The Crowkeeper

I was reading Shakespeare at 1 in the morning last night and I came across the word Crowkeeper; an amazing, antiquated synonym for Scarecrow. I tried to go to bed but my head started composing this, so I got up and wrote for a while, and this is what came. Song? I'll let you know if it progresses in that way. For now, just something.

The crowkeeper’s kept no promises made

The evergreen martyr confined to the everglade

The crowkeeper holds for one season his tract

            The other spent mourning his fruitless entrapment

The crowkeeper, rough, from burlap was sewn

            One cornfield to keep, one garden to own

The crowkeeper’s brim stays steady the sun

            His knots are tied strong but his spirit’s undone.

The crowkeeper tires of his endless charade

            Sleeplessly silent, his fashioned façade

The crowkeeper, primed for his battle with jet

            The ink of the backdrop with ink-foes is met

The crowkeeper steadies his bludgeon, his stare,

            To meet the impending, the knights of the air

The crowkeeper fends off the nightly advance

            He trusts in his stillness, his motionless dance

           

Keeper, keep us cradled now

Fast, the dusk encroaches

Charcoal falls, we feel it settle

Weary as we are somehow

so much music in such little time. also, jane austen.

Firstly, MATTEO EP!!! It's all recorded, I'm just mixing and mastering now. Last Friday and Saturday were the most productive two days of my life, bar none. I got to Studio K Street (A house my parents own. Sounds pretty cool though, eh?) to set up equipment at 8am on Friday, and by 10pm Saturday we had recorded 7 songs. Just to give you a frame of reference, when I recorded my own 7 song EP, it took me almost nine months. Granted, I was playing the instruments all myself, plus I was arranging the songs as I went. Recording is a whole different game when you've got a well practiced group of talented musicians, and when each of the songs is already arranged. Side-note: Chip and Brinn are really, really good people.

On Monday, I got to spend some quality time with Julia Mecham, and we wrote a song! Cool! You can listen to it here. Julia wrote everything that needs to be said about the song on her blog, so I'll just say it's a fun, bouncy little boy/girl duet. Also, be warned, she wrote some very flattering things about me on her blog. Don't believe everything you read, friends.

I want to write about what an amazing musician/person I think Julia is, but if I do it right now it'll sound disingenuous coming right after what she wrote, so I think I'll skip it for now and write a big post about her when we get her EP done. Short version: Julia is a person who writes and lives beautifully.

Side-Note: I've written about these guys before, but Pomplamoose is a really cool band. I'm writing about them today because it would seem as though they were thinking similarly to Julia and I this weekend. They just put out their new video/song, which is a fun, bouncy little boy/girl duet. Their lyrics are sillier than ours, and they don't do the back-and-forth thing, but come on guys. Still a pretty cool coincidence. Plus the chords they use are great and weird, and I love how much fun they have making those videos. Hooray!

Tuesday was recording project number three. This was an interesting one for me, the first time I've ever been in a real recording studio, which Davey procured for what I understand to be a couple six-packs of beer and some sun chips as payment. There was something really magical about that studio for me, but the feeling was complicated by the fact that I have so little understanding of so much of the tech behind the music/recording process. Microphone diaphragms? Amplifiers? Mic placement? I'm learning a bit about all of those things, but mostly I have no clue. Anyway, I think it came off sounding a little loose, but my guess is that it'll work for the couple scenes in which it's needed.

And now, as I conclude this post, I return to the desperate exploits of Catherine as she fends off the bumbling rattle Mr. John Thorpe and pursues the strange yet charming Mr. Henry Tilney, who knows all about the finest muslin. Superficial Isabella, John Thorpe's little sister and Catherine's BFF, wants to get it on with Catherine's brother, James. Don't worry, I'll let you know how it all pans out.