The Continuing Saga pt. 1

It's been a damn busy few months. Just got done with "A little Celtic Christmas" with my old Celtic band who now call themselves 'Wild Thyme.' Hey a couple hundred people showed up...not bad. Check out my gig calendar at www.sonicbids.com/mikemudd. Hollywood Wine and Espresso should be a good show.

I've also been attending songwriting and business seminars, and writing a heck of a lot of tunes. One in particular that I wrote last week called Rollin' Away has been getting a great response. Nashville producer/publisher/writer Tim Johnson compared it to John Prine. Others compared it to Woodie Guthrie. Hey I couldn't ask to be in better company.

Hey I'm payin' my bills (mostly) performing now! That's pretty exciting. I get to dress up Like a goofy super hero 'Recycleman' and perform a water conservation show -the 'Rockin' Water Road Show' to elementary school kids. I ain't getting rich, but it's a step in the right direction. I took over the show from a great guy named Peter Dubois. Check out the website -www.recycleman.com.

I also did what I hope will be the final remix of my EP -M- which I hope to get for sale up on CD Baby soon.

Busy

Keeping busy...I've been working hard on the press kit for two weeks. I've been submitting my electronic press kit to various places, stuff like that.

Samantha took a bunch of pictures for the press kit the other day, but the film was bad, it was wierd just a clear strip of celluloid for the negative. Anyway -that's one thing that isn't there yet. But I like the old basement-troubadour stuff. I am glad though that I'm finally getting out of the basement in terms of my own material, I want to share these songs with people who might appreciate them.

I went to the "FAR-West Acoustic Summit" yesterday at Mississippi Studios, which was very enlightening, and a hell of a lot of fun. So much good music happening there.
Probably my favorite was Ter-ra a female acoustic song duo from Portland. But I really identified with the songs by singer/songwriter Chico Schwall.

I found out that I've booked a wedding in September at the Black Walnut Inn. I'll play classical for the ceremony and songs for the reception.

I was also going to do a slot at this place that's opening up called the 9 Muses, but I just don't think I can do another open-mic type of deal, and I'm going to tell him so. The guy's so frazzled getting the place ready to open he hasn't even looked at my stuff, and he wants me to do a competition style open mic. It does nothing for me. I mean, what the hell have I been doing all these years? I've payed my dues with open mics and talent shows and meat market "battle of the bands."

I wouldn't be against playing for free at a place like that, but I need to at least be able to do a full set. In my experience those environments aren't conducive to creating a good vibe between artists, which for me is one of the goals.

Take Me Out

I'm having a really good writing spurt...I always write a lot, but it feels like I've punched through some kind of threshold in my ability.

I wrote another tune last night that I'm really happy with. This one probably needs to be edited into a smaller tune as it's almost 7 minutes long, but I'm not sure what I could cut.

The song is about the world right now, "I'm just trying to live my life, in a world that's guickly falling apart." -Trying to live with our eyes open -to have a fulfilling life without ignoring the fact that there are so many people (terrorist and otherwise) trying to destroy this paradise that we live in -Recognizing our responsibilities as humans who make an impact on the world without feeling like we have to carry the weight of the world. Anyway, enough with the bad sentence structure.

I recorded the tunes this afternoon, but only managed to get the first verse down for "This Time."


"This Time"

"Take Me Out"

I think I See the Light

Well, the show last night was fun if nothing else. My new rig works well, but the direct recording didn't sound nearly as close to the live sound as I would have liked.

I didn't end up recording "This Time," but I did get a pretty good performance of the tune "I Think I See the Light." I wrote this one 6 or 7 years ago during the period when I was thinking a lot about how so much of what I grew up believing was really a lie, and a means of control.

"i think i see the light"

There might be a couple more tunes worth uploading later too, but I'm going to record "This Time" soon so I can hear how it sounds third person so to speak.

This Time -new tune

I promised myself that I would start using this space to talk about the songwriting process, so I'm starting with this one. I've been working on it the last couple of days and the lyrics are almost solidified.

The last few years have been much better for me in terms of finishing songs. Mostly I attribute this to not worrying as much about the individual words and instead focusing on the overall idea behind the lyric. I'll find a nice chord structure that pushes a melody to the surface. If I'm lucky the concept for the lyric will come naturally from the mood of what I'm playing.

This tune for instance felt like a hopeful tune, it has just a repeated four chord structure and sort of reminded me of a Van Morisson tune like "Brand New Day" or one of those. What popped into my head was the memory of discovering a new emotion.

For want of stronger language I fell in love all over again, only on a completely different level. It really is impossible to describe in words, it was a spiritual moment. I can't remember what led up to it, but we were looking into each other's eyes and then we were both crying. I guess that's what happens when an emotion so strong hits you like that.

Throughout my life I've only more strongly realized how disfunctional the world is and how rare it is to find a truly genuine relationship. So many people we've had in our lives are fakers and want to take advantage of us in one way or another. These situations always make my feelings for Samantha even stronger.

Anyway, although I used to find most love songs cheesy, I don't seem to have much trouble writing them, they always seem to move fast. 10 minutes later I had a page and a half of lyrics and was balling my eyes out singing them. I edited them so that they flowed a little better and am mostly satisfied that it's a complete song.



The problem was one that is pretty common. Some of the lines rhymed or could be made to rhyme pretty easily, but trying to force it can make the process fall apart. So do I ignore the potential for rhyming, try to make it all rhyme or what? That's why it's not quite done, I want to play it some more and figure it out.

In the end I doubt that the lyrics will win me any awards, but I don't care. When I can capture an emotion in a song in a way that brings it back so strongly it's a masterpiece to me.

I'll try to get some kind of recording of it this week. Maybe I'll play it and record my set at the coffee shop on Friday.

Moving Fast

Things are moving pretty fast now. A producer named Jim Ragland (www.jimragland.com) says he wants to produce an album for me. He produced a lady by the name of Patti-Anne Mathison (www.pamathison.com) who has had her music on more than 150 radio stations, and her album sounds great. I believe that he knows what he's doing, and he knows that I'm serious so we're going go for it.

I'm playing at Coffee Lovers in Portland (4144 SE 60th) on Friday, July 14th from 6:30-8:30. It'll be the first show with my new setup, I'm looking forward to it.

Here are the rest of the tunes from the EP; I think I'll upload the disc as a whole at some point as well.

"Processional"

"Last Night"

"ride"

"April"

"Dissolve"

Finally...

Mike Mudd has a CD! I'm calling it simply "M." It may only be 30 minutes and it may not be perfect, and it's completely different than the album I had intended to make, but it's (almost) all new music and I'm (mostly) satisfied with it.

I managed to produce it in the living room of my little apartment over the last 6 months (minus the time I was gone).

Samantha came up with a great concept for the outside art, every cover is unique. She did them in acrylic and they're textured and tactile which is what I wanted. The picture at the top doesn't do justice to them. They are beautiful. The first thing everyone does who sees one is feel it.

The first song was written during a late night session. It came out pretty fast, and it seemed like I could have written a hundred verses for it at the time, unlike some tunes which take years to finish the lyrics. It took forever to record and mix though. Oh well, I'm still learning.

"below"

I'm also posting the MP3 of the final mix of "Noise", which I posted a couple of months ago, I think that this version sounds way better. I'll post some more of the material a bit later.

"noise(new)"

"noise(old)"

Considering everything, I hope that my next recording can be produced by a real record producer. That's the goal with this thing, I hope it gives an idea of what I am capable of.

The next step is getting back into playing live, which I'm working on, I swear! I've gotten a small PA system. Soon I'll be able to loop and make all kinds of noise and have a wall of sound. And I've been slowly putting together more visuals. And now I have a demo/EP for people to hear! Maybe I'll put an ad on Craig's list...

Tour End (for me)

Jackson was a very cool place, although it was the last night of the tour for me. The trip didn't end up being worth it for me, so I got off in Memphis under somewhat urgent of conditions. The business was supposed to be alright without me being there for a while -which it wasn't, and the cracked rib that I got in Seattle didn't seem to be healing, I pretty much needed to get back ASAP. Luckily my traveler's insurance is supposedly going to pay for the hospital and the plane ride back. But, as Joe pointed out, Memphis hospitals are not the place to be. It took eight hours before I was seen by the doctor, and there were people with head-wounds who bled for at least that long in the waiting room -some homeboy whose eye had been shot or stabbed out, some girl whose head just didn't seem to want to stop bleeding.

So here are some more photos from the part of the tour I was on. Austin was a good time, it was the first of two nights with the same lineup -Dark Skies, Amplified Heat, and Lions. The second was Jackson.

Jackson Mississippi

I only have a few minutes to type at a little computer station inside a grocery store, so I'll add photos and more details later. I'm going to have to work backwards to some degree here, and fill things in.

That being said, we're in Jackson Mississippi, my first time to this part of the country. It feels more like a different country than Australia felt. In the past several days we've been through Tucson AZ, Albuquerque NM, and Amarillo, Austin and Dallas TX.

Tucson was a pool hall, Albequerque -a tiki lounge, Amarillo -What appeared to be a squatter village. This may sound like a negative interpretation of things, but really we've been having an intensely interesting time and I wouldn't change a thing. We've met kick ass people from all around the world, partied, had hard core temptations, and there's still a month left of this tour.

It has been a crazy time, and there is no way to have any kind of expectations as to what we are going to find when we pull into town.

Last night in Dallas the big scruffy sound guy put his big wet lips on my neck as he said he wanted to spend the night with us -I'm cringing just thinking about. The club gave the band $24 dollars for playing the show, which means we didn't make enough to pay for gas let alone anything else.

We drove through the night; Joe and I sharing tunes to keep each other awake, stopping at motels along the way, only to find "no vacancy" everywhere we went until 8:00 this morning, at just about the worst motel I've ever seen. We didn't dare even turn down the covers of the beds -just threw our sleeping bags down on top of them.

The irony is killing me. Charlie woke up this morning to his 37th birthday in a shitty motel with a sticky floor in Minden Louisiana.

Tonight's club -WC Don's- turns out to be WC Don's Hot Dog House. Charlie's a vegan and it's his birthday, and here we are at a hot dog restaurant that feels like a basement.
One of the guys from Amplified Heat (another band playing tonight) swept the floor of the place himself. The guys working over there had to carry out all kinds of what appeared to be broken down large appliances out of the building.

I'll keep saying it -this is living. As Joe described it this trip has been a series of extremely high moments and extremely low moments. The deep south has maybe seemed somewhat depressing so far, but it's extremely exciting at the same time. this is the world we live in. Mississippi is the poorest state in the union, and as we drove into one of the closest neighborhoods down from the capital, it might as well be a third world country. But tonight might end up being the coolest night yet -who knows?

Gotta go -more later...

Tahoe, LA,...

Night before last was Tahoe City, and what a night it was. Charlie's brother and soon to be sister-in-law set us up. They found the club, promoted the show, gave us a place to stay, fed us -everything.
The set list wasn't quite adequate -they actually ran out of tunes to play -that's how much the crowd loved the show. They rocked and rocked, then took a break (after protests from the crowd), then they rocked and rocked some more -and still left the crowd wanting more!
The next day was a blizzard on the way out.
Then on to LA -a very fun night, but being first on a bill of four bands meant it wasn't nearly the show that Tahoe was.
The Husbands were very cool. Also a new band The Makes Nice from Frisco was there, and a rockin' band called The Guilty Hearts.

Joe's good friend Paul Montone offered us his hospitality for the night. It looks like he might be able to fit inside the pizza box.

On the road

On the road.

So I haven't made a post forever. I have to keep the blogging low on my priority list, and I've been hating the computer lately, being as everything I do these days requires a computer. But, I just left a couple of days ago to go on tour with Joe's band Dark Skies. Hopefully I'll get the experience I need helping these guys out on their tour to know what I'm doing when planning my own. The first show was in Seattle with Dead Moon. Here's a picture that Joe drew of the show -he's got a great Woody Guthrie style of sketching...


















We're staying with whoever will let us, so that night we stayed with a guy the band knew they call Sean Shit.



















Last night was Oakland at a place called the Stork Club with a Japanese noise band called DMBQ headlining. It's hard to imagine that a band could have that much insane energy! Their drummer was killed and several members of their entourage injured in an auto accident not too long ago.
Their new drummer was wearing bikini bottoms and a frilly pirate shirt -a genius!
Joe's buddies from school played the show as well -Drunk Horse is their name. They rocked too.