Big changes brewing

It's been a while since i've come up with a song I've actually been excited about, but here's one! Scoresville!

Colder Than Winter

In bigger news, this post is one of the first things I've ever attempted to type with all my fingers. See, all my life I've only used one finger (and have gotten pretty fast at this method). I'm not exactly sure why, but yesterday I decided that it was finally time I learned to type grownup style. It's hard. Wish me luck.

Song Writing VS Song Making

You may have noticed that when I talk about songs I talk about making songs rather than writing songs. Song making is a term I picked up from Utah Phillips and I think it captures the process of what I do more accurately than "writing". Maybe it's just me being picky, but the term "songwriting" tends to conjure up images of sitting at a piano with a pen and paper and very deliberately putting down music. When I write it's much more like making a piece of visual art. I start with an idea (often one that I've stumbled upon by accident) anmd build on it until it feels complete. Usually work on a song happensd in spurts. Maybe I'll come up with a line I like one day, then come up with a melody the next, than it could take a month to finish the lyrics. And nothing is actually written down. So, songmaking it is. Here are a couple of songs that I think exemplify that process pretty well.

1.Hyacinth

I came up with the first lines of this song while driving back very late at night from the last show of Raise Up Roof Beams tour last summer (after an unfortunate run in with the Lebanese Mafia). I pulled out my notebook and I jotted down a few ideas and then finished the song over the following week. Drew and I had been playing it for a while with just guitar and ukulele, but for this recording I just kept building on it until it sounded big enough. It went somewhere totally unexpected almost by accident.

2. Shine on My Darling

This song started out as a little guitar lick and was writting while it was being recorded. I probably won't ever play it live because it would be pretty boring with just one guitar.

Collaboration: A Celebration

It's been a while. Here's a song.

I Collect Fire

This is the last song I've of mine that I've been really excited about. And I made it up a couple months ago, so maybe that says something about my productivity as of late. My good friend Tara Toms sang harmony vocals on this recording. Tara lives in a very welcoming trailer way out in the woods with many friendly animals. She also sings fantastic songs. She's working on a new album right now which is going to drop like a bomb. So brace yourself.

Old Time Burials

Old Time Burials is a band I play in with my soul brother Drew Hermeling. He plays ukelele, I play guitar, and we both sing and play various other tiny instruments and cooking utensils. Here are some songs we recorded a while ago, but never released. 2 were written by Drew and 2 by me.

Unreleased Songs

While we're at it, here's our first album, which we made about a year ago. Free music! Hooray!

Gather The Birds

A cover and not a cover

1. The Difference
This is a song I made last summer. There's not too much backstory here. Just a little song.

2. I'll be Here in the Morning
This is a Townes Van Zandt song. Usually when I do a cover I try to make it a little different than the original and embellish it with my own guitar style. However, that was hard to do with this song since a lot of what I do on guitar was learned from listening to Townes' records. He's kind of a musical idol of mine. This song comes from his self titled album, which is a good place to start if you've never listened to him. Also, check out the doccumentary "Be Here to Love Me". Here's a clip from that film of Devendra Banhart covering "Colorado Girl"

Finally!

After waiting to get internet set up at our house, and subsequent battles with my wireless card, I can upload songs! I have, however rethought this blog. After recording every day for half this month, I've decided you probably don't want to hear everything I've done (trust me, you don't). So I'll only be posting the things I think came out well and we can all avoid a lot of pain. I'll also use this blog to post other odds and ends and never-released recordings from previous projects I've been involved in. That being said, here we go!



Song 3: Breathing in Billows

This is the last song that I recorded on my crummy computer mic before getting a small mixer and better microphone. So you can expect a small increase in quality from here on out (however not huge since I still know next to nothing about recording and mixing). The reason I didn't re-record this on the new equipment is that I improvised the guitar parts between the verses and don't exactly remember what I did.



This was my attempt at writing an epic song with multiple movements a la Joanna Newsom or the Decemberists' "The Tain". However, as a practitioner of the "tiny" genre of music, even my epic song only clocks in at 5:15. But, seeing as I usually only make about the 2 minute mark, breaking 5 is quite a milestone in my opinion.

Already falling behind

It's june 1st and I'm already falling behind due to forces beyond my control. We just moved and we don't have internet hooked up yet. I've been recording, but I can't upload songs from the library. Stay tuned though.