Incisioni Di Modena

It's been a while since I listened back to these recordings I made in '99 at Giorgio Buttazzo's studio in Modena, Italy. Giorgio plays a mean guitar in The Bermuda Acoustic Trio, an incredible cover band that has toured Italy constantly since before I met them. I was living in Bologna when I wrote the songs, listening to a lot of Fabrizio De Andre, Francesco Guccini, Lucio Dalla, and Lucio Battisti. Here are the recordings with translations underneath.

SOTTO LA LUNA

The sun threw its light on me
but I could think only of you
I saw a smile in your eyes
but my thoughts were regrettably few

I have to tell you that ever since the first time
Under the moon our souls were burning
When I touch you I feel almost empty
And everything else slowly disappears

I walked alone on the clouds
Looking for the sky below me
Instead I found the profound truth
It was blown in the wind
Followed closely by the lie

I have to tell you that ever since the first time
Under the moon our souls were screaming
When I touch you I feel almost empty
And everything else slowly disappears

I was descending, flying, never shedding a tear
I was falling, singing, my voice strong as ever
When at last I landed I saw you
You need not ask, you already know the answer

I have to tell you that ever since the first time
Under the moon our souls were glowing
When I touch you I feel almost empty
And everything else slowly disappears

SE VIENI CON ME

Come with me
the world isn't watching
Tell me who you are
but don't come out from the shadow
Don't be afraid of me
even if you can't see me
Let the world go
until you don't do only what it tells you

CHORUS
You'll feel me in the wind
I'll touch your hand
Don't lose yourself staring at the thought
You'll understand the feeling
I'll hold your body
If you come with me

CHORUS

When you leave me in the morning I don't follow
I wait for you to return but you go
I wait, but you don't look back
You're looking for a place you'll never find
But if you find it

CHORUS

You still don't know if you'll lose
the memory that I gave you
Maybe when you think of it you'll see me
Maybe when you see me you won't want me
You're afraid you won't dream when you sleep
and if you don't dream

CHORUS

LA VOCE

I tried to acknowledge the voice that was calling me
I wished that it would sing, but all it did was ask me
What do you want from life? Do you believe in god?
Don't you know that love only hurts your heart?

I smiled and said
It would take too many hours
to understand my thoughts
when I make love
I look toward the sky and sing the song
of the lover whose heart does not ache

CHORUS
The voice is mistaken
it does not speak my truth
It will never understand my reality
It has closed its mind and will not open it

I followed the words as they grew
Unsure of what they meant
It explained the song but did not sing it
I long for silence

The night was listening in and could not understand
Why the voice was speaking aimlessly
I explained that it was trying to get inside me
and that it was unable to

CHORUS

songwriting class

Since moving back to the Bay Area two years ago I've been helping elementary school kids write and record their own songs in an after school program at a San Francisco public school. It's the greatest job I've ever had. At the beginning of class we listen to popular songs that I think are important for them to know and we talk about song structure, different genres, melody, rhythm, and lyrics. The kids then write their song ideas in their journals and we make rough recordings using a microphone attached to my ipod. Usually I accompany them on the guitar, sometimes they perform a cappella. Once their songs are complete I bring in my computer, a microphone, some headphones, and my portable Pro Tools hardware and we record their albums.

So far they've written about four hundred songs. Not all of them have gotten the full studio production because of time and space constraints. Here's a small collection of some of their work:

Saoirse's as talented a ten year old songwriter as I've met. On this recording she plays guitar and sings live in the studio. I added some electric guitar overdubs.
Click here to listen to "Look For You."

Fourth graders Tyler, Chinwendu, Vanessa, and Rashidah wrote this song about freedom together. It moves me every time I listen.
Click here to listen to "Freedom."

Jessica and Jennifer, fifth graders, collaborated on this song called "Bandieros." It's about gangsters fighting in the streets in their neighborhood.
Click here to listen to "Bandieros."

Cora was in the first class I ever taught last year. This song is about her fourth grade teacher who had moved away. With this song she proved what a young songwriter is capable of creating.
Click here to listen to "Last Year."

Edgar wrote this when he was in third grade. I sing it on this rough recording and some day hope to get him in the studio to lay down a vocal track. These lyrics are amazing.
Click here to listen to "While I'm Away."

Carlos is a die hard Michael Jackson fan. The king of pop had just died when Carlos wrote this letter to him and sang it into my ipod.
Click here to listen to "Dear Michael Jackson."

Tristan found this beat on my ipod and wrote these rhymes to rap over it calling himself MC Echo. He had his friend Tyler sing back up vocals.
Click here to listen to "MC Echo."

June was in second grade when she wrote and recorded "I'm Songs."She spent about two months refining the verses until she got it just right, and she drew detailed illustrations of all the emotions she mentions in the song.
Click here to listen to "I'm Songs."

El Profe

Yesterday I learned of the passing of my good friend, teacher and collaborator, Roberto Fuentes. I first met Roberto when I was helping some friends make a short film in Germantown, NY in 2004. The production was in a massive converted farmhouse by the train tracks next to the Hudson River, home of the Station House Studio where I had recently recorded Palestine Hotel and an early version of Bay to Maples. It was a silent film, Roberto played an old carney in a top hat and cane.

A couple years later when I was living in Brooklyn Roberto took me on as a pupil, helping me learn to breathe, sing, write and perform. We used to meet up after hours at the music school in Tribeca where I used to work, or at my apartment in Greenpoint, sometimes for three or four hours at a time. He would get carried away telling stories of his years touring Venezuela with his troupe and the success they had before he moved to New York. He was as humble and extravagant a man as I've known, and more talented than anyone I've had the pleasure to meet.

At the time he said he no longer performed with his students, but there was one song of mine he said he wanted to play live with me. The gig was at 11pm on a Monday at Rockwood Music Hall, as safe a time as any to try out a new arrangement. We had Yair Evnine on cello and Elijah Tucker on drums. Roberto fingerpicks his quatro (it's like a ukulele) in the beginning then blasts into a rapid fire strum in the second part of the song.

LISTEN TO THE RECORDING HERE

I think of Roberto and the things he taught me every time I get myself ready to sing.

Berkeley. November 4, 2008

I had my recorder rolling at a few different points on Tuesday night when Obama won the election. The six clips with this entry are chronological starting at around 9:30pm.

Ramona and I were driving toward the Starry Plough for the open mic victory party. We came on a mob of people dancing in the street outside Guerrilla Cafe and parked the car to get in on the celebration. People had spilled off the sidewalk and blocked one of the two lanes on Shattuck, others were standing on the grassy median dancing and shouting. Cars were able to pass through slowly, blowing their horns.

Listen to the crowd

We got back in the car and drove a half a mile an hour through the crowd. I was leaning out the window slapping hands with the folks on the median, caught up in the shouting and laughter.

Listen to it here

When we got to the Starry Plough it was Girl George's turn to perform. I took my recorder on stage when I went to sing backup for her. We were three backup singers, three conga players (including Tony Mayfield who George gloats is Curtis Mayfield’s son, and Jack who used to be a bartender at the Plough), and Guy Michelle on guitar. Girl George’s act is unrehearsed, abrasive and poignant. She’s a sixty four year old punk rock radical with a million stories that she’ll tell you without you asking.

Listen to Girl George celebrate

Next up was Tony Mayfield. He spoke a few words about the momentous occasion of Obama's election and shared some of his memories as a long time Berkeley resident. In the clip I posted below he introduces a song that he and D'Wayne Wiggins recently released called Be Thankful for What You Got. I cut off the clip before he launches into the song but Tony's warm up is a nice taste of his sound.

Listen to Tony Mayfield on conga

It was my honor to close the show after midnight when hardly anyone was left in the venue except for Guy Michelle talking about the bass player in his band and a handful of other stragglers. I played a song I'd started writing earlier that day when it looked like Obama was going to win and Prop 8 was going to pass. Highs and lows. Girl George held my lyric sheet for me and Tony played the congas. The recorder was on Guy's table.

Listen to my song, partly written partly improvised

When they finally locked the front door at the Plough I was walking to my car when this fellow named Victor walked up and started talking to me about the open mic. He told me that he was living in his truck and had just moved to Berkeley from Delaware. I asked him if he'd play a song right there on the street. He started spouting some good old radical left wing politics soon as I got the recorder rolling, criticizing Joe Biden for the credit card industry in Delaware in a monologue about corporate America. Then he sang a song his brother wrote. It was the right amount of far left skepticism to end a night of liberal euphoria.

Listen to Victor

Oh please pass the cheese

This recording is from the same night as the one in my last post. It's Aaron Garber-Maikovska singing whatever comes to his mind and me playing the guitar part of one of my new songs. Greg Peters plays the surprise solo part way through.

My favorite line is when Aaron says:

"If we move fast enough
He won't know we're there
like the devil may care
with the Doc Marten's on
and my punk rock stare.
Look at the dogs, look at the geese
look at the apples and the cheese"

Aaron is a multi-media artist living in LA, raised in Berkeley and Petaluma. Music is featured in a lot of his work, check out the Youtube link below for a wild performance art piece filmed in a gallery. Whenever we hang out there are usually more harmonicas than inhibitions and the hours pass hysterically.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO AARON IN THE WEE HOURS

Aaron's piece on Youtube

Bio and info on gallery's website

more info

My Baby Don't Wear the Gas Mask

This is the kind of ridiculous freestyle session that can only happen around four in the morning when you're chilling with friends you haven't seen in a few months. After our good friend Greg Mullan's wedding on Saturday a group of us ended up back in Petaluma with a couple guitars, some cold cuts and no intention of going to sleep.

Gabe Griffith kicks off the session spraying his metaphorical mace, Greg Peters and I pick up on the guitars and drop the backup vocals on the first chorus. The second MC is Aaron Garber who always brings a killer stream of consciousness. You don't hear Greg Peters sing very often but he lays into a funky falsetto in third verse and almost hits most of the notes.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE FREESTYLE SESSION

Surf and Saddle

The first leg of our California tour brought me down to San Diego where I holed up with Greg Peters for two weeks. The day after I arrived we threw a party in Peters' backyard where four bands played from sunset until around midnight. Peters is the head brewer at the Solana Beach Port Brewing Company so we had the tastiest beers this side of the Rockies on tap that night. Plenty of people came out to the party. We like to think it was because of the music but the reality is that there are a lot of tasty beers this side of the Rockies and when the best among them are on tap for no charge people are bound to show up.

We spent the next week rehearsing in a garage in Carlsbad, getting ready for our Thursday night show at the Surf and Saddle, a sweet dive bar in Solana Beach. For John, Greg and Kyle (three of the four members of the band Guns of Avalon) the rehearsals were double since all three were playing in my band as well. The bill at the Surf and Saddle had The Minor Keys kicking off the show (a group of youngsters from Ocean Beach who wore neck ties and colorful rimmed sunglasses) followed by the Guns of Avalon with my band, the Doghouse Brewer, finishing out the night.

By the time the Guns of Avalon took the stage the room was packed. Our good friend Gabe took the mic to introduce the band and they eased into their rocking opening number, Quite One Universe. Peters laid into the introductory riff and John built it up with heavy distortion on his Epiphone. It was a dramatic and haunting opener to a killer set. Listen to the song below.

The next day Peters and I drove up to Hollywood to play a set at Room 5, a slick little club with a great sound system and some of the best Italian food I've had in a while.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE GUNS OF AVALON PLAYING "QUITE ONE UNIVERSE"

KOA

It was the last stop before driving back up to Berkeley and we hadn't had any coffee yet. Ramona, my brother Marshall, his girlfriend Janie, Greg Peters and I were in two cars: one filled with guitars, amps, tents and backpacks, the other with mountain bikes. We pulled up in front of Zachary's restaurant in Santa Cruz where a few of us had eaten in the past, hopped out of the cars and stretched our legs before going inside.

While we were loitering out front a man walked by carrying a guitar in his left hand and a milk crate in his right. It was nine o'clock on Sunday morning, not a time you would expect to find a busker playing for change on the street. But this guy had the look and equipment of a seasoned busker. I called out to him as he walked determinedly past the restaurant, asked him if he was going to play. He said he would if there was a dollar in it. I got a dollar for you, I told him, but he kept walking and disappeared around the corner.

We'd been camping at a KOA (Kampground of America) for two nights near La Selva Beach between Santa Cruz and Monterey. It was the tail end of our tour, me and the Doghouse Brewer, and the KOA had left us under-rested and wondering what the hell "kamping" was. The experience staying there was such a far cry from any camping any of us had done that I imagine they had legal problems calling their grounds "camps" and had to exchange the "c" for a "k" so as not to fool people into thinking they were actually camping. They jam as many people as they can into as small a space as possible. Driving through the place it looks like dirt stalls packed with humans and their oversized cars; tenements for people who are mildly interested in being outdoors. Babies crying all night, grumpy neighbors and horrible music piped through the speakers in the bathrooms.

Kamping aside, the trip down the coast was the perfect end to our first California tour. This was the northern stretch of shows: first at the Starry Plough in my hometown Berkeley, then down to the Firefly in Santa Cruz and finally the East Village Lounge in Monterey. We spent our days doing a live studio performance at KUSP in Santa Cruz, napping on the beach and busking on the wharf. The shows got better and better as we traveled down the coast.

The climax was in Monterey at the East Village Lounge where we played a tight set in their intimate backroom and then got asked to stick around and play another set at the after party of a fundraiser benefiting the town of Big Sur. The town had recently fallen victim to the terrible fires that burned much of the central region of the state and many of the area's most well-endowed patrons had come out to support the firefighters and victims. I was told they raised $250,000 that night. The wine they served was phenomenal and the folks that came to the after party were ready to get down with me and the Doghouse Brewer.

We didn't get back to kamp until around three in the morning. Ramona, Marshall and Janie were already asleep when Peters and I rolled up to our stall so we tiptoed as quietly as we could to bed. Me to the my tent and Peters to his bag in the fog.

The next morning, Sunday, we woke up to huge drops of condensed fog falling on our tent shell. Next thing we knew Peters was banging on the tent soaking wet and insisting that we strike kamp. Any hope we had of sleeping in was shattered by Peters' exposure to the elements. So we set our sights on Zachary's and drove the half hour up to Santa Cruz where we could finally have a cup of coffee and a few pancakes.

I ordered the pancake breakfast with chicken apple sausage then went outside of the restaurant with Peters to get something from the car. There, sitting on his milk crate, was the man I'd seen walking past with his guitar. He was playing slide guitar with an actual sanded down bottle neck on his ring finger. We dropped three bills in his guitar case and hit record on my ipod microphone...

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO SATCHEL PLAYING SLIDE ON HIS MILK CRATE OUTSIDE ZACHARY'S IN SANTA CRUZ

funding the tour

I've put together a short coastal tour for the next three weeks. Shows with Greg Peters and our band, the Dog House Brewer, in San Diego, LA, Monterey, Santa Cruz and Berkeley. It's not cheap, all this traveling, especially when riding a bike from town to town won't get us in time to where we need to be.

Like my brothers and I have done many summers when it's time to earn some cash, I picked up a hammer as soon as I got back to Berkeley and went to work with my dad. He's a contractor who does mostly private residential work, though a while back we did some projects in the Co-Op dormitories at UC Berkeley and at my old elementary school in Oakland.

We've been building a deck for a family in Orinda, just the other side of the Caldecott Tunnel where the marine layer fog doesn't reach. The temperature has been up in the hundreds out there while it's cool and foggy two miles away on the Berkeley/Oakland side of the hill. The swimming pool on the property is tempting but we're far too dirty to jump in at the end of the day.

No song attached to this entry, just this picture of my dad and me building this deck. Him with his mullet hat and me grunting to fund this tour.

Back By the Bay

Six days after pulling out of Brooklyn we're back in Berkeley. Day two on the road I decided to challenge myself to drive the entire length of I-80 though Ramona was more than happy to spend some hours behind the wheel. 2,901 miles later we made a victory lap around the Bay: through Berkeley and Oakland, down to Palo Alto to see some friends, up to San Francisco for dinner with my grandma then on to San Anselmo for a barbecue.

The show at Matchless on June 12 was the best way I've ever left town. The Elephant Army played a hell of a set to open the night then Philipp, Elijah, Bill, Drew and I closed it out with a cover of Woody Guthrie/Jeff Tweedy's California Stars off the Mermaid Avenue record. Drew and I sang it as a duet, he was on keys, Bill on mandolin and, of course, Philipp on drums with Elijah on bass. The recording is linked below.

It was an emotional night, but instead of feeling like the end of an era I had the strong feeling that it was a new beginning. I'll be back in New York at least a few times a year and now my friends back there have a reason to come out to the west coast.

First thing I did when we crossed the state line near Truckee, CA was text Drew that I was resting my weary bones underneath California Stars that night.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO OUR VERSION OF CALIFORNIA STARS