As Promised...

So, I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone (what a freakin' HORRIBLE expression, by the way) and show you all pictures of my new haircut while simultaneously showing you pictures from my band's CD Release Party. These were taken by some wonderful people who came to the show.



Photo by Alex Haines



Photo by Bob Travis



Photo by Justin Pax

I got more compliments on my hair than my singing or guitar playing (though I was also told we sounded good...)! More info to follow on the CD itself! Thanks to all our friends and family who came out to support us, and thanks to all those involved in the making of the CD.

The Church of the Modern-Day Songwriter

So, I'm not huge on things like, oh, religion. But I do worship songwriters... and, if you think it's blasphemous to worship something so "worldly," tell me, did Jesus ever have a hit? Don't dance around the question... the answer is NO people...

Here are some songwriters I worship:

Joni Mitchell: Numero Uno Worship-able Songwriter. The entire album Blue is like my Book of Genesis. It's where my obsession began. The lines are simple but poignant: "I wish a I had a river I could skate away on," "I wanna talk to you, I wanna shampoo you, I wanna renew you again and again," "But when he's gone, me and them lonesome blue collide; the bed's too big, the frying pan's too wide..." ah, it's all beautiful genius. And then there's the chord changes, about which I will not bore you. But just know they fit into the same Beautiful Genius category as the lyrics.

The Bealtes: I hate to lump all of the songwriters in this band together, but I didn't think you'd want to read a paragraph on each of them. So, here's the short version of what I think of each of the band members' songwriting styles: John= Raw, emotional. George= Elegant, true. Paul= Optimistic, fun. Ringo= Um? "Octopus's Garden," really? John's my favorite. So yeah, I guess because of their names, they'd be like the apostles right? Ringo being the 13th and forgotten one?

Bob Dylan: I realize liking Bob Dylan's songwriting is a huge cliche, but I don't really care. I enjoy the early, acoustic Dylan and the later, rocking Dylan. The sheer volume of great songs is just dizzying. I'm a fan of when songwriters and poets focus on the way words sound (not just what they mean), which is something Dylan most certainly did. And I don't think he's "Judas!" for going electric! (For those of you who don't get the reference: In 1966 in Manchester, England, Dylan came out for the second half of his concert there with an electric band (The Band!), and a person in the crowd yelled "Judas!" at Dylan, meaning that he was a traitor for going electric. Dylan replied, "You're a liar," and then proceeded to instruct his band to "play it fucking loud!" which is freakin' awesome.)

Van Morrison: Van will always be "Van the Man" to me. Like Dylan, the sheer volume of fantastic songs to come out of this one person is just amazing. "Tupelo Honey," "Into the Mystic," "Queen of the Slipstream," "Caravan," "Moondance," "Someone Like You," "Have I Told You Lately," I mean seriously, how can one person write so many epically wonderful songs? And he was so anal about instrumentation, but, in my opinion, that's a big part of what make his songs great. And I think, if there was a god, his voice would probably sound a lot like Van's.

Robbie Robertson: The main songwriter of the band The Band. I think a few of the other members (Levon Helm especially) also did some of their songwriting, but Robbie wrote or cowrote most of their songs. Robbie (ok, we're not really on a first-name basis, but we should be) is one of those Non-Singer/Songwriters. He's not much for the singing thing, but can play the Hell out of the guitar and write the Hell out of a song. I'd say he is reponsible for getting a lot of the Hell out of a lot of things.

Ray LaMontagne: Much more recently in the spotlight, this guy is freakin' amazing. There are hints of Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell throughout his songwriting and recording, but he's also got his own thing going on. He writes songs that have a lot of soul, and many of them move me to tears. His new album is my favorite, and it's called God Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise. His voice is incredibly sexy also; I think this guy could sing a woman pregnant... Immaculate Conception.. Ha, anyone? Anyone at all...? Nobody?

Josh Ritter: Chris and I saw him with his full band live the other night, and he is simply incredible. His songs may be the most intelligent I've ever heard. Plus, the man knows how to put on a show. He had the entire nearly sold-out crowd slow-dancing together during one of his songs; it was great! He is another songwriter that evokes complex emotions in his writing; somehow I can feel hopeful and sad all at once when I listen to him. He is able to allude to literature, folklore, and pop culture all in the same song. It's amazing. He is also always smiling on stage. Chris and I both really like his songwriting, but Chris considers him, well, how do I say this? Maybe a little too gentle? (not in a bad way, just compared to his favorites like Tom Waits and Steve Earle), so we'll say that Josh Ritter is the Angel of Songwriting. Plus lots of his songs have religious imagery ("If evil exists, it's a pair of train tracks and the devil is a railroad car...").

Obviously there are nearly countless numbers of incredible songwriters, and I happen to personally know quite a few. But the ones I worship are the giants, the ones who are on a whole other level, the ones who rub elbows with perfection on a daily basis, the ones who don't quite seem earthly...

Peace be with you, and AMEN!

Playlist 3: Shamless Self-Promotion

There's only ONE SONG ON THIS PLAYLIST. My band's single from our new album, At Long Last (being released March 5!), is now available for listening and for downloading (first 200 downloads are FREE) at http://rockrivergypsies.bandcamp.com/. It's called "Hey Anne," and Chris and I co-wrote it (Yes, cue the long, drawn-out "awwwww...").

It's all happening!

Ain't we cute? Photo by G. Milo Farineau.

Playlist 2: The Best Songs Ever

So, between my new job (which I'm loving so far after my first full week!) and details surrounding my band's debut album release, life has been incredibly insane. I want you to know that I have not abandoned this blog! I simply have a lot going on. As I settle in to a new routine, I'm sure I will be able to write more often.

Here is my second playlist for you. These are The Best Songs Ever. Period. No "arguably"s or "in my opinion"s or anything of that BS. These are not in ranked order; they are just the best songs ever in the order that I thought of them. And I'd like to make the distinction that these are the best versions of the best songs ever as well... I mean seriously, you can't compare Bob Dylan with Peter, Paul, and Mary (cough cough), right? And, I didn't want to use the same artist more than once. Also a note: These are all in the pop/rock/R&B/folk realm. If I took jazz into consideration, this list would be 50 songs long!

-"Midnight Train to Georgia," by Gladys Knight and the Pips
-"Don't Let Me Down," by The Beatles
-"The Weight," by The Band with The Staple Singers (The Last Waltz version)
-"Tupelo Honey," by Van ("The Man") Morrison
-"Diamonds and Rust," by Joan Baez
-"I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)," by Aretha Franklin
-"A Change is Gonna Come," by Sam Cooke
-"Try a Little Tenderness," by Otis Redding
-"Cactus Tree," by Joni Mitchell (The live Miles of Aisles version from 1974)
-"Good Vibrations" by The Beach Boys
-"Jolene," by Dolly Parton
-"Let's Get it On," by Marvin Gaye
-"Helpless," by Neil Young (The Last Waltz version with The Band and Joni Mitchell singing backups)
-"My Little Town," by Simon and Garfunkel (I could only find a live version of this online, but I mean the studio version!)
-"Tutti Frutti," by Little Richard
-"Amie," by Pure Prairie League
-"Superstition," by Stevie Wonder
-"Whipping Post," by The Allman Brothers (The live 23-minute version from Live at the Fillmore East version... the recording I linked to says it is 1/3 of the song!)
-"The Rainbow Connection," by Kermit the Frog

You're welcome. There are many more amazing, awesome songs, obviously. But, this is MY Best Songs Ever list, so I get to decide what goes on it.

I think my dad would be proud of how much of the music-appreciation he imparted on me (Hi Dad!) stuck. I'm more than a little happy about it too. He and I both do this thing when we're excited about a song (or even a small part of a song): We make the people around us listen to it, even though we know they'll never quite love it as much as we do or the same way we do. But, we just want so badly for that person to feel what we feel when that song is playing, so, we try anyways. Many of the songs above came into my life because of my dad (and many of them move me to tears simply because they're so good), and I'd just like to give him a shout-out. Plus, he plays a MEAN air guitar.

Also, I'd like to officially announce my band's CD Release Party at The Southern in Charlottesville, VA on Saturday, March 5! Tickets are $10 and include a copy of the album. If you're in the area, it would be lovely to see you there! Here's a link to the venue's website: http://www.thesoutherncville.com/. If you scroll down to March 5th, you'll see the listing for our show, and you can buy tickets right off the site. Exciting! Maybe someday someone else will put one of our songs on their Best Songs Ever list...

Playlist 1: Christmas Ain't Over Yet

Whoa, so the wind was blowing here in Lon-Gisland at like 50 knots all last night (I have no clue what a "knot" means, but let's just say there are 7-foot waves on The Sound, which ain't supposed to have waves at all!). I actually couldn't sleep at all, because the wind was so loud. And, the gutter blew off the house. And I was convinced that the windows were going to blow in.

Anyways, Chris has this great idea for my blog. The idea is that I make playlists every-so-often (or virtual mixed tapes). This is one of my favorite past-times, the love for which I inherited from my dad. My dad is seriously the king of making mixes.

So, here is my Christmas playlist. I tend to despise Christmas music, so here is my very picky hand-picked list for your listening pleasure:

1. "Linus and Lucy," Vince Guaraldi
2. "Pretty Paper," Willie Nelson
3. "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," Brenda Lee
4. "St. Stephen's Day Murders," The Chieftains
5. "Jingle Bells," Shroeder
6. "Blue Christmas," Elvis Presley
7. "All I Want for Christmas is You," Mariah Carey
8. "Christmas Island," Bob Dylan
9. "The Twelve Days of Christmas," John Denver with The Muppets
10. "Happy Christmas/War is Over," John Lennon


So, my thinking is that I will try to do a different playlist every couple weeks. All of them will have the tag "playlist," so if you wanted to pull up all of them, you could simply search for that.

I hope you all had/are having wonderul and relaxing holiday!

Studio Magic

So, this past weekend I was in the recording studio for 16+ hours. My band is making its debut album (woo!), so all six of us spent many hours recording rhythm tracks for 12 of our original songs. And the spare time I had between sessions I spent making lead sheets (essentially maps) for each of our songs so we would be as productive as possible (Am I a first born? Yes. Perfectionist? Yes. Control freak? Yes.). As a result, zero writing has occurred. I've also tried to find a job. Because I am now unemployed, meaning zero money is coming in. Meaning no spending! Meaning, eat what is in the house, damnit. No sushi for you.

Anyways, being in the studio felt incredibly glamorous, I ain't gonna lie. I alternated between mainlining beer and coffee, resulting in dehydration. Several amusing "inside" jokes arose, including sending for "strippers, cocaine, and hand warmers." Also, when I told Chris his guitar (which I was then playing) wouldn't stay in tune, he said something to the effect of "now you know I feel." (PS- Have I mentioned that Chris and I are both in the same band?) The sound engineer promptly called for a guitar tech and a marriage counselor. (:

SO, we still have a lot of work to do, but we're hoping the album will be released by the end of January. It's gonna be rock n' roll. Fo Sho!

It's also very cool because modern technology makes it so that we can fix minor mistakes without redoing entire sections of the rhythm. It's like, you don't even have to be good to make a good album (read, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers, etc). I'm not a music snob at all (NOT).

In fact, my father raised me to be a music snob. By the time I was three, he could ask me who we were listening to, and I could say so with fair accuracy: "The Beatles!" "Van (The Man) Morrison!" And boy was I proud to be able to do so. In fact, I still am. A love for music trivia is one of the things my dad instilled in me that I'm quite happy about. He has this awesome book (actually, it is so worn and beat up that I'd call it more of a stack of paper) called The Book of Rock Lists, which is kind of his Bible. Gimme Somma That Old Time Religion! He found a copy awhile back and gave it to me! My very own Holy Book. Also, inspired by my dad, I started collecting records in high school. There's not much that's better than listening to a good album on vinyl. Mmmmmm. Warm.

And soon I will have an album of my own... so. very. cool. I've been trying to convince my band that we should release it on vinyl, but they're not really going for it...

So, here are some of the photos I took in the studio (The Sound Studios, LLC). I didn't want to put any pics of people, since I haven't asked any of them if I could.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Festivalgoers

The reason I haven't posted in too long is that I spent the whole weekend at a music festival. One of my very dear friends drove down from Delware (Dela-where?) and she, Chris, and I camped out and got to hear some truly phenomenal artists. One such artist, whom I've mentioned before in the Ryan's Recommendations section (remember that? It's down and to the right, folks), is Josh Ritter. His performance blew me away, and I immediately found his website upon returning to the world of connected people. He writes this blog about being a musician that is eloquent and beautiful, just like his songs. You can check it out here if you're interested. Also, if you click on the "pictures" tab on his webpage (http://www.joshritter.com/) and then click on the "Josh + Love Canon @ Festy 10/10/10" you can see pics from the performance I attended. And, in the 9th picture (with gorgeous mountains in the background), you can see me with some friends front row and center (I have a baseball cap on if that helps!). Very cool.

Anyways, music festivals always attract the strangest people. It seriously never fails. Of course there are the hula hoopers, the fire-swingers (I don't know what they're actually called, obviously), and the middle-aged tie-dye wearers. But then there are always the people that surprise me. Like the guy walking around with a wooden staff with a giant, fake bird duct-taped to it. Or the guy walking around with glow sticks attached all over his body. Or the middle-aged woman who accepts pyschadelics from a stranger and then barks at the performers while trying to rub her scalp on other people's scalps in a feeble attempt to "do an experiment to grow hair" after pissing herself. Like I've said before, you just can't make this stuff up. People are so very strange.

Then there are the drug people. And when I say "drug people," I mean the people who go to festivals just to do drugs; these are the people who don't even leave the campsite at all to listen to the music. They just know festivals are places where they can get away with openly doing illegal things, so they frequent them. I realize some people use drugs to "enhance" their listening experience, but these other "drug people" just want to do drugs, that's it. You can find them walking around with balloons full of Nitrous at all hours to make some money to buy MORE DRUGS.

And then there are always people who are easily swept away by that mob-mentality thing; they just want to use their power in numbers to do something, anything. For instance, an artist is sound-checking. Mob-mentality people try to get the crowd to start yelling "we want music, we want music," even though there is nothing they can do about making things start sooner. Sometimes mob mentality people accomplish cool things like encores, other times they accomplish bad things like yelling, screaming, and pushing.

Then there are boring people like me who want to be close enough to the artists to see their hands, and who want other people to give them some space so they can enjoy the music. Simple. I'm not one of those people who feels the need to chuck glowsticks at unsuspecting spectators (you. know. who. you. are.).

We came back with some war wounds: mainly sunburns, chapped lips, and my friend got a hole burned into her fleece by someone's cigarette. But, we also had a great time, heard some great music, and, obviously, saw some very interesting people!

Compulsive Obsession

I get obsessed with things very easily. I can’t help it (well, maybe I can, but even so, I don’t really wanna). It’s almost like I enter into a relationship with the object of my obsession. Some are fleeting and last for only a few weeks, others are “serious relationships” and last years. When I say I get obsessed with “things,” by “things” I mean artists, albums, songs, movies, books, ideas, and other such objects. I’ve had a fling with Bob Dylan, a quickie with his song “Boots of Spanish Leather” and a lovers’ spat with Highway 61 Revisited.

 My very first meaningful long-term relationship was with The Beatles (Yup. All four of ‘em! Muahahahaha!). Let me explain how this “obsession” thing works. In this case, I grew up listening to The Beatles and always had a place in my heart for them. But, early in high school (after making it through my Spice Girls/Destiny’s Child phase- come on, admit it: You had one of those Dark Ages too), I heard the Beatles 1 CD they came out with. All of a sudden, I was hearing these songs differently. To me, nothing else even came close to comparing to them. Enter: obsession. I consumed any and every thing I could find even remotely related to The Beatles. I read books, interviews, and liner notes. I listened to every track they ever recorded hundreds of times, and I memorized every word. I learned which Beatle wrote and sang which songs. I memorized every useless piece of trivia related to the band that I could find. I picked my dad’s brain. I probably watched the movie A Hard Day’s Night 50 times. I even decided to learn to play guitar because I was so into them. I got a Beatles chord book and used it to teach myself to play. I was convinced that I should have been born earlier so I could have seen The Beatles live.

After probably three years of complete and total obsession (during the later part of which I started branching out a very little bit- Bob Dylan, etc) I went to college and started being exposed to all sorts of music. And somehow, in the background of my life, my Beatles relationship faded into a loving friendship full of understanding and private jokes.

Other obsessions I have experienced (most of these are music-related):

-Joni Mitchell has been my other big long-term relationship-type obsession. She is a goddess.

-Patty Griffin’s A Kiss in Time (I am currently experiencing a renaissance of obsession with this album. My re-obsessions occur frequently too!)

-The Last Waltz by The Band (I still maintain that I would give up years of my life to have been at this concert)

-The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (The only book I’ve read more than twice)

-The Once soundtrack

-Aretha Franklin in general

-Harry Potter series


Man, I’m a big slut.

What are your obsessions?

I'm gonna go ahead and say that RYAN'S RECOMMENDATIONS on this post are the things above that I have been/am obsessed with!