can we talk about music, please?

the astute blog reader would notice that i've spent more than a few minutes on nashville is talking and she said what?!?! defending the honor of her shesaidwhat-ness. enough, already. i wanna talk about music. we've got good things going on.

-for those of you who live in or near boston, i'll be playing with my friend amelia white at the lizard lounge on aug 31. it's my first trip to boston ever so, pretty please, tell all your friends, family, friends of family and whatnot that might live in the area to come out and see me. i'll give bribes if necessary.

-a few weeks back i had a bit of a personal (and public) crisis about not having a band. as i mentioned a day or so later, i've decided to move in a slightly different direction to hopefully seperate myself from the herd. that's been going really well and i'm learning tons (yes tons) about my abilities as an arranger, the hurdles i have to overcome and the fun that you can have with a keyboard and some spare time. i've been holed up in my music room for 2-3 hours every nite, re-inventing songs and working on new ones. the wife's starting to wonder who that stranger is who keeps eating her boca patties and sleeping in her bed, but overallshe's pretty cool with it. she also told me as i stumbled down last nite how much she likes what i'm doing. now that's love, ladies and gents! wake your wife up kicking the foot of the bed, get a complement on your music. damn, she rules.

-a wise, green, ugly midget once said, "do or do not. there is no try." keeping that in mind, i'll be debuting a few of these updated songs when i open for mack starks at the basement on sept 17th. i'm throw up nervous about it. why? because mack, and the guys he plays with, are some of my favorite musicians (and favorite people). you don't want to suck in front of people you look up to.

-i've recently purchased the new son volt cd. i read somewhere that you can't be a son volt fan and a wilco fan. horseshit. i like 'em both. not at the same time or in the same mood, but i like 'em both. this record, okemah and the melody of riot comes after 2 rather subdued solo albums from jay farrar and, while it doesn't break new ground musically, is definitely farrar's most political album to date. the guitars crackle, the snare drum snaps, the bass thumps, but the lyrics seem to seethe. if you like straight ahead roots rock, go buy this record. buy 2 and give one to a friend. take on down pass it around, 99 songs about beer on my car...stereo....

-speaking of good records, if you don't own marty robbins' gunfighter ballads and train songs go buy it now (yes now. have you ever heard of itunes people?!?!), and slap yourself on the forehead for good measure. i don't care who you are, you need to like this record. i want to cover big iron and el paso sooo badly, but i don't think i can do it without sounding ironic, sarcastic or campy.

-finally...in the next week or so i'll be re-doing my website. again. i don't mean i'm going to update it. i'm going to attempt to completely overhaul it. why not? i'm writing new songs, playing them different ways, thinking about music differently; why not re-do that while i'm at it? (sidenote: i've been known to bite off more than i can chew)

that's all. you can now resume talking about cats and dogs and the mass hysteria caused by them living together (click that link...there, dear readers, is a dude in SERIOUS need of help.)