Last night while I was working on my "Smoke Through A Keyhole" mini-movie...I was working on some footage and thought it would match well with my song "Tilt-a-Whirl". I think it did. So here it is. There will be many more arty-farty videos coming your way this year, unless I kill my GoPro camera, then no more videos for a while.
The Black Forest
Random blaghness...
Smoke Through A Camera Lens...
So....I am in the middle of filming a piece for the entire record of "Smoke Through A Keyhole". Yep, that's right. Over a 30 minute short film. I have been taking footage since November 2014, and I about 70% done...taking footage that is. I am doing this like I wrote the album. Creating pieces as they flow naturally. Each piece is its own. As the album, almost a collage, threaded by the music. When I have captured enough of the feelings/images, I will bring up the music, and let the music and image decide what will be joined together.
There will be the full length release, and it will be also divided into the four movements of the album, for help out the attention deficit folks, which even those pieces might be too long, but so it is. Art. It takes as long as it takes. Let it soak into you, or just walk on by.
When you ask? I have no idea. I hope by this Summer. Being that this is my first foray into making films, I have had a pretty big learning curve to catch up to. Also, being limited to just a single GoPro camera (On purpose), this limit makes me hard to work hard for the images, but also makes me commit to direct, concise imagery. Which in turn, forces me to be very creative in my process before and after filming the images.
I hope I will be able to offer something to move and inspire. At the very least, something very me. Every image seen through my eyes and imagination, in my world. The three months working on this has affected me greatly. I see the world with a changed eye.
Anyone who has been following my posts and photos have already been getting glimpses of my film, as I can't help myself to give out flash-forwards of things to come.
Picasso n' Tilt-a-Whirl Sitting In A Tree...
I released "This Was Tomorrow" back in 2011, and I had always wanted to have the songs "Picasso" and "Tilt-a-Whirl" together as one song. So I have remixed them to be together forever as one. Matt Lynott threw down some awesome drums, as always. The new mix sounds better than the album as well. Hmmmm...Damn it. You know sometime in the new year I will end up remixing the whole dang album. Why? Because I can!
Download it for FREE throughout the holidays until the new year at my store!
Handful of Dust...
This album kinda came out from nowhere and everywhere. It is a compilation of unreleased songs I have had since 1999-2014. Some albums I made, there were a few that didn't get make it on the album for random reasons, perhaps there were already enough songs, or it didn't fit with the rest as well, or it was too heavy, too light, or too weird.
All this happened because I just released "Smoke Through A Keyhole" and I was backing up all my files and organizing my music. I would see these stragglers and thought maybe I should bring them up on the mixer and check them out. I haven't heard them in a long time, and songs are like photographs to me, listening to them and the reminiscence of the times. I would be remiss if I didn't mention two people who played on a few of these songs, Trace Smith and Keith Jones. They were my band mates in my project Fivecrown. They played drums and bass respectively on the tracks "Atlas", "No Phantom","Sucker Punch", and drums on "The Restoration". It took me about a week to remix all the songs. Upon listening to them, I found them to be not so different from each other, especially considering the amount of time between songs, 15 years to some, but remixing songs at the same time will tend to give things a similar cohesiveness. Playing around with the order convinced me these should be released as an album. They just seem to work together. Hence...this rather quick and unprepared release.
Some folks might think it is a little foolish to release another album on the heels of another new release. In 1980, they would be right. But honestly, for me, it is all about the process and the release...and then to begin again.
I want to be a wave that keeps coming every year with something new to offer. Who knows, perhaps one day, some of these sand pebbles will stick on the shore.