the death of jason brody is officially dead. as of last weekend we are AT SEA. and atseamusic.com is live as well, though we are making tweaks. all of this has been a lot of work, but my gut says and has been saying that it’s the right thing. and so here we are.

yes, i am all about following my gut these days. too many days of hemming and hawing in my life, i think. time to make it evens.

my improv troupe, garamond, surviveth, amid much drama, even. we did three shows in the last week! that plus AT SEA’s debut at fontana’s has been taxing.

i am sick with something! but not swine flu! i think i caught a cold. jeff and geoff from the band seemed to have a similar bug, so it’s no wonder. today i do feel much better.

two new songs debuted at fontana’s. people ate that shit up. while the band is as much work as ever, there is an ease there that didn’t exist before. things are good.

mostly life has been good to me lately. i could go on and on. but i won’t right now. just gonna relax and keep this one short.

this went out to THE DEATH OF JASON BRODY email list the other night. TDoJB is gone, and in its place stands the musical collective AT SEA. it’s very exciting. and also–what a pain in the ass converting everything over and linking to our history so it doesn’t seem like we have nothing going on all of a sudden. anyway, it’s a hump to get over, but a fruitful one, i hope. more on this and other things later. announcement below. 

Dear fans and friends, old and new: 

Most would agree that we are in the middle of an era of change and evolution. An exciting and dangerous time that will lead us to new vistas and broader horizons. 

Well, the spirit of change has run through THE DEATH OF JASON BRODY as well, and we are gutted. 

Yes, we have been out of touch for a while. But we are alive and well, and proud to announce a new era in our story. 

No longer will NYC’s most promising foursome be named after its frontman. 

Over the past year, on the heels of recording part of a new record, membership changes, and Jason’s sinus junk and sinus surgery, some interesting things have happened. The downtime allowed us to more fully explore who we are and what we’ve been doing, and to really dig into our influences and reinforce our identity. And with our newest bandmate, Andrew Burns, now in the mix, we find ourselves in a place where collaboration is free-flowing, there are no limitations to what we allow ourselves to do musically, and we feel like, well, a different band. 

So we are. This collective, in whatever form it takes from here on, is now called AT SEA. 

We will celebrate this change and the launch of the AT SEA website, by playing our first AT SEA show next weekend! It’ll also be Andrew’s first show with us, another reason to celebrate. And we’ll premier some new music.

Please join us next Saturday night, here: 

Fontana’s 

105 Eldridge St. (between Grand & Broome)

NYC 

SATURDAY, APRIL 25

10PM

$8

PLEASE NOTE: We’ll be moving our email list to be part of our new website, so you’ll be getting emails from AT SEA soon. PLEASE ADD THE EMAIL ADDRESS news@atseamusic.com SO WE DON’T END UP IN YOUR SPAM/TRASH FOLDER. 

More news to come. We hope you enjoy the new us!

Love, 

Jason, Geoff, Jeff, and Andrew

very briefly, because i need to hit the hay:

musically, i am alive again. in a way that maybe i haven’t been in a long time. something feels different. perhaps it’s just having my voice back, having a band that’s working well together, having things feel like they are slowly falling back in line. but i want to sing. i catch myself singing before i warm up my voice some days, which i’m not really supposed to do. but i do it anyway sometimes. i’ve gotten bogged down all these years by notions of rules, of what should and should not be. and now i find myself just wanting to sing and play and find that place where i am free to create and stay there for as long as i can. i guess i value everything more nowadays. i know it’s not like i was hit by lightning or like my heart stopped for a minute or something. but things are changed. this business is changed. and i want to find my way back to what i love about doing music so much that i can’t help it in spite of the fact that the business is fucked.

so anyway, we are back. fontana’s next month, rockwood after that. i play house of blues in LA in may, which i am really looking forward to. trying to book more around that on the west coast. solo shows to prep for. a new guy in the band that we actually like and get along with. and we are going to be changing everything around quite a bit. no more death of jason brody, or jason brody even. we are at sea. and i am liking that change. to be announced later.

improv is still on. my team is now like an official entity, practicing twice a week, doing a biweekly show at the creek and the cave in LIC. we are garamond. hear us roar. or at least, like, join our facebook group or something. i found an open ucb 401 class, finally, and jumped on it. so that starts the end of next month, too.

and i am in school at atlantic as well. learning how to be a “serious” actor. but seriously. learning skills that i think are useful and interesting, applicable to many facets of life. i was skeptical at first and still am at times, and i think some of that has to do with the mix of people in my class. but when i sit down and do the work, memorize lines for a scene, engage in that, it feels very natural and productive to me in a way that i didn’t expect. i’m like, yeah, i could see myself rehearsing and being in a play. why not? we’ll see. i have a LONG way to go, beginner that i am.

i work. i play. i come home late. it’s nice to be alive right now. i could be socializing a bit more, i suppose. but there are many kinds of socializing.

not sure what else. i got a fun haircut and i feel a little lighter. i like that it’s warming up outside. i look forward to travel soon. i may be moving.

and i may just fall asleep if i try. like now.

it has been about three weeks since my last entry. the sad truth is that i just haven’t made time to write in here. i am almost dysfunctionally overwhelmed, i think. but really, this is not sad at all. this is me back to living my life again, probably busier than i have ever been. and all of that is a really good thing.

i confess that i live in fear that now that things are moving along after my being sick for so long, my surgery, etc., that it will all come back, all the agony of feeling like shit all the time and not being able to maintain the band, the music, the improv, a social life, and so on. but it’s about eight weeks since my surgery and so far i am a lot better than i was. i do have some odd symptoms lingering. and i have good days and bad ones. but i am not the mess i used to be.

anyway, things are good. and crazy. band is back in action, or new bandmate andrew is a godsend, and i think the overall vibe of things is better than it has ever been. there will be some big announcements in the coming months, i think, and we have shows on the horizon for the first time in a while. new songs are in the making. new plans are in the offing. my improv classes are going well, 301 is nearly over, and my improv group, newly coined GARAMOND, will actually begin performing next month, which is insane. i got into atlantic and i start tomorrow night. i am trying to find new and exciting ways to make money without selling my soul, the new economy frightens and nauseates me. the world is changing quickly. a hundred years ago we barely had running water. thirty years ago we didn’t have computers. where is it all going?, i have to wonder. but the creative spirit is more important than it has ever been, i know that and feel it deep in my bones. these are the times when beauty is heightened. when great things are made. even if no one notices them or pays attention.

anyway, my last blog’s resolution about not writing new entries until i edit all the old ones and post them kind of fell by the wayside. but i am still working on that project.

to anyone who actually reads this: apologies for the infrequency. it’s a lot easier to blog more often when i am laid up in my apartment recovering from this or that. life does and will get in the way. but i am still here and there will be more, so keep reading.

first a few updates and observances:

let’s all bow our heads and pray to the powers that be that our government can stop being the egomaniacal, divisive clusterfuck that it generally is for long enough to pull the current economy out of the shitter. by all accounts it’s bad and getting worse, but everyone loves to take their time. though i do agree that obama’s initial stimulus plan had some weird, nonstimulating things in it, like 50 million dollars, i think, to STD treatments. something like that. anyway. people need to move some ass. for real.

and speaking of. sometimes i feel like the luckiest man alive. because some people are having such a hard time right now. it’s periods like this when i want to become a volunteer, toss my own egomania/artsiness, and try to make the world a better place through concrete action (i.e., feeding and clothing people) instead of the lofty kind (sensitively strumming my guitar, fixing dark moments and universal truths in time/song). it’s a lot to have a roof over my head and to be able to be creative, to eat well, etc. i feel terrible. no one in this day and age with all that’s at our disposal should be struggling to survive unless that’s a choice. and certainly it is not.

i am, for the most part, feeling pretty good. tomorrow is five weeks since my sinus surgery. everything feels back in full swing and for the first time in many months i feel like myself again, mostly. honestly, it’s been so long that i don’t know what the baseline is anymore. but essentially i am feeling alright, and hoping it gets better still. i am still nervous about what will happen when i go off the nasty antibiotics (rifampin and doxycycline, if you must know). i here and there experience symptoms/sensations a lot like what i was going through when i was sick. but for the most part i am back on my feet. not gonna discuss it anymore because i am a superstitious person sometimes. but yeah. started singing for real again this past week and it felt great. doing improv, seeing improv, writing, and so on. doing everything except drinking/bar-related activities. but that will change soon, too.

ok, anyway this is running longer than i had expected. so i’ll pull the plug. the resolution you should concern yourself with is that i may refrain from posting new blog entries until i finish and post all the old ones that are still sitting in the “unpublished” area of my blog. i believe there are thirty or fortyish such unfinished posts. surely they can’t all be that important. and some may no longer be relevant. but i don’t want to waste them. so i’m going to try and get some of that done. and then back to regularly scheduled chronological programming.

ok, then. we’ll see how that works out.

http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/106480/Rents-Drop-Nationwide-as

my, what a breath of fresh air to not have a buffoon as the spokeperson for our country. at least we don’t have to worry about that for a while.

using my iphone and technology and shit. cool.

lovely as this fleeting moment of wintriness is, i still can’t help but want to live elsewhere at this time of year more than any other. LA or the south of france, maybe. my dreams of being bicoastal have not faded much over these past few years. you never know. though it’d be pretty odd–getting into improv and acting, thinking of LA. wait, who am i again? where are we? are we there yet? i wanna go home.

something like 23 days before i can have a drink but i’ve decided to quit talking about it. i did cheat the other night and had one beer, which i drank very slowly, sans incident. but i ain’t gonna push it. a friend brought it to me, so i somehow felt less guilty or less like i was hurting myself.

anyway. i have a ton of shit to do. i wonder if blogs were invented as procrastination tools, really. it all seems meaningful. but is it? how many other idiots are writing about the snow or other elements in their blogs right now instead of actually doing something? anyway, i’m gonna go do something, and stop writing about it. toodles.

all in all i guess that toward the end of this past week, regular life more or less resumed for me. i still feel a little uncomfortable, but i am trying to ignore all that. last night was the first real rehearsal back with the band and with our new bandmate, andrew. it will be slow-going for a little while, as it always is when a new person enters the picture and has to learn preexisting stuff, etc. but we are dividing the time between rehearsing old songs/getting andrew up to speed and working on brand-new stuff that none of us have worked on before, so that’s totally fresh for everyone and puts us all on the same page. last night was a lot of fun and i think things are going to be cool. we’re hoping to start playing shows again for april. later than i’d hoped, but then again i never thought i’d be saying i just had sinus surgery after being sick for like six months, either. i have a ton of writing to finish and high hopes for this year. most important i think there’s a new level of comfort and honesty within the band that wasn’t really possible before our lineup change and perhaps a bit of refocusing. and i am thankful for that. am hoping to stretch out and do some more acousticky/lo-fi solo stuff this year, too. a lot of ideas swimming around in my head right now. some of them have to be good, that’s just how it always is.

i also start my level 3 improv class at the UCB this coming week and i am so excited to dig back into that and have some fun with it. at least four friends are in that class with me, and three of them are part of my regular soon-to-be-performing group, so this should be really cool after the brutality of 201 with a certain teacher that kicks everyone’s ass. i am psyched.

and weirdly, because i’m not really busy enough already, i am applying to get into the atlantic acting school’s part-time program that starts in february. i don’t know that i’ll make it in, but i am hoping. i think improv is making me more interested in acting. let’s face it, i am much more, uh, smoldering(?) than i am funny. haha. but in all seriousness, one can only help the other, which will somehow probably feed into and inform music, and writing. i feel like it’s all kind of one and the same thing. or, i am being unfocused and distracting myself and wasting time. but i don’t think so.

it’s insanely cold here in the east village. this blog was in fact inspired by my not wanting to go run an errand i need to run before i meet a friend for sober hangout time. ugh. is there really such a thing? does there really have to be? just kidding.

gonna bundle up and run that errand now. to all the people in LA, puerto rico, africa, australia, and wherever else it’s warm: you suck!