This song is on my upcoming album, Anxious Inventions & Fictions. It is the result of a songwriting exercise meant to combat writer's block... but strangely enough, I wasn't actually suffering from writer's block when I wrote this song. Let's set the scene... come to Nashville with me, to the CD Baby DIY Musician Conference in the summer of 2018.

One of the most useful sessions I attended was conducted by Shane Adams.  This gentleman is on the faculty at Berklee Online.  I had seen him speak the previous year, and he is humorous and engaging, energetic and open, and clearly quite knowledgeable.  This year, he was talking about a proven method of defeating writer's block.  At the time I sat through this seminar, I wasn't suffering from writer's block... I wasn't really trying to write songs at the conference... but in order to get the most out of the session, if there is an audience participation exercise, you need to participate.

I don't want to explain all of the things that were covered here, but let's briefly say that the method consisted of a series of letters.  No, not the twenty-six characters that make up the English alphabet, the method of communication before email, telephones, and telegraphs.  When I was much younger, I used to write letters often.  I would write to my friends both here in Ohio, in other parts of the United States, and overseas.  I couldn't even tell you how many scores of letters I've probably written.  That being the case, I took to this exercise rather well.

The phrase "she speaks in metaphor" came out of this exercise.  Wanna see?  Here it is:

At some point, I thought this would make an excellent song title.  Once I decided that, I needed a musical approach.  I decided to write this one on my bass instead of on the piano.  Further, as the song title seemed to me at the time that it would lend itself to a rather complicated idea, I wanted to make the song simple, and I wanted the bass to carry it.  For that reason, the verses consist of only one chord.  A minor.  That's it.  The bass line that carries the verses is moving through several of the notes in the A minor scale.  There is a bit more motion in the chorus parts as far as the harmony is concerned.  That settled, I used the piano to help me pick out a melody.  After I had a melody, then came the work to write lyrics to fit the melody and the theme.

This needed to be a rock song.  Ok, not just rock.  RAWK.  To that end, I recruited one of the finest bass players in Dayton, Chirs Corn.  (He has other talents as well.)  He used to play in a very loud, chaotic, experimental, post-punk outfit called My Latex Brain... and in this band, he would surround himself and his bass with what seemed like a hundred different pedals, and make the bass sound like a legion of guitars.  That's the sound I wanted on this song.  I also recruited Thad Brittain for more high frequency guitar work.  For the percussion end, I asked Brian Hoeflich to do his best Jimmy Chamberlain impersonation, and he obliged.

I am extremely pleased with the result.  If my Kickstarter campaign is successful and we get vinyl pressed, you'll be able to find it as the first song on Side Two of the album.  I can't wait for you to hear it.

February 17th, 2019.  That was the first day of tracking for my second solo full-length album.  A quick aside... it's awfully strange to call it a "solo" album, as I certainly couldn't have gotten it done without a great deal of help.  Patrick Himes, the engineer/producer.  Brian Hoeflich, professional drummer extraordinaire.  The other guitarists, vocalists, pianists, violinists, etc who are on the album: Eli Alban, Dustin Booher, Blair Breitreiter, Thad Brittain, Chris Corn, Ken Hall, Kent Montgomery, David Payne, Nathan Peters, Tim Pritchard, TINO, Tod Weidner, Heather York.  That's an awful lot of help for a "solo" album.

(I digress again.  This doesn't count the folks who helped out on songs that didn't make the album, but that I still plan on releasing.  I'll be thanking them all by name in the future, you can take it to the proverbial bank.)

Where was I?  Oh yes.  February 17th,2019.  Notice how in that first paragraph, I wrote the words "gotten it done"?  Yes, February 5, 2020 was the last mixing session.  The album is tracked.  The album is mixed.  A release date is in the future.  It is without a doubt my best work to date.  Wanna know what it's called?

Anxious Inventions & Fictions

That's a lyric from one of the songs.  Would you like to hear it on vinyl?  I would surely LOVE to press it to vinyl.

It turns out that you, yes you, can help to get this album pressed to vinyl.  I am launching a Kickstarter campaign to offset the expense of pressing vinyl.  It essentially functions as a pre-order... if you are interested in hearing my new album on vinyl, by all means, select a campaign reward that includes your very own copy of Anxious Inventions & Fictions.  There are a few different rewards that include the physical record.  For one of the rewards, I'll list your name in the liner notes expressing my deep gratitude for all the world to see.  I have five disposable cameras (remember those?) full of exclusive behind-the-scenes photos of the recording process... I haven't even seen these photos... those are possible rewards as well.

What if you don't have a turntable, but still want to help?  Well, one of the rewards is for a digital download of the album.  What if you just want to wait until the album is on Spotify or Pandora or Apple Music or YouTube?  Well, if you would like to support the effort of getting the album pressed to vinyl for other folks out of the kindness of your heart, there is a donation level for that.  Every little bit helps, you know.

Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing crowdfunding platform.  If we reach the funding goal, then I'll be able to get Anxious Inventions & Fictions pressed to vinyl.  If we do not reach the funding goal, nobody will be charged for any of the pre-orders, and the album will not be pressed to vinyl.  

If you didn't already click on the link above to go to the Kickstarter campaign, why not click it here to visit my pre-launch page?  The campaign goes live on Wednesday, March 25.  Please share with all of your music-loving friends.  Let's press some records!!!

MOIRA is Aaron Hardy, Alicia Grodecki, and Patrick Hague, if you list them alphabetically by first name.  These are three musicians whose relative youth belies their experience.  Punk, metal, pop, extensive touring... these are the things you'll find as you look into their past.  All of that experience combines to produce art that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Inventive rhythms from Patrick behind the drum kit, including the occasional drum pad being triggered.  Thick synth and sturdy bass lines from Aaron, on the audience's right.  More synth, Rhodes, and vocals that oscillate between delicate and strong from Alicia, over there on the left.  Songs that are carefully constructed and given time and space to develop, to breathe, to surround you.  

MOIRA is one of my favorite artists around these parts right now, and the only thing I would ask of them is to get us more records.  Please.

Their first EP, Asleep/Repeat/Awake, came out in 2015.  They have a brand new release that just came out a couple of weeks ago.

You can catch them playing shows around Dayton, and also around the Midwest.  If you haven't gotten a chance to see them yet, and wonder what they are like live, well, I recommend their excellent performance at the Paste Magazine studios in New York.  Watch it here.

I've been working hard in the studio, supported by Patrick Himes and a rotating cast of other Dayton musicians.  I've already mentioned that I have a split album coming out on Local Music Day.  I have five songs on that compact disc.  That left 20 songs.

20 is a lot of songs.  From that group, I've decided not to do any tracking at the moment on 3 of them.  I either want to give more consideration to the arrangement (looking at you, "Podiacide") or try to improve the lyrics (this means you, "Let's Go"), or perhaps even do a complete re-write (this could be you, "Rock Show").  Ok.  20 minus 3 is 17.  

This is the group of songs from which I will attempt to put together an album that will take you, the potential listener, on an adventure.  Some of them are finished... mixed and everything.  Some of them have drums and bass tracked, but need the rest of the instruments.  Just three of them are still waiting on me to record a bassline.

I won't pretend to know when I'll have this ready for release... but it certainly won't be this year.  More updates to come.

Straight talk, a few days before this conference, I really didn't want to go.  I was tired.  Mentally and emotionally tired.  However, I already made the plans, and had already taken vacation days from my corporate job, so yeah, I went.

This year's DIY Musician Conference sponsored by CD Baby was held in Austin, Texas.  The dates were 16 to 18 August.  This was my third conference, and by far the hottest... because it is crazy hot in Texas in August.  

I won't go on a lengthy description of the delicious brisket I had there, as that's another blog post.  I won't talk about the migas breakfast tacos, either.  I had a very interesting cultural experience watching people sing Russian karaoke, but maybe we'll save that for another blog post as well.  Let's keep this one focused on music stuff.

When I say "music stuff", I mean the work.  Writing music and lyrics is work of course, but that's enjoyable work.  Recording is work, but that's also enjoyable work.  There is a great deal of other business stuff that has to be done when you're an independent artist though... these are the things I was there to learn, and these are the things that make a very long to-do list for me going forward.

A nice benefit of this conference is being surrounded by a bunch of other musicians from all over the world.  Many genres.  Many languages.  Different points in their careers.  Making those personal connections is something that helps me get through the weekend without being wilted by social anxiety (as opposed to just being wilted by the Texas heat).  Now, I met dozens of interesting people over the weekend, and had many interesting conversations... but let me tell you about two specific people whose company I enjoyed.

First, Jessica.  She sat next to me during the first session on Friday morning.  That first day is tough, especially if you're like me and you don't like crowds.  In this case, my neighbor was even more anxious than me possibly, as this was her first conference.  It turns out that Jessica is a pianist from Los Angeles.  I would describe her as very much like a shorter version of Fiona Apple... well, that was until I looked up Fiona Apple's height, and they're probably about the same stature-wise.  At any rate, think piano-based pop music with interesting lyrics, and a beautiful voice.  Jessica performs as Bellorage.  You can listen to her music here. 

We were treated to a Bellorage performance at the post-show music shindig.  It was great. That part at 3:19 of "Terribly Lovely" gave me goosebumps when I saw it live.

Ok, so a second story about a person.  At the conference, they have these tables set up to help all of us anxious musicians to break the ice and start conversations.  There is a line of tables that each has a sign based on a region... Austin, New York, Midwest, South, West, Europe, Canada, etc.  There is another line of tables broken up by music genre... hip hop, country, edm, pop, rock, etc.  So, I head to the rock table.  When I mention that I am from Dayton, Ohio, someone points to this other fella and says "he's from Dayton as well"... the other fella had "Austin" on his badge, so I was skeptical.  Turns out he is from Dayton, but moved to Austin for his music career a couple of year ago.  Since we're from the same area, I figured I'd tell him specifically that I grew up in Xenia.  He says "dude, I'm from Yellow Springs".  Yes, we're both from the same county, and don't meet until a music conference in Austin.

His name is Brandon, and he's in Westerly Station.  What's more, he and his wife happened to be in Ohio last week, where they went on WYSO to talk about their music with Juliet on Wednesday night, then they stopped by Reel Love Recording Company on Thursday to do some tracking with me.  You'll be hearing some sweet mandolin that Brandon played before the end of the fall. 

In summary, an enjoyable conference, despite the work.  I hope to attend again next year.