DEMO OF THE MONTH CLUB - FEBRUARY 2022

 

HAIKU ROCK CITY, DAY 5 OF 21

 Glass shards underfoot

Walking down Troost Avenue

Stars see everyone

***

Wait, who is confused?

Republicans are angry

At fires they started

*** 

Posting songs online

K-D-A-N radio

Good friends listening

*** 

Retirement account

quarterly report is in

day by day I sing

***

All of the new tunes I wrote in 2020 went toward our live album but this one.  I took a beater acoustic to our rented cabin on the Ouchita River in September and wrote this.  I took a whack at a home recording after watching Echoes From The Canyon doc.

***

Concentric Dots on demand at Redbubble!

ロックンロールの子供 (Rokkunrōru no kodomo)

HOME RECORDING: JUST ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY

JUST ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY

Just enough hours in the day yeah yeah yeah

Just enough hours in the day yeah yeah yeah

When your old balloon has sprung a leak yeah yeah yeah

Basket sunk in catfish creek yeah yeah yeah

Hiking out with just one shoe yeah yeah yeah

Don’t know what you’re supposed to do yeah yeah yeah

One thing is for sure One thing that I know

Just enough hours in the day, I know you know

When you have got too much laundry to do yeah yeah yeah

When you’re tired of the human zoo yeah yeah yeah

When your double chin grows a chin yeah yeah yeah

You know I’m gonna say it again yeah yeah yeah

            One thing is for sure One thing that I know

    Just enough hours in the day, I know you know

DANIEL SHERMAN JONES (BMI)

  

INFORMAL INSTRUMENTAL TROMBONE EP

I have been having such a chill time, jamming on trombone most days, playing along with records and recording these weird little numbers. The newest one is called "The Whole Fam Damily (Sitcom Theme)".

HOME RECORDING: CHEESE AND CRACKERS

The summer trombone renaissance continues with a home-recorded instrumental number called "Cheese And Crackers". 

I listened a bunch to Kid Congo Powers' Dracula Boots LP and got inspired to record something that's kind of all groove and garagey, with a trombone solo. 

SHOOK LOOSE - HOME RECORDING

 This grew out of a fragment that had been laying around for a long time, maybe 6 or 7 years. Steve and Matt and I have knocked it around a bit and I went after it on Garageband in part because something about demo'ing helps me LEARN the song and update lyrics spontaneously in a way that no amount of run-through, elbow grease or thinking can...shake loose.

The artwork update on my works in progress was fun too.

"THE HAZARDS OF CLUB LIFE"

The Hazards of Club Life

he fired up his ride and drove down to the river
full of dislike for the poison running in him
alone on the pike, as autumn turned to winter
turn left then turn right through the mighty timber
 
rock tees on the line
laundry drinking daylight
it’s a sparkling wine
incense from the pine
helps ya forget about the hazards of club life
 
she got on her bike and rode down to the river
if love turns to like will it be forgiven
employed but on strike when it comes to modern living
investigating fun, her hair came undone
 
rock tees on the line
laundry drinking daylight
it’s a sparkling wine
incense from the pine
helps ya forget about the hazards of club life
 
its such a bummer when you’re just getting started
and you’re feeling like you’re way behind
someone’s son or someone’s daughter
hanging out in cut time
 
one foot on the dock, and the other in the water
they met and they talked and sometimes lost the plot but
the sun it came up and then it went back down again
investigating light they got pretty tight
 
rock tees on the line
laundry drinking daylight
it’s a sparkling wine
incense from the pine
helps ya forget about the hazards of club life

 

from Home Recordings, track released February 20, 2019
Dan Jones: vocals, guitar, bass, drums, percussion

daniel sherman jones (bmi)

all rights reserved

HOME RECORDING: LOVE/LIFE

CANINE GUITAR TECHS EXHAUSTED AFTER LOW-FI HOME RECORDING SESSION

HOME RECORDINGS: LOVE IS THE DIRECTOR

HOME RECORDING: I BOUGHT TWO SUITS

HOME RECORDINGS: CONCRETE STEPS

SHARPIE STAR + DARLING CLEMENTINE

DOODLES TWO WAYS AND A GREAT DOCUMENTARY

I've been having a good time with Sharpie art and with my entry level digital keyboard run through GarageBand with added guitars and some analog percussion. Both of these are doodles (on paper and .wav file) that accrued over a couple of weeks. Both modes are more about chilling out, and fitting it in when I can. 

*** 

This documentary is wonderful--inspiring and renewing.  It's streaming on Netflix.

FRESH HOME RECORDED SQUIDS DEMO: MY FAVORITE LOUNGE (TIME WITHOUT SOUND)

Between long work days, regular exercise, grocery shopping and various chores, I have worked hard on a new demo about non-participatory sloth.  We all feel this way from time to time, I think. 

The Concave Man - demo

This came about in a unique way: just a single note keyboard pattern was the foundation for the whole thing; keyboard drumkit-sounds and layering and words coming along later. In the global scope of weird, this song is not that weird, but for me this is pretty far down the personal spectrum of weird.

18-MONTH REPORT FROM KC AFTER RECEIVING A MIX CD FROM MY BUDDY ZIG WITH ONE OF MY SONGS ON IT ALONGSIDE JIMI HENDRIX

It is supposed to snow quite a bit today, and I am excited about that.  We haven't had much snow this year, and it has been very cold and very dry.  That's one of the weird things about being back in the midwest--dry skin and intense static electricity.  When I sit down and scooch around on our synthetically upholstered World Market sofa, all the hairs on my arms stand up.  Also, the hairs on the dog's head sort of float and waver and he looks like 70's Rod Stewart. 

Last year we lived in a basement apartment in Midtown and it was extremely dry, but cozy in the winter, cool in the summer.  This year we're in an almost 100 year old house and it is drafty as can be.  Winter isn't as fresh and novel this year, after 22 years in the rainy Northwest.  But this weekend we are supposed to have up to 9 inches of snow, and despite all the cold weather, which makes my van honk a bass clarinet sound upon ignition if under 5 degrees, I know that sunny, warmer weather is around the corner.  And truly hot weather, the kind that means you can wear shorts and drink a beer on your porch at 11:00 at night, is after that.  In the Northwest there is an awful lot of cool, wet weather all the way up to Fourth of July.  I don't miss that in the least.

I have been enjoying this Robert Wyatt anthology that I bought at Records With Merritt a couple weeks ago.  Well, I went down there and I flirted with the idea of buying it and had self-denial programming kick in, even though I work my ass off and ought to buy a record now and again.  And some new Pumas, jeez.  Then I went across the street to my van and had locked the keys in it.  It was snowing, bitterly cold, and kind of icy.  So I waited for a locksmith at Mike's Westsider and enjoyed a club sandwich and talked with the bartender about the value of a '98 GMC Safari as a band van, and thought about why I didn't buy that record.  I thought long and hard, then went back the next day and got it.  (This is how I shop, by feeling conflicted, and locking my keys in the car.)  That store is nicely curated with amazing music from around the world.

I am kind of in puttering mode myself with music, chipping away at a few things.  I've never pretended not to be a working person who makes non-commercial music on the side, and that is even more true now because, while I enjoyed all of my day jobs in Eugene, I look forward to my job here in Kansas City, work much longer hours, and have fallen into a very non-musician routine of getting up at 5:15, writing a bit, working from 7 to 5, and falling asleep at 9:30.  For Valentine's Day I got this super cool book called Daily Rituals, a collection of short essays that describe the work habits of various writers and artists.  Love this book.

I'll be 46 in a few weeks and fiddle with music more like an occasional poet.  There is tension and some frustration there, for sure, and still a sense that I could work a less challenging job for fewer hours and start staying out late again going to shows and performing and feeding the scene and building new friendships.  Had I stayed in the Northwest my graybeard years would have been comfy in that local way, maybe. 

I am proud of a cool discography and will add to it, but working in giant design-build shop, managing subcontracted elements of unique projects, and feeling part of big crazy family really means more to me at this point.  If you had told me ten years ago that I would end up working on a playground project for the Indians at Progressive Field, or learning about biased rolling of sheet metal for a museum just blocks from our house, I would would have said you were nuts.   

And, if you had told me we'd move to KC, that I'd catch an Alex Gordon foul ball the first week back, and that I'd watch my Royals go to the last out of the 7th game of the World Series in 2014, I would have asked you to Google translate yourself.  October was crazy!  We moved into a new neighborhood, were welcomed with open arms by great people, and I watched pretty much every game with them.  I would go to work and it was Royal blue everywhere.  Amazing times, like a dream. 

There has also been a meaningful proximity to my parents as they have moved into different levels of retirement care to meet their differing needs.  When that really began to change, it sucked pretty bad to be 1800 miles away.

But, as alway, I am full of music, almost as full of music as I am full of bullshit--it just is part of how my brain is put together.  These are three of the demos I've messed around with since moving to KC:

A DOODLE AND A DEMO - "THINK YA GOT A REAL GOOD DEAL?"

Here's a recent attic demo I made in part with a cool Christmas present, an electronic keyboard that has some fun sounds.

Happy to announce that SquidsKC are playing Middle of the Map fest in KC this Spring, more details to come.

This just in from the doodle department. TTYL.

Just Woke Up (Mountain Dulcimer Bleed) and More Journal Excerpts

This came from fooling around with multi-tracked mountain dulcimer and super-processed trombone. Don't not try this at home. In fact only try this at home. Somewhere along the way I also got a bass amp and that helped.




2014.09.24

I took 71 to work yesterday, it was super fast and I did not miss traffic on 39th, at all.  I'm farther away but it is about the same commute time: 20 minutes.  I get a nice view of downtown going 71 to 670 to 35, too.  I took a longish walk on campus last night and it is beautiful over there, what a great place to run and walk the dog.  I had a weird feeling of being at home there and wanted to look into continuing education classes just from being in that environment.

2014.9.27
I haven't bought a record in some time and this is nagging at me, like I haven't visited an elderly relative in the hospital.  I am looking forward to a good browse somewhere.  I would like to get rid of a bunch of stuff.  When I look at the pile of gear I moved and office things, I see a bunch of beatdown junk.  I mean, if you are working or active musician, your shit looks a pile of beatdown junk, so that's not THAT big of a deal.

2014.9.29
I really want a mocha master coffee maker because I think the ones at work make really good coffee and I am tired of the coffee ritual in the morning, I'd rather have that extra twenty minutes to write.  I wonder if it is actually possible that a machine could make good coffee at home.  I would like that.

2014.9.30

I had a scary dream last night about a diabolical character who was a police detective.  I met with him on a case, in a junior colleague kind of way.  He was an intimidating European, maybe Scottish, very intelligent and intense, tall and kind of lanky and handsome.  Our meeting was over dinner and I remember feeling like a nuisance or an irritation, and I remember something about a soggy sponge or brillo pad used to clean up a spill or something on the table.
    It turned out later that this detective had murdered many people and perfected a way of slowly disposing the bodies that involved chemicals and storage and off-gassing in neutral way.  I'm not sure who discovered this, but it was another older colleague, and I was still somewhat to the side of it, yet had shared a meal with the criminal and felt in some way that my intuition was moving me in the right direction, I just wasn't aware of it.
     It's weird what dreams can signify--weird in the ancient sense of the word.  I've always tried to intuit crime-related dreams as the energy of coming up against personal rules or structures.  I.E. if you feel criminal energy in your dreams or whatever, you might be up against breaking your own rules, represented by the rule of law or morality in your dreams.

2014.10.01

Well, that was the best baseball game I have ever seen while rooting for The Royals and having it come out in our favor.  I mean, it was some kind of crazy miracle game, with this ridiculous inevitability that came after getting down four runs.  I watched it over at Scot's house with the neighborhood dudes, Joe, Dan, Dave, Frank, and Gabe, it was really a grand time.  We set off fireworks at midnight.  It was crazy.  The Royals aren't just a wildcard playoff team, they are officially an American League division series playoff team.