Spring Stream

The Spring stream comes running down, shining refracted light off the snow around it as the water moves along the hillside, its music blending with the new birdsong, creating a composition that signals the end of a long Winter. From tiny tributaries in the frozen fields, the stream gathers its forces, multiplying, growing as the snow gives up its hold on the countryside. A glistening channel through a white and brown palette, reflecting off the earth, the sky. A hand put to the water there would quickly numb and freeze...this is liquid newly converted from its more solid form, still half in its old element. The rippling sound of the water's running is joined by a strange cracking as the ice weakens and starts to break up. The scents of loam and moisture send a heady rush, a sense of the potential growth hiding just under the surface of the soil. The sun shines down out of the blue sky, turning the cycle over out of the darkness and into the light, as in the soon-to-bud trees, oceans of birds sing songs of courtship, joy and of Spring.

Mink

Another day of rain in Spring...watching the puddles sprinkle themselves full, the little creeks run with fresh water, and my lawn get high as my knees...things are beautiful and lush this time of year. The wetlands are full of frogs singing their courting songs, and full of herons and cranes eating the frogs, and turtles coming out of hibernation to snarf up whatever it is they snarf. The other day I was driving down the dirt roads to my rehearsal at John's house, and I narrowly missed hitting a MINK! I hadn't seen one before in Michigan, but unmistakably a mink. Cyn says she's seen one too by that same swampland, so I'm guessing that there's a little minky community out there. This one had caught a vole or something and was carrying it across the street...presumably to its lair, perhaps to feed its little minklets. Very cool!

I'm aware these days of being pretty bipolar, and that's reflected in these posts I know. It's like being trapped in a black hole in space...the gravity of the hole is very strong. Sometimes I'll make my way out for a while, then get sucked back in. The good thing is that even in the worst of it I have the perspective that there's a better reality that I'll eventually get to. The bad thing is that even when I'm out of it I know that there's that black hole, exerting its gravity, ready to pull me in again. All I can do is try to keep positive as I can, stay healthy and all, and hope for the best (St. John's Wort helps a good bit too). But little things like mink sightings are very helpful for me, they show me a world outside of my head that is amazing, constant and beautiful.

The Woods Are Lovely

Rushing through my busy and rather stress-filled day, talking to recording clients, cleaning clients, new associates, working on websites, ebay guitar deals, and huge offices to swab out...and driving the dirt road to town, saw the wood lot down the street, still with its dusting of snow protected from the sun by the sheltering trees. A magical place, with the creek running through it and the light through the branches reflecting off the water and snow like a million diamonds. I'm a very lucky person, and I'm glad I can sometimes have moments like that one, to put everything else into perspective.

Coyotes

After midnight, and I'm sitting up late listening to the coyotes howling in the field next door. I've been hating Michigan, and the cold, and all, but hearing them I realize what a strange and beautiful place I live in. It's an eerie, wonderful thing...ah, these creatures of the night...what music they make...

Family, Festivals & Hummingbird Wars

Just in from coffee on my front porch...here in the boonies we get a lot of wildlife, and one of the coolest things happening this week is the huge amount of hummingbirds we get coming to our nectary feeders! For those of you who might not know, hummingbirds migrate all by their little selves (they're too feisty to hang in flocks, but imagine if they did! Bzzz), and from here in Michigan they go pretty much non-stop to Lousianna, where they take a break to refuel on the local flowers. Then they fly again non-stop ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE GULF OF MEXICO. That's like 500 miles across open water! Crazy. So they've gotta feed up here, and they often double their weight, and wind up looking like little feathered tennis balls before they go. As you might imagine, our feeders are very popular, and the Hummingbird Nectary Wars Of 2008 are in full swing. These tiny guys are very territorial and really have some amazing dogfights over the feeders. We've added new feeders and are gonna get more, probably today. It's very cool to watch them as closely as we do, they're beautiful and fascinating.

Friday we had our first gig with The Infinitones, out at the Crossroads Festival in Ypsilanti. As is the fate of all new bands, we opened for two other bands, the White Ravens and Muruga's Free Funk band. And also as with all opening acts, we followed the standard etiquette: Headliner sets up first (and does the first sound check), then next act sets up in front of them, and so on. That way the equipment can be hauled off in layers and the time between acts is lessened. Thing was, Muruga's band had 9 people in it!! With lots of equipment for each player...and a separate drum platform for the tabla player...and then the White Ravens had their keyboards up...so we were pretty cramped up there! Very little foot room. I didn't really have enough space to turn around to cue Dan the drummer much, although I didn't really need to...he's always on top of that. We played pretty well all in all, and had fun too. The Ravens sounded great and Muruga and his band are all stellar players, so I think a splendid time was had by all, really. I used my Cort Matt Murphy Signature guitar, the Fender Deluxe Reissue and the Vox Tonelab LE, and I was pretty happy with the tones. That Tonelab solves a lot of problems for me since it's so easy to program, so small (on a stage like that, very handy!) and sounds so warm and good. I still love my old analog pedals, but for now this is working really well.

Bad news on my family health front. My aunt seems to have had a re-emergence of her lymphoma. Of course my Mom is very upset indeed, as am I. I've been trying help as much as I can with my Dad's condition (he has Parkingson's Disease and is pretty shaky sometimes), but it seems everybody in their age group is having some real challenges. My aunt didn't make it out to the family reunion this year, and I'm thinking of trying to talk my Mom into going out to Montana to visit her, while I wrangle my Pa. That should be hilarious. As I've said before, this growing old is not for sissies! I know this is probably affecting my mental health too, but at this point I don't have time for that so I'll just soldier on and put out what fires I can. Later if things get better I can schedule a nice mental breakdown, and a comfortable rest in a nice white room with the men in the nice white coats. Ahh...

At some point in this next week I'm resolved to march into my studio and start recording again. I told Steve from the Buzzrats that I'd be working on bass for his new album, and it's time to go and see what I can do. Looks like about 16 songs! Ah, that Steve, ever the prolific songwriter. Once I get started it'll be fun...maybe I'll sneak some Electric Sitar on a few tracks as well. Hehheheh...

Coyotes, Cranes & My Secret Identity

I find more and more that as I go on as a musician that almost everybody has to have a few hustles to survive, in this incredibly difficult time for the arts and entertainment world...a Secret Identity if you will. I've had many periods where I made my living just playing, but usually that's when you're on the road for 200+ dates a year, which kind of makes having a home life out of the question! So most of us have side gigs or day jobs. I remember playing a show with the keyboardist from Molly Hatchet, who was working a furniture delivery business between tours...and I understand that Colin Moulding was driving a lorry even during the glory days of XTC! So glamour be dammed, I have to pay some bills. Over the years I've done such jobs as House Painting, Psychedelic Drug Reviewer (really), Flower Delivery, Library Clerical, Nude Art Model, Record Store Guy and Prep Cook. I do teach and I do recording, engineering and production for people, but the studio is still just getting off the ground (except on Friday nights, when it is sometimes at an altitude of 40,000 feet). So Cynthia and I own a cleaning business, where we and our associates hop into people's McMansions and office buildings and chase the fearsome dust bunnies around. There are many worse fates!!

The other day we were headed off to one such gig, a summer lakefront cottage rental that we brush up every week. I like to take the back roads out there just because it's such a pretty drive, and we were in no particular hurry. I was turning onto a side road when something ran up from the bushes and stood watching me in the middle of the road. It was a huge coyote! I know that the ones you see out West are little guys, but these Michigan coyotes are really big, as big or bigger than a German Shepherd. I stopped the car and we watched each other for a while, and then he ran off into a field of soybeans on the other side of the road. Cyn and I could see his head appearing and disappearing as he jumped up and down through the beans (I guess he couldn't see where he was going) till he was gone. A nice nature moment!

We finished the cottage and started driving back to town toward our next cleaning gig, and were on a dirt road next to a wheatfield, where we had our next cool animal sighting. Four Sandhill Cranes were in the field, gleaning the leftover wheat and walking about in their weird prehistoric way. I see these guys (I don't know if they're always the same ones) occasionally out by our house, we're out in a major wetlands area (OK, I'll admit it, we live in a swamp). Again, we stopped and sat and watched them for quite a bit...I never really get tired of checking things like this out...

It occurs to me that my Secret Identity allows these kind of moments probably better than most jobs would...we're traveling in rural areas a lot, and we don't have a terribly fixed timetable most of the time, and we both really revel in this stuff. I certainly never had experiences like this when I worked at the record store! The animals there were of a quite different sort. I wouldn't trade the experiences I've had touring in Europe, Canada and the States for anything, and I'll be doing it again I know, but right now things are pretty good. My new CD's getting really good reviews, I'm having fun working on the next one in the studio, my new band is shaping up well and I'm playing out on sub gigs here and there when I want to. Plus, I work a day job with the coolest Redhead ever, and I get to see Coyotes and Cranes!

The new blog home

So I'm finding that I have to move my headquarters to new digs! While I'll include copies of this log on my other sites, I think that this spot right here will be central for now. We'll just see how it all works, and if I can tie my other sites to this tether! The layout should look nice anyhow.

I'm sitting here with an insistent cat on my lap (Isis the Abbyssinan, a serious love junkie), just minutes before I leave for a foray into the Big City and a quick visit with friends Death Kitten and the Six Foot Poles, who are playing a gig in Liberty Plaza. I'm hoping I'll have a little time after to get back into the studio and work for a while...between trying to maintain this old farmhouse and help out my aging parents, I'm not getting nearly enough time to work on the new CD! There are lots of strange ideas boiling around in my backbrain, and they're gonna blow if I can't get them out onto some virtual vinyl. Of course, they may blow anyway, but I still have to record them. The voices tell me to!

This is also the first day in a couple of weeks without the constant pain I've had in my back...not to whine too much, but after a while it does grate on you. Perhaps the chiropractor's tender ministrations have finally done their good work. I sure hope so! Between me hurting and having to deal with my Dad's problems with his fractured hip, I've been in an ongoing invalid mode...it just feel so good to take a breath without that "stabbed in the back" sensation. There, whine over!

Now I'm off to check with the guy up the road who has the Rhode Island Reds to see if there's any fresh eggs available (living in the country has its perks!), and thence off to Liberty Plaza. I'm gonna try to see my friends from Treatment Bound this evening, too, if the studio doesn't suck me into its evil hypnotic embrace...