The Custodian

Image Info: An initial sketch from comic artist and illustrator Fausto Michelotti for some commissioned Diamonds Hadder artwork. John and Ezra on a leisurely stroll in Bok. You can see more of his incredible work on insta @faustized and also at https://www.deviantart.com/faustized

Good afternoon lords and ladies of the land. It’s Friday again… I felt like I was just here. Here is a little update.

New Music from the the Stargazer Crew: Well. Late last night actually, I received all the music files for the new Stargazer crew cover songs. They arrived by carriage to the tower. This will allow to me finalize all my vocal takes over the next 2 weeks. Should work out rather nicely as I have about 40 something days or so to complete the Hadder record. I’m fairly certain both of these cover songs, “Headless Cross” and “Rainbow in the dark’ should be completed by then as well. I will share some of that finalizing process.

Hadder Record: yes, things are close now. I had a little 2 week window of guitar solo arrangement for the “long is the road” track, which took a lot out of me. Balancing all the instrumentation and orchestration can be daunting to say the least. It’s a very complex song, but then again, aren’t they all. Tonight I’m actually cutting some vocals for the finale of the track… now that the music underneath the screams is a bit more finalized. Time is on my side so far... of course solo parts may change for final cut. Last but not least.. I’m not expecting to much work for the “Dead Rabbit” track that’s lingering last on my workload as it has good bones, just needs some new flesh in spots. I forgot how fun it is to play guitar. It’s not singing of course, but it’s fun.

Commissions: To date I have 6 artists working on various pieces of Diamonds Hadder artwork for the record. Some of my time is focused on that. Sketches and revisions and Ink drawings and paintings… it all takes wonderful time and attention. I might add 2 more before all is said and done. They each have their own style and magic. I’m excited about this process and the results.. bringing Hadder, Zabble and Ezra to life is a delightfully fun process. It gives meaning to me. As I said before, I hope to have video’s for all the songs, but not all traditional videos… some will appear to be moving images with little surprises. I’m guessing that some of these commissions, combined with my own artwork and photography already on the website should be enough to round out the record and supply me with a few nice designs for merch for this 1st Hadder record. I’m not sure I have the record cover yet, but I’m looking for it. Maybe I have it already, maybe I don’t. Time will give it to me.

Closing thoughts on a Friday.

Life seems to moves at a snails pace.. I know from my Tyme Seer that that is not actually true. I like to stare at the fog… it’s always in a slow dance but I still watch patiently. Lately I’ve been watching some clips from the Tyme Seer and I realize that the fog is actually doing a little jig… vibrating a bit faster than it appears to my Bokonian eyes… makes me wonder what else is really going on around here. On the cusp of a June gloom I have slowed my heart to an even pulse… I remember this. I don’t expect much. I don’t anticipate much. I just walk the hills and do my best to try to be honest with who I am without caring to much about other things beyond my control… the clock is running dear friends and the world is vibrating under your feet. Nothing really matters in the end… more and more I simply feel like a custodian of the silly things I possess. Even the ideas and experiences that mold and shape me are temporary things that will eventually disappear and be forgotten to some degree. Think about that. We are borrowers of this time… I certainly am. What we do today is amplified to some degree… but in 300 years there might not even be a tree to sleep near, nor a computer that recognizes old hard drives filled with old digital trinkets… nor simple freedoms… So how good of a custodian are you.. how good of a keeper are you.. a planner for the inevitable? Today my friends… watching the fog… listening to my breath… this is what I control and that’s enough. Oh yeh, and I’m making a record and writing a story too… why not.

Good luck today friends… holidays are fast approaching, and some new far away pilgrimages are on my horizon.. may they be on yours too..

Farewell out there.

-j

The Tyme Seer and Bog Wollies

Image Info: The moment I first activated Zabbles parting gift, The Tyme Seer.

Good morning, it’s Friday the 13th of May, the year 2022.

For those who don’t know, there is a little thing called June gloom that happens in the hills where I’m located. It’s a wonderful time of year… when the ocean ghosts come inland to claim little things... snatching fairies and bog wollies each morning.... and now that my poles have lifted me above the mystery of their arrival again, I have a wonderfully intoxicating view out over the hillside and off into the distance above the misty breakers of Dume point.

The Dream: So what is new, Well I had a dream last night about the stage show for Diamonds Hadder… in this dream I saw these 2 giant digital Diamond shaped screens…. High above the drums, the drums were flat black and almost invisible in the dark. The whole backline was very uniform almost to the detriment of it’s purpose and function… but it looked interesting. You can imagine the possibilities of what could be seen in these giant diamond like picture screens. Well, I certainly can. Scattered across the stage were lots of little broken TV boxes with little fires inside of them.. they were linked by a common power signal and all seemed to turn on and off with a footswitch, all around the stage. There was low fog and some lasers of course as well and a pulpit with a small black footstool. Hmmm… these are the things I see in my dreams… and a raven of course.

Art and Merch: Well, to date I have several artists that I’m working with on various pieces of art associated with the Diamonds Hadder project. Small commissions I’ve undertaken in the hope of securing some imagery that can be used for single covers, field notes and merch. I hope to have some things for sale soon. I’ve slowly been working on this whole “merch” thing behind the scenes, it’s low priority at this moment, but it is something I hope to focus on more later down the road. It’s fun… but the music, words and story fuel the pen and brush first. So many young artists out there in the world, wielders of these new pens and brushes. they inspire me and I’m really honored to work with them. I’ll be sharing things as they are completed.

Music: Not much has happened on the music front this week, I’ve been in Guitar Solo mode for the "long road" and that’s enough to occupy my time for the week. The stargazer crew is still finishing music on the new cover songs, Ramsay is idle by the red river sending smoke signals up and drinking strong ale and my piano is in tune and singing as usual. Aside from all that… like I said, I’m a moon junkie and so with the full “Flower” moon politely knocking on my chamber door I’m balancing my time between loud music mixes and moonlit walks.

Field Notes: The Tyme Seer: When I was leaving Kilwaughter and Zabble on my way to the Black Forest, he gave me a little something… he called it a "Tyme Seer", he just kind of smiled when he gave it to me and gave me that “Zabble” look. I always know when he’s up to something larger than what he appears to be up to. Ha. I mean, that’s Zabble really. He’s always playing chess when we are playing checkers. It’s part of his charm. Any who.. He mentioned that it’s a little magic thing he made, that when aimed in a direction, and activated… it can somehow record light for a short amount of time.. but not just anytime, the future time. At the click of a button. A rather wide view as well… and the beauty of the devise is that you can watch it back, before the moments that it recorded actually have taken place. A rather unique little trinket that I’m sure would come in handy at a gambling establishment on the outskirts of BOK, or for a million other delightful uses I’m sure. Today while I was standing on the hill with Ezra I thought it might be a good moment to show you the view outside my new tower and so I pulled the trinket out and pressed the trigger. Hmmm… interesting… that Zabble, he really is an amazing wizard. Something tells me he gave me this for a much larger reason and it scares me to think what that reason could be. It was nice to test it out, seems like it works.

Website: A quick note, you may have noticed the News link above now has some archive pull downs, it took a little while to add these... but it's fun doings. These archive pages show the original wide screen skins that I post with news articles. Normally those skins disappear after 3 posts... so adding these archive pages gives me a chance to keep the wide screen animations. I like that idea as they just look more interesting than a simple still picture blog layout. I've gone back as far as October so far, I'll be adding more to the news archives periodically between moon events. Check them out on a big screen, they are interesting to look at.

I suppose that’s all for now. I have some corn to plant. Lots of interesting things are happening around me. Farewell for now and thank you for your time.

-j

The whats and the whys of it all

Good morning, I suppose a little update here on the 60ish day mark or so of me completing this lovely little body of heartfelt work is in order.

I did notice we had a little stargazer radio play on the Crim station and I quickly wanted to say thanks for that. Hail the Crim'inals or so it was written.

So here in these quiet flowery moon months over Bok I sit, with Ezra, in calm contemplation. Looking out at that horizon I first gazed eyes upon in late 2018 after the fires took everything from me and I awoke by that tree that I often speak about. I’m there again looking out to that golden light dancing in the pacific mist.. the view is not much different. What a trip we take. So I’ve been listening to “Long Is the Road”, as I have a working mix that travels with me these mornings… it’s close to capping. Certainly an important song which started back with the TOR band and has now finally come close to leaving my bones for good. I’m very happy it will be on this first Hadder record.

“Time is a ladder, up to the shine, every step we take is another why, and hope is the only thing… that keeps us alive, while we reach for the gold… long is the road.”

I think these lyrics really do sum up the record for me.

Once I complete this long road, a few weeks to dance with and revisit the dead rabbit track and I do believe this body of work will near it’s end. For me, it was a long journey that will bring with it a sense of closure.. I suspect most people will not understand it at face value or even really care at all that it exists or why it exists or that it was difficult to make…. But so it the nature of art and the journey of an artist. I’m a happy puppet when I’m holding a microphone, that I know, but I’m clever enough to wonder about where the strings end. I’m happy they play me a little when they can. I suppose there is a message hidden inside this record, in the words scattered throughout… the message has to do with a question that was once asked of me during some auditions earlier in the year.

"What is Diamonds Hadder?” Ha… it’s a question that I pondered during some long winter months in the mountains of Bok, in the cold and lonely places I ventured and rested… me and the ravens and ezra. I still ponder it each night. The whats and whys of this all.

Diamonds Hadder is an idea, it’s an invisible hero… the idea is universal. Take everything you ever aspired to be, every dream you ever hoped to achieve, every kind thing you ever wished to do for all the great reasons you ever wanted to do them. Every fight that seemed unwinnable, every stand worth standing for, every memory that meant anything to you personally, every “No you can’t”, every “That’s stupid” every “it will never work” every impulse in your heart that you don’t understand but long to follow and honor at all costs… well, that’s Diamonds Hadder to me. For you it’s something else but the ide is the same. I’m well aware that it’s very particular to me and the life I lived. Born in the east during those great years. Wandering the west later in life… walking amongst the ghosts. Why I awoke near a tree, I don’t know… where I was before that… I don’t know… perhaps I should have just stayed sleeping… and maybe I just might curl up by that tree when I finish the last track. We’ll see I suppose.

Well, thanks for reading… if not now, maybe some day in the future some of these words will start to make sense for anyone who stumbles upon a song or a murmur of the thing called Diamonds Hadder from the west. I don’t know what that story will hold but I do know the full moon is coming and I have a date with the shoreline. I really wish you all the best, I hope you find your Diamonds Hadder someday... as i did.

-j