New Music for the Waxing Quarter Moon
Friday April 28th, 2023. Page St, Charlottesville, VA. The waxing moon nourishes creation. Never understood why they call it a quarter moon instead of a half moon, but I’m on the ride regardless.
I’ve been enjoying a lot of new music recently, but I haven’t been creating a ton of my own. To be fair though, I had a strong patch about 4-to-6 months ago that’s just now coming into the daylight of The Internet.
In early October 2022, I joined Mr Adam Long and the Adam’s Plastic Pond to record a trio of songs that he wrote with Julian Carta, deep in Early Covid; mid-2020. It was a great weekend at White Star Sound in Louisa County, Virginia. Alex DeJong was at the board and the band was Adam and Jules on guitar, myself and Scotty D for the rhythm section, and Alex Angelich and James Gammon with complimentary vocals and keys and vibes. The tracks have spent the last six months getting polished up and ready (Gabe and Sam got their hands on ’em too) and Adam finally released them into the Great Beyond this week: https://adamsplasticpond.hearnow.com/some-changes
I love all three tracks for different reasons, but the title track “Some Changes” is my favorite hands down.
In part, I love this song because it feels like slightly new territory for Adam; a vein that he hasn’t really explored before in his writing. I think Julian gets some credit for that, though the times in which it was written can’t be ignored either. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the bass sound is the other reason I love this track. The vintage 70’s Bassman at White Star is such a premium piece of gear. Not to mention this bassline that Julian wrote almost note for note on the original demo, and I don’t mind saying I played the shit out of it.
But that wasn’t the only music I put out this week! A confluence of factors these past several days finally brought together enough disparate energy to lift an almost-lost Modern Medication track from the murky gloom of Google Drive and into the speckled light of YouTube:
“We all need… a little shelter…”
We sure do. I recorded this in early November 2022, after hearing it on WNRN on the way out to one of the rehearsals for the Adam session, about a month earlier (true story). I went over to Julian’s to get some guitar tracks on it almost 2 months later, between Christmas and the New Year. And then I just rode this tune through the dark of winter; listening to mixes and variations of it as I went to bed, for about a month or so after that.
In that sense, it’s sort of the 2023 edition of this motif. Letting the old Laffargue carry me through the coldest shortest days of the year. Music for Remedy and Reflection. Shelter, from the storm.
And that’s it for now. Regrettably, I had to bail out of a possible recording session with the great Richelle Claiborne and Friends a couple weeks from now. Our family is entering a Storm from which we could use some Shelter. Sarah is going to be deep in heavy work for the next few weeks, deeper than she’s been… since before we had kids, for sure. We’re tying everything that moves down to the decks and pulling our coats around us tight.
But we’re making it through, and even finding some time to play in the rain on a gloomy Friday morning in late April. Here’s to all of you finding the Shelter you need, in the coming weeks and beyond.
S
Ps/ My Mom told me today that she has a painting for me from GJ (Dorothy Virginia Brockelman Green James, my Dad’s Mom). Aunt Penny had it and dropped it off with them today, and they decided I should have it. “It’s kinda dark,” she told me. She painted it in 1943, while our Planet was weathering the brutal struggle that came to be known as World War II. Both of my Grandfathers were in Europe at that point, and at least one of Sarah’s. I think the other was maybe in the Navy. Heavy days.
Pps/ I previewed the “Shelter” video before I wrote this and the next thing that YouTube sent me was this gem:
September 2021. Marley Nichelle and The Mint in full effect. Heavy days, but good days too.
