Leaving the hummingbird cage.

Image: Some concept art I did of Klipso from the hadder tale.

Good morning, it’s Friday in November 2022. So I’m back from a few trips I took up north and just getting settled again with some Hadder stuff. Most of my bags are unpacked and things are quieting down while the snow starts to fall on the lands outside my windows. It’s almost winter now.

Updates have been a little scarce yes, but life goes on. Here’s a little update on Hadder things.

Music: With most of the record done now and on the music page I’m just taking my time with releasing it on all the platforms. I have no intention of working on another Hadder record any time soon… as most of my focus is on rehearsal things and concept art and website additions. Such a musical trek kind of burned me out a bit. It’s like going full steam for a few years has now left me a little numb. So, all I can say about music is… have fun and enjoy the music that’s on the music page as it is…. It was made with honest intentions for loudly listening too. That’s what I do with it anyway, as I run the track at LA fitness in the wee hours of the night… dreaming my life away.

Website: For the most part I’m quite happy with the website as the home for Hadder. I tend to avoid other platforms… as I just like having control over my tower. It’s ever changing I suppose like life is ever changing. A place I built over time… like a room… a hadder room floating in digital space. A room without rules. It’s like a peg board for me… where I can stick notes and record things that are passing through me. Imagery and words and ideas. If things go according to my thoughts as of late… there will be a music video or two for the record coming up next year and I’ve been reimagining some new looks for the endeavor. Diamonds Hadder will forever be Diamonds Hadder as he’s the character from the book I’m slowly writing… but the music side of Hadder may have some new looks. We’ll see how that plays out here in the winter months. I’ve added a concept art page to the website.. it’s a slow start… for now I just built the back end of it and threw a few images in it. In time this page will show some of the concept art for the Diamonds Hadder story I’m writing. Character designs and places and things from the evermore world, based on the Field Notes hadder has been writing. Like a scrap book for the place from my dreams. All the art will be available as prints and there will be a few shirts available as well… and considering I’m such a connoisseur of strong hand ground coffee… yes, there will be a few choice coffee mugs with a few designs that I’ve been thinking about as well. Cheers to that. These things take time… so check back later if your interested in that sort of thing. It’s amazing what one person can do with a little idea.

Finally: Well it’s chilly here. Let me step aside from Hadder things a bit… and talk plainly. A few months ago I entered into the golden stream… you may remember me talking about it. It’s a metaphor of course for my own personal journey into my own head. A journey into my own thoughts… I walked the halls of my thoughts these last few months and opened some dusty books that I never really noticed before. I’m living today in the perfectly designed world in which I created, as you are as well… such a simple notion, don’t you think? So plainly fundamentally sound… we are creators. Look around you… do you like what you see… yes, no? well you created it. You own it. I had a strange idea once… this silly guy in a mask… I starting imaging it.. I dreamt about him… I can only guess it came from my love for old movies and cinema and stage shows. I’ve always just had a very magical kind of mind… a dreamer rather than an accountant. A believer and doer rather than a couch potato. These thoughts have built the current tower in which I reside, but I was also building other things with my thoughts this last year… my thoughts had somehow built a little prison for myself. One day I woke up and I was trapped.. perhaps it was me in that hummingbird cage… hanging over the cypress swamps… dangling there like a fool. Well, a few months ago I finally had the courage and humility to leave the cage I built, and I wandered out into the woods… and that’s where I found the stream. That’s when I stopped looking for and cursing the warden of the prison… and realized that I built the cage. Silly me. So why am I saying this now? Well, these little notes are as much for me as they are for anyone else who stumbles upon them. Little reminders.. that TODAY, this very second friends… your deliberate thoughts are either creating yourself a new cage and prison or a new place of your very dreams. I really did lose sight of this somehow, well, until now anyway. It’s ok, these things happen. It’s nice to remember such simple things. I will say that some of my new thoughts have nothing to do with characters in masks and imaginary worlds as fun as those sort of things are… and I’m looking forward to the new tower I’m thinking about.. today.

Well, that’s all, at the very least I hope I’ve given you something to think about yourself. Good luck out there.

-j

A Hadderous Halloween Trick or Treat

Image: Some concept art I did of the Diamonds Hadder story. Might be a shirt for sale later.

Good morning, it’s Friday… a few little scary things.

I’ve returned from a second little adventure in the mountains… just in time for a short Halloween celebration. I rather enjoy the holiday months. Here in LA we have a rather delicious seasonal Eggnog which is brewed locally and always brightens my day when it is released this time of year. I’m stocked up.

This morning I was knee deep in my vocal exercises when suddenly a little holiday classic came out. My routines each morning focus on dull and drab note scales combined with me singing over heavy completed musical tracks. It’s a nice mix as I find that the 2 are very different styles of vocalizing and both seem to round out my voice in different ways, a mix of balance and control and basically all bets off. Singing scales and having thoughts have no place in Live performance singing for me… if I’m thinking than I’m not singing. So these live tracks that I sing to each morning are almost like rehearsals and they seem to jazz me up each morning.

Sometimes when I’m singing over these tracks… I create new songs… it’s fun and I get a lot of ideas from these sessions. I also record them all just as a journal… I consider them the building blocks for for little towers I’ve yet to erect.

And sometimes I just have fun with it… considering it’s almost Halloween I thought I would play around this morning with some lyrics for “A Nightmare Before Christmas”, just for fun, to a song in the Ramsay/Evermore collection of tracks. I did this really quick this morning... vocal freestyle one takers on a Loopy app I use and threw it together with some of my favorite holiday video. Enjoy a little holiday classic scenery.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/77466a_39c0a4684c264cfc8da0a703669b843e/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

That’s all for today… so many things I’m thinking about and working towards…. concept art for the Hadder Book, Chapters, Rehearsals, new Music, Stage Things, Videos, LA Advertising Things, Mixes, Merch… and so much artwork I hardly know what to do with it all… I can only guess that all these things will meet in the middle at some point to help define where I’m heading with all this fun stuff.

Well, enjoy your Halloween. What a beautiful Autumn it’s been so far… still a few trips left for me and then I’ll be back in 408 for the video and release grind.

Farewell out there, little rabbits.

-j

Death Trackers for Autumn

Image: Some concept art I did of Hadder and one of the Death Trackers from BOK.

Good morning, I’ve been away for a bit. This time of year is always a little sketchy for me as I make some pilgrimages to various places far away from home. I enjoy new experiences. To some degree I kind of shut down the physical Hadder work for a bit as it takes a lot of effort to pack and plan my trips. But all hadder things are well and dear inside my little head, safe and secure and building each day no matter where I rest my bones. I often return from my trips with some great new ideas and plans for the coming year. I’m planning on doing more traveling, so I’ll be in and out of hadder world these coming weeks or months. Gone but not forgotten. Always working on something for the endeavor.

Rehearsals: Last I left off before I packed and disappeared, I was trying to secure a new tower for hadder rehearsals, in all honesty I’m really just wanting my good old #408 tower back. Unfortunately, some mice have invaded it and claimed it for themselves and so I have to wait a bit for the poison to do it's thing. It’s ok, I’m fairly certain I’ll find myself in #408 again before good old saint nick arrives. it just seems inevitable… as that’s all I really want. I welcome it, I allow it, and of course… I expect it.

Some thoughts: During my first trips away I was listening to the hadder record a lot… in strange places… on mountains…. In valleys…. it was fun to hear it all. Quite the accomplishment for me personally I will say. It can appear to be fairly difficult to stay the course on anything in these times I notice… our days are so illusionary… I had lost track of the notion that I was a thought magician and that I controlled the outcome of my own life. What can I say… we get lost at times. My days are filled with characters and plots and plans… and streams as of late. In my dreams I’ve seen tyme seer lazer globes and hidden corn fields that retract… fog machines and new costumes. In the woods last week I was working on concept art for “Rivers End”, strange that it came to me then... but oh well, must obey the notions of honest creation. Yes, I awoke at 2 in the morning and crafted a few images of that scene… the witch at the river and the tree and the falls… a magical little place... things that have been on my mind. I’ve also been crafting Logos’ and images for each character in the hadder tale. I have my moments with it all… I also have moments of just wanting to sit still and rest and talk to my hummingbirds. I was away from my voice trainings for a week… it’s not often that I go on a stretch without singing or training my voice. It was nice to return to that schedule this week, even though I may leave again soon for the next adventure. I treat the time away from training as a part of the training... as all things need some time to rest from all the strain and work.

Music: Other than remixing the last few tracks when I get to my new tower… which I'm fairly excited for... I’m not sure I’ll be writing anything new until rehearsals start. I hope to write a new record as a band naturally next year, at least that’s where my thoughts are wandering too. I have some other ideas as well, some Viking esc style music ideas that keep appearing to me in my vocal lessons each day. It would not surprise me if I suddenly released a bunch of songs in that chanty viking tribal style… with a heavy edge to them. We’ll see… I often chant a lot in the mornings and I record a lot of those strange melodies. Some sound like old viking nursery rhymes. Not sure where they come from but I enjoy that style of music as well. There was a lot of LOUD rammstein in the woods this last week.

Well, I suppose that’s all for today. No rush on things. My thoughts are ever present these days and they mean everything to me. The golden stream has kind of changed me as of late, in a molecular way… a pleasant and quite way as well. Wish the best for you, stay your own course and have great thoughts always. Thanks for reading. I’ll see you soon I'm sure. Happy autumn.

-j