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