Hey folks. Wanna hear my new song "democracy, whisky, sexy"? Go here.
It's a totally free mp3, though, as always, you can tip your blogger/"singer"-songwriter if you feel like it (by clicking on the Amazon tip jar or pay pal buttons to the left.) Can I get anything else for you? Sorry, we're out of that. How about a nice, creamy, after-dinner drink? I'll be here till someone calls the cops...
Hey, if Lenny Kravitz can do it, why can't I? Revolution, people!
I'm not sure how many fans of my songwriting read this blog, nor how many readers of the blog might be interested in my songs, but for what it's worth: I'm doing a short tour (nine shows) in the northeast from April 25th thru May 4th. Here are the dates and venues. Anyone in the area who's interested should stop by and say hey or something.
On this tour, I'm one of a group of west coast singer-songwriters, including Bart Davenport, formerly of the Loved Ones, Ian Brennan, Carlos Forster and a few others. I'll be playing solo, acoustic. I'm usually the punky odd man out in these situations, but genre-mixing is part of the allure. I'm planning to play some old chestnuts from "the catalog" plus some stuff, old and new, that hasn't been released. Part of the idea is to preview some of the stuff that we're considering for the new MTX album that will be recorded this summer, see how people react to the raw songs, that sort of thing.
Plus, I'll be flogging (cheap) a little home-made CD of a few not-yet-released, mostly acoustic songs I recorded in my bedroom. Some of this material may end up being recorded for the album, some may not. What does will probably end up altered beyond recognition. These songs change all the time. So it's not by any means what the album "will sound like." It's just what I feel is a pretty interesting little collection of songs.
I never make my solo demos public as rule, though I get asked about it a lot, because a few have ended up on compilations and re-issues as bonus tracks. I make them for myself and I've hardly ever played them for others. But I wanted to do something to make this tour a bit more interesting, so...
What I'm kind of hoping is that people will come to the shows, listen to the songs I play and the ones on the CD they take home, and give me some feedback on the songs. Not the arrangements or "production" (such as it is-- it ain't too special)-- I'm more interested in hearing about the songs themselves. A good song can be its own, self-contained world, but even when you're the one who constructed it, there can still be things about this world you're not aware of. It happens fairly frequently that someone will make a perfectly cogent, valid observation about something they see going on or implied in one of my songs that I had never considered-- or maybe I did "consider" it without realizing it, if that's possible. I'm not too sure how that works.
I have this kind of conversation with other songwriters all the time, and occasionally with fans, too, (in clubs at rare lucid moments) but I thought it might be interesting to try to encourage it in a slightly more organized way. Before, rather than after, the "real" record is done. I also have this goofy idea that it could spark a more general conversation about songwriting qua songwriting among people who like the kind of songs I write as well as among those who don't. I think that could be pretty cool. If anyone feels like getting that far into it. I don't mean to make it sound like homework. Feel free to ignore this blather-- it's not gonna be on the test. It's extra credit.
At this point, the CD is only on offer at shows, though we might do more of this sort of thing if it turns up anything interesting.
But, because it may be of vague interest to the blogosphere, I did put up my little song about "Democracy, Whisky, Sexy." I don't know how to characterize it, except to say that someone who heard it said it was "a cross between Imagine and The Battle Hymn of the Republic." I'm not too sure about that, but that's a pretty intriguing description, so I'm sticking with it. Free, rights reserved, spare change appreciated, etc., etc. Send comments, on this song, other songs, songwriting in general, to squawkaboutsongs@lookoutrecords.com.
Thanks. And, maybe, see you at the show.
Posted by Dr. Frank at April 20, 2003 04:16 PM | TrackBack