Spring Cleaning

I did a bit of Spring cleaning this morning. I woke up with sunshine pouring through my window and it seemed like a perfect morning to get rid of some old stuff laying about the house. Breathing seemed easier, my eyes saw more hopefully, and the windows needed to all be opened to let the breeze blow through and blow out any lingering bad energy. Somehow it just seemed like life had started over again, which I guess is why we have so many Spring re-birth/resurrection myths.

Mostly I just threw away some old junk with old (and useless) memories. But even that just made everything seem brighter.

A good Spring morning makes the possibilities seem endless.

Lemon Almonds

I found the best snack today: lemon roasted almonds. I never really liked almonds that much, until this morning when I was at my local farmer’s market and walked by a vendor that sells nuts with millions of different flavours. I have a pretty serious salt addiction, and an addiction to lemonade, and I eat way too many snack foods. The vendor (like any good drug dealer) knew my addictions and had me try some of the lemon roasted almonds.

I bought a bag. And a half. The other half I gave to a friend, and it was all I could do to keep my addiction in check and make sure I split it evenly.

I think the only way they could make these nuts any better is if they marinated them in Guinness before they roasted them.

Video: ‘Hear Me Now’ Live at the Dakota Lounge

Puke

I had some Chinese food with a friend last night, didn’t feel well later when I went to bed, it seemed like I was going to vomit. I didn’t. But then…

I went into the studio this morning and one of my notes (in my terrible handwriting) for a song that will be on the next album called ‘Pulse’ looked like instead of ‘Pulse’, it said ‘Puke’. Again, I didn’t. But then…

Actually, that’s all. I’m not sure if I’ll be seeing any more patterns like this today. I’ll post more later if I do. I know, I know, you’ll be checking back every 5 minutes just in case I do have more.

Can I have Boomer?

Tonight is the last episode of Battlestar Galactica. I am not sure how they are going to wrap up everything that’s been going on over the past 5 years. I kind of wish they would make just a few more episodes so we can really know how things will end up.

I know they won’t though. They’ve already torn down the sets and are auctioning and selling everything off. I was thinking of emailing the producers and asking how much they want for Boomer.

Video: ‘Too Soon’ Live at the Dakota Lounge

Show with Colin Hay

I am very pleased to announce that I will be playing with Colin Hay at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano CA in May. Details to come.

Men at Work was one of my favourite bands when I was a little boy, and I had such a great time last time I played with him. I’m really looking forward to this show.

If Only We Could Have Flown On The Concorde

Back in 1985, Phil Collins performed at both Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia in one day. He managed to do this by flying on the supersonic jet Concorde. We achieved a similar feat last night.

We played two shows in one night at two different venues, one in Santa Monica CA, and one in Fullerton CA. True, they weren’t necessarily as far apart as London and Philadelphia, but since we did travel down the 405 freeway which seems to have traffic at every hour of the day, we figure our achievement was comparable to Phil’s.

We should’ve played ‘In The Air Tonight’ just to make the similarities even closer. I don’t know if I know all the words, but I can definitely “air drum” the drum fill right before the chorus.

Happy Guinness Day

I have a Guinness in the refrigerator for St. Patrick’s day today. I’ll be avoiding the bars today very easily. It’s definitely an amateur drinking day, and I don’t think I can handle any U2 cover bands blaring ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, no matter how good of a song it is.

I’ll be recording today though, so I’ll make it a point to sneak some Irish tin whistle in on one of the tracks.

Sláinte,

SJ

Isolation (well, near isolation)

Last week was very good for recording, we are progressing much faster than I thought. I greatly reduced my social life and pretty much locked myself in the studio. I allowed some visitor access, but mostly it was just a week of music. So now I might be a bit pale skinned, but at least we have the foundation down for the album.

New Song Posted: Supposed To Be

Hey folks,

I uploaded a demo of a brand new song, it’s less than a day old. It’s called ‘Supposed To Be’.

You can check it out on my MySpace profile:

http://myspace.com/saintjohnandtherevelations

It’s very rough because it’s just a demo, but let me know what you think. The lyrics are in a previous post if you need them.

Cheers,

SJ

Lyrics: Supposed To Be

you say you’re gone, not coming back, tell me that on any other day
and i’d try to keep you
but not this day, there’s finally light, you can see it in my walk
it’s long overdue

you’ve got that look in your eye
begging for hell to fall from the sky
you’ve got that look in your eye
begging for hell to fall from the sky

i will admit, i miss the dreams, the shadows of love
parading down my street
i held on too long, my knuckles locked up, but even stars eventually lose their heat

you’ve got that look in your eye
begging for hell to fall from the sky
you’ve got that look in your eye
begging for hell to fall from the sky

babies unborn, and smiles not seen, echoes of laughter unheard
you had your way
i’d have been there, to never let go, it was supposed to be
’til the end of days

you’ve got that look in your eye
begging for hell to fall from the sky

i’ve got it under control
i wrestled back my soul

you’ve got that look in your eye
begging for hell to fall from the sky

you’ve got that look in your eye
begging for love to fall from the sky

Fast Fact – Animal Superstitions

Humans aren’t the only animals that are superstitious, it turns out that birds (and other animals) are too.

“Superstition” definition from Merriam-Webster: A false conception of causation.

For example, a baseball player hits a home run, notices that he’s wearing a particular pair of underwear, and decides that the underwear was the cause of the win, it becomes his ‘lucky charm’. He then goes on to wear the same underwear to every game (without washing it) and believes that the underwear gives him good luck even though he doesn’t continue to win every game.

Birds also exhibit this behaviour. Experiments have been done where birds have been given food during a certain activity that the bird undertook. The bird repeats the action that it thinks resulted in the reward, but is now just as likely to be rewarded with food whether he does that certain behaviour or any other. Somehow it’s kind of comforting to know that we’re not the only ones that do silly things like avoiding crossing a black cat’s path, throwing salt over our shoulder, or praying to imaginary spirits in the sky.

You Are Pretty Cool

So it’s only been a few days, but my ‘pay what you want’ experiment is working so far. A lot of you have really responded well to having freedom to decide what my music is worth to you. Only one person has paid only one cent so far, and everybody else has been very fair. I wasn’t sure if it would work for me, even though Radiohead tested it with success a little over a year ago. After all, they are Radiohead and everybody already knows about them.

So, thank you very much. I’m glad I could make my music available to you at a price you can afford.

And if you haven’t yet, you can click the link below to pay what you want for ‘Mercy’:

Pay What You Like For ‘Mercy’

Cheers,

SJ

not enough time to record all the songs

photo by Bruce Buckley

What’s Wrong?

I was talking to my manager today and lamenting about how labels aren’t developing artists anymore, or even signing them unless they are already making a ton of money and how music venues aren’t even promoting shows anymore and just relying on the artists to do all the work. Well, unfortunately artists aren’t always good at doing those other things that build their business, they’re good at being artists, so a lot of good music is not even getting heard because the people that used to take a chance and build careers with artists aren’t doing it anymore because they think that folks like you won’t spend your money on music.

So it seems to be a total catch 22. Artists can’t get professional business support until they’re already making money, and they can’t make money until they have professional business support. And in the meantime, you guys, the fans, are missing out on a lot of good music. So how do we fix this? Everybody on the business side keeps offering up their opinion, but I keep wondering if they’ve ever asked the fans. So here we go.

Why aren’t you guys buying as much music as before? (and this was happening before the current economic downturn, so just assume that the economy was like it was 5 years ago) What would make you buy music again when the economy gets better and you have more money in your pockets?

New MySpace Look

Pop on over to my new MySpace page and let me know what you think of the new look.

Saint John and the Revelations MySpace Page

Nothing is sacred anymore.