christian crumlish doing stuff
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So… this happened
Like an aging AAA slugger called up to the majors, like a prep-school outsider starting college, like a choreographer with bad knees getting access to the biggest stage, I find myself leading the product management chapter at 18F as it celebrates its tenth anniversary. 18F is a consulting entity in TTS (Technology Transformation Services) in…
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ODI, ride or die
This past Friday I finished my last day on easily the greatest job I’ve had so far in my long, strange and oftentimes charmed career. I started at ODI, initially as a contractor, when it was still called the Office of Digital Innovation. I joined the team working on California’s statewide Covid site (covid19.ca.gov) as…
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Let’s pour one out
What a long, strange year it’s been, recording one song a month for twelve months running for my record, Layers of Meta. We started with a song I had just started writing, “The Long Haired Kings,” last February. That day in the studio was just my producer and friend, David Gans; our engineer and co-producer,…
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Swim-two-birds logo ideas
As part of my songwriting trip I established a music publishing company for publishing my songs and managing that side of their rights (I also signed up with BMI for the songwriter side of the equation, and included my alias, Crispy Bacon). The company is called At Swim-Two-Birds Music in full but generally I just…
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You’ll know when
This whole album project evolved somewhat naturally from my ongoing songwriting efforts. As far as I can tell, writing songs is the best writing medium for me. I’ve written short stories, novels, poetry, and plays, and in each case I feel that I was able to carve out something worthwhile from time to time, but…
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Dirty ol’ tune
In that same spirit of catching my breath toward the end of the year I find I never did share any of the rough mixes of the third song we recorded this year, which must have been back in April. This one benefited a lot from having John Hanes on drums, and I feel he…
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Nobody called it that
At least in my day, nobody called our neighborhood on the upper east side “Carnegie Hill,” although that’s what they call it today and maybe some folks, like realtors, even called it that back then. A bunch of things converged in 2020. I was getting a bit more intentional about songwriting. I read the wonderful…
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Why I use a chamois
So a lot have been going on. Usually I rush over here breathless with excitement about my latest recording session but now I’m in catch-up mode again. Back in October I took off a long weekend for my birthday, and on that Friday went to Megasonic to record “Sham Song” (also known as “Chanson”). After…
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Super friends
Between recording sessions and working for the state, I’ve been planning a redux of the one-day remote Design in Product conference and just posted a video over on Linky-Din promoting it.
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Embiggening the fun
Recording in the studio has been just an amazing experience so far, but this most recent session took it all up to the next level for me, personally! This time, we recorded live in the studio, as a quartet: Javier Navarette on percussion, Robert Wade on bass, David Gans on guitar, and myself on uke…
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A fresh look at Moses
This song started off with one couplet and developed into something of its own. Having gotten the basic tracks down In the studio now, it has taken further shape, as hinted at in this rough mix (produced by David Gans and engineered by Jeremy Goody at Megasonic Sound, with David on guitar and Dan Brodnitz…
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A.I. Green sings
Fatal error, my core can’t detect / Discarding sectors of uncertain prospect
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Never been to Narnia
One sign of how busy I’ve been lately is it’s taken me weeks to share the latest rough mix from my “Pleasant Valley sessions,” something called “Finn’s Song” informally and “Stand Up, Mixer!” inexplicably:
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Seeing the hindsights
Got back to Megasonic Sound for my monthly recording session last weekend and laid down the basic tracks for a fifth song for my album, “Memory Lane,” with Bill Cassel on bass; myself on vocals, electric ukulele, and acoustic ukulele; David Gans producing and Jeremy Goody engineering.
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I don’t want majestic splendor
Back into the studio again to lay down basic tracks for a fourth song for my album. This one is “Down to the Mountain,” which started off kind of in the mode of a string-band or folk-rock tune in my mind but seems to be heading for a more ethereal church-y feel so far.
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It’s possible
I’m sorry,
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Some other version
OK, got a new version of this new song ready to share:
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Some of the time…
I’ve got two recording sessions coming up by the end of the month on the album project, and another at the end of July, so that’s moving as fast as it can, but “can’t stop won’t stop” when it comes to the wooosh of songwriting, so after Ghost Door has come an interesting melody that…
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Trust the wooosh
Not sure why but I still seem to have beginner’s mind when it comes to writing songs and even having a set of ten that I feel are ready for my first album has not shut down the ongoing process of discovering and writing songs, with this newest work in progress coming over the weekend:
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Second one in the can
Went back to Megasonic Sound yesterday to record basic tracks for a second song for my album and came out with another rough mix that’s making me smile.
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In the public sector, what’s the product?
UX Lisbon has now put up online their video of my closing talk from last year’s conference. I listened to it again this morning and I think it holds up and still captures how I feel about the work I am doing. I will be giving an updated and vastly briefer version of this talk…