...so I will admit that I have kind of drifted away from MySpace, as I think many people have. Which means that there have been no updates to this particular universe for quite some time. Not too sure where we were when we left off, but it was probably around the release of Hello, Central as well as the subsequent album, known as 13 Stones. There was also an album that was written and recorded for the 2010 RPM Challenge which, when originally released, was called Blink but when it gets reissued will be called Giving Up The Ghost. Most of 2010 was spent recovering from broken ankle surgery and writing songs, here and there. Not much recording took place, aside from some acoustic sessions of an album in progress, which is going under the working title of The Purpose Of Wow.
2011, however, has been quite productive so far. As is the standard, February was spent working on the RPM Challenge. The resultant album, which was just released, is called Panic And The Slim Divide, and is quite different from anything else I've managed to come up with and is already one of my favorite albums:
CA > PANIC AND THE SLIM DIVIDE (fdm069) 01) Anything 02) One Yellow Rose 03) Bells Ring Out 04) Drawin' Circles 05) Do It All Over Again 06) Echelon 07) Behind The Veil 08) Jumping Jack 09) Gravity Raincloud 10) Indigentia 11) The Way We Are
CDs are available now, and this will be on iTunes before too long. I'll probably throw a song or two up on the player, which is in sad need of updating anyway.
The last bit of news is that tonight I finally started tracking the next album (the aforementioned The Purpose Of Wow, or whatever it ends up being called). So far only one song has been tracked - "Hurricane Jane & Ida" - and it sounds marvelous. I can't wait to dive further into these sessions. As is usual, there are several songs in the running, mostly written last year but there are a couple of Panic leftovers that are also possibilities. The contenders:
Annemarie Bleach Cracks In The Sidewalk Drop Further On Down Hurricane Jane & Ida (finished) Jeremiah Landslide Lyin' Still Mega Those Crooked Lights Timber Traffic Jam Wow
Not all of those will make the album. More will be written, I am sure. There also may be an old song or two that gets re-recorded for this one. We'll see.
Well, that's about it for now. I hope to not be so lazy with this blog and this site. I hope everyone is well and I wish 2011 to be fruitful for everyone.
...so while I've been slacking on starting the new album, or at least getting the release of several recent albums sorted out, I took advantage of a recurring pipe dream and initiated a quest to learn every Beatles song. I've been obsessed with the Beatles since I was about 4 years old, but I have kind of made a point to never try and learn how to play any of their songs (except "she said, she said" which i recorded in 1997 and "i've just seen a face", which i covered in 2004). But now is the time. I generally frown upon Beatles covers and it's likely that I will never perform any of these songs, or even let anyone hear the recordings. Unless, of course, I manage to hit upon something cool. Really, however, I'm mostly doing this as a sort of songwriting exercise, to perhaps expand my palette a bit. And also, this has pretty much been me sitting and staring at the chord sequences and singing the lyrics. Some of the songs actually turned out quite well. Others, well, I'm kinda reaching. In every case, I only quickly ran thru some of the chords and then hit record, so what is on the recording is the first and only time I've ever played these songs. The best ones might get cherry-picked and re-recorded for a more legit album that no one will be allowed to ever hear. Or it will inspire me to write a few more songs and then get crackin' on the next album. Whatever the case, here we are, two sessions down, amidst a big work in progress:
9/24/10 - THE FIRST BEATLES SESSION 01) In My Life 02) Norwegian Wood 03) No Reply 04) I'm A Loser 05) Baby's In Black 06) I Should Have Known Better
9/25/10 - THE SECOND BEATLES SESSION 01) P.S. I Love You 02) Chains 03) Misery 04) Please Please Me 05) All My Loving 06) Not A Second Time 07) I Want To Hold Your Hand 08) Don't Bother Me 09) I'll Be Back 10) Tell Me Why 11) Things We Said Today 12) If I Fell 13) Any Time At All 14) You've Got To Hide Your Love Away 15) Help! 16) Another Girl 17) I've Just Seen A Face 18) Run For Your Life 19) Tomorrow Never Knows 20) Eleanor Rigby 21) And Your Bird Can Sing (aborted) 22) For No One 23) She Said, She Said 24) Ticket To Ride
I slack on MySpace these days. It's the gawd-ugly truth. Not as much to update, but there are goings-on in FDMland. This entire year has been set back by my broken ankle, which is proving to be a great deal harder to heal than one would think. While very little music has been written during this time, there has been a great deal of playing, honing, and refining what is essentially an entirely new repertoire of material. There will be no live performances until the healing process is fully complete - an absolute bummer because I am seriously JONESING to perform this material - but there will be album releases along the way. Three albums - Hello Central (fdm065), 13 Stones (fdm066), and Giving Up The Ghost (fdm068) will be released before the end of this year. There is another new album in the works, to be recorded later this Fall. I am about six songs into it and really digging the way it's heading. But, more on that later. First things first...
8/9/10 - it had to be commemorated. Lacking the foresight to get a CD release together, an mp3 album it must be. And so it is - made up of several teasers from two of the three new albums as well as a couple of non-LP tracks. The third new album will be featured here later.
CA - ...8...9...10! (fdm069)
01) Vines (7:50) 02) Break It On Down (5:03) 03) Feather (5:14) 04) See If It Sticks (4:11) 05) Connect The Dots (3:35) 06) Wires (5:43) 07) Your Fragile Face (5:52) 08) Pariah To An Icon (3:59) 09) The Thing That Jane Said (2:57) 10) Throw (5:34) 11) A Distant Thunder (4:01)
tracks 1,3,4,5,9 taken from Hello, Central (fdm065) tracks 2,7,8,11 taken from 13 Stones (fdm066) tracks 6&10 available here only.
