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Grabbed the new record from Chris Richards and the Subtractions. Power pop trio out of Detroit. It’ll cure what ails you…..even if you’re not sure what that is. Also picked up the latest from Michael Carpenter, which is one of those jangly gems that nobody but sleep-deprived late night web crawlers ever hears about. I’m becoming insanely jealous of guys who can write these songs. My head has been swiveling like an office chair and my foot-tapping is wearing grooves in my floor. I guess this is the definition of infectious. And it all comes down to a guy and a girl. I mean….what else is there to sing about really? Ship wrecks and stuff like that, but they generally aren’t toe-tappers.

So whadda you think about that? Life’s too short to not immerse yourself in such medicinal things.

Happy New Year to anyone who ever pounded on a guitar, or had fun listening to someone else do same.

In a bit…

–tf

I’ve started to play again. Haven’t reached for the pen and paper yet, but at least I’m strumming G, C, and D chords again….along with trying to get my voice into the same area code as the pitch that’s called for.  When I put the guitar aside, it’s my voice that inevitably suffers the most.

So what to do? Listen, that’s what. So I pull out my BoDean records and go through them all, which is kinda like sitting in the back of a very interesting lecture on what rock and roll was, sometimes still can be, and should be going forward. It may sound like I’m expecting too much from two fairly anonymous and criminally underappreciated dudes from Waukesha, Wisconsin, but when a large part of your life consists of a Gibson jumbo acoustic and dollar-store pen and legal pads, inspiration ain’t gonna come from the usual suspects.

It’s back to basics time. Melody. Harmony. Rhythm. Fucking competence. Short stories. Love lost….and maybe even found. Playing music for the same reason you breathe. Because you have to. And you don’t want to turn blue. Literally….and figuratively too.

I don’t care what happens. I care what I do amidst the chaos. I don’t care what I sell. I care about what I’d buy. I’m getting too old keep up with the gray hair. I just want to write about what brought it on in the first place.

Growing old but never growing up in the key. Nobody who grows old can play rock and roll. It is a young man’s game. But old age is a state of mind, which is why the BoDeans continue to be the signpost along the road that I’m always searching for when I start to grow weary. Like a blinking vacancy sign along a seemingly never-ending stretch of drab highway.

In a bit…

–tf

It’s odd not being able to sleep. You find yourself doing the strangest things. Last night at 3:45am I was downloading copies of Tom Petty’s “Damn the Torpedoes” and “Southern Accents”. I love Petty, but the timing was a bit strange in retrospect. I mean….it could have waited until (later in the) morning surely.

Tired of writing music at the moment. My latest record meant a lot to me but not much to anybody else apparently, so that’s sorta demoralizing. I’ve placed the guitar in storage for the time being, and just sit and listen now. I’ll only know if things have sunk in when I start writing again.

Sleep is underrated if you’re not getting any, and overrated if you get 8 hours.

And just a Tom Petty thought. I’ve always distrusted people who keep the same hair-style their entire lives. They remind me too much of Jackson Browne, and Jackson Browne always kinda gave me the creeps. Petty is a legit hall-of-famer for sure, but the 70s must have put the zap on his head somehow. Why else would somebody intentionally want to continue looking like the blond Iggy Pop?

In a bit…

tf