Have you ever wished upon a star? I’m proud to present to you the first song I wrote with lyrics from Cait Rosellini, “The Age Old Story.” I was inspired by the different thematic material and sense of wonder in the words. This was a fun one as it just came out so smoothly and naturally – I’m very excited about this song. I hope you enjoy it and share the link with friends. Thank you for your support! Here are the full lyrics:
Heads up, All! Incoming mid-week I’ll be posting my second new song of 2011, “The Age Old Story.” It’s the first song I wrote with lyrics by Cait Rosellini and I think it’s one of my best EVER. I know, it’s always easy to think the last thing ya did was the best, but I gotta tell you, I think this is a special one. I hope you agree!
It’s also the kind of song that I think really represents my creative identity at this point – strong melody, dynamic flow, buttery harmony vocals, and a kickin’ guitar solo all wrapped up in a tight pop/rock structure.
I was recently pointed to a great little writeup from CDBaby asking the unfortunately neverending question, “Should Artists Have to Work a 2nd Job?” This really hit home with me as I’ve struggled with this for a long time. In fact, for the first time now, I am 100% focused on my musical career in 2011. This is strange and exciting territory for me – when I was in school, I of course had school to focus on in addition to music. Then I went directly into the videogame development industry, where I focused in addition to music. This continued for over 16 years.
I always considered the day job as the only way to fund the musical endeavors. So above and beyond normal living expenses and month to month bills, there was constant gear purchases/upgrades, recording studio time, promotional expenses, cd manufacturing, etc. It can be an expensive passion pursuit, even as I consider myself extremely frugal with my musical investments! On the plus side, I never had to play the part of “starving artist” – which I’m thankful for. BTW – I totally respect anyone who’s willing to sacrifice for dedication to their art. I haven’t been willing to take the risk until now and know it takes guts no matter what level of success you’re having.
Just a quick announcement about a show I’m playing with my friend, Jessica Lynne. She’s a great singer in sort of an alt-country/americana style. We’ve got a nice little band going with a few other Songwriters in Seattle members David Rix, Adena Atkins, and Derek Medina. We do all original songs, some of which I’ve had a hand in, such as Colored Life. See the video of Jessica and I doing that one on my video tab here.
Anyway, the show is at Skylark Cafe in West Seattle, Friday, January 14, starts at 9pm with a $5 cover (the flyer is wrong that it says “free”), and includes Lucky Suns and Guns of Nevada. It should be a fun time for all and from my perspective, I really enjoy stretching out creatively from the big rock guitars once in a while. Collaborating with good people and excellent musicians is always a plus as well.
Who is Jester’s Crown, you may ask? Well, they’re my old band from the 90’s! Known for epic rock songs, deep arrangements, and excellent musicianship, we put ourselves in the genre of “melodic prog.” Progressive rock is a niche with a lot of variations and we were by no means hardcore, but there was enough of a tilt towards the complexity that fans of the genre liked that we held appeal to that group. If you listen to enough of the songs, you’ll understand what I mean.
While the songwriting had moments of collaboration between all members, the majority of the songs were written by me with my brother Pete’s lyrics. I still play many of the “classics” today when I do solo acoustic sets: After the Rain, It All Comes Together, The Chimes, A Voice of One, Certainly, Not a Moment Too Soon, Setting Sun, and more still pop up now and then. Many of these songs still hold a special place in my heart and I enjoy performing them, often evolved slightly toward my current tastes.
Starting off 2011 with a bang! New rocker “This Journey” is now available for streaming from any of my music players and you can download it at my store for just 99 cents. Many thanks to Cait Rosellini for the lyric inspiration – you can look forward to a few more coming from Cait and me over the next few months…I hope you agree it’s a winning combo! Full lyrics below:
All right, folks, it’s time to start showing off the new songs!!! I’m very excited to have the first of this group to be posted be “This Journey” which is in fact my newest song at this point. It was only written last month and went through full production exceptionally fast. It shows off a different side of me, not only from a songwriting point of view, but vocally as well. Split into two unique sections, no guitar solos or thick harmonies are employed in this arrangement. I hope you find it to be as refreshing a track from some of my usual productions as I have. It has been a lot of fun to put it together!
A little bit more background on this song. It is my fourth collaboration with lyricist Cait Rosellini, whose name you’ll be hearing a lot more of as these songs get released.
Time to go check out the latest on the podcast page – the last for 2010! Finished the year on a high note with singer/songwriter Jillian Graham. See my previous blog post for more info on this great conversation and Jillian’s new music. Also make sure you check out www.jilliangrahammusic.com […]
Coming off the Christmas weekend I’ve got lots to post and more to tell you about! First things first, I am anxious to post the December podcast with fantastic up and coming Seattle musician Jillian Graham. We had a great conversation and heard some music off her new album Movin’ On, including an in-studio live performance. Jillian is a Korean born American adoptee who has some fascinating stories about taking her American folk music back to Korea recently and having some incredible performance opportunities there. Many thanks to Jillian for coming by and sharing her music! I will make a short blog announcement when I post it, but for now here are some pictures of the evening to tease it:
