5240 Song #30: One Fell Swoop

5240 Song #30 (for July 27, 2009):

One Fell Swoop

Admit it: you've always wanted to hear me singing in the shower.

Thank you for listening! PLEASE consider posting a comment by clicking the comments link below! Thank you, and I'll see you next week!

In The Air

Well, I've paid for the WiFi access on the plane, and I've drunk a Jack and Diet Coke, so I'll be damned if I'm not now going to write a pointless blog post (I believe we are about to fly over Lake Tahoe as I type this. I got some nice pics of Mt's Rainier and St. Helens as we passed them. I don't know why I am telling you this in a parenthetical aside).

I haven't been very talky on this blog, and I haven't made any videos since (Holy Jeez) week 9. I actually did start one back there around week 26, to mark the halfway point, but that one never happened. It's been busy.

I admit there's something of a psychological "easing" going on now that I'm past the midway point. I remember back after I finished the first month of songs... 4 down, 48 to go seemed like an impossible amount of work. It seems a bit more bearable as the numbers on the "done" side are higher than the ones on the "yet to go" side.

Boring But Impossible To Ignore (If You're Me) Life Shit has definitely been having an impact on the output of late, it would be silly not to admit it. I am, after all, only a man, not a machine, and this year may end up being the most stressful of my entire existence so far, once we get to the end of it. Which, in retrospect, may end up seeming like a completely great idea to have done - chronicling my toughest year ever, in real-time, via music; but the reality of doing it sucks some days. Not the music part. But it can be really hard sometimes, to push all the worries of the day aside and do work. I guess I shouldn't complain, because there are plenty of folks out there who have to kill themselves all day long just to eat, and who can't then come home to a nice laptop and spare time to make up some goofy tunes. In that way, I am damned lucky.

It just doesn't always feel lucky.

I believe we are now flying over Fresno, California, and I have a pleasant buzz.

How are you guys doing?

Dazed And Confused

For so long and it is true.

Turned in the mix for track 30 today, and it's an odd duck. I kinda had no choice but to finish it today because tomorrow I go to Los Angeles and won't be back until after the weekly deadline passes for this week. The lyrics are pretty opaque this time 'round, but I like the combination of sounds and the atypical-yet-still-sort-of-approachable arrangement. Will you guys like it? Heck if I know.

I'm sort of gauging the popularity of the various tunes by the number of comments they generate, which is a very unscientific method, of course. Almost none of you regulars tend to have any harsh words to share (pretty much only Jeroen is willing to flat-out say if he doesn't like a song); so when you guys choose to say nothing then I tend to gather that you have nothing particularly positive to add. Which is totally fine with me, believe me. I didn't expect that I could make 52 tracks this year that would appeal to everyone, my goal was to make 52 that would appeal to me, and for the most part I've succeeded. There's only one of the 30 so far that I'm not all that thrilled with, and I'm not telling which one it is, because for all I know it's somebodies favorite.

Using my unscientific method, though, I think that makes last week's track, "Sad" the least-favorite tune amongst the masses thus far. Poor "Sad." I really dig that one. But what do I know, anyway?

I suppose then that I would like to extend an invitation to those of you who are holding back on the criticisms; I say to you, let them fly, sirs. Let them fly. I have a very thick skin about the stuff I put out into the world, gained over many years experience. If nothing else, I know that those of you that post here at least give a shit, it won't hurt my feelings if you say "I don't LIKE that one" out loud. Honestly, I'm curious about what does and doesn't move you, and why. It's unlikely that I'll change anything, or do anything differently based on hearing any negative comments about the stuff in this project. I'm being as blatantly self-indulgent on 5240 material as I can possibly be, that's the thrill of it for me. I'm enjoying the fact that the material is so closely mirroring my day-to-day thought processes as they happen this year; it's completely exhausting, and difficult, and annoying even, but I can't imagine that I'll ever do anything like this again, so I'm trying to appreciate this while I can, even when I really don't feel like it.

30 songs in. And I have NO IDEA what the remaining 22 will be.

But I'm not going to think about it again until after I finally get to meet my new niece in person. Have a great weekend, everyone.

5240 Song #29: Sad

5240 Song #29 (for July 20, 2009):

Sad

Farley's adventures in lo-fi! I've been wanting to do something that sounds like this for a while.

Thank you for listening! PLEASE consider posting a comment by clicking the comments link below! Thank you, and I'll see you next week!

2009: The Whirlwind Continues

I've been a little not-talkative around here lately, apologies. "2009: The Year That Will Not Stop Punching Me In The Face" continues apace. I've been scrambling, scrambling, scrambling to try and get Gainful Employment again, and at least I have a couple of actual real-life "interviews" next week for that. That's pretty big - I was excited to even get phone screens at all, and both of them have lead at last to in-person discussions. Please keep fingers crossed for me on that score - this project, and me, could use a nice dose of certainty on the income front after 7+ months of absolute chaos/robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul-chicanery.

I am going to LA next weekend to finally meet my niece Lucy in-person, which has me in a tizzy trying to get songs 29 and 30 finished up before I leave for that trip. Today I received word that my last living grandparent, my maternal grandmother Ruth Langin, died peacefully in her sleep overnight, and while there are two possible memorial services for her coming up, with my interviews scheduled where they are, I'm probably going to miss out on both of them.

SIGH. Dear Cruel Fates: please bother someone else for a while, eh? Thanks.

RIP, Grandma.

5240 Song #28: Now We Can Only Wait

5240 Song #28 (for July 13, 2009):

Now We Can Only Wait

...for the time on Sprockets when we DANCE.

Thank you for listening! PLEASE consider posting a comment by clicking the comments link below! Thank you, and I'll see you next week!

More Bandcamp Ass-Kissery

Bandcamp continues to get better and better, because they keep adding great, usable features to indie kids like me.

All Bandcamp artists now have an RSS feed, which you can subscribe to in your RSS reader, and will thus receive instant updates when I post something new there. Which, as you may have noticed, is on a weekly basis this year.

Here is my Bandcamp RSS feed.

Here is the Half Zaftig one.

ALSO: Bandcamp now takes all major credit cards for payment for digital downloads, in addition to accepting Paypal. Some folks have never warmed to the Paypal thing.

Thanks, Bandcamp!

5240 Song #27: Elephantine

5240 Song #27 (for July 6, 2009):

Elephantine

Starting off the second half of the year with a trip back to my riff-rock roots.

UPDATE: This is now the way-more-bitchen-DDP-master. You'll want to re-download if you got here early this morning, because Darin's sounds WAY better than mine does.

Thank you for listening! PLEASE consider posting a comment by clicking the comments link below! Thank you, and I'll see you next week!

And Now... Volume II

For those who were waiting for it, 5240 Volume II: Spring is now up over at Bandcamp.