Soon

Going to seminars and hearing 'professional' songwriters talk, I hear I should be writing 100 songs a year. 2 a week. Well, it looks like I'll get a little more than half of that. At this rate I don't think it's going to be hard to do more than 50, but I seriously doubt I'll make it to 100.

Considering how much there is to do in life, it's a wonder I'm able to write as many songs as I've been able to, chalk it up to lack of sleep. It's possible that my sleep deprivation actually helps the songwriting process...it definitely alters my perception, breaks down the mental blockages. It's probably not good for my health though.

I wrote this yesterday afternoon after attempting to take a nap -finished it about 2am this morning. It's sort of a surreal song from the point of view of a guy who just met a girl the night before, she almost chokes to death, now it's the next night and he's hoping that things will work out. I call it Soon. Trying to get these songs recorded as I write them is a challenge too, but I think this one turned out descent all things considered...
Play tune

This Recycleman rock show is pretty funny. I never had visions of being a rock star, but I sure do get treated like one by the kids that I perform for. Yesterday after the show there was practically a stampede when I said 'I have 3 extra guitar picks.' A kid ended up getting knocked onto the floor. I was arguing that 4th and 5th graders were too old for the show, but we had 5th and 6th grades!

Parents warn their kids about rock concerts, we bring the rock concert to them.

Anyway I still haven't had much time to relax and I don't see the opportunity any time soon if I want to get the things done that I want to. CDBaby.com has gotten my CDs and of course the scan they mad of Samantha's beautiful artwork doesn't do it justice. You can't even tell what it is. I've been posting my stuff all over the place like mp3.com and Skratch magazine, and Garageband.com, who knows if it's gonna pay off any time soon.

9 Muses Songwriter Night

Well, I made it back to the 9 Muses Tavern on Monday, and had a great time.

I've never had someone tell me that my tunes give them goose-bumps before, but that's exactly what the bartender told me. I blew the place away with an angry rendition of Free Man (here's a link to an old live version of it). Luckily it was the last song I played because I blew out my throat belting it out. They booked me on the spot for April 5th with another songwriter opening for me.

Free Man

I was skeptical of the place at first, because they booked me when they first opened last year and when I got there the place wasn't even open yet... I imagine it's pretty difficult to make everything happen on schedule when you're just starting out.

The great thing about the place is that they only want original acoustic material. It's the perfect place for someone like me. A great audience and staff, non-smoking (though there's some bleed through from the upstairs smoking room, very supportive, and they're trying to do something for the musicians that do well. They've got radio tie-ins and they pay their performers, etc. My friend Dan Rhiger does the sound over there and as part of their twice a year songwriter competetion He's giving away 10 hours free studio time at his excellent studio Medicine Whistle. And they give away $1000 bucks twice a year to lucky (and talented) performers. Their last 'winner' has got a spot on the famous syndicated radio show River City Folk, and I guess just signed a record contract.

All I've Got is a Lousy Dime

I've been playing lots of gigs as Recycleman, today was a show with 400 kids... very fun. We're gonna get some new promo material with me in the pictures, that'll be helpful. There's a good chance that I'll have an extra 100 gigs next year.
Hey I'm gonna make a living yet at this music thing...

I'm going to be booking some kind of tour soon, I swear it! I believe I'm going to see what Europe's all about. I hear they are pretty singer-songwriter friendly.

I wrote this tune after I got home this afternoon. I've been playing and listening to old country like Hank Williams and 'mountain music' lately and this one came out pretty quick. I guess it's a Mike Mudd take on Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad.

I started using my goats hooves again, if you listen you can hear it in the background.

All I've Got is a Lousy Dime

I wish I had the time to post for every tune I write. I've written several new tunes over the past month or so, but have only had time to write a couple of posts...oh well.

Muddville on the web...

The new home of Mike Mudd on the web is finally online!

mikemudd.net


Hey now us starving musicians and writers finally have a cheap and easy way to get our material out there to the world. I only wish it was as cheap to get full studio recordings. I mean I may call myself the basement troubadour, but basements and apartment living rooms aren't conducive to great recordings, and I'm tired of trying to make it happen. Though if I say so myself some of the tunes that I'll be putting up on the web sound great.

Here's the music index
www.mikemudd.net/music

Now I just need to work on attracting people to the site (among a million other things).

I've got a live practice recording of Rollin' Away last week, along with a bunch of other tunes -new and otherwise.

I've decided to keep going with -M- ...I'll use the first hundred as a limited release with Samantha's artwork on each cover and continue for an LP instead of just an EP. I'm also going to see if I can get the funding for someone with a lot of experience to do the mastering.

Here's Rollin' Away and Hello -these two will be on the finished LP.
Rollin' Away
Hello

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"