Music Never Lets Me Down

Hi all.  It’s been some time since my last post (to put this in perspective, my last post was about Surrogates, which was in theaters at the time - it is now out on Blu-ray).  But I have been hard at work.  I’m making music for you all to enjoy.

The next record is very far along in its formation.  It will have ten songs.  The words are written.  The drums are recorded.  The bass guitar and keyboards sound great.  The guitars are mostly reasonable - there are some solos and lead parts that I need to do, like, again.  And the vocals are about 50% complete.   I swear, this thing is moving.  As proof - here are song titles (in order):

Watch your mouth
Mystery cut
You better look at me when I’m talking to you
The city smells like fire
Weather in Memphis
Weather the whether
Twenty-nine ninety-two
Impeach
Your song don’t mean a thing to me
I’m sick of New York

What’s been the hold-up, you ask? Well, I have many valid excuses that are very believable and not at all rationalizations:

My brother got married
I moved
I had to buy things
My boss was very serious and needed something
Football
The Oscar nominations came out
I was hungry
I got sick
My foot hurts

So as you can see, I am bombarded by all sorts of things that normal people don’t have to deal with. Ah, the life of an office worker posing as a musician. Sometimes it’s easy to forget why you do what you do. But I’ve had many moments of clarity over the past 2-3 months and am back in the recording saddle. I even have a potential surprise that I am very excited about but do not want to sabotage by announcing too quickly.

That’s right, I cliffhangered you.

In other news, my girl and I went to a concert a couple of weeks ago. It was a Haiti benefit concert featuring basically every band I’ve ever liked (Walkmen, Wrens, Ted Leo, A.C. Newman) and several artists that I didn’t know I liked (Here We Go Magic, Sondre Lerche, Nicole Atkins, Lauren Ambrose & the Leisure Class, Fun) but do now. And Jim Gaffigan told a series of jokes about whales (hilarious) and Jimmy Fallon recycled his Neil Young/Fresh Prince mashup (A+ for effort), and all the proceeds went to charity, so I had a delightful time.

Wrens casually and gracefully kick you in the face:

I felt like I got far more than I bargained for - it’s one thing to support an absolutely necessary cause, another to be able to see several of my favorite groups (including my favorite), but even more delightful that I was able to find a bunch of new things that I didn’t even expect to like. I’m not nearly as well-informed as I was when I was in college (and worked for a radio station and constantly lost at oneupsmanship olympiads, otherwise known as hipster parties), so finding new things is a little rarer at this point and a little sweeter too.

What about you? Any cool stuff that you just fell into or stumbled upon and found that you unexpectedly really enjoyed it?

On this most sacred of holidays (Super Bowl Eve), I hope everyone’s staying warm and out of the Snowmageddon (hilarious term - I’m angry I didn’t coin it).

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 12:43 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.