Sound City. A Film by Dave Grohl.

“So they never painted any of the walls or changed the lino on the floors just in case it’d fuck with the …” he made air quotes, “legendary sound quality”.

“Looks like they never washed it either.”

“And the bands who recorded there? Like … Nirvana. Like Slipknot. Uh … Fleetwood Mac, Elvis Costello, the list goes on and on.”

I got out my phone and googled.

“Like Rick Springfield and Barry Manilow and Ratt and, it says here: Evel Knieivel. Was that a band or did Evel Knievel the motorcycle guy actually make a record?”

I knew I could Google that too.

“OK, what about the sweet drum sound?”

“On Evel Knievel’s record? Or Barry Manilow’s?”

“The fucking legendary drum sound that Dave Grohl goes on and on about. Even though it used to be a Vox amp factory – just a big rectangular warehouse – it had the best drum sound.”

My jaw clenched a bit. I couldn’t wait to talk about “the best drum sound” again. Where to start …

“So they’re saying that acoustic design and treatment – something that pro studios have spent millions and millions of dollars on – is totally unnecessary? And what constitutes …” I made air quotes and grimaced, “the best drum sound, ferfucksake?” Did Manilow and Ratt use the same sweet sound? And also, if Grohl loved their drum sound so much, why didn’t he buy the studio and it’s sweet unpainted and unwashed magic when they were going belly-up?”

“He bought the Neve board from Studio A.”

“And moved it to his studio …”

A quick glance at the Wiki page.

” … located in a warehouse near Los Angeles – “not far from Sound City”?”

“It was really mostly about that board, right? You can’t get that analog thing, that sparkle, that warmth and humanness from today’s gear.”

“Really.”

I meant to stop there but didn’t.

“So virtually every song recorded digitally … since analog studios started going out of fashion – when was that … in the nineties? – lacks warmth, sparkle and humanness?”

Shuffle.

“And the magic of people playing together in a room. That’s a totally analog thing … ”

“Really.”

I spent some time this morning considering buying a book called “Why We Write” that collects the answers to that question from some well-respected authors. The big idea was to find an answer there that might apply to me – since I’ve realized I don’t have a good one myself.

The only reasons I can dredge up seem a little unsavoury. I’d love to truly state that writing is like breathing to me (as one of the authors in the book’s preview claims) but it isn’t. I’m always happy to have completed something, but the drive to begin is more based on the belief that I should write, not that I couldn’t help myself.

And why should I write? I don’t know. That’s why I was going to download the book – rather than writing this.

Once when I was very young, my uncle brought a woman to our house that he claimed was a gypsy. With her black hair and flashing eyes she looked the part. My uncle convinced her to read my palms. I clearly remember telling her that one day my palms would be impossible to read because they would be covered in ink. I thought I was being clever making that “veiled” reference to the career path I had chosen.

I enjoyed writing as a child, although I often wonder now if I was simply enjoying the accolades and attention I received when I wrote. Of course I was – but did I continue writing for more of that attention or because I enjoyed the process? Who knows for sure. Not me. I do know that, like now, the question often stops me in my tracks and, like a snake eating it’s own tail, progress towards a solution grinds to a halt when the resulting circle reaches it’s smallest possible diameter.

I’ve kept a journal for years. The writing I do there is uninspiring and pedestrian but I believe there’s value in keeping track of your days. It’s a struggle for me to keep up-to-date, but I do because I receive good value from the entries that accumulate. There is a clear and useful reason for that writing. Sadly, I’ve become increasingly unsure about my reasons for writing in public.

I’m sharing this conflict here because, for whatever reason – suspicious or otherwise – I’d like to return to public writing with more frequency – and sincerity – and I’m unsure where to resume the story. Or what it is I want to share. Or why …

Once again I’ve participated in an international conspiracy to celebrate the naming day of the brilliant Russell Hoban.

All around the world, pieces of yellow paper, bearing quotes from Hoban books, have been left in public places – cafe tables, bookshops, park benches, telephone booths, train stations or anywhere the birthday celebrants deemed appropriate. Over 350 quotes that have been left, on previous birthdays, in big cities and small towns in 14 countries since 2002. Russell Hoban remains one of the most original writers of the twentieth century and one of my very favourites.

Here’s what I sent in this year:

Greetings from White Rock BC Canada!

Yellow papers appeared on the pier today and changed things a bit. Folks on their walks stopped, curious. And walked away, curious. Hopefully Russ got a smile out of it.
 
“… still I am of the world, still I have something to say, how could it be otherwise, nothing comes to an end, the action never stops, it only changes….”

- from Pilgerman

 
There are two more photos from my SA4QE adventure here, and you really should check out other submissions, as they come in, here, the full Russell Hoban site here here and the “Head of Orpheus” site here.

Trubba not.

“When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is – everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

~ Steve Jobs

Rolling Stone Magazine has run an online version of a Kurt Cobain interview from their January 27 1994 issue. In it, Cobain breaks down Nirvana’s songwriting shares. I was wrong about him receiving all the royalties. If my math is correct, it appears he took a total of 87.5% while the other two band members shared the remaining 12.5%, for a total of 6.25% each. Here’s how he put it:

Haven’t there been any issues where there was at least heated discussion?
Yeah, the songwriting royalties. I get all the lyrics. The music, I get 75 percent, and they get the rest. I think that’s fair. But at the time, I was on drugs when that came up. And so they thought that I might start asking for more things. They were afraid that I was going to go out of my mind and start putting them on salary, stuff like that. But even then we didn’t yell at each other. And we split everything else evenly.

Social media doesn’t usually work that well for Connor McGuire.

He’s tried. If you look around online, you can find him on the obligatory Facebook and Twitter, and he has a Tumbler website – but there’s not much there. Social media is clearly low on his list of priorities. His focus has been elsewhere.

His friends report that he seems to disappear for large blocks of time, only to emerge sporadically with some new version of himself and his art. They imagine a cave – which is not too far from the mark. They imagine screens glowing in the dark late at night, knobs and buttons, piles of instruments, piles of unwashed dishes and empty bottles. They can hear this in his music.

When they hear it, they can also tell right away why he’s doing it. It’s clear he’s searching for something great but different. Different but not weird. OK, maybe even weird sometimes, but not stupid or abrasive – or weird for weird’s sake. The words sound like thoughts we’ve had, the tunes haunt from a place not easy to reach and the emotions revealed are tempered with a welcome intelligence.

A song is a fragile construction, with each piece dependent on the other and, initially, only supported in the air by the artist’s sheer force of will. Some of Connor’s songs don’t get finished, but I sure love the ones that do …

Today I’m doing some social media for him, since he’s been mostly preoccupied with making music (and, in his spare time, his Boba Fett armour).

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Please click here to watch a live recording of Connor’s new song “Hand it Over”.
(**For some reason, Safari users need to click “use original player” to see the video’s full width)

I’ve just uploaded some new photos to my Flickr page.

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The other day, The Chicago Tribune featured a satiric story about the death of Facts.

A sad story, but possibly true.

When I was a teenager, I’d often call the downtown Vancouver Public Library where the staff there would look up facts for me. Although it’s hard to believe now, they’d put me on hold and rummage through the appropriate reference books until they found the answers to the questions I’d asked. The librarians always seemed happy, and maybe even a little proud, to be able to help me in this way.

Later in life, a large part of my fascination with the computer revolution hinged on the very real possibility that facts would someday become easily and instantly available without the necessity of those phone calls. The internet tied all the computers together and it soon seemed as though we would presently have access to a worldwide library wherein all truth could be found.

I signed on with more passion and conviction than anyone I knew, and sure enough, the internet eventually became my personal and dependable fact repository. Then a strange thing began happening …

(continue reading this post …)

I finished 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami last night. It was a big, engrossing magical book that took me both far away and deep inside. I didn’t want it to end.

Like Richard Ford’s brilliant books, 1Q84 made me want to write. It reminded me that no two people see this world and its passing minutes the same. It convinced me again that capturing and preserving the ephemeral moment and the random impression is worthwhile – if only for my own satisfaction and edification.

According to Chekhov,” Tamaru said, rising from his chair, “once a gun appears in a story, it has to be fired.”

~ Haruki Murakami – 1Q84