12/10/09: This month I decided to interview all of the musicians I play with. Everyone got different questions. Sometimes the questions were slanted towards things I thought that you, the casual outside observer, should know about these individuals that I work with. Other times, I just wanted to hear the person talk about a certain subject, without any regard for you, the casual outside observer.
You can see me and all of these splendid musicians live onstage at 10:30 PM on December 17th, 2009 at The Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles. It's going to be a night to remember, coming directly from the hidden wellspring of thought and feeling laying dormant deep inside of everyone of us.
Love,
Alejandro
Read the interviews here.
11/05/09: There was about a year where I was secretly thinking to myself that I might have writer's block. Discipline forestalled the thought from ever fully materializing. And I never, never, said the two words out loud. If I even think I'm under the weather, I don't even say the word that starts with "s" and ends with "k". The purity and severity of intentions are magical and mountain-moving.
When did it stop? It stopped when I went to New York in March and I gave hugs to my old band mates from Trick and the Heartstrings and I said "I love you" to them, and I visited all the old places I used to hate and all the old people I had ambivalent feelings about. I saw my sources of tension with passive detachment and tried to make every one feel at home wherever I went. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
I once listened to a self-help book on creativity about ten years ago. You're supposed to listen to it as you fall asleep. There is soothing, though somewhat dissonant music, as a woman's voice guides you on a meditation. After about twenty minutes, you're supposed to be asleep. And you kind of are, but you're kind of not. And she describes you walking down and down a spiral staircase. At the bottom of the staircase you find your child self, encircled by everyone who has ever hurt or betrayed you. The child is crying. You are instructed to walk through the circle, pick up the child, and say "I forgive you ... I forgive you ... I forgive you ..."
It's not linear, it's not rational, I know. Why are you forgiving yourself if the people around you are the ones that betrayed you? Great question.
I am so happy to be playing with Daniel, Leonard, Kim, Brit, Brandon and Sergio. There is a hallowed energy surrounding everything. Daniel and I started first, and I said that I wanted to dedicate whatever we did to the unnameable, indescribable pain that grows inside me, and matures alongside my maturity, and deepens with my depth, and quickens with my breath. It's the pain that you think is going to stop you from writing, but actually is exactly what you need to be writing with.
We've been discussing the album quite a bit since the last show. I'm still writing just a bit more. I have a new title, but I'll tell you that next month. We're trying to figure out who we want to work with and how much it's going to cost. Mundane, crucial details that I refuse to let interfere with the real work. I'm also waking up every morning and asking myself in cold, hardened sobriety why am I doing this. And every day I come up with an answer.
This is a wonderful time to be alive in so many ways. May you realize it and seize every moment of every hour of every day.
I'll see you on 11/22 at Zanzibar and I'll write again in a month.
Much love,
A
RECOMMENDED DOWNLOADS FROM iTUNES:
1. "El Pastor", Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan (oh my god!!!).
2. "Little Secrets", Passion Pit.
3. "Nag Champa", Carlos Nino and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson.
4. "Broasted or Fried", King Hector & the Soul Dynamites.
5. "We Are the People", Empire of the Sun.
Go buy them and play them in this order.
10/07/09: This month we ramped up rehearsals and started to include more choreography. Funny thing, that is. It means that you can't just write a song and figure out parts. You kind of have to consider how it will look, too. I've wanted the physically choregraphed elements of the show to develop organically, and have stated the intention to focus more on how things feel than how they look. Over the next four or five months, I am more concerned with presenting new material and honing the soundscape, rather than creating a picture. I have to remind myself of that, or else I will forget.
My work on Brit's EP is done as of this month. Aside from one track featuring Daniel Brummel and Leonard Nimms, I'm playing all the instruments and I wrote a good deal of the material. It is now being mixed by Ta'raach (http://www.myspace.com/taraach). I don't know how Brit snagged this apple from the tree, but I can't imagine a better man for the job. Raach has floated around the hip-hop and R&B under- and over- worlds for more than a minute. I've never seen someone with a more visceral connection to EQ knobs and master faders. It's been an honor working with him and I hope it is the seedling for future collaborations.
Brit will release her first set of songs on November 1st.
Aside from that, I've been writing songs, strategizing production for an album release next year, and assistant directing a play at USC--focusing on physical movement and organic stage behavior. Totally fun!
Finally, my lovely dear friend Aristedes Zamora told me that he took a tip from my last post and got himself some nice Schoenberg to listen to--based off my recommendation.
So here's more music you need to hear before you die:
1) "Arbos" by Arvo Part. Post-modern; medieval. Buy the whole album. Let it marinate.
2) "Symphony 3" by Henryk Gorecki, as sung by Dawn Upshaw.
3) "Garden of Love's Sleep" by Olivier Messiaen. It's a compilation of his more soothing pieces. Transcendent. Time evaporates.
4) And if you prefer something a little more bleak, as I quite often do, dig into Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Mantra" (as performed by Bevan, Mikhashoff and Orsted). The frigid, austere clarity makes me shudder to even think about it. Two pianos and a ring modulator. Sickness.
*NOTE. These are not songs that you are going to get a sense of by listening to a thirty-second clip on iTunes, so don't even bother. Either trust your friend Alex or don't.
I will write again in a month. See you on the 19th and the 30th.
Love always,
A
09/10/09: I've been writing a lot lately. Some events have transpired in my love life that have thrown unexpected, and really sort of ruthless curveballs. But even as I am writing this and acknowledging the cruelty of the stars, I'm also smiling a little bit because these things are very fertile, creatively. And for this I feel almost ironically grateful. Here I quote Aeschylus:
" He who learns must suffer.
And even in our sleep
Pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despair, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. "
So there is a lot of dark energy that I'm working to sublimate into soulful ether.
Sublimation has always struck me because of all the physical changes matter can undergo, it is the most mysterious: you turn a solid into a gas.
"Sublime" is also the word that we use to describe events or spectacles--natural or manmade--that are so impressive, they seem to transcend our ability to fully grasp them. Awe-some, wonder-ful. Any past experience or residual pain that is a continual nuisance or drag on your psyche or your heart always has the potential to be sublimated, transformed, transposed, into a flowering tree rooted in your truest desires. And I hope that is so for you.
These are the things I've been thinking about everyday. Aside from that I've been listening to the first few sections of Schoenberg's "Gurrelieder" and it reminds me of twilights in Los Angeles when I was still a virgin.
I will see you in a week at Little Temple (9/17). And I will write again in a month.
08/08/09: This month I found a new keyboard player. Her name is Kim Haden and she used to play in an L.A. pop group called Light FM. She and I have been rehearsing a lot and it has been an absolute pleasure. Kim and I exchanged mix-CDs as a kind of 'getting to know you' exercise. Highlights from her mix included Human League's "Fascination"--which I'd never heard before--, "Painter In Your Pocket" by Destroyer, and some truly problematic tracks by Vanity 6 and Larry Coryell. My mix for her included Carly Simon's "Why" (which I put on every single mix I've ever made since 2005), Yarbrough & Peoples' "Don't Stop the Music", and some rather sinister ambient music. She has attacked all the new material like a total bloodhound. She is totally, unflinchingly committed, and we are all honored to have her with us.
After the show next week, I'll spend a week completing and pre-mixing Brit's demo, which includes material I have written and produced. I'm really proud of this work, and I will post her demo on my site when it's done. I'm going to go ahead and project that everything is done and mastered sometime around October 1st.
We've also booked another gig for September: the 17th at Little Temple on Santa Monica Blvd. More info on that soon...
On a personal note I will intimate to you that even though I'm broke as a joke I feel extremely artistically gratified at the moment and I really couldn't ask for much more. I'm happy to have my work and the opportunities to perform it with a truly sick group of musicians.
At the moment, I've been making my number one priority consistent practice--both physical exercise and instrument practice. It's really fun to do that even the midst of a bunch of projects swirling around. It's like turning the sprinklers on (as opposed to walking around with a hose).
Much love to all of you. Will write again in a month.
07/04/2009: I am currently writing and recording material for a solo album to be released I don't know when. Really, I think it will be more like two solo albums. This year I've been working as a writer and producer for Brit, Matu Greene, and to a lesser extent, Love Grenades. I am drawing to a close with these three projects, in order to clear a space for more daring/experimental solo work, both live and recorded.
The first album I will finish is tentatively titled "1 On 1 With Desire". The first two tracks from "Emotionals 1-4", remixed, will be included. It will also include a couple of songs I played with Trick & the Heartstrings but never recorded: "No Fun to Be Had", "Slip Away" and the slower, original version of "Miss You So Bad". A couple of other Heartstrings songs will appear on the second album. Both records will also have a few ambient pieces, inspired by the works of Gyorgy Ligeti, Jon Hassell, and my favorite album, "On Land", by Brian Eno.
Lately I've been listening to Bjork's "Medulla", Schoenberg's early piano pieces, and--bless their young, magical hearts--MGMT.
For the live show, I'm still focusing on the sounds and less on the theatrics, but funny enough, that ends up being theatrical too. I'm staying very attentive and attuned to the vibes surrounding everything; I want to make sure it's organic and vibrant. I love and am grateful for each and every one of the six musicians I'll be performing with. I'm looking forward to the gig at the West LA Summer Concert Series on 8/19 and will be giving away copies of "Emotionals 1-4".
I'll write again in a month.
