“you’ve got the spirit…”
‘Streethawk: a Seduction’ - Destroyer (2001/Misra) design/layout by Rob Carmichael
been meditating through this over the last week. woof. digging it. each time i finish a song on this album i’m convinced it’s the best there is until the next song kicks off and replaces the one before.
sat at the desk yesterday to leave breadcrumbs for a photoshop process i’d learned during another project — one i’d started toward the beginning of the pandemic lockdown. back when having a passion project was a fun distraction from what was supposed to be a few weeks of staying at home. psych!
felt i could handle music while i worked since it was pretty easy stuff. chose Destroyer's ‘Streethawk: a Seduction’ as my dance partner and have yet to be disappointed with that decision. it sends me every time. f--k, this is good.
tossed me into a mood to revisit a couple albums that have been absent from the rotation for a little while:
'Primal Dap' - Secret Sidewalk (2019/Primal Dap Sound) photography by K2 WCF_Lords Krew, layout by Justin Boo
‘tamer animals’ - Other Lives (2011/TBD) art direction by Jesse Tabish and Jonathon Mooney, cover artwork “Casey and Bri. Oklahoma Summer Night” by Benjamin Lee Sperry, design by Ellen Wakayama
Secret Sidewalk’s ‘Primal Dap’ accompanied my desk clean this morning. top notch. and ‘tamer animals’ was a pleasant reunion Other Lives and their country western twang and moody stylings. pretty good. pretty… pretty… pretty good.
also trying to listen to more new music — or, to be more specific, music i haven’t yet listened to. a lot of the albums i’ve got lined up are decades old, but completely new to me. when i start a new album i need to listen to it several times — rooter to tooter — to get a sense of things and identify why i do, or don’t, like something. it can be tough to commit to, but i appreciate what that practice can yield. now that i have more availability to dig in i feel like i’m slowly chipping away at that goal.
‘Hejira’ - Joni Mitchell (1976/ Elektra/Asylum) art direction by Glen Christensen, design by Joni Mitchell, photography by Joel Bernstein, Norman Seeff, and Keith Williamson
Joni Mitchell’s ‘Hejira’ is the current endeavor. i’ve listened once so far, still trying to recover so that i can get back on. admittedly, i sorta slept through the first seven songs. then ‘Blue Motel Room’ pulled up a chair… and ‘Refuge of the Roads’ invited herself in and scuffed up my insides. this is why i can’t have nice things… ‘sgood. i’m nervously excited to start it up again, but in no rush.
this past Saturday i dropped by Dave’s to browse through records. didn’t find what i was looking for (Destroyer’s ‘…Seduction’), but picked up a few albums i thought would be interesting — one fantastic cover — and a few freebies that should be good. Dave and i were chatting and landed on streaming services. i mentioned being a ‘tweener going from cassettes to CDs to mp3s and now streaming. i used to really f--k with CDs. at that comment Dave turned to a box behind him, pulled out a short-stack of jewel cases, and set them on the counter. “would you listen to these? you can take ‘em if you want ‘em.” a collector never turns down a freebie and now i’ve got 11 new CDs to listen to, and one to consider. i don’t know about you Robin Thicke…
in the stack of CDs from Dave’s there’s Sade, Herbie Hancock, Gil Scott-Heron, Donna Summer! these’ll be fun to go through
‘Bonnie Raitt’ - Bonnie Raitt (1971/Warner Bros.)
‘The Band’ - The Band (1969/Capitol) design by Bob Cato
‘You Gotta Walk It Like You Talk It (Or You’ll Lose That Beat)’ - Donald Fagen, Walter Becker, Denny Dias (1978/Visa) art direction and design by Joseph Hosey and Murray Brenman, cover concept by Murray Brenman, photography by Joseph Hosey
the records i picked up were not what i’d come looking for, but also not absolutely random choices.
i really enjoy Bonnie Raitt’s hits like ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’ and ‘Silver Lining’, but i’m not familiar with her origin story. excited to take that one for a spin. The Band is another that i’m not at all familiar with; but i really like ‘Up On Cripple Creek’. and as a late-onset Steely Dan fan, i couldn’t pass up this intriguing collaborative effort by Steely founders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.
there’s one other that i got in this bunch — the one with the fantastic cover — but i want to take proper photos of it. i also want to get this entry off my desk, so i’m trying to move at a quick-ish pace that doesn’t quite allow for an impromptu album cover photoshoot. and trust, it deserves it.
there are notes scattered about in my journal (the other one) on the music i’ve been listening to. i’ve found it helpful to jot down thoughts while i listen, and this space can help capture the ephemeral participants in the creative process.
this page was on the stoop when i went out to water this morning. it had been stuck in the lavender and turns out Sam brought it up last night.
went out this morning to water the yard: garden patch, lavender, clover, the grassy hill. it was colder than i expected and my hands felt numb after several minutes holding the dripping spray nozzle. when i came back up the steps i saw a piece of paper with typing on it — looked like a loose sheet from a book. the sheet was tucked beneath a glass container on our stoop, which i thought was strange, but as it turns out Sam had put it there after picking it out of the garden patch yesterday.
just wanted to leave it here — a token from the morning.
anyway! long story short, i needed to feather the selection border in order to mask out hair in Photoshop. make the selection — marquee tool, polygonal lasso, pick your poison — feather the boundary starting at around 5 pixels and make a mask. ba-da-bing i’m sure i’ll realize it’s more complicated than that and fill in the gaps later…
turning my attention now to some bits that i’m having a lot of feelings around ahead of getting into: fear, discomfort, anxiety. i’m reserving judgement and holding space and curiosity for my feelings. this is a door that i opened, and resolution that i’ve sought out. i am confident that i can stick to the conviction and authenticity of my intent.
it’ll be ok. i will be ok.
