Today marks a significant day in terms of music history and two specific music icons who had a very big personal effect on me in my formative years.

First up is Jim Morrison’s birthday. Jim would have been 69 today if he hadn’t died at 27. It’s odd to think that he was only born 2 years later than my dad. The Doors were huge for me when I was in college and I spent many nights listening to their albums.

Much more important to me, though, was John Lennon, who died 32 years ago today. I grew up with the Beatles playing in the house and My parents had bought the Double Fantasy album just a little while earlier. I remember being six years old and sliding the album out of its wrapper and putting it on the turntable. I must have scratched the shit out of that record, but I remember listening over and over again to (Just Like) Starting Over, Watching the Wheels, and my favorite, Woman. So when John was shot, I remember watching the news and my parents’ reaction and feeling like, in some way, I knew who this man was.

My relationship with John Lennon only became stronger as I got older and delved into both The Beatles and his solo work. He will always be one of my musical heroes and an example of how to be an activist and how to fight for peace.

I may have mentioned this before, but after he died, my mother took out the picture of John that came with the White Album (there was one for each Beatle) and she taped it to the back of her station wagon window. It got torn and battered, too, but I still remember sitting in the car and seeing so many people flash her a thumbs up, or beep or just nod their heads to her flying her flag.

I miss them both today.

I was looking through my folders just now and came across a song I had recorded the last time N was traveling. It was part of an audio package I sent with her. It’s awfully raw (my voice is off in several places) — I had allergies at the time — and the guitar work isn’t great, but I thought, fuck it, let me post this. It was just gathering dust anyway.

Hope you like it.

Fairy Tale Princess

The last post, where I posted a roughly recorded, only newly finished song on this website, was the culmination of many years of struggle for me. I’ve been playing guitar and writing and singing songs for many years now – my first was when I was 16 – but it’s only been recently that I’ve been able to do so in front of other people. Far from the stereotype of the guitar player who sat and played songs for anyone who would listen, music was always a private thing for me. I would play piano at home as a way of expressing emotion and relieving stress. Guitar became a similar thing, a private thing. There was that stretch that I had a band, of course. But that always felt different. I had three other people to play with, other music to weave into. I sang my own songs, yes, but it was behind a microphone, on a stage with amps and lights and it seemed like a different thing. Somehow that was always easier than sitting down in a room with just a guitar and one or two people.

My Clarion West classmates convinced me to play for them while I was in Seattle. It was painful for all of us. It became a joke that it would take me at least a half hour just to warm up to the idea of playing and singing in front of people and then there was a comedown, minutes afterward where I’d be all shaky and woozy and red and flushed. But, somewhere in there, something clicked. Music is a personal expression for me. I can do it just by myself and be happy. But as with my writing, there is something gratifying about someone experiencing what you wrote. In this case, someone hearing the song, and possibly enjoying it, brought its own rewards.

So I made an effort to try to be better about playing in front of people. I made a conscious decision to fight the shyness and to try to write more and share those songs with people.

It wasn’t always easy. I had a string of playing for people then abruptly stopped. Sometimes inspiration is hard to find.

Then I met N. It felt important somehow to play for her, so I did. And, amazingly, I found that not only did I like playing around her, but she inspired me to write new songs. It’s always been this weird thing that I rarely write songs when in relationships, but with N, I do. Often I come up with them when she’s in the next room. And I want to play them. And I want to record them. And there’s this feeling that it’s okay and that it’s not this difficult thing to overcome.

I made a few resolutions for this year regarding the music. One was that I would write more. Another that I would record more of my songs. A third was that I would try an open mic night. I haven’t made a whole lot of headway on those yet, but I am reminding myself that those goals are there.

So, my last post was part of this effort to be less worried about this kind of thing. To overcome this fear of exposing that side of myself. And now it’s out there for anyone to hear.

I’ll try to post updates here as that will help. Maybe more songs from time to time.

I hope you don’t mind.

September 9 already promises to be an exciting day, but it just keeps on getting better. Not only does Beatles Rock Band release that day, but the remastered Beatles albums do as well. Then there’s an Apple event happening which I will likely follow. And the release of the movie 9, which seems like a movie that was made for me. It’s like my birthday, only not.

You excited for any (or all) of these?

Despite nearly 30 years producing music together, or perhaps because of it, The Church, the band you know from “Under the Milky Way”, has just released one of the best albums of its career. Untitled #23, which released May 12 in the US, is a stunning achievement, an album that is a revelation from start to finish, an album that is undeniably the Church and yet is a product of their evolution as a band. It’s rare that I find an album where every song shines, and yet this is one. Without a proper title or even proper cover art, the album lets its songs speak for themselves, and they are relentless, they surround and invade at the same time. But it creates a kind of equilibrium, and you end up feeling like you’re floating. Sometimes in lush, ethereal skies, sometimes in the vast blackness of space, and still others in dense, multicolored seas.

It’s amazing to see a band of their longevity (at least 23 albums) in such top shape. Part of this comes from their proficiency, no doubt, part of it from the confidence that gives them. But I suspect it also has to do with their love of the music. The Church’s heyday (pun intended) was long ago, at least by the measure of their popular success, but they’ve continued to produce great albums and I think that by now they must have given up any real hope of recapturing the profile they once had and simply do it because they play well together. That musical chemistry is readily apparent in this album.

It’s also part of a prolific onslaught from the band. Within the last few months they’ve also released two EPs (Pangaea and Coffee Hounds, both superb) and these come on the heels of solo releases from both Steve Kilbey (Painkiller) and Marty Willlson-Piper (Nightjar). It’s a good time to be a Church fan, but also a good time to become one. All of the albums (though not the EPs) are available from online retailers such as Amazon.com, but also from Second Motion Records as CDs or digital downloads. They’re also on iTunes. I urge you to check them out – at the very least Untitled #23. It deserves a listen.