2013

it's 2013. i will have arrived on earth 50 years ago this summer. and the whole time, at least the moments that seem to have meaning still, all have to do with music.

no hobbies, really. i like books and movies and restaurants and hotels, like most people. but when i'm feeling antsy (or any feeling anything, really) i usually pick up a guitar or sit at the piano and dive in.

maybe that's why i don't swim. i found this other pool as a child and it still excites me to enter it.

cynicism can't survive there. nor can complacency or judgement. i've experienced this freedom in other parts of my life, but they were similar in that they required total focus and concentration. yoga, hiking, biking, communal meals, traveling: all of these things are better if you're totally immersed.

pure consciousness isn't an easy feat, but if you even get a glimpse of it, you'll understand what is required to have a good life. the chatter and static of everyday life can no longer affect you. you have graduated from the small self to the larger, all-encompassing big self.

i'm grateful to still be here. still making music. still playing guitar. still in love with living.

love to you all,

joe

'give a damn!'

i've been visiting my father a few time each week at his new residence, a full-care facility for dementia patients. the disease has progressed, but not so far as to render me unrecognizable, and so we talk a lot about each of our childhoods, what we learned there, what we loved, who are friends and family were and why they were so important, and a lot about why we're here at all. so i showed him this quote, which is by wayne coyne of the flaming lips:

"I think it's much better to do things that are interesting and hope that they work, rather than trying to do stuff that's been done already, and if it's not successful, we all fucking lose."

that about sums up the overall goal of being an artist. the difficulty lies not in doing something that hasn't been done before, but in making it work. i marvel at how a lot of our friends are capable of achieving this goal and how much better it makes the world, or, at least the world i live in; so much so that, once again, i have to say to myself, "lucky me".

and it makes my dad's new slogan (the title of this missive, which he'd like to see made into a bumper sticker) sort of pertinent to this post. in order to achieve any of the things mr. coyne describes, you have to at least give a damn about yourself, your life and the world around you. so please try, for my dad's sake, to give a damn. i will keep you posted on the bumper stickers.

love,

joe

love 1

love 1

90% of the time most of us walk around being complete jackasses, which shouldn't be news to anyone alive. the fact that even 10% of the world is trying not to be is something of an achievement.

why do we act like this? treating each other with no grace or humility. was there less of this open hostility and self-righteousness when i was growing up? i doubt it.

but all of us know that 10%. these people seem to have set themselves apart, either through genetics or hard work and effort, or completely dumb luck, they live fully-realized lives, full of happiness and accomplishment.

and they look at us as if to say,"you can do it, too!"

maybe. it's a lot of work. mostly on the brain. it's taxing to concentrate even for short intervals. was everyone's mental capacity greater 50 years ago? again, probably not. but learning how to navigate this world without causing any undue harm is hard work.

but those 10 percenters seem happy and comfortable with themselves and the world they live in. i'm sure you know a few, they're usually relatives and they're sometimes quite older than you.

wayne coyne said "we make our own happiness.", and i believe that statement is true. but you have to be ready to give in order to receive, and in the giving is where most people find their true selves.

i truly believe everyone could experience true happiness for extended periods of time, if they did love more. i can't be 100% sure but i'm more than positive love is the answer.

"love what?" is usually the problem.

so love everything. all the time. and see what happens. start with yourself and go from there.

love,

joe

alleyways

i just saw a skinny kid walk quickly down my alley -- his hands in his pockets, his eyes cast downward.

i looked exactly like that kid in middle school.

i didn't like walking on busy streets. i felt naked and exposed.

i loved walking down alleys.

beautiful trees. barking dogs. no traffic. no passersby.

garbage to study. some animals you could actually pet.

i also loved cutting through buildings or businesses on my way home from middle school.

on any given afternoon, i would go through:

the oblate school of theology.

wolff's nursery.

the international office building on san pedro avenue.

the el montan motor lodge.

i would just act like i was supposed to be there. much like zelig.

when you can slowly work your way into any situation without arising any suspicion, you can avoid a lot of conflicts.

and i was way into that in middle school and pretty much every since then.

so usually, i can weather any professional setting in the music world. it's in the real world that i need the practice of just being honest, caring and open. rather than slipping into that skinny kid's head and slipping away.

but that was an impossible thing to fathom at 13.

the world was a horribly unclear place. which inspired wonder in some ways, but fear in most other ways.

and maybe at some point, you can let it all go and things become much more bearable.

it'd be hard to be 13 for much longer than a year.

so, as always, good luck out there.

joe

just be good

the burden of living is different for each of us, but the unburdening is the same: love. if we could all be convinced of this, i'm sure the world would explode in beauty and literally save itself from extinction. but until that day we must meet hate and violence with love and compassion. i believe it's the most efficient way of creating a better world.

the word 'love' can be a catch-all for the solution to any problem. but it is through love that truth, beauty, honesty, loyalty, liberty, punctuality, or even violence and strength are achieved. to love is to care. to care is to do your best. to love is to do your best.

when asked whether they want to die or not, most people still say no. we are all rightfully scared of what might await us at the end. the only thing we can be certain of are the memories we have of the dead. some we cherish, some we cringe at. which makes it vitally important to take pride in oneself and respect others. to leave nothing but a legacy of good after we are gone. this requires vigilance and energy, but remember; this is all we can truly know about life after death. without any irony, it's your funeral.

i find a relief in knowing that i can end my own life if i choose to, like a safety hatch i can open if i need to escape my own head once and for all. but, again, if i turn the focus outward and try and really be there for whomever is with me, at any given moment in my life, i can hopefully help whomever is there, and in turn help myself.

there is still so much work to be done to be a better person, better musician, better everything, and there's not much time left, which is fine. i don't want for anything anymore except to just keep trying to make great records with hard working folks who are easy to be around and take care of my family. it's hard being good, but in this pursuit to be happy, there is no alternative. perhaps it is the same with friendships and with saving the world. just be good and the world will revive itself through you and your own good life.

rush nerd

i got the rush doc as a christmas gift this year and was oddly excited. i don't get too up about things, so this was quite an occurance.

i finally had a chance to watch it one sunday afternoon and i was immediately captivated all the way through.

a lot of people who know me as a musician only go a few years back, to either the swindles, buttercup, lara & reyes or mike morales.

but if you went a little further back. you would have heard some serious 70's metal guitar.

the beatles were too tough as a kid for me. there was something there i didn't have yet. a voice. and i didn't really sing. and the songs pitched around in keys all over the place, not mention tuning issues from song to song. i liked singing along. but playing guitar along with those records was too hard.

but loud electric guitar is easy to define. it's usually the loudest thing in the track. and if you have a quick ear, you can begin to see the patterns emerging on the fretboard of the guitar.

and as i grew old enough to drive, i started getting more music tips from my friends. san antonio had a radio station that championed these obscure metal bands, long before anyone besides their friends and local fans had ever heard of them.

and so along with what was actually popular, the cheap tricks and kiss and aerosmiths of the world, there were judas priest, ufo, triumph, april wine, moxy, legs diamond and on and on they came.

there were tons of guitar parts there to learn, right off the radio.

but rush songs were another story.

i hadn't yet heard any jazz-fusion or flamenco or classical music yet. the band Yes was maybe the most technically complex music i'd heard in a rock context.

and then i got 'all the world's a stage'. which is pretty much the live versions of the best parts of their first four records. it's still so much fun to listen to. and the guitar parts were amazing.

i still really enjoy making that much sound. as a three piece band, rush could fill up so much. alex lifeson used open strings combined with barre chords in a way i'd never thought of. they really cared about arrangements and technically flawless recordings.

and that's where i went for twenty years. studying guitar feverishly, and playing in metal, then fusion, then nylon-string, guitar-based bands.

but none of it would have been possible without 'a farewell to kings' or 'hemispheres'.

i remember playing 'la villa strangiato' with just the drummer of the band i played with in high school. somehow we made it to the end.

i also remember playing the recording of 'the trees' in my middle school english class to complete some kind of assignment. a true rush nerd move. i had complete freakouts over other bands as well (judas priest was definitely my guide to any twin-guitar playing that would happen later), but rush compelled me, for some reason. i think i really felt they were making art, not just music.

and in a way, my whole career can be traced right back to this band from canada that everyone thought sucked so badly back then. it was truly a dividing topic amongst teenagers in the late 70's. and their music was true girl poison. no one wants to make out to 'by-tor and the snowdog'.

but i was not dissuaded. i guess i'm still not.

it's only after watching this film, that i realized just how much they mean to me as a band. it was a very nice gift. something to help me rekindle this love i've always had for music. it's easy to lose confidence in yourself, but knowing you can do just one thing really well. that's maybe the lynchpin that holds a life together in those dark, lonely moments.

acting through music

i love what actors and filmmakers and directors and writers can do. separately or together. it's such an efficient way to convey a real emotion to an audience.

i am not an actor and have no insight into the techniques involved.

but this evening something struck me:

in order to be a great actor, do you have to stop 'acting' in our everyday lives.

i feel like each of us puts on a costume and goes out to face the day armed with only the knowledge you have of your 'character'.

so, if this is possible, to strip away the layers of identity that we all have collected that we use in different social settings, and lay bare any real emotion or feeling you could muster so that it could come out so strongly and purely that it could transcend the medium of film or the stage, is this not what the great actors do?

that would be an incredibly humbling journey.

to lay bare or have laid bare any insecurity, any veil you held over a secret passion or fear pulled away to reveal the crushingly emotional center in all of us.

i think all artist must take this journey, the ego tamed and humbled, strengthened and sharpened by the sighting of something that had been just out of view and has now awakened one's consciousness.

if so, then my hat is off to all of you. any of you who would attempt this.

it's so incredibly risky. but perhaps that is part of the allure.

i've never had to be anyone else when i performed or recorded and now that i'm 47 there's no need to pretend to be anyone else. no one would believe it.

when i was younger it was fun to don makeup and put on shiny clothing to pretend to be something or somebody else. i loved KISS. the fantasy behind the music was key to its enjoyment as an adolescent .

now there's less theatrics, still plenty of shenanigans, but you just listen to each other and play and the music becomes the main focus. it's the thing that moves everyone in the room along. lights and fog might help, but the groove has to be there.

so, i guess i will wait for our good friend dylan kussman to somehow read this and expound on my thesis in his own blog, which i believe is called 'i got punched in the face a lot in the movies'.

that's not the name.

acting looks tough. how do you do it, dylan?

love,

joe

17 albums

there was a huge influx of new recordings for me in the early nineties that i'm not really quite sure how i ended up with. but i listened to them a lot.

people have been posting lists of 15 songs lately on social network sites, but i am far too shy to do anything like that. so here, in the confines of my own minuscule blogarium, is yet one more, except i totally added two songs at the end. and they're not songs, they're albums.

the verve - urban hymns. i still dig that record for some reason. lots of wah-wah.

aimee mann - whatever. classic jon brion-produced mann. jim keltner is killing it. jon's no slouch on 'i should have known'

starflyer 59 - leave here at stranger. a later record for me, but such good songs. great voice. in mono. jason martin makes great records.

catherine wheel - chrome. cranked, this thing still sounds amazing. and now gil norton produces dave grohl. weird.

xtc - skylarking. i got this in 89 or so. changed my life. a friend in college thought i should hear it.

michael penn - resigned. this record sounds huge. brendon o'brien is the man. lots of great ideas, hooks, playing, etc.

cocteau twins - four-calendar cafe. i was really into programming drums at this point. and i still love chorus pedals.

the grays - ro sham bo. another shade of jon brion and jason faulkner from further below. but the jb tunes are still my favorites.

elliott smith - either-or. i remember thinking, this sounds like my recordings. but these songs are amazing.

the finn brothers. their best collaborative effort hands down. tchad blake makes it all sound so good.

crowded house - woodface. another fine finn brother collaborative. 'four seasons in one day" is beautiful.

xtc - nonsuch. they're in top form here. 'that wave' - that guitar solo is incredible. dave gregory. genius.

the blue nile - hats. the voice to end all voices: paul buchanan. 'walk across the rooftops' is also amazingly sad.

jellyfish - spilt milk. the first real attempt i hear at a vintage sounding recording. jack joseph puig. my hat is off, sir.

teenage fanclub - a catholic education. 'every picture i paint' is stunning.

red kross - phaseshifter. they are bashing it out. loud and melodic. just great. chris smart gave me a copy of this. thanks chris!

curve - cuckoo. another wall of guitar type thing that i really enjoy. and girl singers. like the english band texas. great stuff.

the sundays - blind. her voice is so lovely. i saw them with 100 other people at the majestic. it was magical.

there are a few missing, but this made up a bulk of my listening at the time. and once i got an ADAT to record with at home around 95, i was in business. the business of trying to make records that sounded like these, but with little success at first. something had to change inside me for it to work. or it just got better over time. either way, i'm happier with how things are sounding now, but it's still…meh. it's still not rubber soul….

bye aunt bea

it seems somehow disingenuous to not mention any real deaths i might encounter in my life. death is a theme throughout most of what i write, in both song and blog form. when it really does come and visit me, i feel strangely guilty about not mentioning it to you, the reader of these rather sad, odd musings.

so below is a short account of my aunt's life. it's still all sinking in so i'm keeping it on the short side - which for me is still somewhere on the long side.

my mother's oldest sister died on tuesday, september 7, 2010 a little after 6 pm.

her name was beatrice fernandez.

i knew her when she lived in el paso. she was a schoolteacher most of her life, who never married and at one point, became a deaconess in the methodist church . she was born in hillsboro, texas in 1926. she retired to austin several years ago to be closer to their youngest sister, olga.

i was able to visit occasionally. but i just assumed she would be there for as long as i liked.

she developed stomach cancer two years ago and despite her skeptic doctors, it went into remission at some point.

but last week the cancer returned.

she was the most giving person i'd ever met. she could be strict, but she really loved people in this way that i've rarely witnessed; without judgement or prejudice, with true humility.

out last time together was sunday. she was awake, but groggy. she smiled when she saw her family around her.

i played her a few songs. 'living again' and 'alfie'.

she seemed completely at peace and happy to hear us in the room with her.

my brother said he had never heard me sing before. maybe he meant really up close like that.

i hadn't thought about it until he mentioned it.

each visit, i would pull up a chair to her bed and play a few songs and chat and thank her for everything that she'd done for me and my family.

but she could only muster a few words that day. they were mostly to thank someone in the room.

love seems to warp the way we experience things.

i only feel love coming from her still, just as when she was alive. and i will feel her love until i too am dead.

so in this way, we can live on; through the legacy of good or evil retained in the repercussions of our actions that can linger long after we are dead.

this seems like the most reasonable association i could make with a concept like heaven or hell.

and so, by associating these two things, i conclude my aunt is in heaven.

and death, as weighty and final as it is, cannot defeat love.

and i learned this from her.

thank you, aunt bea.

love,

joe

the preacher

mitch said it was, 'another one of joe's sermons' as he and dave wasson and i chatted outside the old jersey lilly at the now suddenly hip pearl brewery, waiting to play the last set of a very laid back, easy going, high paying swindles gig. there was a a nice little breeze blowing across the parking lots.

he did add that he enjoyed them, which i thought was nice.

but as the word 'sermon' floated through the air, through my ears, to my brain, i pictured me in a room with my mom, listening to her and her friends from church, as she declared that i was definitely going to be a priest or a minister. i was destined, according to her. i had this gift.

i'm pretty sure at that time in my life, my sole purpose was to listen to all the beatles' albums as much as i could and try and jump my bike off of homemade ramps in the downtime between listens.

but i now notice that i constantly talk about music and it's healing powers and the mystery behind it's creation. much like someone who loves a certain savior.

so now, at 4 am in the morning, i think my mom may have been right. i talk about music to everyone i know, all the time, in very much the same way some people speak of a god. we heard and saw a lot of talk about god in our home growing up. but it never interested me in the same way that music did. at the time, we all just thought our mother was being a bit overzealous about her religious beliefs. now i realize that i'm just as obsessed about music as she was about god. she didn't live to see where music would take me, but i think she'd be pleased to know that it took me to what i think is a great place.

but most of us, if we continue to search, will find something in this world we connect with deeply that is not a person. it could be a place. but it's most likely a thing.

and with the deep love of this thing fully shaping us, we navigate the world while we're here. we find solace and gratitude and humility through this thing and with a true devotion to this thing, we can be lead towards a better, fuller life.

maybe i have the same desire as that of a person of faith: this need to proselytize, to utter forth with great will and conviction the attributes that this thing possesses -- "it will change your life." our mother was deeply religious, but now i feel that she saw how it could take someone's focus away from themselves and aim it towards others. which, yeah, i think is what music or science or art can do too and which i firmly believe can make a person's life better.

i know it would make my mom happy to see that i am indeed a preacher; one that tells everyone he knows that there's something special and beautiful and necessary in this world and it's called music. so thanks, mitch. i'm glad to be playing music with you. so is my mom.