New Benjamin Wagner Album Due June 24 18
You knew it was coming, right?
Authentic Records will release my seventh, full-length studio LP on Tuesday, June 24.
The working title for the album is “The Invention of Everything Else.”
Pre-production for the all-acoustic release has already begun. Tony Maceli, Chris Abad, Ryan Vaughn and I started arranging the tunes Thursday night at Ultrasound Studios, and again on Saturday afternoon at The Music Building.
Timing for the release was motivated by recent events. It occurred to me at rehearsal a few weeks ago that the four of us unplugged in one room sounds like I’ve always wanted to sound. So we’re taking a documentary approach, and tracking live in the studio with minimal overdubs afterwards. (Which, incidently, is precisely the strategy my college band, Smokey Junglefrog, took with producer Steve Feldman on our two most-lauded LPs, “Au Gratin,” and “She’s My Niece”).
Recording with engineer Travis Harrison (with whom we tracked “A Family Holiday” Benefit CD) begins Thursday, April 24, at Serious Business Studios on Spring Street in New York City.
Many of the ten songs slated for inclusion have appeared in demo form here, including “Breathe In,” “Promise” and “The Last Time.”
In addition to Tony, Chris and Ryan, New York singer/songwriter Jamie Leonhart and Los Angeles folk rockers Raining Jane will be pitching in.
Stay tuned for lots more information, release details, sneak peeks and other updates from the making of “The Invention of Everything Else.”
Tales Of A Third Grade Nothing
It must have been sometime around third grade.
My family — Mom, Dad, Chris and I — were in Carmel, California, the small, sea-side town on the Monterey Peninsula known for its famous residents: Clint Eastwood, Ansel Adams, Pebble Beach.
We were on one of the few family vacations I can remember, this one as far afield from Chicago, Illinois as my seven-year-old mind could fathom. It was an era and we were at an age when that sort of travel was still special. I remember shopping for new clothes at JC Penney. I picked a slick, silver windbreaker, the kind, I imagined, Fonzie would wear were he to leave Milwaukee for Southern California.
Unlike our experience with the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific, was rough and unforgiving. Chris and I insisted on playing in the waves on City Beach nonetheless. And while Chris — who, to this day remains impervious to cold or fatigue — frolicked in the surf, my sixty-pound body was tossed and turned like a rag doll. I was launched headfirst into the sand repeatedly, swallowing gallons of ocean water in the process.
I limped up the beach in tears, torn, tattered, tired, and complaining of a stomach ache. My father took me to town.
“What you need,” he said, “is a Coke. That’ll help your stomach.”
Coca Cola was liquid gold in our house, making occasional appearances as a special treat alongside pizza. I know this must be serious.
He bought me a small from a concession stand. The cup was waxy and damp from condensation. I walked along the tree-lined streets holding his hand and sipping my Coke through a red and white striped straw. He took me to a cute little bookstore, where he bought me “Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing” (which launched a lifelong love of Judy Blume books and, ergo, adolescent drama). By the time we got back to my mother and brother, I was warm and dry, and my stomach ache was gone.
I woke with a stomach ache again this morning, this time inspired by the combination of an gallons of Harp Lager and White Russians, not the briny Pacific. My first thought was remedy the upset with a Coca-Cola. My second was of that last, great, idyllic family trip so many years ago.
Sure enough, as I type this now, the bottle is empty, and my stomach is settled again.
The Future Is Ours
I ran for an hour and twenty-four minutes this morning listening to the same two songs over and over and over.
Taken together, REM’s “Living Well Is The Best Revenge” and “Man Sized Wreath” clock in at 5:44. Which means that in my ten and a half mile run south along the Hudson, east across Canal, then north along the East River, I listened to these two songs 14.65 times.
It wasn’t intentional; my iPod hadn’t synched my entire playlist (comprised of some twenty songs from the band’s entire catalogue). I didn’t discover said malfunction, of course, until somewhere around 42d Street. Too late.
If I’m going to get stuck with two songs on repeat for an hour and a half run, though, these two tracks from the band’s new “Accelerate” might be pretty decent choices. They’re urgent, uptempo, aggressive tunes built from the stuff of all great rock songs: thunderous backbeats, blaring guitars, propulsive bass, and a singer who’s just a little over the top.
Michael Stipe sounds like a pissed off couch potato. He’s had it with the thousand channel universe (”pageantry of empty gestures”), cable news punditry (”let’s hear that argument again on camera three, go now!”), and a culture of apathy (”everybody looking like they just don’t care”) and celebrity obsession (”all your sad and lost apostles”).
I share Michael’s politics, though not his anger. Not this morning, anyway.
By the time I hit Chinatown, my soundtrack had become something of a drone. Grand Street was bustling. I jogged in the street; the sidewalk was too crowded with morning shoppers. I dodged delivery vans and cabs, sidestepping hand trucks and palettes. The air smelled like ice and fish and cold soil.
From a narrow pathway between the FDR and a ConEd pumping station, the East River widens significantly above 14th Street. At Turtle Bay, the entire East Side — Midtown, the United Nations, the 59th Street Bridge — opens up in before you. This morning, a low layer of clouds was obscuring most of it.
There, across the wide, diamond-strewn river, only the great art deco spire of The Empire State Building broke through the whispy fog. It really was something to behold, that great tower piercing the sky. For a moment, I could imagine a dirigible the size of a city block moored there. For a moment, I could imagine the city in 1931: flush with ambition, opportunity, and hope.
Just then, Michael sang, “The future is ours!” And I accelerated towards home.
The Itchy & Scratchy Show
I have a small contingency of friends, colleagues and family members who question my rabid over-involvement. The MTV, the blogs, the documentary, the records and shows, marathons and triathlons.
What gives? they ask. Isn’t any one of those things enough? What’s wrong with you?
I was reminded the other night that there are stages to recovery. I suppose there are at least twelve, but let’s call it three: addiction, abstinence, and serenity.
Addiction is obvious: Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance. And, for me, it’s history. It’s been nearly ten years since I got high.
Abstinence (act or practice of refraining from indulging an appetite) is understandable enough too, though there’s more too it in recovery circle. It involves assessment, that is, determining just what was lost in those lost years: friends, productivity, health.
Serenity is when one’s made peace with both the addiction, and its ramifications.
So it occurred to me that maybe I’m still somewhere between the two. I still kick myself for wasting so many years, well, wasted. True: I held down a job. Heck, I even released records, played shows, and ran some races. But I didn’t do any of it very well, or at least as well as I could have.
I’ve long since relinquished any fantasy of my avocations returning any monetary or lauditory dividends (well, almost). So it could be that some of what drives this hypomania of mine is some sort of low-level lost time complex. It stands to reason that I do all these things to make up for doing so little, or doing so little well.
Or not.
I was listening to the Fresh Air podcast on the way to work this morning because, well, I’m a thirtysomething PBS/NPR type of guy. Terry Gross was interviewing Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills, aka R.E.M.
“How have your motivations changed since you started making music together in 1979?”
I was walking east on 49 Street as Mike answered. The dogwoods were blooming, forming a tunnel of white petals overhead. My guitar was slung over my shoulder, resting on my messenger bag.
“Our motivation for writing music when we started was actually pretty much the same as it is now,” he said. “We weren’t doing it to make money or be famous. We did it because that’s pretty much what we were good at. And it felt good to do it, yunno? It’s an itch you’ve got to scratch. I still feel the same way. One of the great things for me about being in this band is the excitement and the discovery of a new song, coming up with something that’s still exciting from whatever well is within us. That’s pretty much all the motivation ya’ need.”
“That’s it,” I thought. “It’s that simple.”
The rest is just psychobabble. Until making music, films, blogs and finish lines interferes with my relationship with my wife, our families, and jobs, I’m just gonna’ keep scratchin’.
It feels good to do it.
Eros, Logos, The Man & The Band
This is funny. Or alarming. Or both.
I’ve re-learned an important life lesson in the last few weeks.
Remember when you were taught how to write a persuasive essay in grammar school? The form is simple: state your argument in the thesis, and support it with at least three data points. (I’m not sure that’s how Miss Purcell explained it, but close.)
Somewhere along the way, that formula’s lost on people, including — to some degree — myself. I’ve found that we cling to our arguments based on some sort of emotional connection to the past. So, when something like Web 2.0 comes along, people resist things like, say, blogging or embracing community or responding directly to audience feedback.
I read somewhere that the first half of our lives are spent developing that which comes naturally, and the second half is about developing that which doesn’t. I’m not quite to midlife yet, but in the past few weeks I’ve really seen a shift to more logos-based thinking.
A prime example is the image above.
I consider myself to be more eros than logos, that is: more creative than logical, more intuitive than intellectual, more art than science. And that may be true. But at work, anyway, I am surrounded by people whose arguments are almost entirely based on feelings and habits. So, at wits end with some recurring arguments, I’ve embraced math.
Now, I wasn’t at wits end with Chris, Tony or Ryan when I came up with the Excel document — possibly my least rock ‘n roll move in regards the band ever — pictured here. We were just having a tough time tracking each other’s schedules, and we have a lot goin’ on. In fact, I have some fairly big news to that end …
But more on that next week.
A Ghost Of Hearts
Like a lot of guys of my generation, Chris Suchorsky’s mind was blown by “The Empire Strikes Back.” What distinguished Chris most of the rest of us, though, was how geeked out he was by the making-of documentary he saw on HBO.
When Chris saw Kevin Smith’s no-budget, 1994 Sundance phenomena, “Clerks,” he wanted in on his New Jersey neighbor’s racket. A self-described “typical everyday Slacker, C student,” he doubled up and even audited film classes at Seton Hall. Once graduated, he began working in advertising, saving money, and writing his screenplay, “Executing Love.”
By the summer of 2000, I’d had it with the Advertising Agency and decided to shoot my film. I based my actions/steps on Robert Rodriguez’s “Rebel Without a Crew,” an autobiographical account of his attempt to make, “El Mariachi.” Rodriguez shot the film by himself for $7000, and sold it to Hollywood for around 1 million.
I set out to shoot a 95 page script in 6 six days, I rented equipment I could not afford, and I hired people (friends) who could not act. This was my failure.
A day or so after my film career ended, I had an idea. Why not turn my failed attempt into a documentary? Why not tell the story of a person trying to achieve a life-long dream and watch it fall apart? This film would become “Failure.”
Check your local listings; Chris’ how-NOT-to-make-a-movie documentary, “Failure” is probably playing on IFC right now.
I came across Chris via his new film, “Golden Days.” The doc follows indie rockers, The Damnwells, through a major label tussle not dissimilar from Wilco’s (also documented in Sam Jones’ “I Am Trying To Break your Heart”).
Please visit my “Making ‘Mister Rogers & Me’” blog to read all about Chris and my night on the town.
Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance
“Waking their latest triumph, ‘Penthouse,’ from its mordant and mellow foundation, Wareham and Sean Eden’s wall of swirling, simmering guitars blared a full-tilt, cosmic radio clamor.”
That’s my review of Luna’s September 1995 Tramp’s performance. I especially like the phrase “cosmic radio clamor.” I wanted to be Lester Bangs so badly.
That concert review was one of my first for Rolling Stone Online. I didn’t know the band terribly well at the time, though I had a copy of their new CD, “Penthouse,” and had heard their “Luna Park” debut. So Chris and I were dubious when the band took the stage. I don’t remember much (surprise! we got super monkeyed before the show), but I do remember bobbing my head and smiling. I remember being swayed by frontman Dean Wareham’s deadpan. And I remember leaving suitably impressed. We’d been converted.
Thirteen laters, now, comes Wareham’s memoir, “Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance.”
Wareham’s book joins Semisonic drummer Jacob Slichter’s “So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star,” and Jen Trynin’s “Everything I’m Cracked Up to Be” in a small but compelling canon of ’90s alternative rock memoirs. Their stories are rock ‘n roll cautionary tales. And though Wareham tosses in a taudry affair with his gorgeous bassist, I, for one, appreciate the major label reality check.
See, when I was in college and Smokey Junglefrog was sufficiently successful to be deluded enough to think we could release records and play rock shows for a living, there was only one way: get signed by a record label. We sent our cassettes to anyone who would listen (or claimed they would), dreaming of the day when we’d sign our names on a dotted line, climb aboard our custom Eagle tour bus, and end up with a handfull of Grammys.
“Black Postcards” effectively takes a long, sharp needle to the bloated balloon that is the rock ‘n roll fantasy. In 324 pages, Wareham dispatches it in short order. Not surprisingly, his prose reads like his lyrics: short, sharp, and bone dry.
“Total attendance at the in-store was four Luna fans. Two of them were infants in strollers, wheeled in by their mom, who couldn’t believe that Luna was playing at the mall. One other Luna fan worked upstairs at Abercrombie & Fitch, and happened to see a sign in the store window that morning.”
What Wareham describes is prolonged adolescents. There’s coke and Ecstasy, booze and groupies, short days, long drives, and late nights.
“You wake up when the tour manager tells you to wake up. You eat lunch when the tour manager tells you to eat lunch. And you show up for soundscheck when the tour manager tells you to soundscheck.”
Sure, Wareham sold out The Fillmore, played Conan, and was the subject of an outstanding rock doc (“Tell Me Do You Miss Me”). But his Electra Records deal ended with the band $1.2M in the hole. His marriage was over. And he never did get that Grammy.
It’s a great read. I tore through it in just a few days. And in the end, I began to think that maybe this rock ‘n roll career of mine has unfolded pretty well, even if it hasn’t unfolded as I’d planned.
Dean would probably say the same.
We should all be so lucky.
The Wonder That’s Keeping The Stars Apart
It was fairly apparent fairly quickly that Abbi and I had something special together.
Above all, our relationship was low-key, well-paced, and light on drama. It wasn’t (and isn’t) all sunsets, walks in the park, long runs, and bouquets flowers (though there was all that). There was (and remains) a healthy dose of constructive narrative tension. But it evolved naturally. It was obvious; It just felt right. Most importantly, there was laughter, and lots of it.
Even before we got engaged, we tended towards some of those wedding shows. And though our values seemed (and remain to appear) pretty similar, we had some conceptual disagreement over how we imagined our respective weddings. I wanted a Nantucket backyard. She didn’t. I wanted small. She didn’t. I wanted casual. You get the idea.
As our wedding approached, though, our collective and individual resolve began to transform itself. We learned some valuable lessons about compromise. We gained some practical insight on letting go. And — on many things (including, it should be noted, the stuff that really mattered like that it should be deeply spiritual but non-denominational) — we found ourselves in total and complete agreement.
One component of our wedding ceremony upon which Abbi and I agreed instantly was our reading. Abbi suggested ee cummings’ “i carry your heart with me.” I loved it. And I still do.
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is youhere is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars aparti carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
Abbi’s best friend, Monica, read it perfectly, rolling rhythmically through the lyrical build towards the great reveal: “here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life.” It was a perfect choice for a very real, very-grounded ceremony because it was not. It is poetic, cryptic, evocative and mysterious — all important components, I think, of a healthy marriage.
Our wedding was six months ago this afternoon.
Six months later, this love grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide.
Six months later, that the universe finally unfolded as it should still thrills and confounds me.
Six months later, I still thank those stars that Abbi walked into my life, said hello, and changed it forever.
She is my wonder.
Hy-Vee Triathlon: 77 Days And Counting…
It was just a week ago this morning that I sent off my application to be a selected to be a member of The Des Moines
Register’s Triathlon Team.
A week later, the word is in, and the word is good.
Congratulations! You have been selected to be a member of The Des Moines Register’s Triathlon Team. We appreciate your willingness to share your training and race experiences with our readers.
As a Des Moines Register Team member, you will be asked to blog each Friday leading up to the triathlon (tell us what you’re doing to train, how it’s going, how you are feeling, etc.). Your blogs will appear on desmoinesregister.com. You will be featured in a story introducing the triathlon team to our readers, and also will be interviewed immediately following the race on June 22 for a short story we’ll run in the paper. Mark Emmert and the sports editorial staff will be in touch with you soon to provide more details.
Of course, one blog entry a week should be no sweat. And I’ve run the last two New York City Triathlons cold (that is, I didn’t ramp up my biking or swimming, I just relied on my fairly consistent running schedule).
Still, I don’t typically finish a race then pause to be interviewed, let alone by one the nation’s top newspapers. So I don’t wanna’ blow it off and suck.
Accordingly, my first move is to call my orthepedist, Dr. Mark Klion, and have him listen to my creaky knee. My second move is to find a pool. If I can swim a mile without training, imagine how much faster I could do it if I trained.
Of course, the prevailing thought is that the triathlon is going to kick off some sort of CD release and mini tour (as if I don’t have enough to do). So I gotta’ work that out too.
First things first, though. I need to stock up on Gatorade.
Amazing Grace - MP3
In U2’s “Pride (In The Name Of Love),” Bono sings, “Early morning, April 4 / A shot rings out in the Memphis sky.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. was, in fact, assassinated at 6:01 pm on April 4, 1968 — forty years ago this very moment.
Bono has since conceded his mistake, and expressed his dissatisfaction with the lyrics, which he describes as “simple sketches.” The singer says he was swayed by Edge and producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, who played down the need to develop the lyrics as they thought the impressionistic nature was more important to the songs’ ‘feeling’, particularly when heard by non-English speakers.
I looked at how glorious that song was and thought: ‘What the fuck is that all about?’ It’s just a load of vowel sounds ganging up on a great man. It is emotionally very articulate — if you didn’t speak English.”
At 6:01pm on April 4, 2008, then, I thought I’d offer up a recording of “Amazing Grace” that I recorded for my nephew, Ethan. The hymn was one of my grandmother’s favorites. I don’t think I’ve been able to sing it straight through without tearing up since her funeral. It never fails to return me to some of my darker moments, and relish the light of the present.
Englishman John Newton wrote “Amazing Grace” in 1772. According to Wikipedia, “The lyrics are based on his reflections on an Old Testament text he was preparing to preach on, adding his perspective about his own conversion while on his slave ship, the Greyhound, in 1748.”
The song has also become known as a favorite with supporters of freedom and human rights, both Christian and non-Christian, in part because many assume it to be his testimony about his slave trading past.
Elsewhere, Wikipedia defines thusly:
Grace divine is an indispensable gift from God for development, improvement, and character expansion.
Forty years later, for Ethan and Edward and all of the other children, here’s hoping we use this gift wisely.
