If you don't feel like reading the story, but are curious to hear the song, please scroll WAY down to the end of this entry, and there will be a link for you.

The Who & Why & What

Some very dear friends were going to move away.  This wasn't the kind of move where the prospect of never seeing them for the rest of my life was a possibility (although in the midst of a pandemic now, who knows), but this move was far enough away that visits would be few and far between.  So, as one does, I was considering a gift.  Here's the problem... gift giving is hard for me, more so in a situation where distance is involved.  Food/drink gifts, while delicious, don't last very long.  I don't have the wherewithal to come up with practical household gifts, and besides, they were already settled in a home, they were just going to a different home and ostensibly bringing their stuff with them.  Not being able to turn my brain off at night is a nearly quotidian issue for me, and many nights the question of what kind of gift to give was the source of my insomnia.  What could I - a generally useless and insignificant being - possibly give someone without it being hackneyed or trite?  Hey, I write songs.  How about a bespoke song?  That's unique and that's sincere, which means the proper sentiment gets across no matter how awful it ends up being.  Ok, problem solved, now to work...

The Where

I knew the destination of the move.  That being the case, I did more reading about the location than I'd like to admit, looking for extra details that I might be able to shoehorn into a song.  Relevant lyrics from the song:

Say hello to the Badlands
Prairie dogs and Minuteman
Needles in the Black Hills
Porcupines with their quills

Say hello to the Big Bird

I'm not going to spell the place out to you, I'm going to depend on your profound knowledge of geography and history - or conversely, your Google skills - to tell you The Where.

The How

Brainstorming sessions. Writing text.  Editing text into lyrics.  

Deciding on a mood.  Well, it's somewhat melancholy, but hey, they're not dying - at least not any faster than the rest of us are - and we very well might cross paths again.  Ok then, minor key for the verse, then have a pre-chorus that modulates from minor to major, then major key in the chorus in order to give that optimistic and hopeful feeling.  Settled.  Pick the chords.  No, not that one.  Yes, that one.  Ok.  Chords.... find a melody.  Agonize over the piano at finding a melody.  Have a look at those lyrics.  Oh, that's not good enough, and that won't work with the melody.  Edit the lyrics again.  Gently massage the lyrics and the melody until they are able to combine.

Back to the lyrics.  How do I say "I love you and I will miss you" without explicitly saying those words?  We're writing songs here, need to be artistic and just a tiny bit oblique.  Ok, well, the general purpose of the song is as a goodbye present, how about making that the theme?  Enter my interest in etymology.  (If you think that word should contain an "n", well, that really bugs me.)  The word "Goodbye" literally means "God be with you"... over the centuries English has shortened that four word farewell into one seven letter word.  Ok now I have my chorus hook.

Goodbye means God be with you
God be with you as you go
Goodbye is temporary
Just until the next hello

The When

There is more than one When.

The first... well, there was a moving day.  I wanted to have the song finished, recorded, and gifted by moving day.  I finished the song probably a week before the departure, as far as the final first draft.... then spent time messing around with the arrangement or the lyrics, not liking the edits, revising back to the original idea, pruning here and there again... yeah, it's a process.  By no means am I an engineer, but I recorded the song at home the way I do all of my demos... I even threw on some vocal harmonies.  I bounced it to mp3, and emailed it to my friends on the day they left.  Mission accomplished.

The other When.

I was putting songs together to take to Patrick Himes at Reel Love Recording Company in February 2019, in preparation for tracking on my second solo album.  "Goodbye", well, I didn't hate it.  It kept growing on me.  I thought it had potential given the right instrumentation and production.  I brought it with me, along with a bunch of other songs on pre-production day.  It survived the initial cut down... and as tracking started on a few songs and an album began to take shape, I ended up thinking that this one absolutely HAD to be on it.

There were obstacles.  I wrote this song on piano, but I do not have the piano chops to do it justice.  Patrick plays piano - because Patrick plays everything - but he had done that previously on "Convalesce" (from Defacing the Moon), was already playing acoustic guitar and pump organ on this one, and I wanted the chance to work with another talented musician who I admire.  I decided to ask Nathan Peters.  You might know him from such bands as Vinyl Dies,  Lioness, TV Queens, and the legendary Captain Of Industry. Nathan so kindly said yes, and between the chord chart and my very very low quality home recording, was able to figure out what the song needed from the piano part.

Ah, the bass part.  Well, I wrote the song on piano, and was unable to come up with an accompanying bass part that I thought was good enough.  I reached out to Eric Cassidy for ideas.  He had a great idea, and was kind enough to record a video of himself playing the idea slowly enough that I could learn it.  One problem, it involved a quick note change that required holding a chord shape for the change... this type of thing is baby easy for guitarists - and for bass players that are much more talented than me - but I don't often play chords, and when I do, I certainly don't slide around from chord to chord.  Great idea, how to execute cleanly?  It turns out that I couldn't execute it cleanly.  Every time I would play it, I'd either mess up the chord shape on the slide, or make too much fret noise, or not have all of the notes held well enough so that one of them wouldn't sound muddy.  Here's where the studio magic comes in... I played the root note of the chords, then we used overdubs for the harmony notes.  I'm not ashamed to admit it, I'm just not good enough to do it another way, it is what it is.  We got the sound we needed to get.

The vocals.  Take after take after take.  When flat, try again.  When sharp, try again.  My verse harmonies worked out ok.  Patrick had a fantastic idea for an additional harmony in the verse that I hadn't considered... after he sang it for me a few times so I could get it, I went and recorded that as well.  What we have now are really nice harmonies in the verse with three parts, and all of the parts are me.

(I feel I should mention and thank community drummer Brian Hoeflich here, but make clear that there was no obstacle whatsoever as far as his part is concerned.  He did - as per usual - excellent work.)

The Summary

"Goodbye" is track 3 on Anxious Inventions & Fictions.  (If you have the Deluxe Version on CD, it is track 11.)  I am proud of it.  I said what I needed to say, which is the main point of writing songs.  The recording sounds clean, and makes me seem like a much more talented musician than I actually am.  Sure, I didn't actually HAVE to professionally record this song... but I thought the song was good enough to deserve it, and the folks I gifted it to deserve to hear it at its full potential instead of only the horrible version I did at home.

Click here to listen to "Goodbye" on the platform of your choice.

Making an album is a long journey.  The time spent writing and re-writing, then re-writing again at home.  The arranging, which often requires another re-write.  The demos.  The gathering in the studio to discuss and plan.  Session after session after session with a whole bunch of really talented people.  Take after take after take of singing, repeating the process if you're a little sharp or a little flat.  The listening to studio bounces over and over and over and over.  The mixing.  That's my process and my journey at least.  Many musicians probably have it easier.  For me, it's a long journey, and it's hard work, and I wouldn't be able to do it without the help of a great many people.

I'd like to celebrate a little more than a year spent working on Anxious Inventions & Fictions by means of a photo blog entry.   

Let's begin:

This is engineer extraordinaire Patrick Himes adjusting the boom for Eric Cassidy on June 2, 2019.  Eric sang harmonies on "Bright Ideas".  Ultimately, that song didn't make it to Anxious Inventions & Fictions, but it is out right now as a stand-alone single.  Please click here to listen to it.

Here's Eric Cassidy again, this time holding an accordion.  He played this on June 30, 2019, during the outro on "Pauline".  You can hear this song on Defacing the Moon, as the songs from that album were chosen from these sessions.

This is Dustin Booher, with me on June 29,2019.  He is a fellow Xenian, and we have known each other since we were five years old.  He sang on "Sunday (That Pill)", which is on Defacing the Moon.  He also lent outstanding vocals to "Never Let Go", which is the 4th song on Anxious Inventions & Fictions.

There is Dustin in the background... and here is Tim Pritchard on July 27, 2019, playing guitar.  You can hear his fine work on "I Am a Number" and "Promise".

This is Jackie and Brandon, who are half of Westerly Station. I met them in Austin at the CD Baby DIY Musician Conference.  (I wrote about that before.)  Brandon is a fellow Ohioan, and we even grew up in the same county.  It was quite convenient that they came from their Texas home to Ohio when I was in the studio, and they had the time to stop by.  Brandon played mandolin on "Sunday (That Pill)", and it sounds great.  

Hello there, Ken Hall.  Normally, you can find him seated behind a piano, a task he performs in Shrug and Human Cannonball.  I invited him to play a little trombone.  You can hear Ken play for about a second and a half on "Your Anthem", which is the first track on Anxious Inventions & Fictions.

This handsome fella is Kent Montgomery.  He is the lead guitarist from The New Old Fashioned.   He was kind enough to play guitar on "Never Let Go", "Won't Love You Anymore", "Run To You", and "Wapakoneta".  That last song didn't make the album, but I will release it at some point.  

Here I am with Nathan Peters, who I've known over 20 years.  You might recognize him as the lead singer and keyboardist from legendary Dayton band Captain of Industry.  These days, he fronts Lioness.  He was kind enough to come to the studio and play piano on "Goodbye".  I wrote the song on piano, but I don't have the chops to give it the recorded performance that it deserves.  Thanks to Nathan's work, it sounds so very good.

The most recent photo.  January 23, 2020.  As you can see from the wood floors and the walls, this photo was taken after the great Reel Love flood and subsequent remodel.  (Scroll up to the first picture for the old school look of the main room in the studio.)  This was my last day in the studio for work on the album.  There was a mixing session after this, so the official end date was in February, but I didn't need to head down for that.  Patrick's steady hand guided me through this process, as he has done so many times for so many other musicians.  He has a fantastic ability to hear the song behind my low-quality home demos.  I can tell him what I am trying to accomplish as far as the sound I hear in my head is concerned, and he can figure out how to get me there.  This gentleman is a multi-instrumentalist, great singer, and true professional.  

I hope you have enjoyed this brief photo journey through a year's worth of work.  There are plenty of behind-the-scenes photos that I haven't even seen.  I have 5 disposable cameras that came to the studio with me, and they are filled with photos.  If you are curious as to what might be on them, they are available as one of the rewards on my Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund pressing Anxious Inventions & Fictions to vinyl.  Why not head over to the campaign and help me press some vinyl?

On the heels of the Breeders show came Dayton Music Fest.  This is an annual music event mostly featuring bands from the Dayton orbit, but also including some touring artists.  Nathan Peters put together a great lineup of talent representing different genres.  I saw lots of great music, including a group I wrote about last week, and I don't want this post to be several thousand words, so I won't tell you about everything I saw.  How about three things?  That's a nice, easily digestible number, yes?

Let's start with The Mulchmen.

This is a surf-rock band, and their pieces don't have lyrics.  (I find that I can't bring myself to call them "songs" if there isn't any singing.)  Many years ago, I heard their music on the radio on a local music show, but never got a chance to see them play.  Their drummer, a very beloved and respected musician in Dayton, passed away... this is over twenty years ago.  When I learned that Nick Kizirnis would have The Mulchmen make their glorious return on the Dayton Music Fest bill, well, I was all in.  Lots of other folks were all in as well, this was the biggest crowd I observed at Yellow Cab on the evening.

That's Jim MacPherson filling in on drums in the picture there.  If you can't see it from the bass drum, you might recognize him from another Dayton band.

Ok, moving on.  How about some fake news?

Specifically Seth Gilliam and the Fake News.  This was only my second time catching one of their sets, and I didn't even catch the whole set.  (This is a hazard of Dayton Music Fest... there is so much good music spread across multiple venues, so there is no way to see all of it.)  Their songs are well-executed and played with enthusiasm.  If you want a sample, they have a music video, but it's a little frightening.

On to my personal favorite part of the weekend... the return of Captain of Industry.

This is one of my favorite music groups of all time.  It's just a bonus that they're from here.  If you are a regular reader of this blog, you might remember me writing about them in the first Ohio Spotlight post.

For this show, they brought some additional firepower.  Joseph Remnant came all the way from the West Coast to play some rhythm guitar and sing some harmonies.  (Those of us who have followed this band for awhile remember when he served as the bass player for a bit.)  You can't see him, but Tim Krug is way in the back there on your left (stage right) beside the drummer, making additional keyboard noises.  We got a six-piece Captain Of Industry.  You can only see one of Kevin Oldfield's arms, but I assure you that both of them worked just fine, and he brought his typical Johnny Greenwood-esque fireworks.  You also can't see John Lakes holding it down in the back, but we could all hear him nail those interesting drum parts and sweet sweet harmony vocals. 

They played songs across their entire discography, and although their set was cut short because they took the stage late, everything they played was spot-on.  It's like they never left.  
 

Dayton Music Fest.  Two days of music for only 20 dollars.  Hard to find a better deal than that.

Welcome to the first Ohio Spotlight post, where I will briefly talk about Ohio musicians.  You might think this is an excuse to mention John Legend in the hopes that he would write with me someday… and while I would certainly be amenable to that idea (please), my motivation is somewhat more altruistic.  Simply, I want to mention artists that I currently enjoy or have enjoyed in the past, and would like all of you out there in the land of the Internet to discover them as well. 

We start with Captain Of Industry.  As I am not a reliable Dayton music historian, I can’t tell you what year they began, though if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say 2002.  They released three excellent albums, Captain of Industry (!), The Great Divide - my personal favorite of the three - and The Bronze. There is also an EP out there full of what seem very much like B-sides, which is odd and different, and then some of those songs ended up on The Bronze.  (One of those songs that didn’t end up anywhere else is “Plastique Bones”, which is way too catchy for its own good, and is one of my favorite songs in their catalog.) 

This group of talented musicians wore their influences on their sleeve.  Brainiac, clearly. Radiohead, most definitely. There are plenty of quirky, odd, experimental songs here… but I can’t listen to their hooks or harmonies without also thinking that these fellas all spent plenty of time listening to the Beatles and Beach Boys. 

There was some national touring done, and I will always be curious how they were received by audiences who were strangers to their sound.  I would like to think the quality of their songs and energy of their live show won people over. As a bass player, one thing I try to take with me from their albums and their shows is Ian Sperry’s patient approach… he never overplays.  Several of the moments in their songs that I find most interesting are when the bass is resting… when Ian stops playing. For a good example of this, check out “Quiet Zone”... apologies to the rest of the band, but the bass MAKES that song. 

Alas, Captain Of Industry are no more.  Life, uh, gets in the way. There are the very occasional one-off reunion shows, and there are the albums.  I let someone borrow my copy of The Great Divide and never got it back, but hey, I have the other two around here still, and can listen to those songs via streaming these days. 

Nathan Peters sings “no one really cares what town you come from”, and I humbly state my disagreement here.  If these guys weren’t from Dayton, I strongly doubt they would have developed a similar sound without the combination of gray Midwest winter, rust-belt city despair, and rich local music heritage.  Friends y’all, they’re from Dayton, Ohio. Find them online and give them a listen.