Until I was forty years old, I traveled very little.   I'm an East Coast native, and still live in the Philadelphia area.     I have relative in Boston and we visited every year.    I went to college in Connecticut.    I spent two Summers in Maine and one in New Hampshire doing Summer Stock.   I had been to DC and to Pittsburgh once, and there was that trip to Disney World in Florida.

All East Coast, all within tight parameters (and mostly in the original thirteen colonies!).

So many years and so few destinations.   So for my 40th birthday I decided to take a solo trip through the American Southwest.  I was going to fly (and had done very little flying) to Dallas and visit a longtime friend, and then pick up a "driveaway" -- a service that moved cars for people and gave them the option of hiring non-professional drivers cheap.    Drivers like me would volunteer to move the car for free -- I picked up a trip driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee from Dallas to San Diego, first tank of gas was free and the rest was on me.   As long as I got it there in ten days, I could do what I wanted.

My younger son (who sings on the new CD) was only four at the time, and he loved the Microsoft Encarta CD-ROMs.    He loved the music section, where there was a page showing instrument icons on their home countries -- you could click on them and listen to their sound.    He asked me once if we could go to Russia so he could hear the balalaikas.

That conversation was in my head as I sat in the Dallas airport, waiting for my first real journey.   Anticipation, nervousness, fantasy.    The song "Balalaikas" is about that moment, poised on the edge of an adventure, eager for discovery, dreading the unknown.

My journey took me to through the empty Northwest of Texas; to Amarillo, where you could order the 64-ounce steak; to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest; to Albuquerque; to the Grand Canyon; through Arizona, passing Phoenix, cacti and penitentiaries; to Yuma where I got locked in my room for an hour when the electricity went out; over Route 8 where I could see the mountains of Mexico; and finally to San Diego to deliver the car, see the Zoo and see the Pacific for the first time.

When I hit the coast I immediately parked at an overlook, got out of the car to see the ocean, looked down and found a used condom at my feet.    Welcome to California.

"Balalaikas" is a song about going into the unknown, the essence of any journey, internal or external, ready to encounter "less hospitable terrain."   And there is the title of the album and the real heart of it. 

It has been a long time – far too long –since I last posted anything at all. Part of that was that there was nothing truly happening, and also as we moved through Covid, everything (even creative endeavors) shut down. 

I truly have *not* been very active, either writing or performing, not since the CD was produced. But Michael and I have never had a proper release party, and we have not performed all the songs in public yet. Michael lives about 10 hours away, so there haven't been many options. But we are finally doing a "CD Release" on June 21, at L'Etage at 6th and Bainbridge in Philadelphia. We will do all five songs on "Quiet Revels" and plenty of other songs we've each done with other composers. Special guest Debra Lee on the piano! Tickets at this link Here is a rehearsal video of Michael and I rehearsing "Yellow Mailbox" which I wrote with Jim Chapman many years ago:

Long lapse in blogging but small seeds, planted long ago, and close to sprouting. The wonderful Jen Foster is back, after taking a year or so off to recharge, and she is releasing all her Los Angeles recordings from the last few years. She ran a successful PledgeMusic campaign and the CDs will be out later this year. Including "Parentheses" with my lyrics. Also, Michael Ronstadt, the insanely gifted cello player and all-around musician, is putting the finishing touches on five "art songs" we wrote. We will release these songs as a digital EP (working title is "Quiet Revels") -- also in the coming months. And Rick Denzien might be releasing a CD with "Green Sky" on it. So watch this space and I'll have more to say when the songs are available to you!

I noticed as early as a year ago that my website programming was out of date. I did it all myself in PHP 5 and was pretty proud of myself for learning the coding and getting the SQL to work. But somewhere along the line HTML got improved and redone so it would work on Droids and iPhones, and zmulls.com was not keeping up with the times. You could see my website on your phone, but the songs wouldn't play.

Lethargy set in and I ignored it for a long time but I think I finally got it fixed. Not pretty, but I used the basic unfairly code for the HTML 5 MP3 player. If you go to the Songs page, the pop-up "Listen" icon should bring up the song, and if you go to the song's page, the player should work.

It should work on phones and iPads and other tablets. I hope.

The "Jukebox" button does *not* work…I have to figure out how to embed a playlist and get that working as well.

Sigh.

So, Reading PA is not the most up to date city in the US. It's a fairly depressed area, and Mike's Tavern sits in what could easily be a rowhome. If it weren't for the GPS in my phone, I'd be lost still. But Mike's Tavern, while a local dive bar, is very serious about their beer, their alcohol and their music. They have good single malt scotch and they have absinthe. They have four beers on tap that you haven't heard of, but which the bartendress will be happy to describe to you in terms of hoppiness and alcohol content. And they have open mic nights and good musicians in. At 7pm the after-work crowd is just finishing up. By 10pm the place is full of weekend couples out for drinks and companionship. Michael Ronstadt was slated to play from 8pm on, and invited me to join him, to premiere some of our songs. In his first set, we did "O Zebra" and "Little Jack Horner." "Little Jack Horner" was so good that the folks in charge asked it the song was on a CD. In the second set we did "Cassandra Blues" and "Falling Angels." I didn't realize we were going to do "Cassandra" and had to scribble the lyrics on a few pieces of paper and read them off, so the song didn't go off as well. "Falling Angels" is a frightfully difficult song and I botched the melody and Michael botched the timing and the whole thing fell flat. Sigh. We will have to review the song before our next outing. But I've seen great musicians get up at empty venues and give it their all -- Michael certainly does. So it was an educational and foundational experience. Looking forward to the next time. We'll nail "Falling Angels" yet. And we'll finish "Irish Queens" one of these days.

I’ve been meaning to post about Susan Werner’s new CD HAYSEED, because it’s her best album in a long time, full of her old puckish humor and cockeyed lens on human nature. I could go track by track, explaining what I like about each song, but since this is (ostensibly) a songwriting blog, I am going to go through one song that I think is a marvel of construction, “Snowmobiles.”

Starting from the title, this song works on misdirection, giving you an unlikely metaphor and sticking close to it. It’s a first person narrative (subtitled “The Worries of Patrick Lunquist” – three of the songs have these subtitles and they are the best songs on the CD).

Here’s the first verse:

The summer’s hot and the winter’s cold
That’s when the snowmobiles get sold
That’s what we got up here
Snowmobiles and deer
That’s how it is when you live up North
Winter lasts till July fourth
So we snowmobile till April, maybe longer
And my wife she says the cold it makes us stronger
And we’re strong up here
Strong as six-point beer
Comes to the weather
The weather is what it is

She works entirely in couplets in this song, but sets them apart with musical pauses and mini-interludes, and she varies the meter on each couplet. This allows for variation and gives the impression of thought and careful consideration of each couplet. Using the couplets allows the funny lines to land – line 1 sets up the thought, and the second line can click in with either a rueful or an amusing one. The “snowmobiles and deer” line and the “six point beer” line make you chuckle because of the way they are phrased.

She then starts using repetition between verses -- each verse talks about the weather. The summer is always “hot” but in verse 2 the winter is “cool” not “cold” and in verse 3 it is “warm.” Each verse mentions a particular time of the year – verse 1 is “July 4th,” verse 2 has “Columbus Day” (when the pool finally closes) and verse 3 has “New Year’s Eve” when it rains for the first time rather than snows. Patrick’s wife chimes in several times during the song “My wife says….”. Verse 2 also ends with the resigned line, that the weather “is what it is.”

But verse 3 ends with the sad memory that the weather “was what it was.” And isn’t any longer. Because – obviously – this is a song about global warming, without a single strident line in it. It’s just about how the changing weather happens slowly and creeps up on people, and how it alters lives that have long lived a certain way.

Patrick “lives for” his “Arctic Cat.” It’s part of his life. A life that is melting away.

The bridge (and anyone who knows me knows that I live and die for the bridge of a song) nails the theme, takes it from the storytelling to the central idea:

Or so I thought until a couple years ago
Now anymore we got a lot more rain than snow
I mean it really rains a lot
And then whatever snow we got
It melts away
In just a day
So strange
My wife she says that nothing’s changed

I really love those tiny little lines in the middle – “It melts away/In just a day/So strange” and then Patrick’s wife is the voice of reason, or so she thinks. I love the vernacular phrases "Now anymore" and "whatever snow we got" (And the bridge is usually where Werner pull in the most unusual chords that hit you in private places.)

It’s a song that comes on you slowly, through the chuckles and small observations, the worry and sadness and loss hit you by the end, when there is almost no snow, and everyone stays inside “drinking too much beer and watching too much cable.” And

Missing how it feels
To ride snowmobiles
When the weather
Well it was what it was.

There are many excellent songs in this collection, but this one immediately goes on my pile of favorites. The construction is elaborate and elegantly executed, the tone is pitch perfect and internally consistent, and it achieves a lightness that belies the hours of work that must have gone into it.

HAYSEED is highly recommended and is every bit as good as TIME BETWEEN TRAINS and NEW NON-FICTION.

You can watch her sing "Snowmobiles" at this artist showcase site: http://evanstonspace.com/artists/Susan_Werner

So, there was some sort of weird karmic cloud in Philadelphia last night. I got a freakishly good parking space (all the way east on Chestnut, right on Front), and simultaneously got a cancellation text from an old friend who was supposed to join me. Then, while I was at the bar at the Tin Angel, up walks my friend and co-writer AlyCat (@thealycat on Twitter), local bass player and general musical badass – haven’t talked to her in a couple of years as I’ve been in hibernation.

Between seeing Aly, her amiable and fashion-conscious social worker friend, and meeting an animated and engaging independent film producer at the bar, who was there with a friend who runs a charitable series of concerts in Venice, CA (Grassroots Acoustica) -- it was an unexpectedly social evening.

Plus the music was great.

Maia Sharp is just one of the best songwriters around. The lyrics often layer two meanings in one line, or juxtapose two thoughts in one phrase; every song has at least one turn of phrase that makes me thrilled and jealous. She has a gift for melody and her voice is wonderful. Plus she can play the bejesus out of her instruments. (She even pulled out a clarinet last night).

It helped that she was backed up by Linda Taylor (from Who’s Line is That Anyway) on bass, acoustic and everything else. They didn’t need anyone else on stage with them. We stood in the back and whooped and hollered. (The most popular song of the night was probably “Whole Flat World” from her last album, “Echo.”)

But even before Maia stepped on, we were treated to Dante Bucci, a Philadelphia fixture. I hadn’t seen him before. He’s a friend of Aly’s. He plays the “handpan” or “hang drum.” I have never seen this instrument before, but it is capable of an amazing range of sounds. Everyone just stopped what they were doing and tried to figure out if he was hitting anything with his feet.

Look for yourself. Guy has some serious game with this thing:

Has it really, really been a full year since I last posted?

Why yes, it has. My, how time crawls.

It’s been a low-key year, a museless time. More real-life things had to take a front seat for a while and my urge to write went into hiding. I hit sort of a wall with why it is I wanted to write, or what I wanted to write about, let alone who.

But I think it’s time to start pulling out notebooks again, listening to new music, working with partners and generally getting into mischief.

I’m still working on the songs with Michael Ronstadt and we’ve recorded some demos which still need to be mixed. I’m hoping to work with a guitar player so I can hit some open mics.

And so it goes. I will try to report back from the Maia Sharp gig on Wednesday night.

Welcome back. To me.

Well, here we go. Saturday night, I’ll be premiering two new songs at Thrive Station’s home concert series. This week Michael Ronstadt will be showcased, presenting his solo work and some collaborations. We’ll be singing (for the first time in public) “Little Jack Horner” and “Falling Angels.” (Both lyrics have been tweaked a bit since they were posted here, I’ll have to put the final versions up soon).

I remember getting on a stage when I was around 10 years old, so that’s when I think I started acting. So I’ve been a performer for a long time, but always in a theatrical context. I have sung in Summer Stock (one year in my youth I played Jesus in GODSPELL and Littlechap in STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF), and done cabarets, but it’s always been about the story and the performance and the energy and the narrative, and I’ve gotten by with hitting most of the notes.

This is the first time I’ll be getting up in a venue as a songwriter and musician and singer, with the performance experience playing the supporting role. As Michael and I have been developing our song project, I’ve wound up as lead vox.

The concert series is held at the home and studio of Rick Denzien and Debra Lee, with whom I’ve written a few songs. I met Michael at another concert, watching him improvise on the cello.

“Little Jack Horner” is a lyric I’ve had for years – it’s a “she done left me” song incorporating as many nursery rhyme phrases as I could fit. “Falling Angels” was inspired by the notion that your guardian angel was probably sick of looking after you and wanted to go out and party, and maybe not come back; it would explain a lot about the state of the world. Michael’s music for “Falling Angels” is particularly wonderful.

Anyone who wants attend from afar, there’s a Pay-per-view option.

A few years ago, a Scandanavian composer approached me, after reviewing my website, to write English lyrics for a project. He gave me a couple of tracks to work on. The music was catchy but the rhythms were unusual.

I wrote lyrics, but for one reason or another they were too dark (or weren't dark enough) or too strange (or not strange enough) so I wrote new lyrics. Another consultation with his partner and he wanted something different, so I wrote new lyrics again. I wrote, I think, four versions of one track, three versions of another and a few other stray lyrics. Eventually, he and his partner (for reasons unrelated to the lyrics, gave up and couldn't get their project together, and the whole thing fizzled.

Which left me with a handful of lyrics, all in the same exact structure, with no home. C'est la vie. (This happened with a different composer on a lyric called "Falling Angels," which I wrote to match a track -- that lyric was picked up last year by a new composer and has been totally reset. So there's hope).

Goodnight Kiss Music, headed by the fabulous and supportive Janet Fisher, was having their annual song competition, and they had a little prize for lyrics as well, so I entered a few of mine, and "Broken Glass," one of the many rewrites I did for the Scandanavian composer, came in second. It's not on my website proper, and some folks wanted to read it, so here it is. Remember it was written to a specific piece of music and would have to be tweaked (at least) to fit a different one.



BROKEN GLASS
Lyric copyright 2009 Z. Mulls

The looking glass
Stared back and fell to the floor
And you were
Reflected in
Each shard, madonna and whore

Colors always the same
Amber and green and clear
If you remember my name
I'm your volunteer

I will come a-running

And I'm gonna crawl to you
Over BROKEN GLASS
Gonna dig a tunnel through
All this BROKEN GLASS
You're a prisoner of jagged pieces of truth
Hypnotized by your perception of what's absolute
I'll be with you after clearing a path
Through the BROKEN GLASS

Your murky eyes
Are mining your memories
Every night
You're pirouetting
On your silent trapeze

And when the lantern explodes
Shattering more than light
I'll be writing you odes
We can both recite

I can't keep my distance

And I'm gonna crawl to you
Over BROKEN GLASS
Gonna dig a tunnel through
All this BROKEN GLASS
You're a prisoner of jagged pieces of truth
Hypnotized by your perception of what's absolute
I'll be with you after clearing a path
Through the BROKEN GLASS


The blood won't stop flowing
The heart won't stop knowing
The blood won't stop flowing
The heart won't stop knowing


And I'm gonna crawl to you
Over BROKEN GLASS
Gonna dig a tunnel through
All this BROKEN GLASS
You're a prisoner of jagged pieces of truth
Hypnotized by your perception of what's absolute
I'll be with you after clearing a path
Through the BROKEN GLASS

I pretty much have to write this post backwards, because while there’s a long and winding backstory, there’s a more exciting ending. “Parentheses,” a song I cowrote with Jen Foster, was featured in an instrumental on the online series “Venice,” and is now available on Jen’s website for download. And frankly, I could stop typing right there and that would be blogworthy.

“Venice” is a spinoff-that-isn’t-a-spinoff from the cancelled soap THE GUIDING LIGHT. But even if you’re not a soap fan, the circuitous new-media route “Venice” has taken is an object lesson on how the television business is changing before our eyes.

THE GUIDING LIGHT featured a budding romance between two female characters, Olivia (played by Chrystal Chapell) and Natalia (played by Jessica Leccia). Neither character was identified as gay (as a matter of fact, they were in love with the same man). But the producers decided to bring them together, on a very long arc, so that their relationship grew naturally, over time. They never quite got to being a couple on GL, as it was cancelled two years ago.

However, Olivia and Natalia had a huge fan base (google “Otalia” and you’ll see what I mean). There were a lot of women, gay and otherwise, who watched in amazement as a mainstream soap showed a realistic incipient romance between two women, that wasn’t portrayed as sensationalistic or unhealthy. Fans wanted to know that “Otalia” finally got together.

So actress Crystal Chapell and writer Kim Turissi decided to “put on a show.” They created a web-only series taking place in Venice Beach, CA, with the two actresses from GUIDING LIGHT playing two totally new characters (Gina, an artist, and Ani, a photographer). In this series, both characters are gay, and have a history, but as the series starts they are breaking apart.

“Venice” was done on a shoestring, with actors and technicians donating their services for a while, just to get it done, with the hopes it would become a viable entertainment in time, finding its way to cable or even network. The first season had short (ten minute or so) episodes, filmed in peoples’ homes.

Season 3 is now started; the production values are way up and the storylines are coming into focus, Music plays a big part in “Venice” and the fans follow every artist whose music is featured, including my friend Coles Whalen. The show is supported in part by selling subscriptions to the series – you need to pay for access, but it’s only $10 for the whole season.

But the main musical voice belongs to Jen Foster, whose song “Venice Beach” was chosen to be the theme song. Jen’s music appears often on “Venice” and when she performs, the fans come out to hear her. (Jen deserves – and will eventually get – a blog post of her own. )

So in Episode 2, which was posted tonight, Gina and Ani have a big scene on the beach, where Gina discovers that Ani’s current lover may have hit her. The music underscoring the entire scene is the arrangement for“Parentheses” featuring my lyric and Jen’s music (with some collaborative overlap). The music fit the scene like a glove, and the lyric (which wasn’t used on screen) could be their theme song.

It’s wonderful to watch the song finally see the light of day. Available now at jenfoster.com!

A few years back, when I was looking around on the International Songwriting Competition site, listening to past winners, I saw an irresistible title. The winner in 2006 for Americana was “Girls With Apartments In Nashville” by Joy Lynn White and Duane Jarvis. It’s a http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifsimplhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife little lyric about the flood of young, pretty things who flock to Nashville, ready to take the town by storm with their voice, their fretwork and their songs. Film actors to LA, stage actors to NYC, country singers to Nashville.

And when someone tells you they’re making that move, gonna make it in the big city, you want to wish them well, you hope the best for them, and at the same time you wince inwardly, knowing the odds, and how ruthless a dream can be in cutting down sensible advice.

But I think Liz Longley has a better shot than most. I had heard about Liz for a while, as she’s originally from Philly, and her name comes up from time to time (“oh, she’s great!”) but I hadn’t made it out to one of her gigs. Last night, my friends Seth Glier and Ryan Hommel were back at the Tin Angel, and they were opening for Liz. Liz and Seth went to music school together, are good friends, and are currently touring to raise awareness of food banks – on the “Food For Thought” tour, they are collecting non-perishable foods for delivery within the community. (I made sure I brought a nice full bag, which of course broke while carrying it out to the van).

But as I say, she a lot working in her favor. Her songwriting is quite good – humorous at times, creative, a knack for phrasing, and with the crucial knowledge of when a song happens…what events, sent through the prism of what notions, crystallize into a few verses and chorus that say a little and resonate.

And she’s young, which is a two-edged sword. Young people flock to Nashville, and most will be chewed up by the system because of their lack of life experience. But you have to be young, and stay young, to attract any attention from those who shine the spotlights so many want to feel on their faces.

More to the point, she has a fan base already, built up with care from Philly out to the rest of the country. People in Nashville don’t want to figure out what they can do for you – they want to know what you can do for them. You can’t build a fan base in Nashville, just about everyone there is a fellow songwriter. But it’s a smart place to be – for collaboration, networking, studio sessions – if you have http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifa musical life outside. Relationships with songwriters and venues all over the map – something to offer, something that means something.

And her boyfriend, Gus Berry, who plays guitar and sings backup with her, is mainly into production and engineering, which is where actual money is being made these days. So they won’t starve. And knowing your way around a studio is crucial for the do-it-yourself-ness of today’s market.

So, with a solid fanbase, a studio guru, a few CDs in the can, a catalog of songs, a record of co-writing, plus youth and good looks and a sweet voice – there’s not much more you can pack in your trunk before heading to Music City USA. I was glad to meet Liz last night, and wish her and Gus well in Nashville, I hope the best for them, and I didn’t even wince inwardly when I said that.

It was the best of venues. It was the worst of venues. At least on two different nights.

I went out to back-to-back gigs, both times to see friends perform, and the two experiences couldn’t have been more different.

Friday’s gig was certainly not the performers’ fault. Michael G. Ronstadt was excellent as always, backing up singer Casey Reid Alvarez, and then doing a set with one of his regular partners David Trotta. Also performing was Dani Mari, a singer/songwriter who apparently runs an Open Mic at Triumph Brewing Company in Old City.

The venue was Connie’s Ric Rac, a deliciously raffish bar/space in the Italian Market. Walls covered with the work of local artists (most of it erotic or just obscene), rickety tables and comfy sofas, family bartenders and a makeshift stage with decent acoustics. Just a spit from 9th and Passyunk, where Pat’s and Geno’s have their cheesesteak standoff.

But Friday night was the final night of the playoffs, with the Phillies trying to make it to the next stage. Ever been in South Philly when there was a crucial playoff game in the balance? Madness.

There was almost no audience to speak of. And the game was being projected on a side awall with the sound off (while the musicians were playing). So the musicians were literally playing second fiddle. I thought about being indignant on their behalf but a) what kind of a bar in South Philly doesn’t show a playoff game, and b) if the game weren’t on there would have been no audience at all. So be it.

The musicians had the opportunity to experiment and riff a bit. I was there for the music, but admit to keeping an occasional eye on the score. Ronstadt and Trotta finished a song at almost the same second the Phils lost, and there was a real hesitation to the applause – nobody wanted to sound like they were applauding the tragic end of the season.

The next night was Burlap and Bean to see Seth Glier and Ryan Hommel and that was as smooth as a gig as it could have been. B&B has turned into a serious venue, especially on Saturday nights. They’ve added a permanent stage and mounted speakers, and it’s a real ‘listening room’ (no ball games, no conversation, just hearing the music). Seth and Ryan were in magnificent form and played for more than an hour, covering Seth’s past, present and future work.

The opener was a soulful Aussie gal named Mia Dyson – she has a huge throaty Americana voice (like Lucinda Williams) and is obviously moving forward with what promises to be a nice career. Keep an eye out for her on her East Coast tour.

B & B is a great venue to hear singer/songwriters when they come through town. I’d go back to Connie’s Ric Rac too – Michael tells me that on most nights it’s a much better venue. As long as you avoid playoff nights.a

Taking some songwriting lessons this morning. Which is to say I’m listening to the new Paul Simon album (“So Beautiful or So What”). And yes, Simon’s writing is idiosyncratic, for sure, but so is Mozart’s and so is Sondheim’s. Paul Simon has forgotten more about songwriting than I’ll ever know.

The lesson I’m leaning – that I’m re-learning – is how to not tell the story. Most of us overexplicate. We explain, we add so many words, we narrate – we are afraid of leaving gaps in the listener’s mental image, and we are afraid of leaving out connector words (definite articles, prepositions, etc.).

In one song about the afterlife (lots of songs about the end of days and the kingdom to come, Simon just turned 70), he sees a beautiful girl and tries to pick her up. The lines are short with internal rhymes, and without (literally) missing a beat, he says “Maybe you/ Maybe me/Maybe baby makes three” and there you have it. Says it all, cleverly, compactly, without spending several sentences about him trying to pick her up. Economy of language and thought.

In another song, he is listening to the radio, and he comments on how the pop station doesn’t sound like the music of his youth, he comments on the talk radio station, and stops at the gospel. Is that a perfect metaphor for life or what? Pop radio = youth, talk radio = middle-age, gospel = end of days. And that’s not even what the song is about, it’s just woven into the narrative.

He makes it seem effortless, but of course it’s not. He has said in interviews that he thought of the line “So Beautiful or so what” years ago and held onto it. It’s only now that he found a way to use it, or knew that he knew how to write it. It was too good a line to waste, and too good to use prematurely.

It’s the song “Rewrite” that grabs me most on the first few listens, in terms of songwriting economy. It’s about a Vietnam vet, old and broken down, working at a car wash. He’s either literally working on a screenplay at night, or he’s mentally working on a screenplay of his life (or it’s a metaphor) – rewriting it for a happy ending. Chorus is a simple eight lines:

I been working on my rewrite
Gonna change the ending
Gonna throw away my title
And toss it in the trash
Every minute after midnight
All the time I’m spending
It’s just for working on my rewrite
Gonna turn it into cash

Lovely rhymes across the verses (ending/spending, rewrite/midnight), spoken in vernacular, sketched in image of late nights and futile hope.

And there are only two eight-line verses, with very short lines, sketching in the story, but sketching in the barest details we need to know. In the first verse, he says he’s working at the car wash and:

Everybody says the old guy
Working at the car wash
Hasn’t got a brain cell
Left since Vietnam

That gives you a lot to think about. And it’s one long sentence spread over four musical phrases (that’s half the verse right there). “Everybody” – customers, coworkers – thinks he’s a dimwit. You can picture whomever you want but you get the picture.


And the second verse starts with:

I’ll eliminate the pages
Where the father has a breakdown
And he has to leave the family
But he really meant no harm

And there’s your story. The second half of the verse says that he’s going to put in a happier ending but you almost don’t need to know that. In another extended line he has told you how he ended up at the car wash, and why he’s “rewriting.” The short bridge is just a short internal prayer for help, and like most good bridges, gives the song a little pause so you can live in it another moment or two.

What sort of breakdown? Drugs? Alcohol? PTSD? Other mental illness? Do we care? Does it matter? It doesn’t matter – it’s a detail that needed to be removed.

You need to strip your story down, scrub it clean, take out every word and idea that doesn’t add. You *can* do a more complicated song, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but you need to choose to write that way. And you can’t choose to do that unless you have the discipline to strip it down to the bone before building it up again.

When you rewrite.

Every new collaboration forces me to flex different muscles. This is good, because I discover (and develop) new muscles, but it’s maddening because I hate getting out of my comfort zones. But who doesn’t.

I prefer writing a lyric and finding someone with the right feel to work on it with me. As the song is developed, I can hear where lines could be shorter/longer, where words aren’t singing correctly, and I still do many rewrites. I take another look at the lyric to better meld with the musical statement being made.

I’ve been given music with a strong melodic line, and asked to write lyrics. This takes me a while, as I have to listen and listen and listen again, waiting for a story to take shape, a title, a musical journey, that goes with the music. It’s better if there’s already a title, but usually there isn’t. I do arguably better work in this context, as I’m writing to someone else’s sensibilities, instead of asking someone to write to mine.

But recently I had the experience of a whole new level of composition, working with cellist Michael G. Ronstadt. Michael is a prodigy on the instrument, and can make it sound like a bass, a guitar, a violin or even percussion; and plays in rock, folk and jazz styles. We are working on three pieces right now and one of them has had me tearing my hair out for many weeks.

Two were “fairly” straightforward. We are working on “Little Jack Horner” and that one came pretty easily – I had a basic melody in mind, and Michael began to envision chords, patterns, movement and we worked through the song in about an hour. We are also working on “Falling Angels” and Michael came up with very unusual music, to the point where I was doing major rewriting to match his work; we are close to finished that one, and it’s pretty special.

But the third piece was based on Michael’s almost-classical cello instrumental “Hasten Your Row” (on his most recent CD). He told me of a dream he had of a group of rowers fleeing some unnamed danger. He had no idea what sort of lyrical setting it should take, and gave me free rein.

Free rein was maddening. The cello work was exceptional, moving and compelling, and any musical line needed to not obscure it. I thought about his dream, and the music subconsciously reminded me of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd; I imagined a bosun (singing a slow bass line) and a crew (chorus of tenors) and maybe some languid sopranos as the voices of the deep. But this meant not just lyricwriting, but composition.

I used GarageBand and sang over the cello, creating a bass line, melody with some snatches of lyric and constructed a lyric to it. Eventually I was able to sing, and transcribe the bosun part. But then I had to do a high line, faster snatches of music, in counterpoint to the bass, with some harmony, some atonality…..well, folks, I am pretty good at writing words, but writing music is sloooooooooooooow for me.

What finally worked was to write lyrics without worrying about the music. To construct, measure by measure, what words would be sung, creating rhymes and images. Then I was able to try to sing the words, in concert with my recorded bass. I was able to see where I had too many words to fit (and still work), where I wanted to hold notes, where I needed a few more syllables….etc. All the while transcribing the music into Finale. Thank goodness I know basic music notation.

There’s still a lot to do, but Michael and I went over the piece, as it is so far, in detail, and I think it’s going to be something very special when it’s done. What fun it would be to have some high school or chorale group perform it……even a professional one, dare I hope?

Just came across this LIFE Magazine (online) photo from a Grammy reception in 2008. I'm in between Rick Denzien and Aly Cat, both local Philly artists.

It's a licensed image, so I can't display it here, you'll have to click through. But it's a darn good picture.

Watching an artist’s trajectory can be thrilling. While with some artists, the question is how will their talent develop, with others the question is what will they do with all that freaking talent.

Seth Glier has innate songwriting instincts that put some experienced songwriters to shame. He understands structure and how to develop ideas from component to component. He has an agility, and facilty, with rhyme, and doesn’t overuse it; knowing when to surprise the ear with internal rhymes, and knowing when to smooth the edges with near rhymes. He finds and weaves images that catch the ear and engage the inner eye.

Besides the writing ability, he is an accomplished composer and pianist, and has a gorgeous tenor voice complete with a daring falsetto. See him in performance sometime. He is the real deal, the complete package, the cat’s meow *and* pajamas.

So after traveling the country back and forth, doing his early experimentation on self-produced CDs, developing a fan base and settling into a performance style, finally getting a real label-produced CD out into the world......what does he do next?

He does The Next Right Thing.

There is a lot of say about Seth’s second MPress-produced album and not all of it can fit in this blog post. You hear him reaching for new points of view, yearning for the life experience to give him more to write about; trying different metaphorical languages, willing to let himself fail, and far more often succeeding.

The first striking thing about the CD is how stylistically different the opening title track is from the rest of the album. ‘The Next Right Thing” (which often opens his show) is a high vocal over a Native American drumbeat, an a capella two-verse rumination on religion. The first verse describes a huge multi-cultural religious gathering, lamenting and praying and condemning; the second verse describes a woman dying on her bed, praying for a favorable judgement. With the chorus “People need a miracle/To do the Next Right Thing.”

The rest of the album has ballads of all sorts (even uptempo ones like “Lauralee”) and after the first track you think you may have wandered into the wrong playlist; but listening, and sinking deeper into each song, you begin to realize Seth has written an album about faith. And hope. And wondering what, if anything, to believe in.

Not only in explicitly religious songs like “Down With The Ship” with the iconography and discussion of belief systems, or “I Don’t Need You” in which the singer needs hope and faith and something to believe. But in “Book of Matches” where a family’s house burns down and the singer (and the family) think more of the love and future they still have. And in “What The Others Have Done,” in which a woman considers the latest in a string of men, hoping this one will finally be the one. Or in the two back-to-back songs about driving long distances to see a girl (“Walk Katy Home” and “Lauralee”), in which a journey is taken with the hope of love and redemption at the end. Belief and faith and hope come up again and again in these songs.

What’s most exciting is to hear Seth deliberating changing the narrative voice. It’s very easy to fall into writing “I/You” songs -- where the singer “I” is discussing his relationship with the girl (“You”), and certainly those songs are in here -- good ones, too. But there are songs about other characters (“Down With The Ship, “What The Others Have Done”, “Book of Matches”), even female characters, as well as a straight narration song like “The Next Right Thing.” Even “I Don’t Need You,” though it clearly is an “I/You” song, is more about what the singer *does* need, other than someone to love.

This is a lovely album and worth several, or numerous, or myriad listens. And as always, Seth’d beautiful voice, piano and writing, and supported and shaped by Ryan Hommel’s (producer/sideman/BFF) guitar and production.

If I knew where they came from I’d be able to find them more often. I wrote a lyric a couple of years ago that included the line “The river isn’t always gonna flow.” Because it isn’t. You’re lucky to find it in full roar, and you have to wander great distances sometimes between one roaring stream and another.

I quick glance at the last year of my blog shows….well……a lot of wandering between bodies of water. Longeurs. Gaps. Lacunae. Sporadic posting with a lot of hemming and embarrassed hawing.

Some disappointments and a lot of re-evaluation. That sums up 2010, I think.

What’s interesting is that, before I did a lot of lyricwriting, I got my creative juices flowing in the theatre, onstage and off. And I gave that up for a few years so I could concentrate on the writing more. So when my well seemed to be running dry, I shuffled back, and for the last few months I’ve been back to stage work, getting back in front of an audience.

It’s therapeutic, in many ways, and it’s definitely a confidence builder. Haven’t been able to write a lick, as my headspace has been filled up with line-learing and character-creating, but it’s all part of life’s rich pageant, as the lady said.

So, 2011, what’s in store? I’ve begun some collaboration experiments with jazz/rock/folk cellist Michael G. Ronstadt, I have irons in the fire with my friends The Lyra Project, and I will have a song cut on Jen Foster’s upcoming 2011 CD (date TBA).

Not a bad start to the year. I’m off now to get on a stage under the bright lights, and in a couple weeks will go back to dark corners with my notepad and journal.

I’ll keep you posted.

I'm in Nashville, landed at BNA around 2:00 local time. Got myself situated and went out for a drive and food.

Going out later to hear some music at some writers' locations -- not the downtown strip. I'm a little hampered by not having had any coffee today, but I can't just sit here and stare at the walls, that would be counterproductive.

Nothing on the schedule tomorrow, so I will force myself to write something. In the evening I'll be seeing Coles Whalen at The Listening Room.

More as it occurs.....

Who knows why I haven't posted since June? OK, I probably know, but it's not terribly interesting, when you come right down to it. Music has taken a vacation this summer, along with me. Here we are at Fall, and me about to go to my high school reunion. I could tell you which reunion it was, but as Number Two said so often, "that would be telling."

Here's a song I wrote with two (2) composers, Josh Dodes and Adam Blau. Josh is an NYC denizen, had a band, did all the Lower East Side venues, and now does more straight composition. Adam is LA-based, and does film work. I've met Josh, and when I called him to work on a song to pitch, he brought in Adam. The song is "Constant" and it's a swell song -- the guys did a kick-ass job on the music and the recording.

I went up to NYC to see Rachael Sage perform, and she was sharing the bill with her friend and partner Seth Glier, whom I met that night. Seth and I struck up a conversation, as we all wandered the Lower East Side, and several of Rachael's friends went to get crepes.

The creperie across the street from The Living Room is tiny, and is staffed by a couple of women in very tight t-shirts. The air in the creperie was heady with all sorts of desire. Hell, it was a Saturday night, and the whole neighborhood was alive with young people, wearing little clothing, exuding hormones. Electric.

Seth was writing a note to someone, I assumed a girlfriend, but I couldn't be sure, and he wanted a metaphor for being constant. He was musing, looking for input...."...constant as......constant as....." I didn't have an answer right there but I kept thinking about it.

The crepe girl. The lust-filled Lower East Side populace. The girl at a distance that one needed to be constant for.

That's the background to the song. Hope you like it.

Here's another of the new songs that were written for a pitch. It's an energetic defense of laziness. An ambitious ode to lack of ambition. It's called "I'd Rather Sleep."

I've had this lyric kicking around for a while. I forget why I wrote it in the first place, but I had fun with it. Early in my collaboration career, one of my other (now) regular collaborators tried it and we didn't see eye to eye. Finally, he confessed that he thought the guy singing the song was sort of a jerk. Which I can't disagree with.

Jordan, who wrote a couple other songs with me that I just love hearing over and over, has a great pop voice and sound, and he came up with a really fun setting to the song.

I had a crisis of confidence about this song, when I revisited it being set to music. I rhymed Mona Lisa with Tower of Pisa. All very well and good, but it hit me that Cole Porter had done the same in "You're The Top."

I thought about changing it, or taking out those lines. But then I thought, hey, is he the only guy who's allowed to rhyme those two things if they work? And Cole Porter wrote that song in the 1930s. Seventy-Five years later, I think I may get a pass on using them again.

I hope.

A year and a half ago, I had the opportunity to pitch some work at a high level -- at the highest level. I had some lyrics, matched with some music, that cleared early hurdles to be considered for a big project. But, as happens too often, the project changed, the players changed, and the work never got to the artist in question.

Recently I had a similar chance to pitch to a debut CD for a well-known performer. I gathered a few of my favorite partners who I thought could hit the mark, and we came up with several songs. Unfortunately, this time the work just wasn't what they were looking for. I thought I had read the pitch correctly, but I think there was a difference between what they said they wanted, and what it turned out they actually did want.

Anyway, I've got five new songs to post and here is the first of them. "Jessica Nye" is a jazzy and jaunty pop ode to a woman (fictional) who has decided to stop living the life she was living, and is breathing in a brand new day. It has strains of "Georgy Girl" and the "Mary Tyler More Theme" in it.

Music by Carlo Pocklington.

It's all good, Jessica Nye.

Hey, where have I been? Nowhere, mon frere. Just hibernating, trying to get the juices flowing.

Well, Spring is here and there are green shoots. Songs to pitch and collaborators to pitch them with.

For now, a very busy week here in Philadelphia, with four out-of-town friends descending to perform.

On Sunday, April 18, Jen Foster is back at the Tin Angel at 8pm.

(In the afternoon, you could catch Manchester (UK) folk singer Zoe Mulford at the Swarthmore Fun Fare in Swarthmore, PA, at 3:40pm.)

On Wednesday April 21, you could see Seth Glier perform with Maia Sharp at 8:30pm. That is, is you weren't over at World Cafe Live seeing ambeR Rubarth open for Jason Reeves. I have no idea what I'm doing that night.

On Saturday, April 24, you could head up to Phoenixville to see Zoe Mulford at Steel City Coffeehouse.

Plenty going on in Philly......see you there?

Let it be known that Aly Cat is headed in the studio. For reals, for true and finally.

Aly has been hitting the Philadelphia circuit hard for years, with an always-good but frequently changing band. And she has been carrying around a demo CD of three songs (with two additional radio mixes). Always meaning to get to writing those new songs, and take her music to the next level. Well, it’s time.

If you’ve caught Aly – at Tritone, at Burlap and Bean, at Blinkin Lincoln, at street festivals everywhere, and of course frequently at Fergie’s – you know how much talent she brings to the table. The fierce bass-playing, the irresistible hooks, and the bold voice. Her band includes two new guitar players (including the extremely talented Christie Lenee) and Blondie who plays the trumpet, the bongos and whatever else needs playing. Chrisie and Aly have been performing with the Angel Band lately.

I was happy to be at the kickoff party at Aly’s house, to toast and celebrate (where Victoria Spaeth gave quite a dissertation on the architecture of Manyunk). Hopefully 2010 will be the year you get to hear the new sound.