Todd A

The Homegrown Hour Sunday night

Todd A — Sat, 19 May 2012 19:51:17 +0000

Listen to local music on 102.1 KPRI at 8pm on Sundays. Cathryn Beeks and Jeff Berkley host. A tune of mine will be on tomorrow night’s show along with a whole bunch of other Southern California musicians. Check out listenlocalsd.com for more info.

Video of I Remember Girls from Hotel Indigo

Todd A — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:33:25 +0000

David Dewese came to the gig yesterday and took some pictures and shot this video. It was such a cool location.

I’m playing in San Diego this evening. 5pm at Hotel Indigo.

Todd A — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:32:03 +0000

I’m playing as part of the Live After Five show. I’m first at 5pm sharp.

She likes to play morose songs like the Lemonheads’ “My Drug Buddy” on the ukulele

Todd A — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:48:52 +0000

A girl after our hearts, Jessica Pare.

Allen and I had a great time at the Tin Can Ale House

Todd A — Fri, 11 May 2012 05:17:39 +0000

Allen and I played the Tin Can Ale House last night. Allen has recorded and played on my last several records. He joined me on stage at the Cabrillo Playhouse in March but this was the first full-on show we’d played together. We put together a really brisk set. I recorded it. It was 26 minutes of our allotted 30. And it just flew by.

I don’t know how it sounded out in the room (I don’t think my recording is very faithful). We didn’t run our amps through the PA, just vocals. For the first two songs, our amps were pretty damn loud off the stage. At least to us. After some level adjustments onstage, I think we sounded better mixed but I don’t know what people’s perception of a two man guitar band is. We’re going to try the same thing at the GoLounge in two weeks (May 24th). Come see that.

We loved the Tin Can. Good beer, good eats, awesome staff, good ole divey atmosphere and a great audience. We definitely want to go back there. Hopefully, we’ll have a drummer with us next time.

Thanks to David for the photos and the video and the audience participation. Thanks to Kelsey and Justin for having us.

I’m back in San Diego the next two weeks. If you want to see a different kind of show, I’m playing the Live after Five show at Hotel Indigo next Wednesday (May 16th) and I’ll be a little less power chordy.

San Diegans, I will be in your town tonight at the Tin Can Ale House. And I’m bringing a band…

Todd A — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:29:42 +0000

…well, a guy.

Couch Concert for LODJ.org — 5 May 2012

Todd A — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:28:46 +0000

A guy named Pierre who runs a site called LODJ.org had seen my “Couch Concerts” on YouTube and contacted me to ask me to play a live show via webcam. So I did that last Saturday morning. I heard from Boris afterwards that the sound was pretty choppy on his end. I had recorded the whole thing. I tried my best to sync the audio recorded on my computer with actual microphones with the video I recorded from an outboard camera. So here’s the show:

The Set: Every Little Thing, We Used to Hang, You Keep Writing the Same Songs, Paige Don’t Panic, This Job Is Killing You, Frankly Mr Turner, High School Isn’t That Hard, You Have The Worst Taste in Men, Selina I’m A Wreck

My show was an experiment for them so there were bound to be challenges. I heard from my friend Boris that the sound on his end was really choppy. I assume the video was too. I ran my webcam through the app on lodj.org which is presumably based in France with Pierre. That signal was then broadcast through an app on Facebook. That’s already two points of connection issues. I’m on wifi to begin with. And I was recording on my computer so that slowed me down.

Pierre and the friend who works with him, Rachel, invited me to play a regular live couch concert every month. So we’ll be able to smooth out some of the troubles.

My feelings on the show are mixed. Performance-wise, it’s weird to play for an audience you know is there but that you can’t see. Even though I think the audience was closer to 4 people than 40, I knew that at least Pierre and Rachel were there. When I record videos myself for YouTube or Vimeo, I’ll re-record if I screw something up. There was no doing that. And one weird thing I’ve noticed is that I screw up more when I’m not getting an audience reaction. Or at least it means more.

There was a chat function on the Facebook app. At one point, Pierre told me via Skype to check the chat messages because people were talking to me. What followed was a couple of thrilling moments of video of me reading and typing. And I couldn’t even see the Facebook chat. That’s something that’ll get ironed out. I edited it out of the video above because I screwed up the next two songs I played. I got knocked out of my performing zone and the music suffered. We’ll get something fixed. I don’t think it would be that odd to play and chat if I could see the messages coming in between songs.

Then there’s my feelings on the whole endeavor of playing a show on the internet… This reminded me of a time 13 years ago when I started building websites and there was such a wild west feeling to music on the internet. You could try anything. It was not insignificant that the last time I played a “webcast” was at a place with the ridiculous name “Indienet” in Nashville in 1999. Their gimmick was that they streamed the shows online. We (The Carter Administration) were playing with a band from Indiana I believe and there was literally no one there. I think our girlfriends were running late or skipping entirely. We did our best to convince the other band that this was a waste of time and effort to load in and play a show to no one. But they were “on tour” and they had people who were going to watch this over the internet. So on we went. I don’t think the webcast actually worked.

But that was the wilds of the internet before everything became so shiny and developed. It probably doesn’t help lodj.org looks like it comes from 1999. My immediate reaction as a guy who builds websites was not to trust it. I’m still not convinced it didn’t dump a sack of spyware onto my computer. But I did the show because that’s what I’m supposed to do as me, as the kind of musician I am. I don’t make nice, slick videos like this. I make unpolished videos like this. I try to do things out on the fringe. I’d rather have 100s of free mp3s on my site than 1 puny album on iTunes. I’d rather experiment with a couch concert than spend days editing a video of one song.

And I think continuing to move like that is what helps me keep making stuff. That’s why this year I’ve released a shiny indie rock record and a less polished “country” record and last year I released a record of demos, a live record with a band, and a polished single.

But I recognize that marginalizes me. I guess that’s where I belong, on the margins. I liked the wild west internet.

My new record “It’s Called a Secret Attack” is now on iTunes!

Todd A — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:10:28 +0000

And to make it extra delightful, I bundled it with my record from 2010, IRL. So it’s 10 songs of geeky goodness!

Buy it here!

“Red Headed Stranger” Video from the Willie Nelson sessions in February

Todd A — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:45:33 +0000

I finally put together this video of the recording of Red Headed Stranger. This is the actual footage of the recording of the song. The audio is the mixed version from the record. We did vocals and guitar live which is not the way either of us likes to work but this project was supposed to be loose and spontaneous.

Download the record for free.

My friend Heather is making soaps and balms — go get some

Todd A — Mon, 07 May 2012 02:22:49 +0000

My friend Heather is making homemade soaps and lip balms as Donegan Soaps. I just ordered a selection for my mom and sister-in-law (and a lip balm for myself). She keeps us updated on the progress of her new soaps on her Facebook Page. Go “Like” her page for all the latest info. And order some awesome homemade soap and lip balm! Why you gotta be all corporate with your soap? (Heather, that’s totally your new marketing tagline.)