So far, So fast

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Heavy Alert:  These days alot of people know me as pastor josh, and believe me…that’s scarier to me that it is to you!  One of our elders the other night told me a story about his aunt’s passing that starting a me on a thought process that, a week and a half later, dismantled my world view.

When the story finally found a landing place in the bottom of my consciousness I understood something about my own life, particularly the last 3 years of it, that I hadn’t before.  Kinda like a realization i had in my mind but still didn’t seem real.  Welll, something about Ted’s story made it real to me.

I could totally title this song “Hospice” but i won’t do it, but that gives you a clue about its heaviness.  I have an idea that this is one of those cathartic songs that doesn’t really flow as a song but works well as therapy.  So don’t worry if it doesn’t work for you.  Maybe publishing this song can help me start to let some things go.  It’s recorded on a resonator instead of an acoustic and it has a natural distortion that, at times, sounds like real distortion, but it’s just the guitar.

.  thanks for your time.

Hospital_bed

The Great Divide

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Another Cover:  So I spent plenty of my of life thinking that high school football was overall a bad thing.  Sorry if that hurts your feelings.  I was a rebelious teen that was also clumsy, short, and slow.  So the Friday night glory always eluded me.  Furthermore, even when my brother and his friends were kicking tail at it, i mostly found it stressfull to watch him walk the tightrope in front of 2,082 (the pop. of Hale Center TX) very willing critics.

However, a few weeks ago, my hometown used their cancer awareness night to honor mom a bit and used a portion of the gate in to establish a scholorship in her honor.  I had honestly never “wanted” to go to a high school football game before, but all the sudden, i wished i lived closer to old HC because it seemed like an honorable way to spend away a Friday evening.

It’s an obscure Jack Ingram song that I’ve dug since I first heard it.  I always wanted to sing it, but i shy-ed away from its High School football opening sequence.  But now that I’m romanticising the whole experience for the first time in my life, I thought I’d take a shot at it…

Hale_center_pink_out_2012

’52 Vincent Black Lightning

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So… I’m going to totally be a fan here. ok.  I love Reckless Kelly, if a band was going to call me right now and invite me to join them on the road, I’d pick RK over anyone. period.  That being said, they always cover this song live, and its absolutely stupendous.  Check it out on YouTube or something if your curious.  After seeing them a week or two ago, i (once again) couldn’t let go of this song, and as I told myself I’d do on this blog, i recorded a song that I love and I had fun doing it regardless of whether or not I’m being a nerdy fan, or whether its cool to do it, or whether or not my version is a shadow compared to what RK did with this Richard Thompson classic folk song.

Willie Braun always say, “this is the greatest song ever written about motorcycles and redheads”  what more do you need to know?  I copied a pic of the bike below because it is a very breath taking very vintage british motorcycle.  The one below is actually a ’52 like the song metions (redhead not pictured).

Custom-52-vincent-black-lightning-01

Bench Seat

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In grad school, when i was still living in Plainview, i rebuilt (read: got running) this terrible looking old Ford pickup.  I don’t know if it was the first of many quarter life crises, but it seemed imporant at the time.  It was ugly, but it had my first ever bench seat.  I thought this was an incredible idea and I thought that I now needed a girlfriend.  But when i got one, she only rode in it once and was not impressed.  Anyhow, the romance of the whole situation made me think of this song…

72ford

Lean On

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Recording is hard, in case you’ve never tried it.  Little mess ups that nobody cares about live, become deal breakers, your voice is so annoying to you its hard to stand, and you’re faced with how you really sound.  And then, you can get caught up in technology, microphones, mic placement, effects and the like until you are overwhelmed and you don’t finish anything.  So one night i set up a guitar mic and vocal at the same time, mic separation be damned, and pretended to perform for someone.  It was ok, not great, but ok, honest, and better than trying to sound professional.  Then Justin told me not to worry about the sound stuff, that people get caught up in sound and don’t end up accomplishing anything.  So i just decided to not obsess about sound quality, tempo, and the like and just perform for the microphone.

Everything That Glitters

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you know when you were a kid and you got stuck on funny songs and wanted to hear them over and over?  We got stuck on my Mom’s Dan Seal’s greatest hits cassette tape.  I still love this cheezy song and sing it all the time because i think it actually sounds like a real lost, heartbroken, rodeo cowboy would.  I thought I’d track it to try and get comfortable with a microphone in front of my face again.

83 Elm Music post test.

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I thought for an experimental “how does this work” first post I’d throw up an old demo that my long lost friend phil let me track in his office one day almost 8 years ago (that can’t be right!).  83 elm was the address of a place i lived with 3 other gentlemen in Worcester, MA.  Its really easy to write songs about being home when you’re not!  I can definatly relate to that feeling you get when you did something a long time ago and now you’d like to change everything about it.  But i’m not gonna do it.