the dirty projectors

just home from the best show i've seen all year. the dirty projectors hail from new york city and are composed mostly of mad scientist musical geniuses. numbering among them are four (4) great vocalists.

here is the song 'fluorescent half dome' from the newest album, bitte orca.

Fluorescent Half Dome - Dirty ...

When I've had enough, when I've heard enough from police and pretenders
When I'm ready for my whole world to open up and surrender
I'll look for you, I will be searching the garden and the street
I will look into the eyes of everyone I meet
And when I finally find you, will I know?

Far beyond here, far removed from the sneering of the crowd
My eternal love sits smiling, sphinx-like and proud
Cross that disguise, I am glancing with needles in my eyes
Birds of infinity glisten, shimmering for the rest of my life
And I conceived them, not what they mean

adventures in musicianship

stephanie and i are booked to play a country western show this friday. i don't know too many country songs, so this puts me in an unusual position, singing in a faulty southern accent while adding lyrics about horses to songs that aren't even about horses.

the catch? we'll be playing with a professional drummer. that's enough to get me excited and maybe, just maybe, i will follow my instinct and buy a fake rattlesnake to put in my cowboy hat/belt loops.

early winter

october has only just arrived, but you wouldn't know it from the deluge of christmas music that has manifested itself on my ipod playlists, early. this is part of an annual, more monumental course of change, during which i prepare myself mentally and physically for the idea of winter.

the season (which began, as it does every year, at first sight of a jacket) encompasses a broad spectrum of emotions for an individual like myself. in a hot climate, it carries a semblance of the weather i grew up with. commercially, it ensures the presence of pumpkin spice lattes, seasonal lights of varying quality, and of course, overwrought holiday jingles.

this year finds me recording my own versions of some of these jingles as a means of exercising my home production skills and growing creatively. it's too early to share them, but expect a wintery demo come november.

looking forward to the cold season!

mariner's waltz

it's been said that folk songs are generally written about shipwrecks. such is the case with my newest demo, which touches on the subject. it was written and recorded in its entirety today. you can hear it here.


the words:

"gone but not forgotten
only lost among the waves
our father far away still sails
for an old town on the coast
given up for higher hopes
so many years ago our home

and oh the wind
it never carried him
and i stood there waiting then
alone watching the boats come in"

bqe

sufjan stevens- the writer, composer and multi-instrumentalist who in recent years is the most-studied of my musical influences- is issuing a new release. this comes after his more than two years of dormancy that have found me scouring the internet for b-sides, live performances, short stories, essays, interviews, and lead sheets, among other avenues of fastidious study that have often trumped my college academic pursuits. almost nothing in 2009 has excited me more than this news, to which i am dedicating my 20th blog post.

THE BQE- A Film By Sufjan Stevens

the best songs you'll never hear, pt. 1

Herman Dune - "1-2-3 / Apple Tree"



this single manifests all the instrumental half-seriousness of the simon and garfunkel catalog to underscore the plain honesty of the lyrics. i wish there were more songs like this one.

guitar

from a winery gig with stephanie k:

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