Introducing ... WRITERS' BLOC

+ LA Song of the Earth listening parties this Fri/Sat & 3rd Brooklyn show added!

hi friends,

today, in addition to some news & updates on Song of the Earth (out april 4th!) and some DPz expanded universe shareables, i’m introducing WRITERS’ BLOC — a new segment i think i’ll do on here from time to time.

first, though, i just wanted to say thank you for being plugged into this newsletter. substack is new thing for me, and i’m really enjoying it (btw double-plus thank you if you’ve become a paying subscriber).

WRITERS’ BLOC will explore explore issues of creative process, particularly as relates to song-making: melody. harmony. production. language. i’m interested in building this as a dialogue with you! so please, i invite you — i exhort you — leave a message or comment about what you want me to talk about!

it can be a specific song that i’ve made, or a burning question you might have about aesthetic experience in general — nothing too big or small; it’s all fair game! and just maybe we can help a few blocked writers out there form a collective writers’ bloc (sorry, i had to?)

before we dive in, some updates —

NYC & LA LISTENING EVENTS

our first two brooklyn Song of the Earth listening events sold out in one day !!! wow, that was surprising and cool.

to meet demand, we’ve added a third event at public records in brooklyn on the afternoon of saturday, 3/22. again, capacity is 150 and tickets are priced to move! i want to create an IRL space for us to listen to this album together. and i will play a half-hour solo set after the album too.

meanwhile, the listening events in LA are THIS FRIDAY & SATURDAY, february 21 & 22 (that’s like, today!) saturday is just about sold out but, as of this writing, there are thirty tickets left for friday.

Delicate Steve and i are still riding a wave that started at the Sid The Cat benefit for the Eaton Fires two weekends ago. here’s us playing gimmie gimmie from rise above:

(Sid the Cat told us they raised $92,000 that night!)

i’m excited to share that steve’s going to join me for the acoustic mini-sets. here’s us practicing a new one called ‘blue of dreaming’:

lol pretty loose!

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WRITERS’ BLOC

the inaugural WRITERS’ BLOC will be — what else? — a gigantic asterisk.

because, as anyone who’s ever written anything knows, writing is impossible.

writing is impossible. the only way it’s ever been done is, first, by coming up with all the reasons it can’t be done (and then procrastinating for a while). so today we will focus on the impossibility of talking about songs & songwriting in an insightful or truthful way.

it’s a joke, but i’m serious. i’m of many minds when it comes to talking about songs i’ve written. three (3) minds, to be precise:

FIRST MIND: The Shape Of A Cube

wait a minute

part of me feels that it’s important not to speak about songs i’ve made. this has nothing to do with the songwriter cultivating a persona — which, honestly … personas are corny — and everything to do simply with communicating clearly.

i disliked The Brutalist. for me, the movie had a sort of curdled heart? i left the theater with a bad feeling that took a few hours to shake. (pretty score though!) i bring it up because i LOVED lazslo’s response to van buren’s question, ’what fascinates you about architecture?’

“the shape of a cube is the simplest expression of the idea of a cube.”

that’s how i feel about songs. the best ones are irreducible. every beat, every word contributes in some way to the essential gestalt. (and everything left out, too).

anything additional is a drag on the aerodynamics. a hat on a hat, one too many eggs in the pudding. or worse, a seventh face on laszlo’s cube: a deformation of the structure & meaning of the thing.

<<werner herzog voice>> a monstrosity, senseless and impossible.

that why talking about your songs is a dangerous racket. a profitless enterprise. i sometimes get a woozy feeling after i’ve been talking about one of my songs. like marty’s hand during his performance of ‘earth angel’ in the third act of Back To The Future, the song seems momentarily to become translucent and lose dimension.

You’ve altered the future. You’ve created a time paradox. The ripple effect could be disastrous.

so in this First Mind, songs require no explanation. songs deserve not to be reduced or translated into some other, less perfect form. the song can — must — speak for itself.

SECOND MIND: Half Of What I Say …

a more practical part of me knows that, if you’re the guy who brought the thing into the world, it’s understandable that people might occasionally expect you to answer for it. sometimes i’m asked to explain myself, clear up some confusion or ratify somebody’s interpretation of a song i’ve made.

here, my second mind sometimes kicks in. second mind goes something like the opening lines of the beatles’ song “julia”:

half of what i say is meaningless / but i say it just to reach you

Nine year old John Lennon with his mother Julia circa 1949 in Rock Ferry, Cheshire, England. i stole this picture & caption from People magazine. isn’t it so beautiful that john wrote ‘julia’ as a message to his mom? gah

a tricky thing is that once a song is in the world, it’s going to live its own life in the ears and minds (and hopefully, hearts) of other people. it will take on resonances, meanings, interpretations the songwriter could never have dreamed of. are these webs of connection and insight ‘wrong’ simply because i couldn’t see or feel or anticipate them from whatever blinkered eyeline i happened to have at the moment i wrote the thing? no, that seems crazy. what’s happened is: the song no longer belongs to the songwriter. it’s not mine anymore — even if i wanted it to be. and i’m no longer the arbiter of its meaning. the listener is!

like a chrysalis gone butterfly, a song once shared becomes a vessel.

empty vessel

this vessel is something we can pass back and forth. it contains what we put in it. the song is the “you’re alright? / i’m alright” refrain of the two people in waiting for godot.

so i don’t mind people asking me about my songs. but in the Upright Citizen’s Brigade of life, what else can i possibly say but, “Yes, and…”

with respect to butterfly vis-à-vis chrysalis, everything i say might be, in john lennon’s word, meaningless. but i’m not bullshitting. i’m not being an ‘unreliable narrator’ or a fickle mutant with no core ethos / stable DNA.

it’s just … the song is as much mine as yours. and we’re passing it back and forth. hopefully, we can reach each other.

THIRD MIND: Magpie Singing In The Dead Of Night

my third mind about talking-about-songwriting remembers that my own process and sensibility have been magpied out of countless small anecdotes & details & phrases & gestures remembered or misremembered from interviews i’ve seen or interactions i’ve had with artists trying to speak candidly about their process.

i love this documentary

the most interesting thing in the world for me is seeing other artists work. and talk about how they do it. and show us where they’re coming from. doesn’t matter the medium.

through this lens, for me to keep my jaw philosophically shut, as in the First Mind, or to sympathize my way into some kind of compound-eye universality, as in the Second, is no help to anyone. if this is about communication, that ain’t it!

so i end up back where i started, enjoying the process of trying to talk about songs and songwriting … with an acute but not entirely unpleasant awareness of the difficulty, danger, and true impossibility of doing so. lol

folks! with asterisks hung, caveats posted and hedges vested, we have now inaugurated the WRITERS’ BLOC!! looking forward to digging in for real and hopefully getting into some of your questions …

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and now, some newsier stuff …

MY FAV NONESUCH RECORDS

Song of the Earth is coming out on Nonesuch in the US. it’s an amazing record label. they released a lot of the records that were formative for me as a youth. a while ago i got to raid the Nonesuch archive and talk about some favorites :))

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NEW MUSIC FROM MAIA…

in case you’re unaware — Maia has a new album coming out — Goodbye Long Winter Shadow. it’s awesome. she’s got some live dates too:

…AND FELICIA !

felicia dropped a 3-song EP, Take Time, recently. it’s a beaut:

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JOKERMEN x LO BROS

and last for now, i’ll share the Jokermen episode my brother jake and i did recently. we talked about blasting the Beach Boys’ greatest hits compilation Endless Summer in our Dad’s 1986 red Honda Civic hatchback on the way to our grandmother’s house. a very early musical memory for me.

i hope everyone is doing okay. thank you always for your time & attention —

d