I successfully presented a project I’ve been working on for about 3 weeks, recorded a scratch demo for a song (which I have yet to edit), conceived and mounted a successful campaign for King of the East Nashville Tomato Arts Festival.. I’ll be leading a second line parade through East Nashville winding up at a tomato-drenched party. Made a Micro-loan to a woman in Nigeria who reminded me of a niece I miss dearly. Talked to my mom AND dad. Did manage to completely neglect both my music and a few friends. But otherwise, jeez this week blew. by.
Went to the Commodore in Nashville tonight, and sang “#Neda’s song”, got a gig in September. Also saw some great songwriters. Josh Case rocked his set with Andrew Duhon, two very different but talented songwriters. Andrew wrapped his set with an almost a cappella song save for a haunting harmonica riff and a slow and steady tambourine.
The Commodore was basically a sports bar that has a Writer’s night put on by Debi Champion, who seemed quite nice. In fact, pretty much everyone I’ve encountered in Nashville has been really friendly and open. It’s been great. Anyway, Debi booked me for September 8, so now I’ve got a gig in Nashville! W00t w00t!
I definitely come away from these Writer’s nights inspired and excited to be in Nashville, that’s for sure.
One great discovery has been the music of Josh Fuson. Josh is a fellow geek/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist. He’s been producing friends EP’s and has just started writing and producing his own music. He’s signed himself up to write a song a week and post it to his site.
Well, I’m doubly inspired. Or triple-y. I’m not sure I could write AND record a new song every week (though I admit I’ve never tried and will someday) to be honest. I think it’s an impressive goal, but not sure if I’d be able to write and record a new song every week. Now recording songs I’ve already written? That’s another story.
I’ve got dozens of songs I’ve written, but I’ve only recorded a few. Tonight I set a goal of recording an actual song to be posted, and here it is: “Hold On”. It was really simple. Set up mic, plug in guitar, sing. (after hitting “record”, that is. My room has a nice natural reverb and I can’t wait to play in the bathroom. I mean… record in the bathroom.
“Hold On” is an entrant in my Sixty Songs an Hour concept, wherein I record 60 1 minute songs. I’m finding I really like this short form as a way of capturing an idea, feel and/or lyric. Anyway, I’ll be posting the few 1 minute songs I’ve got as well.
Anyway, I think I’m going to try to record 3 songs a week. Just set up mic (experiment with various mics and setups), and sing. Nothing fancy. Although I’m itching to produce. Baby steps.
Spent the week in the Bay Area glued to my laptop for a week of management meetings and getting involved with putting together a web strategy for a potential congressional campaign that may or may not be announced this week. I clocked something like 78 hours last week. It was pretty intense. I’m just getting back into the flow. Y’know… writing a blog post at 3:38 am…. Just like old times!
Anyway, the weather has been incredible in nashville. 70’s and clear. Delicious for juat about anything. Except working.
Really hoping to make some progress on the last leg of setting up the studio. Trying to get a foot controller to control Ableton Live to do looping.
I’ve been getting a bit more into a groove lately. Been having some great creative moments. Had my first co-write last night with our landlord/host, Warren Evans. We wrote a song about Neda, the Iranian woman who was shot this weekend in Tehran. Amazing, the power of the cellphone and the web… Went to a songwriting workshop today at BMI. It was a LOT like a countrified version of the Recording Academy in Los Angeles. Same kind of feeling, design, etc. Anyway, I was joined by 50 aspiring songwriters to listen to a 2 hour lecture from Jason Blume, arguably the world’s most well known songwriter/teacher of songwriting. It was great meeting him, for sure. I was not on my “Liz Colton” best (Liz was my mentor in college and taught us to be relentless and unstoppable in Getting Things Done. I had a moment to introduce myself during the break, but didn’t want to interrupt the several other people who apparently had the same intention. The lecture was awesome, I met a couple of producers (who are also songwriters) – so leads on the CD project (Did I mention I moved to Nashville to get an album recorded?).
Heat Index: not so bad today. Last well, since I got here, it’s been HHHHAWT. Damn. Also have a funny post for my work blog about the latest celebrity to join the peace movement: “Perez Hilton.” More on that later. Or sooner.
Made it to Nashville! Landed at “The Songwriter’s House” – a gorgeous, very large house with 5+ bedrooms that rents (mostly) to songwriters who make their way to Nashville. The rooms are let by the day, week, or month and we’ve rented 2 rooms for the month of July while we look at places.
Which we’ve done a fair bit of. I think we’ve looked at all the places that are currently available and that match our criteria – (3+ BR, 2+ BA, within walking distance of the Five Points district, a big porch, and trees in the yard) and none of them *quite* feel like 100% of what we’re looking for.
I’m feeling inclined to compromise and get 75% so we can get moved in and I can get my studio unpacked and set up and get the ball rolling. And at the same time, I want to have a place that feels like “this is it”, which seems to be a recurring theme – that desire to have some internal feeling that guides me. In the absence of that feeling, I get almost overwhelmed with options, details and variations, all of which I tend to mentally extrapolate into a kind of ambiguous nullification. Maybe it’s my debate training, but I tend to see/get lost in all the pros and cons which sometimes are like comparing apples and oranges – all of which is to say I have a hard time making a decision.
I feel a little crowded in that I find it hard to write and/or rehearse when there are people around, which there almost always are in this current situation. Plus, I’ve been trying to catch up on a few weeks of pretty sever sleep deprivation. Night before last, I tried sleeping without the AC and just a fan, and wasn’t able to sleep at all throughout the night. My thought was to try to acclimate to the hot & humid TN weather a little, but maybe I’ll wait on that acclimation until I’m feeling a little more normal sleep-wise.
I keep having the songwriting impulse – words, phrases, beats or melodies that come to me when I start singing – and I’m eager to get a studio set up.
also, I’ve been dreaming a lot, and strangely, which I always find unrestful.
I made the decision to move to Nashville after going to Tin Pan South and Spring Training, two events put on by the Nashville Songwriter’s Association. Pretty much right after making the decision, I started packing and making arrangements, and with an increasing amount of intensity leading up to a state of near overwhelm in the final 2 weeks, I managed to fully pack a storage unit, a trailer and an SUV with stuff I needed to take with me and store for a 6 month Nashville adventure.
And just as I was getting ready to leave town, I learned that my mother was getting out of the hospital from her second back surgery, so I made a b-line to Kansas City (taking the southern route to avoid the Sierras and Rockies in a very heavily loaded vehicle and trailer).
I drove with Victoria, a lover who’s joining me on this adventure, and one of my best friends, Leslie, flew out on Wednesday to help set up base camp Nashville. The three of us will be renting a house in East Nashville and having porch-life goodness, and I hope to start an EcoTuesday chapter, record my first full-length CD, and co-write some country songs with the talented songwriters I’m intending to meet while there.
In typical fashion, I’m biting off a huge chunk to chew on. I think growing up in a large family has trained me to put a lot on my plate. That and a desire to save/change the world.
Anyway, I need to get better at blogging about the journey. Part of the vision is to share the trip and so far haven’t really done much of that. Part of me feels like “who cares?” so why bother writing about it at all.
I did a fair amount of Tweeting while in Nashville at #TinPanSouth, a week-long songwriter festival featuring Nashville’s top songwriting talent, and weekend-long symposium on the songwriting business. Both were put on by the Nashville Songwriter’s Association International.
I was blown away by the talent, the community, the cost of living (a ONE BEDROOM Apartment 1 block away from my place in San Francisco rents for $2300, get can rent you 5 bedrooms, a yard and brand new kitchen in Nashville.
I had a blast and absolutely fell in love with Nashville. I have a bit of fear that my love is or would be unrequited, though. It’s the wellspring of Country Music, which isn’t widely known for appreciating “liberal” political philosophy… The city certainly has a constant influx of people wanting to be songwriters, that’s for sure.
Nevertheless, Nashville has had a deep and abiding allure for some time and my trip there last week cinched the deal. I’m going to move there for a time. I’m excited about living in Music City. It’s like a dream coming true that I never knew I’d had.
And I’m totally coming out of the closet as a Country Music fan. Hearing the original songwriters sing their songs gave Country Music a depth and complexity I guess I’d never really given the genre before. I’ve always been a closet country fan, actually. When I was in the Navy, I got turned onto Dwight Yoakum, who still looms as an all-time favorite.
Anyway, I’m going to Nashville and taking a couple of friends with me. We’re going to find a biggish place for at least 6 months and see where it goes. We’re excited about having musicians over, having a giant dining room table, fireplaces, porchswings and barbeque. Nashville, here we come!
I’m feeling compelled to redesign my website. I think I’m going to crowd-source the design and development. An experiment in “brand being”, the Network Economy and the 4 hour work week. Such a buzzword filled idea. Anyway, I’m not digging what I’ve got up there now, and think I’m going to pull the plug pretty quickly and put up a very basic site for now. One reason is I think the design’s gone stale. I want to re-think the ecommerce/eventually-earn-a-living-as-an-artist approach. And along the same vein, make some space for my professional make-a-living-so-I-can-make-music life.
I can’t believe it’s been since OCTOBER 6 that I’ve written anything here. That, I think, was around the time that we launched What Kind of Amazing Grace?. Well, I spent a fair amount of October promoting the video online, and November was kind of like being able to breathe after 8 years, so I breathed a little. Then it was Christmas party this and fundraiser that, and then next thing I know it’s New Year’s and now we’re a few days away from seeing a black man in the White House. I think my ancestors are turning in their graves, but the latest version of the Rhett male is pretty stoked.
I was Covered on KFOG, which is probably one of the most popular non-Urban radio stations in the Bay Area. “World Class Music” they say (about their station, not me)… I was honored to be interviewed and to be able to share the idea that following your passion is the only way to live ROOLED.
I got a schedule from KFOG about when it would run (ran 7x or 8x over Christmas week) and I went out to my car to listen to it on the first run. Which… I’d promoted to like literally ten thousand people. I was so excited. Then, shortly after the appointed moment, they kept playing music and I started getting inundated with text messages – “What’s going on?” “When are you on?” and “Who’s this?!”
I’m still ashamed that I’d promoted it like mad, and it didn’t run. Ugh. still makes me hang my head. But what could I do? I just hate giving people bad information. I’m not sure why I do it so often….
Other news… Um… I’ve been rehearsing like a LOT for a show on 1/23 at 10pm at the Hotel Utah in SF. It’s quite a wonder what a daily practice regimen can accomplish. I got a little lazy over the holidays, but with the stress of a looming Great Depression II, I’m finding that music is actually keeping me kind of sane. It’s definitely a cathartic way to work off a lot of that stress. Even though I’m working crazy hours at work right now and hardly sleeping at all, I find that after I sing, I feel just…calm. It’s lovely. And my singing voice continues to develop, which I love hearing. I used to hate my voice but now I love what it can do. Especially after it’s warmed up and limber.
