Headless: The dunes of repetition

Good morning, it’s a headless Friday on the cusp of spring. I found myself wondering around some blossom trees this week… it was a pleasant sight. Ezra came along for the walk… it was like old times. The hills are so beautiful this time of year. Here in BOK it’s chilly in the mornings but once that sun comes up… and the Warmoths start humming… it’s like heaven. I was listening to a song called ‘The Feast’ this morning… it’s a song about alexander the great, it was a piece of music written to commemorate a great battle he had won… apparently during the celebration he changed his mind and decided to kill everyone in the city he had taken and burned it to the ground. In retaliation for all the troops he lost in the battle. Hmmm.. those classical folks sure do pick their song topics. Now that the goat is “Kind of” retired, I can talk about all that’s going on in BOK and the Hadder realm.

New Music: “Long is the Road” is moving along nicely… I’m through the whole song now musically. Fine tuning and re-cutting some vocals. For those who don’t know, “Rivers End”, “City of Fire” and this last song, “Long is the Road” all came from the “TOR” project I was involved in. The songs were just about completed when the band broke apart. Considering all the vocals were recorded in my studio and were completed, and that each track took me months to write and complete… I decided to recut all the music under the vocals rather than let all that hard work sit idle. I’ve done my best to recut and reimagine the music side of things, trying to stay clear of the original riffs note for note… but there’s only so much I can do at times. All I can say is that it was a very conscious effort to somehow reconnect the dots between the vocal lines and key and tempo of the original music from the track without playing what was originally there. It’s a strange way of working and it was quite the challenge to say the least. There were about 8 songs on the TOR record, I plan on doing this to all the songs in time… although I will be closing out the first Hadder record once I complete “Long is the Road”. The next record is looking more and more like some sort of play/opera/conceptual record focusing on the Diamonds Hadder Novel/Field Notes I’ve been writing… so not sure when the remaining TOR songs will be rolled out. Time is an enemy of mine, I just wish I had more of it.

Ramsay/Evermore tracks: There are 3 more songs in the works for the Ramsay/Evermore project. The process for this project is: Ramsay sends me MP3 tracks he’s written, just music, I load then into a tracking app I have and I generally just use them for vocal exorcising, if something starts appearing over the track that I like… it moves into the recording phase on my end. At that point I request the individual tracks and load them into a protools session… I then start tracking vocals and keys and rearrange the track if needed as the song starts taking shape and direction. This week I loaded a song into protools called “Night of the Witch”, we’ll see what comes of it. I’ve also requested the files for two other tracks. For me this project is a great release from all the Hadder work.. it happens without any expectation and I have total freedom to create at will. Not having to write the guitar, bass and drums… is a wonderful treat for me, lets me focus on the things I really care about.. words and vocals and melodies. Anyway, just a little update. These tracks seem to finish quicker than Hadder material, so perhaps ‘Night of the Witch” will show up one day without warning.

The Stargazer Crew: Most of my time this week was spent tracking vocals on one of the Sabbath cover songs we are doing called “headless cross”. I’ve had two long vocal sessions and I’m just about done with it. Maybe a line or two will need recut, but overall headless is complete. Doug still needs to cut a solo, and then we’ll mix it and shoot a video… Doug has been talking about an old church to film in… so my eyes have been peeled looking for a little desert hide away… something spooky and fun. I’ve posted a little clip of some vox below from a running mix I did of some vocals from last night. These vocals were cut in my enchanted living room vocal booth.

“Rainbow in the Dark” is all cued up, I’ll probably go in there and start tracking some vocals this week. Oh boy, that’s going to be fun. I’ll mention this very briefly, as I’m not sure how it will play out, but a keyboard player who played with Dio for many years might be getting involved in this little project as well.. You know, this whole genre of music in general is very particular and special.. it’s hard to explain why it’s so special and why we all work so hard on our crafts in order to even attempt to create this type of music… it has to do with things much deeper than just music, that I know for sure. It will be interesting to see where this stargazer crew goes next. Some original music should happen later in the year and who knows… intensions are good and the path seems clear and honest… we’ll see if there’s some magic still left in that old bottle.

Little lesser deeper things: As you can see.. I’m juggling a few things. It’s busy and it’s fulfilling. Each morning I wake in the city and train… day in and day out… it’s been this way for a long time now. It has to be this way. It started along the ocean and now I’m washed up on a barren parking lot watching “Dawn of the Dead” play out in front of me each day. I feel robotic but well equipped. Protected by the iron gates between me and the world. At times I’m hypnotized by the routine of training… it’s almost like I don’t even have a choice, and that’s a good thing. The pattern is so engrained in my blood these days. I imagine I’ll soon be swept away again… with a better view hopefully… but the patterns will stay the same. I suppose there is a lesson here… the rituals and patterns we are caught up in are little grains of sand on a rocky beach, soon they will accumulate into sand bars and eventually the rocks will submerge below the dunes… the dunes of repetition. I’m walking a lonely beach of my dunes…. And my barefoot steps have a resolve that border on madness. Madness and will combined can be a dangerous sand drift. But…The spring is coming… I can’t wait to see what will sprout this year from all the planting I’ve been doing. I hope your creating beautiful dunes of your own.

I'll leave you with something I heard this very morning, moments ago, from a weary traveler down by the red river.... he said "It's always colder in the shade." So true.

Farewell.

-j

Some random video to some vocal takes for "Headless Cross", in the shade, listening stage. Unmixed and unproduced. But real non the less. Enjoy the process.

New Normals... TB12: Goat

I had so many Hadder related things I wanted to talk about today... but I thought I would simply have a moment of appreciation for the GOAT who retired today.

I grew up in New England and have fond memories of my grandfather and father watching Patriots football in Dartmouth Massachusetts, back in the Steve Grogen days when the Pats were just another team. I watched and followed Brady most of my life as he seemed to arrive from nowhere, with his Super bowl victories and odd unbelievably dramatic wins running parallel to my own ongoing memories in life, marking moments that I'll never forget in places near and far... like line etchings on a bedroom wall as you grow up. His story was like a movie that had multiple seasons with happy endings.. and a few sad ones too. I could tell you about my Super bowl night in that little Irish Bar off laurel canyon Blvd during the 16 and 0 season.. that was a sad night... or perhaps my chilly quiet New Englander night on Corral Canyon in the Malibu Hills.. watching the Falcons 28 to 3 lead disappear in some strange magical movie like fashion... or how about last season in Tampa.... Oh I have memories for them all.... It's kind of shocking today to know we just watched the final TB12 season and were not even aware of it. I'm not actually into sports that much, but this guy was like a happy thread that went all the way back to my childhood. It's sad to see things come to an end.. the constants that make life feel a little normal at times... and safe.... yet their absence also forces us to move on and create new normals. What amazing memories this guy gave me. #sograteful #today

-j

1756: The year of Wolfgangus

Good morning. I woke up early and chased the moon into the city for my daily singing routines… a little crescent magic thing it was today staring at me in the black sky over the city. I was going to give an update tomorrow on my doings but what the hell… It’s Mozarts birthday today, 1756 was a good year, I was listening to a piece of his music called “Paradise” this morning while I was sitting with the moon. I couldn’t help but sing a little opera this morning… it’s a nice stretch for me early in the morning. I put a little clip of my morning squabbles below. For all you Birthday folks, slightly past and almost present, Happy birthday to you.

So what’s going on:

New Music: Well, long is the road my friends. Yes, I’m on the trail of this track and all is going well. It might be the final song for this record, so I’m spending a little extra time on it. I’ve had a few guitar sessions with it, some drum and bass sessions and yesterday was a big vocal day, resigning the chorus to some new guitar work. I’m turning a new leaf so to say, focusing on the production side of this little number. It has a lot of promise as far as a song goes, so I’m giving it a little justice and space to become something special. Who knows maybe I’ll go on a run and have some time to finish up “Child of the Sun’ as well. Wouldn’t that be great.

Moving: So yes, I have been considering moving my tracking chambers. It’s not something I look forward to doing, the labor of it, but the thought of it being closer to the Klipso ponds… well… I am looking forward to that. I’ve been moving things around in anticipation of such a move… and that will delay rehearsals if I do such a thing. I have reasons, all of which won’t stop the record from being finished and released. I’m not sure yet, but with a new year upon us… I’m looking deeply to reinvent the processes in which I work. In a marathon you take it slow and steady… up hill and down hill…. The finish line is so far away that you train yourself to simply focus on the ground under your feet… knowing you will arrive there soon enough. Hadder is a lot like that, I’m planning on a very long journey and Shoring up the foundation is very important to me. We’ll see… if it does happen it will take place in the next month. It’s a behind the scenes kind of thing and shouldn’t interfere with production and progress of the record.

Field Notes: So now that the new ‘Field Notes:” page is designed and waiting for audio narrations… I’ve been busy creating a little place to do that work. Fine tuning FX and Sound libraries for the task at hand.. I built a rather nice Vocal Booth in my living quarters, complete with an old magic door I found in the hills from an old monastery skeleton… singers do such a thing.. it’s like buying a car to me. A necessity of my existence. It’s always been that way. I purposefully been holding out on the latest field note as it’s been just sitting there on the tip on my tongue while I reorganize my working environment. I have big plans for this tale… and I’ve gotten off the line nice and quick… so now I’m settling in for the longer road ahead. I can see where this is headed and it’s rather exciting.

Little things: Lastly, just want to say thank you. I’ve had a few emails as of late that were very inspirational to me.. kind words and thoughts that mean a lot to me, regarding my music and the Hadder vision and body of work to date. When I was young, not much inspired me, other than music and words and stories… I would write letters to fan clubs and read record liner sleeves regularly. I have discussed this before, but I actually created my own alphabet and transcribed my favorite songs in a journal that only I could read. I guess that’s how my mind worked even at a young age. I admire art and appreciate the people who created it before me, I also give then credit… all of them… as Hadder and my own crazy creations wouldn’t even exist had they not first cut a path before me to follow. So, thank YOU. The greatest gift for me, is not in writing a song or creating my art, it’s knowing that it might someday inspire someone else… to dream… and to cut their own path as they see fit.

Well, that’s all for now. I have a new mix of “Long is the Road” I’ll be listening to this afternoon. Be well and safe under our crescent moon. Happy birthdays.

-j