September 06, 2005

Loose Ends

Evidently the first line in the last newsletter was just cryptic enough to cause some concern. I think I responded personally to everyone who wrote and asked, but to those of you thought of writing but didn't, or you who wrote and didn't hear back: I'm fine. We're fine. Please don't worry.

The doubt that was expressed had mostly to do with the relative state of affairs in Crawford, TX and Iraq, which it seems we can do very little about at the moment. Though I will write more about that another time. Not that I have anything particularly inspired to add on the subject, maybe I do, maybe I don't. We'll see.

In other news, I just became a sponsored artist of Curt Mangan guitar strings, which is cool because I used their strings anyway. I think they're the best, and I would pay full price for them anytime. Fortunately now I don't have to. Cheers, Curt. So for those of you wondering how I get that unique tone . . . well . . . it might be . . . my thick fingers and clumsy style, or a 35 year old guitar. Or it may be my brand new Curt Mangan guitar strings. Who can be sure? But seriously, Curt's strings do sound good and they're really nice to play, so check them out if you're into that sort of thing.

Now, I want to send a huge 'thank you' to to all who came out to the show at Flipnotics in Austin last week. That was the best show of my life, so far. It was wonderful to have so many of you there. For a second I even thought about playing more and more and more gigs, nothing but gigs, year after year, tour after tour. But alas, I came to my senses when I got back home and saw the bones of thirty odd songs hanging on my studio wall. They may well finish themselves, but someone's got to be there to write it all down, pluck the strings, press the buttons, twist the knobs, and sing, or no one will ever hear them -- which I think would be a shame, because, uh, they're so good? Yep.

But that's the plan for me. I'll keep you posted on our progress.

There was a nice review of Suddenly Bright Out last week in "Go and Do", a web magazine out of Detroit. "If you take Brian Ferry's vocals and put them on a 2005 version of Talking Heads, you'd have a sound like Kirk Smith's Suddenly Bright Out. "All Our Own Way" is an absolute sparkling gift of creative pulse, one worth tracking down." I met the editor, Nick Brandon, when I played the Motor City Music Conference in Detroit last April. I saw Moby there too.

Remember that band Katrina and the Waves? Their 1985 hit was "Walking on Sunshine".