because this week, my garden is working overtime! Some things I’ve been working on for years are finally coming out, and some things I’ve been working on for less time are slowly pushing their tendrils out of the ground.<\/p>\n
<\/a>First, everybody should go to iTunes<\/a>, BandCamp<\/a>, or any other retail option available to them and buy Sam Amidon’s new album I See the Sign<\/em>. One of the great things about the day when these projects are released is that I can loosen up my superstitious piles of music. I still have, physically in the backpack where I am at all times, hard copies of J\u00f3nsi’s charts, just in case something needs to get done. With Sam’s, I keep every single version of the recordings “\u201d loose ones, MIDI ones, rough ones, ones where I replaced the bridge in “You Better Mind” with the themesong from Sex in the City<\/em> “\u201d check this out here:<\/p>\n
[audio:YouBetterMindExcerpt1.mp3]
\nYou Better Mind Super Rough Demo<\/small><\/p>\n
<\/a>The second is, NPR is streaming J\u00f3nsi’s album, along with some kind words about me, at this page<\/a>. I wonder about the new era of digital releases and streaming versus owning and how easy it is to rip streamed data. Then I wonder about arguments like these<\/a> over @ Danny’s place, and then I want to crawl into a hole and make music on a rock, and record it, and say that it’s not an authentic recording and then crawl back into the hole.
\nBut! This means I can finally throw out the accidental bounce I made of all the woodwind parts for J\u00f3nsi’s track “Boy Lilikoi,” but all recorded as pianos:<\/p>\n
[audio:KG1Bar5.mp3]
\nBoy Lilikoi MIDI parts all as piano (excerpt)<\/small><\/p>\n
Compare that to the real shit:<\/p>\n
[audio:BoyLilikoiVShort.mp3]
\nJ\u00f3nsi Boy Lilikoi<\/em> (excerpt) <\/small><\/p>\n
<\/a>
\nGlamorous Thomas<\/p>\n
<\/a>
\nMiss Annie and Bryce, at the Artist’s Loft<\/p>\n
<\/a>
\nSt. Vincent’s drummer, whose name I forgot, but who was great.<\/p>\n
Now. I don’t know whose fault this is. I think about stage presence a lot, because I don’t perform often enough in a year to really be too self-aware of it. I know that I am usually endearing at bantering, so I try to do that, but I also know that in some audiences, an anecdote is not what they paid for and therefore get on with the \u00e9tude, sonny. I also know that I am a keyboard player, so there’s a limited amount of physical movement I can do to show the audience what a great time I’m having. So I try to have that radiate out in the banter, and in the approach to the piece physically: a little aggression, a little <\/a>side-show, a little ooh-la-la. Similarly, I like to share the stage with people who have interesting presences “\u201d Sam can command a space, he is a born performer. Thomas tries another method, which is to sort of black hole the space. To listen to his music and watch him has a lot more to do with your own relationship to your emotions than it does to him and his, which is a magic trick quite unsuspected, but almost uniformly successful. In the context of a band bearing somebody’s name, is it not that somebody who needs to direct all the mannerisms on stage, like, Butoh-strict? <\/p>\n
I am going to my bed-chamber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"