2007

I know, I never update this website anymore. Well, here’s why-

12/28/07:

 I’m not exhaling these days, I’m taking in and preparing to record a new album, one that will hopefully be a result of months working in a series of complete and connected thoughts. Until then, there’s nothing else for me to offer, other than some entertaining chatter with my pals and anyone else who cares to check in.

Okay, I’ve got big plans. Sure, it’s all talk until I hit record, but read on.

Over the years, I’ve developed ability as a mimic, and while I wouldn’t change much on them, my records are thoughts and old feelings set to tried themes and at worst, clichéd music styles. I’m bored with 1964. I don’t dream of being someone else anymore. So it’s time to either find an inspiring set of new/old clichés, or take the time to come up with some new sounds and musical moods of my own. Which will I do? Well, I’m shooting for the latter, which takes some patient experimentation.

A recent New Yorker article has a passage I found helpful: “The trouble is that you can’t make any real philosophical progress in a couple of years. The scope of understanding enlarges quite slowly, if it enlarges at all, and the scope of interest seems to wait upon understanding. . . . All artists who work from the inside out, have all the same problem: they cannot make sudden, arbitrary changes of matter and treatment until the inner man is ripe for it.”

Does that apply to my situation? I say yes, but truly if I make good on the promise to compose and produce the album. The goal is being honest and insightful without losing the audience to overindulgence. To me, that means I can’t go deeper until I become that deeper man. [how long’s that gonna take!?] Another important note is that while I am likely to write all the songs myself, I have every intention to make this recording as an ensemble, as big of a group I can muster yet guide, in order to create the sounds I have planned.  For those aware and curious about the documentary film that is being made about me, it’s coming together, but my latest spat of revelations and general openness to new crap has the filmmaker wondering if there’s not more to film before editing it together. One can say it never ends.

So this is to let you know I am thinking about all of it. It’s easy to closely copy the records you grew up listening to, it’s another thing to find your own style, fed by your influences, shaped by your experiences. Some may say I have already found it, and perhaps have already mined the best of what’s there. In some ways this new project is for myself, but really, my early albums were even more about me, trying to see what you think of me. The only difference now is that I have faith in the idea that people will be drawn to what speaks to them, and I just have to focus on what I want to put out there, not be anxious about what the outcome will be.

PS this is not a bunch of new age blather, I’m really trying to get some work done.

7/07/07:

You guys are great. Thanks for all the reminders that I have not updated my site. It’s true. For a while, I was updating the myspace page, and even that lost its appeal. Now I’m pretty much against myspace, it champions all the things about the modern world that turn me off. Everyone is a star? No. hell, I’m not even a star. So, while I will keep the myspace page up, I’m not loggin in much anymore. One less thing to do. And kudos to that.

Rehearsing for shows. Pete Straus, Khoi-San, Michael the drummer, we’re doing a gig with John Wesley Harding, backing him up for his set as well as our rock set. Nice. I will enjoy cranking up my guitar in the foggy SF summertime, even if we go on at 7:30pm. Then I head down in my “new” van to LA for a show with JWH. (Here’s what happened to the old van) and then David Bash’s IPO (yes, he’s added his name to the event finally, and I think it’s a good idea) is in LA after that. I play on the 31st of July. So that’s two trips to southern California in one month. Then IPO comes to San Francisco, we play august 22. That’s getting ahead of myself, at least for me. I could barely tell you what I’m doing tomorrow night.

2/15/07:

Holy smokes, this is the least updated website since everyone started using myspace. Is that true? READ ON.

Spring brings new shows. I will play the Make-Out Room in SF with the band, on four Mondays in March and April.  See their schedule.  No! wait, see my schedule.

Come find me on myspace http://www.myspace.com/cvsmusic  Nice people on there, millions of them, and frankly, none of them are my friends. It’s like talk radio with pictures and all the interference. Another thought- all those “customized” myspace pages- who came up with that stuff?  It’s the worst looking bit of design I’ve ever seen online! Grown men acting like 14 year-old girls, I swear.

And yes, I’m working on a new album. Don’t hold your breath, these things take time, especially when you have to reinvent the song.