"Waking the Sun:" The Art of Family

I was kind of groping for something to write today. Thinking about it last night, I had a few ideas, but nothing that "knocked me out." Then, I woke up and Karen, my wife, was checking Facebook on her phone and she found a video had been posted of the song I wrote, arranged and produced with my friend Mark -- the one I shared some time ago, here. (Please believe me when I tell you we are working on working diligently on the next tune. It's been a busy summer...)

Of course, it delighted me. Mark made this video with his talented daughter, Cassie (who I am sure did the bulk of the artistic work).

Musicians are always chasing fame. But Mark and I made choices long ago: we wanted families and we our lives to have more dimensions than music, even though music has always, for both of us, been the other side of the every scale's balance in our worlds.

Fame? Meh. What is cooler than making a song, in your own home, with one of your best friends? What is cooler than a father and a daughter sitting down to interpret that song, together?

Nada, my friends.

Here is the video by Mark and his multi-talented daughter, Cassandra, for "Waking the Sun." If you don't like it, just clam up (he say, gently elbowing his dear reader in the ribs). Whatever you might have to say is hardly the point....
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Track One: "Waking the Sun"

On a frigid Thursday night in late December, I sat with two of my best friends in a nearly empty pub. We ate wings. (Well -- two of us. The other has a wheat issue. Something about the breading. I dunno.) We drank some good brown beer. (Well -- two of us. The other with the wheat issue...I think he had Scotch or something.) Anyway, we talked about many things: philosophy, psychology, and...music. Specifically, the music that Mark (the one without the wheat issue, but plenty of others, let me assure you) and I had created some months before. We talked about doing more.

Mark tends to stomp when he plays.
This is a problem with open mic's in the room,
so, one needs to be resourceful with solutions.

We discussed everything from doing a Christmas record, to pass down to our future generations, to putting together a totally conceptual, avante garde "sound tapestry" of studio magic. In truth, we didn't set a musical direction at all, really. But we did, at Joe's urging (the wheat guy), set a date to get together and write some music: January 11. If Joe hadn't been there, Mark and I probably would have drifted off into our usual vague existences. Thanks to Joe, we had a date on the calendar.

January 11th, a Saturday, came, and Mark showed up bearing coffee and donuts (and blackberry brandy, which he claims enables him to sing anything at any time of day, which appears to be true) and I threw a chord progression at him. In about twenty minutes, we had the backbone of a pretty good song.

My wife popped her head into the studio: "If you guys don't get together and do this one a month, I will kill you." (This meant, in Karenese, that she was pleased with what she had heard.)