Songs of Necessity

I recently overheard some musicians and songwriters musing over the musical genius that would ensue if they could simply drop everything and retreat to a prominent studio for a few weeks to develop and record an album. Several thoughts came to my mind. Among them- If you truly believed this, you would make it happen. Then, I began to smirk as I reflected on a host of friends with unfinished opus “rock operas” that were twenty years in the making. And lastly, I settled on the thought that if everyone could embrace where their music, their personal lives, and their artistic economic realities meet – they just might create something as poignant, congruent, beautiful and honest as “ a little weird” the latest recording effort from Lnz Kayd and Chris Newton’s project -a Melodic Daydream.
Kayd and Newton have been on this writer’s, and a host of front range music tastemakers’ radar screens for several years now. A simple listen to LnZ’s voice will tell you why. An appreciative ear for Newton’s guitar craft and arrangement skill will add the necessary exclamation point. News of some charting success, work with a prominent producer offering pro bono help, or an artist development deal- I thought had simply eluded me. But, it simply didn’t happen. Predictably, a few curmudgeons in the business lined up and offered to tell them why. I can hear some frustration in Newton’s voice as he patiently answers my questions, but I appreciate and admire the confidence he has held onto in the face of the adversity. Kayd, meanwhile, seemingly saves it all for the music. She has the still waters look, but sings and paddles like there is something altogether different going on inside.

If these challenges and high expectations ever crossed the line into some resentment or overwhelming disappointment, it seems the duo has come to terms with it now and helped LnZ channeled it into song’s like “When do you give up?” I would challenge any songwriter to manufacture a fictional image of such a question in the studio and have it pack the punch this track does. Knowing that the band has pieced together sessions for this album over a couple years by negotiating odd and un-booked studio block fragments was the band living out the reply. Harsh economics, raising their son Jaxon, finding stray session musicians to add to the arrangement in their spare time, were among the constant caveats struggling to be stamped as reasons why the project should be a debacle. I know when a few of us might have given up.

Enter the music. Art in its pure state is about transcendence and transformation. What is most evident in this recording: a Melodic Daydream has bonds and a resource of spirit deeper than the task of recording music, which allows them to emerge from melancholy and celebrate what they wake up to each day. Listen to the track “Shine” and you too will want to watch your loved one fall asleep that nite, and the rest of life evaporate into “just stuff that is going on”.



Hear Kayd’s alter ego and Newtons’s darker half step minors in “Disposable” and you will realized perhaps it is this same unconditional and enduring light that kills a dusty skeleton or two.

So, as I sit and listen to “a little weird” for the umpteenth time and appreciate its effortless visits to Motown, R&B, and Americana I am struck that most bands could not have made this album during this time. Fortunately, a Melodic Daydream is not most bands. They wrote it for one another, out of necessity – but its message of survival and celebration- could not have possibly been more directed at you and me.

Welcome!

Fact and fiction filled accounts of encounters with americana music.  Where it was heard.  Where it was made.  Where it takes us- be it thru maps of memory, journeys of the spirit, or the maze of roads we strike out on to simply press play and follow the ghosts of the highway.

This is an interactive experience.  First task is to buy or listen to the music.  Next, report where it takes you...existential thoughts of bliss, standing atop the san rafael swell spontaneously talking fluent Lakota to hawks, making sweet love to the gal who waited on you at the diner, bar room brawls, fights with your significant other that end in monastic contemplation, or raging at the artist for wasting your money (and theirs)as you purge your ears with q-tips...the idea is for me to plant the seed, give you the itinerary of soundscapes to explore.  The rest is up to you. 

My job is to sort thru the noise, find the voices and sounds that prick up your ears and take you on a ride.  Can't promise what the journey will look like.  Trust me.  A few autumns ago I stood on the deftly named "knife's edge" in the Weminuche Wilderness Area once in a late afternoon thunderstorm.  Not by choice, mind you.  There really is no way down forwards or backwards.  The graphite and aluminum frames on my pack were humming from the static in the air.  I pondered for a moment if this was the hum one hears immediately preceding the blinding flash of doom, followed by guys with headlamps and helicopter flights.  No flash came.  But the next two miles along the ridge on apple sized decomposed granite chunks, intelligently designed to make quick trekking humbling at best. were pure adrenaline.  Couldn't sleep for hours that nite, though exhausted.  For me, it was a hell of a hair raising story to tell, despite the inconvenience of sweat provoking fear.  For my partner at the time, it was grounds for a possible breakup...and a reason to verbally kick me more often than her kindergarden stomps at the damn rocks in her way.  Music can be just like that.  Same hour or so.  Totally different vibe.  Way different account years later.   Perhaps destiny changing, these paths, this music. 

Funny that backpacking memory came to me while writing this first blog.  Maybe you will understand better after going on the little jaunt i am about to invite you on....then again, who knows.
Let's find out.


Itinerary Week One:  Eric Shiveley | "Eden's Light" |   Recorded in San Luis Valley, Colorado



Preview Song and Video (Video by Eric Shively as well - dude makes movies now..more on that later.)


I recommend listening to Mr. Shiveley, who produces and engineers all his own recordings, on headphones when you can...he understands the word "soundscape".

Beyond the atmosphere of the spacious dynamic in the music, Eric uses visual and auditory imagery in his lyrics, the scenes and sounds we can attach our memory to and recall our own senses in our own moments of note.  And damn, he ain't afraid of getting personal, but not to the point we feel we are intrusive and lose our ability to relate and equate the experience.

When Shiveley changes subject matter in his songs and gets intense, the music suddenly retracts from spaciousness, getting claustrophobic and in your face.  Its well thought out, this orchestration of mood.  Whether it be in the timbre of his voice, the mix across the stereo panorama, or the instrumentation swelling from sparse to symphonic...it is seemless and fitting. 

Perhaps my favorite aspect of Eric's songwriting is his ability to turn and create memorable phrases that move past sensory into philosophical musings.  "One chorus written on devil's white linen".  Damn.  That's divine.
Pair it with the chorus of the song "you don't now me at all" and its clever and insightful.  And honest.  And the truth fucking hurts.

Sometimes i feel the art of songwriting is getting lost when i listen to mainstream music.  Another music writer consoled me by suggesting it was "how" i listened to music compared to many.  Perhaps the folks I listen to these days just take it one step further.  But i like where they take me.  I don't have a lot of guru's to look up to these days.  But Eric Shiveley is one of them. 



Looking forward to this one!  Hope you are too.

Comments are your reprisal, your experience.  Let this little experience begin. 

-russ