2008 Inventory

Every year I like to take stock of how I've grown, what I've accomplished, and where I'm going. What's my next move? It's inventory time.

2008, especially since late Summer, has been explosive.

Since October I've learned about fifty new songs, finished writing & composing five of my own, and expanded my repertoire by about three and a half continuous hours of guitar and voice. Learned Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, sea chanteys, American Hobo Songs like "The Big Rock Candy Mountain," blues tunes like "James Alley Blues," Johnny Cash covers, Tom Waits covers, and all kinds of other traditional music or new music in the old tradition. Reactions have been fantastic... I've got a regular weekly gig and I'm rapidly making contacts for more.

God, a few gigs were crazy. Frontal nudity, addresses scribbled on napkins and stuffed in the tip hat, hard-partying older ladies shouting along to "What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor?" What a great time.

Earlier in the year I wrote more fiction, but the past few months I've been steadily exploring what I want to do in music... by feeling my ideas out in essay form. I've been studying music theory, learning chord voicings, reading and writing sheet music more comfortably, even working on some musical scales from non-western cultures.

In October I wrote a twisted little book of Halloween limericks that'll soon be set to music.

Recorded about three hours of audio in 2008.

Read the massive first book of Don Quixote. I can't recommend that one enough. It's hilarious and profound.

Got three new students, aged 9, 11, and thirtysomething. They are simultaneous, a package deal: a mother and two daughters. It's been lovely.

Immediately on the horizon: a long-incubating short story, an album of improvised dronal music that blends traditional Indian and Jewish music with bass drones from my throat and from a heavily distorted (thus long-sustained) electric guitar. I'm also working on more conventional, lyrical songs. It's possible that I'll have two CDs out by Summertime, though I'll probably have to push them under different "band" names. One under my real name, probably, and the other under a pseudonym.

God, I love getting out of bed in the morning. Every morning.

Happy New Year!