music film life
Now that I’ve taken a nap and recovered, the Long Beach Marathon goes down as a really great time. I volunteered for 4 hours of jamming for runners. I played all originals except for Blue Suede Shoes. And only one song got repeated. Everyone was running on by so I didn’t worry about playing cover tunes. I must’ve played about 40 originals. Lots of determined faces.
Spent about 5 days in the high desert near Palmdale, CA while Natasha was shooting nights on a movie. I took time to experiment with my new camera, the Sanyo Xacti HD1010.
This song is called “Your Grace” You might not be able to hear the words so well because of the wind. But it was fun to shoot in the middle of nowhere. I used the 320×240 “web” setting.
It’s gig time!! I’m jamming on Sunday, Oct 12 from 9am til 1pm on the path of the Long Beach Marathon. My job is to keep the runners energized. It’s up in the air who’s going to be playing bass and drums. Just like Sarah Palin says “I’ll hafta get back to ya on that one” 🙂
It’s going to be an early load in – 5am – because the roads get closed off for the marathon. The day will be a good one. I’ll try and shoot some video or audio. The runners will be running and I’ll be melting in the sun. Time for this vampire to get to the beach.
I’m indulging my filmmaker side again. Indeed, the script has begun. I can’t help but think of story ideas. It must be because of doing so many songs for picture over the years.
I love recording the songs. But I’m longing to put together a bigger puzzle. Now I’m not talking about a multi-million dollar affair. More like the micro budget indie type of movie. I love that stuff. Always have. My friends have made indies over the years and I’ve participated to varying degrees. The thing is it all comes down to the writing. Not so different than music in that respect. I’ve written some scripts but something always keeps me from pulling the trigger on going into production. Story problem. Unreliable people problem. Not following through so the momentum is lost. Though usually it’s something about the story that keeps me from directing my first movie.
There’s more constraints for the microbudgets. No airplanes, nuclear explosions, or even normal looking locations with 40 extras. You gotta write with what you have. And it’s gotta feel like spending 45 minutes in a coffeehouse is the most natural thing in the world, not cause you couldn’t get any more locations.
In my case I gotta wrap a story around a middle age guy that includes my music. In a natural way. And I’d like to officially introduce my wife, Natasha, to Wednesday’s Song. She’s an actress. You guessed it. She’s in the movie, too with her darling, slight eastern European accent. She’s an ingenue type. That’s sounds like a natural doesn’t it? Well, I think I’ve got my brain working on a good scenario. I wrote 21 pages since last week. I’ve been stewing on the idea for quite a while but there was a moment driving around where I met the characters. More to come on that.
As of now, Wednesday’s Song, is about the movie inspired by the songs.
So there’s a time when a fellow must finish what he’s started. That’d be me and Wednesday’s Song. Somehow I got interested in playing Second Life gigs. It’s addicting cause real live people are behind those avatars listening to the tunes. But, I’m back to WS. There’s such a tiny bit left to do. Little bitty drum edits on 2 songs and a polish mix on 4 more. Soooo, yeah, I opened, em up and did the drum edits.
Life is so weird isn’t it? There’s almost nothing left to do percentage wise. What is it about ourselves that’ll ignore something almost finished? Fear? I really don’t think that’s it in my case. I just like coming up with the concept so much that as soon as a project becomes routine my fun loving brain flits off to a new idea.
There was a little phrase in a book of nothing but little phrases I used to keep in the loo. The one that stuck in my mind was:
The last lap is the hardest.
I was practicing again out on the park overlook the ocean. Not too shabby. And I was trying to remember A Credible Threat. I gotta keep practicing or I just forget my own tunes. Anyone else do that? I learn fast, write fairly easily, but remembering…whoa, not too strong in that dept. Practice practice practice. Anyway, I’ve got a show coming up on May 2 in the valley at a pretty cool song circle kind of event. I’ll fill in more details soon.Â
I’m still rocking in the real world, too. As promised, here’s a tune from the gig at Nocturnal at the start of March. I suck cause I didn’t practice. But Anna Rosales on bass and Alexa Brinkschulte on drums are really rocking ladies. Just in case you didn’t read the earlier post, they learned the set by listening to mp3 from this site. We met at the club just as it was time to play. Quick setup. Countoff 1…2…3….4…. Rock on. My new band is awesome. I was so focused on the Durango Songwriters Workshop I didn’t really practice. This recording will prove it 😀
Nocturnal_SheWalks.mp3
