There's a perpetual mist around the House Pride complex, a mist of ganja smoke and smoldering piles of leaves and beer breath and reverb. Somehow, in spite of all this, or maybe because of it, we've all been pretty hellbent on creative productivity. Long nights, long days, lots of squinting at computer screens and sharpening all those old callouses on our fingertips.
Nick and Henry and myself have been writing and recording some songs for a three-way split, tentatively titled Twelve Pack. The original idea for this record was to record it over a four-night period, each person recording one song per night, and to drink lots of beer in the process. We've since done away with such limitations, but the general spirit of the beast remains intact. Lots of beer, lots of first takes, lots of group effort. There's no "I" in "team", but there happens to be a couple of "I's" in "Milwaukee's Best Light". The eventual finished product from these sessions should hopefully be done by the time January rolls around, when the three of us are going out on the road, armed to the teeth with Wildhorse cigarettes and acoustic guitars, and doing a couple weeks of touring in support.We can't come up with a clever name for our tour, but are open to suggestion.
In other recording news under our roof, Nick's been working on new songs for the upcoming Children of Spy record (the first record under the new project name), and they all sound real good. Lots of guitars, and I think some of the best-written songs he's ever come up with. Justin is working on new Soul Mama stuff, Matt's been writing and recording some really brilliant instrumental stuff, and Matt and Kevin have been feverishly working on an amazing new Toxic Teeth record. I'm not going to go into detail in regards to the latter, as it deserves a blog entry all to itself, but Kevin never ceases to amaze me. He's invented a new genre this time, inspired by astronomy and Star Trek and David Bowie and Neil Young and psychotropic botanicals.
Lastly, I've been working on the first-ever honest-to-gawd New Madrid release; the Pharmer EP. A couple of songs are finished, a couple are awaiting drums to be recorded, and a couple haven't even been started yet. I'm pretty excited at the prospect of finally having a tangible and coherent slab of music that isn't just a weird collection of old acoustic demos or live recordings. Walt is coming out from Memphis to track some drums, and he and I and Shea plan on hitting the road for a little less than a week in late December or early January to test the waters.
Generally speaking, I'd say Autumn has been treating us HP boys fairly well. We've been doing a lot of yardwork, drinking a lot of beer, and playing a lot of poker. There are changes on the horizon, but this much is true of any group of friends and comrades at this tumultuous point in our lives. We're just trying to weather the storm the only way we know how.Nick's been brainstorming possibilities for the label and talking to other bands and artists who are interested in being part of it, which is exciting. We have some big ideas, ideas that may not really be that outlandish when taken in context with this ultra-accessible modern culture we're all a part of, whether we like or not. There's no point in bitching about the way things were, or trying to be regressive, when offered so many options and possibilities in the way that art and information is being shared and distributed. We learn and we grow, and that's what makes so unique as humans; the ability to willingly progress, not in any sort of imperialistic or industrial sort of way, but to find and righteously exploit the potential offered to us.
Nick's going to regret asking me to write for House Pride Records when he sees the tangential diatribe I veered into, so I may as well hammer this bitch to a close by quoting a Henry Miller passage that I recently read that reminded me of all of the creative motherfuckers in my life...
"In the struggle which they have to make themselves understood they create music; taking the discordant elements of life, they weave a pattern of harmony and significance. If it weren't for this constant struggle on the part of a few creative types to expand the sense of reality in man the world would literally die out. We are not kept alive by legislators and militarists, that's fairly obvious. We are kept alive by men of faith, men of vision. They are like vital germs in the endless process of beginning. Make room, then, for the life-giving ones!"
