My tweets of the last week:
Personal
are you secretly feeding me drugs, or am i just happy?
I am approaching peak stress.
Like, peak stress ever. More than wedding stress. Catching myself pulling at my hair with my fists in meetings stress.
And I’m really happy. Like, deliriously.
#blamedrewscancer planning insanity is in overdrive heading into Wednesday’s 9/9/09 Blame-a-Thon benefit concert (right now working to curate our overnight film festival)(which did not exist two days ago). At work I’m on a few unusual extra-curricular projects, like a benefit concert (oh hai, another one!). I’m writing new songs and recording lots of videos. I think I’ve cried at least once every day this week. And, I seem to have largely given up on qualitative time spent sleeping, eating, or seeing my wife.
All of that should result in grumpiness. But it’s not. For the first time in a long while I feel totally myself – like residual self image me has busted out of my head, Athena-style, and is now wandering the streets with giant curly hair and an even bigger voice, laughing uproariously.
Maybe it’s the weather? Philadelphia is suddenly all cool and Autumnal, a weeks-early birthday gift. Sleeping with the window open, wearing layers. It’s my season, I’m doing things I love, and I have my beautiful curly hair back. I even like how I look in full human motion on tonight’s webcast.
Seriously, I think Elise is drugging my soy milk.
Making Music Work: Should You Say Yes To Everything?
This a post in my new column, “Making Music Work,” where I take a look at the challenges facing local, indie musicians.
As a musician it’s hard to say no. But, should you always say yes?
There are a lot of positives to saying yes. More chances to play, which means more experience and more audience. Networking opportunities. A chance to pad your resume of shows. In the words of actress and singer Ashley Davidson Hughson, “work begets work; you never know who might be in the audience that night.”
Except, playing your music isn’t all about you. It’s about your music. It’s about your fans, both old and new. It’s about the person running the room making a profit. It’s about other acts on the bill getting exposed to a new audience.
With that in mind, when should you say no? I polled my network of professional and amateur performers, and we came up with these major reasons. [Read more…] about Making Music Work: Should You Say Yes To Everything?
#blamedrewscancer’s Blame-a-Thon Explained!
(Yes, I still owe you one last skydiving post. Suck it up, people. It’s coming.)
So, you’re a cancer blamer but you’re not sure what this whole Blame a-Thon thing is about? Never fear – we’re here with answers to all of your questions (and, by “we” I mean me talking about myself in the third person). [Read more…] about #blamedrewscancer’s Blame-a-Thon Explained!
Fresh Music: Regenerate (video demo)
In a moment I’m going to show you a song so new that I’m not entirely sure what the title is. I’ve played it less than a dozen times.
At some prior point in this site’s storied history I would write a song, literally record my first run-through, and post that as a demo – sometimes all in a single day. “Granted” is an example.
That’s pretty wild stuff – giving birth to a new creation and immediate debuting it to the world. They at least towel babies off before they shoot most of the photos.
Now, debuting a just-born song is a scarier prospect for me – my recording set-up is more sophisticated and (as a result) much less forgiving of tiny flubs. Luckily, video saves the day. It forces me out of my audiophile box to think about how to perform a new song, instead of just how to play it. Flubs are part of the charm.
That’s how this video came to be. The song is newborn, and it might still pick up some more lyrics or transitions. The emotions are still vivid and visceral to me; this may be as close as I can take you to being inside my brain as I write.
I’m sure I’ll get snooty about all my crap old videos after nine more years of blogging, but for now I love it.