Iced over

Well. It's Iowa. That's really all you can say. It's Iowa, and there's ice everywhere, and they say it's gonna turn to snow, and that just sucks.

I haven't recorded my new record yet. It's coming. We're discussing. We'll see. Eric and Dan may show up in the mix somehow and that would be seriously cool...

It's late and I'm baking bread...

I seem to be baking bread a lot lately...weird, but oh well. It's been that kind of a day...

But it's a good night for baking bread - there's an ice storm going on outside, so the house could stand a little warm up. I am not dealing with this winter thing very well, I'm sorry to say...

The songs are really shaping up now, starting to feel a little more natural. I need to just knock out about 2 hours a day and really polish them up nice for a week and then I think I'll be set to record. I hope.

Weather crap

The temp dropped 50 degrees in a day. It's so frickin' cold I can hardly feel my fingers. This ir wrong...so wrong...

Hang on - I'd better drink my coffee before it freezes in the mug...

Ah...that's tasty. Jazzy Chestnut from Sugar Grove Winery. It's Christmas in my mouth.

So...last week...I didn't blog...I barely picked up a guitar if at all...and I don't know why, I don't know what the hell was going on. It was completely weird...and now I can't remember a thing about any of it to even say what I was doing that was keeping me from this stuff that's so very important to me. WEIRD.

I have to warm my fingers around the coffee mug again - they're getting stiff from the cold.

Sad guitar

My oldest guitar friend, my 1972 Gallagher G45 Custom, is a sick baby. The weather was just too much for it this year and the neck is...bendy...I can't play it anyway because it causes my right rotator cuff to freak OUT, dreadnaughts are just too big for me. But it was my dad's guitar, and he gave it to me after I had a bunch of work done on it in the 80's...and now...sigh. I have to call Don Gallagher Monday and talk to him about it and it's probably going to make me cry. I adjusted the truss rod as much as it'll adjust, and it's not enough. He could probably put a new neck on, but he'd want to put a new back on, too, because the back is the home of the Crack of Doom... it's been a working guitar, so it's taken a beating through weather and winters and who the hell knows what all. I don't know if it would be the same guitar after all that...and maybe that's ok - maybe that's a good thing - new back and new neck with a modern truss rod and carbon fiber rods - maybe I'd get another 35 years out of it. I should live at least that long...well...we'll have to have a good long chat about it Monday. In the meantime, I'm all worried about it...

It's disgusting

There's a shiny layer of ice all over my world. I don't like it. I wasn't ready for winter. It's going to make me NUTS. I want to be warm again...just for a few days...pul-leeeze..?

Have made no progress on much of anything and now I'm fighting a cold. I may win, we'll see. I've hit it with everything I've got. 'Tis the season to be snotty.

F-f-f-reezing...

Alright, I've been cold for 4 solid days, and this is NOT NORMAL. I'm usually too warm, even if everybody else around me is freezing. I am not running a fever. I am not coming down with anything. It's just bloody cold and clammy here in lovely Iowa.

Major snowstorm on the way for tomorrow...sigh.

Rough night

It's a sweet gig, but damn it was cold. The wind was howling through town, sucking the heat out of everything and everyone. I was freezing, my hands were so cold I couldn't play, or concentrate, or focus...my hands simply would not work. First set was ALMOST a disaster. Second was somewhat better once the bodies started warming the room up more. Guitar was FREAKING out. Even after I threatened to go buy a graphite guitar. Met some damn nice people though.

Well, if Tiger Woods can have an off day, I can have an off night once in a while. And there wasn't a bazillion dollars on the line for me, nor was the national news there minutely analyzing every botched note. But here's the REAL newsflash - I DID NOT FORGET A SINGLE WORD IN ANY SONG ALL NIGHT LONG.

Pat Smith is taking me for a belated birthday breakfast (and little does he know, commiseration fest) this morning so I probably need to take a shower and put on some real clothes. It's flarping cold out there. No wandering about in my jammies today.

Better

Actually fixed 2 songs last night - I think I'm solid now, nothing missing. I hope. Listening back the other thing I noticed was that I played everything too fast, well not everything but a few things, so I need to get that in my head, too. SLOW is good. Some of these songs, slow is sensual and lovely, which is great.

Eeking closer and closer and closer...

Simmering

I think I got a good handle on how to finish the one song that was bugging me...hopefully it'll come together tonight. Guitar needs to be changed up a bit, along with a few words...here and there, it's all good.

WAY sleepy this morning...want to crawl under the covers and tell everybody to get stuffed and leave me alone...but...sigh...

2nd listen

Well, after a second listen this morning, I'm really pleased with all the songs. There's one that doesn't seem "done" - it's a complete thing, but somehow when you stick the fork in it you go, hmmmm...just needs a better arrangement maybe. I'll work on it tonight. See what I can come up with...

Back to work work work...

Track Scratch Fever...

I am listening to the scratch tracks for the next CD...Stumble of the Fall...RIGHT NOW I am listening...recorded them this afternoon on my field recorder...put them in the order I think I want...all that doo dah. So far, I'm thinking it's good...I just need to get them more fluid and effortless - I still have to think too hard about them. It'll come.

Lunching with the STARZZZZ.....

Had a guitar lunch today...Pat Smith and Steve Armstrong...very quiet, just a few of us there. At Godfather's...I'm sort of low-energy today so it was nice that it was a small gathering.

I cut my finger cutting bread yesterday...argh...not too bad, but it's my left ring finger, right at the ferking tip. Blast. It's not too bad - at least I cut it with a really sharp knife. Stoopid I know...but that's the way the...bread...gets cut...

I guess we're going to put up the Yule tree today and get the house all gussied up. Well, as much as this house gets gussied, which ain't much.

Thanksgiving at Russett House...

Lovely dinner, hilarity, wine...pie...yes, that's what it's all about...being with people who make you think and laugh at the same time is a feast for the soul. Thanks Doug and Kathy and Family for taking us in...

SLEEPY now...want to practice a wee bit before I fall over...

Coming together

It takes a while to let songs settle in - I need to play these a lot more than I have had time to. They're still too raw - they need time to simmer in their juice. It's so delicate - they have to be fresh but solid. They're nothing like solid yet. A couple of them are coming along really well, and all of them are good songs...but...sigh. It's heavy lifting time.

New stuff is weird

It's part of me, but totally unfamiliar...I keep thinking new songs are like babies, but they're really not - they're SMARTER than babies...they are a little bit in charge. Babies...well, they're easy - at least mine was easy - he was the happiest, mellowest baby ever. Songs are not all that happy, and only once in a while do you get a mellow one. Mostly they take over your life with their demands for you to make them BETTER until something is satisfied and then they quiet down. Like one of the new songs, "Last Night I Dreamed" -I have a hell of a time keeping it in tempo - it badly wants to rush, so I have to play it over and over with a metronome until it rolls over and shows me it's tummy. I'm hoping and praying the Terry Lawless is available to play some flute...LOVE his vibe. He's delicious.

And yes, I need to stop blogging and START PRACTICING!!!!!! Argh!!!!!

New songs about to...

I have a mess of new songs, so I'm hoping to have the energy to record them all one of these days...going to be a challenge, but somehow I'll get it done. I feel like this every time I go through this process, but I feel like some of these songs are the best stuff I've ever written.

It's darker work than I've done in a while - not unhopeful, just...darker. I'm actually going to open the record with a song I didn't write - which is a rare thing for me. It's a song my friend Bill Nix wrote called "Stumble of the Fall," which just ties the whole record together. A lot of the songs are bittersweet, or joyful in a dark and complicated way, which is what my life seems to be a lot of the time.

And yes, it's really just past 7AM on a Tuesday...this is just undignified for a musician of my caliber. Argh.

New Blog

I really do have enough to do...but I love love love to write, so...I will write more. It's a very good thing. Writing and playing the guitar...if I could do just that for the rest of my life I honestly think I would die happy.

But it's been a very long day, a good day, but long, and I am fading fast, so THANKS to Doug and Kathy for turning me on to Blogspot...I'm off to watch TV with my eyes closed.