sort of but not quite a new year's resolution

So, I don't really do new year's resolutions, but this year I am going to try to commit to a few things. This may be a bit ambitious, so don't flog me if I fail on some account.

1. Release of Sunrise at the Speakeasy in 2012 (finally)

2. Finish studio recordings of the following unreleased songs:

The Ocean & The Easel Part 1 :The Ocean

-Wash Away
-Sally
-Banana Leaves
-The Seaman's Wharf
-Fishes & Birds
-Chicken of the Sea (taste like chicken)
-Mister Octopus (yes, that is the title)
-Portuguese Man of War
-The Bottle
-The Siren
-The Ocean & The Easel

The Ocean & The Easel Part 2: The Easel
-Digitized
-Western Front
-Daddy
-Cherry Falls
-600 Miles
-Pretty Decent Guy
-After the Apocalypse
-God in The Telephone Book
-Single File
-Down So Low
-Big from Down Here/Sirens of Brooklyn (ballad version)
-The Famine & The Flood
-Act Like a Girl

3. Move to Canada.

There you have it.

Lotsa Love

R

The Beginning. The End.

K and I started watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer on Netflix over the summer. I must admit that I used to kind of laugh in my head at people who watched this show. It seemed rather silly to me, but alas, we got sucked in and not only have we derived guilty pleasure from watching it, but we managed to watch every episode but the final three, which we marathoned last night. I had been working for 9 hours straight on a track called Sally (demo here) for the third album The Ocean & The Easel. My brain, eyes and soul were fried, so distraction was very welcome.

Saturday marked the beginning of the recording process for this album and was consumed by 12 hours of vocal takes. Don't get too excited yet as this is a double album which I am recording in self-imposed hermitage, so the likelihood of an impending (soonish) release is not high. I dove head first into music and pretty much stayed there for the duration. By the end of the day I felt completely frustrated and wanted to just delete every audio file, which is the typical feeling I get when starting anything, but I hope to get into my groove soon enough.

I balanced the 12 hours of work with 12 hours of sleep Saturday night. I jumped right into gear on Sally as soon as my feet hit the floor Sunday morning (noon). well, I kind of stepped on a piece of glass and bled all over the place, but after I cleaned my wound and stopped the bleeding, I was hard at work.
Sunday was a new day and brought with it a more optimistic approach. I worked on editing for 9 hours. I know I accomplished much, but I am impatient and always wish things would go more quickly and most of what I had to do was tedious work. K cooked me a lovely dinner and we vegetated for our Buffy marathon and then curled up in bed. However, I felt unsettled and could not sleep. I stayed up until 3 in the morning editing and pondering.

Tonight I trudge forward.

Sally (a demo) - sneak sneak peek available for listening til March 16th

In the murky waters of my mind has been a project titled "The Ocean & The Easel".
The best way I can describe it is that it is a soundtrack to a sort of movie musical that is nautically themed. Recently I've been working on a demo for one song from that project in my studio at home. Here is a preview which I will leave up for a week and then it will magically disappear. Yes, it's based on a children's tongue twister. Yes. I may have lost my mind.

***Alas, the time has expired on this sneak peak.

Diversions: Joanna Newsom

Lately I have found my fingers tickling the ivories quite a bit, so to speak.
I have no formal training on piano, nor have I ever performed anything live
on any form of keyboard.
I have been quietly working on my third album whilst my second album is still in that
netherworld between completion and release into the world. The third album is an ocean themed soundtrack for a movie musical that only exists in some strange place in my head.

The two tracks that have been holding the majority of my focus are titled "Sally" and "The Seaman's Warf". In the next week, I will try to post a little snippet of Sally for your listening pleasure(hopefully pleasure)....

Until then, keeping with my ocean themed brain, here's an artist who has been starting to seep into my conciousness, a rather unique harpist/songwriter/etc by the name of Joanna Newsom with her song "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie"

Sally

Photo of & by Carrie Thomas

Sally Sells Seashells by the Seashore
She wanted to go to college
but her parents couldn't afford to send her
She went to the bank
but they didn't have money that they would lend her
so sally sells her shells in a shack by the sea
gonna save all her money
gonna move to the city...

where the cars are always beepin'
and the people are never sleepin'
and the lights are always flickerin'
in your eye eye eyes

and the sky is the limit
if you can dream it, you can have it
cuz the stars are on the street not in the sky

and even if you're starving it's romantic and it's charming
like some charlie chaplin film they used to play.
where he asks her out to dinner
but he cannot pay the waiter
and there's a fly in every soup in that cafe.

and he tells her that he loves her
and she says she'll have his babies
and they marry by the sea and then they stay.
and he builds her a little shack where she can sell her little trinkets
and it's not quite what she planned, but it's ok.

and we give up every dream we had
give up every dream we had
We give up every dream we had for love

and we give up every dream we had
give up every dream we had
gladly give up every dream we had for love