Image: An image of "Jups" in the new tower under the oaks.
Good morning rabbits, the closing weeks of winter are upon us. Jups has been coming every night since I arrived here at the oaks. He was quieter at first but now he won't shut up. Ezra just grumbles at him, I think she's jealous. Life under the oaks is no joke. I survived the atmospheric river event last week. There was a mud slide on the side of my place and a few oaks did uproot themselves and run away with a few boulders, but I held fast working on Hadder things. I am a pattern maker after all. Here is a little update:
Breakers Vinyl: Well let me start here. Just before the holidays I signed a deal with “No Remorse” records and started working on the vinyl artwork for the breakers record. However, I decided to move at that time and then my Bella passed and so I was a bit swept up in all those things while working on the artwork in the background. There were weeks I was living out of boxes during the move and then there were weeks I was grieving Bella and helping others with that situation. Eventually things all settled down and I’m just about done now with the artwork. At the moment I have some large actual “proof” prints tapped to my floors at the oaks. Alternate versions of the gatefold and inserts that are slightly similar but different. Mostly layout alterations. I just need a few more days to decide on what I like more. The process is a lot like writing and recording songs. Sometimes things just need to sit while life moves on. The reflection of them sometimes just becomes a little clearer once you’re not involved in the creating process anymore. As an observer, things can change. Most of the breakers record was done in this way. Create and then step back and decide if I liked what I created. It’s a discipline that might go unspoken or unnoticed in the life of an artist, but unless your surrounded by producers and outside decision makers calling all the shots, you’ll have to be harsh with yourself and honest about the work you create. Most great records had great decision makers. The better you get at critiquing your own body of work and discerning the gems from the sandstone, so to say, well.. the more focused and better your art can be I suppose. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, but this is my process. Having said all that, as soon as I release this artwork… I’ll get back to video editing and writing music for the next record while the heavy metal wheels of manufacturing start to roll out breakers magic.
Breakers Volume II: Although I’ve been working hard on artwork as of late, I did fire up the war room for the 1st time last week. It will still be a few weeks of sound treating the tower walls and moving things here and there, but noises are starting to come from my little tower under the oaks. I’m very inspired as of late and I hope to have another record done soon. I don’t want the next record to take as long as the first breakers record, but I also won’t rush anything. Like the first record, it will be done when I have the 40 minutes of good songs, if I have to record and track 20 to get the 7 I like… well.. that’s just how it works for me. Considering I have just about another records worth of songs partially tracked already, I’m hoping I can have it ready for early next year. There is a slight chance that once I start rehearsals later in the year, that I will write with a band in place, but for now that’s just wishful thinking. I’ll have to play all that by ear this spring and summer. Regardless, I’m ok with creating it all myself as well. Time will tell.
My Caroline and the Vocal process: I thought I would share some words from a song that might appear on the next breakers record. I have a wild imagination. Sometimes my songs can seem like little movies. It isn’t always easy telling a story in a song, syllables and vowels and letters all need to swim on top of a rhythm. They can’t just be forced onto music. At least that’s what I find. For this reason, some of my lyrics go through various stages of rewrites. They may start as a simple poem or story with out music but almost always need to get translated to a song. Generally, there is a syllable map that I work off, that map is generally created recording vocal freestyle takes. Sounds confusing but really all that means is I sing on a track and the feeling and motion of the vocal in an unplanned and improvisational way creates somewhat of a template for me. Like a road map of syllable placement patterns. I often use these maps to then restructure the stories and words I write to fit over music. That’s my process. Sometimes during the freestyle vocal takes I’m aware of the words in the story and so sometimes things just kind of fall in to place by accident. But I almost never try to fit words into a song that weren’t written to music first. Anyway, this song went through many rewrites in order to tell the story but also to match those words to the syllable patterns of the track. It’s that puzzle that I enjoy the most about writing songs, especially songs with words and stories. In my younger days I thought being a singer was about singing, but really that’s just a small piece of it. There are so many other aspects of being a singer and song crafter and some of those things have nothing to do with your vocal cords and voice training. It’s a long road, the way of a singer. Anyway, here’s a little story about a haunted starship that might find its way onto record #2.
The Caroline
Commissioned for a Steller flight
Out beyond the stars
But fate you see, had a way with me
This man without a god
I kissed my wife and said goodbye
Little did we know that day
That the hour passed, would be our last
As I sailed away…. into the white
Nothing behind me but stars in a silent sea floating in the dark of the night
Circuits still flashing, the screen I’m still as asking, what’s out there beyond the bright
To much to bare now, is it you I should fear out
My window haunting the white
Hard to remember when, this ship crossed the never then, if only I could turn back the time.
So I sail to find, things I left behind, into the light….
Beyond the white
Power cores failing, the dead captains staring, “there’s a ghost on the screen” he last said
Lieutenant’s gone too, with the rest of her crew, who went missing below the deck
me I’m the last, still steering the doomed craft, I’m sorry I left you behind
I know that it’s you love, who’s killing the crew of, this ship I now call the “Caroline.“
So I sail to find, the things I left behind, into the light…
Beyond the White
Silver arrow to the gods
oh my queen of the stars.
And so my destiny, Lies out beyond the white, into the sea of light…
so I sailed into the star
My hands they clutched the cross
Without a trace, I saw her face
As it was the years before
And so these final words I write
Record my final days
Aboard this queen, and the things I’ve seen..
Let it speak of my fate
Out, Beyond the white
That’s all for now. It's finals days of artwork design for the breakers record. Looking forward to closing this chapter and seeing what these oaks have to say.
Farewell friends
-j