waiting to be written for the people on my own street. And Lord, please forgive me, for not getting to know them better during this time we’re sharing our little avenue. Anyway, I really like this song, and will probably post an acoustic version of it on the Drawing Board when this new site goes live.
Other than that, tomorrow Greg Adkins is coming back in. We’re on the way to being done with his record, and I’m really enjoying how it’s feeling. I hope that he’ll be as happy with it as I am. We’ll spend two days this week, and two days next, and I think we’ll be basically ready to go to mix.
Ella is just getting cuter by the minute, it seems. My dad was playing with her last week and buzzed his lips together for her, and she loved it. Now she just tries to do it all the time. It pretty much just ends up spreading slobber all over the house, but she just grins the whole time and it makes this great little noise, and we couldn’t love it anymore. It’s amazing how fast she’s gone from a newborn who sleeps all the time and barely opens her eyes, to a four-month old baby girl who smiles and grabs things and loves to look at pictures in books and her parent’s faces. It really is amazing, and I’m starting to see how it really is going to go too fast.
Well, that’s about it for me. I definitely need to be getting back to bed. Thanks for reading and I can’t wait for you to see the new site in just a couple of days.
Reader Comments (1)
bravo, on the Spin Doctor's reference.
haha.