i still know how to pile it on....

got a phone call yesterday from an old roster mate (back when i warranted actually having a manager), michelle nagy. michelle and i were handled by matt asbell, one-half of the asbell-baker team...as such, we did some travelling together, a number of co-bills, what have you...and i developed a pretty serious animosity towards her at the time. she was neurotic, not very well suited to what she had chosen to pursue artistically, i felt...didn't have a hard enough shell. too fragile. i could go on, but it's irrelevant at this point. she was also romantically involved with matt, which made for some interesting moments during our travels...one particularly bitter argument on the west side highway in new york city that almost caused an accident comes immediately to mind - there were others, and they've all been filed away, but it's all history at this point. talking about it isn't even really necessary for the sake of backsell now.

long story short is that she has some new songs and i think that initially, she wanted me to help her hone her guitar skills and to co-write with her, but i don't do co-writing. never have. nothing personal at all, i've just never felt open enough to sit down with another person to express something that i want to make a statement about. it kinda seems contrived to me. some can, i can't. i know it's all the rage in nashville, where it's evolved to a predatory art form - you attach yourself to other writers to co-write to infiltrate a peer group, and work your way up through the various levels of the food chain, writing with (ideally) better and more successful writers as you go until you start getting "cuts" and, ultimately, "singles" which result in "radio", which results in "money".

seem contrived enough?

nashville always felt contrived to me to begin with...i have friends who have made it work for them, in terms of finding support for their music and great musicians to work with - charlie degenhart made an incredible record there with cliff goldmacher and a roster of absolute A list players that he couldn't have bought in philadelphia. george marinelli played all the guitar parts on the record, which i then had to cop once the parts were in place (marinelli was the original guitarist in bruce hornsby's band, the range...also played with bonnie raitt and james taylor - big shoes to fill). to this day, though, charlies' band was the best group of musicians i've been involved with, if you discount the one-time only band i put together for my cd release party...a real bunch of pros. loose and tight at the same time...if you're a player, you know exactly what i mean by that...

so anyway...michelle....

when the dust had settled and the conversation was over, i had agreed to help her record some of her new songs in the attic - i think the term i used was we'd "leventhal" them - meaning to give them the john leventhal treatment, starting with drum loops and layering guitars and other stringed instruments over them in moderation until a song emerges...i guess the blake allen record is far enough down the road to completion that something else needs to start taking shape at this point...it'll definitely be interesting to see if she's managed to acquire a level enough head for this to get past the initial stages...i had some real issues with her back in the day, in terms of her flakiness. i guess we'll see where all that stands in time.

i haven't mentioned it here, but i earn the lions' share of my living by doing network support, building custom computers, and doing web development work...and i had a pretty good month this past month, so i celebrated by picking up a couple of additions to the collection...first a custom telecaster with a bigsby tremolo, and then the long awaited, coveted '56 reissue les paul goldtop. i'll probably end up putting a bigsby on that, too, at some point...

rumblings of change within the stone road camp, too, but i can't really talk too much about that yet...