My 2004 acoustic album is finally available for worldwide re-release. Check it out here and here. The new mixed-media cover consists of a sculpture and painting by artist Julie Black.
This was an album recorded and sold at performances throughout the early 2000’s. It featured my Adamas guitar, with my Oberheim Digital Echoplex Pro looper. It is a refinement of the melodies I was playing at the time, and improvising at live shows. These takes were recorded live, building up harmonies as the loops repeated. I tend to do a very different form of looping these days, but I still find myself playing these melodies a lot when performing with acoustic guitar.
This CD was my second overall, and it was printed in full color at home, which was unique for the time. It was also a multimedia CD, which included lots of information (some of it reproduced below) about the process of recording. I did this to all of my CDs at the time, which is a layer that is lost these days with digital downloads.
The re-release got some new artwork, and an audio refresh, and is now available to a much larger audience. While I am not a person who likes to listen back on music I’ve done, it was obviously necessary when preparing this for upload. My enthusiasm and natural positivity came through in this recording. While current projects sound very different, those are qualities that provide a thread through all of my work.
“Being a professional musician in our modern society is not a comfortable place to be. This idea makes it hard to look people in the eyes and proudly say you are a musician. It is even worse if you say if you are a guitarist, and have a hard time describing the music you make.
Yes, I make music that doesn’t sound like most acoustic guitarists, but everyone says that. My guitar isn’t all made of wood, and I record and improvise as I play. This is a closer description, but still explains the method but not the sound.
The acoustic guitar today is seldom about the music, but about how cool you feel when you tell your co-workers how much you spent on it. More of a lifestyle these days, but every art is marketed like that. Lots of people fall for it. Being a musician is hard work, but I can’t do anything else.
In my world, Music has more uses than just listening to it. I am ok with this description, and that is really all that matters.”
-Dave 9.29.04
Here is a demo of the first song, Cat’s Away.
This is a demo of the song Ears Too Tight, named after the position of my kitten’s ears on her head.
Some pics from the multimedia portion:
