Transmissions from Bed
Blugh.
Hello all,
My Patreon offering for you all this month was supposed to be a fun, off-the-cuff cover—something new rather than old—but I am currently voiceless, on account of almost vomiting myself to death from whatever stomach flu has taken hold of me this week. (Sorry! I guarantee it won’t be even close to the worst thing you read this week!) Fortunately, however, I am able to convalesce from the comfort of my own bed, as I have managed, finally—to officially move into our new house. So you know what? I may not be having the greatest time over here, but I am immensely grateful for this.
However, if you are hungry for something exciting and new—and want to support a good cause in the meantime—I’ve contributed a song to an enormous compilation from Good Music benefiting fire relief in Los Angeles. It is out today, Bandcamp Friday, and will be available to download for one day only! Here’s a link to listen and support, if you’re able.
The song is called, appropriately enough, “Someday We’ll Lose it All.” I wrote and recorded it this past November on a creative retreat with friends—Alan Good Parker, Jacob Ungerleider, John Fatum, and Adrian Olsen—at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, TX. We spent a handful of days in Studio A, and the bulk of this song was recorded in its ‘stone room,’ a reverberant space intended for drums. We gravitated towards this space for some reason, and ended up tracking all of the layers of this song as a unit—first, all simultaneously playing an assortment of guitars, and later, with an assortment of percussion we came to refer to as the ‘human drum machine.’ After a song form had taken shape, I quickly wrote lyrics to a melody I had already had in my head, sang it a few times, and it was done. The whole thing was recorded and mixed in real time by Felipe Castaneda. It was all very under-considered, in a good way. I’m very happy with how it turned out and grateful to my friends for helping bring it to life.
(Full disclosure: if you simply cannot afford to make another donation at this moment, but you still want to hear this song, I’ll send it over to my paying Patreon subscribers next month, once the fundraising window has closed.)
To hold you over in the meantime, I’ll offer up a little meditative track of piano and synths that I recorded for a friend on his birthday, many years ago. It was just an improvisation, but I still find it beautiful, and I hope it makes you feel peaceful for a few moments. I called it Daydream of Progress. Here’s to keeping the dream alive…I guess?
Along those lines, I just want to say—if you, like me, are feeling depressed, hopeless, overwhelmed—I see you. Particularly for those who are currently being explicitly targeted by our new fascist billionaire overlords—our trans and queer and immigrant friends, folks of color, and anyone not rich enough to buy themselves a ticket off of this burning planet. Of course we all have a voice and a role to play, but the sheer number of voices and opinions and ideas ricocheting around everywhere overwhelms me. I find myself yearning for a leader worthy of this moment, someone called to represent, channel, and focus all of the anger and grief so many are feeling in a way that’s actually productive. Hero, are you out there? Here’s hoping.
Nauseated, but still kicking,
JW