[wrote this a little while back, never posted here 'til now]
Sunday, 9/20/15
Working on a list of new original songs, really into learning these new ones, working with them, stuff I've written over past 5 years but never yet learned. When I'm on a writing roll, I just keep cranking them out while the ideas are coming, get 'em written down and, one hopes, recorded on Ideas tape in some useful state. Later, when not writing, I go back & learn those I wrote but didn't yet learn. Some of my new ones have lots of lyrics, which winds up taking the longest time, memorizing lyrics & going over so many times that - again, one hopes - they'll all be there when the heat is on, onstage {or on the street} where a missed or forgotten lyric is - to me - a small disaster, & something I do not like. I need to know my lyrics extremely well, so they're there & flowing perfectly no matter what distractions might be taking place when I'm playing. For example, my new song, "Dangerous", has four verses, rapid-fire, and four different choruses, so I'm workin' on solidly memorizing 32 lines, in the right fuckin' order, to machine-gun deliver over a very high-energy guitar & hoppin', funky beat.
Also for new set, I'm learning some old songs that are pretty tough, two songs that I recorded once but never memorized to play onstage. "Give It Up" {on Free Music Downloads} is a punk song, one of my first from 1984, & I'm enjoying playing it, as it's fun and challenging too. Very high-energy, lots of rapid chord changes, all one barchord with left hand, moving here & there, hooking & jumping. "Whatever You Want" {also on Free Music Downloads} I did in '94, also high-energy, one-barchord punky rock'n'roll, I'm now learning to play/sing live for the first time, too.
I am soon to record passable versions of a bunch of new songs, to add to Free Music Downloads here. I'm heavily into Blues these days - but never a steady diet, it's gotta be mixed with rock'n'roll & other stuff, I think, or it starts to flatline.
After 12 years or so of learning to really play the blues on guitar, I'm starting to get it - spending a lot of my practice time on that, too. Elegant & expressive simplicity is the hardest thing to achieve. It must be utterly Real to be good.
As far as live performances, I am not focused on them at all - though every time I play, I'm thinking in that direction, getting my songs in play-ready state, preparing myself at all times to be ready to go onstage, and I am. I'm just in no hurry to play live - to put it lightly. I have no real motivation to do so, right now. I've made up my mind that I'm going to do as many excellent songs as possible, record as many of them as I can, in the best-sounding form I can manage with what primitive equipment I have, and focus on getting good & making more songs. They'll still be here when I'm dead, available for people to stumble onto eventually. Right now my focus is on emphasizing the songs, not myself. I'm very, very serious about the art. I don't really care about handclaps & backslaps - they aren't deep, & they aren't dependable. Fuckin' Good Music is!
I'm always ready to be Invited to play somewhere. I'm just so sick of saying,"Hey, can I play here?" and "Hey, can I play there?" & getting the brush-off & "no respect at all". I just say fuck it to all that bullshit & when people come to their senses & realize how excellent my music is, if I'm still alive by that time, I'll be asked to play somewhere, & that'll be cool.
Yes, I could be more pushy and energetic about getting out there to open mics & knockin' on doors hustling for gigs, but I really am not willing to expend that much of my available energy in that endeavor. I'm using it to play & do my music, and I will be recording as much as I can. When I do play live somewhere, I give it all I've got, trust me - I'm there to make it count. Playing live, more than anything else, is what it's all about - and is, truly, what I want to do more than anything. I'm just not going to waste my time looking for an audience that isn't there yet.
For complicated reasons, I have very rare opportunities to record anything. I thin I can do so in the coming weeks, however.
That's me, & here I am.
Regards to whomever might read this. Hi!
- Jim Danger
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