I’m in Kansas City right now, typing from my Mom’s computer. I surprised her today with a visit. Now my mom has a reputation in our family for being, um, highly emotional and expressive when one of her children she hasn’t seen in a while shows up. (I’m 3rd oldest of 11 kids, and haven’t seen my mom for a little over 2 years)
Tomorrow four or five of the siblings will be here, some with their kids in tow (or in utero) and we’ll grill food and I’m going to play some music for everyone. My mom hasn’t heard me sing before (well, she still proudly talks about the time in 7th grade when I got “three standing ovations” for my performance as Nicely Nicely Johnson in our school play). So I’m really excited beyond words to be able to share my music with her.
This is especially meaningful to me because it’s Mother’s Day, and because my mom has always told me that I have a special calling in life. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what that meant, and last January, it got really, really clear.
I sang a few of the guitar-based songs tonight for her on her bed (she’s had back surgery and knee surgery and has been pretty laid up for the last several months. She’s improved and can move about without assistance now, but still is in a lot of pain…). Anyway, it was wonderful. I sang “Semper Fi” (My sister is a Marine and today is her birthday – I was going to sing to her, but wasn’t able to reach her overseas), “I May Never See The Day”, “Everyday Superman” and “Your Sugar”.
I get all swelled up (I think the emotional thing runs in the family…) thinking about being here for Mother’s Day, and getting to put on a little house concert for her and a bunch of the family I grew up with. I’m looking forward to letting it rip tomorrow and showing her what I’ve been up to.
I hope to figure out a way to record it (I don’t have a very portable recording system, sadly, else I’d post more music), but we’ll see.
In the meantime, happy birthday Allison, and happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s.
I thought it would be good to write my intentions as well as put my “plan” out there. One of the things I’ve always wanted for my life is for people to be inspired to have/create the life of their dreams. I’ve been chasing my many dreams over the years, and in all of my visions of success, I’ve had supporting and inspiring others as a major indicator. (The dollar amount of what “success” means has definitely changed over the years, too. During the most delirious moments of the dot-com craze, my ambitions had the word “billions” sprinkled here and there. Came close in an all or nothing kinda way. Anyway, today, the success number looks more like the sum of my living expenses. Which is NOT in the billions. Of anything, really.)
I’ve been using a really great structure for expressing intention (I suppose I could start a whole other blog on intention and creating results in one’s life, but I’ll focus on the music. For now…). I find that by being clear about the underlying motivations, and the outcomes you want to create as a result of some activity BEFORE starting it is just so essential.
I like to stand at some point in the mythical/imagined future and look back over the course of everything that happened between the two points of time called “Now” and “Then”. My worldview holds that anything is possible. So when I’m imaginging the end of a project/process, I see a blank canvas. I get to put whatever I want to have happen as outcomes. They’re phrased in the past tense, just as if you were standing N months in the future, looking back on everything with a checklist. And in fact, that’s kind of what it is.
So I start with the results. I brainstorm all the things I want to have happen, and the ones that feel important, I put down. When it comes to defining the scale of a result (100 of something vs. 10,000 of something), I try to find a number that’s realistic, yet challenging.
From that, I start to see all the aspect of the project/activity, and I start to see there’s a larger purpose, reason or meaning that gets expressed in the world through accomplishing those results. I start to feel the “intention” of doing whatever it is I’m about to do. I write a statement that expresses that purpose or intention.
I find that doing these two things – intention and results, are really powerful in keeping me focused, reminding me WHY things are important, and to keep the spirit of what I’m REALLY up to alive and real for me.
So here’s what I’ve got right now:
The Intention The purpose of this phase of my life is to create an independent music career that makes a positive difference in the world through my music, message and the way I relate with everyone I come into contact with along this journey.
The Results: – the livelihood, health and well-being of me and my family is entirely supported through my art – my art improves/makes a positive difference in people’s lives – I had all the resources and relationships necessary to continue to create meaningful and inspiring art – I made compromises in my plan, but not in my values – my life/story served as an example to anyone aspiring to do anything – every moment of my life was an expression of love, service and inspiration – I helped create community and connection across divisions of culture
The Plan Phase 1: “Getting My Act Together” Phase 2: “Getting It Out There” Phase 3: TBD
Phase 1 consists of getting a solid 90 minutes of original music written (i’m 2/3 there!), recording a demo, redesigning my website, creating a media kit, developing a podcast and a few other things. The final milestone in this project is a concert for 150-200 people in San Francisco that gets recorded.
Phase 2 is taking all that stuff and doing something with it. PR, pitch to indie labels/distribution/producers, getting gigs in SF, LA, Portland and Seattle and building on the fan base I developed during the election.
Phase 3 right now is simply “Phase 3”. I don’t really know where this is all going to go, but I know what I need to be doing right now. I’ll be updating y’all along the way, so stay tuned!
I’m working on a demo right now. My plan was to go in and record a bunch of stuff and then start sending it out to people i know in the music industry. As I get further along in the process of actually building a music career (I LOVE that this is what I’m doing, btw, and that it’s actually happening), I realize that things aren’t as simple as we might imagine before starting out. “I’ll record a bunch of songs I’ve written and send ’em out” is actually a much more complex and detailed project. Especially given that I’m a recovering perfectionist (I’ve learned in a great way this year, (“Unamerican” being the primary impetus for this lesson) that there’s always a point at which you have to compromise on things being perfectly the way you want them because the reality of the situation is that a less-than-perfect, tangible, actual outcome at some point becomes preferred to the archetypical, perfected version in one’s head. A quick nickel vs. a theoretical dime. In theory, the dime is better. In reality, the nickel wins every time.
So I’m in this process of discovering and developing my capacity for compromise. Fact is, I feel like I have to get things going yesterday. Everything needs to be done yesterday (this is the conversation in my head. In my heart, it feels more like “everything’s going just perfectly – you’re doing everything you can, and that’s all it takes”). So I’m often grappling with an intellectualized sense of urgency about all the things I need to do wrestling with a deeper sense of abiding grace and perfection.
Rus, an aspiring record producer and a member of the ProTools development team (not to mention a starburst of love and enthusiasm) cracked my anxiety with a perfect analogy of climbing Mt. Everest. It doesn’t happen in a day. You have to plan for a long time, get your shit together, train and be prepared JUST TO GET TO BASE CAMP. Then you have to acclimate, get a sherpa, and then the Mountain tries to kill you, and you just keep climbing.
I’m still making my way to base camp, but I have the drive, desire and vision to be on the mountain. Anyway, it was a helpful analogy, especially since one of the intentions with the demo is to find an agent who can help me develop my career. At the end of the day, I’m brand new at all this, and there’s an enormous amount of stuff I don’t have a clue about.
Well, I’m mostly moved. The flat I’m buying with my roommate/friend isn’t ready yet, so we’ve had to move to another temporary sublet. Michael (roommate) and I worked out yet another temporary place to stay until our place is ready.
So this last weekend while Michael was away and my back was literally spazzing out, I moved the entire apartment with some help from friends, and have kept the studio in the old place for a few more days while I move DSL, and blah blah blah.
Last night, the landlady came upstairs looking distraught and sad. She’s apparently going through a rough divorcey kinda thing in her unit downstairs and is keeping a room upstairs as a place to retreat. I was told when I did a walkthrough that the landlady was only upstairs once every couple of months. Turns out she actually lives there a LOT as a refuge from her situation downstairs. Surprise #1. Surprise #2 – the third room we were supposed to be renting was full of stuff. I compacted all the stuff into part of the room to create more space, but it’s still less than a full third room.
So Michael, who is a tennant’s rights lawyer (which in addition to being a stellar and frequent cook makes him a super roommie) sees things very plainly – as a tennant’s rights lawyer. I can totally relate with Landlady, and find myself in the position of mediating between these two, although I also have a stake in this.
Anyway, I found it kind of amusing (that is to say that my reaction to stressful situations is laughter) that I’ve always felt great about having Michael as a roomie, knowing that any rental situation we find ourselves in, we’d be protected. Now I find myself empathizing with this woman who just wants a peaceful home and has had a seven or eight year stretch of one gnarly renter after another. She’s kinda fried.
So tonight we sit down and talk about the situation, what we need, etc.. I’m not really happy about the fact that the Landlady is going to be regularly living upstairs. And I’m not sure how the rehearsal situation is going to work out. I have a non-negotiable need to rehearse daily. Whether or not I can do this will determine whether or not I stay or have to move again. This time under duress.
Meanwhile, I’m recording the second half of my demo on Thursday. More on that later.
It’s been an interesting couple of days. I’ve been getting lots of messages about Easter. By “messages” I mean little bits of conversation, emails people send, things I hear on the radio. I believe that everything in life happens for a reason, and that would mean the little things like songs on the radio and so forth. One could easily argue that it’s a big holiday, so there’s naturally more going on. More people are talking about it, referencing it, etc..
Anyway, here are some of the things I’ve seen/heard: – a local radio station doing a “What Would Jesus Play” theme (I’ve composed but not sent letters to the management and advertisers…) – reading the Gnostic Gospels, a historical look at the books that DIDN’T make it into the canonized bible. Reading the chapter about the various early church practices and the history of Easter – reading the actual Bible story of the crucifiction & resurrection – driving by the Voice of Pentecost church/film production company, noticing their fleet of slick trucks and vans. – doing a walkthrough of an open house near my Dad’s wherein the current owner had many unique images of Jesus inside – overheard someone say: “Easter, Ester? The spirit of Ester coming out of the ground?” which I think had to do with early pagan traditions and the co-option of many holidays. – finished reading the DaVinci code, and researching criticism on the web. – looking for and not finding an hi-res copy of DaVinci’s Last Supper, which features prominently in the DaVinci code. – walking to get ice cream with my roommate tonight and walking past an empty bar with “free pool”, so we went in and played a few games. On the wall? A picture of the Last Supper painting. (The book contends that the apostle to Jesus’ right in painting is actually Mary Magdeline, the apostle “Jesus loved more than the others”.) I wanted to see for myself, and I’ll be damned if that apostle doesn’t look like a lady. Well, maybe I shouldn’t put it like that. “I was suprised to find that the apostle next to Jesus could be seen as a female”
I guess in a way, I’ve been having my own version of Easter. Certainly have spent more time thinking about it in the last couple days than I have on other Easters.
The thing that I’m kinda left with is that it seems like a lot of contemporary Christianity is based on Jesus’ death. Given that Christians believe that to be the key to eternal life, I suppose it makes sense. But I also think that Jesus’ LIFE is more relevant to us. Certainly if one considers oneself a follower.
Lately, I’ve been wondering how so many Christians reconcile their support for the current war, given the nature of Jesus’ life and ministry and the call to follow his example. He was not a go-to-war kinda guy, as far as anything I’ve read…
I certainly don’t mean to accuse anyone of hypocrasy, (though I do feel the temptation welling up when I think about certain national political leaders) and I certainly am not discounting the fact that people genuinely do, in fact, wholly support what we’re doing.
I just can’t understand how this particular war stands for anything Jesus would support. If you’re reading this and would care to share, I’d be interested in hearing it. I’ll say though, that so far, with the exception of my own family, most of the communication I’ve gotten from those who support the war has been less than civil, and without question unkind. If you’re inclined to rail on me, keep it to yourself, please.
Otherwise, I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Played with a rhythm section for the first time tonight. well, a bass player, anyway. Missing drums, but it was a nice baby-step towards playing with a full-on band. There’s no question i’m gonna have a band, I just don’t know when. My recording strategy right now (taking advantage of a friend’s access to a recording studio and the opportunity for him to learn recording engineering while getting to work together… it’s a good thing) is to get a disc of 5-7 songs just me and the piano such that I can give the disc to musicians to learn my songs. Then eventually, I can start playing live with a a band.
Tonight rocked. I don’t know what it sounded like (I recorded a rough mix right hard disk, and I’m working on burning a CD so I can check it out), but it was fun teaching a couple of really talented musicians my songs. It was a kick to be talking about diminished chords and flat ninths and stuff. I played with a guitar player and a bass player who’d played in a couple bands together, so they were used to playing together, and they were both super fast – they got the songs and chord progressions and changes pretty quickly. It felt like with a couple of rehearsals, we could be getting things pretty tight.
It was a pretty big challenge playing with almost-a-band. When I play solo and make a mistake, I can bluff/power my way through and get back to the song. 7 times out of 10, it’ll sound passable. But when I play with other people who are playing what they’re supposed to, and I’m not, it sounds like major crap.
It was tons of fun, though.
Sadly, my back is back. I went to yoga today, and went swimming and sat in a hot tub – thought that would’ve calmed it down, but in fact, i think not. Certainly sitting at my piano for 6 hours tonight did not help.
But it was worth it. So I say now. We’ll see how I feel in the morning.
I can’t believe how quickly march has come and almost gone. Most of the month has been spent tending a sore back. I managed to lean the wrong way or something during strike on my birthday, and have been having chronic backpain since. Spent last weekend on my back, flying high on muscle relaxants, minimizing my movement, and that provided a break in the pain. Today it’s returning, but I’ll be damned if it gets as bad as it was earlier this month.
I’m going into the studio tonight to edit what I hope will be a 4-6 song demo disc I can use to recruit musicians, management and producer(s) for a full-length album. Two weeks ago, I spent the evening playing my heart out and tonight I’m gonna try not to be too self critical and allow the songs to take shape without sweating the details too much.
Over the course of my life, my perfectionism ESPECIALLY as it relates to my music has been stifling. If I ever want to get things off the ground, I gotta ease up a bit. At least at this point. I’m not trying to create a full-fledged commercial release. Just kind of a sketchbook of a few songs to give musicians an idea. Playing with other people was a blast on my birthday, and with access to a state-of-the-art studio, there’s no reason not to bring people in for sessions to add bits and pieces.
I’ve learned a lot about collaboration and co-creation, and have managed to pull off some great projects with a moderate amount of authoritarianism. When it comes to my music, I’m equally open to other ideas as I am clear on the direction I want to go. So this feels a bit edgy for me. I’m still excited, though. I think having a preview disc to give people an idea of what I’m about is gonna be a good thing. If it’s worthy, I might even offer it to my current customer base, and possibly even to my email list.
Which, by the way, if you’ve not gotten any newsletters from me, why don’t you join my email list. You’ll get exclusive news, views and music.
Sorry about the lagging posts. Frankly, I don’t know how bloggers do it – posting every day. Sometimes several times a day. I seem to be challenged just to write every other week!
My birthday was on the 4th and Jeez, I can’t believe it’s almost been a whole week. I took the liberty of extending my birthday over a long weekend, so today was kind of a catch up day.
Anyway, I had my best performance to date on Friday night at the Sublounge in SF. It was my first “door” gig – getting paid part of the door take. I’ve teamed up with a couple other performers to pool our skills/resources to get gigs. While the basement of a dingy dance club didn’t initially turn me on (i was reluctant to really hype the show ’cause of it), as the days approached, I found myself getting more and more excited about the prospect of playing a paid gig on my birthday. Feeling like I might have mentioned that already.
Anyway, I rocked the house. It was great. 40 minute set, I felt comfortable. I sold a CD at the show, one online, and got paid at the end of the night. Seeing dear friends (including a very-last-minute surprise from a special friend from LA), playing hard, relaxing hard, and generally having things be exactly perfect made it the best birthday to date.
I’m less than 24 hours away from turning 38. I had told myself last year that this year I would plan a huge bash. Perhaps that’ll wait until next year, or the more auspicious 40. I’m a sucker for making big deals out of stuff. Like the fact that my birthday is on 3/4/5 this year. I love that. I also love that I’m playing my first paid show. Feels like a good way to start my 39th trip around the sun.
I’m playing with a couple of other songwriter/performers. We’re pooling our resources to get gigs and calling the bill Triple Axle. Not too keen on the name (we needed *something*), but Jeremy and Steve are great guys, smart, funny and motivated. Great musicians too.
Anyway, night before last we rehearsed a couple of my songs, and it was the first time that I’d played my music with more or less a band. (Jeremy played his guitar case with drum sticks while I played his guitar on one song). IT ROCKED. I found that having more sound behind me gave me more latitude to really let out, which was an experience of its own, too. It was almost like my voice had been waiting for the right circumstances to go to the next level, and it got what it needed. I felt the “groove’ playing with others for the first time in a long time. Now I’m totally excited about the prospect of playing with a band. It felt like someone cleared a bunch of overgrowth revealing a pathway to some magical place. I see a band in my future, for sure, and I’m lovin it. It’s gonna be sick. Can’t wait.
I recently sent out my second newsletter. Almost a month later to the day. Anyway, it went out to about 10,000 people. And included lyrics to a new song I just finished. I also invited people to join a Street Team to help promote my music. I’d heard about a country artist recently whose fan club president was caught encouraging members to lie. What was interesting to me was the impact 16 people had in getting her music on the radio. I wonder what a group of people who have no need to hide their passion for American values could do. We’re gonna find out.
I got way more responses than I was expecting, and everyone had the most amazing things to say. I believe I’m witnessing the birth of a community and it’s incredibly exciting on so many levels. It’s also quite a confirmation that there are others who are willing to do some of the work to get a message out to the world.