The July 4th Parade and Show that Followed

Niks Place brought me up on their short bus for the 4th of July parade. It was fun. Towards the end, I got bored and started yelling at the crowd "come see a legend tonight at Niks! Me!"

I thought it was funny. Not many other folks did. Fuck em.

And then I played a show that night. I thought Melissa was coming, but she never made it. Instead I had Herbie Dorfman (sp?) on baritone sax. Oh man he's fun. We played all sorts of crazy shit, after burning through the usual suspects of the set list. Note to self: ALWAYS play Hell and Ecstasy then Are you Experienced. Because damn. Those are the stretch-out-and-groove songs, sho nuff.

And John Michael Rose got up and sang enough songs for me to eat dinner. That guy's a trooper.

This week, I'm in whore mode for a whole different project. YERMOMANEMS - the greatest band to ever come out of the Weather Channel! Will be playing on Saturday for a benefit show. Ahh the benefit shows. Always the funnest to be involved with.

Gotta run. There's more. There's always more, just, maybe not today.

View From The Stage #1

Played the acoustic night at Niks Place last night. I've been doing this since sometime in November or December, every other Sunday night. I liken Nik's Place to the Star Wars Cantina, not just in the way that people are freaks but in the way a man can lose an arm for saying the wrong thing. Freaky Scary Fun To Watch.

Observations for the evening:
1. No, not EVERYONE knows Allman Brothers Songs. No, YOU come on man.

2. Yes, "Bye Bye Miss American Pie" is the greatest song in the world, but no, that doesn't mean I know it.

3. "...play some shit that everybody knows!" equals FREEBIRD, every time. EVERY time. Oh, laugh and then say it again? FREEBIRD AGAIN. Everybody Wins.

4. Just because I'm in the middle of a song - in the middle of a verse, oh please, come up and start asking me questions. I'm not doing anything. Honestly, I'm just kind of rehearsing. I'm not really in the middle of a song. I'll be happy to stop and have a conversation with you Bud Light.

5. If you DO NOT KNOW the words to MORE THAN WORDS, do not get up and try to sing it. That's irony right there - not knowing the words to MORE than words.

Kudos to the Drunk Ass Skank of the Week: Tracy I believe was her name. It was hard to understand the Oxycontin-Budweiser slur. But trust me, if a girl keeps returning to request the same song over and over, it's not because she's a fan. It's because she's lit like a flare and forgot that she'd already made the request.

Public Service Announcement Number One: Just because there's a mic in the room, it does not mean you should run up, grab it and sing. Especially if I am already using the goddamn thing. You twit. Get off my stage. I'm a star. You are not. You are Greedo. (ps watch your ass, Han Solo shoots first)

It was a good night, all in all. I made good money in tips, I got free food and booze, I made it home in one piece, and I rocked the place until they needed to change their depends.

I'll update you as events become clearer.

So. Let's Get Busy.

I've got an album in the can, it's been in the can since Dec of '07. I've decided to get off my ass and do something about it. There's no point in being this awesome if I can't prove it to every person out there.

I spent the last year (08) noodling around, retiring, whining, planning offshoot projects that never happened, and here we are, a year later, but I'm back in the saddle, playing at least 3 times a month, everything's coming up roses. So what the hell, let's make a little noise and finish this stupid record.

When I last checked, there was 10 songs - 3 of which were covers. I think I'm going to go ahead and add "bonus tracks!" to the record to flush out all the other great stuff I've done over the past year. I mean seriously, how expensive COULD it be to make an album that's 50% covers? Especially if those covers are going to garner more attention and more sales - thereby paying for themselves, right? Sure sure. That's what I'll tell myself.

The ORIGINAL TAL3NT! track list:
As Good
Behind Bars
Does That Make You Feel Good
Fools Gold
Hotel Chelsea (cover)
I Don't Want These Memories
I Would Die 4 U (cover)
Make Me Laugh
My Dingaling (cover)
Nevergonnaletyoumakemehatemyself Again
Run Your Hands
Star 69 (which is now looking extremely dated no matter how you splain it)

And then the covers I've done because I kill me with my humor:
Don't Worry Be Happy
I'm A Lover Not A Fighter
You Shook Me All Night Long
Drive
I Just Can't Wait To Be King
Sympathy For the Devil
Hey You/Hey Ya
Daughters

So what are we up to - 3 hours of music? Maybe I oughtta be a little more picky? Pshaw. Maybe two albums at the same time? A Use Your Illusion - but call it Use Your Confusion ho ho ho. I gotta wake up.

But seriously - looking at my last year's output - I've done more re-covers than originals. I wouldn't call it a slump. I'd call it having fun messing stuff up. Is that so bad? Should I begin marketing myself as a fantastic re-arranger for people who want to re-interpret covers? Sure I could. For those four people in the world who'd have no ability to do a cover.

Sigh.

Making a commercial in my backyard!!

A friend recommended our backyard for a commercial. It seemed awesome and easy. They've been here since 7am, and it blows my mind how much work goes into 20 seconds of footage.

There's a ton of stuff here - 25 people, trucks, cameras, lights, damn. I need to bust out my guitar and get in the mix. Hahah I kid. Sadly.

The cool thing is that my backyard now has its own agent.

Hey hey I'm a drummer too.

What a great week or so. The music bug is fully back, and I'm working on another song. This one's going to be a keeper instead of just a "let's go through the motions" track.

Of course, the challenge NOW would be, getting the recording UP to "keeper" status. I've discovered, when I screw around and just throw stuff down to get it recorded, I really like THOSE performances better than the ones where i'm trying to really get a finished thing nailed down. Just like anything else - when it's the real deal, you freeze up a little more. It's typical.

But the cool thing is that I can record and record all I want at my home studio, and just goof off and eventually pick the better pieces and go with that. It's fun. I'm still discovering how to use the mic and all the new doodads to their full potential. Not a big thing.

I'm just glad to be back at this stuff. I have a lot of fun when I'm doing this crap. I just don't seem to have the energy I had like 4 years ago. Maybe I'm old. Or maybe I'm lazy. Or maybe I'm old and lazy.

I'm betting it's the latter.

Productive, and I didn't take any Metamucil!

Well well well. Since Wednesday, I've recorded four songs. FOUR! How awesome is that. Three are mine, and one is me trying to recreate a song that I loved as a kid that's simply not available itunes. I hate itunes sometimes. I'm addicted to it, and yet, they refuse to sell stuff that's 30 years old and out of print.

Well okay, that sort of makes sense, but then again damn.

Anyhooze. Four songs! The first one was a goof-off blues thing. I was going for a sleazy strip joint of the 60s kind of vibe. You know the type - in the old tv shows, whenever the P.I. had to go talk to Maxie the hooker with a heart of gold - she worked at these places. I'm talking Ironsides, Mannix, Kojak - really crappy cop shows of the mid-70s. For some reason they assumed that strip joints were stuck in 1964 or something. And that's the vibe I was shooting for. I'll tell you what I discovered. I still suck at harmonica. That's what I discovered.

But who cares. I recorded a damn song. And then another one. And THEN another one. And then yesterday, or maybe the day before, I recorded a great one. THAT was a cover but again, who cares, it's got my creative juices unplugged and flowing again (and THAT's where the Metamucil joke comes in).

I'm happy. I'm getting that junkie twinkle in my eye - the drive that keeps me up until 4 am for no reason other than to Record Shit. It's great. Now, I need to organize my studio. Currently, it's a disaster area, similar to the toymaker's house in Blade Runner. Boy his place was a sty. Well okay, my studio (hahaha corner of the office) doesn't have leaks and stuff, but you get it.

I'm going to go back and remix it a couple more times. I have a hard time with funky acoustic vocal songs - I always put the vocals way too loud, so I'm working on it a little more first. SO in the meantime, how about something else to listen to.

MAKE ME LAUGH

Too many distractions! Ack.

Lessee. So I bought the new doodads. And I've been using them this week. I've recorded three songs - mostly throwaways just to get me back into the habit of recording and creating crap. You'd be surprised. Back, three or four years ago, I would come home, pat the boy on the head, kiss the wife and dissappear into the basement for 5-6 hours.

That's just how it happened. Not every day, but most days. And it became such a habit that I could walk in, put on a guitar, tap out a tempo and stuff just flowed out of me. Most of it was semi-forgettable, but the sheer volume of crap made it easier to make progress in less time.

And I can remember thinking, "damn, if I only had this, and that, and this, I could record better, faster, more proffessional songs and this whole thing would be easier and quicker".

Now that I've got all of those things, I'm let down by my own drive. I come home, pat the kids on the head, kiss the wife, sit down and 5 hours later I'm going to sleep.

Wait. What? What happened in those 5 hours? Well. Um. Comedy Central, and the IFC and Netflix, and some online forums and myspace and so much crap that's just big time-suckers. I CALL it research, but really, it's fucking off and wasting hours and hours with nothing - absolutely nothing - of value to show for it.

Well. This week I at least pulled my act together a little bit and I made up some interesting stuff, all in one day. The drumkit really speeded it all up. And it got me writing lyrics again. So damn. Hopefully this is a change in habits for me. No more TV. Fuck that shit. I've got too many other things going on:

- The Kids Album
- TAL3NT!
- The Blues Album (I'm planning to spew out a complete blues album now, going hard-core old-school. It'll be easy and quick and I'll finally have something.)

- The Christmas Website. Damn. That thing has become an albatross or a boat anchor or something around my neck. I can't believe it's taken me so long to resolve this thing. My involvement should have been limited and quick and then I hand it off, but instead I've dragged my heels for an entire YEAR.

But piss off. That's where I am. I'm doing what I can. I have so much I WANT to do. Today, I got a wild hair and suddenly dove headfirst into learning how to do old-school animation. Cuz, yeah, you know, I've got so much free time. What a dipshit.