sang raze i'm beginning to think every person who is even a little bit involved in music in this city is connected through someone else, with only two degrees_of_separation standing between them. the latest example is a singer who once dated a guy who made a student film about me a few years ago. you should try having a student film made about you sometime. it's bizarre. i had to chase her a little, but not too much. i wrote something for her to sing a part on. another musical dialogue. i keep getting drawn back to this idea — songs that are conversations, even if they're somewhat cryptic and the sense they make is more emotional than literal. i heard some of her songs. i thought she had a nice voice. i thought my song would sound pretty good with her singing on it, and pretty good was more than good enough for me. when she slid on a pair of headphones and leaned into the microphone tonight, after she sang the words a few times under her breath to make sure she had the melody and the timing down, she went somewhere else. she didn't sound like the same person who'd been singing her own songs. "nice" wasn't a good enough word anymore for what her voice was doing. she became a character i didn't realize i'd given much complexity to. and maybe i hadn't. maybe she sketched that in herself. there was sultriness, and vulnerability, and sweet mother of jesus, it was better than pretty good. it was amazing. if only i hadn't misspelled her name when i wrote her a message of thanks after she left. 140702 ... raze i still can't get over her singing on that song. kind of makes me wish i'd written six more verses for her to sing. maybe next time i'll write something that isn't a dialogue, for her voice alone. it's not like i'm going to get many chances to do this sort of thing, so i might as well make the chances that have presented themselves count. 140706 ... raze "you brought out the best in me," she said. but all i really did was give her some words and a melody. do acoustic guitars and lyrics about disinfected answers really have that kind of power? if so, i'll take it, and run with it, and share my gatorade with it at the finish line when we're all sweaty and spent. 140707 ... raze it was her birthday on monday. i wanted to send her the finished song as a late birthday gift, but kelly wasn't able to make it today to add his harmonica part, and it'll be another week or two now before we can get that done. so i sent her an almost-but-not-quite-finished mix, hoping it'll do for now. 140723 ... raze we had plans a week or two ago for her to come in for another session. she stood me up. said she forgot. we rescheduled for a few days later. she stood me up again. said she forgot she had a surprise party to go to for a relative. we rescheduled for today. at the last minute she decided to blow me off in favour of picking up a shift for a coworker who called in sick, which tells me she'd rather work on a day off instead of finally following through on plans she made with me. but hey, she said her boyfriend might show up after work if he's not too tired, to lay down his part for a song of hers i told her i'd record as thanks for singing on one of mine. so again i get to sit around waiting for someone who probably won't show up, and this time it's not even someone i know. i don't think i ever want to work with another singer again after this. i'm happy about the performances i've been able to get out of people when they've bothered to show up, but i'm not sure it's been worth having to put up with all the flakiness. if ever i wondered why i got in the habit of doing everything myself and stopped trying to bring others into things, well ... here's one reason. 140825 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Don't give up entirely. Unfortunately, I've found that there's a pervasive attitude that art isn't as important as other things, so people think commitments to doing music and such aren't as important. I guess I wouldn't blame the person for going to work, but just not showing up isn't fair. I've been on both sides of the fence: when I was finishing all my own late papers during the winter vacation - back in the bad ol' days of 2012 - and I was late marking student papers for January, the prof got annoyed at me, saying it was my responsibility to others and it's not fair that they had to wait longer for their papers. Which was true. On the other hand, right at this minute I'm waiting for a tutoring student who hasn't shown up yet. I keep checking the other screen, but he isn't there. I'll still get paid, but I have to sit out the hour (well, 55 minutes) in front of the computer screen in case he shows up. Thank the blather gods for blather. Sorry for ranting... I guess what I'm trying to say is that even one person (me) who has psychological reasons for not being super-organized frowns on standing people up with no warning. And it sucks being stuck in one place waiting for nothing. 140826 ... raze hey, ranting's allowed. i do it all the time! and i know things come up, life gets life-y, and all that sweet soul music … but being stood up or blown off four times in a row now by the same person tells me i probably shouldn't rely on them for anything. though i'd welcome a pleasant surprise, i think i'm better off not hoping for it here. i don't know what it is about vocalists, but almost all of my dealings with them have followed a pattern of initial promise followed by deep disappointment. i imagine i should be thankful i was able to get a few people to show up at least once, and get on with the gettin' on. 140826 ... raze fifth time lucky, and now i wish i'd stopped trying after the fourth time nothing happened and let it die. it's fun having someone you don't know, who you weren't expecting, weren't told was coming until the last possible second, saying he needs to use the bathroom and then catching him taking pictures of your equipment with his cell phone without your permission, all furtive-like. maybe if this house hadn't been broken into in the past, that sort of thing wouldn't be as troubling. i still think it's ridiculous. you're a guest in someone else's house. their things are not your things. don't do that shit. have a little respect. nothing of substance was accomplished in the musical department, either. but i'm not bothered by that. i got what i got, and that's enough. time to move on. 140829 ... raze that night, her boyfriend pounded on my 1951 gibson lg-2 like he was trying to cause it pain. maybe it was his way of digging a proverbial middle finger into my ribs after i made it clear i didn't appreciate the other uninvited guy taking pictures of my gear like he was casing the place. maybe he's just one of those people who believes everything gets better when you make it louder. who knows. then he sang, and she sang, and it was kind of not great but okay. and then i'd had about enough and told them it was time to call it a night. i never mixed their song. after getting stood up four times in a row and then dealing with the guitar-bashing boyfriend and the sneaky photographer, i wasn't feeling it. i didn't even want to hear their voices. she never pestered me about it. she did sort of apologize after the fact. that's something. i ran into her boyfriend once. he was working behind the checkout at a grocery store. he looked uncomfortable. then he wasn't her boyfriend anymore. i'd send her the odd message to say hello or wish her a happy birthday or something. she almost never responded. after a while i stopped sending messages. almost three years later, i got a message saying the song of mine she sang on was her favourite thing she'd ever been a part of, and it's the only time she's been happy with the recorded sound of her voice. she said she wrote a song for her mother and was trying to figure out where to record it. she thought of me. she offered to pay me. i said i'd do it for free. she asked when i was available. i suggested some days and times, and asked what worked for her. and then nothing. i don't think i'll ever hear back from her unless i make it my job to hound her about it. nuts to that. still, i was able to get some beautiful singing from her on a song i wrote. that's still there. that's real. if the frustration that came after was part of the deal, i can live with it. 170731 what's it to you? who go blather from