Misc. Filing

File this one under the category "Apocryphal Stories about Artists." 'Cause you have a file for that, I'm sure. I remember hearing that Tennessee Williams would get up and write from 5am to 7am every day, regardless of where he'd been the night before (a bar) or where he had to go that day (often to a day job).

Now... do you think there were times he stayed in bed and slept off his drunkenness? I would say so. But the point is... work ethic. Craft. Regimentation. Discipline. I've been hung up the last few weeks thinking about art and specifically songwriting as a craft. I've really been struggling with finishing songs... a lot of good ideas, a lot of things I like, but few complete songs.

And I realized that I just haven't been putting in the cold hard time to finish these ideas. Which is frustrating. So this week, I decided to really focus and grab every little bit of time I could towards writing and practicing. It helped that on Tuesday at rehearsal we put together a new song, St. Scarlet, which I'd had lying around for a bit. I wasn't sure if St. Scarlet was any good, but we nailed down a strong arrangement almost immediately, managing to incorporate a number of elements we haven't really used in previous songs.

So that fact helped me take the rest of Tuesday and yesterday to really hone a couple of other songs and the results have been good. Tuesday night especially, I stayed up until about 2 woodshedding lyrics and working on a tune called "You Were." Even fell asleep basically sitting up with my pen in my songbook.

And Wednesday, I did my best Tennessee Williams impersonation (including a hangover) and got up early before work to try to crystallize "You Were." It worked. On my train ride home from work yesterday, I sketched out the words for the bridge and then started working through the entire tune tweaking the lyrics. And the beauty of songwriting is that, just by doing it, just by having a guitar in your hands and by getting words out onto the page, you often wind up with new ideas that aren't necessarily good for the particular song you're working on, but might inspire a new song or a new idea. So it's been a good week so far. The results...

YOU WERE So I'll try and stay At least until the dawn Until the stars give way And the dark is gone And when I leave you in the morning I'll always think of how You were You were And how the light embraced you while you breathed The songs I wrote for you Won't see the light of day They're just ghosts in blue That rise and float away But if I catch one in the morning I'll always sing of how You were You were And how the light embraced you while you breathed (bridge) The ending came without a warning But I've never felt so sure That if I catch you in the morning You'll still be just as You were As you were As you were As you were

jbg

p.s. Happy anniversary to my mom and dad... 37 years! Holy crap, that's impressive.

Digging out

So it's not that I haven't been writing posts. It's that I haven't been posting them. Kind of the blog equivalent of writing songs and then never playing them. I guess. And... frankly, the posts have been shallow and hastily written so... (you're saying "how is that any different from the usual?")

It seems like I've just been having trouble dialing in coherent, cohesive thoughts. Mostly it's that there's been so much going on... so much to do and think about that it's been completely mentally and physically exhausting and not conducive to then sitting down and expending energy crafting my usual witty missives.

Ha. Ha.

Anyway... I'm back, bitches.

jbg

Memo to Self

Ian Scott is a defensive tackle for the Chicago Bears. Scott Ian is the guitarist for Anthrax. They are (as far as we know) not related. jbg

Maintain Radio Silence

I'll be back. Soon.

jbg

Underworn

If good things come in threes... then I've got a set. (Yes, that's an attempt at a poker reference.)

1. Gina graduates from The French Pastry School tomorrow. 2. My great friends from high school Pete and Hannah got engaged. 3. My little sister and her boyfriend Will got engaged. Whew. 

All excellent. My sister and Will announced their engagement on Sunday at Father's Day brunch, which was attended by us, my parents, and my grandparents. I am so happy for them. The protective older brother in me knows that my sister has found a truly fantastic person who respects her and loves her the way a spouse should. So I don't have to kick some ass. Not that I'm the ass kicking type. Or the type that wins ass kicking contests. I digress.

Tomorrow, Gina will graduate and in two weeks she'll begin a six month stint back at school as an intern. 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. She finished up working for Gary Lee last Friday, so we've officially begun a half year of being a single income family. Okay... now that I've written that sentence, I'll go (as my Grandpa would say) change my shorts.

But I know we'll be okay. We've been planning for this and we do have some options to cushion the impact of going from two earners to one. And having that one earner be a musician. And... another change of shorts.

Maybe the stress of this change has been on my mind lately, but I've been feeling exhausted and worn down. But I am looking forward to playing at Pontiac Cafe tonight as part of MOB Fest. We'll be playing acoustic, with me on acoustic guitar and Barret playing Bodhran and couple of other auxiliary percussion instruments. We've been rehearsing in this configuration for the last couple weeks, and it's been fun to reinvent the tunes in a quieter setting.

The show tonight is free and we play at 9:00. More info at our website. Now... I gotta head out to Target and pick up a couple of things for the weekend. Including some new shorts.

jbg