8 is Enough

Nur Ein results are up. I lost. None of this – ‘there were five winners’ crap. There were four dudes who knew what they were doing and one clueless little thing who had a good guest round. People said I made rhythm mistakes in my work; and instead of defending my work I got all unsure, assumed I was wrong and didn’t even bother to check and think I might be right, or that I might have been going for a flavor of something. And if wrong, understandably so in the same sort of way others overshoot the mark in their ways when they apply an effect. Now there’s an odd taste in my mouth about the Trying of the New Thing.

By the time I thought to somewhat defend myself it was too late – ironically, I failed the tongue twister challenge. If 7 is a lucky number I deserved an 8. I’ll think too deeply on the math and raise you. Right on its side is the number of infinity.

Will I do Nur Ein next year? Probably. Will I win it? I think I’ve figured out I shall never win it! But I will continue to try.

This was not the Nur Ein of last year where I came out feeling awesome and like I’d nailed the dismounts but cracked my ankle a bit. This is one where I tried new interpretations of all my old tricks while everyone else strapped on cool-as-s4it electric guitars or iron-clad reputations and the panel looked into my messy dreamworld in disbelief and said “wtf is this craziness?!”

Xondor. Welcome to Xondor.

Someday I will write the stories and the characters and the planets and all the little silly things I have been writing about but really, honestly……..
…….my shit IS stories. It’s even been said.

“no one wants to read a novel.”

Not only did the losing thing happen, the whole Nur Ein itself was filled with uncomfortable underlying and embarrassing social challenges that made it difficult to do my work. Interpersonal problems. Weirdnesses. Connundrum. Crisis of conscious-type stuff. Pestilence. Deaths. Sick pets. Relationship problems. Family issues. Internet “stuff” that is upsetty (these things happen). Stuff you can’t complain about on the boards because it sounds like you’re making excuses for why your song blows.

I found the entire time I couldn’t communicate with people in the way I wanted. I couldn’t get my point across. I felt uncomfortable with the discussion in and around the conversation (what does that even mean??) It had that odd vibe around it that a kid has when the adults are arguing and it’s like “shhhhh…let the grown ups talk….” but you know something mean and shitty is going on. But all you can think to do is cry and say “but, but…this is DUMB! Why can’t everyone be nice?!” so you feel lame and keep quiet. And it’s good that you did. This is just how the adults talk to each other! You would have embarrassed yourself! (again). Things are all fine! (_yep)

Mostly all this is me hitting the apex of Things; the top of the pile Ive needed to scale in order to make hard decisions about how out-of-hand I let things get in both professional and personal life.

I’ll never be “ready” to “do it” if I’m not ready already.

That’s what my lucky numbers indicate. Signs point to now.

No, I’m not quitting. No, I’m not even quitting contests. I’m too old for musical methadone clinics. But I’m also too old to change, to force my fat butt into a rock and roll cheerleader uniform. And certainly too old to do such things on my own.

I am going to pause and give myself the silent moment of extreme credit for the massive amount of work and accomplishment I know I’ve done. I think I’ve stretched myself more in 2 years than is really believable. That doesn’t really get prized in any way. You prize your own self for that by getting up in the morning and not quitting a Thing.

And I think I’ve been a little bit brain-fuzzy in thinking. Yes I have thoughts for the new title. Amazing ones. But more importantly I’ve got some plans for some other stuff I’ve let go undone for way too long that I used to be up to all the time.

I never did talk about Blogathon, or do anything about it, did I?

{edit: I do have to say, and not just to be PC, if you go to hear this round…the songs are all excellent. I didn’t lose to anything mediocre.}

Five Other Men.

I have a love / despair relationship with SongFight! Nowhere else can I finish a major production in less than a week that makes me feel like an engineering badass because I’ve learned several new skills that it would take a normal person a committee and schooling to achieve…and I did it quietly and on my own. And then in the space of a few people’s comments I suddenly feel like a silly little thing made of candy and fairy spit who cannot put a project together and also yes, probably girlz got no rhythm.

I’m overstating the point. I’m internalizing things. I’m taking three years of comments and sticking them into a big fat cry I’ve needed to have for a long time. I really need to just curl into a big ball and be a huge baby. Also, I am not sure how to explain my artistic decisions without sounding whiny and all… “but! but … ! eeh. eh!!!….”

I will say this. This is Round Six of this contest I’ve been in (I’m DJ Ranger Den). I made seven songs for this contest. This started sometime in April? May? I’ve lost track.

This weekend I slaved over this song that *I*, at least, feel really proud of. I have no idea what will happen to me. I will be surprised at neither outcome. I will be disappointed to be cut, and disappointed if I move on. I’m tired. Also, I am honestly not sure I have more to give. Eight songs is actually a really small album, and it sort of fills me with despair because some of these people in these communities have written albums in one day, or done other acrobatic feats of songwriting that it rips my mind open to contemplate. You could spend your life trying to top this. I’ve spent my last three years writing about this odd little culture that is so fascinated by this life. Because I’ve basically stopped working because I make better music now that I’m sucked into all of this. Better music than I did when I was a professional. I don’t know if that’s sad or just terribly, terribly interesting. Either way, SongFight Live is going to be very interesting this year, just as Nur Ein has been very, very emotional.

So, what DIDN’T I do because I was Nur/Ein-ing-SongFighting this week.

1. Snack copiously while watching TV (I lost about 4 pounds. Over the past 2-3 years I’ve lost almost 40 pounds. I started off calling this the SongFu 15 … and then it became the SongFight diet. They all contribute to this maniacal life though).

2. This one is important:

I did not attend my 20th high school reunion. This was kind of a personal triumph for me, mostly because I forgot that it was on. It was a triumph for me because in 2006 sometime I was sitting in my living room crying, surrounded by amplifiers and recording equipment. I wrote a poem later about how the amplifiers smelled like the house of my ex-songwriting partner, who had dropped off the equipment at my house at my insistence. It was my equipment, all of it, and I wanted it back because he wasn’t allowed to see me anymore and we were not to work together anymore either. I had invested all my energy into a duo with him and I was devestated and didn’t know how I was going to write or record or do anything.

I knew I could write without him but I didn’t know what I would do next and we’d gone to music school together and right alongside him I’d built up contacts and followed him around and just generally walked around in a fog and then melted into my church society and forgot my own existence as a person.

I decided that day that I would never sit in a living room and hopelessly stare at pieces of software and gear; frustrated because I didn’t have a man to help me do something I should know how to do my damn self.

It’s 2012 now. I learned how to work the computers and eventually even switched to Mac and all that. I’ve stopped and started and quit and done a lot of different things since then. I really started the online thing in 2010ish because the Austin thing just wasn’t working for me anymore and I wanted to really concentrate on learning to record. 

But I had gone to high school with Him… and he had reconnected with me. He’d started reminiscing about the old days. The band, things that used to be. I guess when the people you used to know start seeming like stronger people, it’s easier to remember the good times. And I am in a MUCH better place.

But I’m not that old girl now.

So the fact that I didn’t wait, and prepare, and obsess, and think about who I was going to look like, and what I was going to wear … the fact that I was thinking about what five other guys, three of who I met in New York and one who I have only messaged but that I’m in a mysteriously organized online band with – and the remaining one overseas (who has a pattern of impartiality/partiality to my work that I can’t figure out for the life of me!) .. the fact I was wondering what THEY might be thinking, doing, having for breakfast…yaddayadda … thinking about three+a group of other guys … wondering what THEY were concocting; what their plans were, what THEY were going to bring to the table, if they were skipping THEIR reunions, getting into trouble at home, if their bathrooms were as nasty as mine, if they needed to be reminded to brush their teeth or take their meds because they were really tired after this whole Ordeal – if any of them were 1/200000576th as Neuro as me ….

well … I forgot my reunion was on. And this was a triumph. I’m crazy because I’m addicted to Songfight. I’m crazy because this is an indicator of personal growth. I’m crazy because this indicates that there is hope for my re-matriculation into Professional Musical Society. But I Do Not Care. Because I Am Happy.

So If I get eliminated. I still won. And I’m not just saying that because I bought the Extremely Pink “Song Love” t-shirt.

As far as feeling bad about the reviews, and enough to cry about it …… I do realize that I am probably just tired and that drinking little but Mountain Dewwhile I vainly struggle Not Getting Paid doing something I am meant to be doing professionally while I learn to do what I used to do less of but better is probably a sure path to whining. I’d say other people on this board do not whine, but I’d kind of be lying. It’s just that when they do it, it comes across as debate, or champions defending territory. When I feel snitty, it comes across as petulance, so I keep my mouth closed. But I do feel this artistic rebellion welling up inside me and at some point it’s going to surge out of me. in a huge way. And if it does and I get more “meh” then I’ll know that I’m ready because I’ve been in the right place. I’ve learned that no one on the planet really gives a crap about what we make as artists and this is a really good place to learn that – where people will mercilessly take your work and completely eviscerate it in front of you until there isn’t anything sacred about it anymore for you. And it is then that you are ready to stop being a show pony about it and really do justice to song writing. It’s then that you’re ready to stop being proud and stop being a hero. Maybe you were wrong about something. Maybe your idea wasn’t that cool, or fresh. Perhaps you are wrong and your reviewers are right.

I always think that when I get teary over any reviews because I am tired and I have laid my spleen before the altar of Cubase and set it on fire again.

But then I think that perhaps I sacrificed not-in-vain to the song faeries, and that I’m fine and everyone else is full of crap.

Only time gives me this balance. And I think this is something everybody, absolutely EVERYBODY goes through. And no one can really know what it means. And where the hell the downbeat TRULY lies. 

So I think I’ll put the emphaSIS on whichever SYLaBLE I feel ka-like.

ps. Here is a backwards photo of the Kombucha Tea (or “tea with creatures”) that I am drinking today. It’s a new flavor, made with apples. From Buddha’s Brew.

[ ]

DON’T READ THIS BLOG ENTRY.

YOU’LL BE DETAINED INDEFINATELY. WITHOUT TRIAL. THIS IS SERIOUS, PEEPS. NO KIDDING.

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BLACK OUT MY SITES. I do not even have wordpress installed on my computer and do not know the ins-and-outs of plug-ins-ley blogging yet. I only get up here and bust ‘tude. In fact, skip ahead, you are already too entertained by this, and should be learning, not loafing.

THE GUV‘MENT* (by which I mean The Government .. you know the one, people … the one we talk about in International Hushed Whispers… could seriously mess things up for Modern Society if perhaps we don’t get cracking, it seems.

I’ve been making myself crazed reading about this as I have been making mistakes and going to all my Readily Available Plethora of Social Networks to Complain about my Audio Engineering Fails in the Vain Attempts to finish my Gift of Music entry for Song Fight!

But since I was a young Complainer, I have known that things were Somewhat More than Awry … Oh yes, Somewhattishly More than Awry, My Fine Feathered, Fun-loving Fellows and Fello-ettes

Since the early 90s. Gentlemen callers and other fun folks of acquaintance have said to me many a fine day “oh how CUTE! A Conspiracy Theorist!” Well, no more! We are ALL cute! And we are ALL connected, because soon, perhaps we will all be connected by a series of adjoining cells. Oh, you say that you are not an American? Well, we have proven time and time again-sly that we have the ability to come and get all nucular all up in YOUR nachos too. Occupy THAT, suckahs!!!!
#mirth #butnotreally #arewestillallowedtoHashtagIt?

(this is actually not Laughing Magma)…

Okay, I’M GONNA MAKE MUSIC NOW. THAT’S WHAT I KNOW HOW TO DO. But in pre-conclusion, I KNOW HOW TO LINK.
…SO LOOK AT SOME OF THIS STUFF

*THE WIKIPEDIA THING
*AGHGHGHG. NO CHEEZBURGERS TODAY!

Lifehacker’s position.

Jules was amused this morning by laughing squid’s twitter-y observations.

…Twitter and Facebook; search engine-y stuff

You think I’d be finishing my homework today, with the info-wars*… speaking of THAT :S
just because you’re paranoid ….

that’s all for now. I’m off the interwebz.

just remember that I l@^x you guys…………………..

Some Kind of Blue

1. Tis pancake time!!!
2. my tummy feels hurty and I’m a little sullen and blue. I want to make fun of some scrunchy faced blueberries I guess!!! Scrunch them with my fork!!
3. Thought about travel this morning and realized I have millions of flyer miles. I have a while to think about it. I could go to Paris, but do not know French. I have always wanted to go to the Far East. We NEED to go to Australia and New Zealand and tickets are free if I spend miles. It’s kind of a no brainer. But then I shall probably not go anywhere else as long as I live!
4. I am going to Songfight Live though… in 2012. Will make this regular now…
5. I get to play with VSTs all day!
6. that is not what she said.
7. when I do anything of merit I swear I’ll post it! this is starting to be a blog about nothing!!! Here is a fun photo to wash it down with.

It’s a cotton candy flavored lollipop from the other day. It was actually labeled “Mystery Flavor” – but I wonder … what is the NAME for people who dislike blue food? Because the thing with blue food seems to be a thing! And it’s just blue food… Not red or green or purple or orange or anything else!

Who knows these things?

ps. Mike said he’d play me some jazz today. His music picks have been hit-win all week

Technological Retreats

1. I tried to write a post before and ended up just uploading a photo of my aluminum foil robot:

2. I wonder if this confused some of you!
3. Couch Kitty and the Cylon have taken their relationship “to the next level.” I’ve become concerned and have tried to intervene; but clearly this is a love which knows no boundaries. It matters not that Cylon is a Smackbook Pro and Couch Kitty is, well, a cat. True Love finds ways.
4. On that note, I am dragging the Cylon from its twitterpated stupor to do more organizing because I have a love affair with some overdue projects I have with some friends who’d just love to see me complete some work.
5. Am going to be recording all week! Yay!! Very exciting!
6. I had an ice cream coffee drink today and shouldn’t have.
7. One of the things making me perplexed and a tad cross is the self adjusting cylonic volume in hangouts in Google+. I think the Cylon is perhaps distracted by feline romance.

Who knows these things?

Stranded 2

Now that I have established that I love myself, I’m going to go ahead and say that

I LOVE NUR EIN … and I LOVE THESE PEOPE and I think I’m going to have a REALLY good time if I can pull myself together enough to really participate. Most of this has been due to distractions and my schedule. This week I wrote what could be a really good song with some awesome angsty emotions behind it which I re-channeled into a fun little -fantasystoryconcept which was a great job. But I’m going to give a critique now. But first, a list.

1. The previous entry was written so that I could continue to insult myself in freedom and impunity like any other good american. (tongue-in-cheek)
2. The previous link I gave for my nur ein stuff wasn’t right. Here is the proper link for the blog entry
3. By the way … what I am hearing is that most of the folks REALLY know how to set up a mix. So I’m going to learn a LOT from this, which I am SUPER stoked about. There was a lot of really good song-training and deadline and networking stuff in Fu/TMA … but I think I’m going to get REALLY on the ball from these Song Fight/Nur Ein folks.
4. In closing of list 1, it is REALLY tough to FULLY enjoy these when some fool is cutting down trees with a power saw outside of the LOUDEST STUDIO IN AUSTIN and there is some weird-assed bird CAW-CAWing outside my window. *sheesh*

So, without further ado:

A LIST OF IMPROVEMENTS WHICH COULD AND MIGHT-SHOULD (later) BE MADE TO ‘STRANDED’ (my nur ein round 1 tune)
1. I need to recut the vocal track using a frickkin pop filter.
2. I need to take the time to design a REALLY good eq for myself for different situations
3. Same goes for different reverbs.
4. I could have spent more time on the pianos
5. I went a little over the top on the accessory keyboards
6. The lyrics were a bit all over the place. I think this would have been tightened up with another take. In the absence of that, I could have run the pitch things on the tips of some of the words and it woulda been fine – sounding more deliberate. This happened in my SongFu 6/Round 1 song ‘Rain‘ a little bit, which was a similar sort of song.
7. My piano chords were good though, so it would have benefitted from being played more smoothly. There were some jumpy transitions in the chorus, which I repeated thankfully from chorus-to-chorus. At least I sounded like I meant to do it that way.
8. The structure is a bit arbitrary, but I made it work.
9. I’m not really singing to the best of my ability, and am a bit warbly. I dunno. I wasn’t comfy with my voice that day. I haven’t been feeling the sexy lately … I’ll get it back sometime soon – you mark my words

QUOTES FROM FAVORITE LYRICS THUSLY FAR (the ones that spring to mind, from Billy’s Little Trip)
“Give me peace love and rock
sex love and BBQ …
I’m just a simple guy
….
I’m stranded
trying to swim back to shore while caught in the undertow”

veryveryalone-stuff.

I am about to clean my house and cut a song. I will be doing both these things at the same time. It is like a cathartic thing. The song needs to be done by tomorrow. I am hoping to have things substantially nice around here by the time we go out of town. We’re going to a major cigar event and I’d like to have my other blog out of obscurity and up and running, as well as the twittering I never really do from my cigar-related place. That’s a part of my life I haven’t been able to relax into, and it feeds a social part of me that I’ve really been ignoring. The going to Ruta Maya/Habana House part and writing a review. I used to multi-task a lot better than this. I used to not be so bogged down in work that I couldn’t really follow through on and finish.

It’s all about lists, I think. And mine has gotten away from me too fast, and too big. I want to do everything, and in order to do that, you need a lot of help. I am not a big enough person to tackle all of that in the right order; to know how to do it. So I need to stick to my original plan, and remember why I do the things I do in the first place. Luckily I am a pack rat, and I remember exactly where I put the last bookmark. It’s like I imagine a sewing or knitting mistake to be. Unravelling something. I don’t really know, but it seems both tedious and rewarding at the same go. It’s conducive to getting me back into being happy alone and oblivious.

Any interest I got from people (small though it was) really shocked the hell out of me. It’s shocked me both online and locally with people who become my friends. I don’t do compliments well, although I crave them as I crave love and attention (even though I fear it and need my solitude). If I could shield myself from all people somehow (AND still get the exposure needed to grow a profitable music career that would sustain me and my family + allow me to practice and create + be desirable as a collaborator); if I could be veryAlone and not get lonely … if I could pick and choose my times and not alienate …

well, that would be selfish, wouldn’t it? Yes. Selfish. But I am a selfish creature. I love the humans but I do not play well with them and I like my cave and I sit in it and I want to be veryvery alone. But it’s LONELY there. So I am always Not Okay. Unless I am at the piano. Then I do not think of anything. Everything dissipates. And my attention is caught again if something is shined at me (usually a discussion of something I love. like a piano. or something related to this thing I love).

I think about this online endeavour and my goals for it. I never do anything without thought for how it fits into what I do musically. I’ve always been goal oriented, I used to be this way about writing, now it’s wrapped up into the both things. But online is awkward for me. I met my husband online, yes, so I’m not incredulous about it.

But it is so much easier to be whoever you want (or not) online. It’s made it easier for me to hide myself away. I can really focus on being the queen-bee of vague. I did it in Song Fu rather well. Song Fu is really a personal story of what I went through physically as a woman, dealing with songwriting challenges and personal feelings about coming out of one mental transition into another. Moving from one group of persons to another. Hopes and dreams and fears and feelings. I put it all on the line. And now it’s time for me to make another “album” of sorts where I start revealing other things. Or maybe mixing the things I reveal with a more streamlined, professional approach into the working process.

We’ll see how that goes. I already know that it sounds very … different in my head and I have already started bringing in characters who are not me to supplement my experiences in the songs. So if you start hearing far-fetched things in my music … now you will know – why.

And at this point, after the rain-stormy horrible-but-wonderful mistakes I made in this me-scented-charade…. why wouldn’t I?

A list of things You Didn’t Know About Me

1. There are actually Several Different taco songs
2. Tacos are not actually my favorite food.
3. I desperately want a Vibraphone. Or a marimba.
4. I can’t whistle in performance situations, because I will laugh.
5. Sometimes if I need to wear socks, and I don’t have matching ones … well … I just DON’T REALLY CARE
6. I’m not a neat person. I’m REALLY MESSY actually. Like not GROSS GROSS messy.

actually, I’m sorta lying. I’m not slovenly-ohcrap-she-needs-to-go-on-a-tv-show-messy … but I cause concern from time-to-time.

7. I don’t really use my Music Theory like I should. And I know a hella lot of it.
8. I don’t like coconut. Or the smell of it as a perfume or a lotion …

… unless it is REALLY hot and it’s sandy and everyone is half naked and oily on a beach and it’s in the form of suntan oil or something. Then, the smell of coconut is okay. But not unless it’s for that. I don’t really like it for cake or anything.

It’s good in rum too.

9. I like questions. Yay questions.
10. I like Dave. He beat me in Song Fu. Dave likes me too Go read his blog.

11. I don’t like ending on “ten”
12. So on that note, I’d like to say that I am WAAAAY behind on some things. Like sick-sick behind. It’s because I’ve been trying to make some connections with some people. I’ve been trying to be more social. I’ve been trying to crawl out of my little shell, both here online and also at home in real-life. But I have sacrificed working and practice. I still work a lot – but much of my mojo has been lost.

As a result, I’m going to have to gun it on some projects. So if I pop on to the places where I normally do and am not as … prolific as I’ve been, this time I am not avoiding anyone. You’ll see me when you see me and when you do this time I’ll be coming with some results. I’ve just been a little … overwhelmed for a few.

Girls. Chapter 1.

So, there’s this girl, right?

A lot of people know her. I just started to know her. She writes and tweets and is part of the community thing I’ve become totally addicted to.

She likes to dance and she wrote a nifty post and a poem and it hit me in the diaphragm. So I remembered something I wrote. I don’t know why. I also do not know why I am up at 6 in the morning.

Well, yeah I do. I’m up at six in the morning because I’m worried the very large cup with the very small amount of OJ in it that is my career. I’m serious about the OJ. It’s good for you. But it’s a shitty metaphor and I’m dead-dog tired.

Let’s just shake that one off, shall we?

What’s news? Well, I’ve done a track that I’ve done already twice before. This will be the third time that I have done the same project. I literally can’t do this project again. And yet, I will. I have this feeling that I will be recording this track … again. This track that is the bane of my existence. I shouldn’t have looked at it. Shouldn’t have touched it with a ten-footer. And yet I go back and back again. And maybe it will color everything I do here. I don’t know. Maybe I am just tired. But it seems like I’m starting to rack up a track record of misses and ennui. I don’t know. I’ll have to see. Maybe I’m not giving it enough time.

I think there’s something psychological about all this.

I need to figure it out right quick too, because I have real stuff coming up in April. Real live, local stuff which could lead to stuff that I will start getting paid for. That could lead to other stuff which leads to more stuff which leads to stuff which helps me. I can’t afford to get psyched out because I don’t think I’m good enough and I question the way I do things every track.

Anyway. Butt-o’clock in the morning is no time to be pondering these thoughts. About the poem: I should be all dramatic, and leave you with it. I wrote it when I was leaving a sitch that was really trapping me, a few years ago. I remembered it now.

UNFETTERED

When I say “release”
I am not talking of orgasm
I am speaking of the chains fallen
Limp! – Impotent!
to the ground

The soaring, flying phrases of an aria
carrying me away from the detritus
of the expectation
that I will stay in my cage and be quiet
for you

I rub my ankles, I had never been sure
that they were there, that I even
possessed ankles!
No one is standing with a gun at the door
No one is keeping me here
And the sky outside
is blue, with only a few
dark clouds.

Keys and Lies

This is a blog about my SongFu shadow entry. It’s going to be very stream of consciousness, as I go …

THE STORY
One of the things about this story is that it’s DIFFERENT from the original Bluebeard song! This is because it is a different wife. The first wife I envisioned for my king I had to make up. This is because Joe made me very, very nervous.

Joe isn’t just older than me agewise, he’s fuller and richer sounding than me. He has a more sophisticated sounding accent to me (to my ears). When he records himself, he often does this “man on the march with a very large army” thing with chorus-type effect and it makes him seem very present. Whereas I sound often very young and thin. I often wrinkle around the pitch and I haven’t quite come into the bottom-out of my range. I can feel it coming, but it hasn’t arrived yet. I think we work in a duet sitch because our vibratos just happen to match up. It’s odd because our voices do not. The only way I resolved this problem was to make a character piece till I learn the puzzle around our vocal chemistry better.

The basic thing is that he’s a remote cold ruler of a country and my first wife is a young and easily impressionable childlike slip of a girl that is completely overcome by this man. He teaches her EVERYTHING about love and she is lost in him. But yeah, curiosity kills the cat. She finds the key and all the women are hanging on the hooks.

It makes me want to finish it, in a trilogy. How did he become a serial killer? Hmmm. I swear I’m not a psychopath! Maybe I want an album of feminist fairy tale songs.

The story didn’t feel over. I wanted this king dead. And the real story is about the wife that is saved. I don’t like that. I want the girl to save herself. So I change the story. I want her to poison him. I think poison is very romantic. Maybe she has a cool ring that she keeps poison in. Maybe it’s the ring that the previous wife (who was her friend, after all!) didn’t have the good sense not to use at the first awkward breakfast after that stupid business trip to the orient where he went to get the textiles or whatever it is he does overseas …)

There’s an argument happening in a development happening between this husband and wife leading up to the line “what will you kill me for / I’ll kill you for – curiosity” The characters are not in sync. The facade of the marriage is starting to fall apart. It’s all based on sex and mourning for a mutual love. The wife was too fascinated with the intense love story of the original Bluebeard marriage (“I watched you love her” – from the first stanza), and Bluebeard was kinda (sorry!) sexing his troubles away with her. This new wife is very sensual … but not “the one.”

This is because Bluebeard has a problem with women. But he screwed up because he fell in love with the one from FuSixRound 2 and now he’s acting out. He really should stop killing his women. Perhaps he needs a ‘shrink.

In the blues part, it’s pretty certain that they do have a bit of a thing for each other. They certainly are addicted to propriety, an ideal of marriage, sex, the mourning of an idealized love that they both witnessed (and he experienced!) in the previous marriage (the ‘Something Very Horrible’ one). They need the One More Night. But this girl has her head on a bit straighter and she’s got follow through. She rises to the challenge and remembers that he can drink himself a bit and that she’s just got to suck it up past her fascination with this man. What’s her lie? Maybe that it’s okay. Who knows.

They both know it’s not okay. The whole situation is easy. It’s like a duel.

I have a little scene in my mind about the “ties that bind.” Like he imprisons her and then lets her out for one more night. This tracks with the Bluebeard story where she begs for ten more minutes. Mine becomes one more night. This is admittedly why I drag out section two a bit. I’m trying to stretch it out like you try not to say goodbye.

But onto the next section. The compositional ideas are, once again for me, not coming across in the recording … yet!

The Recording
1. I haven’t had a guy vocal in my songs since … before …. I’m experimenting with a themed thing. I have access to a lot of tools I’ve never had before as well.
3. This song is not finished. I’m not happy with it yet.
4. I think the engineering is very “tentative.” I think that this is because I am at a very tentative point in my life. I’m both confident and unsure.
5. I am also taking more risks and trying to bring together all the “things that I wanted to be when I grew up” into one cohesive style. It’s hard to amalgamate everything.
6. Joe has this opinion about the first Bluebeard tune. He said other people have shared this opinion, and I have since had that confirmed. It’s that my vocals are buried back in the mix and should be louder. This got into my head on this recording. I think I over-compensated. As a result, my vocals are too loud.
7. Joe’s vocal is not loud enough. His reverb is not right yet. I need it to come up and I need to spend time finding the right reverb for him. This is still in discussion. I fear I will never find the right effect for him; although I have gotten pretty good at editing his position and his wave when need be. I did it REALLY well in Bluebeard. Although … he hardly needed a thing because the man can lay down a track …
8. I want another instrument in here. Or three. I ran out of time, simply that. Also, I really wanted a real drumset. SXSW intervened. Maybe I’ll get my wish sometime.
9. The vocals are also out of sync a bit, in my opinion.
10. It was hard to line up the track to the instrumentals. Usually it is not hard to do this. Cubase has been acting up. The computer fully crashed twice during this and I actually lost a lot of data once!

I think I was having “marital problems” with the song! Just like they were.

Sometimes things don’t come quite as easily. However, I like the concept a lot and I think this has a lot of potential. It feels right. More mature. It’s worth a work-on. So I’m gonna keep at it. Which feels weird to say, because I can’t play it live or anything.

Anyway, the listening party is soon and Joe is casting so I’m off. I have to admit that I’m a bit nervous about this one, so will post this blog now.

Thanks for listening.