It's like I'm a real musician.

You see, basement rehearsal includes a real microphone in a real microphone stand, and I’m always stepping away from it to squint at a set of lyrics or at a chord chart at this sorta low table to my right. Whenever I’m learning new songs, it just about drives me nuts. But now, thanks to Santa-Amy, I’ve been relieved of that headache.

The holes make it aerodynamic.

I hope everyone out there was on the nice list and got what they were hoping for, too….

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Hey Good Lookin!

Snaps on Facebook elicited huzzahs and a request to see and hear it in action. So I just shot a quick video in my office doing ‘OX4′ by Ride. I dunno, those three chords sounded good all plucked out and banjo-y, and it’s fun to wring all the rock out of this post-shoegaze classic and reduce it to something that coulda been in Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas. Yes! Enjoy, and let’s have a helluva 2010!

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The next morning, it was twice as bad, and so I took her to the emergency room. This meant skipping day two of selling crafts at the fair…but a few hundred bucks isn’t worth Amy hurting herself any more than she already was.  The doctor said it was a muscle thing — not a bone or spine thing — which is reassuring in a left-handed sort of way. She got some great drugs and she’s been all Dazed and Confused up in here for the past couple days. She’s got a follow-up at the doctor’s Friday, so we’ll have a better sense of what’s actually wrong. Where was I going with this?

Well, speaking of not knowing where you’re going with this, I saw Canasta at the Beat Kitchen in the middle there — Saturday night. Very inspiring, as their new jams (one of which is called “I Don’t Know Where I was Going with This,” natch) are, like, way more rocking than I recall Canasta being before. A lot of it revolves around their new drummer, who’s…just…insane. Like Fab from the Strokes crossed with Lol from Ride. A controlled hurricane, if you will. It got me going.

But seriously, where? Oh yeah. Much to my surprise, Larry didn’t have an engagement a week from tonight, and so me and him and John are going to record again. In preparation, I recorded quick demos of the two songs we’re going to attempt…and in the process, ALMOST A WHOLE DANG OTHER SONG POPPED OUT. Which is a relief, since one of the John and Larry songs has like a million words and has taken a year to get together, just about. Some come fast, others come slow. But then in the shower some lyrics for this other sketchy thing came together..and it’s just like…I’ve been…EN FUEGO…for the last few days.

I still have to get a freaking show, though. That end of things still sags depressingly, of course. I have a strategy, for whatever that’s worth. But it requires…gulp…effort. Don’t worry, I’ll do it. My hope is that all this creative upswinging will serve to bolster me to do the gig-grubbing. You see, when I’m on fire with the songwriting and the practicing and the recording, I tend to feel more like a “real” musician…who therefore deserves real gigs. So I feel like less of a heel asking for them, and so I can actually do it without stuttering. So to speak.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know.  Burn out the days.  Burn out the nights.  And so forth.

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