The Secret To My Success

I’m pretty stubborn about technology, don’t really own any recording equipment whatsoever. Then again, I don’t have to root around too long to find one of my fleet of handheld cassette recorders—not a mini-cassette, a cassette. Might be stashed in the kitchen, the dash of the car or my sock drawer. Trouble is, it’s getting harder to find blank tapes to buy. For a while there I saw them left out on the sidewalk, but mostly they’d already been kicked around and stepped on by the time I got to them. Another way to the river is to keep recording over the same tape. Saves the hassle of having to label the fuckers.

Songwriting. I don’t like to hear myself talking about the process of songwriting. To hear people explaining weirds me out, but here I go anyway: You get an idea. You play around with it. You play some more. Sing something. And then the idea might turn into another idea. Colliding in the air with some other thing or another. Ideas start to connect. The music pushes it along. Don’t quote me on this, because I’m probably already quoting somebody else.

Other times you might want to drag someone into the room with you to argue over where to eat lunch. Everybody knows everything, and nobody knows anything. But wait, here’s one helpful thing, short of a secretary following you around taking dictation. (Imagine that. Like with the musical notation and everything. That would work!) Short of that, keep a tape recorder within reach, the older and more beat-up the better. A tape recorder comes in real handy. Here’s one of mine, I painted it blue. (Now show me yours.)

Recording is easy. Listening back? Well, that’s another story.

Video after the jump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OPDJHeX9tfs