More Demos

Hey hey

see–promised it wouldn’t be so long till I wrote again.

 

BUT this is going to be short.  Had a microphone malfunction, got a new one.  Finished lyrics to 3 songs.  Have premastering meeting on Monday.  WEXT will have 5 songs available for airplay when I go down there on Tuesday.  

Posted new demo of ‘Actress’ on the webpage.  Meant to put up “Sunshine” and “The Sea” as well, but for some reason the upload program stopped working. Look for those 2 to be up ASAP.

Go check out the new song.  Maybe songs by the time you get there.  

Details of when and what WEXT will be playing soon soon.  (Actually, probably Tuesday night!!!)

oh-and my new puppy Max already weighs 40lbs.  

peace

Holy cow it’s the end of April

Well, it’s been far too long since I updated this.  What happened?  

It all starts long ago in the middle of March.  I’m doing pretty well in my NCAA bracket and the basketball tournament is in full swing.  I LOVE college basketball.  Syracuse is in it and seems to be playing well and as a lifelong fan, I’m watching with great interest.  I just wrote two new songs that I think are pretty good.  They will take the final two places on the CD and all I have to do now is finish some lyrics, mix and were off to the mastering/duplication phase and the finished album will be out by the beginning of April.  World domination is sure to follow.

Jump to March 24th.  I’m going out of my mind and need a change of scenery.  I do all my recording at home, and live there.  Eat there. Sleep there.  The record has now been in the works for over a year.  It’s winter.  It’s cold.  It’s grey.  My Dad and two brothers live in Florida.  Maybe I’ll go down.  I luck out and find a last minute ticketon the 25th  to leave the next day.  I go to Florida and Syracuse promptly loses to Oklahoma.  A sign of things to come.

I hang out with my brother Marc, get to see my other brother play some baseball for his team which is ranked #1 in division 2 (his first at bat after an injury).  My second to last day there, we decide to go to Clearwater to watch the sunset on the beach.  We end up 45 minutes north of there and by the time we arrive it’s 10pm.  So we end up walking on the beach in 50 degree weather with a stiff wind blowing in.  Not exactly  what you think of when you escape to Florida from an upstate NY winter.  I leave the next day which is 87 degrees.  Get off the plane in Albany to 28 degrees.  Nice switch.

I take a day to rest and unpack.  Now it’s Saturday.  I go carpet shopping since my rugs are light, I have 3 dogs, and have lived here for 5 years.  Take the dogs out and they swim in bog water.  Very stinky.  Take them for baths at Pet Smart where they are having dog adoption day.  I’m home 2 hours later with a new puppy.  Shortly after that I get a call that my Grandmother has passed away.

As if that’s not a big enough day for ya, my oldest dog Morgan, stops eating.  Sunday comes and I’m waiting to hear about funeral arrangements.  Didn’t sleep too much since the puppy is up every couple hours whining and needing to go out.  Morgan still isn’t eating and now he’s not even getting up off the floor when I call him.  Not even to go out.

Monday.  My Dad calls to say his flight has been diverted and he’s landing in Albany.  Can I pick them up?  I run around doing last minute errands since I thought I was leaving on Tuesday.  Morgan still not eating or moving.  Dad calls back.  Now they’re flying into Syracuse.  But their bags are still on the Albany plane.  I arrive at the airport to pick them up at 8 30 (the flight was due at 8).  Plane is delayed until 10:15.  I get home at 11:30.  Pack.  Take the dogs out.  Morgan just lays next to the house next door and doesn’t move for 20 minutes.  (Now, I had just rented Marley and Me the night before, and they talk about how animals try to go far away to die.  Not a good thought for me at that moment).

Leave for Michigan Tuesday morning.  Wed funeral.  Morgan goes to vet and they cant’ find anything.  ”He’s jealous of the new puppy” they say.  Wed still no improvement.  Leave Michigan at 5.  Get home to Saratoga at 5am.  Follow up vet visit at 9am Thursday.  Still no answers.  Appointment Friday to ultrasound his abdomin. No sleep since the Friday before.  Whew.  

Feels like there has been no time to process my grandma, new dog, or Morgan being sick cause I’m in the kind of hazy stupor you can only get from not sleeping.  He starts taking 3 different anti biotics and get some special food.  He starts eating and perking up.

I spend the next 4 days trying to catch up on sleep, which is hard when you’re so tired all you want to do is sleep and you can’t sleep cause you’re too tired to.

I finally feel rested.  Take the dogs out to the trail we walk everyday.  Shilo, my husky, disappears.  I get back to the car, still no sign.  I go back out and start the loop backwards.  After about 15 minutes she shows up with a face and mouth full of porcupine quills.  Back to the vet.

So now I’m celebrating a week and 2 days of uneventful life.  I finally got back to work on finishing the songs Thursday.  I can’t believe that a whole month just went by in these paragraphs.  It was exhausting.  And it went incredibly fast.

Time is such a weird thing.  When we were at the funeral, my father said that now he was the oldest person left on that side of the family. (all of my great aunts and uncles have passed as well as my grandfather.  Also my mothers parents died when I was younger and she passed away as well 5 years ago)  That hit me in a weird way.  Things you never think about, like where you are in the order of the continuum of your family life.  And it’s true, my Dad is now the oldest living relative.  That gets me closer to the top.  Strange strange strange.

So I’m rededicating myself once again to NOT wasting time and living life.  Whatever that really means.

On that note, there are 2 new demos up on the webpage.  Check em out and enjoy!

more soon (no really.  no more 2 month lapses)

 

peace

Mike

Thinking back on before

I set up a new webpage. It takes a little while. Maybe part of this is because I’m retarded about computers outside of recording so I didn’t know how to transfer most of the info from my old site to the new one, so there was a lot of typing. Thank god I actually saved a lot of things like the bio, and press stuff. What took the longest though, was typing in the lyrics to the albums. You would think this would be easy–I wrote them so they should just pour out. Context is a weird thing. If I had a guitar in my hand, I could sing all of them to you no problem. Well, maybe a little bit because some songs are more familiar because they get played live more. Some songs NEVER have been played live.

It was interesting to do this. I’m currently finishing the lyrics for the new album. This is always the last component for me. It happens in three ways for me: It all comes out in one big blob and is 90% done right then. (wake up, pouring rain, shine, run to the river come to mind) I mumble a lot during the melody recording and there are syllables or words I key into that form the basis of the idea for the song or lyric (i’m awake, virginia, light) then there are the ones that I need to start totally from scratch and think. So anyway, I’m writing lyrics now. And here I was typing in the lyrics to the old songs. And I had to listen to them to remember. Funny. I think it’s kind of like how when you’ve lived somewhere for a long time, you don’t know street names anymore, but you know exactly how to get somewhere. At least that happens to me. I hope I’m not the only one!!!

The process made me think about the words to the songs in a whole new way. I actually listened to the songs in a different way. I know what I think the songs are about. I also don’t know if the words are any good. Listening to them and writing them down was a very different type of exercise and I realized I really love the lyrics. They’re pretty good. They say exactly what I wanted them to say, and I think the story gets across, but is still very open to the listener to interpret.

This reminded me of a conversation I had with my bass player. We were rehearsing one day and we were doing ‘Bombs’ which I really love. It was his favorite song. I started to talk about what the song meant for me, where I was coming from etc, and he said I was wrong. He then told me his version and what it meant to him. I had never thought of the song in the personal way he spoke about it and related to it. At that moment, I couldn’t really get my head around it because I had always thought that that particular song was about as blatant as I could be. He left and I listened to it again from his perspective and I saw it. Which was an amazing experience. I often write songs about people I observe, things that happened to me, stories I’ve heard and wrap them up into some type of story, or pictures or character. Even if I’m writing about me. But after I heard his story about my song, well, it meant a lot to me that he shared it.

So I was listening to the songs and writing down my own words which I couldn’t remember…(it’s not the drugs really!!)…and it was like ‘hearing’ them for the first time. This happens to me when I play with a band, because everyone eventually adds their own style into the song and they become different. It’s like seeing a movie, which is always the same, like a CD, then seeing the same story but in a theater where it’ll be a little different every night and every time it’s put on by a different company. This had never happened with the words, I’m speaking about the music.

But that’s what happened to me during this process. It probably affected be a lot more because they are my songs and I know what they are about. Especially the songs from ‘Reach’ and ‘Myself Again’. I went through a lot personally during those two album and it’s perfectly reflected, for me at least, in those songs. It made me well up with tears in some places, and I also realized that some of the songs I thought were uplifting or hopeful, didn’t seem that way. Maybe it’s the remove of time, thinking back on things, or maybe some of the songs really were a lot more personal than I had thought.

Or, maybe I just really had the chance for the first time to relate to my songs the way everyone else does. I heard them for the first time as someone listening to a song and thinking about how I related to it, or how it mirrored me and my life.

Which was way cool.

More to come…

peace

ps–there is a members page on the new site that has special content. There is a demo from the new CD as well as two live tracks that you can download up there now. Check it out.

Until the Day Is Done

REM has long been my favorite band.  Their new album rocks, but there are a few quieter moments.  This is one of the best songs they’ve done.  It’s very ‘traditional’ REM-y.  The album was released last springs, so this was probably written at least a year and a half ago.  They lyrics are spooky accurate.  Great stuff.

REM \”Until the Day Is Done\”

There is no Spoon

I’ve been thinking lately about how things don’t ever seem to change.  I mean if you look at history the same types of things happen over and over and over.  They are just packaged differently.  Wars, invasions, genocide, etc.  It was just Columbus Day.  He’s celebrated as the discoverer of America.  Sure.  He did. But he also wiped out all the native people who were here.  He’s a hero.  The Indians were pretty much totally wiped out by western expansion.  We’re heroes.  Bosnia happened, Rwanda Happened and we have ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’.  It’s just packaged different.  Same result.  We invaded Iraq.  We’re ‘liberators’. Russia just invaded Georgia, guess what?  They’re ‘bad guys’ who invaded a nation with no cause.  Hmm.

Looking at the election, what the fuck is going on?  We’re in 2 active wars.  $10 billion a month.  Our economy is tanking.  Our schools don’t work.  People are losing their homes at a record pace.  Now we’re giving huge amounts of $$ to the banks that were a huge cause of the problem so they can keep going.  But many people are also against ‘big’ government and tax increases.  The debt clock broke.  The number is too big. What do we hear about from our candidates?  William Ayres, Obama doesn’t ‘want to win’ the war in Iraq, Palin goes to the debate and announces she won’t answer the questions asked, McCain promised multiple times in the past to not engage in smear campaigns or negative ads.  Now people are yelling ‘kill him’ and ‘terrorist’ at his rallies.  Obama ads say McCain “can’t use e-mail’.  I guess these things are important.

Bill Clinton left us with a surplus, good economy, and we weren’t at war.  Oh-wait-he got a blow job.  Silly me.  The packaging of these insignificant details into larger than life ‘facts’ is always happening. War? let’s talk about Obama’s middle name.  Economy gotcha down? Let’s talk about someone he knew who did something we don’t like 40 years ago.  Obviously THAT is more important.  Palin is accused of being un-ethical in abuse of her office?  Well, not really.  That must be the other guys slanting the results of the investigation.  

It’s the “we can do it, but you can’t” thinking that we seem to fall for every time.  Or at least enough of us.  Or at least the crazies screaming at the McCain rallies.  Are we that stupid?  Forget for a minute whoever you’re supporting in the election.  Shouldn’t SOMEBODY speak about the ISSUES we’re facing and, oh maybe give a non-vague answer to what they think should be done?  Shouldn’t we care about what they want to do? NOT who they bumped up against because they were active in the world? If we’re pretending we’re talking about ‘character’, isn’t it more important what we actually DO verses what someone we know does/did?  Palin has been found to be in violation of her ethical duties as govenor.  She DID that.  Obama knows this guy from Chicago who did some things most people wouldn’t like.  He DIDN’T DO those things.

I read a thing recently that said that about 80% of the american public believes the first thing they hear.  WOW.  That’s why these tactics are so effective.  If I put out the insinuation that Mr. Smith beats his kid because I saw a bruise on his arm, there ya go—most people will forever look at Mr. Smith with suspicion and loathing. He beats his kid after all.  Forget the fact that he got the bruise at little league when he got hit by a pitch.  I said it first.  Suspicion has been raised.  Nothing else matters.  To most people.

Now, that last part is hard for me to swallow.  That 80% of the people will just make a snap judgement like that.  But then again, I’ve seen it in action.  Do we really NOT think anymore?  Are we really THAT lazy and stupid?  I don’t think so, but…

I guess when you can record someone on camera saying something, then they can answer it by saying it was ‘gotcya’ journalism—you recording what someone ACTUALLY said—then the bar is not just low, there is no more bar.  When you can just make associations, accusations, denials without any facts, there is no bar.  When you speak gibberish during an interview and then get credit for speaking in sentences a few days later and are hailed as being ‘brilliant’ there is no bar.

It’s like the Matrix withour computers.  

Anyway, go rent the movie ‘Bob Roberts’.  It was made ao but 10 years ago.  Watch it and compare to the ‘reality’ we’re in now. Crazy.

Sara Palin is a genius!

I don’t know about you, but I kind of grew up with the impression that it took some brains to be president.  I am just baffled by how things go in this country sometimes.  I don’t understand why so many people supported the invasion of Iraq in the name of fighting ‘terrorism’.  I don’t understand how Bush declared ‘Mission Accomplished’, what like 5 years ago almost?, and we’re still losing lives there.  I don’t understand how we stopped counting votes in the 2000 election and no one complained.  WE STOPPED COUUNTING VOTES.  In a DEMOCRACY.  Which  we claim the need to spread around the world.   You all know these facts.  Now, we are again in an election year and  I don’t know what to think again.

 On the one hand, we have Obama, who to me, seems to say ‘change’ over and over.  I’m still not clear on what that means.  On the other, we have McCain, who during the convention in his biography video stressed that he ‘lived in a box’ which I guess means that he has a superior world view.  In the past week he said the economy was fundamentally sound.  Then we have Palin.  

Apparently the fact that you can read a tele-prompter and speak makes you qualified to be president.  I didn’t get all the praise she got for the convention speech…true, she spoke well.  She read well.  A speech someone else most likely wrote.  People were IMPRESSED by this.  How did we get to this being a great thing? Anyway, it seems like many people are ignoring the fact that she is going to be next in line for president if something happens to McCain.  And she doesn’t even speak in sentences.  And she doesn’t even answer the questions asked.  

Here:   This is a direct excerpt from Katie Couric’s One-On-One interview with Sarah Palin, which aired Wednesday on CBS.

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? … Instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess? 

Gov. Sarah Palin: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the — it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

If McCain wins, this woman will be a 72-year- old heartbeat away from being president of the United States.

And here: A Question Reprised, but the Words Come None Too Easily for Palin

It just amazes me that the polling could even be so close.   Well, there ya go.  I’m gonna go hunt a moose and say I’m a foreign policy expert because NY borders Canada.

Ahhh-Colorado

Just got back from a weekend in Colorado where I’ve never been before.  Stayed in Colorado Springs. Hotel room looked smack into Garden of the Gods. That’s the picture below.  Drove to Denver and Boulder.  Up into Wyoming.  Back through Estes Park and to the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park.  Back to Boulder.  Huge Mountains to the west no matter where you go and rolling plains to the east.  Got back to NY and had a whole new appreciation for trees and air with oxygen in it.

 

I wrote a song for the last album ‘Mountain Song’ about the Adirondaks here in NY.  You can listen to some of it here:    Mountain Song

Peace

RIA, Nuclear Physics and Life

I’m calling the new album RIA.  I got this idea from a little movie I really like called “Tennis Anyone?” that came out about 2 years ago.  It’s a cool story about two friends who are trying to become successful actors, and ends up being about being true to yourself and what you really should be doing on this earth.  There’s a scene about half way through where one of the characters father has passed away and he’s telling a story about him.  How he would walk the beach every morning and once he got sick one day was having trouble breathing and shouted “RIA” which is air backwards.  It gave him a big boost of energy and he finished his walk.  Everyone on the beach eventually adopted this saying and would greet him with it everytime they saw him.  Ria!  

This got me thinking about other things too, like the power of words or sound.  In the movie “What the Bleep do we know?” there is a part about the effect of words on water.  When someone taped the word love or hate to a bottle of water, (or maybe they said the words, it’s been awhile since I saw it), the actual structure of the water molecule changed.  The one with love looked really beautiful, like a snowflake and the other looked like smashed glass.  I always found this interesting since I create and play music.  The vibrations travel through the air and can possibly change the molecules and therefore the people listening.  Kinda neat.  Then I found that RIA is also an abbreviation for “rare isotope accelerator” which is going to be used to study “measurement of nuclear reactions at astrophysical energies” as well as discovering new isotopes.  Which ties in nice with the atomic level effect of sound.

In Yoga practice, there is the thought that the chants are so important because the sound of the words will help you into a posture or into meditation.  Sound affecting the physical again.

All this also made me reflect on the life cycle.  I just saw Bob Dylan and it made me realize how lucky we are that he’s still around to see.  LeRoi Moore just passed away and we can’t see him anymore.  We should all be more aware of the fragility of time and what a gift it is that we are around to enjoy and share in whatever it is that we do.  My own mother passed away 4 years ago and it is still shocking to realize…  So call your mom or dad.  Hug your dog.  Write that song.  Finish that project.  Ask the girl out. climb the mountain.  Cause you can.  And that’s a great thing.

RIA

 

peace

Sad day-RIP LeRoi Moore

Sad and sudden and unexpected.  Here’s a good article on their show last night:  Dave Matthews Band’s Farewell to a Fallen Brother.

I didn’t go to the shows this year in Saratoga for the first time in 11 years.  But I got to see them a lot and they are always uplifting and the music was joyous.  He will be missed greatly.

First Blog. I feel like I’m all modern now

Hi everyone.

So as you can see, this is my first ever blog post. I’ve done some things like this before on my webpage news, and sometimes on Myspace, but the latter always seemed like a pain in the butt.  Anyway, here I am.  And it only took about 5 minutes to set up the page.  I don’t know a lot about how this works yet, so bear with me and I’m sure I’ll figure it all out soon.

My initial reason for setting this up, is that I’m nearing the end of my latest album and thought it would be kinda cool to post about how it all happens.  I often get into conversations with non-musician and musician friends of mine about the ‘creative process’ if there is such a thing.  It made me think that it would be a good idea to share that with all of you and maybe give some insight of how it happens for me specifically as well as keeping you updated on the songs progress.  I’m sure I’ll talk about other things as well, because pretty much everything that happens in my life ends up helping me along the path to a song, lyric, musical idea etc… so it may not only be a record of the CD.

So here goes.  Now that I’m writing I think I have something to say (which I didn’t when I started exactly).

This will be my fourth album.  My first came out at the very beginning of 2002.  So I’m averaging 1 every two years.  This makes me think about why.  I always try to have a ‘new’ sound when I record.  While I don’t think I’m hitting Radiohead-like areas of reinvention, I DO think all the albums have their own thing going on.  I actually listen to my own stuff quite a bit–hey I wouldn’t write the songs if I didn’t like them–and back in May I was driving out to my brothers house and listened to the first 3 CD’s in a row.  It’s interesting to hear them all in their entirety since I usually only ‘hear’ them when performing and the set lists are never in order and there are some songs never played live.  The other thing that struck me was in how each one builds on what came before, why certain songs end up on a particular album, and if I’m getting better at song writing.

My first album was recorded at a time that I never had really played with a band.  I was solo acoustic guy.  Plus I only had an ‘all in one’ hard disc recorder which was a lot of fun at the time.  So it was a huge learning process.  I play nearly everything on all the albums (someday I’ll learn drums) as well as recording and mixing–pretty much everything that goes into making a record I do. This was the first one I listened to on the drive.  It’s not too bad.  Some good songs.  A few good mixes.  Very quiet and acoustic-y.  Some songs are much much better live because now I know what they are really supposed to sound like with a band vs me and a bunch of instruments trying to sound like a band.  I fought for a long time with everyone who told me how mellow the disc was when I knew in my head some of the songs ROCKED.  Well, you are all right and I’m wrong but come to a show and you’ll see what I meant.  :  )

 

‘Reach’  came up next.  I really have a fondness for this album.  It was recorded in a falling down farmhouse that I was staying in.  ’Falling Down’ is the first track.  I did everything different.  This is the first song I ever did that did not have one acoustic guitar on it.  Loud and distorted.  I even sang through a distortion pedal.  I liked it.  Best of all, this is how it really sounds.  Raw and live.  When the band was on tour last fall, we played this song every night.  As well as many songs from this CD.  I think of it as my ‘rock’ album and the songs are great live and fun to play.  Again, some change live for the better.  Particularly ‘Pouring Rain’, ‘ Wake Up’ and ‘Dreamless Man’ with the last one being longer, more intense and energetic.  You can hear a live version on webpage by clicking on the link to the right.  One song that is never played live, but is one of my personal favorites is ‘Sleep’.  There is just something about that one that really grabs me.  I’ve never done another song like it and I always crank it up when it comes on my I-pod.  ”Song for the Rain” is in there too.  This song ended up being my first ever radio single.  I actually wrote it for the first album.  It came out in one take.  The acoustic guitar, bass and vocal you hear are all the first time I ever played them.  Even the words came out in that moment.  I never changed a thing even though I always told myself I’d go back and record ‘real words’ and a good vocal.  But it didn’t seem finished and I couldn’t figure out why until about a year later when I added the slide guitar part.  That was it.  It was done.  Sometimes it’s that easy and that hard.  When I hear it now I always try to picture it on the first album, and while it fits mood wise, there is something different about it.  Moodier.  Prettier.  I also think it wouldn’t fit the ’story’ of the first album and is much happier with the group of songs on ‘Reach’.

Yes–there are ’stories’ the the albums.  They all have a theme to them.  And the songs are in the order they are in to reflect that.  With all the talk about downloading and singles and the ‘death of the album’ I still think that is important and I still do it.  I wish ideally, that everyone would listen to the albums straight through and take the journey.  This even goes to the album art.  A lot of thought goes into making it represent the songs and story.  I miss records.  I bought the new Radiohead on record.  It’s way cool.  And it sounds amazing.

Back to ‘Reach’.  Looking back I realize that in a way it’s been the easiest one to get out.  The songs were strong and a couple, like “Song for the Rain” just came out all at once.  ”Wake Up”, “Stupid Song” ‘Untitled’ and ‘October Leaves are all pretty much first or second take.  Lyrics and all.  Also, the songs covered a lot of topics I was thinking about.  We were not yet in Iraq, but heading there and 3 of the songs are about that.  Others are about friends with addictions, people I worked with who had no ambition, how the fact that we are all here and sharing the world may be the only thing to keep us from killing each other.

Listening to it on the ride it stuck me how many different styles of music are on that record as well.  By the time it finished, I couldn’t even remember where it began and I wrote the damn thing.  Which I think is pretty cool.

 

Then ‘Myself Again’ began.  Wow does it sound different.  Part of this is because it is the first time I recorded with ‘real’ recording stuff.  I had gotten Pro-Tools.  Man what a difference.  So it’s the best sounding CD quality wise.  It’s always funny to me that everyone says it’s my happiest record because to me it’s the most personal and it mainly deals with the aftermath of my mother passing away.   But it is a joyful album somehow. Bouncy riffs, a lot of short ‘poppy’ songs. Many songs about ’seizing the day’ as cheesy as that sounds sometime.  I really love the songs and they sound great live and they are fun to play and everyone always sings along.  Which is the best thing that can happen when you are a performing musician. Of course my favorites are always the less accessable tunes:  This Dream, Run to the River, Mountain Song and My Soul Is High are my personal picks from this CD  

It also is the first radio success with over 180 stations playing it.  I even get to hear myself on the radio thanks to WEXT here in Albany, NY.  Special thanks to them for playing some (now up to 5) of the songs every once in a while.  ’California’ appears on this CD as well.  I re did it because it has always been everyones favorite song and it sounds different with the band than the more acoustic version on ‘Stay Awhile’ so I re did it in a more band-like way.  I guess it payed off because several stations had it in their Top 10 and it is in the finals for the soundtrack to the PBS show Roadtrip Nation for 2008.  We did a 15 date tour from October-Dec 07 behind the record, had many interviews/articles written, got some great press and met a lot of cool new people.

Which brings me to the new songs.  I started working in January.  Quickly I had 45 songs.  Sounds like a good problem.  I’m not complaining, but trying to whittle it down to 10-15 songs for a CD has not been easy.  Every time I get my ‘final’ song list, a new one will appear.  As of today I have it down to the final 20.  Wish me luck!  I have been tracking demos.  They range from just a guitar to more fleshed out arrangements.  Some have words, some barely have humming in tune.  I always come up with music first, then a melody, then hopefully words.  There is going to be a lot of piano and keyboards on this one.  Lots of harmonies and counter melody vocals as well.  I’m excited.

I think I’ll be done by the end of August.  But I said the end of May back in March, so who knows.  I just want it to be as good as I can get it.  One song that is my absolute favorite thing I’ve ever come up with is nearing completion.  It’s called “Come With Me”.  Here it is for you to listen to.  The singing is terrible (I always do this to myself–sing at like 3am when I’m tired until the final version, someday I’ll learn!) The bass is full of mistakes–well, the whole thing is a mess.  It’s NOT done.  It’s going to be a lot better.  I promise.  But listen to it in that spirit–an unfinished demo and I think you’ll like it.  I hope.  It’s a ‘read between the lines’ situation when I play demos for people, and usuallly I won’t put anything out before it’s 90% done.  This is about 50%.  Keep that in mind. This one came out in one of those spurts I talked about.  I turned on the recorder and the lyric was 90% there, and the bass and electric and piano parts I added that night.  It’s nice when that happens.

Come With Me (rough demo) copyright 2008 Michael D Grutka

I hope you like it.  I will be posting more here as the days go by and sometimes it’ll be long and rambling like this, sometimes just a new demo.  Come back and check.

 

Thanks for all your support over the years.  I hope to see many of you this fall on the road.  

 

Back to work.

 

peace

Mike