A Despot Sticks To His Guns – Newsical Aug 31, 2011
Inspired by the news of the week.
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Guitar-B-Q 2011
Curt Sautter once again hosted Guitar B Q on Aug 20, 2011. Curt’s label Delirium is a mainstay of indie rock. Delirium website
That’s yours truly jumping around the back porch, always ready to rock!
Short Song no. 1
Letting Go Of The Future is the first track completed for the in-progress Short Songs For Long Faces EP. I was considering the type of obsessions from which we can’t set ourselves free. There’s a certain stubbornness, or is it pride, that binds us to these habits even when confronted with help.
Totally unqualified, as I am, to diagnose these things I hold the belief there’s a part of us that wants to be understood, even in the middle of the mess we’ve made. We want someone to come all the way to us, to care that much. And if we don’t eventually grab that outstretched hand that’s when we are Letting Go Of The Future.
It’s 2:21 long.
Warm Sea
A real easy writing flow has descended upon me the last couple of weeks bringing the Short Songs For Long Faces EP up to 11 songs. Though the running time may be lean, these songs are coming from an authentic place. It’s tough to remember a time when the creative process has been so unfiltered.
Today’s song is titled Warm Sea, at least for now. It came all at once, words and music, allowing for a very easy demo recording. The denial to one’s self of our own desires is one of life’s mysterious tendencies. Or is that just me? One thing I’m not afraid to admit to myself is that polishing these tracks is going to be satisfying – although I must face, yet again, how to balance the drum tracks between electronic and acoustic sounds. They are both great loves yet somehow the overall approach would benefit greatly from a graceful simplicity.
The evening walk turns out to be an excellent mobile blogging venue. All’s quiet on the streets as long as an eye is kept open to avoid potholes.
Hail to the travel guitar
This guitar has seen a lot of places, been stuffed many times into my suitcase and lost some apparently non essential parts. The tuning is spotty. The tone is abrasive. The feel is callous.
But this good friend has patiently been available for my every whim, not minding long waits in the back of the car. We’ve written, roughly guessing, fifty or so songs together. We’ve enjoyed vacations in a number of countries including Italy, Costa Rica, Ukraine & Poland. We’ve jammed countless songs in the car at the oddest of locations. Once it demanded a new tuning peg. Sweetly it accepted the odd sized replacement. Even now it allows tuning of the B string with needle nosed pliers without absolutely digging in its heels for a shiny new non matching peg.
Presently we wait somewhere… for some reason. We will tune up and play. The unlikely place makes it seem, somehow, quite normal.
Short Songs
A Nick Lowe song, “I Love My Label” somehow sparked me into action with a line about how his label often asks for tracks that are 2:50 or shorter. I don’t have any worries like that as I am enjoying life without a label decently enough. But the idea of being concise got under my skin.
Without any plan, simply following a muse, has led to 8 songs. They’ve taken on a bit of a somber lyrical content so I’ve lovingly dubbed the whole affair Short Songs For Long Faces. It’s still a work in progress but it would take a lot of songs to fill out a whole album. EP’s never held much sway with me….until now. Perhaps there are some song collections that don’t really need the weight of 40 + minutes. It’s been a journey of the artistic sort, no label to please. Funnily enough the track lengths are averaging a label friendly 2:20, give or take a few seconds.
As a sidebar allow me to mention that I’m enjoying Ben Franklin’s autobiography – a freebie that’s on iBooks (lots of high literature to be found there at no cost). Anyhow, BF apparently didn’t hold much stock in artistic tangents, saying that flowing the muses never leads to a raising of one’s condition. Hmmm. Still mulling that one over.
Sidebar 2: this is my first post composed on the wordpreess app for iPhone. We’ll all get to see how that works out.
New Album release – It’s Already Started
With great pleasure and little fanfare I’m happy to announce the release of It’s Already Started. Arriving on Dec. 27, it’s the third Martin Blasick album of 2010.
It’s Already Started on bandcamp.com. Enjoy full song listens.
It’s Already Started started out as a song a week project inspired by internet sensation Jonathan Coulton. I posted these songs weekly and had a great time exploring internet promotions for the first time.
But to be true to myself I kept going back to the recordings and adding little nuances. The backbone of the album is my Samick Greg Bennett Royale guitar and bass. Being endorsed by them has been really great
The Omnichord became the main source of what would usually be keyboard sounds. I’d learned of it being used on some Bowie recordings. The time and ability to really explore meant the world to me. This is my first one man band album, playing real drums and the rest of the instruments myself.
The lyrics flowed without being pushed in any direction. Writing on the weekly schedule got me into what I call having the the open door to creativity. Without pushing any agenda the words capture where I was at that moment.
Also it was the chance to work with some of the greatest lyricists of all time, the great English romantic poets, Lord Byron, John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. I set a poem of each of them to my own brand of songwriting. Every time I sing one of these poetry based songs I get a new meaning from the words. Something to explore further in the future to be sure.
I’m looking forward to taking these songs to the stage. House concerts and streaming internet broadcasts are venues I’m eager to perform in.
5 Days Til Christmas
DJ Jimmy Jay spun Operation North Pole yesterday on his rewind show. It felt super to be surrounded by all those great artists. THANK YOU.
12 Days Til Christmas
It’s the exciting time of the holiday season where possibilities are wide open but it’s getting pretty close. Happy Holidays is at the manufacturer and the Operation North Pole is online. Downloads at bandcamp are unencumbered by DRM.