It's Sure Been A While

... since I've posted anything about new Nonagon tracks. The sad reality is that this dearth of details is due to a dismal (and damned near disgraceful) deficit of creative days. Most of my "me time" these past few weeks- nay, months!- has been devoted to getting everything ready for my little album "release," and working on the perpetual performance problem (holy crap, I just out-alliterated myself! That one's a keeper. I'll call it "The P^3."). These are good things to be busy with, but I feel like it's been just about forever since I finished a new song. Oh wait- it has been just about forever since I finished a new song! Really considering tightening my belt and going for a twenty-hour work week next year...

This is, of course, not to say that I've done nothing on the new music front since May. I actually have quite a few song stubs that I'm pretty enthusiastic about, I just haven't had the time to go full-bore into any of them yet (or at least I don't feel like I have). I will say this much: they are different from most of what you've heard out of me up to this point. One of the biggest reasons I've been so adamant about getting this album thing finished is that I'm dying to put a period on my work thus far and free myself psychologically to experiment with some new things. Nonagon '07, full stop. The feeling of being very "done" with my existing tracks has spilled into The P^3 too, to the point that my next performance (November 7th, Unknown Theater, Hollywood, CA- mark your calendar) will be a complete deconstruction of everything you've heard up until now. OK, I didn't really mean for that to sound quite so dramatic, but you'll see. Or hear. Or at least hear about. From me. After the fact, and probably a little before too. Such is the way "I roll."

Want to know how weird and different these mysterious new songs are? Wait for it... Waaaait for it...

Every one of them will have lyrics. *Gasp*

I don't know why, but in the little moments I steal away for new production these days, songs with words have always resulted. Not that I know what all the words will be yet- that's the hard part. But I think we're in for some refreshing changes 'round these parts in the next few weeks, and I'm not just talking about November 4th. You'll see. With some things you never can tell.

The Real First Day

Probably not going to write anything too involved tonight, as I'm trying my best to get to bed at a "reasonable" hour so I can get enough sleep and still make it up before the day is already over. It sure is easy to fall into that default, at least for me. We'll see how long I can fight it.

The last few days (since I got back to SF from assorted worldly adventures) have been somehow filled almost exclusively with logistical matters. Figuring out health insurance; setting up this new laptop; car registration, etc, etc. Had lots of laundry to do. Actually, when it came to clean up time, I had a distinct worry that I was reverting to the old college procrastination technique of cleaning instead of facing the real work at hand. I think I'm a little nervous about really starting this experience, one that I've spent so long thinking and talking about. It's really the moment of truth now. Time to find out if I've really got it in me

Procrastination or preparation- regardless, it wasn't until this evening that I finally got down to business and fired up the music apps. I picked up a couple of records from the library today (a little something for me amongst the grown-up errands), and I decided to start by throwing one on and seeing what might be of use to me. I ended up going through the "Songs of the American Indian" LP, which turned out to have quite a few little tidbits that could be useful. Mostly the short rhythmic introductions to the songs, and a few chants and shouts and fun stuff like that. A few minutes recording, then some chopping and time-correcting in Live and I was done with that little exercise. I'm pretty new to the sampling thing (I've generally just gone with sound bank stuff or things I've pulled from the internet) but I think it was a good intro to the process.
It's a little tedious, but I think I'm going to try to commit to finding and capturing at least one new sound bite per day. That's not very ambitious, but there are a lot of days in a year, so I'm not too worried.

I started a new track tonight, starting with a simple shaker rhythm from that LP. I think I'm going to need to think hard about how to write "real" songs. I'm pretty good at building little loops of rhythm, melody, harmony, etc, etc, but I've hardly ever expanded those into anything with structure. I'm sure there will be plenty to muse about on that front. Ultimately I ended up with something decent, so I'll go back in tomorrow and try to lay something rough out before I go in and flesh out the details. Another commitment I'm making: a finished song a week. Gotta love deadlines for getting things done.

On an unrelated note, I'm finally heading back to the SPCA tomorrow to get back into the volunteer thing. It's been a long time, and I'm looking forward to seeing which pups have been adopted and which are still around. Hopefully not too many still there, but we'll see. More on that in tomorrow's post I'm sure.

For now, goodnight moon.