prestonedmands.com

is why this blog is so inactive. It’s been up for a while, just failed to link it from here.. go there if you want more, and who doesn’t?

http://www.prestonedmands.com

Avant Grande – Round 2

I just got the word yesterday, right before heading out to work, that I made it to the finals of the Avant Grande music competition.

What this means is that on Tuesday, June 19, I am to play a quick ten minute set in front of a live audience. There will be four other acts there to compete, also each playing a ten minute set. Out of the five of us, two will be selected. One of those two will be playing the Central Park Summer Stage, the other Celebrate! Brooklyn, and both will receive a one-year endorsement deal with Gibson.

I am so nervous and excited about this opportunity, I can’t even sleep tonight. I’m in the process of throwing together an impromptu band so that I can play my tunes without the use of a cheesy looper pedal. We’ll have about a day and a half to rehearse and get the ten minute set tight once my friend Jake gets down here (he is coming all the way from Maine to play drums for me- whutta guy!).

This could be my ticket to ride, and I’m on pins and needles, man. Pins and needles.

Where’s the conviction?

Can I be a realist and still have the vivid imagination I so cherish? If that imagination attacks me, subversively eating the foundation out from under me, is it honorable to turn from it and use a different lens?

I played a show (really, an open mic) tonight at a local cafe called Waltz, and hmm.. wasn’t my worst performance there, but if I were to map my satisfaction, graft it onto my feelings both during and after the set, I would clearly stamp it as a one.

Where’s my conviction? Every time I feel this way after a set, I make pacts with myself to brush up on my guitar-playing chops, my music theory knowledge, and work on my songs as if they were my own child’s mind. But the next day, I wake up at 2pm and find just enough time to wash a few dishes before heading off to work, whereupon after I get out I come home and surf the internet in some random manner. This is saying one thing and meaning another. Where’s my meaning?

This post contains no news, no updates, no worthwhile advance in my music at all. It will just simply serve as a reminder to myself.

Avant Grande?

I’m going to submit some tracks to a new Starbuck’s music competition.. I’m looking to throw their way my three strongest songs, as well as a resume as impressive as I can make. Hopefully something will come to fruition with this one, as my last attempt failed (for what reasons, only God knows).

If I make the top five spots, I play at the Astor Place store in the lower east side. If I make the top two out of that, I play either Central Park or Go! Brooklyn with a similar, more well-known artist.

Here’s to trying.

Restrictions may apply

So a little while ago, seeing as how I’ve had next to no formal training in either songwriting or playing guitar, I decided to do a little research myself at the bookstore. I was looking to build my chops in either realm by studying, in a very informal and overall slow way, the techniques involved. I was thinking I could digest a little of this information and stir it in with the natural techniques I already have (does this sound good? great, it is good. Is this a striking lyric to me? Awesome, let’s use it).

Rikky Rooksby wrote a neat little book called How To Write Songs on Guitar. The simplicity of the title caught my eye, especially as it pertained to both of the things I was looking for. Mostly, I was looking for a fresh, outside perspective on writing and playing, coupled with very formal schools of training.

I got both. Rooksby included a complete chord dictionary, scattered throughout the book in categorical chapters. He explained, in a crash-course kind of way, the theory behind song structure and chord sequences. He has chapters devoted to writing a good lyric (and the pitfalls to avoid), and melody, rhythm, etc.

But what I liked most of all was his ‘Other Strategies for Songwriting’ found tucked away at the tail end of the first introductory chapter. In this bullet list, was included the technique of arbitrarily choosing some limits to your songwriting. i.e. writing a song:

• that is only two minutes long (check)
• that starts with a chorus
• that has an odd number of bars in the verse or chorus
• that is a sad song with only major chords
• that increases in tempo

I like the idea of those restrictions. When you can’t find the muse in such a wide, overwhelming world, narrow your scope and force it to find you.

I’m looking to come up with a more extensive set for myself, and try using one of the techniques to write a song or so a week. It’s a challenge, but therein lay the fun.

New laws stifle second-hand music merchants

From the Scientific American sidebar:

” NEW YORK (Billboard) – Independent merchants selling and buying used CDs across the United States say they are alarmed by stepped-up pawn-broker-related laws recently enacted in Florida and Utah and pending in Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

In Florida, the new legislation requires all stores buying second-hand merchandise for resale to apply for a permit and file security in the form of a $10,000 bond with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. In addition, stores would be required to thumb-print customers selling used CDs, and acquire a copy of state-issued identity documents such as a driver’s license. Furthermore, stores could issue only store credit — not cash — in exchange for traded CDs, and would be required to hold discs for 30 days before reselling them.”

more->

Treated like criminals for wanting to exchange your old, well-loved and listened music for a newer, eclectic collection? Or maybe you came into a bunch of music you just don’t care for, and want to turn some junk into some treasure. There seems to be something wrong with that to me. I guess the problem they’re trying to address is the problem of illegal copying.

You see, you can easily buy a CD (used or new), take it home and burn it, and return it to the store as used- Sometimes even getting cash for it. It is currently against federal law to refund a person’s money if they return a newly purchased CD- they can only be exchanged for an copy of the exact same CD. This is to prevent the theft of music from vendors and distributors.

And that I understand, for those CDs come directly from an inventory. But when a person brings in used CDs, they are adding to a store’s inventory, creating something that wasn’t there before. Something that’s already been sold, accounted for, and made profit. If a store decides to take in a used CD (as they DO have discretion, remember), they do so because they think they can make a turn-around on it. Sell it for cheaper, yes, but also for a second time.

It simply looks to me like the government wants a piece of this action. It already has it’s hands buried deep in the profits made the first time around the CD is sold, so why not the second? I wouldn’t be surprised if the RIAA was behind this somehow.

These laws aren’t about illegal music distribution at all, they’re about taxing what was not before taxed. For good reason. It’s pawn.

I’m not sure I fully understand it all, but I do know it’s a bit ridiculous.

Dinosaurs will die

So one thing I’ve felt over the last half-decade or so is the imminent distinction of an industry formula that’s been prevalent since the late eighties. That feed-it-to-the-public, cookie cutter, MTV-driven narrow street known as the music business. Sold as a package, bands have been pieced together and pruned for popularity by major douchebag-backers since the introduction of ‘markets’ and ‘strategies’, a trend formed in the early eighties (probably coke-induced), that until now has worked. But people are starting to catch on. With the advent of the internet, there is an ability for the individual to find tastes they find works for them, instead of relying on a few bands in a few select genres to choose from. This is the Long Tail of things.

This has caused industry dinosaurs, who don’t know the first thing about what people actually want, to panic and just push the same formulaic drivel even harder.

Shira sent me a great link today: Nickelback’s formulaic suckiness.

That about sums it up. Quick, sort of incoherent, ranting post. I don’t even want to get into the Grammys right now.

[mp3] Native Sun

So I shuffled together a few demos yesterday on my day off. My girlfriend of two years, Shira, has always been a great supporter of my music and so I wanted her to have some new tracks to keep her company when she heads off to Europe. She will be there for a month and a half, and I will miss her desperately. I poured a little of that into these track recipes.

Below is the first of these demos, “Native Sun”. We rely on the sun, take it for granted, and guide our lives by its presence. Now Imagine its disappearance- no more warmth, no more bright light to see by, even the moon would fade into the new darkness. But the life that’s been given to us was only possible natively. One planet closer or further away we wouldn’t- in fact, don’t- exist. So what may work for one celestial body may not work for another. It is a native sun.

And of course, as one of those all-too-sensitive songwriters, I’ve built this as an analogy for heartbreak…

Tada, Enjoy.

The Budget v.1.0

About- well actually exactly- a month ago, I chiseled out a rough budget to go by for this trip:

I’m afraid to fill in the left columns, especially since I’m generally unable to, with my complete lack of accounting. This day I still believe this budget to be viable, but there’s one glaring thing wrong with it: it enables me to save about half of the money I’m planning on. At this rate, I’ll be ready to pack up a clunker in about four years, keeping minimal tabs on my expenditures. This will simply not do.

But take a look at some of the notes. It is clear to me, and soon to be clear to you, that I’m really looking to control my money, and not vice versa. For instance, we’ll take the variable expense of cigarettes (variable only because I’m not 100% faithful in my control, especially when drinking is involved.) Cutting down to a half pack a day takes substantial effort for me. It means constantly looking at the clock to pace myself, and having what up until this point was completely compulsory become a fully conscious effort. Meaning, always on my mind; Transmutating an addiction into a dose.

These last two paragraphs represent two forces that are going to fight each other for as long as I want to maintain control. The very nature that has given birth to the wanting of whim and the unknown that characterize a road trip will always fight against the rigidness of planning and security. But ultimately, one needs the other. There cannot be a whim without security to sustain it. There cannot be a a dam of restriction without freedom of release.

It’s much easier to write about this equilibrium than it is to see its fulfillment. But I will now have these words to look back on, and a snapshot of my attempted mediation to remind me: this is not effortless for me. This will take time, testing, adjustment, realization, mutation, self-control…

This is the budget v.1.0, and it is in its infancy.

Escape Velocity

To say that I’m going to begin planning for this trip is not exactly right, for I’ve been planning on taking it at some point for the last several years. Really what I need to begin doing is buckling down and setting some specific goals so that I can actually make what has up until now been a fantasy into a reality.

The plain truth about a road trip is that it’s meant to seek out, whether it’s a new destination or state of mind, something fulfilling and meaningful. This, to me, is the polar opposite to employment. Employment shackles you down, restricts your journey to only the few hours before your next shift. And if you’re like me, living paycheck to paycheck, the thought of reaching escape velocity seems pretty impossible. My heart is ready to venture out there, it has no problem with leaving the working week behind and exploring, but my mind thinks it unwise. I would have absolutely no way to support a whim like that, plausibly, without a sum of cash to float on.

And so the first thing that I need to focus on, since it most definitely needs the most attention and practice, is budgeting. Up until now my budget has consisted of saving enough money by the end of the month to pay rent and utilities. And even that didn’t happen until the second half of the month- I end up squandering my first two paychecks, then living like a monk to save the next two. In the end, I have no savings.

The largest expenses on the trip would be gasoline and transportation (truck or car). The rest are flexible- food, lodging, etc. The biggest thing holding me back from the road trip is having wheels to grind that road. And so as an initial projection, I am looking to save around $5,500 by the time I pack up and head out. Now that I have a monetary goal, in order to make it a successful one, I also have to box it in a time frame. I should leave in the spring, which means that if I confine it to a year, I would have to save almost $500 a month, which seems unrealistic. So at a locked-in rate, where I know at the current status of my life I can set aside the proper amount, I should be able to set off in two years.

Two years to reach escape velocity.

This is why I started this blog, to remind myself that it’s worth it. To track my progress so that my stagnant present doesn’t outweigh the future trip. Here we go.