Push It, Mathes

Man, I'm tired. Over the past few days, I've been spending a ton of time serving my family - to the obvious neglect of my music. On some level, it's a sign of healthy priorities: people over achievement. But on another level, it means that when I finally do get around to working on music - like now - I really don't have any juice left. I just have to do the best I can.

The rest of tonight (2-3 hours) will be spent prepping for my show on Friday night. I just have to push it.

What I'm listening to right now: The Phantom of the Opera Soundtrack.

All I Want for Christmas

http://www.glguitars.com/instruments/USA/guitars/asat-classic/enlarge.asp

Mailing List Overhaul

So I just spent the last 30 minutes updating my music mailing list. Wow! That was depressing! Basically, I added back in all possible known email addresses for all individuals on the list to find out which ones bounce back as undeliverable. From the undeliverables, I'll know which addresses to trash from the list. In the past, I've kind of ignored the "failure notices", as Gmail calls them, when emails cannot reach a particular recipient (IE: an email address no longer exists).

It wasn't an astronomical number of failure notices - somewhere around 20 or so - but it's still enough to make you do a double-take. The question becomes: am I actually failing at this?

Any Good?

Does any good come from being sick? Some might say yes.

Certainly nothing good happens while you are sick, if you know what I'm saying - unless, of course, you'd rather feel horrible than go to school or work...

The bottom line is that being sick sucks. Taking care of someone who is sick sucks slightly less; but in this case, you hate to see the person suffer through it. The only thing worse is being sick yourself and still having to take care of someone else, who is also sick.

Some would say that being sick reminds you to long for days without any sickness at all. Some would call those days "heaven." I think I've even said it. And quite frankly, I'm sick of being reminded by life to long for a day when everything that's wrong in this world gets fixed. Every problem is solved. No more suffering. No more sickness. No more pain. No more weariness. No more burden of life. No more miscommunication (I upset someone I love this morning, on the phone, by being insensitive and choosing the wrong words). I'm sick of feeling sick. (By the way, I'm not physically sick in the sense of having the flu or anything.)

I want the perfected creation now. Does that phrase make sense? You probably have never heard it before. It pretty much means exactly what it sounds like: every animate and inanimate object in the entire universe functions exactly as it ought to. Everything is "right." That's what it means.

So what can we do about it? Well, I'm still working on an answer to that. At the very least, I think having that sick feeling in your stomach - that longing for the pain to go away - longing for it to go away so badly that it makes you sicker to think about it - is a good place to start.

I think maybe another good place to start might be to make a list. I might do this. I'll right down the things that I see wrong in the world and see if I can find a way to counter it and, ultimately, correct it. I think I will start with my own life.

There are definitely a lot of things that I'd change about myself, if I could. For one thing, I definitely value my career too highly. Career. Ha! Well, I'm going to take some time right now to think about how I can temper how I value my music, and I'll report back - maybe tomorrow - on what I discover...

Photo by: Joel Sage.

Fundamental Release Preparations

Releasing a new record takes a lot of work. Actually recording the songs is probably the smallest part about the whole process, and many would say, it's not even the most important. (I disagree, but that's another story.) Over the next three weeks, I have a lot of preparations to make - I have to finalize my media blitz lists (radio, TV, print, and web), solidify a location for the record release show, put together my festival submission list for next summer (all the festival that I'm interested in performing at start taking submissions next week), and double-check to make sure the album is on its way to manufacture.

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens over the next three months - and not because I think that my effort will yield great success - but because of what others do. So much of what I do - performing, recording, and writing music - has nothing at all to do with me. Almost everything is determined by factors which I can not control. And that's a good thing. Because what it means is that I just have to keep focusing on the areas where I do have control.

To the future!

A Legend Dies

I cried this morning.

After I rolled out of bed this morning, I walked in to the kitchen and noticed that a small section of the top sheet of our refrigerator notepad was torn off. I then walked to my laptop, discovering the missing page piece - a note left by my wife.

Maybe it was the note. Maybe it was the fact that I have Copland playing on the iPod dock. Maybe it's the fact that the Cubs probably will not ever win another World Series. Or maybe it's because I'm really more upset with the fact that life is fickle, short, fleeting, passing away - like chaff in the wind.

I'm going to miss Ronnie.

My favorite Santo quote: "Awe, jeez..."

Here's a link to an awesome photo collection of Santo: Ron Santo's Life in Baseball.

Baseball card photo by: Tunguska. Used with permission. Read his blog: http://longflyball.blogspot.com

One Reason Why I Love the Guitar

Yesterday I spent about 45 minutes working on a song I never finished from 2007. Well, back then, I thought the song was done, but when I played through it again yesterday, I knew it was incomplete. What struck me the most was this new outro section that I wrote: simple acoustic guitar, slowly building with drums, steady, rhythmic, then in comes a chorus, singing in unison, music fades out, voices stay strong, then slowly fade. (Photo at left by: Ashley Hodges.)

But again, what got me was the guitar part. The guitar is the most honest instrument in the world. When played skillfully - and usually on an acoustic, no sonic reverberation can say as much as the guitar can in so few notes. Just one chord - or one note - played just the right way, can convey precise emotions which are not nearly as easy to express with words.

I'll try to record the part and post it here sometime for you all to hear just exactly what I'm talking about.