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.