I'm sitting in a coffee shop taming my hangover, which behaves like a circus tiger. It cooperates, but if given the chance, it would pull my head clean off. I rely on years of experience to keep it at bay. Anyways, the interview....
The album started off by embracing the concept of an album itself, which is a dying form. I wanted to make a piece of music that was larger than it's individual songs, that was meant to be listened to from beginning to end, and had good song flow. I spent about two months mapping the entire thing out in my head before I put anything to tape. I could show you these massive tracking charts I drew that show how one instrument blends with another and how one song becomes the next. All this preparation was useful, but things don't always go as planned when you step into the wilderness and push the record button. Many of the songs were written specifically as parts of the album and we never play them live. As a band, we're a whole different animal live.
The emotional engine of this album comes from a homesickness that I can't quite shake. I made the decision to move to Portland to pursue music, and although I've really developed here, I find most things worth writing about are the people and places I've left behind. Lately though, homesickness has been replaced by heartbreak, which is a more than capable substitute.
The reason why the album took so long is because I did things the old fashioned way. I have a stubborn loyalty to the cassette 4 track and I had to do some creative problem solving to get all the layers I wanted. 4 tracks are antiquated in these digital times, but they're the most honest sounding format in my opinion. Mixing was also done in real time and they're a kind of performance in and of themselves. In the end, I got the sound I wanted, something warm and streamlined. There's not an ounce of fat on this album. It's all song in its leanest, meanest form.
Now that it's done I feel some relief, mostly because we can move on with our new songs, which are many. During the process of this album, Shoeshine Blue became a band and this album is more a product of my mind rather than a musical collaboration. It's cool to see the album out there though, living its life. The response so far has been great.
All other albums leading up to this one were building blocks. I made a lot of mistakes in past recordings, both with my recording technique and in my writing. I mean, one album starts out with a nine minute song for cryin' out loud. Who did I think I was? Those mistakes were necessary, though, and I still like a lot of those old recorded songs, but they don't compare to this album, and this album doesn't compare to the songs we're doing now.
On recent shows I've seen.... I mostly see my friends' shows. Nearly everyone I know is a musician and there's a great community here. If I'm not seeing a friend's show, then it's usually still a local band that I'm going out to see. There are people making music in Portland that's as good as any music I've ever heard. I'm not kidding. That girl who makes your coffee in the mornings is a rockstar at night.
At the beginning of December I'm joining my long time friend, Dustin Hamman (Run On Sentence), for a small tour from Texas to Missouri. We’ve had a long musical friendship and have pushed each other's songwriting over the years. Run On Sentence has just released a great album and I've never heard anything quite like it. So we'll be traveling in a trusty old van, pedaling our wares from town to town. You can check our myspace pages for actual dates and showtimes.
www.myspace.com/shoeshineblue
www.myspace.com/runonsentence
PS: All the CD covers are screen printed by hand, which was the last and most fun part of the process.
Mike.
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