Category: Musicology
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We were all young once
I was surprised to see some younger-ish folks at the Dead show in Sunday. For me one of the highlights was having two functioning knees and being able to stand (and dance) all night. It was a lot of fun! Yes, at times somewhat labored,but many great moments especialy in set the second set. Set…
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Days between
Back when Jerry Garcia was still alive, after I had moved to San Francisco and then later to Oakland, the abundance of Grateful Dead shows (not to mention Garcia Band and other related family events) made me complacent. I wouldn’t even make plans before an upcoming run. More often than not someone would show up…
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Save the date
Bay area friends and fam at least, we’ve got a tentative date for the NO ONE DOES IT SOLO ONLY release party featuring a live performance by Layers of Meta, in Albany, CA: Friday, September 12, 2025. Venue, time, evite information, etc., tbd. More details as we sort them out but given how few times…
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Ambient marketing
How do you promote a record when you have no real platform as a musical artist, and why would you anyhow? The why part is easy. I’d like people to hear the music. The rest, well, it’s all been icing on the cake since I finished one song I liked (thanks, Jeff Tweedy!), but I…
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Dirty ol’ vid
Here’s another slideshow video I made for another song on the record, “Dirty Ol’ Sunshine”:
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Video ’cause there’s no radio anymore
I have found that people who might not click on an audio link and listen to a three-minute song might very well click on a video link and watch some images and, well, end up also listening to a song, so…
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Releasing a record is a lot
Last week was a whirlwind. Album finally dropped on streaming, lawsuit underway, lots of work and personal stuff. B’s birthday month in full swing!Now I’m into the “claiming my profile as a first-time artist” on Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Deezer? and on and on.I have finally been approved to upload my lyrics to a service…
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Weaving the strands
There’s a lot going on! The website for the record is launched and pretty close to final, at least for a v1. I’m particularly keen on the semi-hidden per-session notes and photos. The long weekend has given my some time to catch up things and some time to scheme about new things. Next week is…
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Summer jam?
The single from my album has hit its first streaming service:
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Deep breaths…
I have received my shipment of prerelease CDs (unboxing vid below). So not only can you order a CD now, but if you do it soon, you can actually get your copy before the official release date in June. For now, I’m just savoring that new CD smell. (Cover art by Dave Gray. Sleeve design…
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Launching soon…
The Kickstarter campaign for the limited edition vinyl LP release of No One Does it Solo Only will be launching soon. You can sign up to notified when the campaign launches for real (within the next two weeks), now on the site.
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Which dreamed it?
A colleague of mine was telling us about Google’s “Notebook LLM” which enables you to upload or point to as specific body of content and then get a summary, chat about the content, or even have the LLM generate a semi-plausible sounding synthetic “podcast” in which two perky morning-show type hosts discuss what you’ve shoveled…
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Merch mocks
Since I decided to run a Kickstarter campaign to try to raise some funds (and gauge the level of interest) for a vinyl release of No One Does It Solo Only, and that means thinking about the rewards at various tiers. I can share more of my thinking on that soon if anyone cares, but…
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Manufacturing
The files are off the the manufacturer and if you just can’t contain yourself, you can preorder a CD now! No One Does It Solo Only by Layers of Meta
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This one time…
No One Does It Solo Only by Layers of Meta is now available for pre-order at Bandcamp: No One Does It Solo Only by Layers of Meta
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Serendip
Made a last minute choice to swing up to Menlo Park after work to a little place called Bar Loretta, tucked inside a restaurant called Left Bank, apparently on the site Magoo’s Pizza Parlor, the site of the first proto-Grateful Dead show sixty years ago. Billed as the Warlocks still, the show featured the first…
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Master and sequencer
Another milestone! I’m listening to digital masters for the album and thinking about the gaps, the little breathers between the end of one song and the start of the next. We should have those fine details sorted by next week, after which the files go off the Crooked Cove (to manufacture the CDs) and CD…
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Wooosh
A good friend of mine talks about that feeling of creative flow in which it gets easier to make your ideas real. It comes and goes on its own but you can certainly invite and you can definitely chase it way. You can at the very least leave the door open and cultivate the habit…
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More punk than you
Reading sadly of David Thomas’s death at 71 of kidney failure it appears, the legendary founder of Pere Ubu. Remembering how my hipper than thou postpunk mentor and now-famous game pundit Jeff Green told me about first seeing him before a show and wondering something like who the fat guy in the used car salesman…
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Celebrate every milestone
I just signed off on the final edits to “Sham Song.” it’s fitting that the one I started writing before I ever wrote a real song would be the last one perfected for my Perfectible Recordings record. I learned long ago to recognize a celebrate every step along the way of a long journey, every…
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Back at the keyboard
Happy Easter to those who celebrate it today! I went to bed late last night and had a momentary diarist’s bout of conscience for not having added anything to the pile here yesterday. And yet I was writing all day. Have been, really, for at least a week now. I’m trying to get a bunch…