Archive for the Ferns Category

Re-releasing Ferns – 6 of 6

By on April 21, 2010

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The end. Just like the beginning, but of course transposed a key higher. Why? Because I’m kind of a coward about dying and I’d like to believe that, at the end of this ride, we just go to a higher plane and continue the adventure.

Thanks for listening to this album and making it a success!

If you like my music and want to support me, please go visit my store and buy a copy. And keep spreading the word! No one listens to anything anymore unless it’s recommended by a friend, and word of mouth is the best thing around. So if you really like my stuff, please tell a friend.

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Re-releasing Ferns – 5 of 6

By on April 20, 2010

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The great conclusion. The price you pay for the life you’re given. I wanted an epic song, inexorable as death. I didn’t want fear, though – I was aiming for something more strangely seductive, the quiet calm after a long day.

My friend Meghann, an amazing singer, came over to give the song some of her magic. I told her vaguely what I wanted and she did three takes. I saved each of the takes, fiddled around with them just a bit, and the result is, I think, pretty angelic. Meghann’s down in San Diego now and I haven’t seen her in ages, which is sad. Listening to this piece makes me miss her. She had great taste in beer.

Finally, once everything was pretty much recorded, my dear friend Jesse took the whole song in hand and helped me craft it into something listenable. Basically he took a lumbering ~20 minute ode to death and sculpted it into one of my favorite songs. Jesse owns a farm in New Mexico and doesn’t really do music anymore. A pity.

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Re-releasing Ferns – 4 of 6

By on April 19, 2010

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Sex. I had a vague idea of what I wanted the song to sound like, so it wasn’t too hard to build the basic track. But I really couldn’t get the right feel. Stuck!

Finally I caved and asked my friend and role model Alexis Harte for help. Listen to his guitar come in at about 45 seconds in. He takes over the song and blew me away.

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Re-releasing Ferns – 3 of 6

By on April 16, 2010

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I think this is my favorite song on the album. In my head I held the image of growing blind, pushing, striving upwards towards something brighter, grander.

Those are steel drums I’m playing, overdubbed with an old set of chimes. Then comes the climbing bass, and finally some guitars, and where would I be without trippy backwards guitars?

The best part, for me, is the solo. This remains one of my favorite solos, just because I think it pretty well captures what I was trying to say. It wasn’t just noodling and trying to look cool; really, I was trying to say something about the clumsy first steps in adolescent sexuality. Pull back the curtain for a moment,  it appears out of nowhere, and then, poof, it’s gone, and we’re back to the blind sexless growing of childhood.

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Re-releasing Ferns – 2 of 6

By on April 15, 2010

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This song was fun to write. It feels happy and fresh to me. The simple guitar line had been kicking around in my head for a while, and it was a joy to get it down on tape, finally. The bassline, which is actually my favorite part of the song, practically wrote itself.

I was just trying to paint a picture, and since the song doesn’t have to do anything but sprout, I found it pretty fast, fun work.

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Re-releasing Ferns – 1 of 6

By on April 14, 2010

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Because my site exploded and was reborn, I wanted to start fresh by rereleasing each song from my albums, one by one. As a bonus I’ll write a little bit about each track.

Mostly About Ferns was conceived as a concept album from the very beginning, as I was substituting for a teacher friend at a Montessori school. I was in a room full of sleeping toddlers, thinking about how each would grow, mature, blossom, and ultimately die. I wanted the album to be a picture of that cycle. After the naptime epiphany, the album practically wrote itself.

You can grab the song for free, above, or at the store to get it in higher quality and with unique nifty track art.

Below is a snapshot of the notes I took as the idea was coming, including initial ideas for keys and chord changes for each song.

Original notes for the album

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