“I don’t think my fan base [cares] about how many notes I can hit. They want me to sing the doggone song,” she says. “If the song doesn’t dictate adding all this other stuff to it, then why do it?”
BlogThe snap of the wire wasn’t just the physical breaking of the string, but also the metaphysical breaking of my perception of myself as a pro, for in that instant I knew without a doubt that I did not have extra strings. My pride and preparation crumbled and dropped like a building in a Guatamalan sinkhole. Grumpy swore at the newcomer, and humphed himself over a few inches, glaring the whole time. He didn’t stop muttering threats to himself — intimidating, cuss-filled threats — while the geek sat down on the now-vacant seat and tried to not let his legs cross over the imaginary line between them. The problem with all that setup is it can take about twenty minutes to get everything ready and set to go. But a lot of times I only have about twenty minutes — mostly I do this late at night and I get tired — so the setting up of gear actually in many cases dissuaded me from doing any recording. “Looking at the big picture” doesn’t mean ignoring what is happening on the ground. That’s like telling an army to focus on strategy only and not tactics. You need both. I’ve been thinking about writing up a post on the Lone Microphone for a while now — gathering up some stats and just getting down some thoughts. We’ve done it once-a-month since November, so it’s time for some reflection. The short-list for my next album. These have all been recorded at home using Garageband on an iMac with no plugins. A mystery. I followed the trail begun by this description: “Joel paying homage to Ben Bruce. He wants to be Ben Bruce. Location: Seoul, South Korea.” The ferry – and you should know, I’m a newbie to the ferry system and assumed they were too big to even feel the waves – was bouncing around like a toy boat. Pitching and yawing and bending and shuddering. I’ve always been good at coming up with clever names for things. The sign is like a big Porky’s pig, spinning, neon lights. The “tables” are made of stainless steel, and there’s a trough right down the middle.
When he was still trying to break into music, he grabbed [Johnny] Cash's attention when he unexpectedly landed his helicopter in Cash's yard and gave him some tapes including "Sunday Morning Coming Down".
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“Your voice is like a mature Scotch whiskey. You can hear the life experience in it.” — Ben, April 2009 |
