In Slowbows

I just found out there's a football player who's name is Craphonso. I'm sure every crappy joke has already been made, so I'll just leave it alone.

I'm trying to download the new radiohead album. They're making the digital download be "name your own price". You have to pay in pounds and pence. The place where you enter the price on the website has a colon in it instead of a decimal point. This makes me think of time, not money. Maybe that's an implication that time truly is money in Radioheadland. I think I just told them I'd buy the album at midnight.

Somehow I think I'm not the only person to do this, because the website is slower than friendster on a dial-up modem.

Maybe you're supposed to enter the hours and minutes it takes for the actual sale to go through as your price.

I saw the movie Michael Clayton last night. It is very good. Go see it. Go see Into the Wild as well if you haven't already.

My lips are chapped.

A haiku flyer:

I will play hotel
cafe on this saturday

eleven o'clock

Sesame Street Jedi Mash Up

This past weekend I went to partake of a concert put on by The Shins. I've been a fan of theirs since the Hexum Bros. Tour of 2004. All three albums they've released have been thoroughly digested by me (and even paid for!). I've written on this very web-space how the song Australia helped me regain focus on the emotional response that I want as a listener and a performer. The show did not disappoint. The vocals were soaring and the guitarist on stage right rocked out. Other good news: a friend pointed out that James Mercer has a promising career as Kevin Spacey's stunt double.

Now I turn my attentions back towards my own ego and music. I have two shows right around the corner. I'm making a return to the Hotel Cafe this Saturday, October 13th at 11 pm, and a week after that I play a solo show at Zoey's Cafe and Loft in Ventura.

Last night we rehearsed and stewed up a few surprises for the Hotel show. We're going to do a mash-up of sorts and change around an intro or two. I won't spoil the punchline, but I haven't counted this hard since I tried to prove the intro to "Take it Easy" by The Eagles actually contains a bar of 9/8.

(This is where you smile and nod...)

I read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell in an attempt to study Sesame Street and figure out how I can apply their strategic use of puppets to the youtube talk show I mentioned in a previous weblog.

Speaking of youtube-schemes, the title of the program will officially be Zack Hexum's Talking Music Show (unless I change my mind). I've already lined up a handful of musician friends who will be my guinea pigs. I'm dreaming up a bastardization of Bernard Pivot's bastardized questionnaire from Inside the Actor's Studio. Dryden from Alien Ant Farm suggested I ask my guests "what's your favorite sexual position?" Seeing as I'm probably going to interview my brother, I think I'll leave that one off.

I'll see you at the Hotel this Saturday (that was my attempt at a Jedi Mind Trick Promotion).

Till next time...

"never betray the way you've always known it is"

sewer suckers invade

In this day and age you don't need a recording studio to record music. I have an M-Audio Firewire 410 that I have used to score a movie and finish up the bits and pieces from my upcoming new album (which will be called Open to Close, by the way). I'm a big fan of the show Weeds on Showtime. Each episode features a different artist doing their rendition of the theme, "Little Boxes." A week or two ago I decided I would try my hand at recording a version of theme. I used saxophone, bass clarinet, Fender Rhodes, and some other toys I have at my disposal.

Today my big plan was/is to record a second version of it. This time it'll be a cappella (or for those of you who don't speak Swedish, it'll be an all vocal version). This requires a relative amount of quiet from my Hollywood neighbors. Lo and behold, I sit down to fire up ProTools right as a gigantic blue truck pulls up in front of my apartment. This blue truck has a big label that says "Vactor Series 2100" on the side. It's currently set up camp and blocking one lane of traffic. It's also blocking my car from going anywhere. This truck is apparently a gigantic sewer-sucking vacuum cleaner. It has a long tentacle which it extended down a manhole and into the depths of hell. I guess it follows to reason that since in-home vacuum cleaners are loud, vacuum cleaners that are the size of a small house (or big truck in this case) would be proportionately several times louder than the regular ones.

This is my new neighbor:



Happily the Vactor Series has done all the sewer-sucking it needed to do in my neighborhood. It has moved on its merry way to mess up someone else's home studio, so I will return to the musical task at hand before a herd of buffalo, or the Hell's Angels decide to parade down my street.

Yet first I will leave you with these tidbits:

I saw Colin Hay play at the Canyon Club. He's a fantastic singer (I had to practice screaming along with "I can't get to sleep" during Overkill to see if I could hit the high notes), a great writer, and his in-between song banter is captivating.

I kid you not when I tell you that my upstairs neighbor is vacuuming his floor right now. Is this like yawning? Vacuuming is contagious, apparently.

I have a show at the Hotel Cafe on October 13th. It's a full band show.

Booyah!

Extreme Closeup

Happy Monday Blogosphere,

It's been a busy weekend:

-The album is doneski!
-The Huskers lost to USC (boo!)
-Drums were added to "Beyond My Means."
-I bought a video camera
-I recorded "Beyond My Means" on the new camera and put it up on youtube.com/zackhexum, and in the videos section of my my my myspace



George Bush says the terrorists hate our freedom, right? Well good news, terrorists! There's one less freedom to hate. Even though Cher tried to warn us that baggy pants were a bad idea in Clueless a dozen years ago, some of you haven't heeded this warning, so now it's becoming a law.

Like I says, the album is done. It's in the capable and loving hands of Mark Dearnley for a little mixing. Next step is artwork and track order. Then... the world (wide web)!

Tomorrow marks my return to the front of the stage after a two month hiatus. Like the video above mentions, I'll be playing the Montmartre Lounge on Tuesday, September 18th at 9:30.

In other news I'm hatching a plan to host a youtube talk show. The plan is to interview my musician friends, play a song with them, and put it up on youtube. Think Wayne's World without the extreme closeups. If I get to interview Joni Mitchell I will scream "we're not worthy" at her. Mark my words.



Is that me on the right?

Till the morrow...

Adieu.

Ready to Ramble

2007 is the year of accidental TV time. I looked like a serial killer earlier this year when my friend Brandon Rogers was on American Idol. Yesterday I went to see my friends in the Michael Bublé band perform on Jay Leno.

We were stuck in green room purgatory, as were there no seats reserved for band guests. Luckily a guy who works for the show took pity and plopped me down in the seat normally reserved for Mrs. Leno (fortunately, Jay didn't try to take me home or ask me what we were having for dinner).

Michael Buffer of "Let's Get Ready to Rumble!" fame was seated right in front of us. He looked unusually dapper, and I found out why...

Please enjoy this YouTube clip and see if you recognize the dude in the white shirt seated behind Mr. and the future Mrs. Buffer.



This is as good a time as any to keep plugging away (I'm persistent, no?) for my show next Tuesday at the Montmartre Lounge.

We rehearsed last night for the gig and it went swimmingly. There will be two brand-spanking new songs performed, "Beyond My Means" and "Little City Driver".

In other pseudo-news, I enlisted the formidable talents of the aforementioned Brandon Rogers to help me get my best vocal take recorded over the last two days. In addition to being a great singer, he is a fantastic producer/vocal coach. He knows all the singer's tricks, has great ears, and knows my voice as well as anyone. I'm happy to share the work we did with you soon. I have a couple more parts to the add and the album will be done!

My trail of forgotten chargers

I think now is as good a time as any to come clean. I am a chronic forgetter of stuff.

On this tour I have left these things in these places:

My computer charger in a hotel.
My computer charger in a hotel (again).
My cell phone charger in a hotel.
My hat on a Super Shuttle van.

The good news is, I recovered all of these items, and it only cost me roughly forty bucks to get them shipped back to me.

In my defense, they were usually plugged in behind furniture, or I somehow tricked myself into thinking "I didn't use my computer charger, therefore I don't need to check for it."

On the other hand, I was one of the few on the Drake Bell tour who never lost my all-access laminate. I did consider losing it as a gesture of protest since my name was incorrectly spelled "Zach" on it.

I'd also like to take a moment to say how unbelievably wasteful tours are. There were recycling bins that were easily accessible at maybe three of the fifty venues we played at. I can say that on a good day there were at least ten bottles of water that were half full and left strewn about the dressing rooms or on stage. When I'm the king of the world, or at least the headliner on a big tour I'm making recycling mandatory, and bringing out those big multi-gallon things of water, giving everyone a nalgene with their name on it, and making the band and crew responsible for their own bottles.

Also, I made my own tiny bit of an effort to not use a new bottle of hotel shampoo once and then leave it 90% full, but destined for a life in the trash can afterwards.

I know that there are still supposedly people who believe that global warming is a myth (I'll save that tirade for later), but I think we can all agree that trash is not a myth.

Now that I'm done preaching to the choir, or maybe only to myself, I'll again remind everyone that I'm playing a show next Tuesday, September 18th at 9:30 at the Montmartre Lounge. Be there, or don't, but preferably be there.

All Giant Airlines

Well, dear readers, I am home. I am back, nestled safely in my apartment. The highways are clogged, the sushi is delicious, and the smog is nowhere to be seen for the moment.

I was on the road for two months with Drake Bell, and boy are my arms tired? I'm Ron Burgundy?

We ditched our tour bus for the last couple of gigs and had some fantastic voyages on some fantastic and some not-so-fantastic airplanes.

We flew on Express Jet, which I had never heard of. We avoided any La Bamba moments, so I'm not complaining. I will, however, mock. They shared their checkout desk with Allegiant Airlines. Allegiant seemed to be just one step below Express Jet. Exhibit A:



To my eyes that says "All Giant Air". Maybe they only fly puddle jumper planes with low ceilings, like our Express Jet flight. Their slogan could be "All Giant Air, you'll feel huge when you get on our tiny, noisy plane!"

On the other end of the spectrum: we played a private party in Pennsylvania. After our performance in San Diego (where I had seen my brother's band perform at the same venue years before) we were whisked away on a G-550 private jet. I am ruined for life for commercial airlines now. You know how most planes have a floatation device cushion? We had cushions made of sashimi and baby panda bears! Not really, that would be weird. But seriously, no expense was spared. I sat in the jump seat with the headset on. I don't have any issues with flying, but my hands got clammy when we took off. Sitting in the cockpit is like sitting in the front of the roller coaster. The good news is, it's only $8000 an hour to rent a G-550, so I wanna go again!!

Here's a crappy cell phone picture of the jet:



In order to pay for my next jet ride, I'll need all my friends come to my "welcome home" show at the Montmartre Lounge next Tuesday, September 18th at 9:30 (this is real time, not "I'll tell you 9:30 and it's really 10"). Hope to see you then.