Black Notebook. Now.

If you've been following along at home you know I have a Red Notebook and a Black Notebook. Both have songs. The Red one has guy and girl meet. Guy and girl go boom songs. Love songs. Basic stuff. The Black Notebook has spiritual awakening songs. It has solo 70's Rod Stewart kind of songs. It has Leonard Cohen kinds of songs. Maybe John Lennon Plastic Ono band kind of songs. Maybe it's none of that. It has songs that don't fit a country or a rock n roll structure. As Bill Murray said in Lost in Translation as he began to sing in the karaoke booth "This is hard for me." That's how the songs in this notebook will be introduced when I play them live. I'm sort of kidding. Really some of each notebook has bits of these generalities. This is all to say that the Red Notebook is all demo'd down. It's in a box. 12 songs. Next up is 27 songs in the Black Notebook.

About 3-4 years ago I had writer's block. I was playing in The Sunday Best. I was living in Sylvan Park in an apartment working at an art supply store. I was out of ideas. The Sunday Best were a good time. We played rock n roll. We played songs of mine that were no brainers. Songs like "I'm Gettin' Drunk and I Don't Know Where I Live" that I wrote back in the early 00's and late 90's. This was fun after going out and snooze festing people with the songs from Willingness. Which to be fair if I'd done those songs with a bluegrass band I think they would have worked. As is, I tried for sludge fest country goth Nirvana. Maybe church is what did it. Anyone that tells you life gets easier when you become a Christian is kidding you. It gets harder. But it gets to be worth it. I think this accounted for some slow down on the writing front. I spent a long time wondering if I could even do music that wasn't Matt Redman redux.

About a year ago during the Summer Olympics I began to have ideas again. The extended family was up in Hampton, Tennessee chilling at the lake when I really began to see that some ideas was forming and that a new direction was on the map. I wrote a good chunk of lyrics then. I can still see the lake below the deck with lights shining on it from the cabins. I had my i-pod and a White Russian. It was unseasonably cold.

I was talking to my friend Randy yesterday and said the record will not sound like The Replacements (The band that for a long time was my touchstone and marker for how to do things right). I'd know this for a while but had never said it out loud. I realized that the fast, loose and sloppy thing was part of what made them work but for me it's not going to work. Not now. I adhered to that aesthetic through 10 years or so of demo making and live shows. My goal was to leave it on the floor. Throw it at the wall. I remember sitting in highschool talent shows and whatever guy that was some guitar hot snot would get up and play and just stand there. I remember thinking whatever you do, don't be boring. I gave up on playing well because I was tone deaf and couldn't sing but I could do sloppy. I could do shambolic.

In the last year or so I've played at church a-lot. I've noticed that I sing different now. I play guitar a little different now. I can hear the chords. I can figure out songs better than I ever could. I can finally sing along at church. For the first 2-3 years I creaked and croaked along in my red neck Dylan whine. I plan to gussy up what I put out. I might not even play guitar on it. Well maybe one song. It's called "Shuckin'". I think the record will sound like The Band. I hope so anyway. That and Astral Weeks. Sure kid. Yeah right.

I've been digging Sara Watkin's self titled record for a few weeks now. I hit me the other day that I spent most of my youth transfixed on girls like Debbie Harry, Kim Deal, Karen O. Trouble dolls with attitude. Sara is a departure from that. No attitude. No tattoos. No ripped skirt. An angel's voice and a love for songs. Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe I'm growing wiser. I hope so. I hope it shows when I finally drop some songs on you.

Do I get bogged down in wondering what will come of this record? Sure. Part of me in the back of my head says I'll sell a song to somebody and I'll pay for my kid's college and buy us a house in Franklin. I'll summer somewhere. I'll be living the life of the rich and not so famous. But really I tell myself it's not for that. It's for the love of writing and the love of making music and that's about the only return I can bank on.

Country Radio

I spent about 10 hours in a van last week riding through Indiana. My traveling companions wanted country radio. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that it's not nearly as rancid as it was 8 years ago when I first got to Nashville. No songs about sippy cups. No songs about picking ticks. No songs about how big your truck is. Instead I got songs about getting it on. Songs from men with men's voices. Songs with steel guitars. Songs with shuffle beats. Granted this wasn't the greatest stuff I've ever heard but it was heartening. It proved all things are cyclical. Is Nashville no longer a schlock monster? I doubt that. I try not to pay attention to that. I try and accentuate the positive that I hear.
Best line was from Jack Ingram-

Wishin' on stars, only when you see 'em,
It's like askin' God for help, only when you need it
But I'm wishin' anyway, I'm wishin' anyway

Not quiet as cool as "When you wish upon a star it turns into a plane" but nice.


Lately I've been digging Sara Watkins and her solo debut. I never really liked Nickel Creek. I don't think mandolins should ever sound funky. I don't like acoustic riffs. I've heard a few tunes by them that I could stomach but Sara gets rid of all that "boy" stuff of trying to rock out and puts the money on the songs. Her voice is pretty heart stopping too. Here she is rockin a Tom Waits tune called "Pony" off Mule Variations.

Red Book Black Book

So when I'm not spinning LCD Soundsystem I spin ZZ Top's Cheap Sunglass. I read James Ellroy.

Hey. Been a while.

I get less to say? Maybe I got a new bag? Go with the latter. Songwriting hit me like a safe from the top floor when I was 13 or so. I saw Robert Johnson ala Teen Wolf Hollywood trash in the flicCrossroads. Peach fuzz Ralph Machio playing the blues. I dug in. I bit hard on blues man dogma. The chic is it. I was a C’s fiend. Somehow I scoped KC Jones crooning Your Nobody til Somebody Loves You. It was everywhere. The chic was it. No doubt. I had crushes. I had legends. I had lore like Marcellus Hall said. I wrote like mad. All of it crap. I met up with likeminded record fiends. We cranked out the tunes on the weekends. It was church on Wed night. My bag stank like dog crap. I got a 4 track for graduation. I got better. My hero Westerberg went solo. I took notes. I wanted to be Jimmy Page with Bob Dylan. I wanted to be John Lennon and Pete Townshend with the saddest schtick you ever seen then punk rock and country put me on the floor. The chic was it. Still. I graduated somewhere at the bottom of my class. I went away to school. I drove home a-lot. I learned to sing. I met rockers. I met mods. I fused ideas. I took notes. The chips on my shoulder became legend and they became lore. I began to put it together. I watched movies. I read books. I pried. I snooped. I did stake outs. I ate red hots. I watched girls. I watched girls like Dean Martin with OCD. I moved back home. I hit Knoxville. I hit UTK. I hit a good sized rock scene. I had figured out how to marry a lyric to a set of chords. I figured out how to sell it with my mouth. I figured out the smart ass vibe on stage. I had zip stage presence. I oozed natural. Band went boom. I kept writing. I kept it good. I sat in bars. I talked to Hank's ghost. I played dives. I threw bands together. I threw bands apart. I was marked. I was going nowhere fast. I moved to NYC. I kept writing. I went sub below zero stale. I wrote everything and nothing. I wrote whiners. I wrote paens to pathos. I was believing my hype. My limited hype. I kept a scrap book like an idiot to remind me I was on it at one time.
I moved to Nashville. I did it all wrong. I read The Manual. I did more wrong. I handed out crap demos for going on 10 years. I gave nobody anything to go on. I asked for imagination. I asked for leaps of faith. I expected the world. I got zip, nada, zilch. 3 to 4 years ago I turned 33. The year Jesus did it all. I turned 33. Larry Bird's jersey number. The well dried up. In 2004-05 or so I'd finished 30 or so tunes. All of which were written on note books that were stolen in a break in. They probably lived in the landfill. I pieced together what I could remember. I closed my eyes and tried to get flashes. I pounded them into 4 track demos in a basement in Brentwood. McMansionville. Some told me I still had it. Look out world. Some told me I'd turned to schlock. That was good. Then the well went dry. I am messing with the time frame. Maybe I am off. I dug deep. I did other things. I ran a 1/2 marathon. I played basketball. I worked. A little over a year ago during the Olympics I had ideas again. Slowly they piled up. I blogged like mad a while. I worked out. I kept my mind busy. But now the lyrics are king again. They are at the front of the line. Jogging is a chore. Blogging a bust. I got bigger fish to fry.

I have 35 or so tunes now. Working through them. Whittling them out. Hunting them. Feeding them. Getting out the nails.
I have a red note book with the easy lyrics. The A-B-A-B stuff. I figured it for honky tonk and rock n roll. It's become neither. I have a black notebook that I will enter without a clue as to how to bring their ideas to earth. They are free form jazz. They are way out. I got a new bag. I plan to deliver a stone cold product. Widgets of the world beware.

My first real solo album will drip drop next year. Probably May.
Think Everly Brothers in a dance club. Till then.

P.S. The scoop is. The record will be 13 songs. I'll put 150 or so on a hard copy disc with a cardboard sleeve. These will be free. These will go to friends, groovers, shakers, in the know folks of grand repute. I'll get an EPK made. It'll be a download. The record will come out on CD Baby. I plan to make a video. I plan to do a live show from a living room and film it. Have it on You Tube. Make a You Tube station. Set the stage. Make it vibe. I'll do all the Noise Trade, Reverb Nation all the shot in the dark stuff. Then I might play some gigs.

LCD Soundsystem. The Beatles. Dancing and lyrics.

photo by Rob Matthews.
It's been a while. I've been remiss baby. Sorry. What's going on? Everything and nothing.

I went to illydelph. Hung with my main man Rob. Saw some art. Sat on his roof and listened to a-lot of music. That's the picto up top. There is something simple about sitting up above the rest of humanity and listening to them laugh in the street a few blocks over and watching them park their cars and head to the bars while listening to music and sipping on beer. One of my wife's friends came to town last weekend and we went Contra Dancing. She said "This would be in my movie." Sitting on a roof top listening to tunes drinking beer would be in mine. The main attraction on this trip to illy was going to Eastern State Penitentiary. This was a win win for me. I dig crime novels. I dig history. I dig American History. They threw in some art installations for good measure. This was as they say "up my alley." The Steve Buscemi narration on the guided tour was noir magnificence. They loaded it on. Pentinence. Crime. Regret. They wrapped it at the end with the failures of the system to transform the criminal back into society. Besides all this time has withered the building into something of beauty. It's colors have rusted and faded. It's high ceilings and staircases make for a surreal cinematic step back in time.

I saw some art too. The best show I saw was Ben Volta and Hadieh Shafie at The Pentimenti Gallery. I dug Ben's stuff because it was crisp and clean and vibey at the same time. Simple ideas and complex ideas. He really got a-lot of mileage out of colors. One big piece was mostly if not all red. Hadieh Shafie's work was very cool too. I think it had something very deep and meaningful going on with her and her culture and ordinarily I'm not big on work like this but the stuff was so beautiful that it worked outside of whatever meaning I was supposed to get out of it. I saw some art today at the Down Town Library. Letter Press Projects done by MTSU. Apparently all young artists think war is bad and that there are lawyers that get into politics to save the world. I guess the first is true though sometimes it comes to that. The other is painfully idealistic because all I got out of it was the hero worship the young have of a certain political figure that in the end will prove to be just that, another political figure. But hey I love lawyers. I love law. I am obsessed with right and wrong. I'm sure there are some that do excellent hard work to protect the poor. I don't think this is who the kids meant. I kept looking for some young artist that wanted to tell me something that wasn't political or social or identity politics. I guess since they were working with letters they were left to sloganeering.

LCD Soundsystem was something we listened to on the roof a-lot. I'd heard them before but didn't really take the time to connect with what a great lyricist James Murphy is. The song "All My Friends" has been my constant rotation lately. I listen to it every day or so. It's a odd thing with me that I love dancy indie pop. Part of me wishes I could do that but the way my voice works and my writing works I end up back at country. I saw an art piece up in illy where a guy had out a Cheeto on saw horses and saddled it. I thought to myself at the time that me doing pop indie dance music is sort of like a saddled Cheeto. My only shot at the Mona Lisa is to keep it country.

I was mad about The Beatles as a 12 year old. I poured over every bio I could find. I bought the tapes and records that I could get my hands on. In the end I had every record one way or the other. I fell out of love with The Beatles when I discovered The Replacements and indie rock. The Pixies, The Campers, etc. When I later fell hard for 50's crooners the pedastool of which The Beatles were put upon with this notion that they were greater than the 50's turned me against them. My love of the 50's and it's sense of style, decorum and conservatism versus the 60's and it's opening the bottle on the hippie movement cemented my disdain for The Beatles. But I've mellowed in my old age. The new digital releases of John, Paul, George and Ringo sure has re-newed my absolute love for their records. Lennon's voice and McCartney's bass playing are both things to behold. "Don't Let Me Down" remains my fave Beatles tune. I really dig "Lady Madonna" and "Old Brown Shoe" all of their late stabs at rock n roll. Twisted yet old, new yet traditional.

I went Contra Dancing. It was a blast. It brought up a-lot of interesting thoughts about community and men and women and our partners. This sharing of partners in a totally communal and innocent yet mildly flirtatious way is really a lost aspect of our world. I wonder if there was more Contra Dancing it would serve as a sort of therapy? Dunno. I dug it. Some of them old broads can really swing ya.

James Ellroy's new book Blood's a Rover comes out Tuesday. I plan to start reading it asap. I like Ellroy. He's not a hand wringing lily white little whiner writing about the "human condition".

Set List

This seems like a silly thing to do but since I do have any proper records made and I want to make a dividing line between the music made before and the music that will come after I feel a list is the best we can do. In some dream world all of these songs were done in a studio and realized their full potential or they were discovered and made famous by other artists. This would be the track list for the greatest hits, the box set, the documentary. What I plan to release next spring is putting the counter at 000. I may erase The Satellite Pumps myspace page. I may get an alias. I may dye my hair and wear a mask when I come back. So far working titles for the new record.
1. Smoke Trees
2. Discount Spirits
3. Prodigal Blues

Since I was about 16 I have done a mountain of demos and last year I burned them to disc. This labor showed me how much of what I have recorded was awful and mediocre. Really in the end only handfuls of songs ring while the rest reek and decay. There were windows where I was on fire and most of what I wrote worked but not so much as they were great songs but they were on the money. It forced me to look at the big picture when I could finally jump from song to song digitally. Some like "Dead Piano" that seemed so cool at the time seem lost now. Anyways here is the list by era. If I have forgotten any dear readers please post in the comment section. This will serve as where I go to look for songs to do when I play live, of course including new items. I start with The Satellite Pumps and while I think I had good songs before that, most were fashioned into something else for that band and others are so young and precious they exist best as 4 track demos from the mind of a teenager. The TSP released one record "Rock n Roll Kissin'" on tape in Knoxville on Puppylove Records.
The Satellite Pumps-
1. What We Had
2. Snake Bitten
3. Can You Hear Me Now (Turn My Heart Up)
4. WSM 650
5. I Don't Mean You Any Harm
6. Cadillac
7. I Want You (Kissing Virus)
8. Goodbye
9. Killin' My Heart
10. Steel Guitar (personal favorite)
11. Oh My Darlin
12. Hurtin
13. Hands Are For (Which I can never do live but I'd consider it a shiner-a black eye or a star either way)
14. Don't Want To Drink
15. Romeo Knows
16. W-I-F-E is another good one from around then that we never did. "50's Can Can Go Go Girl" is fun too but you can't save everything.

The Raggedettes-was the name of the band I kicked around after TSP with my friend Greg. We had a revolving door of drummers. We drank too much. We used kazoos. We used tambourines. We used bass players sometimes. We did bad covers. I had way too much attitude to be some guy that used to have a band. But song wise I think I wrote some of the best songs I have ever written because I benefited from TSP's lessons and having a-lot of time on my hands. The album "Lo Fi Goodbye" came out at this time on S&L records which was pretty much a guy who made disc copies of records.
1. Baby Came Out of The Blue
2. You Would Think (Time and Again)
3. Down Anyway
4. Destination
5. Getting Outta Here (Before My Baby Gets Back)
6. Why Cantchoo Say Goodbye)
7. Matches
8. Wedding Dress
9. Drinking in the Bathtub
10. Lawd a Maisy Mercy
11. Lucille
I think that's about it. There was a lounge goof called "Do The Stars" that was fun but really more funny when I listen to it now. For some reason I thought I could be Sid Vicious and Perry Como depending on my mood. Trying to be all things to all people instead of doing one thing well.

Some of that above period overlapped with me living in New York. I wrote a-lot living there. Not much of it is any good. "Dead Piano" seemed cool at the time and now seems odd and awkward. I wrote a tape full of demos called "Broken Down Ballads and Worn Out Hymns" and that title pretty much sums it up. I think there are a few I wrote then that are worth doing but none of them seem necessary.

Nashville Taste. I wrote like a type writer in a tornado when I first got here. Lot's of derivative, trying too hard, not trying hard enough, trying to be cool songs. From 2001 till around 03 I worked with a band called The Old Flames and a few publishing companies like SisnBro and Americana Music. Around 2005 or 06 I sort of stopped writing. At that point I played a-lot with a band called The Sunday Best which in a way was the best band I'd had since Th' Pumps. In other ways it was the first big shot at mediocrity. At times we were nothing but a bar band. A very below average bar band chugging out some Chuck Berry. But of all the stuff I wrote since I got to Nashville I'd consider the below the best.
1. Falling Star-Not well known and I rarely play it but I like it a-lot.
2. Get On Up Into Love-About 3 years old now. I dig it.
3. Photographs-My personal fave.
4. Paint the Town
5. Leona Barnett
6. Banjo Moon
7. Pearl
8. Ain't In Love
9. Crushin' On You
10. I'm Gettin Drunk and I Don't Know Where I Live
11. In The Afternoon

Willingness would have to be it's own section.
1. Dead Bird Blues
2. Glory Train
3. Mystery City
4. Safe as a Bird

That might be it. I had a tune called "Deliverance" that never gelled. Anyways. That was the story. That is the past. The old deal. Next spring I'll start all over.

Cussin in Tongues and the continued pursuit of songs.

The Legendary Shack Shakers "Cussin in Tongues" with an Amplified Bible turned up to 10.

We talked about the shizzy word at The Belmont Songwriter's Guild last week. Apparently some CCM popster said we'd care more about him dropping the s-word than children starving. Children starving in Africa to be precise because they are the world standard for sympathy provoking as far as starving children go. We proved him right by spending about an hour on the subject. If your in CCM and letting fly with the s bomb it's probably to provoke. I don't think he did it for money. That seems counter intuitive. I think he just did it to make people think. Apparently Christians are already scared to death enough of the real world's art, as evidenced by every detour we took, that the last thing they need is to be in challenged by their own. I didn't even see it as a challenge. I thought it was kind of lame. Kind of highscool, kind of Footloose, kind of 1959. The Stones spend some time together or the night together. Take your pick. Cussing is cutting edge in Christian art? Guess so. Someone made the point that it's not appropriate for church. Well a-lot of the Bible is probably not appropriate for church. Of course it's not and I don't think that was the issue. A-lot of life isn't appropriate for church. This is why making out on the back row is only permissible in movies. To me with cussing in a song it gets down to does it warrant the use? Because if it doesn't it's like waking up with a tattoo every time you play the song. It really better work or it's just going to be that song with "that word in it." Like The Who's "Who Are You" version with the F bomb in it. That works. People have ranted in expletives for a long time. Jesus was called "dung face" in the Bible. You can probably translate that a few ways. If it's a fear of encroachment on a set of beliefs and a sense of decorum then that is true but the past is not so lily white as is our portrayal of it. For me language is about where it's coming from. It's not the word it's the anger behind it. I love rap. I always will. It's one thing I took from living in NYC that will always remind me of the city but once I had a 2 year old around I just felt abused by the raunch and rawness of a-lot of it. So I go with things like Flying Lotus. Instrumental raps or old raps like "Bust a Move". I dunno. Deadwood shocked people because the cowboys cuss? Well John Wayne movies were made in the 50's and cussin wasn't going to the flickers. I spent the whole time thinking this is why people don't like Christians.

Jack White and getting it done. I saw the previews for "It Might Get Loud" and sort of geeked out about Jack and Jimmy Page hanging out. But what I dug the most was Jack at his farm just banging out a song. I read an interview where he talked about getting too precious with a song. I agree. I think you put them on the firing squad every morning. I gotta get back to that. Sometimes I wish I had weeks on end at a farm to kick it together.

I listened to my friend Jeremy's demo of some of his record and 4 bars into it I said to myself, "This is what Jeremy sounds like." I knew his voice would sit on the sound and smoke it down. He's got a voice for stadiums. I immediately grabbed that I've got to sound like me on a record, just do it better than I have ever done it before. I've toyed with months about dropping country because I don't like country. I wish I was John Spencer Country Explosion. I wish I was The Beastie Boys meet ZZ Top. T I don't like a-lot of country that I hear but real, well done inflection of country is the purest gold for me. I am a songwriter more than anything. Country writing is the highest bar of songwriting. That or the lowest. The English Ballad. The Irish Ballad. The old deal. The line. The phrase. It all comes back to or starts with country. Part of my initial drive for my record was to use loops and beats and craft a sort of folk pop version of what I do. It hit me that I'm not a sound guy. I don't move the ball forward in the sound. I can't really play keys. I don't tinker. I don't twist the knobs. I care only about the lyrics and the chords and the bang. So I am back to just cranking out songs. Quick and dirty. Sampling the new Paul Burch sort of put a twinkle in my eye for country again. I've played my vibe too long to stop. I just need to do it better than ever before. I need some real damn drums too. Rock n Roll Hillbilly Bluegrass with a Pop Punk Twist. Stonesy Swagger and 50's Stardust. That's me. Nothing else gives me the visceral whoosh that the Chuck Berry back beat does. If people go "yuck he sounds country", oh well at least I sound like something. At least in 10 years I can look back and know I swung at my target. I heart country. I hate country. We fight all the time. Maybe I’m not country but I am southern.

So we have 34 songs to demo. I have the first 3 done. #4 is a problem but it's a good problem. It might be 2 songs. You have to coax them out. You have to put them in the firing squad. You have to shine the light on them in the middle of the night. Interrogation techniques. Etc. Songwriting is not fun or sharing your feelings. It's excavation mixed with boxing.

Working.