Working Title

Category: The graze

“The graze” was the name of my solo music/recording project until I renamed it “Sun Tunnels.”

  • 2 shows that happened 2 months ago. Calvin Johnson makes an appearance

    Time flies, it’s already been a while since these shows happened but I wanted to say a few words about them.

    First, on December 11 I went down to Portland to play at my friend Steve’s wife Kelli’s 30th birthday party. Steve rented the basement of a club called the Blue Monk, which is usually a jazz/blues club, and has a stage and PA and all that. And a buffet, naturally. The party was a mixed bunch, and for the most part strangers to me: friends and family of the birthday girl, old people, some kids, and then some musicians. It was a night of solo indie pop/folk performers, and (somewhat bizarrely) the headliner was Calvin Johnson (of Beat Happening, K Records fame).

    Us openers played short sets.. I played 5 songs, which were fun for  me as they came from 5 different projects: 1 song each from my first album, from give/sell, from mississippi painful, from an invitation to love, and then a new one. In all other ways my set was, let’s say, inconsistent with the idea of party/dinner music. But! It was short, and a few people were into it, and the other acts were in the same boat.

    Except Calvin Johnson, who happens to be a consummate performer. He was able to get the buffet crowd interested and involved in his performance. And he was great, playing from his solo albums. Here’s a picture from my phone, you can kind of tell who it is:

    Later on there was a  raffle and I won a Beat Happening LP. I had him sign it. I also drank all my drink tickets and napped through the drive home. A perfect trip! Here’s the album:

    signed:

    The week after, on December 16, I played at the Ball of Wax Volume 18 release party. That show was great for short attention spans.. lots of bands but they were constantly changing.. there’s a write-up for it here:

    http://www.seattleshowgal.com/ball-of-wax-18-cd-release-w-oldman-winter-levi-fuller-the-pica-beats-more/

    What was particularly fun about this show was our group’s configuration — Open Choir Fire, Seth Howard/Rosyvelt and myself were one of the composite bands — and it was the first time I’d played with that many people at the same time. It’s a big fad right now to have these big 7-or-more-member bands and I think I see why. Big sound and less pressure.

    Check out the Ball of Wax 18 webpage here:

    http://www.beeprepaired.com/oms.html

  • yes!

    http://pitchfork.com/news/37457-soundgarden-to-reunite/

    extremely not lame.

  • Free album download, plus show tonight

    wheaty

    I’ve been having some ideas on what to do with Give/Sell, and one of them is to give it to people who sign or have ever signed my mailing list. That idea led to having to decide what to do with my mailing list.. and that led to me trying out a service called FanBridge.

    http://thegraze.net/maillist.html

    When you sign up, you’ll get the link and login/password for downloading the album. If you are already on the mailing list you should have received a link already… If you haven’t, check your spam folder.

    And finally, that picture at the top of this post is from a tour long ago.. it links back to my new flickr account, where I’ve been uploading a lot of pictures from the last 8 years or so that I never got around to uploading.

    PS: I’m playing a show tonight at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard, Seattle, Washington, USA. It’s the Ball of Wax 18 (the theme: 1-minute singles!) release party, and it’s going to be awesome. My set will appear within a conglomerated pseudo/superband involving Open Choir Fire, Seth Howard, and members of Rosyvelt, all playing each other’s songs for 20 minutes. This will be repeated with other bands and is not to be missed.

    8pm, $7 gets you a copy of the CD. http://www.ballofwax.org

  • myspace uploads

    I’ve uploaded some tracks to myspace… I also resequenced the album because it’s better this way:

    1. Apartment
    2. Bet
    3. Bastards
    4. Canyonland
    5. Cheap Wine
    6. Six Years
    7. Picky
    8. Those People
    9. Tiger Nightmare
    10. Price
    11. Second Sight

    If I sent you mp3s please consider reordering them as per the above and dropping “Sheep.” And then let’s never speak of this again.

  • give/sell

    So, five and a half years after finishing my first album and just in time for CDs to be obsolete, I finished a CD album called Give/Sell. It’s got 12 songs in about 34 minutes. Side A (1-6) is indie pop/folk and not a big departure from Iowa Anvil. Side B gets a bit more interesting, with some different structures and production choices, and songs flowing into each other (which is something I’ve always wanted to do).

    I made this album by myself again, with a tiny cameo from Sam Jansons at the end of “Bet.” If I’ve given (or sold) you the demos I compiled in 06 and 07, most of these recordings will be familiar to you. But that’s why they’re called demos.. I changed lyrics, added instruments and harmonies, rerecorded things, edited, mixed, and did tons of remixing. It was a lot of work and I’ll admit, it’s not Kid A. It shouldn’t have taken four years, but I’ll address that in a minute. Here’s the track list:

    1. Apartment
    2. Sheep
    3. Canyonland
    4. Cheap Wine
    5. Bet
    6. Bastards
    7. Six Years
    8. Picky
    9. Those People
    10. Tiger Nightmare
    11. Price
    12. Second Sight

    Sooo… what took so long? That’s a long story, and this is a blog, so I’m going to tell it.

    Firstly, I had technical difficulties. I record digitally and had a problem with something called “loopback latency” that messed me up for at least 2 years, made recording into a miserable experience, and screwed with my head. Eventually I got that sorted out. Then had to learn a lot about EQ and mixing, and that took forever. I also went down some paths that didn’t pan out, like external summing, and trying to build a plate reverb, and stuff like that. Fun things to do at the time, but not quick.

    Secondly, I had some rules, such as “no autotune,” “nobody can play or record but me,” and “no drum editing.” These constraints were a personal challenge, partly since the bands I try to emulate recorded analog, and I don’t, I felt this was the least I could do to keep from “cheating,” as it were. But this meant I had to do tons of takes (my poor neighbors) until I had it right. And even then I had to break the drum editing rule. I edited. And comped vocals like crazy. Takes-recorded-years-apart crazy. Of course now I realize that wasting years is worse than breaking any of these rules, so I’ll probably abandon the solo thing and also cheat like hell next time.

    Thirdly, I had distractions. I’ve played in four other bands since I released my first album. Not that I regret being in or having been in any of them, but they took/take time.

    And finally, life stuff. The first time I thought the album was done was March 2008. I’d set a mastering date to give myself a deadline.. which was good in one sense as I got a lot done, but it was bad in that I wasted money having something mastered that wasn’t right. Then I got laid off, then married, then I got a new job, and a second job. I’ve been busy.

    But regardless, it’s done, and I’m glad. I learned a lot making it, hopefully enough that I won’t have to spend as long making the next one. Oh and, I like this record. It sounds good and is fun to listen to, if I say so myself.

    PS, I’ll put songs on myspace soon.