Category: Americana

What if the Light at the End of the Tunnel is Just the Headlamp of an Oncoming Train?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

After repeated listenings to Cream’s Born Under a Bad Sign a few years ago I went to my music room to play around on my bass. Rather than trying to copy Jack Bruce’s bass line, I played what it made me feel like.

Speeding it up a little and moving down and back up a few times, all I needed was a brief refrain at the end, a turnaround between verses, and it felt complete.

What if the Light at the End of the Tunnel is Just the Headlamp of an Oncoming Train?

A rockabilly shuffle on the drums is loads of fun, but it’s hard to keep up if you’re not practicing regularly. The drums seem to have survived most of this trip.

When you commit to writing 14 songs in 28 days there’s a bit of a time constraint. When I started recording the springy lead guitar I realised that, though it was recording, it wasn’t coming out of the amp, and it wasn’t coming through the computer to my headphones. I could hear a tinny little noise straight off the strings on my Stratocaster, but even that was muffled by the headphones.

Knowing I could do it over, I soldiered on.

I didn’t do it over. This is what I sound like playing lead guitar when I can’t hear myself. Maybe I should try it more often.

Blues without harmonica seemed wrong. Then the piano started complaining about being left out.

I’ve written a handful of short verses which I might record some day, but if Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust can survive as an instrumental for more than a decade, this one will be okay.

Middle Cyclone and the Mockingbird

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Unpredictability seems to be Neko Case‘s goal. Middle Cyclone is a cohesive package, no worries there, but until the last song rolls by, you cannot know what’s coming next, sometimes even in the same song.

Mockingbird to the Morning is the song that gets stuck in my head; especially the moment in the second verse where she leaps to a note a full octave higher than you expected, then again coming out of the instrumental break.

Yet another song about loss, or found, or confusion. Seems to be a mood I’m in.

Easily Bruised: Who isn’t?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Cc” border=”0″ align=”left” />[az]B0014GKAQS[/az]anadians seem to suck me in. I’m a lifelong fan of both Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot, and continually discover others from the great white north. My latest discovery is Matthew Barber, and Easily Bruised.

There’s a powerful feel of the Jayhawks in Bruised and not a little anguish. Or wistfulness. Or just plain pain, I’m not sure.

Sometimes I’m not sure whether I like songs because they make me feel better or because they allow me to let some of the old pain leak out, leaving room for more worthwhile emotions.

You can hear Easily Bruised at Barber’s website. Maybe you’ll figger it out yourself.

Brand New from Old Lost John: Broken

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Tomas ThunbergHave a listen to Old Lost John’s Broken.

Love love love the horn, the saw; the whole arrangement. This sounds like that time I thought I was dreaming, then I thought I woke up, but I wasn’t sure either time.

me, to him: I wish I knew where you got your voice so I could go buy one just like it. Well, maybe not exactly. But close.

Old Lost John’s Railway Car showed up on Handmade & Homespun last year, along with one of my songs, and a dozen others well worth hearing.

FAWM Over. We Win.

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

February Album Writing Month is officially over for 2009. And I officially won.

Which means I wrote or co-wrote at least 14 songs during the 28 days of February. (You’ll see on my FAWM profile that it lists 19; it’s actually only 18 because one is listed twice but I don’t want to lose the comments on my original post.)

This year I discovered the double harmonic scale, which makes everything you play sound all Arabian Night-ish. I wrote two Arabic-sounding songs (my most ambitious musical endeavours to date) and collaborated on another.

I wrote a German drinking song. In German.

I wrote a Mexican dance song. In Spanish.

I played a jazz guitar improvisation, my first guitar improvisation ever.

I did my first FAWM music video.

I also did, as I have every year, some country, some folk, and some swingabilly.

And now, I’m tired.

Handmade & Homespun

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

And speaking of the ubiquity of independent music, I’ve teamed up with 13 fellow singer/songwriters I met at FAWM and we’ve just released Handmade & Homespun—Premium Quality Americana.

Handmade
&
Homespun
Premium
Quality
Americana
$10



Direct from the Artist

Handmade & Homespun is a collection of 14 songs by 14 artists covering slices of Americana from almost traditional folk tunes to fairly assertive rock with stops nearly everywhere in between.

In February of 2008 we all met in the website forums of February Album Writing Month. FAWM has fostered our songwriting immensely (thanks, Burr!) and we wanted a way to celebrate how good it feels to actually accomplish something musically.

Every year, FAWM issues an official compilation which rather than a ‘best of’ is more of a snapshot of what happened (the compilation team considers themselves more akin to museum curators than disk jockeys.) Listening to some of the stunning demos posted, I was compelled to do something more personal; something I could nurture and guide. Although it’s not an official FAWM compilation, the 14 of us credit FAWM for bringing us together and helping us to have a way share.

During the eleven-and-a-half months it took to go from concept to completion, we met roadblocks, of course. Some artists disappeared; others had scheduling conflicts; still others had obligations to other band members to put their original projects ahead of this. Some songs were pulled by their writers and replaced by others; we songwriters are often as cautious about our songs as we are with our children.

In the end, this is, perhaps, less than it could have been. It is, however, more than we ever imagined, and that’s good enough.

Until next year, that is.