When We All Fall Into Work, Where Do We Go?

Congrats to Billie Eilish and Finneas for making it rain Grammy awards last night. “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” is one of the few so-called “pop” records that I actually listened to all the way through last year and I’ve been impressed with the artistry of the brother-sister combo, predicting that she would at least get “Best New Artist.” I don’t typically go for this particular style of pop, but I haven’t been this impressed with a production effort since She & Him flamed onto the music scene in 2006. To know that Finneas won “Producer Of The Year” while crafting an album on the same studio software that I use (Logic Pro X) is a wildly validating nugget of illumination.

What I typically go for in terms of musical preferences is the calculated whackery that is Sparks, and it was a sublime joy to awake this morning after the Grammys and discover that a new album, “A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip” was scheduled to arrive in May. I’ve been a fan of the duo since 1977 and their musical output continues to push the envelope. Ron and Russell Mael have inspired a generation of songwriters and I take great delight in their ongoing exploration of the artfully weird.

Crazy that January is almost over already - WTF?

Makes sense, though, because the passage of time becomes a blur when I get hyper-focused on tasks like curating a new video series. Dulcimerica Deluxe made its debut earlier this month and I’ve produced six segments in the past few weeks that are just the beginning of an effort to have 60 videos by the end of the year. That’s in addition to the 52 episodes of Dulcimerica that I produce each year alongside 52 segments of Mailbag Monday and smaller batches of a number of other productions created exclusively for my patrons on Patreon. Here’s another look at the new series that was completed last week:

In between video shoots and editing sessions, I’ve been continuing efforts on The Beauty and the Terror, which I’m determined will be released before summer tour. The problem with taking so long to produce an album is that the scope changes over time. Songs that were a perfect fit at one stage in development begin to sound out of place as newer, more relevant songs are written. As the official follow-up to 2015’s Dive!, TBATT is going to be just as wild and weird, but maybe not as angsty. We’ll see.

Right now, the focus is on preparations for the 8th Annual Florida Gulf Coast Dulcimer Retreat and 2020 Castaway Music Cruise, which come right after the other at the end of next month. With Folkcraft Instruments sponsoring, Guy & Sharrie George and Richard Ash once again teaching, and a wonderful group of students all registered and ready for more water-based fun, this is an event that fairly runs itself (kinda like a song that sings itself, thanks, Sparks!) Registration is still open for the retreat - potential cruisers will need to wait for 2021 in order to join us for another musical time on the high seas.

The main reason that I’m happy this morning is napping on the floor behind me. After Jae accidentally let her out of the house on January 10th, Olivia has been my reason for a broken heart. I’ve never had a bond with a cat like this before and it’s been difficult to press through with all of the production and preparation, feeling that I had failed as her protector, worrying that she was alright, and being constantly reminded of her absence.

Thankfully, we have amazing neighbors who kept watch for her and, last night, surprised us with the little bugger herself, who had taken to hiding underneath their house. She was nervous and skittish, but when she noticed me and scrambled to climb onto my shoulder, which she knows is her “safe spot”, head-butting and talking to me, everything became right again with this small world. It’s funny how that works.

Though I don’t really consider what I do to be “work”, it is a constant effort to keep all the plates spinning on those long poles. After an astounding amount of production in a short time, I realized that disappearing into work is a sort of therapy for me. No matter how crazy, crappy or convoluted things get in the world, I can always slip into the studio and work on something that, hopefully, does some good for somebody at the same time that it keeps me somewhat sane. The purpose-driven life that I’ve crafted is a long-term exercise in self-preservation both literally and figuratively.

Without the ability to share music, I’d have been dead a long time ago. The by-product of this life-long focus is that I may just leave a musical legacy that endures. Never saw that coming. Music called long ago and I answered its compelling siren song with a single-minded lack of restraint. Just holding the line for all time.

And how fortunate to deliberately fall down the rabbit hole on a daily basis. Music is its own reward. Everything else is simply the rippling effect of waves that spread like sound over the surface of Lake Wonderland.