Dawn Xiana Moon: Randomness

Chicago Acoustic Underground

2010-02-26T23:57:00.000-06:00

Chicago Acoustic Underground

Today the band recorded a podcast for Chicago Acoustic Underground - we played five songs, four of which will be on the new album, and had a blast! I played for CAU back in 2007, and it was lovely returning to the studio and seeing Michael Teach and the gang, which now includes my friend Leigh Evin McCullough from the Four Women Only series that used to live at Uncommon Ground Devon. In three years, they've added a second sound engineer and gone from podcast to presenter, as well as becoming one of the most supportive groups of local music in the city. And they're sponsoring the March 6th show at the Viaduct Theatre (which, by the way, you don't want to miss).

The podcast should be online in the next few days, but in the meantime, if you go to the CAU website you can listen to interviews and music with years of fantastic performers - in fact, the most recent show online right now features jazz singer Jeanne Tanner and her band. Which happens to include the excellent Cory Biggerstaff, my bass player. It's a small world, folks.

(This is my favorite photo from today's session: Joe Chellman rocks out.)

Viaduct Theatre, March 6th

2010-02-24T08:42:00.004-06:00

Viaduct Theatre, March 6th

Art + magic + music + hors d'oeuvres - really, what could be better?

The evening opens at 8pm with an art reception for Lance Brown, appetizers by J & L Catering, and magician AJ Sacco. At 9pm, the Trio takes the stage with Goodbyehome and Ellis Clark Supergroup (with guest jazz guitarist Alphonso Ponticelli - I will attest that his gypsy swing group is fantastic).

If you're in Chicago, don't miss this one - it's the third art+ music showcase that Chicago Acoustic Underground has hosted, and they've all been wonderful. Where else would you get this combination of talents in one place?

Photo Shoots and CDs

2010-02-22T21:53:00.000-06:00

Photo Shoots and CDs

"The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box."
- Henri Cartier Bresson

First: The First Verse EP is now out of print! I sold the last copy at the Kaleidoscope Coffeehouse show in Albion, Mich. and have no plans to make more. But soon there will be another CD to take its place - the new album edges ever nearer completion.

On Saturday, we did a photo shoot for Spaces Between and the redesigned website that will be launching in conjunction with the album. Amber Morrow, a lovely makeup artist, and I arrived that afternoon at the photographer's apartment in Rogers Park - I learned that she used to be a ballet dancer, and she styled my makeup in the midst of minor chaos while I tried to eat lunch, drink coffee (drinking a mocha latte from a straw is an interesting experience), direct my roommate so she could borrow my keys, and tell the hair stylist where to park in a difficult neighborhood.

After makeup, the fabulous Sarah Rylee actually convinced my hair to curl - quite a feat, let me tell you -and we made friends with Michael's cat. Apparently Michael took in the cat with the intention that it would be a temporary placement, but a few weeks stretched into years and the cat is quite happily at home. He was actually quite interested in all the proceedings and made his way into a few shots, looking rather adorable.

In the end, Michael Rush and I were having so much fun shooting that we didn't wrap up until well into the night - at which point, half the motivation for stopping was the fact that we were both starving. We took around 1000 photos, and many of them look fantastic. At this point, the difficult part will be narrowing down which ones we like best.

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Kung Hei Fat Choy!

2010-02-14T07:43:00.000-06:00

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Kung Hei Fat Choy!

Or: Happy Chinese New Year!

This lovely drawing was sent to me by U! in Mexico City. Check out more of his fantastic work at Garabatorama.

Lots of Musical Happenings!

2010-02-04T01:14:00.000-06:00

Lots of Musical Happenings!

I've been remiss in keeping the blog updated lately, but that hasn't been for lack of musical happenings. While in hibernation, I've been redesigning DawnXianaMoon.com, which will have a totally new look and feel. Introducing: color! I know, it's a wild concept.

In the next few weeks, I'll be doing a photo shoot for the new album's cover art, playing solo concerts in Lansing and Albion, Michigan (see Gigs for details), giving a talk at Michigan State University, recording a podcast for Chicago Acoustic Underground, and playing a showcase they're sponsoring at the Viaduct Theatre, which will feature three bands, art, hors d'oeuvres, and a magician.

There's also a music video in the works for Strong that we'll be shooting in the spring (unfortunately, it's much too cold in Chicago to shoot outdoors right now).

So to anyone who hasn't been keeping up to date on the Facebook fan page, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth just yet!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T15:57:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas!

"The worst gift is a fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other."
- Johnny Carson

Merry Christmas everyone!

Facebook

2009-12-23T19:30:00.002-06:00

Facebook

Yes, Facebook is ubiquitous these days. And like many musicians now, I have a fan page.

All of my Facebook peeps will get a little Christmas present on Friday, so if we're not connected on FB yet, let's be friends!

In a related-but-unrelated note: for everyone who's braving the roads, rails, and skies right now, I wish you safe travels. I'll be heading out to Michigan myself tomorrow. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Lights!

2009-12-08T22:58:00.004-06:00

Christmas Lights!

It's starting to feel like Christmas - I'm listening to Over the Rhine's Snow Angels as I type, and today it snowed. I'm writing Christmas cards and finally put up decorations in my apartment, and I�ve started to see Christmas lights appearing everywhere. There seem to be more of them this year. Perhaps it�s an antidote to our economic instability?

Last year I was using websites to try to track down light displays, but this year I�ve already stumbled across two enormous ones just driving around the city. For those of you in Chicago: there are fantastic light displays on Ashland Ave. somewhere around Irving Park (I was driving by, so I wasn't paying attention to the exact cross street) and Logan Blvd. and Washtenaw (the nearest major cross street is California).

Every year I spend time tracking down lights, so these were a fantastic find. The Lincoln Park Zoo also does a light display, and it's fun because you can walk around and see zoo animals in the process. And there's a wonderful cafe nearby that's good for warming up after walking around in the cold.
The photos are from the house in Logan Square. The house itself is quite large (even by suburban standards), and the entire fa�ade and lawn are covered in decorations: there�s a Tigger on a lighted ball, Santa on the roof, reindeer every two feet, glass boxes with scenes from the North Pole, and an army of human-sized angels trumpeting on the walkway.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T23:32:00.002-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy your turkey!

And for the adventurous or vegetarian, a special drink in honor of the holiday (yes, it is real - Conan O'Brien's staff ahem, loved it):

Cakewrecks also has some fabulous Thanksgiving disasters. My personal favorite is Cthulhu with a headdress.

It's done!

2009-10-29T23:44:00.001-05:00

It's done!

After 70-80 hours at Uptown Recording (recording and mixing) and Gravity Studios (mastering), the music is done! I can't wait to let you all hear it.

It's a little scary to be essentially finished with the album after so long - I've been planning this project for years. And now that it's done, I feel a bit like Inigo Montoya: "It's very strange. I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it's over, I don't know what to do with the rest of my life." ("Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.")

No more tweaking the songs. Or changing the track order. Or anything else. Doug at Gravity compared it to sending a kid off to college: at some point, you have to let go and trust that you did a good job.

Of course, there's still a lot of work to do before the album will be truly done: I still need to do a photo shoot, design the album art, get the CDs pressed, and redesign this website. So there's plenty to do even though it feels like a chapter has closed. But it's done!

Conceptual Art and Craft

2009-10-17T01:49:00.005-05:00

Conceptual Art and Craft

Denis Dutton, philosophy of art professor at the University of Canterbury, writes an interesting piece about conceptual art and its place in society. Clearly, he values craftsmanship:

We ought, then, to stop kidding ourselves that painstakingly developed artistic technique is pass�, a value left over from our grandparents� culture. Evidence is all around us. Even when we have lost contact with the social or religious ideas behind the arts of bygone civilizations, we are still able, as with the great bronzes or temples of Greece or ancient China, to respond directly to craftsmanship. The direct response to skill is what makes it possible to find beauty in many tribal arts even though we often know nothing about the beliefs of the people who created them. There is no place on earth where superlative technique in music and dance is not regarded as beautiful.

However, he stops short of condemning the likes of Jeff Koons, whose oeuvre consists of concepts executed by others. I won't. I've seen an exhibition by Koons, whom I consider rather lazy from an artistic standpoint, but I'd mistakenly assumed that he did create much of his work, albeit with a large team. In Koons's work, I admit that there are a few interesting ideas and the pieces overall are made with some skill. (I will here discount the pornography that was included in his exhibition at the MCA - and I'm not exaggerating, there were nude photos of him having sex with his former wife, a porn star, complete with genitalia. You could not have considered this "artistic nude" by any stretch of the imagination. Porn is self-funding - it does not need to be subsidized by art museums.) However, Dutton mentions that Koons actually commissioned his famous porcelain Michael Jackson from an Italian manufacturer. In another Koons work, vacuum cleaners in Plexiglas cases, I'm fairly convinced that the designer who created the vacuums should get at least partial credit for the piece - after all, vacuum cleaners have to be designed by someone, or usually a team of someones who specialize in industrial design - and thus perhaps a share of the $11,801,000 sale price. (Yes, you read that number correctly.) If we were talking about snippets of music rather than vacuum cleaners, Koons would owe a significant portion of royalties. Copyright law has an overwhelming number of issues I won't go into here, but if you make millions using someone else's work, some compensation is not outrageous.

While I dislike visual art that is too representative and technique isn't everything, it does seem like craftsmanship is mattering less and less in the art world, even if Dutton does not think this will be a lasting stage. For that matter, I wonder if craft is mattering less and less in the musical world. Little pop music could be considered finely crafted, lyrics in particular. Most musicians in the pop/rock realm have little training and less technique. Training doesn't necessarily make you a good artist, but ideally training will give you enough technique so that you have the freedom to express yourself more fully. I'll be the first to admit that my own technique often falls short - but if you recognize the gap between the art you want to make and the art you do make, and you keep creating, keep trying, your art gets better. Ira Glass says that it took many years of trying, years of being a professional and still continuing to hone his craft, before his storytelling was anywhere near what he would consider good.

I'm obsessing over recording quality and track order on my new album, but realistically most of the music is probably going to be turned into MP3s and listened to on iPod headphones or laptop speakers in a track order that bears little resemblance to mine. I know this. But I can't help myself from spending hours mixing and fine-tuning musical details that few people would ever notice. Because to me, it matters. Even if it doesn't to anyone else.

Name the New Album!

2009-10-06T01:45:00.001-05:00

Name the New Album!

That's right, we're being very democratic around here. You get to choose the name of the recording I've been working on for the last few months!

Highlights from Ireland

2009-10-01T00:56:00.000-05:00

Highlights from Ireland

Reading Joyce's Dubliners in a cafe and realizing that the coffee company mentioned in one of the stories was Bewley's. Guess the name of the cafe I was reading in? Exactly. It's been around since 1840.

Teaching two Israelis how to play euchre, a highly Midwestern game, in the middle of St. Stephen's Green.

Giant's Causeway. But I've already mentioned that.

Being amused at Belfast's imaginative names for their monuments. There's the Salmon of Wisdom (not Knowledge, as the link says) and the Thing with the Ring.

Getting help from not one, but three very kind bus drivers (and an Irish woman, who also missed her stop) on our first trip back to our hosts' house. A route map for the Dublin bus system does not seem to exist. What exists is a map with stops (with a separate page listing which buses go to each stop) and no clear way to route between buses (Google hasn't mapped this out for us yet). And the stop we needed that day does not have a name or landmarks of any kind.

The Irish trio at Peadar O'Donnells in Derry.

Seeing the Long Room at Trinity College, also known as the Old Library.

Hanging out in the oldest pub in Belfast, if just for a half hour. But we were right next to the fireplace. Mmmm.

Swing dancing with a Canadian on Grafton Street because the (entirely amplified) band on the corner was playing blues. This was the best dancing moment of the trip.

Dancing with lindy hoppers from twelve countries.

Getting locked in a garage/warehouse with lindy hoppers from twelve countries. Seriously. They locked the door for the late night venue once everyone was inside and you had to find the person with the key in order to get out.

Of Giants and Heroes

2009-09-10T20:00:00.004-05:00

Of Giants and Heroes

I booked the tour through Northern Ireland for two reasons: Giant's Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. One is a series of natural formations that almost look like they were built by man, and the other brought all my Indiana Jones fantasies to life.

The story is that the Irish giant Finn McCool built a bridge so that he could reach his rival, the Scottish giant Benandonner, and challenge him to a battle. However, when Finn crossed the bridge and saw the other giant, he discovered that Benandonner was much larger than he'd thought and ran home, afraid, without giving the challenge. Benandonner saw the bridge and decided on his own to challenge his Irish rival, but Finn saw him coming and panicked. Finn's wife disguised him as a baby and told him to hide in a cradle and pretend to be their son. When Benandonner knocked on the door, Finn's wife told him that Finn was not home - the only other person in their house was their son. Benandonner took one look at Finn-as-son and said, "If this huge child is Finn's son, Finn must be huge!" He was afraid and ran home, destroying the bridge in the process.

The reality is less exciting, involving lava and volcanic eruptions, but there is a similar rock formation in Scotland. The day we visited, it had rained for hours in the morning so that the rocks were slippery and the wind was so strong it was sometimes an effort to remain upright, but it made for an adventure. I would have loved to spend the entire afternoon there instead of the hour and a half we got on the tour.

With the weather, we were lucky that Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge was open - the National Trust closes the bridge when the weather is uncooperative (it's generally a good policy to keep the tourists alive). The bridge was built by fishermen so that they could reach an area that would allow them to catch more salmon, but to see it from a distance you can picture Indiana Jones running across in order to escape Nazis or tribal natives who want to kill him. Up close, it's actually quite sturdy, even though it does sway and bounce with strong wind - given that thousands of visitors cross the bridge each year, the fact that you walk across on wide, wood planks (instead of whatever I was imagining) makes sense. That said, it's still narrow - you have to cross the bridge in single file - and only eight people are allowed on it at once.

Monasterboice, Drogheda, and Derry

2009-09-09T07:22:00.003-05:00

Monasterboice, Drogheda, and Derry

"Do we have any Australians?" Cheers. "Do we have any Canadians?" Cheers. "New Zealand? Germany? Israel?" Cheers for each. And then: "Americans?" Muted acknowledgment. Apparently all of us have traveled enough to be a little afraid of Americans' reputation when traveling overseas. But on this tour, the Americans were quiet and it was a handful of Australian girls who won the prize for being loud and uninformed (and for giving too much detail about their backpacking exploits).

Aussies and Kiwis dominated our bus of 55 as we left Dublin to explore Northern Ireland - and by the end of three days, we'd made lots of new friends. Our first stop was Drogheda and St. Peter's Church, which houses the head of St. Oliver Plunkett. I'm not kidding. Our tour guide thought we should see the 400-year-old mummified head-turned-relic and take photos. I passed on the photos and wondered if the parishioners, who were at the church for mass, were annoyed at the large group of tourists that had descended upon them. The church itself is beautiful - everywhere you look in Ireland, you stumble into gorgeous, centuries-old cathedrals - and when we weren't wandering around looking at heads in the middle of a service, the town was an interesting stop for an hour. We grabbed fresh scones and wandered over to St. Laurence Gate, which, according to the plaque nearby, is the oldest barbican still standing.

Nearby Monasterboice is home to three high Celtic crosses, originally used by monks to tell Bible stories, a round tower, two churches, and a Celtic cemetery that's still being used - the newest grave I saw was placed in the last five years.

From there we headed to Derry, our stop for the night. While our guide/bus driver was primarily useful for transportation and jokes, our guide for the walking tour of Derry was intense and clearly wanted to make the most of the opportunity to give his perspective on the Troubles. The name of the town itself is a statement of allegiance - those loyal to England, who controlled the town until the last 30 years or so, call the town Londonderry, while the majority Catholic population (and most of Ireland) call the town Derry. Newscasters dubbed the town Slash City since they usually say "Derry/Londonderry" as to seem neutral.

According to our guide, who was born and raised in Derry, the conflict was not about religion - it was about Irish civil rights and whether the town would be controlled by the Irish or the English. Derry is the site of Bloody Sunday, where 27 unarmed civilians were shot by British armed forces - the British are still investigating the incident, and the families of the 13 (or 14, if you count the man who died later from related injuries) are still seeking justice. There's a memorial to those who died on that day, and it lists their ages - many of those shot were only 17 years old.

After that sobering look at history, we lightened things up with dinner at Ice Wharf, where a drunk Irishman approached our eight-person table asking, "Are any of you Americans?" Carolyn and I didn't say a word, but the Australians and New Zealanders who made up the rest of the table all pointed at us. Outed! It turned out that he had a pint of Guinness for "the Americans," which he ended up leaving with me. Apparently we're loved after all.

After dinner, we made our way over to Peadar O'Donnells, which made the best night we've had in Ireland so far. A trio of musicians (bodhran/vocals, flutes, and acoustic guitar) played fantastic sets of traditional music, and the locals danced (and sometimes sang) with them. Pub musicians here tend to be fairly casual - instead of standing on a stage, they often sit down around a table with a pint of beer. I found out afterward at Derry is apparently known for music, and with good reason. Even though I was exhausted - every night I'd gotten less than six hours of sleep and I essentially pulled an all-nighter with the flight to Dublin because of the time change and staying awake through the day - I didn't leave until the musicians stopped playing and closed out the bar.

A Primer in Luring Tourists

2009-09-07T13:56:00.003-05:00

A Primer in Luring Tourists

Phase 1: Mention Vikings. Phase 3: Profit! But what's Phase 2?

Dublinia would have been much better if we were in elementary school. But even then, some placards had grammatical errors, one needed updating (2007 was in the future), and enough paint had worn off others that letters from multiple words were missing. The verdict? Half interesting history lesson and half boring. However, the building itself is beautiful, and it's worth walking around the entire exterior.

Speaking of Vikings, the oldest of Dublin's two medieval cathedrals was built by a Viking king. Most of Christ Church Cathedral was built and rebuilt centuries after the original, so it's not terribly different from other cathedrals, but the crypt is still medieval. We heard the choir rehearsing for evensong while we were there, and they sounded amazing. Interesting find: the crypt has a mummified cat and mouse on display - apparently they were running through the organ pipes and got stuck. They're famous: James Joyce references the cat and mouse in Finnegan's Wake.

After much walking, we were hungry. Leo Burdock's Traditional Fish and Chips has nowhere to sit, so we ordered food and walked a few blocks down the road to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which has a large garden (with an homage to Ireland's writers). We sat down and noticed the people on the bench next to us were also carrying paper bags from the same chippie. And so were the people near the fountain. Great minds think alike.

To finish the day, we decided to look for some music. Arlington Hotel Bar was recommended on Couchsurfing Zone Dublin (which is run by locals) as a good place for Irish music and dancing. Why it was recommended, I have no idea, because the bar was packed with tourists, the music consisted of boring covers backed up by synthesizer and guitar (to be fair, they did play two traditional Irish songs), and two of the four dancers looked like they hated their lives. The dancing was fine, but the men looked like they wanted to be anywhere but on stage for a crowd of tourists - who didn't notice, and cheered and hooted anyway.

Greetings from Dublin

2009-09-06T02:10:00.000-05:00

Greetings from Dublin

I love wandering through cities on foot - it's the best way to get a sense of a new place, and it's always fun to discover interesting shops and architecture. On a map, Dublin's city center looks much larger than it is - everything is just a few minutes' walk, and it's much more tightly condensed than Chicago (even if you were to limit yourself to the Loop). All day, I stumbled across places that I'd read about in articles or seen photos of, completely unintentionally.

Carolyn, a fellow swing dancer and friend from my Michigan days, and I arrived in the center around 8:00am, and much to our surprise, the streets were empty and most of the cafes were closed. Apparently Dublin wakes up late on the weekend. For breakfast, we wandered over to the Temple Bar Food Market, where everything looked amazing - it's actually not a very large outdoor market, but I could have eaten there all week. Unfortunately they're only open on Saturdays. After much deliberation, we both decided on Guinness steak pies, which we ate while listening to the musician in the photo on the left play flamenco guitar. The pies were crisp, with a fluffy crust, and full of flavor.

Grafton Street felt familiar, even though this was my first trip to Dublin. After watching a marionette dancing to Macy Gray, a giant leprechaun, a "coin-operated" man, living statues, and scores of musicians, I realized that Once must have been filmed on Grafton. (When I returned later to my computer, I discovered that Glen Hansard, the actor/musician from the film, and Damien Rice both used to busk there - which makes some sense, since the quality of the performers today was surprisingly high).

The River Liffey is Dublin's equivalent of the Seine - it's similar to Paris in that the river divides portions of the city and its banks are walled in by stone. A few artists have booths along the north side, and I bought a black and white print there for my brother, an amateur photographer. With our accents, Dubliners can immediately tell that Carolyn and I are from the States, and they all ask where we're from. When I mentioned Chicago, the photographer exclaimed, "Obama's from Chicago!" He was relieved that Bush is no longer in office. Almost everyone we talk to mentions Obama, and a man selling scarves from a small storefront even knew our mayor: "You know the Irish, your mayor's name is Daley."

Dinner was at the restaurant of the first chef in Ireland to earn two Michelin stars, Kevin Thornton. They're running a special pre-theatre menu that effectively is a way to eat three courses (plus a chef's choice starter) at Thornton's for the price of an entree from their a la carte menu. While our meal was good, I have to say that I wasn't blown away. Across the board, the presentation was beautiful - I've never seen anyone else serve tea the way that they do - but the dishes themselves did not amaze me. In spite of this, it was fun to meet Thornton himself, who popped out of the kitchen for a few minutes to greet all of the guests who were seated before the main dinner rush.

All in all, it was an excellent first day.

Flying to Dublin

2009-09-05T14:32:00.001-05:00

Flying to Dublin

I can't remember the last time I used the in-flight entertainment system on an American carrier - on a recent (long) flight, the TV screen in the aisle was flickering and the larger one for our entire section wasn't working. Flying to Dublin yesterday on Aer Lingus, which is considered a discount carrier, I got a large, personal touchscreen that allowed me to choose from video games, TV shows, movies, and music. And they gave us headphones (which most US airlines charge for these days). To add to all of that, we made excellent time and arrived in Dublin early. An hour early.

If this is "behaving like a discount carrier," the US airlines need to take note.

Guzheng

2009-07-20T17:46:00.004-05:00

Guzheng

I got Yunqing (Allen) Pan, a guzheng player, into the studio on Saturday - he brought his wife and his two-year-old son, who wandered happily around the studio while he was playing. You would have thought he'd be interested in the drum set that was hanging out in the main room (apparently most kids are), but he was more interested in sitting on Allen's guzheng case or walking around behind the kit without actually looking at it. It was cute.

With the guzheng (see video) done, the only thing left to record are some background vocals, which should be coming from another singer-songwriter in LA. Then on to mixing!

Bad Album Titles

2009-06-29T18:34:00.003-05:00

Bad Album Titles

I've been brainstorming titles for the new album - and I have to say, it's much easier coming up with bad titles than good ones. Here are a few fun entries:

The Anatomy of Pipe Dreams
Moonies
Kool-Aid
Dawn is the New Dusk
Memorex CDRW
We Call This a Headache

And some great rejects, courtesy of Google Trends:

Dead Fox News
Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism
Razorfish Stone Weight
iPhone 3Gs Overheating

And there's my favorite bad-album-title-that-somehow-became-reality: Fiona Apple's When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing 'Fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You'll Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You Know That You're Right.

The runner up? Cher's Not.Com.mercial.

Recording and Chinese Instruments

2009-06-23T22:13:00.001-05:00

Recording and Chinese Instruments

Today's session was incredibly productive, in spite of the fact that the music I sent to Chihsuan never made it to her inbox (good thing I brought music anyway, just in case). Chihsuan Yang plays violin and erhu, the latter of which made an appearance today on seven of the eleven songs that are going on the new album.

Few people on this side of the world are familiar with it, but the erhu is the Chinese equivalent of a violin - it's a two-stringed, fretless instrument that actually sounds fairly similar to a violin, though it looks like no instrument Westerners are familiar with. Where it differs acoustically is an encouragement of pitch bending (think bluegrass fiddle, if there's to be a comparison - this quality, which can sound amazing, also makes the instrument fiendishly difficult to keep in tune) and a more melancholy, haunting sound. My already pensive piano pieces seem more mournful.

On a whim, we also experimented with pizzicato erhu on a Philip Glass-inspired reworking of a traditional Chinese folk song, which worked surprisingly well as another textural layer.

I've been listening to the roughs for the last hour, and they sound fantastic - I'm excited for you all to hear the finished product!

Recording, Day 2

2009-06-04T18:38:00.001-05:00

Recording, Day 2

The band breezed through the session - we finished all of the upright bass, piano, and drum parts! Quote of the day: "Now play with yourself."

Uptown Recording, Day 1

2009-05-28T21:34:00.005-05:00

Uptown Recording, Day 1

"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." To that end, here's a short video about what it's like to hang out with us in the studio. For reference, the non-introduced people are Joe (the drummer, who's bouncing around like a madman) and Rob (the engineer, who is hard at work - unlike the rest of us). I'm behind the camera. Apparently I'm constantly laughing. What can I say - I'm amused by the world.

We actually had an extremely productive session today - the fingers on my fretting hand hurt, but we finished recording the majority of parts for the guitar songs.

Recording!

2009-05-23T16:04:00.001-05:00

Recording!

After a rather lengthy absence from the blogosphere, I'll be posting regular updates for the first time in months. It's actually been a nice, if unintentional hiatus. But I want to keep you up to date with some exciting news - I'll be starting to record that long-promised album next week!

My trio, which consists of Joe Chellman (drums) and Cory Biggerstaff (upright bass), will be heading to Uptown Recording in a few days to work with engineer Rob Ruccia, who worked on a Grammy-nominated project combining Indian musicians with Miles Davis alumni. I'll be producing the album, which will feature some extra cast members (there may be some collaboration with musicians from other parts of the country), Uptown's new grand piano, and a slew of new material.

So count on regular posts on the recording process - I'm hoping to have the album finished in its entirety by the end of the summer.

Randomness Turns Seven

2009-02-28T15:55:00.000-06:00

Randomness Turns Seven

As of today, Randomness has been around for seven years! Back when I first started, few people knew what a blog was, much less why someone might want to read one. Flash forward to 2009 and print media is slowly transitioning onto the web, for better or worse, and political pundits give bloggers real credence. And with the advent of Twitter, news outlets love picking up stories about "micro-blogging." (Which, in my personal opinion, is a little ridiculous - the term strikes me as rather forced.)

But happy birthday to Randomness - who knows where the internet will be in another seven years?