Last year at this time I had the quietest holiday ever, in a bad way. My grandma had passed away on December 15, and I was mourning, lost. Nothing festive or celebratory felt right to me. New Year’s Eve, not that I ever think it’s all that, is indistinct; I showed up at some random party, drank heavily, ra ra. My band and our music saved me from spiraling totally downward at that time, as we recorded our first homemade demo, of the song “Signals,” which turned into a huge project for me to dive into as it was the first time I ever really engineered and mixed a full-band recording using Pro Tools. All in all it was a weird time, and the start of a weirder year for me. Many lovely things have happened during this year, but underneath it all this has always been a mournful time–the year of firsts without my grandparents–and I will probably remember it as such for as long as I’m around.

So this holiday the firsts are done with, and I have survived. My liver has limped along behind me, and it has enjoyed some R&R lately, too, so that’s good. After juggling a million balls all year long I’ve been taking advantage of the quiet time and the shitty weather here and have been digging in and working on new songs, hunkered down here in my apartment. I’ve fallen so far behind with my creative self that it has taken us a lot of time to just catch up, but slowly I am getting things done. I have been making skeletons of the new material, recording crude acoustic demos to finish working on lyrics and such, which always take me a lot of time, even if the music comes quick (and it usually does). I have been quite comfy with this scenario, have turned off the phones and ignored the emails a good bit of the time. I often fear inactivity with the band, feel like we always have to be out there playing, doing something, but I realize that sometimes I just need to focus my energy on the actual music rather than all the things we do with/for it. You’d think that’s a no-brainer, but it really is not. So this has been a great time for achieving some clarity and for actually being creative again, even if I have ignored this or that show or party or friend or whatever. To anyone who feels ignored: It’s not personal. I still love ya. Just doing my thing. And of course there is some pressure, too, since the band really needs a new batch of stuff to work on, and the new record we’re hopefully going to start recording in the next couple months might benefit from some of this new material, too.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Am preparing to hunker some more. Am enjoying the word “hunker” a little too much lately. See ya.

Oh, happy new year and all that.

For those interested, Wired published a great piece by David Byrne that talks about the death of major labels and all that jazz. While I don’t know that I am down with the whole idea that it costs nothing to make a record, or that all records are made equally, whether for $0 or $100,000, I think that everything else he says is pretty interesting. My favorite bit is the “What is Music?” part, where he brings up a lot of points I think about often. Check it out.

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne?currentPage=all#s

I came at this by way of Bob Lefsetz’s email newsletter. While he can be annoying at times (sometimes I get 3-4 emails a day, none of them pithy in the least) you’ve got to hand it to the guy–some of his ideas, or ideas he turns you on to, are great, and he just keeps it coming, nonstop.

i get hundreds of spam emails a week because i have like ten email addresses and they are more or less public, and published online. i’m not going to bitch about that right now because, well, i’ve made that bed for myself.

anyway, i get tons of penis enlargement spam, daily. which makes one wonder how many guys out there are actually opening these emails and buying whatever they’re selling. considering the amount of emails i get on the subject you’d imagine that the penis pills are everywhere. it’s fucking insane.

some of these emails have very creative subject lines. today i think i came across my all-time favorite, and here it is:

Grow an anaconda out of your trouser snake!

so many questions, so little time. first of all, this is a terrifying statement. since the girth of an adult anaconda is far greater than that of ANY human male penis, this is an anatomical disaster, and how big your penis is is really the least of your worries. second, this has NOTHING to do with penis enlargement. see, you’re growing a very large snake out of your already existing and unchanged penis, you’re not enlarging anything. why someone would want to grow a constrictor-type snake out of his member is beyond me, but i doubt that the ladies would find this attractive and i would imagine that it would hurt. a lot. now, we could get into the whole subject of illiteracy and how the style of and practice of emailing is dumbing down and crippling our way with language (we were quite eloquent before all this technology), but then i’ll just start ranting and raving and get upset. i’d rather go with brief and fun today.

but whoever opens that anaconda email deserves a douchebag award, that’s for sure.

In my CD changer (yes, I still like to listen to CDs–even if I get my music from an online source I still often burn discs to listen to) right now, a lovely mix of the not so old and not so new:

Radiohead/In Rainbows

Spoon/Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Doves/Last Broadcast

Nicole Atkins/Neptune City

MGMT/Oracular Spectacular

I have been working on rearranging and decluttering my apartment, and this mix of music has definitely helped to keep me going. I have put up wall-to-wall shelving on one wall of my bedroom, and it’s pretty amazing, I have to say. But it has made me a broken man–I have literally been sanding each shelf by hand, and have even had to cut a few shelves a half inch shorter, by hand, with my little handsaw. The thing cuts like a butterknife. So anyway, I have been exhausted from doing all this work in my place, but it’s going to be worth it when the clutter is up off the floor and I have more room to roam, work, roll around, whatever.

Back to these albums, they’re also good for thinking about the next TDoJB record, for which we’re planning now. We have begun to have some meetings with potential producers and are starting to think about the scheduling/logistics of the whole thing. Hopefully recording will happen in the first few months of 2008, with an eye toward an early summer release. More on this as things develop.

Oh, and the “old blogs” part. Well, I am going to move pieces of my diary on my old website to this blog, so that it has some more meat to it. I think I may also be adding these blogs to my personal myspace page, not sure yet. So many places to blather away online. How to cover it all without making that a full-time job?

So TDoJB has been back in action this past week and it’s been feeling good to get back to it. I am also finally, I think, making my way back to songwriting mode after dealing with a lot of things that have taken me away from really focusing on the creative side of my life and my music. I do still have some looming chores to deal with and my apartment is still chaotic but things seem to be settling down, and all the stuff I’ve had to do in the wake of my grandparents’ passing seems to be mellowing, at least for now.

This past Saturday TDoJB laid down some live demos at Euphoria, the loveliest rehearsal studio here in NYC, in my opinion. We needed to do these cheaply and quickly and decided that this was the best option. The idea being that these are just demos, to be sent off to people who may potentially be involved in the next TDoJB release and recording the tracks for real. I cannot deal with engineering and mixing right now as I did with our more elaborate demos “Signals” and “Emergency,” and the never finished “Happier Ways”—I just don’t see it being a good use of time right now, and it does take me quite a while to do these, especially given the technical limitations I have to deal with. Plus, it makes me downright cranky. So this live thing was a good idea, and it went pretty well for the most part, though my voice sounded pretty destroyed by the end of the six-hour session. Anyway, we got what we needed, and I am now tweaking the tracks to even out levels and make the whole demo package sound a bit more cohesive. This collection of demos is as much for us as it is for anyone else, a way to finally hear all the newer material together and decide if we have a record worth making right now. So I am hoping that this is the case and that others agree.

Have to say, it was inspiring to play in a room that sounded great when we are so accustomed to our less-than-stellar rehearsal studio accommodations. And fucking loud, too. My ears were hurtin’ yesterday, seriously. I felt so rock n roll.

Oh, if anyone feels like buying me a Bogner Shiva amp, I’ll be your best friend.