Auditory time travel, musical friendships, & other rabbit holes
Dive into the second track on my next album, Lupe Fiasco, and Abercrombie & Fitch
What’s up, friends?
My oldest used to call apple cider, apple spider. Adorable. Sometime a few years ago, my wife and I had the idea to mix apple cider with champagne. Delicious, but not adorable. We call this very regional fall drink an Apple Spider, delicious and adorable. I had my first of the season a few days ago. Try it. Send me a picture.
Origin update
Bad news for people who like good news. I had to bump the Origin release a week. It’s now coming out Friday, October 11th. Why? The distributor I’m using to push all my albums to Spotify and stores wasn’t publishing the album and, to pitch to Spotify playlists, you have to have it scheduled for at least two weeks before the release date.
Good news, is it’s scheduled now. You can pre-save it and be notified as soon as it is released. Better news, here’s track #2, Old Man Willow.
I recorded Old Man Willow a few weeks after I started college in 2007. A year after I recorded Puzzle Piece, the first track on Origin. I had a laptop this time. And a USB microphone. I set both up in a tiny, musty closet in my dorm hall filled with strange costumes, broken chairs, and a toilet covered in signatures and graffiti that the hall called The Ark.
It was a horrible recording space. You can hear that in the sound quality, but how it sounds isn’t what’s important about this one.
Its significance was that I recorded it with a friend I’d just met, Chris Williams (he does the violin)*. Over the next four years, he became one of my best friends. We were roommates senior year. We kept a looping pedal and my telecaster set up in our room and we’d leave each other daily electric riffs for the other to build on as we floated in and out of the room going to class. He was a groomsman at my wedding. Recording this track was one of the first things we ever did together, and I like to think that it kicked off a beautiful music-filled relationship that we still have.
I had a laptop this time. And a USB microphone. I set both up in a tiny, musty closet in my dorm hall filled with strange costumes, broken chairs, and a toilet covered in signatures and graffiti that the hall called The Ark.
Another thing about Old Man Willow is it was the first song I ever recorded WITH someone.
Songwriting had been me and me alone for 7 years and having a real live violin on one of my songs felt like the world had opened up and no sound or instrument was off limits. I planned on recording vocals to this, but I remember feeling like the music said enough without them and I still think that was the right call.
It’s incredible how listening to my old songs has unlocked in my memory. Who was in it? What did they do? Where did we record? Listening has been an act of remembering. I compared it to diving into journal entries in my last newsletter. I forget that sound can act like a house key. That it can unlock doors back to moments in time that you wouldn’t otherwise remember. Auditory time travel.
It’s made me curious how other people experience this. What song unlocks a deep meaningful memory for you?
This week’s rabbit holes
TextFX
An AI experiment designed to expand the writing process by generating creative possibilities with text and language
I typically am not here for generative AI writing stuff, but watching the video from Lupe Fiasco hooked me, and then I tried it and I was smiling the entire time. You can do ten different things. For example, this one gives you three perspectives on a single topic.
It’s just so clever and fun to play around with. Try it, seriously. You’ll be alright.
For All Your Death-Defying Needs | Airmail
A fascinating article about how Abercrombie & Fitch was originally a store that outfitted adventurers like Amelia Earhart, Ernest Hemingway, or a very hungover Clark Gable.
Lupe Fiasco | Samurai
Watching the textFX video made me realize the way Lupe approaches words was like a master’s level course, so I’ve been listening to his music and, indeed, he is good. Very.
That’s the rabbit holes for this week, friends.
Alright, that’s the rabbit holes for this week,
Stay curious, friends.
Dave
P.S. Just starting to let everyone know that how I’m going to do social media will change in 2025. The plan is to post a video a day to Insta and, potentially, TikTok. I’ll write about how I’m going to do this if anyone is curious, but it’s going to be a year-long growth experiment that coincides with my music releases.
I’m going to either be
A. more entertaining
B. more annoying
Feel free to mute me, but I’d love to share everything I learn from the experiment so if you’re into nerdy content/data things. Stay with me! If it fails, then you’ve learned, for free, what DOESN’T work 😆