Due to some unforeseen forces and out of control of anyone in my band’s influence, we had our recording session cancel. But it has been rescheduled for early next year.
In the meantime, we needed a demo recording to send in for a potential gig (fingers crossed). So I set up my small recording rig in a tiny room at Hunter Roberts’ place (you can hear some of that at the end of this post).
The day was pretty long and full of ups and downs. But it’s started my reflection upon the close of this year, what I’m doing with doing with my music, and what I’m doing with my time here in general.
This has been the first time I put together my own group to do my project. I am very much the kind of person who is always in my own way – very hyper self critical, in general nearly paralyzed by self doubt, and fearful of being myself. This whole project was an intentional push to get inside this part of me and go forward, maybe not entirely anew but at least directionally focused.
This is kind of silly but I played this video game, Celeste. It’s about a young woman who decides to climb a very dangerous mountain (Celeste is the mountain, btw. Madeline is the character). Long story short, she has a part of her that is her nemesis – her own self doubt and fear of whole self. But in the end she discovers that this dark side of her is as much necessary as the other. She needs that side of her to fuel her to do things she thought she couldn’t.
This project is my first step to climbing my own mountain, my own internal battle with my nemesis, the Red Eye Ryan. I’ve seen this part of me drive me to near suicide. But I’ve also seen this side of me unleash somehting. Musically – it can come out when I’m playing rock music and occasionally when doing free music. But I know most of the time it’s the side of me that says all the things that get in the way of me playing the way I want or talking to people in the way that is really the authentic me – basically keeping me from allowing myself to be who I have the potential to be.
Anyway, here’s to the New Year and in it the new record and beyond, my ascent of my own Celeste Mountain.
Here are a couple tracks from the demo we did. Pretty raw. But there are things there that are reaching, grabbing from what comes next.
