coastal alt/indie rock

​​Field Notes​​

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From November of 2019 through January of 2020, I was in my studio a lot, creating a notebook full of song ideas.

In February, I needed to visit Florida for a Training Conference in Orlando. We made it into a 10-day trip by flying into Naples to see my dad and sister, driving up the Tamiami Trail and spending some nights in Sarasota, and then moving on to Orlando.

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I didn't want to lose momentum on my songs - in fact, I was creating so quickly that I wasn't finishing any songs, they were all half-written.

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I did something I hadn't done before. I dumped all my rough audio files onto my phone in notes, and then did the same with any lyrics or titles I had.

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As soon as we were seated on the plane, I started working on my songs, I would listen to audio files and then go through unrelated lyrics and titles and try to find matches. By the time we landed, I had completed 20 songs.

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This continued throughout the trip. Any free time on the beach, on a patio, at night in the hotel room, on the flight home. By the time we landed, I had finished writing 70 songs. In my computer folder, I half-jokingly referred to them as "Tamiami Tales" to commemorate where they were written.

Since all of these songs had already been started, none of them are explicitly about Florida. That said, I always believe that where you work on a song has a big impact on the output. I'm sure that finishing songs without a musical instrument in my hand on airplane or hotel patio had an impact. I'm sure that 10 days in close quarters with Angie in hotel rooms had an impact. I'm sure that the sounds, sights, and light of Florida had an impact. 

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I just don't know how much.

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This song started with an image I had seen - a Russian revolutionary propaganda poster. It inspired the title, "Join the Revolution". Then I started noticing other propoganda posters and retaining them in my mind.

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Later, I discovered the low, nasty synthesizer sound that is the basis for the song. Once the rhythm was created, I knew I had a song.

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In Florida, images of Castro and Che Guevara - oh, and an election year? Ummm... yeah. You gotta believe Jan 6 was on my mind.

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And there's your song.​

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Oh. Three weeks later, COVID shut down the country. This trip was the last time I saw my dad. 

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