I’m uppin’ this date.

I have been away for a while working on details for releasing the album. Most likely I’ll start a new blog in the next few weeks with my name in the title to make it more searchable, but for now…please download some free tracks from my new album! Here’s the link:

jennygillespie1.bandcamp.mu
Also, if you’re in the Chicago area, please save the date for my CD Release Party at Uncommon Ground on Devon. I’ll play with a full band and my new album will finally be for sale! It will take place Saturday, January 17 at 8 pm.

Oh Martha

“There are days when the cage doesn’t seem to open very wide at all….” I love this lyric that opens Martha Wainwright’s new album I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too. I’m not having one of those days, but I definitely do have those days when no matter how hard I pry, I feel stuck. It’s so simply put, but so apt.

I remember hearing Matapedia, the record by her mother’s band The McGarrigles, whose music I grew up with as my mother is a huge fan. There’s a lyric that references Martha meeting an old lover of her mother’s: “He said, ‘Oh my god it’s Kate!’ /’No, I’m the daughter of Kate/My name is Martha, who are you?/Ma never told me about you. ‘ ” Martha ended up being one of my favorite musicians of the whole McGarrigle/Wainwright clan. I think she’s one the most interesting, daring singer/songwriters out there today. Her voice alone, which is full of aching spasms and heavenly crescendos, makes her brilliant enough. But then her risky melodic structures and direct, womanly lyrics send her over the edge of voice-alone brilliance. I still haven’t tired of her new album (though I did of her 1st one–I think this one is much better.)

I’m also listening a lot to Frightened Rabbit…their songs just send bittersweet pangs through me.  And make me want to go walkin’ in the Scottish rain.

The album is being mixed right now. I’m being patient. It might turn out to be an EP. I’d rather have all of the songs be polished gems than have some flab. We’ll see. Having a period just to write, play a few shows and enjoy the lazy, lilting summer has been really good for my spirit. I’ve been practicing with my sister, who sings and plays piano, and there’s nothing more fun than that.

Ipod love

My darling boyfriend got me an Ipod touch for my birthday. I have to say, it makes the music-listening experience even more fun. Just seeing that gorgeous, lucid graphic of the album’s art pop up is so satisfying! It’s so wonderful to walk in the morning, when the light is still new, under the green eaves of my neighborhood, with a beautiful tune in my ears. I remember my roommate in Paris telling me how much she loved walking through the city with Radiohead in her ears, and at the time (19) I couldn’t understand why she would want to block out the rich sounds of the town with Thom Yorke’s sad warble. But now I understand how it only adds another layer to the experience, not a shield but an illuminating screen. Today I listened to Tift Merrit’s “Something to Me”–the perfect bittersweet but positive morning tune–and some tracks from Habib Koite’s “Afriki.” It didn’t hurt that the weather has been absolutely stunning, cool and pure blue skies. I’m in love with my Ipod.

turning 28

i hope i’m headed towards some strange event at this age
hold me down like the warm jade in the ring’s setting, stay

in the last light of youth
we look around at our friends
some are trying to stay wild
others are building their shelter
so where are we

the roses you brought turned black as oil spills today
when i need your contours close you just seem to float away

in the last light of youth
we look around at our friends
some are wandering home to their mothers
others becoming their own

Image by Nancy Gillespie

Onward

I just mailed my hard drive off to the engineer in Austin, who will mix my album…whoohoo!

At this point I have let go–I feel pretty free, like I’ve struck this balance between ambition and surrender. I feel clear and energized, but also more immune to bouts of low self-confidence and the need for everyone’s approval surrounding the project. I’m just one drop of water in the ocean…I only would like to cool a few people’s brows with my music…but I’m not expecting to turn into a tsunami. (Pardon the late-in-the-workday cheesy metaphor.)

Lately I am getting excited to write again…I kind of want to write with a lightness of touch in the next batch of songs, not just in the music but in the lyrics. I want to work with more images, create atmospheres and tell stories about love. I feel like the songs on “Light Year” (my recent project) are pretty heavy–a few songs about loss and regret (though I try to keep the music grounded in lightness, for the most part.) And I also kind of ignored love for the most part in the songwriting…I think I was trying to prove to myself that I could write about experiences other than romantic love.

I also want to make this blog a bit more interesting to read…it’s been a bit self-involved, mostly because I’m not writing in a real journal (and it’s helped me, symbolically sort of move myself along in the album-making process.) I just read my friend Allen’s blog and it’s so well-crafted and funny…so I will aspire to make this a bit zippier!

pseudo-poem for the end of the album

 

in my mind’s eye a white butterfly flashed on the shadows against the wall, like the afterimage of sun, when i heard the news she was gone

and later that afternoon one was trailing my sister and me

*

without you around, i took my friend and the dog to the lake. the sky pale violet, the water blue chiffon. duress of day crumbling like soft bricks of gold. and what should have been a romantic setting was a love setting. love for the world and the dog and the friend and for you not there.

a beautiful black woman and her three children all in orange-red, the color of my friend’s morocco

they screamed as they danced into the freezing water

a man looked up timidly from his perch on the dock, reading a book

volleyballs were dancing over nets like musical notes

and we sat in silence while the dog tried to eat flies

i thought of my grandmother and how she was in the water, in the clouds

and neither of us had a camera but we said it would be a memory

i don’t take enough photographs, i depend too much on the fragile substance of memory

*

we drank tea with fresh mint one night, the owner adored my moroccan friend

“why don’t you smile?” “Because I’m eating” she demurely replied

and one day we got locked out

for six hours, the dog ate helicopter seeds and got ill on the porch

we felt like refugees on a beautiful day–with no money, phone or indoors

we walked and walked until my sister came to pick us up

and we argued because it was out of her way but then we made up

while watching “the princess bride” a movie that calms all hearts.

*

today a man snapped a picture of a woman walking with his camera phone

and said to me “it’s for my collection of hotties”

today the air by the river was cool and i learned the french words for squirrel and fog

*

i let my music pour out from sunday morning to sunday night

a vigil and a trance

the engineer gently asked me to try that vocal again

and i did

the light came in through the glass block window of the old pinball factory

however people hear this music 

and hear out of tune strings or wonder why i didn’t use a click track

i know it came from a pure place, of devotion and delight

image by kamila kulik

Devotion

I usually have thoughts about my album a few times per hour. Lately the thoughts have been a rotating repertoire of:

 

I think this is a really good album.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

This is a project that I’ve done solely for my own gratification.

This is a project I want the world to know about.

I wish I had done this album all at home.

I wish I had a producer helping me on this album.

This album documents my growth as a musician.

This album documents how I can’t choose between styles (country, techno, folk-rock…what am I???)

 

I think the inconstancy of the mind can be interesting to observe, don’t you?

 

Wherever my thought needle lands, I continue to push my project into existence. I just emerged out of a break from it—which was entirely good for my spirit and sanity. Last night I feel like I fell in love with it again…all it took was spending about 4 hours to write an organ part.

 

A work of art can almost seem like a new country you are trying to form, or a child you are trying to raise. How do you know when it’s reached perfection? You don’t–you just nurture it the best you can, from a place of authentic surrender and passion towards expression until you can see it to completion. Not perfection, but completion. Like when the child grows up to be a somewhat sane twenty-something–and you let go. 

 

I went and saw my boyfriend’s old roommate perform last night—he’s a poet and wrote a surrealist fictional poetic narrative of Robert F. Kennedy’s life. It was wonderful and funny, and I admired how he’d created this entertaining, poetic entity out of such a random concept. My boyfriend told me he’d written at least 600 poems–he only performed around 60 maybe. It was heartening to know an artist can pour so much of himself into a project and not give a damn how obscure the subject matter is, or how sprawling, and it turns out to be a successful, universally appealing, mind-changing work of art. Can I ascribe the same focus and devotion to my own project? Sometimes I can, but it has to be in a place of joy and discovery, not self-inflicted pressure or the need for approval.

 

Image: Squeak Carnwath print

Ordinance is an Ugly Word

This whole event promoters ordinance thing really worries me, as a musician and concert-goer. It seems once again bureaucracy is blaring its misguided horn and the voices of real people try to respond in the midst of its honking.

“The ordinance will reduce the amount of music in Chicago, make events more expensive for consumers, dampen the large and growing economic engine that is Chicago music, and create a much less supportive business climate for Chicago’s small music business community.”  -Chicago Music Commission

So, if an independent musician wants to have a CD release party at a club, I need to have $300,000 in insurance?

Or if someone wants to throw a benefit for an injured musician at a venue, same deal?

Hmm. Well, all I can do  (besides attend the city council meeting) is continue working on the album. I go in this weekend to the studio again. I’m spending so much money on this little baby. But I have started to become less and less anxious about the outcome and rest in the knowledge that I’m a musician no matter what–and that will lead me to the next waterfall of creativity and opportunity.

 

Housepainting Music

I attempted to paint my apartment back to white yesterday. I got through most of one wall.

I went through several CDs (Joanna Newsome, too intricate; Arcade Fire, too indignant) before I finally picked the right one to paint a wall to:

The Last Beautiful Day-New Buffalo

Because it’s cheery, weird, and spacious. You can squeegee in time to the beat.

Thanks, Sally.

 

Making an Album on Your Own, Part 1

I feel like it would be good to just put this out there for musicians who might be going it alone in making an album. Of course I still have that feeling where “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, eeek!” but I have learned a few things I thought I’d share. Part 2 will appear when I’m finished, I guess!

Finding a Band: 

• Network with people you know and trust. I’ve found that musicians are more than willing to help each other out, but you have to ask! 
• Offer payment to your players, even if they want to do it for free. If they insist on doing it for free, do something nice for them in return! (Admittedly, I still owe someone a massage gift certificate!) If you go with studio musicians, make sure they connect with the project and aren’t just doing it for pay. Studio musicians are worth it for those instruments you want to really shine.

The content:

• Understand that the songs you rehearse and record with the band might not make the final cut. You will spend money on tracks that might not see the light of day if you want to end up with something really cohesive. Try to see your album as a whole dramatic statement, and weed out the songs (as beloved as they might be) that are weighing that statement down.
• Understand that you might still be writing even when you thought the album was done. Most likely, those songs will probably end up on the record and stand out because they’re the culmination of all of your output and effort over this period of album-making. Don’t stop writing while you’re recording! Keep your muse energized.
• Remember the attention span of your listener. I’m not the type of writer to sit down and say “oh, I’ll write an upbeat song” and then “oh, I’ll write a slow, intense one.” But in choosing the final tracks, pull the songs that play against each other in mood and tempo. Again, sometimes you’ll have to kick out a track that sounds too much like another one.
• In arranging, you can always pull parts from those kicked-out songs, or use the “cuttings” method from other songs that didn’t make it. Sometimes a stray lyric or riff will fit perfectly with your final songs.

Recording

• You can choose to record it all yourself, but realize this process will take a long time to master. Personally, I thought I was going to teach myself Logic and do it all myself, but this made me panic. I do want to learn eventually, but having to spend so much time focusing on learning recording when I wanted to really focus on the content of the songs and arranging didn’t make sense. I had already pretty much mastered Garageband, which I’ve been using to arrange the songs.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help in the process. I finally decided to go into 2 studios/engineers I trusted, and feel confident enough in my arrangements that the sessions would translate what’s been in my head to the recording. I’m also asking an old friend to put finishing touches with guitars/other instruments on his Protools…and he’s 1000 miles away in Austin! The recording of the album doesn’t have to be conventional. Josh Rouse recorded his most recent album in Spain but sent the tracks to a drummer in Nashville. In this era, you can make the process as global as you’d like.
• Have fun in the studio. Take it seriously, but laugh too. Solid preproduction will ease the nerves. By that I mean arranging as much as possible, having your task list at hand, and rehearsing enough to feel comfortable with the songs.

Overall outlook

• Stay in the present and savor this process. Don’t think about “what am I going to do with this when I’m done???” I admit, I’m having those feelings and I have bought several books on marketing, and am vaguely thinking about the publicity side of things. But I’m trying to stay loose about it and not freak out. Just relish being a musician and being given the gift to express. Recording is extremely fun; you’re creating your musical love letter to the world. The business stuff can happen afterwards.