This is about music, art, God and my life. I live in Nashville and play rock n roll music. I work a job. I'm a family man. For my music go to myspace/adamhillrocks
I had lunch at Mitchell's deli today after my hair cut at M.Salon. I highly recommend both. M is owned by Mandi and she rocks. Extremely professional and skilled with the scissors. Mitchell's just vibes. It smells like the world is made of bacon. I'm wondering if the dogs in the 'hood are in tears. I finished track #8. It's not really called "Shuckin" but that's fun to say. Not entirely sure the record will be called "Smoke Trees" either. I forgot there is a rap song, "Smokin Trees". Not sure I want to fight that association. Might go back to "Hennessy at Half Time", thank you Ron Artest. When I started writing this record I just sat down and wrote lyrics for months. Then I began to piece it all together. For the first time when I started on a song I played with it and sang it for a while to get a melody. Having a cell phone that records really came in handy. I used to just write out the lyric and then sing whatever the lyrics implied. There always is sort of a melody there with just the words on paper. I've always sang in the car and always thought those melodies were my best but I never could remember them till I got home. Sometimes I used to call myself from the phone of wherever I was working and leave 'em on my answering machine. When I went to start on the basic tracks I was also mindful that often when I arrange a song post demo I clean up some chords, I try to make things uniform. This time, I listened to the demo bar for bar as I prepared the basic tracks and tried to match every oddity. It goes to one chord in one verse another chord in the next one. So be it. It hangs a little longer on the chord in the end of the 3rd verse than the others. I worked to keep all this stuff. We got 3 more to go to get to 11 tunes. I'm arranging away.
I made dinner tonight and spun the i-pod on shuffle. Talking Heads, Charlie Rich, Enrique Caruso, Vampire Weekend. I'm not naming names just to do it. I love listening to music. A great lyric and a melody. So amazing. Makes my hair stand on end. Break.
Nashville. Winter. 2010. Sevier Park Finished up track #5's basic stuff today. Yes if your wondering 2-3-4 are done also. Halfway point on this part of the record. After this we go and get the floor put in. Hammer, nails etc. It snowed in Nashville. Last time it snowed this much was 2003. 7 years ago. Time flies. This photo is from the hill in Sevier Park facing 12th. Inner tubes, tables, baking sheets and canoes were going down the hill that was a packed tight sheet of ice. I used a cookie tray. "Sweet" sounds kind of like Bob Dylan. I also wanted a sort of solo Mick Jagger vibe on the solo. Maybe that's just some white boy blue eyed soul talking. It's got a poetry to it that I think I would have been unable or embarassed to try a few years ago. I started on it at the lake in Hampton, (not the Hamptons) Tennessee back in 2008 drinking White Russians sitting in the sun.
Going out song, Dulli always writes great ones. "Going To Town" or "Somethin Hot". I was thinking bluegrass as always, even though I don't really dig bluegrass. Maybe the train beat. Yeah that's it. I wanted to be full of romance and sound like Johnny Ray.
It's all about the train beat. The Johnny Cash boom chicka boom. That's where it all starts for me. Then I just try and push it into a wall. Into a drum machine. Into photos of New York. Into old noir movies. Into poems and history. I think the record is about emotionally growing up. I wrote sad girl meets sad boy stuff forever. It's about looking to God. Learning with God. Having the faith prove itself to you the longer you walk. It's about grounding. It's about making God the center of your love life. I took a long time to get grown up. This record is supposed to illuminate that. It's about falling into love with God and my wife. It's about fighting with myself and growing into church. I think it's going to be called "Smoke Trees." Smoke Trees grow here in Middle Tennessee, among other areas of the Northern Hemisphere. I have a friend that is a gardener. She has one in her yard. There is one on the corner down the street from my house. The name is evocative and it ties back in my head to a sermon I heard last year about an invisible harvest that is in invisible trees. To see it we must reach for it. We must speak it into creation. Today's sermon was about much the same thing, speaking good things and anticipating their arrival. Larry Bird used to dream about making free throws so there you go. I picked 11 songs. I have a-lot of left overs. Who knows where they will end up. I'll record an extra one just for insurance.
Now I need to lay the basic tracks. Closer and closer.
Jimmy Reed. Goin to New Yawkk. Yes so if you can't tell, I'm going to New York. I'll be back soon. When I get back I'll start recording the scratch tracks (a basic beat, a vocal and a guitar) to build the songs on. I'm going to get the update of Garage Band so I have access to a blue million beats. I have the final 13-14 tunes picked out. I'll probably be re-writing up until I am done arranging and putting down the scratch tracks. Once we are done we'll head to Stainless Sound to lay down the bass'n'drums. After that me and some friends down in old Antioch are going to throw a piano at it. Maybe a banjo. A fiddle. Some girl singers. Some handclaps. Some kitchen sinks. Some guit-box. It's coming friends and neighbors. Tie your shoes. Bring some gum.
Jeremiah 30:2 Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, '(A)Write all the words which I have spoken to you in a book.
I thought when I wrapped this record up I'd be happy and content. I'd hang up my spurs. I was sort of looking at it like this is the end of this thing. I'm trying to make my last stand with music and walk away. I'm already thinking about the next step (well really the next step is recording the current record). But I'm listening to "Singing in the Rain" and thinking of Doc Boggs' banjo. Family will grow and Christ will grow in us. This struggle with life and death and learning about faith, this being Appalachian and Southern and having a struggle with being from the country yet being a city person. Learning who I am and what motivates me will not be still and neither will my desire to write. This world we live in full of terror and a depression is something that makes me feel like there is much to discuss. I want to approach Appalachian music like it's a world music. I want to use banjos and pianos and think 50's rock n roll and bluegrass forever but push them into some other world. Stagger beat drum programs with gothic Appalachian ballads. 50's rock n roll with minor chords and love poetry. Poetry interests me still. The poetry of songwriting. Very different than it's cousin, hi falutin poetry. I want oomp pah beats and banjos and mandolins.
I had a talk with a friend on New Years Day. It hit me that Christian Art is so bad because Christian songwriters try to write a song to win people for Jesus. This is probably as hard and as likely as writing a hit song. We all know how good a song is when you try to write a hit.
It took my man Rob coming to town to drag the family out to see some art. We went to The Frist and saw Thomas Hart Benton, Georgia O'Keefe and some of their contemporaries. Benton's attitude about NYC was alternately inspiring and conflicting to me. It could be mine about music but I am not interested in being regional. Benton wanted to be regional. But of course if you put me in NYC I'd be very interested in retaining the southern sound. Maybe I'm just obstinate. I want to sound like I am from somewhere but not to the point of sounding hick or cartoonish. I always wanted to play the art openings but I've never been artsy enough. . Bands like Lambchop do that. I am not experimental enough. I don't deconstruct form enough. But I always wanted to play The Grand Ole Opry too but I'm not polished enough. My long term goal is to make a body of work in American Song based on my relationship with family, Christ, my region and the past. Benton it seemed was hated on the left and the right. He didn't fit in. I dig that. Every time I am asked to explain what sort of music I do I say country and this always requires further explanation. I love country because I love songwriting. I don't like stories about dogs or momma or trains per se. I am not a "pick a little for us" guitar player. I love country because at it's best it's brutality. It has economy in it's language.
So the 2000's are over. I sold some DVDs and CDs to McKays the other day. I sold "Lost in Translation". I think if my take on one thing could change over the decade this would be it. I saw this when it first came out and thought it was charming, brilliant and fiercely romantic. I watched it again last year and felt it was dull and depraved. The lead girl was a 24 kt pill. She was distant and spoiled. The Bill Murray character was irresponsible and childish. Maybe this was the point. They were too sad and lonely people with a myriad of weaknesses. It bothered me how mean she was to the character Kelly. I reveled at this in the first part of the 00's. The karaoke night will probably always be sweet to me. I never will forget how Bill Murray looked at Scarlet singing "Special, so special." I guess my existential angst and ennui meter has dwindled over the decade. I saw "Taste of Cherry" yesterday, an Iranian film and loved it so maybe I just tired of hipster ennui. I ditched NERD. I couldn't really figure why a 36 year old married man needed to have copy of "Lapdance" around, bangin' tune that it is. I had Woody Allen CD I used to spin. Some Roots. I am convinced for me they are a singles act. I can't sustain a whole platter of interest for them. I finally ditched Bruce's "Ghost of Thom Joad". I don't think I'd ever paid much attention to the lyrics before. I can do without the man I love eating this can of beans with you stuff.
I saw lots of noir for the holidays. Rented some stuff at Blockbuster. Finally saw "Face in the Crowd." Can't remember if I saw that back in the 90's. I saw Julie and Julia. The moment when she broke through; that moment always gives me chills in any movie. When the phone starts ringing. It always makes me sort of heart sick. I'm excited to be doing my songs. Excited to start on recording a new batch. Excited to "release" it whatever that means. I'm not going to tour; these reasons are well documented. I'm not going to get on a label. I'm not going to etc etc. But I started back to writing with the plan to focus on what I can do. Oddly that's what the gal in Julie did too. She started blogging because it was all she could do. It caught on and she got a book deal. I haven't read about her because I'm sure I'll find out that her brother or dad was a literary agent. About 2 years ago I started back to writing songs to focus on what I can do, instead of focusing on not having a label or a publisher or a band or a "deal". We are all done with the writing, now we just need to make sure our arrangments are good and our melody is set. I need to make scrach vox and acoustic to drum progrmas so we can go track real drums and bass to build the house on. Then it comes out on cdbaby and that'll be it. Odd i guess. We do what we can and see where it goes.
This is the skinny on where we are. I have about 14 tunes that are good enough to put on the i-pod. I shared them with my man Jeremy D. He seemed to think we had a good direction. I left them on the i-pod and have it spinning on the donut off and on in the kitchen. I have 8 sketches of ideas left to go. I plan to wrap them up ASAP. I want to do 13 songs on the record. 1 reason. I used to have a song called "Unlucky Songs". I don't believe in luck. I believe in grace. The album will be called- Wonder Henessy at Halftime Discount Spirits. Not sure which. The polls are open.
Anyways to sum it up. I got 12-14 worth doing. They need some tightening. They need to be played. They need to get out of the headphones and into the speakers. They need to take a drive. The last 8 sketches will hopefully yield a few more players. I always shoot for 100% knock outs. Sometime in March we'll figure out where to record and who the playas are. Invitations will be mailed.
I'm playing something like a private party around the 14th of Feb.
It'll drop in May sometime around when my man Rob's art show goes up.
