Well, that was fun!  One of my co-workers, Bannister Murray, knew about my songwritnig and playing out and invited me over to his home studio, The NotePad, to do a live webcast on quintessential.wowstead.com.  Banni's place was really nice and through the headphones it sounded, sweet, sweet, sweet!  He had handled all the details of arranging this live show and setting up his stream.  It was a real blast!  He was chatting real-time with listeners and we were even able to take questions from the audience.  How cool is that?  There was feedback on the site that it "was a great show."
The only downer was that the vocal booth had no A/C (which I guess is the case with most recording booths) and man was I sweating.  No big deal, though.  One of the things I discovered when I first started to play out is that I sweat like a pig when I play in public whether I'm nervous or not.  So I've learned to accept it and just keep going.  Except this was a 45-minute show, so after a while it got pretty wet in there.  At one point it sounded like my sweat was gumming up my harmonica.  Luckily, when that happens you can give it a good blow and it will clean itself out (although you might blast a sour note in the process).
Banni recorded the show, of course, so I'll post some or all of it here when I get it in hand.
Thanks, Banni!  Thanks, quintessential.wowstead.com and the folks who listened and expecially those who participated.  That was pretty cool!

The hours and days after I play out at Eddie's Attic (absolutely my favorite venue) always seem to be times of self-reflection and over-analysis and this morning is no different.  After forgetting to cofirm my slot two weeks ago, I accepted a stand-by slot last night.  I played at 7:40 as the second performer on the night before a three-quarters empty house that wasn't yet "lubricated."  I did so many things wrong including:

1. I drank a Diet Coke earlier in the day and that sucked all the bottom out of my voice.  2. I strayed from what I had planned and practiced for weeks to play.  3. My guitar got out of tune and I didn't recognize it early enough to fix it.  4.  I completely skipped the second chorus of one of my songs.  5.  Because I have to practice relatively quietly, on my finger-picking number, I played without a thumb pick and my bass lines just didn't have any punch.

On the positive side, I think my songs are interesting and good.  I don't write very many love songs.  Instead I write about quirky things.  My latest song is "The Shadow Side" about the Jungian psychological concept and last night I dedicated it to John Edwards.  I think it's decent, but it's a little too dark for many venues. 

Also on the positive side, I saw quite a few people last night who weren't very good.  But this is a dangerous line of thought.  I hope I never, ever, look down my nose at anyone who has the courage to play out.  Just because I see someone else struggling doesn't make me any better than them.  And an attitude like this doesn't do a thing to close the gap between my and the really good performers.

So is playing out still fun?  Not when I don't feel like I've done as well as I can, no.  But overall, yes, absolutely!  Do I have realistic expectations of improving to a level I will be proud of?  Yes, but it will take some work. 

Here is what I plan to do in the coming weeks/months:

1.  Keep writing.  2.  Be more disciplined in my practicing by, among other things, using a metronome more, practicing in an environment where I can play at realistic volumes, and recording my practices more.  3.  Seek some vocal training.  4.  Play out more often.

I have to remind myself that I'm not a natural performer.  And I have to keep reminding myself that my goal with my music is to have fun.  It is hard work.  It may be an impossible task.  But as long as it's still fun, I'll keep working at it.

You still may never get what you need; you still may spend your days frustrated and unfulfilled, but unless you try...

I’m thinking about the last two years I’ve spent, obsessed with songwriting and playing out.  I really have put a lot of work into this hobby ("Hobby, hell!" responds a songwriter friend) and this morning I’m feeling...not satisfied, but certainly less frustrated than I have at other points along this journey.  I played Eddie’s Attic’s Songwriter’s Open Mic (number one open mic in America according to folkmusic.about.com) for the 8th time last night.  It wasn’t perfect (is it ever?) but it was ok enough that I felt good, overall, about it.  I actually sat there and (maybe this is dilusional) felt like I had an outside shot at making the three finalists (this open mic is a competition format--which sucks somewhat--but it’s made for a great open mic).  I had fun and that’s all that should matter.

 

Last Friday night I set up the recording rig to capture the sounds of the approaching storm.  There was lightening in the area and then a hard rain.  This was the same storm that caused millions of dollars worth of damage in downtown Atlanta.  In reading the news in subsequent days, it looks like that tornado was headed straight for us--but fizzled out.  And here I was on the front porch with a tornado bearing down on me.

Last night was much better--a georgeous night for sitting on the porch and playing.  There was a nearly-full moon bathing everything in crisp light.  The temperature was warm enough to sit outside in shirtsleeves.  It was mild enough that I didn’t feel like I was stressing my guitar to subject it to cooler conditions.  I played for about two hours, dogs at my feet. 

This (playing along on my front porch after everyone else is in bed) is my zen meditation practice--when I’m on the front porch by myself playing my songs for myself--the same songs I’ve done so often they become like a mantra--this is my zen medication. 

Today is an exciting day.  For the past six months I’ve been working on a full-band recording of my song Emerson Riddle.  Thanks to many nice people I’ve hooked up with on www.OpenMusicFactory.com, our online collaboration is done!   I’m pleased with the results and learned many lessons that will make this process easier the next time.  It’s been really exciting to see a song that I could only do solo acoustic come to new life with a full ensemble!  I think our international group helped give it a bit of an international feel as well.  I highly recommend www.OpenMusicFactory.com and I remain excited because we have more projects that will be out soon!

Thanks to the "band" members:

Dave – Acoustic guitar, harmonica, lead vocals

Fernando Morales, Barcelona, Spain - Drums and bass guitar

"Black Stratman", Dublin, Ireland - Electric guitar

D.J. Moore, Seattle, WA, USA - Flute

Nayara Challub, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Backing vocals

 

Fernando did the mix and I did some quick mastering at the end

 

 

It took me just over an hour last night to whip out a recording of "True Love" by my departed and much missed old friend, Ed McNutt.  Ed wrote this song in the early 1980's and said it was inspired by a Twilight Zone episode.  After researching it today, I'm sure the episode was number 96, "The Trade-Ins:"

(Opening narration): Mr. and Mrs. John Holt, aging people who slowly and with trembling fingers turn the last pages of a book of life and hope against logic and the preordained that some magic printing press will add to this book another limited edition. But these two senior citizens happen to live in a time of the future where nothing is impossible, even the trading of old bodies for new. Mr. and Mrs. John Holt, in their twilight years--who are about to find that there happens to be a zone with the same name.

(Synopsis): An elderly couple realize they haven't much time, so they decide to trade their bodies in for new, young ones. To their dismay, the swap will cost $10,000 for both, and they have only half that. The old man attempts to earn the rest of the money in a high-stakes poker game. The soft-hearted dealer, seeing the old man put all his money on one hand, secretly folds his winning hand to allow him to take his money back. Finally, the old man goes ahead and has himself changed, intending to use his young body to earn the money for his wife. In the end, they realize they can't wait the necessary time for the young Mr. Holt to earn the money for Mrs. Holt's procedure, and would rather be old together, than for one of them to be young and the other old. He opts for the return clause.

(Closing narration): From Kahil Gibran's The Prophet: 'Love gives not but itself and takes not from itself, love possesses not nor would it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.' Not a lesson, just a reminder, from all the sentimentalists in the Twilight Zone.

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trade-Ins)

Edwin was a "Buddhatarian," a Unitarian-Universalist with strong Buddhist sympathies.  In the second verse, this song states very concisely a central theme of Buddhism: the notion that one should live life in the "now" instead of dwelling on the future or the past:

See the future grow, but don't you know that now is all that we will ever be.

Also you sharp-eyed John Lennon fans might also note that the first verse borrows heavily from his song "Grow Old Along With Me":

Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be

I've always thought this was a lovely song and miss the opportunity to sing it with Ed.  After his passing, I've enjoyed shared it on several occassions and now I'm happy to share it with you.

Love, Dave

 

Home recording sure has come a long way!  At my house at least.  I never could make anything that sounded worth anything on my $175 Tascam Porta-Studio that I bought in the early 1990's.  There was just way too much hiss, especially if you tried to mix down and overdub onto your mix.

A couple of months ago, I acquired an M-Audio Fast Track Pro USB interface for $200 (I could have probably paid $50 less if I'd mail-ordered instead of buying at my local music store).  With Fast Track Pro, for the first time, I had a clean signal.  I could dub as many tracks as I wanted with no tape hiss. 

Then last week I bought a studio-type condenser microphone ($99 on sale--it's since been raised to $159 at the same online store where I bought it).  I initially freaked out because I couldn't get any sound out of it.  I finally figured out that, even though I flipped the Fast Track Pro's phantom power switch on and its phantom power indicator light came on, I had to plug the mike in, then power off the Fast Track Pro and turn it back on so that it recognized that it had a mike requiring phantom power plugged into it.  Finally, my home recording rig is good enough that I have to stop recording if the central heat is turned on!  That's a nice problem to have.

Now that I have a decent recording rig, I'm just beginning to learn some tricks to make my recordings better.  A co-worker who has a home studio showed me how to set up the middle/side ("M/S") mike technique, to give me a nice-wide stereo image using my condenser mike's figure-eight pattern and a second mic.

I've added a track to my MySpace music called "Final Destination" that is my first recording made totally with my interface and condenser mic.  This was recorded in my living room, which has several large windows.  As I experiment with my room environments I expect to get a better sound.  But I'm pretty happy with this one for starters.

I should also say that "Final Destination" was inspired by a short story written by a classmate, Kory Williams, in high school some thirty years ago.  I liked his story so much and thought about it from time to time over the years.  Finally, the songwriter in me recognized that the story's strong hook would translate well into a song.  I hope you like it.

Often, you wonder if anyone is listening.  You wonder if your music is making any difference at all.  This past holiday season, I had an experience that made me feel like, yes, at least some people are listening.  And I received a compliment that made me feel ten feet tall.

It was at an open mic at Limerick Junction in Atlanta.  It's a bar, not primarily a music venue, and sometimes it's frustrating to play there because it seems like everyone is talking over the music and not listening.  You ditch your quiet songs and play up-tempo, louder material and the crowd just seems to get even louder.

A year ago, a few weeks before Christmas, I did a cover there of Joni Mitchell's sad holiday song, "River."  This year, just before Christmas, I went back to Limerick Junction for their weekly open mic figuring that I'd do "River" again since it was the holiday season.  Well, another performer got up there ahead of me and did a very nice version of "River."  Clearly, I'd have to drop "River" from my set, but I didn't mind too much because I thought he probably did the song better than I could.  After his set, I went up to him and told him he did a nice job with the song.

He said:  "Yeah, I was here last year and heard you play it.  You sounded so good, that inspired me to give it a try."

Wow.  Someone was actually listening!  After a compliment like that, how can you not feel ten feet tall!?

Monday night I made my 7th appearance at the Eddie's Attic Songwriter's Acoustic Open Mic, the number one open mic in America.  After seven appearances, you'd think I'd see some improvement in my performance.  Well, some things went very well, and others were a disappointment.

On this occassion, I tried to fall back on some songs that seemed to highlight the better aspects of my songwriting and which, after having played them before, seemed to get favorable audience responses.  Best best laid plans...

I opened with "Emerson Riddle" a song that a number of people say they really like, and the first song I expect to release in full-band form thanks to the people with whom I've hooked up on openmusicfactory.com.  I've listened to the band mix and played this song so many times I figured I had it down.  Maybe I should have changed my plans on Sunday, when I realized I couldn't find my C harmonica that I use with that song.  There is a lot of harmonica in "Emerson Riddle" so having confidence with that instrument is important.  When I didn't have time to go buy another one at lunch on Monday, I decided to just move the capo up two more frets and use a D harmonica.  You'd think it wouldn't make any difference, but when I played it I found myself having to hunt for the first note every time I went from vocals back to the harmonica.  And moving from C to D screwed up the first note of my vocals.  On the recording, you can clearly hear me sing the first note in C and then slide up to D.  From there I was on key, but every time I went back to the harp, I had to hunt for the first note.  In all I think I made at least a dozen flubs on the song including trying to play it too fast (unintentionally--I knew I needed to slow it down and I thought I was ok when I counted it down but no).  By my judgement, it was just an awful massacre of a good song.  The audience response was respectful, but at this point I had lost any shot at making the finals on this night.  I think I need to find some new ways to practice in order to get tighter, or I may have to ditch this song in favor of some that are a little easier to play.

"Don't Eat the Blue Food" went much better.  My tempo was right.  I got the intro pretty close to right (didn't sound one note fully).  I had to half-clear my throat on the first vocal note, but from there I thought it sounded good.  The audience was fantastic and gave me lots of great feedback that motivated me to give it my all.  It was just about as perfect as I can get...until the last section where I play the theme double-time.  I royally flubbed one part of that section.  But again, the audience clearly responded well and that felt great.

Last year another singer/songwriter was trying to boost my confidence and told me that in 2-and-a-half years, I'd be right there with the ones at the top.  That sounded like a very long time, but after Monday night, I'm thinking he's a pretty wise guy.

 

Last night I made my sixth appearance at the mega-popular Songwriter's Acoustic Open Mic at my city's legendary venue Eddie's Attic.  Every time I attend or play at Eddie's Open Mic I'm just blown away at the quality of the performers.  It's yet another reminder why folkmusic.about.com lists it as the number one open mic in America.

Eddie's Open Mic is actually organized as a competition.  Each of 18 performers plays two songs and the judge(s) pick three who come back up and play one more song.  The winner on the night is entered in the Open Mic Shootout that is staged twice a year.  Previous Shootout winners include current country music stars Sugarland and rising-fast Los Angeles singer-songwriter Adrianne (a deserving winner--yet I've seen her at a weekly Eddie's Attic Open Mic where she DIDN"T win!).

I've been at Eddie's six times now and haven't once made the final three.  Yeah, I know I'm up against REALLY talented people.  Yeah, I try to remind myself that I'm doing this for the fun and for the love of the song, not to become some star or anything like that.  But still, I have to admit that I REALLY want that recognition.  Another singer-songwriter told me last year that I'd be there in three years.  So if he's right, I've got another two years to go.

Since I only get to play Eddie's once every three months (because it's so popular that the waiting list is so long), I usually have brand new songs.  I have been working on my two songs that I played last night for about a year each.  Both have undergone major re-writes and changes to the way I play them.  One got a good response and the other I'm going to move to the second-tier bucket--it's either for special audiences who might appreciate it more or it's just not that great a song.

The first song is called "They Had To Go" and is about Viola Liuzzo, the Detroit housewife who was murdered by the Klan in Selma in 1965, and Rachael Corrie, the Olympia, Washington woman who was killed in Palestine in 2003.  When I first wrote this song I thought I was really clever because I figured out two ways to use the phrase "she had to go" to mean she was motivated to go and act on her convictions, and, in the case of Viola, she Klan decided "she had to go."  Then I realized that there is a third meaning in this phrase--had to go to the bathroom!  I talked it over with some other songwriters who told me to just leave it the way I wrote it--if anyone realizes the third meaning, at least they're listening!  So I deliver the song very carefully...accenting the HAD rather than the GO.  The audience at Eddie's reacted ok, but it didn't blow them away.  The song does have some good harmonica parts, but it's not a good fit for my limited vocal range.  Bottom line--it's not one of my best songs.

My second song is simple musically and has a fairly simple message, but comes from the heart and I play it with some dynamic range (some soft spots and some rockin' spots).  The Eddie's audience seemed to really connect with it.  It's called "The Best I Can Be" and the chorus goes:

I wish I was half the man my daddy was in his day,
I wish I had an ounce of the courage my mother has displayed
I wish I could summon just a little of the grace my love shows in her way
But I can see
The best I'll ever be is...me.

I had a number of people some up to me right after my set and later in the evening and tell me how much they liked that song.  So that one will stay in the first-tier bucket!

The main downer on the night was that the sound guy didn't record my set.  I remember Eddie asking me if I wanted a CD and telling him yes, and I think I remember Eddie telling the sound guy to spin a record.  But he didn't have one for me at the end of the night.  These things happen.  Oh well.

I've signed up to play again at Eddie's on January 14th, 2008.  This time I'm going on toward the end of the show, when the house is crowded and folks are a bit rowdier.  "Blue Food" might go over well in that spot and I might see what else I can come up with.

Overall, I always have a good time at Eddie's Attic.  It's a great little venue located in the heart of a great little city, Decatur, Georgia, my chosen town.