Consequences be damned

I'm a man about town of late

Monday nights I've been a regular at Molly Malone's, enjoying the musics of Brandon Rogers, Amie Miriello, and David Hodges. I highly recommend it, and not just because of Amie's potty-mouth banter.

Tuesday I sat in at the F.O.C.K.R.'s jam at the Kibbitz Room and earred my way through some Billy Joel on the saxamaphone. It's easy to stand out when no one else plays your instrument, that's why I'm in the market for a sacbut.

Last night I enjoyed the music of Geoff Pearlman at Cafe Cordiale. Geoff is an architect with the songs he writes. There's an intrinsic logic to the harmonic lines that weave through his stories that makes me musically horny.

Music enthusiast by night, music creator/meeting taker by day

I'm keeping on a strict diet of writing one new song a day. I'm planting musical seeds. Some will grow into b-sides, some into chart-topping anthems, and some into birdcage liner. Only time will tell.

I've got a new manager. You may notice a more meaty presence on my myspace and facebook pages in the future. We've been galavanting around LA to line up my behind the scenes army. I like meetings that involve sushi.

Illness is my least favorite "ness"

I'm still feeling the lingering effects of a sinus thing. It seems to have settled into my throat (that's what she said). As a result I've skipped my running regimen for the last week. My alarm clock was a calf cramp at 5:30 AM. This is no bueno (I learned those two words on the Drake Bell Mexico Tour '08). I'm going running. Consequences be damned. I'll need a banana afterwards, and perhaps a new throat. Till then.

Leave Me Blue

no metal toilets

And we're back!

Regrettably I was unable to give you the kind of play by play I would enjoy from a tour. I left my laptop at home in favor of a lighter load, and couldn't find the physical/mental space or the thumb flexibility to post from my iPhone.

Here's how it went:

I met some great people.

I played those people my music.

I froze my extremities off.

I finished and enjoyed the book "The Likeness" by Tana French. "Take what you want and pay for it, says God." -Spanish proverb (via Ms. French)

I drove a heaping quantity of hours. For some reason the extra painful early morning shift when everyone else in the van is passed out was my favorite. I communed with nature, music, concrete, and steel. The miles melted quickly away and my mind unwound its nots and knots.

I had my first extended bonding session with my recently acquired alto saxophone.

I had my first extended tour-bonding session with my friend Ryan Cabrera. That's my dawg.

I had my first encounters with Gregg the tour-booker, and Jesse Ruben. We're now bonded for life, not unlike what I guess it must be like to have a cellmate, only without the metal toilets. Here's to not finding out how apropos that comparison is.

Highlights:

-losing my hearing after playing for various screaming sorority girls.

-eating guacamole with truffles in Philly.

-playing my music, and Ryan's music for friendly sold-out crowds.

-seeing old friends in NYC.

Lowlights:

-running out of CDs to sell to the aforementioned friendlies.

-having the box of discs that were sent to replenish my supply lost at the Pittsburgh post office.

-accidentally heaving Ryan's beautiful guitar to the floor at the Bitter End in NYC.

And now that I'm home, what do I do? I pick up the pieces. I decompress. I catch up internet duties. I write songs. I sleep in my own bed. I download this month's supply of new music from emusic.com. Thus far I've picked some winners: The Dodos, Bon Iver, Andrew Bird, Larry Goldings album "Long Story Short", and Sia doing "Paranoid Android". I read "What is the What" by Dave Eggers, which gave me this gem:

"The pain is not great, but the symbolism is disagreeable."

Till next time,

high volume of new music

Let's do it again.

It's my special time of the month. Time to download my 75 songs from emusic.com. I took my brother's advice and downloaded The Avett Brothers as well as a bunch of world and classical music. Since it's the new year I wiped as much music as I possibly could stand to from my overflowing ipod. In its stead I've put Paul Lewis' Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 4, Hari Prasad Chaurasia (Indian flute music, who just played a phrase that sounds like "don't cry for me Argentina"), She & Him Volume One, Best of the Staple Singers (and no that's not a collection of National Anthem's before Laker games), Thievery Corporation, Aaron Copland, Sia, Mstislav Rostropovich (I'd like to buy a vowel), and Okkervil River. These are not endorsements of these artists yet. I need to start training for a marathon so I can have time to listen to this, and the other couple of hundred songs I've downloaded in the past few months. I will, however, say that I love Vampire Weekend.

I live in an apartment in Los Angeles. I like to recycle. In LA we use blue bins to recycle stuff. My apartment doesn't have separate blue bins. I used to stockpile cardboard and other recycle-y items and do nighttime commando runs to stuff them in my neighbors blue bins (yes, this is strange behavior). Recently, I said to myself: "self, there must be a better way." I spent some time on the interwebs at LARecycles.org and discovered that if you live in an apartment building that the city will provide free blue bins for your building, and take them out to the street. All you gots to do is call, and you've got a friend. I wrote my landlord a letter to ask him if he'd opposed to putting the recycling bins at our place. It turns out that everything that goes into my dumpster gets sorted and recycled after the fact anyway. All my stockpiling and strange behavior was for naught. Anywah, I wanted to share that with you, because it's worth finding out if you don't already recycle whether your trash goes to a great trash heap in the sky (and by sky, I mean ground) or gets reincarnated into something useful.

Speaking of recycling. This is an interesting NYTimes article on water usage I've been meaning to post. It discusses, among other things using "greywater" i.e. post-dishwasher/laundry/shower water to water your lawn. "Landscape watering accounts for 50% of usage in most districts." It also has some great photos of living roofs. That's my next project to bug my landlord with.

And now: time to listen to music until my ears bleed.

What?

Three Cups of Tea for the New Year

Happy New Year, ladies and gentlemen. I'm nestled into my computer chair making a venti-sized to do list for **two-thousand-fine**. An excerpt:

-Stop bouncing off ceiling from caffeine O.D.

-Comb hair

-Cut hair

-Breathe in

-Find out who has video of last night's Michael McDonald karoake impersonation and destroy all copies of said video

-Do push ups

-Breathe out

-Finish the highlight reel of my film and television music

-Roll in my Benjamins

-Eat canned tuna to save aforementioned Benjis

-Breathe in

-Beat heart

-Breathe out

As you can see it's going to be the best year ever, even better than two-thousand-great.

I'm almost finished reading the book Three Cups of Tea. Side note: I'm almost finished drinking three cups of tea today as well. Point being, Three Cups of Tea, is simply an inspiring and crucial story, a method for combating terrorism and poverty with the most effective weapon: education.

More to come.

Cold turkey on cold turkey

I have spent the last few days acting like one of those animatronic mannequins from a Disney ride doing the same motion over and over. My motion: eating cubic hectares of Thanksgiving leftovers. I even made a yogurt smoothie out of the leftovers from the homemade cranberry sauce. It was dee-licious. Alas, my binge is coming to a screeching halt as my gravy train runs dry. I'm going cold turkey on cold turkey.

Tonight I'm going to the premiere of the Drake and Josh movie. I'm bringing a little red napkin to use as a mini-red carpet just in case.

Ironically the first two full-length movies I have scored are both Christmas movies. I'm hoping to expand to Easter films in '09.

Happy Holidays is screening in New York this Saturday. This is good news for all of you New Yorkers who are weeping that you have to miss my show in LA at the Mint on Saturday. You can go see a movie with my music in it. Listen closely and you'll hear my cameo as a radio DJ.

Here are the details for the screening:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Happy-Holidays/28747205098?ref=ts#/event.php?eid=42656852535

Atrophied extremities

Hello interweb. Remember me? I have neglected my bloggy duties in favor of helping score the music to "Merry Christmas Drake and Josh". We worked long and hard (that's what she said) to get 'er done (which is what that comedian from Nebraska said) on time (which is what the train conductor said).

Originally I thought this gig would be "ghost writing" which is spooky, but only partially neat because you don't get to see your name in the credits. Good news, though, I shall be officially credited as "additional music by"!

Now that I'm not working the twelve to fifteen hour days I have to prioritize my newfound freedom.

I'm planning to:

-Enjoy this "sunlight" that you hear so much about

-Blog once a week

-Write music that doesn't use pizzicato strings

-Use my atrophied extremities (I feel like I've been in a cast for a month only without the weird smell)

-Buy a houseplant

I'm proud of my hometown!

I'm playing December 6th at the Mint (it's not just for toothpaste flavor anymore) at 9:00. I'm going to round up some friends to perform some holiday-themed goodies with me. Won't that be nice?