Quest for Cognizance

I've spent the last few days with whatever hours I could manage not falling asleep on the couch working on getting my little home studio back together in the newly painted "music" room. Cords, plugs, inputs, outputs, patch bays, sends, returns, digital-in-this, analog-out-that... When you've put it off for so long, sometimes it takes some trial and error to remember just how the hell you hooked one device up, and why you didn't do it the same way for another piece of equipment.

But I think I have it. Maybe. Until whatever else there might be comes up.

Tonight my wife had a few of her old college buddies over, so Vinnie and I locked ourselves in the music room and started reacquainting ourselves with the GSS project and some other long forgotten ideas saved in unrecognizable folders on a dusty hard drive.

Girl Stand Still has some good things we're working on. We've just got to find time to get back at it. Life has been crazy the last few years, and it'd be nice to get going on a project that came to be in 2005.

It also makes me think about where music is today. Actually "where it's gone" is a better phrase. I'll be the first to admit I'm not an avid radio listener. But when I do, it's a sad day, all too often, when I find myself settling on a radio station that plays "the best of the 80's, 90's, and beyond...!"

New music today...? Cookie-cutter. Doesn't matter what genre you like. It's all been done before, and as far as today's stuff goes, not much different than last year, and the year before, and the year before... It's sad that your pop-rock album only sells if you're barely dressed on the cover or in your video, or if you have to depend on that little black "WARNING, explicit lyrics" sticker to put you in the spotlight. Sigh...

I digress. I love music. More genres than many of my friends and family might think. But I also get bored. Please, please, PLEASE someone find me something new.

But it has to be good. In my opinion at least. Whatever that might be.

I guess it's time to tune up the guitars, fire up the Sonar, and get writing and recording again.

Long live Jeff Tweedy & Wilco.