FAWM Blog #9: Showcase Showdown

For me, the FAWM season is now done. The songs have all been written, and the showcases have all been SMASHING.

The first, at the Newark Arts Alliance, was recorded entirely by Michael. You can watch the whole playlist on YouTube. (I had to scoot in after a contra dance, which is why I’m wearing my skirt and being barefoot.) The audience was very attentive and eager to interact. Which worked out awesomely on “Sea Song” - I had them humming along... it created a perfect ambiance. It was a great opportunity to play my uke and dulcimer stuff, which I felt would be too troublesome to bust out at other showcases.



The second, held at Extreme Pizza in Wilmington, was kickin’. This was a later showcase put together by our friend and fellow musician Jacopo de Nicola. Many thanks for his thoughtfulness and hard work. It was nice to have an evening showcase - and a Friday night, at that! Jacopo let me borrow his bass so I could play “Your Star.” It was well-received. (Especially by one of the waitstaff who I’m pretty sure was the one hollerin’ at me “I know that’s right” as soon as the bass licks started rollin’)

The third, at the World Cafe Live at the Queen. The staff treated us so well. The sound was great. The food was great. Our audience, attentive and sizable! Bam! And the “Stinkbug Song” finally made its stage debut.

Here’s a photo of us at the end, courtesy of James Simpson Photography:




And also a photo of Matt and myself playing “Let There Be Snow,” courtesy of Michael:



I gave out plenty of CD’s of my FAWM output and I’m thinking I will release the tracks to bandcamp. Just trying to decide whether to post just the 14 that are purely mine, or if I want to ask my collaborators if they’re cool with me putting their work up on my bandcamp. For free. Hmmmm.

Mostly I am proud. Of myself? Yeah, sure. I am. But I am primarily proud of our awesome little community. Three showcases. Many folks showed up at all three. Ten acts at least at each. Incredible talent. (As I frankly told one audience member, “the only difference between us and what’s on the radio is that we’re not on the radio.”)

But... incredible people, too. People whose talent wells up out of a naturalness of self. And the thing is that the selves involved are just beautiful and wonderful.

There was one FAWMer who approached me at a showcase, expressing gratitude towards Michael and me for all of our work promoting and organizing. There was a note of underlying worry. A kind of worry that says “it must have been such a burden for you.”

If you’d ask me, “Were there hard times?” I’d say yes, definitely. But I was blessed to be working alongside of some awesome people who shared them with me. “Did it stress you out?” At times. Life is busy, and enthusiasm is a poor guard against time constraints.

“Was it a burden?” A resounding and emphatic no. Because every step, good or bad, is part of the journey toward this end. I already know the outcome is good. I am already wholly convinced of that. If a difficult thing happens in the process, I can deal with it in its own moment without losing sight of the big vision.

It’s good, people!

FAWM #8: FAWM OVER

I received a text from a friend this morning. This is how the conversation went:

Friend: MORNIN' 8:42 AM
Me: I BEAT FAWM :D 9:10 AM
Friend: Now we rehab you so you can enter society again! 9:11 AM


(Is it that obvious!?)




This is a word cloud compiled from all the lyrics I wrote or helped write this month. (Pretty cool!)


So, yep. All the songs done been written. I was surprised by my output. Someone posted on my wall telling me I had the most songs of anyone in the Philly area. (I didn't know anyone was keeping track!) This is pretty cool. But only 14 are purely "mine." I don't know. I'm flattered, but I'm also being humble about it. I wasn't competing, I was just trying to write and let God do things by my writing. And I'm really, really pleased.


ME, JUST ME!:

Songs
1. Kaleidescope Heart
2. The Stinkbug Song
3. Keep in Mind
4. I Like Trees
5. Amaranth
6. The Underground Spring
7. Vultures
8. Murre Song
9. Come June / Swallowtail
10. Your Star
11. Sea Song

Electronic
12. Game Over
13. Earth and Sky

Instrumental
14. Waltz for a Clementine


Playing nicely with others:

with Matthew Halley:
15. Let There Be Snow
16. Finding My Feet (also with Erin Magnin)

with Erin, Shane, Andrew, Michael:
17. White Kids

with Shane:
18. Flowers Gotta Grow
00. *Viva (and Stefan) (*I did not accept credit on FAWM due to limitations on listing 2+ collaborators)

with Michael:
19. Damsel of Distress

with Stefan:
20. The Errant Whistler (and... Shane. Kind of. Accidentally. Darnit Shane.)

with The Other Otter - Bryan, Josh, and Angela:
21. The Downtown
22. A Song About Physics
(and maybe a couple other tunes that I've contributed to but they're not done with 'em yet)


Now, that's a nice sight to see:




WOO now I can sleep and do laundry again! ...

Oh wait, we've got some showcases around the bend yet. :3 STAY TUNED!!

FAWM Blog #5: Collaboration nation.

You can find my up-to-date FAWM page here:
http://fawm.org/fawmers/emkeev

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Song number 9: "White Kids." (mp3) A beatboxing improv generated by us five kids after we were done listening to last Sunday's production of Hometown Heroes. We won the Homie Award for Best Collab - for the Diner Club Christmas album! Then we were ridiculous. And beatboxed. Myself, Andrew, Shane, Erin, and Michael. And it was good. The end.

Song number 10: "Flowers Gotta Grow." (mp3) with Shane Palko. Just a happy little collab. I really like it... it seemed really simple at the time, but something about it is catchy and happy and pleasant on the ol' eardrums.

Song number 11: "Finding My Feet." (mp3) This one's another collab. Joining me are Erin Magnin and Matthew Halley. We wrote and recorded this in two and a half hours. It was really magical. It's a slow tune, employs three-part harmonies and a little guitar strummin' to tell a story about finding one's own feet after disconcerting circumstances.

Song number 12: "Damsel of Distress." A collab with Michael Natrin, which I mentioned in the last post, or the post before. Dulcimer and banjo and a humorous ballad-type thing, in which we switch meters and tempos and all kinds of fun stuff! Will Phil save the damsel, or what?...

Song number 13: "The Underground Spring." O HAI LOOK I WROTE A SONG BY MYSELF! Yeah... this one was tagged as the week three challenge, "big topic." It seems to be about the passage of time, but I'mma be honest with you. The metaphor is a vehicle for me to describe... oh, any number of things regarding God. Overcoming of death. His loving nature. His nourishment. His presence despite appearances. I really love it.

Whew. So I've been busy. But I don't think I'm nearly done writing, even though I'm so near the 14.5 song finish line.

FAWM Blog #2: Full speed ahead

You can find my up-to-date FAWM page here:
http://fawm.org/fawmers/emkeev

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I've been tracking roughly a song a day.

Practical consequences:

• Eating has taken a hit. I now consume one giant meal per day, with little snackies all around. The problem is not the having of food. The problem is that I will write a song for several consecutive hours and during that time, I leave the mortal realm altogether. Exaggeration or not - except for extreme circumstances, I have no concept of hunger or physical needs during the time I'm writing songs.
  
• Sleep has taken a hit, but that's nothin' new.
  
• Eyelids have begun to twitch.
  
• "I can't, I have to write a song" has become a standard excuse for not doing something.
  
• The house is only marginally more dirty, as I have managed to keep pace with most of the mess.
  
• I'M SO HAPPY.
  

I wrote two instrumentals. Earth and Sky (mp3) is electronically composed. I was so tired and hungry when I uploaded it (extreme circumstance) that I dissolved into a fit of self-loathing, tore it down, and went to sleep. I felt better when I woke up, so I put it back up. All's well. I had fun writing it, though, honestly. I think my main damage was that I hadn't really decided what the song was about. Even if there's no lyric, a song (to me) needs a direction, a thought, something to tie it together. So I ended up with what I think of as a song with multiple personalities. But I do like it.

Then there was "Waltz for a Clementine." (youtube)



I opted to make a video because I wanted folks to experience this really cool instrument. My performance is a little heavy-handed because I was just flat-out enjoying myself. I do like the piece itself. It's honestly not at all what I was expecting to write - I originally picked up the guitar and the notebook and ended up with a dulcimer tune with no words. Go figure. The title's from something I heard yesterday at the dance... one of my friends was waltzing around with lemonade and then told the story of another friend who was waltzing with a clementine... I knew the title was "Waltz for a" something, and Clementine just seemed to fit.

I love my dancing friends. Have I said that recently? I'm thrilled they're a part of my life. I went yesterday to the Arden contra dance, alone, having neglected to try to coerce anyone into joining me due to the busy times of FAWMing. But when I got there, I was joined by some good people from New Jersey and then we met with another good person in Philly and life was just... really... good.

I also really enjoy musicking with Matthew Halley, who did a really awesome collab with me this evening. He's adding a little folk harp and throwing it together soon. It's gonna be sweet. We've jammed a handful of times over the last month and it's been great having another detail-oriented music person to bounce stuff off of.

Speaking of bouncing - I'mma bounce to bed.

FAWM Blog #1: Three songs, radio interview, focus, energy

You can find my up-to-date FAWM page here: http://fawm.org/fawmers/emkeev

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A little backlogging before I get to the songs: Todd Chappelle and I were on Graffiti Radio on Tuesday (January 30). The podcast is available here. Mike Nigro's a fun guy to get interviewed by, and Todd's a great guy to have on your team. Team FAWM. Team what the heck is this mess oh yeah FAWM.

I got made fun of for saying "word." I thought the mic was off. It was right before a commercial break. I don't know if it came through, but Todd thought it was hilarious and now it's a running joke.

I played "Space Trash" and "5 Stages of Infatuation," both of which don't receive a ton of play. (Possibly because I'm not playing out a ton right now.)

Well, so I have three FAWM 2012 songs right now. I took off from work on February 1, and basically just wrote for many hours. I recorded Kaleidescope Heart (mp3) and The Stinkbug Song (mp3). Stinkbug's part of a request from a co-worker, and it's some of my best banjo work/writing to date. Kaleidescope Heart was my "first fruits" song. Essentially, just dedicated to God. I do pray for all my songs to belong to God and to be centered in His love, but this'd be just a special dedication. The really cool thing about first fruits this year is that some of us FAWMers got to talking about it in the forums - a whole big long thread of really excellent and articulate discourse on worship and the place of music in church and with God. I said that I do this first fruits thing, and a few people picked it up and tagged their songs as "first-fruits," so you can filter songs by that tag and see who did it and what they wrote. Really awesome. I love what they wrote. I was really blessed by what they wrote. :)

Okay, so... there's a ton of really excellent talent that signed on with FAWM this year. We should have a really excellent couple of showcases in March. I'm also personally just really pleased because there are several new lady singer-songwriters, and, y'know, I'm totally fine hanging out with guys, but, it's nice to balance things out a little.

Nuff said.

Then today I wrote Keep in Mind (mp3), which is actually my favorite so far, because while I guess it came out sort of mysterious, it makes complete and total sense to me and it is the combination of my heart and God's heart for me. I wrote most of the lyrics in the grocery store parking lot. The lyrics just began to come to me as I was driving, and then I just had to sit and write them out before they fled.

That's one thing I'm enjoying about February. I know that it's time to buckle down and write songs. So you just do it. You take an hour in the parking lot to get the lyrics down. You spend Friday night in amid offers to go out. You just know that the songs need writing, and you balance everything with that when you can. I really enjoy the focus. I wish the other 11 months of the year had similar things... and, granted, they probably will. Soon.

FAWM 2012!

Here we are again. Another February, another FAWM.

That's February Album Writing Month!



I've completed two FAWMs already. This is my third year writing, and my second year organizing. I've had the distinct pleasure of co-organizing with Michael (Battleshy Youths) (Honey Badgers). We're a well-oiled organizational team. Joining us in the effort so far are Todd Chappelle and Aaron Nathans.

Sometimes, it's a little surreal.

The organizing, I mean.

Do you remember the moment when you grew up and realized you could eat bacon WHENEVER YOU WANTED?

That's kind of like this.

The response is incredible. Very few people I've talked to have said no to FAWM. Seven new Delawareans joined this year along with a few folks I know from Philly, and one of our new Delawareans managed to recruit some folks - without even having started FAWM himself.

It ain't a numbers game, though. I just love to cultivate creativity. People have these kernels and grains of the stuff, and sometimes they let it grow and sometimes they don't. I'll tell you one thing: a garden's a sorry place with just one flower.

Pretty soon, we'll embark. We'll be at the inDEpendence musician network on Monday; they meet at Extreme Pizza once a month for the sole purpose of strengthening Delaware's music community. Then we'll be on Graffiti Radio on Tuesday at 8 pm! Listen online by clicking through to that link. Wednesday, I'm taking off work and writing music all day. ;)

Showcase details forthcoming. Yep yep yep. For more info, check out the website or the facebook page for all the happenin's of FAWM in the Delaware area.

The FAWM 2011 Showcase - Newark, DE

This is the only media of the event I have, so far. Michael did some video recordin' of the event, but of course he is in school and needs to do school things, so it may be a little while before we see them videos. Which is a-okay. I'd really prefer for him to get out of college with decent grades. ^^

Top row from the left is Kevin, Jeff, Zach, Michael, Sandy, Jessica, Lori, Steve, and Rebekah.
Bottom row is Brene, myself, Shane, Aaron (and his daughter, Lily), and Todd.
There is so much talent in this photo.

The event went incredibly smoothly. The room was pretty much full the entire show. Setup and breakdown went off without a hitch. Donations were made. Merch was sold. Networking was performed. Food arrived in multiple hands and departed in multiple bellies.

One audience member expressed surprise over the high level of skill exhibited by all the performers. I think some folks came expecting an open mic - that is to say, a crapshoot of good and bad. This was really more of a showcase, with all the artists selected and confirmed beforehand. And wow, everyone really nailed it. I am, of course, a little biased, but it didn't feel tiresome and it didn't feel too formal - it honestly felt like everyone hangin' out in the parlor on Sunday, doing some music, eating some food, and enjoying each others' company. For three hours.

This was our vision for FAWM 2011. This photo really is our vision. To gather together a crapton of really talented musicians. I'm honestly just taking a little time to regroup, personally, after organizing all this, but I'm already looking to the future of this group and I think we're all interested in making sure that this doesn't fall apart. It's a grand old adventure. We'll see what the future brings.

Many thanks to all the performers, the audience members, the Newark Arts Alliance, and especially Michael, who is an absolute champ and the co-organizer of it all - this was so fun.



Here, have a program:

FAWM post #12 - The results of 2011

Well, folks... it's been three days since the FAWM season officially closed. In those three days, I have been too busy to even think about having a life, which meant my final FAWM blog post was delayed a bit.

But it's here! So join me as I procrastinate on things my neighbors would appreciate, such as fixing the rut I put in my lawn and weeding my garden... this might be a long'n.

First, I'm going to do myself a favor and list my songs, link them directly to their respective MP3 files (so that clicking on them will bring you to the actual sound file), and give a short self-critique. Next year, my FAWM page will be wiped clean so that I can put up more stuff, so this is my own little archive.

1 The Invitation
Loved starting out with a banjo tune, pretty happy with the chorus. not sure about that bridge.
2 The Migration
An arty enviro song. glad I wrote at least one of these. I honestly think I expressed exactly what I wanted to.
3 Little Bird (with jocelyn)
Awesome collab which I really enjoyed. This was the only collab where someone gave a complete set of lyrics which I then set.
4 A Rather Politely Phrased Request From A Fellow Citizen and Motorist
This one was so fun. A good song for the open mic at the bar ^^
5 Invention for Dulcimer
Goin' out on a limb with this one. Instrumental. Not sure this is actually how you play dulcimer, but I actually love the construction of the music. May develop it.
6 The Sun (is free energy!)
An educational enviro song. WITH BANJO! It's very fun and I'm glad I wrote it.
7 Small Town Places
This one was sprung on me. It was never on my list of ideas. But I'm glad it's there. More thoughtful and slow.
8 Irish Platypus (with heyzach)
My first in-person collab. Ever. (Ever!) Instrumental. Our musical ideas are so varied.
9 The Five Stages of Infatuation
Another fun one for the bar, like the traffic song. Just a caricature of the rigmarole of being single. Through-composed, too!
10 Peter (with natrin)
I love them all, but I love this one. The recording's good except for that one note that I'm flat on >.< I really love the mandolin solo. Personalizing the story of Peter walking on water was just fun. Making a video was awesome, which was Michael's idea, not mine...!
11 Jimmy Baker and the Bees
Enviro song, upbeat, educational, fun, funny. It's my inner Shel Silverstein coming out.
12 Crowns
I personally think this is the most beautiful song I wrote all FAWM. I think because it is a perfect encapsulation and expression of what I was dealing with, musically and lyrically. I figured this would probably confuse folks who know me, but I also figured they could just ask me if it was really a problem.
13 Mud Season
I didn't like this one when I put it up. I felt like putting it up was a cop-out. Could be developed.
14 Looking For Words (Tyranny of Complexity) (with shanepalko)
I'm rocking a bassline in this one, and doing some singing. Shane's doing everything else. This one really moves. I find it gets caught in my brain.
15 Por Supuesto
I actually really love Spanish. I really seriously regret that I don't practice it more. But this set of lyrics came to me in Spanish, so I brushed up and wrote it down. I love harmonizing, too ^^
16 Third Grade Music Class (the recorder song) (with wolfeman217)
... I really don't count this one. It's amusing to me because we had three very talented guitarists in a room together and... we write a stupid thing on recorders. Cripes.
17 Space Trash
Michael requested this one months ago. I'm still working on a list of suggestions, but Michael is persistent so I made it a goal to get it done this FAWM. It's pretty silly.


So, overall... I got 4 environmental songs, 2-3 that are upbeat and silly, 2-3 that are more solemn and deep, 10-12 songs that I would feel comfortable bringing up to speed for the stage, and some great collaborations with other artists. I'm really very happy about that. ^^

What now? Now we prepare for the FAWM showcase, I cross off some of my spring goals (yes, I keep an excel spreadsheet of my goals), take a short breather, clean the house, weed the garden, and then get moving again.

It's not easy, it's really not. I will admit that this business of being whatever I am is a lot of work. But I will also admit that it's what I am, and I find fulfillment in it. Not just joy, not just pleasure... fulfillment. I could just ignore music, hunker down, live life like a normal middle-class American and die, but that's just survival. It's more than loving what you do, or pretending that you love what you do (because you force yourself to love it). It's tuning into the voice of your own discontent and allowing it to draw you deeper into the fulfilling stuff that makes no sense to the world or the folks that live in it.

Because ultimately, it makes no sense to do any of this, in terms that the world understands. But God, I can't not.

FAWM post #11 - I'm a winner!

On Wednesday, I wrote "Mud Season," a short instrumental I consider to be only a very rough draft of a song to come:


On Thursday, I wrote "Tyranny of Complexity (Looking for Words)" with Shane:


On Friday, I woke up... A WINNER!




However... I'm far from being done. Yes, I've reached 14 songs, and that's a big deal and I should feel... proud, I guess. And I do.

But after spending a whole month just getting into the flow of writing songs, breathing songs, thinking about writing songs most of the day... I don't wanna stop. I'm in the zone, man! There are still songs to be written!


It makes me think of climbing the island with Gina. I spent a couple months of 2008 living and working on an island near Kodiak. I gotta admit - in some ways, it still seems like this huge glorious peak in my life to which nothing else will ever compare. Of course, this is untrue, but you should really see the photos sometime.

One day, the sun came out and we actually finished working a little earlier than normal, and the boss was back on the mainland for a spell. We decided to go see the top of the island, since it was getting later in the season and we still hadn't been up.

This particular peak was about 1500 feet above sea level, which is not very high. Thing is, we started right at sea level, since camp was set up just beside the cove where we first arrived by chartered fishing boat.

We arrived at the first leveled-out patch, formerly a volcano crater, now a catchbasin for rainwater and our source of drinking water. (The water trickled down the island and we collected it near the beach at a sluice. Ferrying the water back and forth by hand in buckets gave me an intense appreciation for plumbing.) Peregrines showed off in the sky. The few stunted trees of the island grew there. It was beautiful.

Even though it was a long, tiring climb after a long, tiring day... neither of us could permit it in our souls to climb back down without climbing just... a little more.

So up we went. We found a puffin skull lying very still and solemn in a patch of moss and flowers. Ravens floated below us, keeping a watchful eye. The ground got steeper and steeper and we bent further and further forward 'till we were using our hands to go up. But still, we couldn't go back without going just... a little more.

Gina had gone on ahead. I could see her waltzing up the incline ahead of me. As she reached the top, I was breathing hard and focusing on the ground in front of me.

Suddenly, she started yelling for me and scurrying back down. This was more than a little alarming, but Gina is a wonderful person who lives nearly entirely in the moment she's in, so she usually couldn't help but react fully and intensely to everything she experienced. And what she experienced was a bald eagle. As she told me, tearfully from the sheer awe of it, the eagle was flying towards the peak at about the same time she was climbing it from the other side, so they ended up surprising one another at about 10 feet away from each other.

So beautiful up there. In the sun. Watching the clouds in a slow cascade over the opposide peak. Looking out over the ocean and seeing West Amatuli, Sugarloaf, and Ushagat. Jagged mountains softened by the distance. And just... the quiet. The quiet was immense. Intensely peaceful.



I think the restless spirit needs the peace of the summit just as much as the invigorating journey. One does not exist apart from the other. So, onward, upward, more songs, please!

FAWM post #10: +1, and an article in The News Journal!

"Crowns"




Some songs I struggle to compose. I put a lot of thought into the chords, the melodies, the lyrics. This one just fell right out of the sky. I'm very happy with this one, and it'll make its way into my rotation, but it may not be one of the top-played. My comedic and more upbeat stuff tends to get more play (because who doesn't like feeling good?), but I do need songs like this in the rotation.


ALSO, and this is a big ALSO, The News Journal just put out an article today about FAWM and us Delaware songwriters. Featured are myself, Michael, and Todd. There are some very nice photos to go along with this well-written article -- it's definitely worth the read.

Click here to read the article!

I've only got two more to fill the quota, but I'm just gonna write until there's no more February.

FAWM post #7: Collab weekend

A note on collaboration. I have not developed any sort of collaborative skill up to this point. None. You may recall that one thing I loved about guitar was that I could be a one-woman band - no need for other musicians.

So, yep, I'm a collaboration newbie. But I have learned to play well with others since I started learning guitar all those years ago, and I did okay as a collaborator this weekend (if I may say so myself).

Saturday I met up with Zach and we did some jamming. This is what we came up with:



I guess we're calling it "Irish Platypus," because we couldn't think of a better name. I do believe we're taking suggestions, though. We thought there might be lyrics, but we didn't write any. So far I have found that writing lyrics with other people to be an extremely awkward experience. Writing music, pretty okay. Writing words with someone else terrifies the living snot out of me.

But me and Michael wrote a song today with words. It was good. It sprang up out of an idea I was incubating. At first I thought this might be cheating, in terms of collaborating, but I now think that it probably helps to come to a collab session with a few ideas in mind. I hope you'll get to hear our sweet song soon, but I also hope that the poor guy isn't driving himself crazy on the other side of this small town trying to do schoolwork, fix up the recording, and throw on a mandolin solo. Cripes. No one needs that kind of stress.


Anyway, I also just wrote this puppy... partially for the occasion (it is, after all, Valentine's Day as of this writing). Title: "The Five Stages of Infatuation"




I'm a little nervous about it. I may end up pulling it, honestly. I can't quite stick my finger on why it makes me so nervous (possibly sleep-deprivation as well as simply being the worrier that I am), so until I can, I'll just... leave it. It's like the line in the Automatic Toilet Song where I claim that the toilet is demon-possessed. I don't exactly feel 100% comfy with it. There are people in the world who really did not appreciate that line. But... I don't know, I can't please everyone when it comes down to it.

This song is really intended as a caricature and a satire of what really happens in the pursuit of romance - I guess I just don't want someone running off with it thinking that I glorified jealousy and things like that. 'Cause obviously, I don't condone stuff like that. I want to lift people up. I guess my hope is that this song helps to entertain, and make light of some of the normal and healthy aspects about being single, but maybe also help reveal how insane it is to obsess about stuff like this.

Well, whatever. I don't think I have any more time today to devote to worrying about it, so you let me know if I'm crazy or not. Okay?

FAWM post #4: the lazyman challenge

In the words of my father,

"I'm siiiiiiiiiiiiick."

I am not a fan of complaining. Yes, I woke up with a searing headache, staggered around at the speed of a grandma trying to find the thermometer, nearly just started crying on the bathroom floor when I couldn't find it, found it behind the nightstand, swore up a storm because I was apparently too weak to move the durn thing, finally got it and found out that my fever is 101.2.

Apart from little episodes like that, I'm comfy, there's ibuprofen, and I have tons of juice. And God. I have God, too. Situation like this just puts you in a place of submission and reminds you that you can't do it without God. It's a good place to praise from.

Anyway, this illness just means that I have a unique challenge ahead of me: The Lazyman Challenge!

(I would've said "lazywoman," but it just doesn't have the same ring.)

Anyway, I've piled up everything I need all around my recliner. The goal is to write as many songs as possible without getting up.



Honestly, I'm pretty stoked.



Backtracking a little, I blame this illness partially on FAWM, partially on coffee. After abstaining for 48 hours, I broke for Dunkin Donuts coffee at 3 PM. I was busy FAWMing 'till midnight on Wednesday, and I was cognizant of the fact that the coffee had me wired, but I hadn't quite grasped the idea that I'd need to be getting up at 6 AM the next morning.

So here's me in bed that night, completely wired, eyes wide open, fluttering in and out of sleep, waking periodically to think "wow, that would be a great song idea!"

Needless to say, I'm 90% sure I had this fever yesterday and just decided to go to work in spite of it. Sometimes I'm an idiot like that.



Also, I just did my first collab! I finished setting Jocelyn's lyrics to music and I'm pretty daggum happy with the results. The recording I am less impressed with, mostly because of the vocals -- it'll probably be one of the last songs with true vox for awhile, because of my crappy-feeling lungs and all...

Here's "Little Bird."

FAWM: going after inspiration... with a club.

Michael and I are trying to gather together Delaware (and Delaware-area) songwriters to participate in FAWM, or February Album Writing Month. It's a songwriting challenge; write 1 song every 2 days in February, you end up with 14 songs (about an album's worth).

I managed to complete this challenge last year, and it was amazing. I already had a good pile of songs, but most of my current original repertoire is a direct result of FAWM. The thing that snagged me about FAWM, and the thing that kept me going, was the supportive online community they've built up around it. FAWMers are great -- they come from all different countries and all types of musical backgrounds. They'll listen to your stuff online and give you honest, constructive feedback (if you like).

Online is good, but... I've always been big on community, and I've always been big on music. I don't think we'll ever be sorry we tried to bring together a group of local artists to encourage and hone one another. Nope. Never.

And that's why we're doin' it. Please consider becoming a part of this growing community of artists and songwriters, even if you don't think you can do FAWM.

For more info, check out this site that Michael threw together. Or check us out on facebook!

(Plus, you can watch me through the month of February as I tackle the challenge myself...)