New Year, New Music

Happy new year to all! For me, 2011 was a good year for the most part. I visited my daughter in Paris in March (among many other travels). I learned to land a tail wheel airplane (to be continued come spring, I hope). I made progress in learning to work at a large company (after my small company was acquired in fall of 2010). And I started to get back into songwriting and recording, with a big assist from music apps on my iPod Touch. Music apps allow me to use time on long overseas flights and weekends between countries to get some songwriting done.

Songwriting and recording make me happy, especially when I work on the recording with Roger Lavallee, producer and instrumentalist par excellence. I spent a few hours with Roger at the Tremolo Lounge this past week recording two songs "nearly final" and starting on a third. These are brand new songs, the two nearly-final ones written in December, inspired in part by the Black Keys. As a result these are probably the most rocking tracks I have ever done (thanks be to Roger who played all the instruments - I just sang and made comments on the arrangements, solos, mixes, etc.). You can listen to the (fairly smooth) "rough mixes" on SoundCloud if you like:


2012 will include a LOT of business travel, so I'm glad I've figured out how to write songs and make rough demos with my iPod on the road. 2012 will also include a new album, probably by summer or early fall, with a mix of new and old songs (or maybe all new if my writing streak holds up) and maybe half rock and half acoustic/ countryish/ jazzy/ whatever (i.e., my usual eclectic non-style). I plan to record some songs on my new recording gear at home, but I'll probably end up doing most of it with Roger.

And what about space and astronomy? I hope to find time to read, write, and simulate more in 2012. So many interesting things and so little time!