Journal
Here’s where I post random thoughts, philosophy about songwriting and art, observations on life and whatever else lands in my brain long enough for me to write about it. Love to hear your reactions to the entries.
December 11, 2011
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIuyDWzctgY
Listening to various versions of "Drift Away" this morning and thinking about the late Dobie Gray... remembering Semisonic practicing the song in John Munson's parents' basement around 1994... We just learned it from childhood memories, we didn't refer to the original. Much later I realized how wrong my guitar parts were! In those early days of Semisonic, I was trying to figure out how to write songs that could do for my listeners what "Drift Away" did for me. I remember hearing that song on KOZY radio, 1490 AM in Grand Rapids Minnesota, where my family spent our summers. It would really take me away into another world of music. The best part is that the song's lyrics describe exactly the experience of listening to it, like a hypnotist speaking in first person. From the verses to the chorus, the song talks about being transported by music, comforted, leaving troubled feelings behind. And Dobie Gray's voice somehow was soothing and exciting at the same time. What an amazing song and record.
May 2, 2011
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaxpAkOWNM0
Once upon a time, baseball was known as "America's pastime." Until 1947, it was played by players of only one ethnicity in this country. The best of those players became very very good at baseball, especially as it became a bigger and bigger business. Scouts from the teams in our country's big cities would scour the small towns of the American heartland looking for undiscovered pitching, hitting, and fielding talent, and sign that talent to the big cities' teams.
Now, many years later, not only do the major league teams hire amazingly talented athletes of all ethnicities, they hire from lots of other countries as well. And many other countries in Europe and Asia and elsewhere have baseball leagues, each of whose teams scour their own countrysides for great baseball talent to sign up.
How could baseball players not be getting better, faster, more agile, wilier? Watch this catch from a game between Yokohama and Hiroshima. I'm sorry, they couldn't do that in the good old days. The game is now accessible to more brilliantly talented athletes than ever before because it's being played in more and more places and the pool of talent available to the game is growing with each new team added somewhere in the world. And so you get this kind of incredible play, by a player from a Japanese city the size of San Antonio.
Western pop music is enjoying the same kind of expansion. There are rap artists from China, South American metal bands, Australian country stars. Every country in the world seems to be revving up its musical scouting efforts with its own home-brewed Pop Idol or American Idol. Every kid in the world with access to a computer and the internet can create a video clip of a musical performance and put it in front of, potentially, every other kid with access to a computer and the internet.
How could pop music not get better, more clever, more soulful, groovier, catchier? The doomsayers are wrong! Remember how Auto-tune was destroying music? Ummmm... music is fine!
April 22, 2011
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKjjekX33g4
When our garbage disposal turns on, it kicks up a tiny psychedelic light show in whatever water is pooled in the bottom of the sink. Sometimes the patterns are long string-like shapes, other times they look like this. I hope you're having fun with your kitchen appliances today.
December 24, 2010
I get lots of e-mail asking about this cover version – recorded live at Studio M in St. Paul. Thought I’d put it up for you to hear.
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