I often see status updates or tweets by people saying that they are really busy - but they still find the time to tweet!
I have a busy few weeks. CJ is at our home in Tennessee so while she's away ......... I'm playing, recording that is. The living room is getting a bit crowded, dogs banned, kids dare not venture in! Captain Tim is coming over tomorrow for the audio, bringing in the Powermac from the studio, and also using my Macbook and even the iPad - do Apple sponsor artists?
When I first started writing I used a small portable cassette recorder; these days for ideas and new songs I use Garageband, on the iPAD, and the quality is surprisingly good, using the iPad mic.
I've also got to adapt the three plays from stage to audio, shouldn't take that long, and then the Summer Trilogy book needs to get written, (by the summer obviously!), and its not going to write itself.
So I am sitting here at my HQ writing this before the few weeks start properly, the cliched JD and pepsi max next to me.
I want to go back to recording how I first started really, seems and feels so much more real. When I first started using music recording software in LA I got lost from the actual writing of songs. That's what its all about for me, always has been, always will be; expressing an emotion - pain, longing, anger, betrayal, love, beliefs and faith. I am too much of a romantic sometimes, again always have been. I have always been totally open with my emotions, show affection easily. I do realise though that I am more complex than I would like to think I am, as I put it - an open book, with every chapter in a different language, and this can show in my songs and books I think.
So these recordings are going to be very acoustic, very basic instrumental wise, very honest, mainly me on guitar and piano - (don't want anyone to play those for me, thanks! - how do you know which key for example; how do you know how I want it to sound? Dangerous to presume, don't you think? - sorry, little rant there).
If you can't be honest with yourself, when you lay your head on your pillow in the dark every night, and close your eyes so it is only you, your own private movie show, your dreams and thoughts, well I think that that is sad. I'm going to visit some old songs and introduce quite a few new ones.
I still have exercise books from school filled with lyrics, lyrics of a fourteen/fifteen year old kid from Cardiff, most of them embarrassingly awful, but never moon in June at least; I was always writing even then, and one of the songs, Love is Only Dawning, I'm going to record.
Tim and I are planning on wrapping the e.p. The Rodeo too, which is more produced. Again this is for the summer and Nashville. I've got until June which seems ages away but I know its going to come pretty fast and I need and want everything ready to take.
Sitting here during the day when I writing I have a couple of radio stations I listen to. WSM in Nashville is one - www.955fmwsm.com www.955fmwsm.com - The Wolf is a country station. If you think Nashville is just country, you're wrong - listen to Lightning 100, a great indie station - www.lightning100.com.
I also listen to Radio Wales a lot and another great station, Asian Star - www.asianstar1016.co.uk
Heard Marcus Collins' new single today, Innocence, really surprised, good track - http://youtu.be/4ebOlswSVcY
JOHN BATDORF
So now my glass is empty, not half full or half empty, totally empty! Just saw a status update from John Batdorf who was one of many songwriters who influenced me early on - this is a truly great pop song, nothing more, nothing less, from his band in the 70's Silver. Wham Bam, Shang a lang - enjoy!!!! http://youtu.be/-6bv4n6eidI
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