Once again, not complaining here, just a random observation. Snow! That ground was bare yesterday. I was skating in those streets the day before!
Haven't seen much snow this year so it's weird waking up to a winter wonderland. My Maine instincts are kicking in. Well, maybe not my instincts, I have no desire to start shoveling and driving around town because I know I can. It just feels like winter again for the first time in a month or so. It's totally messing with my head.
And you know what, I really don't feel like going outside so maybe I'll sit in here all day and work on some tunage. You know what, that sounds like more than an idea, that sounds like a plan. A real good one.
This move from Maine to Kansas has been a little crazy. It's a new place with some significant cultural changes, new people, and most notably a different kind of climate. Especially in the winter. I can't say I can complain considering the weather I left in Maine; the foot or more of snow each storm, 5 months of being buried in that snow and shoveling shoveling shoveling, crappy road conditions, bitter cold, and just plain winter depression. These were some of the major reasons I wanted to get out of there for a little while, even if only for a couple of years.
But at the same time, Sandi over at the "Nothing Off Limits" blog really reminded me of what a tease it is for this Kansas weather. Here in Kansas we get snow, it's pretty cold, and the wind is a bitch, but as I look out the window right now, the only thing to identify the season is the bare trees prettily lined along the road. I do in fact know that it's a little chilly outside, much unlike yesterday and the day before of course.
Yesterday and the day before I got my unemployed butt outside and inline skated for the first time since September in the 70˚ sun. This is unheard of back home in Maine. A tragedy really because I love inline skating, I've done it since I was 10 or 11. And to be honest I've never really been good on ice skates. On top of that, no matter what kind of crappy weather you get in Maine, you can't exactly ice skate down the middle of the road. (Except maybe in January 1998.)
Really, there is nothing much better than strapping on the skates, heading out in shorts and a t-shirt with the tunes pumping in the ears, and cruising down the street. So this weather makes it that much more devastating. Sure, I could lace up the skates right now and brave the 23˚ air, but it's just not going to happen, because that would truly suck.
So, to you Kansas, thank you so much for this ridiculous tease weather that you are now giving us. It has my internal season clock all out of whack that will only be remedied by your 100˚ July. Although, as sarcastic and annoyed as I am right now, I'll take your alternating 70˚/30˚ days over that crap season that Maine calls winter any time.
Sorry for the off-topic rant, I know this had nothing to do with music, but it's bound to happen. By the way, job interview #1 is now officially a bust. On to the next…hopefully soon.
I like so many things about listening to music. Aside from the sheer joy of listening to tunes I love, I revel in the feeling that a track or a whole album envelopes me in. Especially a tune or album that I haven't heard in quite a while. It really is a great feeling to queue up a song that takes you back to when you first heard the song, or maybe even the point in time you had that album constantly spinning. So I decided to venture down the stairs to the living room and peruse my cd collection to see what tickled my fancy. My collection is getting quite large, stalled lately with my lack of a job, but there are many albums that haven't seen the inside of cd player for quite a while. My eye caught on "Spiritual Machines" by Our Lady Peace, as I've mentioned before, my favorite band. It was easy for my eye to catch on this one because OLP has their own little section that is separate from the rest of the alphabetized masterpiece that is my collection.
I wanted to get this one spinning more than any other album on my shelf because this album imparticular transports me back in time more than any other. Released in 2000, "Spiritual Machines" came out when I was a senior in high school. This is when I had finally started driving and I really started to develop my passion for music.
The album itself is a concept album based around the book "The Age of Spiritual Machines" by Ray Kurzweil. Between many of the tracks Ray quotes experts from his book. I don't think a lot of people really got the point, but really, I didn't need to, the music and everything with it just spoke to me. As I listen right now, the intro that leads into the song "Right Behind You (Mafia)" transports me directly behind the wheel of my mother's 1990 Pontiac 6000LE on one of my autopilot drives back home from school.
(You know what I mean about driving on autopilot, right? It's when you start driving and then basically blank out for a certain amount of time only to realize you're almost home and you don't remember a thing from the last couple of miles. I think that was what a combo of OLP and crappy high school did to me.)
The funniest part was that I couldn't even spin the album in my inherited car because it didn't even have a cd player, just an in-dash cassette player. I did the common thing back then to make my music portable; record my cd over to a cassette tape. I made many a blueberry raking mix for my Sony Walkman this way but this tape was strictly for OLP and my drives to and from school.
I was obsessed with the album that whole year. Out of their 6 studio albums to date, it was their least commercially successful album but it didn't matter to me. In fact, anyone who didn't like the album can bite me. From the first single "In Repair" to "Life", "Middle Of Yesterday", "Made To Heal", and "Everyone's A Junkie" (big green monkey everyone's a junkie), I was hooked. Of course, I'm biased, so I can't blame the critics, I guess. (Bite my tongue.)
I'm sure I was caught in my singing bubble more than once by passing drivers like I mentioned in my post "Cutting Back Costs In Hard Times By...Not Singing". But hey, if I looked like an idiot, I didn't care. This album was truly my age 17 anthem and it will always be remembered for that. On top of all this, the summer of 2001, a couple of weeks before I graduated from high school I got to see OLP live in concert for the first time (I rummaged out the ticket and it's pictured on the right). This further cemented this album as a turning point in my musical maturation.
(I've seen OLP once more since then and can't wait for their new album "Burn Burn" to drop so I can hopefully see them again. Come to Kansas City OLP!)
As you can tell, there are a lot of memories associated with "Spiritual Machines" and close to every album on my shelf does the same thing. I'm sure to some extent there are tunes out there that do the same thing to you too. Feel free to comment with some songs that take you back in time.
I feel like I'm talking as if I'm much older than 25 and reminiscing about days long gone, maybe I've even over dramatizing it, but I won't be when I stick this album in 30 years from now and remember this all over again.
I just had to include the video for "In Repair" below. It really encompasses the whole concept of the album. Enjoy.
I tend to stress myself out more than I need to when it comes to laying down a song. I love putting stuff together that has tons of layers, multiple guitars, back up vocals, and drums tracks if I can get them. But I always want to get it as perfect as possible and I almost always start pulling my hair out by the time things are through. That's the way it has been for the stuff I've been working on most recently. I haven't been able to get it sounding like I want (a couple of simple equipment upgrades would go a long way) and take after take just isn't doing it. So to destressify myself a little I decided to take it old school and do it up simple.
The video below is me performing an old song of mine called "Nowhere To Fall". This is definitely an oldie in my book, I'm thinking it's about 7 years old, it's out of one my old tattered Ampads (the first one actually) and it's about as simple as it gets. I actually just remembered the tune existed a couple of days ago and I thought I'd post it up just for the fun of it. The screws could be tightened a little but it does the trick.
Phew, and now I feel a little better, a little less stressed and I can finally move on. Until the stress of tomorrow hits me that is. I have my first job interview tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Check out the video and let me know what you think. Rock on!
I've written many lyrics in my songwriting days. I have a pile of books and folder upon computer folder to prove it. Not every lyric has turned into a song, and not every song has been completed, but to me that's not the most important part. The most important part for me is getting those words out. I love taking words and putting them together so they form something special. To form something that hasn't been portrayed before or can be viewed in a different way.
But lyrics are so much more than words. Just like a good novel can have a movie playing in your mind, a good lyric should do the same thing. It should get you involved in the story and have images floating in your brain of how all those words come together and make something real.
I've been very proud of some of the lyrics that have come from my hand by the way they portray something that I was trying get across. I can feel it by being overcome by the emotions that were taking control of me to write the song in the first place as well as the images that I connect with those emotions as I listen to or perform a song.
Out of all of the songs I've written, one stands out in my mind as one of the songs I am most happy with and has continued to motivate me to carry on. And not because of something I did with it but what someone else did with the words, making it so much more than words.
The song "Nothing" came about probably sometime in 2002 while I was in college. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was the first complete song I ever created. It was also one of the first songs of mine that I introduced to my now former band Now Transmission. It's a serious song, maybe a little bit of a downer, but it has an uplifting message about not being alone in the world. Me and the guys from Now Transmission turned it into a decent ballad type rock song that is still one of my favorites of ours. We included the tune on two of your EPs, the second version a much needed update. (You can listen to "Nothing" and other tunes from NT by clicking here.)
But anyway, I'm losing track of my point here. What excites me about looking back at this song is the picture below that was created out of the words that I wrote. The picture was created by my wonderful girlfriend Kallie, who at the time was a friend that I had met at school and worked with. I was blown away when she first showed me her creation. Though it may not portray the emotion that the song does, the image of her face rising from the words that I wrote was inspiration for me to continue and prove that lyrics can literally become more than words. I don't think she realized how much that piece of art meant to me at the time and how it motivated me to continue writing. Though the picture literally showed a face, the piece became an example of what I wanted to be able to do with my lyrics from then on; create pictures in people's minds from my words.
So thank you Kallie for inspiring me way back then as well as now. And I'm sure you don't mind the plug at all. (*wink wink*) Check out some examples of Kallie's amazing art work at her site by visiting kalliemehuren.com.
I'm sitting here waiting Wind in my hair Blowing the pages And I don't remember What I was waiting for
It seemed so important This bench that I found All the people walking But my mind is slip sliding And passing me by Just like the time
Sitting here waiting Taking its toll Like a marathon race I'm out of shape for When my wait's over It'll just start again If I knew where I was looking I might find the end
Once again, not complaining here, just a random observation. Snow! That ground was bare yesterday. I was skating in those streets the day before!
