Cryns #3

Local podcaster, extra-ordinairre, Tony Fu, has invited John, Ryan, and me over for a recording of his “Music to Swear By” podcast.  I am pumped!

Tony likes music with swear words on it.  He heard us play one night and liked our verbs.

More to come as I have it!

All is lost.  Liana told me that she is giving up music.  Turns out that the hard work of making a career of the music biz wasn’t for her.  But she is in Hollywood and has dreams so big that they don’t fit in this universe, so I forgive her.

I, on the other hand, have manageable dreams.  The kind that I can taste, if only I was willing to put in the work to reach them.

But I know that my dreams of rock stardom will not be satisfying.  Even if I became the most famous musician in Minneapolis history, I would still go home to my 4 cats and my lovely girlfriend and lead an utterly amazing and downright normal life off the stage.

Life is grand.  But it can’t keep up with those fleeting moments of triumph on the stage.

The greatest moment of my life was hitting a jump shot at the first-half buzzer in a varsity high school basketball game against Stillman Valley.  I lost control of my emotions and jumped so high in the air that I might as well have hit my head on the gym ceiling.  It wasn’t a big shot in the grand scheme of things, but I was in the midst of the greatest game of my career.  The crowd was pumping along with the cells in my body, which for reason unknown to me, had conspired to give me a temporary shooting hand that the comes around once in a lifetime.

Sometimes being on stage is something like that.  But it doesn’t quite make it there.  At best, it is a tamed-down version of that jump shot.

I can relate to drug addicts who are continually seeking the next fix.  I don’t do drugs – never have – but I do seek out that next fix.  I call it art sometimes.  And sometimes I call it performance.  It is a mix of the two.  I am in search of the perfect mix of performance, art, energy, and crowd.  I am on constant watch for it all coming together.  For all my cells to decide to do something special for a brief moment in time.  To push me to that promised land once again.

So what if the paint hasn’t dried on our last album?  I am in the business of making music that I love, and I have been writing up a storm over here.

Having the piano in the living room is a big help, as I have been able to play it every day for at least a bit.  Usually when I sit down there, I write a song or a part of a song or a riff or some vocal melody.  Something.

I love the piano.  As it happens, “Faraway Farm & The Bird” was five minutes from being a piano-based album.  I had a list of about 100 songs in mind as possible album tracks, and as I narrowed it down, the mold of the songs was inching towards piano.  “Run. Run! Run!!! RUN!!! RUNNNN!!!!!” was originally written on piano.  It was also called, “Little Franky” at the time, but that is a different story.

Anyway, because Ryan, John, and I were having such a ball playing as a indie guitar-rock trio, I thought I would push the guys to produce some magic in that arena.  They delivered, and I haven’t looked back since.

But I do miss playing the piano live.  My weekly gig at Sportsman’s Pub is many years in the past, as is my piano-rock duo, Arthur Dent.  This next project is looking more and more like it will be an album of emotionally-charged piano music.  I have a song about my brother, Noah, a couple of beautiful songs about Lisa, a couple of songs about my cats, and a bunch of other ideas.

I like to put together a list of 100 for pretty much every creative thing I do, and musical albums are no exception.  From the list of 100, we will narrow it down to 10 or so that will be recorded for the album.

Oh!  And I also have this beautiful dance thing with Nate happening.  But more on that later.

I have been getting back to my Minneapolis roots recently, playing piano and writing some sweet new tunes on the instrument.  Those who are keen to our local history will remember my first Twin Cities band, Arthur Dent, as well as my weekly solo performances with Dave Brusie at Sportsman’s Pub in SE Minneapolis (btw, Dave’s record, Flyover State, is grrrreat!  It’s too bad he moved to Boston.  Minneapolis is far superior.).

Anyway, I will continue writing songs and plan on scheduling a couple of fabulous piano performances locally at some point in the near future.  Hopefully I can get Arben A. to join me on the bass guitar.  He’s fly for a bass guy.

This is the most awesomely-random thing that has happened in my entire music career.  My favorite radio host, Dr. Demento, heard “Quittin’ My Job!” and played it on his radio broadcast on June 19!  Listen to an audio clip.

I grew up listening to Dr. Demento, so this is super awesome on the awesome scale!

As you probably know, the Faraway Farm & The Bird cd-release show back in April was a blast.  I thought it was about time we post some videos from the show.  Enjoy!