On The Air: KPTL’s Live From Studio C With Deeya
If you like hearing me talk then today's your lucky day.
As I told KPTL DJ Daniel Boseman after we wrapped our 45-minute interview, I've been the interviewer far more frequently than the interviewee.
See, I talk a lot. Which, I know from all my years at The MTV, is not necessarily the best thing for radio and television. We live in a sound byte world, after all. If you can't say it in ten seconds, you probably ought not to try.
Luckily, Des Moines is not New York, and KPTL is not MTV. When Daniel and I went long Saturday afternoon ...
On The Air: KPTL’s Capital Backyard With Daniel Boseman
It's been a whirlwind weekend here in Des Moines, Iowa.
I got in Saturday around noon, registered for the Hy-Vee Tri, then taped two KPTL-FM Capitol 106.3 radio shows: Daniel Boseman's Capitol Backyard, and Deeya's Live from Studio C.
I ran the tri Sunday morning in 2:48:27. Then the Authentic Records crew threw a hugely successful Iowa Flood Relief Benefit Sunday night, raising nearly $3000 for the United Way of Central Iowa.
I'm off to a meeting at the Authentic Records Beaverdale Offices, then Iowa Public Television, before ...
Behind The Music: “Giving Up The Ghost”
I was standing on the 79th Street subway station just a few days prior to the release of "Heartland" in November, 2005, when the phrase "giving up the ghost" came to me.
"Somehow," as I wrote a few years later, "It summarized everything that I was (and still am) going through, specifically, letting go of all of the dreams, fantasies, and delusions of youth. I’m not relinquishing the ones that drive and motivate and inspire me, I’m casting out those that haunt me, that torture me and keep me up at night. You know the laundry list: the ...
Though You Failed, At Least You Tried
I love this story.
Colossally famous rock star (Tom Petty) reforms his middlingly-successful first band (Mudcrutch), rescuing at least one former band mate from the drudgery of teaching high school.
"I just had this random thought," Petty said. "'I really liked that band, I wonder what it would be like to get them together?'"
And so he did.
"I was driving home from getting groceries at Kroger’s, and my cellphone rang," said [guitarist] Tom Leadon. "He said, 'Hey, it’s your old pal Tom Petty.'"
A few days of enterprising ...
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 ...
Waiting At Graceland (First In Line) - MP3
"I ran down Elvis Presley Boulevard beneath a sky bruised purple and gray and orange at the edges," I scribbled in a journal entry dated October 21, 1996. "It's the type of sky that removes roofs indescriminently."
"It's rumbling now, waiting to break, I'm sure, just as I step from the tour bus to the property -- or shortly thereafter, when I resume my 670 mile trip north."
Twelve years and thousands of miles later, that last-minute pilgrimage to Graceland makes better sense to me. I can see now that, like me, Elvis was also trying to ...
Leap Year - MP3
I wrote "Leap Year" fifteen years ago, in the deep, dark winter of 1993.
Syracuse winters were brutal. It's nation's snowiest metropolitan region, averaging 114.6 inches a year. I happened to be there for three of the top five worst years, the penultimate being the year in question in which 192.1 inches fell. That's over sixteen feet of snow.
Worse yet, though, Syracuse is notoriously gray. The city averages 303 cloudy or partly cloudy days a year. And we're not talking about the billowy white kind. We're talking slate gray, ...
Less Than You Need - MP3
This weekend, I spent nearly eight hours on one song. This is not that song.
That song is called, "For You," a simple crescendo in D. It began a few weeks ago as I sat and reacquainted myself with my guitar. A simple D pattern and a few lyrics emerged. And so, with some time on my hands Saturday night, I invested in the idea. By the time it was too late to keep my eyes open, I had eighteen tracks (mostly guitars, but also one suitcase standing in as a bass drum).
Sunday night, then, found me watching my new favorite show, 60 ...
Breathe In - MP3
I knew I was in trouble when I found myself face down on a massage table in the Maldvives nearly a week into my honeymoon and I couldn't silence the worries in my head. It was making me kind of nuts to be somewhere so beautiful, so tranquil, and with someone I love so much, but to be incapable of being still inside.
So I took a deep breath, and forced myself to concentrate on the inhale, and the exhale, and the inhale,and the exhale...
We've been back a few weeks now. I feel nuts already.
Writing this song, though, ...
The Last Time - MP3
My hand to God's, here's how it happened.
I woke up late on account of getting home late from last night's "Besides" release with a bonus Sundown show afterwards. I jumped online to update the set list on my site, then checked out Sundown's site to see if they'd updated anything (like, "We hung with our buddy Benjamin last night and boy is he talented!"). From there I surfed to Wes Hutchinson's site, which autoplays "Long Day" from his CD, "Down In Flames."
Next thing I know (and I'm really not sure what happened in between, but I ...
