I’m against it.

As a kid, I spent almost two years in a hospital after coming down with this illness.

There are different varieties—and newer treatments are about 1,000% better than back in the old country. But just ask the fourteen people who’ve died: it’s no joke.

The irony for me is that I was left with a post-recovery arthritis that has made me just the kind of guy who buys those kinds of injections three or four times a year.

But I don’t do them. Because they don’t work. Or rather, they can work, for a short period. See the injections themselves are pretty controversial. There’s a huge placebo affect. And you’re getting an injection millimeters away from yer spinal fluid—which you really want to stay as far away from as possible. But there are a lot of ‘boomers’ these days with a lot of aches and pains… and spare cash. And doctors convinced that this sort of thing is ‘routine’.

My point is this: apparently the places that make a lot […]

There’s a whole philosophy about ‘the pointlessness of…’ life/love/complaining…whatever.

http://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/features/grizzly-bear-2012-10/

The history of art has progressed along with the history of commerce. Successful artists have always struggled to find ways to make a living with their art. From Beethoven to the Beatles, you see the same story over and over: the artist works like a dog performing; all the while plotting on how to stop performing and concentrate on creation. At some point, every artist needs to stop being a trained monkey and start getting paid for the tune.

I’ve railed here a bunch of times on the huge shift brought about by the internet. The main thing, in my view, has been the radical shift in how musicians are viewed. We’ve spent the last 500 years trying to free ourselves from patronage and performance and actually get paid for the music. And in the past ten years it’s all gone down the pan.

This is not sour grapes. When an artist can only make a living doing shows or selling t-shirts, it turns […]

OK, so we’re all doing it Gangnam Style this week.

There was an expression amongst jazzers years ago, ‘All the good notes are taken’ to explain why older tunes were more memorable. I was told that Duke coined it. Even if that isn’t true, it’s something he could have said so I’ll go with it. The melancholy in that sentence is something I feel keenly. Duke was a guy who went from nothing to great success to being forgotten and then reborn to fame and then finally recognised as a national treasure. I always admired the man even more than his music because he just kept going out every night with a quiet dignity regardless of the latest fashion. He wasn’t truly appreciated until his passing, but those who knew him always realised that he was the coolest man in any room.

There have been a number of articles and books out lately about some basic changes in music since the ’70’s. Tonally, music has gone […]

As you can see, in two months you’ll be able to purchase my first album of all new material in four years. I don;t know whether I’m amazed at how fast. Or how slow.

Get details and hear some samples

One oddity of global warming is that Seattle is behaving the opposite of the rest of the world. Summers are becoming less and less present. My favourite season is autumn. It always makes me feel like “let’s go!” When I was a kid, in addition to school, that meant, getting the cottage ready for the winter and helping my uncle change out the boat for the winter season.

But these days, my ambitions seem to be limited mainly to praying to the great god Windex for a streak free shine. Clean windows are important—especially as the days shorten. My grandmother felt that maximising available light was more important than insulation and the older I get the more I see her point.

I need all the light I can get. I’m missing so many things. For example, it’s crept up on me: I’M ALMOST OUTTA RECORDS! There’s about 1,000 left.

But in the immortal words of Hedley Lamarr, “why am I telling you?” The people who read this already have the entire catalog.

The last […]