Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem review on NPR

All Things Considered just aired my review of Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem's CD Big Old Life, on the Signature Sounds label. The audio will be available shortly at the NPR site.

That page at NPR also has more or less the full text of the review, including a paragraph not heard on air that describes more fully the band's instrumental mix.

More about the band here.

Paul Reisler on songwriting, 2007

“In the kind of lives we live, with lots of stuff going on and lots of noise, it’s increasingly difficult to pick out the piccolo from the wind section. What we’re really doing is that kind of selective listening. I always like to say that composing music is merely remembering it before someone else does.”

From an article in Acoustic Guitar, October 2007, offering tips for songwriters. Read the full article here.

Find out more about songwriter and workshop teacher Paul Reisler at his site.

Martin Sexton feature in Acoustic Guitar

My interview with the acoustic soul man Martin Sexton is now posted on the Acoustic Guitar site. I first heard him sing in a hotel room in Toronto a decade ago--a spine-tingling experience--and loved having the chance to sit down in his tour bus and talk songwriting and guitar. It was especially interesting meeting him in his hometown of Syracuse, surrounded by more Sexton relations than I could count.

"Nowhere Man" arrangement in Acoustic Guitar magazine

My guitar-and-voice arrangement of "Nowhere Man" is published in the October issue of Acoustic Guitar--Richard Thompson is on the cover. The guitar part, played with a three-string partial capo (mine is a Shubb C7B), combines rhythm and lead. The capo facilitates some very cool sounds that mimic both Lennon's and Harrison's original parts.

Note to guitar players trying out the arrangement: the published notation has a few errors, which you can read about here.

Joni Mitchell video of "Night Ride Home"

A friend pointed me to this lovely, informal footage of Joni in Amsterdam, singing "Night Ride Home" with acoustic guitar by the water. Gorgeous singing and playing... Here's the link:

http://home.tiscali.nl/hejira/

Martin Sexton on making up songs in the studio, 2007

"Most of my songs are just made-up stuff. This whole record, Seeds, is just scratch vocal stuff. I made it up when we were tracking the record, and then I tightened it up to give it a cohesive feel. I didn’t really write these songs, like with a pen and a pad. I wrote them like the John Lennon school of just making them up as I went along....

"Generally I’d have the choruses--I’d have the hook--but the verses wouldn’t be there. I’d say two-thirds of [the writing] was, I’m in front of the microphone recording, and what comes out is what you hear. About one-third was the other side of the brain. Like 'Happy,' there was a funny line in [the scratch vocal]: 'Happy like loving you all night long / Happy like doing you on my dong / Happy like hearing my favorite song on the radio.' Just making it up I came up with those. OK, I like most of it, but I probably shouldn’t say 'doing you on my dong.' So I put something else there. That made it easy--I could fill in the blanks."

From a interview published (minus the dong anecdote) in the October 2007 issue of Acoustic Guitar. That issue also features my guitar-and-voice arrangement of "Nowhere Man," played with a partial capo, and my article on songwriting strategies based on an interview with Paul Reisler (more on that in a later post).