I’ve chosen the ARTIST that will be doing most of the CD artwork! Keegan Wenkman is a talented dude and has done screen printing poster work for First Ave., The Nomad, Charlie Parr, Anthony Newes, Andru Bemis among many others. His work is stunning and I’m so glad that he agreed to being a part of this new album.
Check him out:
http://www.onefootinfront.com
1.12.07
I just got back yesterday from Tacoma, Washington where I spent a week and a half working on my new record with a certain Mr. Evan Brubaker. Evan is the guy who is responsible for my last CD “Radiator”. We called in Jonathan Kingham (who played electric guitar on “Radiator”) for some dobro and banjo action, Keith Lowe on upright bass, and Zak Borden on mando. These guys and I took a few stabs at each of the songs on the list until we settled on parts we liked and the…bam…we laid down some tracks and it started sounding like a real CD!
For the most part it was a pretty easy, painless, and beautiful process. I spent a lot of time buried in a couple of great books and good music. But there were times that I got so stressed out about the finished product that all I could think of doing to calm down (besides reading or taking a Xanex) was yoga-like head stands.
One of the musicians was so adorably ADD that he went to get his psychedelic lamp between two takes and he set it up in the control room. So there I was, standing on my head listening to the bass tracks, under dancing blue and red LED lights while Evan turned the dials and tweeked the sound making sure that it fit into the mix just right. If someone walked in right then I’m sure they would have been a little scared.
On the last day of recording we laid down the harmony tracks (my favorite part) and I even got to record my new concertina! It started to snow late in the evening and although the snow was silent and the night seemed peaceful every driver and every county with a snowplow from Bellingham to Portland was going crazy. To a Minnesotan the wet flakes were nothing but the city shut down and I was stuck there for one more night.
I hopped on a plane yesterday morning with rough mixes in hand and in listening to all the songs together there doesn’t seem to be much more to do to make it a real CD.
A big thank you goes out to all the guys who took care of me and my songs this past week. Also to Evan’s incredible wife Megan (for ‘Jane Eyre’, the wine, the food, the help with “One Night Gone” and for saving the last few words of the crossword puzzle for me) and your dogs Celia and Mary.
Over the next few months I’ll be working hard to get the CD out there in the world. Stay tuned for more updates.
-b
FROM WWW.WALSHFILES.COM
Song du Jour:
Brianna Lane, “Porch Light Song.”
Had a handslap-on-the-forehead moment with this songwriter last night; one of those “how could I not know about you?” things that’s happening more and more these days, what with all the accomplished songwriters/hacks/first-timers/vets/geniuses coming up and out of their basements, up from the underground and catacombs and music labs and then back down into the basements (where all cool things start, including make-out and jam sessions) of places like Java Jack’s and the Artist’s Quarter, where Happy Apple drum shaman Dave King said last night, “2007 is the year of healing.”
I’m glad someone finally said it out loud. Brother’s talking about hope. Me, too. Specifically, I’m here to talk about Brianna Lane, a North Carolina-by-way-of-Minneapolis artist, survivor of the Academy Of Holy Angels, and a star in the making. Note I didn’t say “women’s music star,” because it seems to me that great music doesn’t come with a velvet rope of any kind; it invites every ear abd heart with open arms and says: this is how it feels to me.
“Porch Light Song” is one of those, about the age-old stalker ritual of driving by a lover’s house. Those kinds of songs usually leave me with more than a pang of restlessness, but because it was delivered so gently and with such warm wisdom — the hard-won knowledge that no matter how much love is in your world, you and the world can never get enough — it gave me great peace to know that someone else feels the way I do sometimes.
Which is one of the magical things about great songs, of which Ms. Lane (as the New York Times will someday refer to her) has at least a dozen. She’s poised, ambitious, a great writer, a soul singer of the first order, and a lithe, accomplished guitarist (plus she’s got great knees that stick out of her ripped jeans, making her look like Dave Pirner and Michelle Shocked’s bastardette niece).
Near the end of her hootenanny performance, someone in the crowd asked Lane if she thought songs about broken hearts can be “faked.” She didn’t say much, so I will.
Some can. Maybe. I guess. Depending on your definition of “fake.” But not this one; there’s not a fake bone in its birth mama’s body.
Life never comes at me 100 pages at a time but last night in a fit of insomnia I sat on my living room couch and read an entire book front to back. I’ve heard of the type of people that can do that but to me they are like koala bears….slightly exotic and able to sit down and munch up bunches of chutes for hours on end (in this metaphor the chutes would be words I suppose). I’m more of a 20 pages at a time kind of person….a bird. Alright, so the book I read last night was a children’s book- Dr. Suess. NO…I’m kidding, although I do love me some Cat In the Hat. Last night I took time with my new copy of The Four Agreements. I book that I once wrote off as a hooky self-help fad but then I came around and put it on my Christmas list. Maybe I was just ready for it this year. The Four Agreements is brilliantly simple and I would recommend it to anyone.
