Wednesday, April 28, 2010

duo

Paris Yavuz has been playing drums with Tujunga these days. It's going great. Me on guitar + vocals, Paris on drums. We had a practice the other day on the rooftop of his apartment building in Silver Lake. A few people in nearby buildings came out and watched us for a bit. I couldn't tell whether or not they were enjoying it. Either way it was pretty beautiful.

I'll be debuting Tujunga's latest incarnation as a duo at the Meow Fest house show in Northridge on May 7th. I'm pretty excited/nervous.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Tujunga in The Foothills Paper

Tujunga got a mention in last week's issue of The Foothills Paper. They also listed Mountair's YouTube page, so I guess the whole gang technically got a little bit of notice. Hopefully somebody read this and checked out everybody's live videos.

Scroll down to page 3 and look on the bottom right-hand corner (it opens as a PDF).
http://www.thefoothillspaper.com/TFP16APR/TFP16APR.pdf

Thanks so much, Foothills Paper!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

expect new songs at upcoming shows

i've been writing a lot of new songs lately, as well as rewriting a few really old songs from 2005/2006. i hope to debut a bunch of them at the future shows i have lined up. especially the may 15th mountair show. my hope is for that set to consist of nothing but new songs.
they're pretty different from my other stuff. structurally, lyrically, thematically, sonically, etc.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

noises
&
noises
&
noises
&
noises

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Friday, April 9, 2010

exhibiting some artwork at mountair tonight. Pictures (possibly) forthcoming.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

new songs

i've been working on some quieter songs lately. no drums necessary. just me and a guitar. i'm looking forward to debuting them at mountair on may 8th. (i was going to play one of them at the tribal cafe show tonight but i got scared---and the mood in the room didn't feel right---so i scrapped it.)

i've been working on a song about russian tsar alexander III and his son (later to be tsar) nicholas II. it's basically the result of reading about them in a book a while back and wanting to make sense of them. i think it's a fascinating story. here's the gist: alexander dies of kidney disease in 1894 at the age of 49. his son nicholas is then forced to take over as tsar of the entire russian empire at the age of 26. and that's where the song begins. here's a shy young man who has little to no experience with really much of anything, and out of nowhere he's handed sole power over a massive empire. he thought his father would reign for several more decades before he would even have to think about the very notion of one day taking over. he simply was not ready for it. he had no idea what he was doing. the responsibility wore heavily on him. every decision he would make would affect millions. it tore him apart. this is a dilemma that few people have or will ever have to face. but he did. i find him, for all his charms and his many flaws (and there were many), to be a fascinating character. and i don't think anyone's ever written a pop song about this. so i'm going to.

the song in question is turning out to be really loud and upbeat with very talky vocals. similar to "bram stoker vs. oscar wilde". (this song will definitely not be one of those songs mentioned above in the first paragraph.)
for a while now i've been really torn between (a) simple poppy songs with short, lovey-dovey lyrics and shiny chords and (b) intense, dark, loud, minor key stuff with tons of cryptic lyrics. i'd say "i want to be yr boyfriend" and "bram stoker..." are probably the two best examples of those extremes for me. no idea which direction i'll be going in.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

new tujunga recordings

Yesterday there was a Tujunga recording session in my garage. Here was the lineup: me on vocals, Mackenzie Owen on guitar, Jarrod W. on drums. It was recorded by Scott Karahadian.

They're all songs that I've been kicking around live for quite a while now. It'll be really nice to have legit, quality recordings of them.
If I remember correctly, we recorded the following songs: "Tujunga", "Bram Stoker vs. Oscar Wilde", "I Want to Be Yr Boyfriend", "Yr First Semester", "Teenage Halos", and "Her Winter Coat".

I'd really like to thank Mackenzie, Jarrod, and Scott for making this happen. It means a lot.


Also, Tujunga is playing at the Mountair showcase at the Tribal Cafe tomorrow. (+ Air Surgeon, Cat 500, Coup Pigeons, Doctor Zoo, Maraca Mouths, & SISU.) I couldn't be happier for this to happen.