In this episode of the Head The Gong Podcast, I catch up with myself after a bit of a podcast hiatus, reminisce about awkward first dates, and reflect on some recent creative endeavors.
This started out as a bare-bones, live acoustic performance that I hated. Instead of re-recording it, I just threw a bunch of stuff into the mix until I liked it.
In this episode of the Head The Gong Podcast, I check in from home/quarantine as the novel coronavirus continues to leave its mark on the whole wide world.
Okay, so maybe I should take a break from posting videos, and instead work on some other things. This thing is, I’m having fun, so no promises. For sure though, this will be the last video of the day. “The City” is Track 2 of my 2007 record, Waiting for the miracle. On July 12, 2004, I wrote the following in my journal:
The last two nights I did some extended meditation before falling asleep and, as expected, there’s been somewhat of a reconnection to my dream life. The night before last I suddenly remembered the city, the city of my dreams, the one set up on a hill with the giant billboards and marquis. It’s just one block really, with all outlets quickly fading into foggy nothingness. I can’t remember the first time I dreamed of the city, and it could be that I only imagined it briefly. Yet it remains burned into my memory like a first kiss or a formative humiliation.
On July 15, 2006, I posted the music and lyrics to “The City” on my blog. The photo below, which leads off the video, was taken the previous day, July 14, 2006, which was probably the day I recorded the song. As with all tunes from that era, it was laid down on the trusty BR-864, which I still use sometimes as part of my current recording set up. Good times.
Once again, I am grateful to both StefWithAnF and Mikkehouse, who make super cool videos and let clowns like myself use them for our own nefarious purposes.
Title track of an album I released in June of 2007. I had read a few weird books by Wilhelm Reich, watched a weird movie about him, then turned on my BR-864 Digital Studio and recorded whatever weirdness came to mind. Had to keep it weird for the video too, for the sake of consistency.
Incredibly, I had never heard this song before, despite being reasonably familiar with this “John” guy who wrote it. Discovering new old songs is fun. (Yes, I’m going to be making the most of this Covid-19 isolation by spending much of it playing around in Green Desk Studios (a.k.a. the extra bedroom in my house.)