Just outside the city is a gigantic cliff. Hundreds of people are lined up at its edge, and they're tossing all sorts of items over the edge to see if any of them fly.
A lot of things aren't designed to fly, but that doesn't stop people from throwing toaster ovens and washing machines over the side.
Today, someone comes along with something resembling a hanglider. As he sails away, everyone else starts jumping up and down excitedly. Something worked! The system works! Proof!
Everyone redoubles their efforts and now twice as many toaster ovens and washing machines are plummeting to the bottom.
A man stands at the edge, clutching a device adorned with paddles and flippers. He peers down tentatively.
His neighbor encourages him. "All you have to do is throw it over the edge," he says, dumping a wheelbarrow filled with sacks of pet food into the abyss.
Behind him in the distance, a hot-air balloon is drifting lazily in the sky. A few thousand people dragging snowmobiles and rickshaws are racing after it, desperately trying to grab a trailing rope.
"I don't know," the first man says, eyeing the balloon. "Seems to me most things aren't built to fl--"
His neighbor cuts him off. "Look, didn't you attend the seminar? Did you not just SEE the guy with the hanglider? The system works. All you have to do is keep throwing stuff over the edge."
Several people are now lobbing items at the balloon in an attempt to land something, anything at all in the basket. Others are trying to form a human pyramid in hopes of reaching the balloon as it passes. The balloon's pilot peers down, annoyed.
The neighbor continues. "Also, remember Ned? Ned threw things over the side all the time. Now he's both rich and famous. Well, we think so. We haven't seen him since."
"Right, but wasn't one of those things actually a bird? And didn't Ned also figure out that if you attach wings to a --"
"No. NO. You're not listening. The key is that Ned threw stuff over the side. Keep doing that and the rest will work itself out."
Another man rolls a tricycle off the edge, watches dejectedly as it plummets, then shuffles away.
"I think I'll go work on this some more," the first man says, hefting the paddles-and-flippers contraption. "Actually, maybe I'll throw it in the lake and see if it swims."
"I think you should attend more seminars" the neighbor snorts as they watch another group coax a tawny giraffe to the cliff edge. "You're only hurting yourself by not embracing the New Way Of Doing Things."
There's a collective cheer as one person succeeds in grabbing a balloon rope. He dangles for a few seconds, grasping the rope with one hand while clutching the lead tether of a full-size fiberglass canoe in the other. Then he and the canoe drop into the void.
"We're going to figure this out eventually!" the neighbor yells.
The air is now full of toaster ovens and washing machines and pet food and tricycles.
On a tiny speck of island just beyond the horizon, a man stands alone next to the ruins of his crashed hanglider and thinks: well, that didn't last very long.
Just look at what clocks in between two and a half and three minutes: *Mr. Tambourine Man,* *We Got the Beat,* *Boys Don't Cry,* *Hot Fun in the Summertime,* *Good Times Bad Times,* *I Would Die 4 U,* *Paranoid,* *Blowin' in the Wind,* *Debaser,* *God Only Knows,* and *Fall on Me.* These are not only stone-cold classics but they also encapsulate all that is great about the band without wasting your goddamn time.
The scientists then dug up this song by a group that pretty much defines one-hit wonder: The La's. The song is *There She Goes,*and is so flawless that it instantly made everything else the band did pointless. This ditty is two minutes and 42 seconds, and is all about songwriting economy.
"Many people don't write songs for an audience. They write songs for Gray's Anatomy, for Zach Braff, and for Apple advertisements (Volkswagen if they're not ambitious). If I was in a band I would write a slow song with an 808, reverb, and a female vocalist, and call that song *Zach Braff's Eyes Reflected in My Nano.* I would make sure it got to the right people. By which I mean Zach Braff, or one of the leechlike marketing creatures that feed from the skin of Steve Jobs under his mock turtleneck."
I've also added all the tracks from Save You From Yourself to the Music section. Each song now has a lyrics page, and I've made a few of them free to download. This is all part of a slow-motion site redesign I've trickling out in bits a pieces.
Explone had a full rehearsal last night, the first one in a few weeks since drummer Greg had gone off to SXSW. We’ll need to find a new rehearsal space for next week, as we’ve been borrowing our current space free-of-charge from other friendly bands for the past few rehearsals. But now that space has been rented out and we have to find a new permanent home.
I’m having a blast playing bass. I recently picked up an Ampeg SVT 200T amp head from Craigslist. It’s solid state (no tubes) and weighs a ton. Which is nothing compared to the 6x10 cabinet I got from one of Patrick’s friends. It’s the size of a small fridge, except instead of beer it’s full of ROCK. I guess it's just as well that we're moving to a new space, because I don't intend to lug this beast back and forth.
Along with the T-40 it’s a pretty devastating-sounding rig. The 200T’s ultra-low setting adds some crazy, glassy bottom end whomp without mudding up the sound. The first word that popped into my head was obsidian. I can't wait to try it in rehearsal.
We're not nearly ready to gig yet, but we have a date with a studio the first weekend in June.
The version of "Happy For Me" which appears on Save You From Yourself is more-or-less the original version I've been messing around with since, oh, about 2003. The version below is from 2005, recorded for the 3-song EP I made for my big rawkin' birthday show.
Whereas the CD version is relaxed with a hint of alt-country swing, this alternate take is faster, more driving, more straight-ahead pop. I had a hard time deciding which one would end up on the CD, and eventually decided the original was more -- interesting? Dynamic? I dunno, I like them both. Choose your favorite.
I'm playing a short-notice gig at Trabant. I'll be opening for Michael Trew and his band, the Sun Bears.
I haven't been playing out as much this year since I've been pouring all my energy into making the new album. I'm looking forward to getting back in front of some people again and knocking the rust off some of these tunes.
And I'll be happy to play your requests, provided they're songs I wrote and can play really, really well so as to spare us both the heartbreak.
Remember how I bought a Peavey T-40 bass? There's a reason for that. I've joined a band, playing bass for Explone. We rehearse once a week or so, and we'll be recording (in a real studio!) in June.
I've been a big fan of Patrick's tunes for a few years, so I thought the gods were testing me when I saw his ad on Craigslist for a bassist. It's taken me a little while to get back on the horse after being a solo musician for so long, but I'm learning to re-socialize myself. It's also the height of awesome to rock out again with a group, work on my chops and engage in music scene gossip with real, live beer-drinking humans.
That's something I'm not getting from kicking it with FL Studio in the Folkhole. Anyway, I'll be posting about my New Adventures In Rawk as they happen, but you can check out some current Explone tunes here.
So here's an update on my old-school publicity efforts for Save You From Yourself. I've been working on and off at it since February, mailing out CDs to press, radio and elsewhere, and I have to say: what a total PITA.
I started out pretty good. I did my research, carefully chose my targets, dutifully asked permission before sending anything, and diligently mailed out a handful of CD every morning or so. It felt good. Yeah! Gettin' things done! But things got hairy, fast.
For one thing, it's just so easy to fall off the wagon. You end up skipping a day or two -- oh, I don't feel like stuffing envelopes tonight, maybe I'll watch Lost instead -- and suddenly it's two weeks of nothing! In other words, it's a lot like going to the gym.
But that's easy to fix. You say "hm, I have fallen off the wagon," and get back to it.
No, the hardest part is following up. Which is also the most important part. For every CD sent out, you're supposed to follow up. Wait two weeks, send a message: did you get the package? Just checking! Wait another two weeks, send another message: get that package yet? Think you might listen to it soon? Rinse and repeat.
Eventually you reach a point where the energy you're putting into following up overtakes the envelope stuffing. Now you're spending those two hours each evening writing emails instead of sending more CDs out into the world. 98% of those emails will go unanswered. When answers come, they will be brief and often...terse.
Now, I'm not dumb. I know that writers have always on deadline, have slushpiles of CDs a mile high, and it can take weeks or months before CD gets listened to. I also know that releases being "worked" by known publicists and labels will take priority.
It's just repetitive, slightly demoralizing work. If I believed that CDs had a future, I'd recommend paying an expert to do this, next time.
That said, I'm going to continue. After what seems like weeks of work, it turns out I've only mailed out around 40 copies. Whaaa? That's not nearly enough to declare defeat. But man, it sure looked easier on paper.
This article at Coolfer pulls together recent examples of musicians asking their fans to help fund new album releases. Jill Sobule raised over $80K from her fans, while the venerable Marillion raised over $725K. By the way, I was a huge Marillion fan during my college years, but I fell off the wagon not long after Fish left. Sorry.
I learned a lot when I did my own fundraiser and I'm eternally grateful to the folks who chipped in to make it happen. My advice, if you care (and you might not), is if you have any sort of fanbase, it's totally worth a try.
And if you don't have a fanbase yet, write a bunch of songs and give them away for free on the internet.
Remember how I bought a 