Singular

As you may have noticed, I don't really think of my music in terms of singles. Whenever I feel like sharing a song, I write a blog post about it. This is more or less how I might introduce it to an audience -- but I don't continually promote any one song over the rest any more than I would play the same song repeatedly in a live set. 

"Thanks. You're a great crowd. Now who wants to hear Gravel Roads for the eighth consecutive time?" 

While I do enjoy playing that song, it is merely a singular component of a broader setlist.

I want people to like whatever they like, so I leave it to my listeners to decide if any one song is going to rise above the rest. I'm not going to tell you which songs should be popular. 

If you like a song that I wrote, first of all, thank you. Second, please share it with someone else who you think may like it as well. Spread the word. Be a tastemaker. If enough people do that, then it's kind of like promoting a single, except it comes from the ground up. 

Part of being a one-man band means that I am also a one-man public relations and marketing team. That is to say that I don't really have the time, resources or wherewithal to promote my work much further than this blog. This is where I need your help. 

(Incidentally, I have been waiting years for a valid reason to use the word "wherewithal" in a sentence, so thanks again.)

If you enjoy any of the fifty-four tracks from any of my five self-produced albums, please share them with others. That's why I wrote them. Music is meant to be shared.

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Perhaps another reason that I don't really think of my own songs in terms of singles is because I am such a strong proponent of the album as an artform. That's how I tend to conceptualize music. The order of the tracks, the lyrical and sonic content of those songs, the cover art, etc. It all contributes to an album, which in my my mind, serves to tell a broader story than what is articulated by any one individual track.

Although I did write a song completely out of the blue last week, I will almost certainly re-record it when it comes time to put it on an album, once I get a better sense of the other tracks that will be accompanying it. That's just how I roll. 

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With all of that stuff in mind, today's song that I would like to share with you is called Mixtape. It comes from my latest album, Embers (2021). I've posted about this one before, but since it fits with everything else that I was just talking about, it makes sense to include it here. Basically, I sing about how each song is important as a distinct contribution to the compilation as a whole, but that in many ways, the true artform is the collection of songs and the manner in which they are assembled (almost like people and civilization, right?).

    

    When you listen to these songs in order

    Eleven on side A, ten on B

    I hope it tells a bigger story

    Of what you mean to me

Fun fact: the bassline is me playing my Telecaster through an octave pedal. That's probably the only way that I can play bass that fast. 

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The B-side of today's "single" comes from the same album, a track called Welcome Back, Jack Kerouac. It's about improvisation and experimentation, and how art can connect us to something bigger than ourselves.

    And who wants this spontaneous prose?

    Nobody knows where it goes

    Our bloodied lips and acid trips

    We think we drink therefore we are

    Connected to the universe

    It could be worse...

I hope that you enjoy my music. If so, please share it with someone else who is roughly as cool as you are, if you can even find somebody like that. Thanks to both of you for supporting independent art. You rock.