Mothers, TVP, Broken Down Cars, and Storytelling

The other day, I started watching all the videos I could find of folk artists performing live--to figure out what they do to be such great performers and how I can improve my own stageshow--from TV shows etc (i.e Austin City Limits, Soundstage, etc) and stumbled across a grammy-nominated artist I knew fairly well, Ray LaMontagne, on VH1 Storytellers.

He told a bunch of stories, especially in this clip, about growing up poor and what not. The audience laughed and was really into it, which got me thinking about my own shows.

That Jealous Moon, Reed Foehl, and Inspiration

Well, as not-so-long-time readers, as well as anyone who knows me personally, will surely know, I've been working on writing and recording a five song EP. In December, I released a track listing, but had not finished writing all of the songs. Recently, I finished the last of them. Cue audience clapping and cheering. The song entitled That Jealous Moon, specifically, came out fantastically and I'm extremely proud of it.  However, it took me nearly two months to finish it. If you just read two minutes, snorted, and rolled your eyes in disgust, back up and read that sentence again, for I said months.

See, inspiration is elusive, hard to find, and oft times, rather fleeting.

A Lesson in Songwriting

There's an old saying among writers that has great relevance to songwriting.  "Less is more." Using this in a story is much easier than in songwriting. When applied to writing, its uses are very obvious. Instead of "The grey dog with a mangy coat and a definite limp walked slowly down the street, full of pot holes and rain." a writer could say, "The mangy grey dog limped down the street, around the pot holes filled with last-night's rain." Its more succinct and really paints a clearer picture. But, applying this is much more difficult in writing lyrics.

Neither of the above lines would work in a song. They're much too long, and laden with awkward words. Sam Beam, of Iron and Wine, recently discussed how he uses well-known religious imagery to clarify and create images and stories.

Announcement and Words

I've been thinking about this blog a lot over the weekend and have decided that three posts a week will be a better plan than posts every weekday. I will be updating this blog on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. This will allow me to write better content and will not cause me to burn out too quickly and hate the whole blogging thing.

Recently, I've been working on the first Sagebrush Rebellion album. So far I have song ideas for most of it, a name for the album (which I am not ready to announce yet), and a couple songs finish. The first song I finished is a rewrite of a song that's been hanging around for several years. I've re-written the lyrics several times since its original version. I believe that I have found the final version now. The new words fit the theme I want the album to follow and are closer to the style I want all the lyrics in this project to be.