10.4.16

Up 9. Weight 215.5. Not a prose day.

Worked on “Rainy Days and Mondays.” Heard Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s arrangement of “Deep River” on WQXR. The pianist sure milked the ending. Coffee, daybook, read in Hartman, started Joseph Massey, Illocality. More Flood than Wave. Bought a flash drive (last one lost in the shuffle of coming back from CA).

Home at 11:30, practiced the Human Hearts set off and on – it’s surprising hard to make oneself sit there and play through songs without pausing to fool w/ a guitar part or forgiving oneself for lyric flubs. The bridge of “Believe in Ghosts” (which I’ll probably rewrite) and finicky variant rhymes in the choruses of “Enemies of Song” are tricky, and I don’t know two newer songs well. Broke around 3 to call my parents (meaning to talk more often, a week goes by easily), w/ Bree.

Left at 5, met Matt at his workplace to help him carry drums to Hi-Fi. Got set up (I don’t like their house amp). Put St. Lenox (Andrew + tracks on phone + bass player) on at 8:00; Allen read briefly, we played our set, then brought Allen up to join us. I’ve played better. Modest turnout, neither embarrassing or encouraging. Glad to see Jenny, David Nagler, Liz & Ed, Matt Kanelos, Pete Galub, Drew. Casey Westerman down from Princeton, but didn’t have a chance to talk. Took $20 out of the door for cab fare, gave the rest to Allen. Debriefed w/ Bree on way home. Fun and all, and good for my karma, but I’m glad I can get back to writing (though we’ll see about tomorrow).

Set list: Enemies of Song/Still In Error/Boring Postcards/A Different City For a Different Life/Our Films, Their Films/Believe in Ghosts/Faith & Credit/Not Just When We Kiss [unaccountably forgot first chorus]/Flag Pin. With Allen: Rainy Days & Mondays [his idea]/Tourists/Going to Fontana/Be Positive/Junk/Bicycle/Lonesome Surprise

10.3.16

Up 8:30. Weight 215.7

Figured out changes for “Sara 99.” Read Hartman’s Free Verse for a while at coffee; the distinction between metrical (accentual-syllabic) and isochronic prosodies is worth being clear on w/r/t songwriting. Chatted with Joe & Honor [last name?], a couple of well-informed writers I run into occasionally, about musical theater. A couple of slow hours at home.

At Oracle 3:15, worked on “Ja-Da” until 6. Brief conversation w/ one of the painters downstairs about Camera Lucida. Finished Bullies on the way to rehearsal – aggressively inconclusive, on both the book’s personal and sociopolitical tracks. Reticence (rather than violence) as masculinity. Listened to some of the Ike Turner again, Threadgill on the walk from the subway. Rehearsed 7-10, worked on the Fridge songs + “Going to Fontana” w/ Allen. Realized that I forgot to learn “Rainy Days and Mondays.” Ran through our set after Allen left; maybe b/c I’ve performed recently, feel fairly comfortable, though less so on some lyrics – a disadvantage of learning an extra set. Finished Banias on the way home. Underwhelmed. there are moments (“See the sunset behind the courthouse, and how they are one/institution touching each other”; “the agreement to call this that”) but the themes, “insights,” and theoretical points of reference are trendy (a title taken from Laura Berlant) and the technique is on the conservative end of American Hybrid. Daybook, to remind myself that my poetry is no better. Home 11:30, lights out 1.

September reading

Robert Palmer, Deep Blues

Frank Bruno, Bruno and Son (my dad's memoir of his dad)

Phyllis Korkki, The Big Thing

Ted Greenwald, Age of Reasons

Paul Oliver, Savannah Syncopators: African Retentions in the Blues

Robert Bruce and Abner Silver, How To Write a Hit Song and Sell It (1939)

Janet Malcolm, Forty-One False Starts

Ted Greenwald, Clearview/Lie

David Gilbert, The Product of our Souls: Ragtime, Race, and the Birth of the Manhattan Musical Marketplace

Julian Tepper, Ark

Poems of Robert Burns

Lucy Ives, The Hermit

Evan Kindley, The Questionnaire

Tricia Rose, Black Noise

10.2.16

Up 9:00. Weight 215.8.

Ran through Allen’s songs tonight, transcribed a few lyrics. Made a bass chart for “Going to Fontana” for Mon. rehearsal. Coffee: daybook, 10 p. of Banias. (Has not impressed me past the first 1/3; a shaming poem called “Enough” is particularly bad.) Bought a new toner cartridge (+ one of the superfine red pens I like), took phone in for new battery.  Dominican parade on 37th Ave.

Home for a while, at Oracle about 3. Finished the bit on “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” started next section on “Ja-Da” (from a previous draft). Left for WFMU about 5:45. Weekend train/shuttle bus mishegoss added time; finished Jasen & Jones (ends w/ Fats Waller; useable quote from Dizzy Gillespie on the bridge of “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”) Listened to Ike Turner, Rhythm’ Rockin’ Blues, comp of ‘50s work. Almost all 12-bar, somewhere between Louis Jordan and Chess. Slightly later material on Cobra is more varied.

Met Allen and his friend Scooter who drove him up from Philly at the station at 7:30, on Gaylord’s show about an hr. later. Allen did a good interview, I interjected a few times. Played “Be Positive,” “Issac’s Shadow,” “State Trooper” (bringing in the riff behind Allen’s reading and going straight into the song – spur of the moment, but it worked) and “Bicycle.” Solid. PATH/subway home, another chunk of Bullies, now into the part that emphasizes Oakland history over the immediate motorcycle club narrative. Home 11, dithered a bit, lights out 12:30.

10.1.16

Happy New Year. Up at 8. Weight 215.9.

Bree’s eye is looking better. Left for Greenpoint at 9; read Jasen & Jones (on J. Mayo Williams/Paramount records, shift from published blues to country blues), wrote in daybook at coffee bar, finished just as Steve Silverstein walked in. Went to his studio nearby, final track assembly for upcoming Shrimper radio/demo/odds & sods tape. Made decisions about tops/tails, track order/spacing. Went smoothly, done by noon. Major step in getting this out, next one is to write liner notes (long and hard to organize b/c of variety of sources).

Had a bite, stopped in The Thing on Manhattan Ave. Picked up cheap CDs by Billy Bragg (the b-sides comp), Marvin Gaye (#1s, for reference), Walt Dickerson, and a 2002 collection of unrecorded Ellington from an unproduced 1958 musical; also took a flyer on a 1998 Oxford book on philosophy of interpretation, and a instructional book on pro jazz/pop arrangement from the mid-1950s. Defines “montuno” as “An ad lib solo with just rhythm interest playing back of it…Having no harmonies in the background gives the solo complete freedom to play any harmonies or in any key he wants to, as long as he finally works back to the key the orchestra is going into at the end of the montuno.” (Helpful for my James Brown chapter.)

At Oracle by about 1:30, worked on 3 paragraphs about various recordings of “I Ain’t Got Nobody” until about 6. I guess I made my 600 word quota (for writing days, of which there have not been enough lately), but it came hard, and I petered out on Louis Prima. Read to about the halfway point of Bullies on the way home; skipped poetry today. Rec’d Jameson book (An American Utopia) I’d ordered on discount. Needed to crash, napped to a couple of OTR Dragnet episodes (used to be a regular habit, may be again). Got back up around 9:30, returned a call, refreshed to-do lists for the next couple of days, located a phone repair place in the neighborhood. Misc. tasks and distractions, lights out past midnight.