Van Halen!

Oh man, this is one of the most amazing things I’ve heard online. David Lee Roth’s vocals isolated for “Runnin’ with the Devil.” Click it, amazing. He’s like John Coltrane playing three notes at once. How in the hell does he do that with his voice?

Runnin with the Devil (via)

After reading DLR’s autobiography a couple months ago, I got obsessed with Van Halen. Played every record. Found good Youtube stuff. Like Ice Cream Man.



Or Eddie Van Halen, wasted, destroying a guitar.



I’d love to see them live, way cooler than seeing Led Zeppelin reform, they ain’t nothing without John Bonham.

Been listening to more drum-heavy music, now that I've got a drumset. Almost got it working. Almost. Sort of painful getting it set up. I'll probably write a review of my drum set-up because I've been nerding so heavily about V-drums and software. Playing drums again has been a nice sense memory of what it was like when I was 25. Don't know what you've been missing til you've got it back. Realize it was the main thing keeping me from considering myself as a songwriter. Always thought a band would come down the pike at some point, time in a recording studio, but I kind of like the idea of playing everything myself. Recording to come soon. I may sign up for this.

Darryl's Library

North of Sunset has a new review, possibly the last one, a good one, by Darryl Sloan, author of the novel Chion. He digs the character of Detective Stein. A lot of people have told me that, don’t like that he doesn’t get a final word.

He also offered to make North of Sunset a free download. I actually tried to change the download cost at Lulu, but they wouldn’t let me. This is better, comes with this nice graphic. Click it to download and read the PDF.

Hollywood

I wish the fucking writer’s strike would end already. I’ve still got a screenplay lying dormant.

Meanwhile, yes, Tom Cruise is a lunatic. That look in his eyes throughout this interview is everything North of Sunset is about.



Someone should give me a million dollars for being prescient about celebrity. 2007 was the year of the celebrity meltdown. I am getting published though, so good news there. Here’s the initial sketch for the re-release of The Golden Calf:

Notes

A note to everyone, RW Hedges record, which I reviewed, is out now. The best record I’ve heard in years.



Meanwhile, I’ve become totally obsessed with the election, much like 2004, much to my wife’s chagrin, an election which crushed me emotionally. Some zealotry for Obama here.

Thirdly, I just went into debt and bought a drumset, which is seriously going to change my recording life.



Still figuring it out how to make it talk to Logic Express 8, which I also bought, but drums are the main thing that’s been holding me back. I’m a drummer first, before being a songwriter. I just could never get a song to sound like I wanted it to sound.

Resolution

Happy New Year. I’ve got resolutions:

1. Record a lot of music
2. Make headway on my novel
3. Don’t fuck around anymore

I’ve had three blog entries written in the past coupla weeks and I haven’t posted them, which says something. I just don’t want to put anything too nakedly confessional right now, creeps me out too much. Don’t know want to spread myself too thin maybe. But the reason I’ve sort of resurrected the blog is because I’m going to start posting music here again. Probably what I’ll use it for primarily. I just bought myself a copy of Logic Express 8 for Christmas. Amazing, $100 new on Ebay. I’m going to get my songs done right finally. I listened back to some of my songs and I’m sort of embarrassed by their sloppiness. The stuff I’ve posted so far is pretty thin, demos, half-ideas. I need to put in the same kind of time I’ve put into other writing. For some reason, it’s taken me this long to figure that out.