TODD A //

Dubstep Hall and Oates

Been listening to Drivepilot’s dubstep remix of “Private Eyes” lately.

Prompted me to download more of Drivepilot’s stuff.

Saturday at the LAB

We had a pretty awesome show at the LAB yesterday. David Dewese, The Slow Waltz and I played in front of a trailer next to the water installation. It was a cool location. My minimal sound system held up really well. It was just an all-around sweet afternoon of nice tunes outside. I don’t think I’ve ever played a show in sunglasses before.

I wish I had a recording of this one cause I thought we all sounded great. But the constant waterfall next to us would probably be a bit distracting on record. Oh well, we’ll just remember it as sounding awesome.

(Instagram’d photo by Becca Carroll)

My novel Barry’s Cherries for Kindle and Nook!

I got an email this morning telling me my novel Barry’s Cherries was now an eBook and available from major vendors. I wasn’t sure what exactly that meant since originally the only eBooks they did were PDFs but this is an actual ePub format. You can now buy Barry’s Cherries for Nook and Kindle. It’s less than $4! Go get it!

Wednesday Night at Sol Grill

I played Paul Hines’s Songwriters Night at Sol Grill Wednesday night. I had played a similar evening there more than a year ago and was pretty spooked. I’d expected a typical Songwriters Night with people there who wanted to listen. So it’s a bit of a misnomer. The songwriters are just background music for the diners. And it’s such a small room that it can be a little nerve-wracking to be a couple of feet away from someone who isn’t really listening to you.

There’s a thing with songwriters — at least when we’re in our role as songwriters performing our own material — we want people to listen. In that kind of setting, we realize quickly that covers might go over better.

I was prepared this time around. And as a result I didn’t lean too heavily on covers. Cause I chose originals that fit the mood a bit better. No one really listened, maybe a couple of people tuned in and out, but I didn’t feel like I was awkwardly performing my indie rock for a bunch of annoyed diners. And what I realized was that with a proper mix on myself from the monitor, I could kind of tune out the dining room noise and just enjoy playing and singing.

I hit mostly country-ish tunes this week — covers by Willie Nelson, Ray Price, Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond and originals like Becky, All or Nothin, Texas, We Used to Hang.

Afterwards, Boris made a comment to me like “maybe the day job doesn’t seem so bad, right?” And my response was, “A bad day of golf is still a pretty good day.”

I’m sure it’d wear me out in a certain way to play originals to an uninterested audience but playing music is still pretty damn enjoyable.

Totally accurate, Yahoo. Thanks.