Posts tagged with "music"

Slept Through a Landslide

Jesse Dangerously — Slept Through a Landslide cover

Rap Legend Jesse Dangerously just released his lat­est sin­gle1, a remix of Tired Angels from Krista Muir’s most recent album. He want­ed a bit of breath­ing room between vers­es and asked me to write a ukulele solo, so we hit the stu­dio a cou­ple months ago. I was lucky enough to learn a lot about the record­ing process that had large­ly remained a mys­tery to me.

This was my first time try­ing to write music that was­n’t a cov­er. It was unique chal­lenge, cause it’s hard for me to tell what sounds good vs. what sounds good only to me. I also have a habit of try­ing to fill my arrange­ments with too many ideas instead of fol­low­ing a theme, so this time I tried to build on the hook that Krista sings. Then I added as much vibra­to as I could on my soft cedar-topped nylon-stringed uke to fill out the sound.

I also pro­vid­ed some back­up har­monies at the start of Noah23’s verse, and it’s weird to hear my singing with some real pro­duc­tion. I don’t think I’d rec­og­nize my own voice if some­one did­n’t tell me it was me.

Jesse has the abil­i­ty to piece togeth­er a bunch of mot­ley musi­cal ideas from var­i­ous gen­res, and it’s awe­some to hear some­thing that start­ed out as a sim­ple rap song become more than the sum of it’s parts.

  1. In the cred­its at the bot­tom, the city of each per­former is includ­ed. I love how Rosie’s loca­tion is “lives in a van”. [↩]

I filled the void you left with the rest of my life

And that’s why I spend so much time with peo­ple now, why it’s a lit­tle eas­i­er to bend each pitch, and why I don’t mind hazy night dri­ves through pur­ple sky and deer warn­ings as long as Mogwai is on. Everything I do is an attempt to be whole again, cause I still think of you with me at every din­ner, movie, episode, nap, ride, gath­er­ing, and con­cert.

But sure­ly you can’t be the same per­son I see in these pho­tos tak­en so long ago. You’d be a lit­tle wis­er from the years, a lit­tle stronger from the expe­ri­ences, almost cer­tain­ly sport­ing a new hair­cut, but I bet your heart would always be the same. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to let go. I real­ized that no mat­ter what hap­pens, regard­less of how peo­ple grow and change, I’d always love that heart. That’s the only rea­son I under­stand what you meant by always have a weak­ness.

I filled the void you left with the rest of my life, but it’s still hard to be whole with­out you.

he was never the same

I have a feel­ing this day will be the new divid­ing line in my life, some­thing that was pre­vi­ous­ly pre and post-kiss, and now also a sep­a­ra­tion between who I reached out to and who I did­n’t call. And, odd­ly enough, this song will for­ev­er remind me of what hap­pened, some Canadian indie-rock hit from ’94 I had on repeat the whole day.

Things are going to be dif­fer­ent now, even though noth­ing’s changed. I just wish I knew what that meant.

The Little Man Must Go On

Live accord­ing to the sea­sons
In the town where I was born
Things have got­ta have a rea­son
The sun don’t come before the dawn

(Thanks again, Antje.)

How did I lose anoth­er week? Another week of that snow smell and gui­tar lessons and Nordique red­heads I nev­er asked out again. Lost to the trap­pings of life. So much has hap­pened, and yet noth­ing has changed, though things will be dif­fer­ent soon enough. And while I wish I could say that I had more to say about it all, I don’t.

teas in spoons
tea-table
tea served

Over some ancient moon­light white tea, Heather G asked how my belief in Taoism was going. It made me real­ize I had­n’t thought about it in a while, which is exact­ly the point. I’ve been try­ing not to try to act, and just been act­ing. Doing my best not to over-think things. Taking it one call, one con­ver­sa­tion, one day, one week at a time.

moments between cities

The dri­ve home is always eas­i­er. Not because I’m leav­ing, but because it’s when I can catch my breath after some relent­less debauch­ery I excuse as being for a spe­cial occa­sion.

I’m at an age where my body will feel this over the next two days, spent recov­er­ing phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. Luckily, exhaus­tion numbs the sens­es, and makes the time pass quick­er on those long stretch­es where dis­tance is mea­sured in hours.

driving at night sepia

Cousins, British humour, heart­break, shots, glut­tony, rum­ble strips, but nev­er enough time.

The 401 is the kind of high­way that Springsteen used to write about on his heart­land folk albums, the only ones I ever liked. The songs were nev­er about a road itself, but about all the lust and hate and change that hap­pened between two peo­ple when they trav­elled along that road.

In the same way, dri­ving the 401 has always been when I have a chance to find myself. It often leaves me feel­ing like a dif­fer­ent per­son when I get to where I’m going.