Spring Awakening

Hey, where have I been? Nowhere, mon frere. Just hibernating, trying to get the juices flowing.

Well, Spring is here and there are green shoots. Songs to pitch and collaborators to pitch them with.

For now, a very busy week here in Philadelphia, with four out-of-town friends descending to perform.

On Sunday, April 18, Jen Foster is back at the Tin Angel at 8pm.

(In the afternoon, you could catch Manchester (UK) folk singer Zoe Mulford at the Swarthmore Fun Fare in Swarthmore, PA, at 3:40pm.)

On Wednesday April 21, you could see Seth Glier perform with Maia Sharp at 8:30pm. That is, is you weren't over at World Cafe Live seeing ambeR Rubarth open for Jason Reeves. I have no idea what I'm doing that night.

On Saturday, April 24, you could head up to Phoenixville to see Zoe Mulford at Steel City Coffeehouse.

Plenty going on in Philly......see you there?

The Cat Who Plays the Bass

Let it be known that Aly Cat is headed in the studio. For reals, for true and finally.

Aly has been hitting the Philadelphia circuit hard for years, with an always-good but frequently changing band. And she has been carrying around a demo CD of three songs (with two additional radio mixes). Always meaning to get to writing those new songs, and take her music to the next level. Well, it’s time.

If you’ve caught Aly – at Tritone, at Burlap and Bean, at Blinkin Lincoln, at street festivals everywhere, and of course frequently at Fergie’s – you know how much talent she brings to the table. The fierce bass-playing, the irresistible hooks, and the bold voice. Her band includes two new guitar players (including the extremely talented Christie Lenee) and Blondie who plays the trumpet, the bongos and whatever else needs playing. Chrisie and Aly have been performing with the Angel Band lately.

I was happy to be at the kickoff party at Aly’s house, to toast and celebrate (where Victoria Spaeth gave quite a dissertation on the architecture of Manyunk). Hopefully 2010 will be the year you get to hear the new sound.

Catching Up, Turning the Corner...

Writer’s block is a funny thing. When one is not writing any songs, one seems to not write any blog posts as well. But writing about writer’s block is as self-indulgent as it gets, and as about exciting as watching wallpaper peel (see, for instance, the film BARTON FINK, about a writer with writer’s block, in which the Coen brothers actually make you watch the wallpaper peel…..)

But after a long empty winter, it’s 2010, and time to get moving again.

There have been a few musical highlights over the last few months, including:


Attending the EPNSAI’s (Eastern Pennsylvania chapter of the NSAI) annual Christmas celebration

Having The Lyra Project in my home after a party, performing songs for some of our friends

Writing my first decent draft lyric in a few months at the comfortable and raffish Mojo 13 in Delaware

Seeing Christie Lenée perform at Seven Stones tonight in Media, watching her play the guitar like it was a harp, a banjo and an otherworldly zither

I think my biorhythms have been cycling low for long enough. I’m ready for a new decade……

Friday Night Jam

Always a pleasure to present a new song. This one is another from Musicians Collaboration, where I co-wrote and put together El Dorado.

It's more of a musician site than a songwriter site -- it's for people to have a garage band when they're hundreds of miles away. The musicianship and technical expertise in mixing and mastering is enviable.

I was handed a base track with this retro rocking tune, which sounds like every cover band you've ever heard (though this is an original). Very fun stuff. The chorus was written ("Yeah you got what you need (x3)/And you don't need me") and Nick wanted me to write a lyric -- to this music -- about a guy hitting on a girl way out of her league.

I had fun writing this one. Hope you have fun listening to "What You Need."

Radio Free Nashville

There were a lot of components to my trip to Nashville last week. I wanted to try to meet some strong country co-writers and hopefully pitch a professional demo of “Crossing the Threshold.” I would up doing some good writing with people I already knew from Just Plain Folks and the Muses’ Muse, as well as my friend Jen Foster. And I had a good mentoring session at NSAI (Nashville Songwriters Association).

I criss-crossed paths with Coles Whalen, getting to see her perform twice (but not getting much of a chance to talk), and go to a couple of the better “see new writers” spots, like the Commodore Grill and the Blue Bar. (Coles continues to impress, and got to open for Pat Benatar this summer; her new CD, “The Whistle Stop Road Record” is out, as is Jen Foster’s “Thirty-Nine”)

I did meet up with Wendy Vickers, one of the songwriting community’s most active boosters. A Minneapolis transplant, she moved to Nashville and is almost always seen at writers nights at the Commodore and other places. I had a chance to have coffee with her during my visit, and she gave me background on Radio Free Nashville.

RFN is just about to move to 107.1 on the dial, so as I post this, it’s actually off the air for the transition. It’s a more left-leaning voice in the right-leaning Nashville community – an alternative voice for political discussion, and a celebration of the wide-ranging songwriters’ community. Wendy hosts a weekly show on Sunday morning called “Never Too Old” which features the music of the Baby Boomer generation.

Wendy’s MySpace spotlights a songwriter each week, and I was honored to be last week’s designee – Thanks, Wendy!

The trip ended with writing a song, literally on my way to the airport. I had brunch at the justly famous Noshville (a New York deli in the center of barbecue country – very good but they had no idea what a “corned beef special” was). I left Jen with a handful of lyrics I thought she would do well on, and she buzzed me as I approached the airport, with melodic ideas and suggestions for lyric cuts and changes. My trip conclued with me on my laptop and cell phone at the airport, writing a song with Jen. A fitting farewell (for now) to Music City.

Man With No Blog

It's simply an outrage that my blog has lain untended for over two months. But I got involved with a performance project (just acting, no musical involvement) and it took over for a while. I will post more details at a later time, as I think it's a timely topic for musicians as well (travel, perform, travel, exhaustion, no energy or time to write).

But my performance duties culminated last Friday night at a cabaret, a fundraiser to benefit the Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation (PKD). This disease affects members of my family and we do several events every year, including this cabaret.

Last year, I performed the Rumplestiltzkin song, but this year I managed to get a few songs that were cabaret-worthy, and get some extremely talented people to sing them. There were four in total but I have audio right now for two of them. We had video camera malfunctions and I resorted to my trusty digital voice recorder to capture these two. So the quality is just middling, but the performances were worth capturing.

Carlo Pocklington, who wrote "Yearbook," came up with a wonderful setting for "Man With No Name," a rat pack sort of bar song, and the extremely talented Joe Southard picked up a martini glass and sang it. You can read the (revised) lyrics while you listen.

I was also delighted to have recording artist Liz Seymour on hand, to sing a new song by Eduard Glumov and myself. This fun lyric, "Just a Cup of Coffee," has been sitting in my folders for a while with a very cool pop/jazz setting in an unfinished demo by Eduard. But I knew the song would work not only as a studio recording, but in a simplified jazz/cabaret setting as well.

Both songs feature arrangements and piano by John Waldie, with bass by Paul Graefe.

I'm grateful to both composers for making these songs happen, and to the performers and musicians for letting me hear them live.

Catalog Expansion

It's been way too long since I posted any new songs. Part of that is I'm doing a lot of work on spec and behind the scenes. I'm doing less writing "just because" and more writing with artists, both local and travelling, as well as a little overseas. Much of this work is on spec -- it may or may not ultimately be used, and even the work that is being used either isn't recorded yet, or isn't releasable yet. So there's a lot of material you won't hear/see for a while, and some you'll just never see.

So it's really nice to be able to put up three new songs today. Ian Ferrin every so often gives me something he'd like to work on. In one case I had a toss-off lyric that he liked and wanted to move forward on, in another he had an orphan melody (a melody written for another lyric that wasn't going to be used) and asked me to retrofit some words. Both recordings are in the pretty-close-to-done phase, so they're ready for posting.

Both of Ian's songs are contempoary pop love ballads. We've started to build up a catalog of this sort of material, so if we ever get some attention for one of these songs, whoever sings it will probably have some interest in other songs we've written. Today's new "old-fashioned" ballads are:

"Learning As I Go" (Ian Ferrin/Z. Mulls)

"Same Old Long Song" (Ian Ferrin/Z. Mulls)


Also, I have a new collaborator, Carlo Pocklington. Carlo lives in Paraguay and found my website, and in particular was looking at one particular lyric, "Yearbook," about a woman going through her high school yearbook and reminiscing about boys with whom she interacted. This has been a personal favorite and it took some time for Carlo to convince me to give him a chance with it. I'm glad I did, as it is a song suitable for cabaret singing, and it gave me an opportunity to fix several clumsy lyrics. And it's done with an appropriate female vocal. Please enjoy:

"Yearbook" (Carlo Pocklington/Z. Mulls)