Lyrics this time. totally different. I haven't spent any time working on the lyrics of any specific songs this time. I have titles for each one, general themes, subject matter ideas but just haven't taken the time to work sitting down and writing them. as each guy adds his parts it gets closer and closer to time for me to get serious about discovering what the lyrics are going to be for these babies because eventually I'm going to have to sing all my final vocal takes.

[On ‘I wanna know ya’ from NIC I didn't even bother writing lyrics. I just mumbled nonsense with an occasional word thrown in here or there because it sounded good like that on that dummy take and we didn't want to take the risk of effing it up by re-recording it. and truly I just didn't want to bother working out lyrics about a song about seeing a chick and wanting to hang with her. if you ever sit down and say to yourself ‘what the fuck is he saying in that song?’ don't go crazy trying to figure it out. I'm not saying anything. I'm just screaming stream of consciousness gibberish.]

so these babies for the new album are getting to that point and I haven't made that move yet to sitting down with paper and working out any lyrics. Just phrases are coming here and there. underneath it all is the whisper of the song telling me what it wants to be about, of what it’s truly saying at its core.
‘waiting for Godot’ – which we just finished tracking just now –- I recorded 6 different guitar parts that sound super-bad-ass --- Vancouver will probably lay down another 6 I would imagine --- is about how fucking miserable it is to live with all of life’s unanswerable questions and unfairness and how we’re just waiting to die to hopefully discover something/anything of real substance or truth besides all this pain suffering and mystery. This song is really out there. sonically. Slams.
‘Here it comes’ is my favorite if I had to choose. Or solaris. Here it comes is so romantic. A guy telling his girl we can make it. I know its hard and it seems so fucked and hopeless now, at this time, still, I know, it still sucks, life is still hard for us babe, but I swear to fucking God I can feel that its coming around. here it comes.

‘Solaris’ I wrote during watching that movie. I was so moved by that movie for some reason. So its like that. a guy is speaking to his girl who has passed on to the other side, out in solaris, now that she has found her new life, what's it like, who is she now. do you still think about me?
‘After tomorrow’ is a suicide letter. You’ve tried hard to do what you had to and what you needed to and what you should do and could do and still it didn't work out. there was always something that I couldn’t explain getting in my way. fate always working against me. so I'm out of here. after tomorrow I'll be able to breathe again. I'm checking out.

Got together with the guys tonight to rehearse new songs for the new CD. have about five songs worked out really well. but some of them we are just still so lost as to trying to nail the songs down in their purest form. Bloopy protested one of my songs at one point and I am so not used to that. there has always been this invisible line where we don't cross. For ten years its just been a given that I write the songs and there they are as I walked in with them except for arrangements and beginnings and endings. So at first I was dumbstruck, but then I listened and realized that if we are going to make what we really want to make, something that transcends, something that reaches the level we all want, a level we have never reached before, then I am going to have to open up and listen. He's a young genius who speaks very little, so I listen when he speaks. His own songs are like mini-operas. And I want that operatic quality to this new CD. it feels like this is bound to be the album that never was. Like the beach boys smile. We are encountering in-numerous scheduling conflicts and personal problems within the band that seem insurmountable. But we do have a good start.

Talking about really breaking the songs down to their core and creating our parts like never before, as opposed to the Jackson Pollock style we usually allow ourselves; where everything is just free and we lay down whatever we want to and let it sit however it sits. Nothing is cohesive was laid down that way. Totally not how we want this new CD to come out. this one will take a lot of time and attention.
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The key is to let go and stop looking for the answers. This is a big life. and the answers are going to constantly be changing. Noticing how much I want to create answers rather than just let go. I am living; and the whole time, in every minute, every second, there is the narrator voice cataloging each event. Trying to make sense of it. trying to box it all in. figuring it all out. but underneath it all I am seeing that it is not important. Today is a day and tomorrow will be another day. and what more is there than that?

Supplement: pregnenlone, the mother of all hormones. Try it. you’ll be surprised.

Current spin: saliva. Metallica. Smashing pumpkins, adore. Nice album. Tender moments in there. never a Billy corgan fan. not yet. but I enjoy this CD.

Last screening: Philadelphia story with Cary grant. Mona Lisa smile.

Last screening: some kind of monster. Metallica movie. Almost like an acid trip for elementary school kids. You’re just on this trip with the guys. through their ups and downs. Through the recording and the ego trips and the therapy and all. nothing really too hairy; knowing a bit about being in a rock band ourselves we found that it comes across like someone stripped all the good parts out of it and just left the really normal mainstream TV type stuff. too bad because a real documentary about the guys would be great. Something with all the juicy parts left in would have been much better. But this is like watching your parents fight at dinner. Real white glove. All the guys including their therapist and producer bob rock, come off like such pussies, But you have to appreciate that. appreciate where they are, and what they were trying to do by dealing with their problems in a constructive manner, rather than a destructive way. You do walk away with this profound appreciation for the music that they make, and for them as musicians. I have never been a metallica fan. I don't own any albums and when their music has come on the radio over the last twenty years I have always run to turn it off. Beav always used to listen to it in his room and I would always scream to him to shut his door. We’d have music wars between our two bedrooms. My Prince and U2 albums versus his metallica and yngwie malmstein albums. I can’t call up the other guys in the band and say c'mon lets go check out the new metallica movie. They're just not going to be into it. they look at me like I'm crazy. but you know, I'm digging into it now. going somewhere else. totally different musically. Lars is just a fucking monster on his instrument.

I'm telling the guys, ‘this fucking band is spending months perfecting each song. Working it all out, creating fucking operatic masterpieces, and we’re still strumming chords on our guitars. We have to learn from them. there's something to this.”

Called the guys and we talked for a few hours about the new album we are recording. And how the hell are we going to get all that together into one cohesive package.... we want to find a way to bring it all together. Because half the songs are totally over the top heavy rock --- which is going to be a real shock to fans and we know that – and then some of them are the more old style that we have been doing lately, more brit pop I guess. Like pure brit pop. I am trying to get there. to that purity. You know how flaming lips gets there sometimes? Where the song is just out there. just pure song. And of course I am dying to let it all go and create something completely orchestral, more noise oriented, and atmospheric.... but everyone around me is still like ‘ please no, not now...’ But I have this very strong urge to make some heavy music like I've never made before. Just to really go all the way into it. I'm like “guys if we could mix this whole linkin park, rage against the machine, Foo fighters, metallica thing I've been into [that's the prob though is that the guys aren't into that sound yet... at all... only me] with the music that we normally make... with our whole modern rock/brit pop thing...” and they're all like ‘dude what the hell are you talking about? We don't make music like that! we don’t even listen to music like that!”  but luckily Infinito does listen to music like that. so its cool. and Bloopy is going through a big nirvana phase now. so they're into it. Me and Bloopy talking about all of us and we’re all in such different places musically. Vancouver is going through a Billy Joel and cardigans phase so that's just totally out there for us now and for what's going on in modern music. and rockaway is just starting to get into the whole Jet hives thing. but that sound is already totally overplayed and its cool but you don't want to actually make music like that NOW.  So I don't have an interest in making it myself, even though I dig it. but I don't see any reason for us to explore it. as a fan I would love to hear Rufus wainright phoenix and Caetano Veloso meets u2 Radiohead and coldplay meets metallica linkin park and Foo fighters. That would be sick. Like Broadway meets Britpop meets Metal. That would be it. that's what the new CD is going to sound like if its possible.

I don't want people to always be down on us because we change our sound so much. I worry about that. I worry about our three fans not knowing who we are or what we are all about because every album changes so much. But I don't think we can do anything about it. we’re all just so eclectic with our tastes constantly changing all the time. I for one get super-bored with any one style of music for too long. that's why I don't like concerts too much; I just get too bored too easily. Hopefully the fans will be able to keep up with it and actually appreciate where we’re at and what we’re trying to do as artists.

Current spin: St. Anger, metallica. I love it. I'm like an addict right now to this sound. I just never knew how to get into it. I never understood this music before. I'm starting to understand it. just always turned me off because of the overt lack of melody and harmony. All rhythm and grunting... but I get it now. also Saliva, back into the system. survival of the sickest is a great track. good polished neo-grunge.

In the studio today with the poet. first session for the two new albums. Recorded four songs for the Girls album, Summer says, Verena, Kathy, Indian Princess. And one song for the Cinematique album, which has no name yet; maybe After tomorrow. the rest of the songs we’ll do with Infinito. Me and Bloopy talking tonight on the phone. Transcendence is turning into something very cool. the whole way we have all these different players, like this core group of players that make it what it is. I would love to tour with like all eight guys at once. That would be awesome for all of us and for the fans.

The Girls album is something that so far only I seem to like the idea of. Bas says I am going to slammed for. He's like, ‘you can do it man. Just don't do it. it’s a bad idea. A whole album about girls? With girls names? Horrible! It will be the end of your career.’ ‘Bro, I don't have much of a career yet. I can pretty much do whatever I want to at this point. Hehe.’ In the short term it may at first come off kind of pretentious or contrived, but the idea actually came from a talk with Bloopy about putting out a girls compilation CD of all the songs from our various CDs that have girls names. Which is a still a good idea, but then I started leafing through all the song notebooks and realizing that there were still tons of songs I had already written with girls names that hadn't been recorded yet. and that would make a cool album all on its own. more than an albums worth actually. So its not contrived at all, but just conceptual. Its not like we’re sitting around writing a bunch of songs about girls. These are just the orphan songs that never made it to albums. So its cool. and the cool thing, although I'll probably be the only one who thinks this is cool, is that all the songs are from different periods of my life so each song is a totally different style. I'll love it. But I may be the only one. anyway, as much as the other guys don't like it, I am hoping I can get them to humor me long enough to get it recorded. Just a bunch of one off songs. Just honoring what's there. I love songs and I love songwriting. It is the ultimate indulgence.

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It’s this nagging loneliness that is always looming there in the back of your mind.... its like a feeling of emptiness, or not-wholeness... I wonder if it is real—is it instinctivelyinstinctually there? Or is it trained? Just something that is ingrained in us since we were young. Either way, I feel it. Everyone seems to.

Good morning dear Juliet...
With your little magic wand and your dancing around the room...

Ah yes the original song/universal lullaby... during the making of the nothing is cohesive album (the newest one about to be released) I felt as though I was in it, inside of it, during the whole writing and recording of that one. I hope that others hear it as well. That's why I sent some of those rough mixes to you. because I was so happy!!! nothing is cohesive is so far the most musical album I have ever made/been a part of. Created entirely from/with a/the love of music. no real reason to make it except for that. we were in love with what we were doing in that moment, in love with music. and with each other.

I sent you a sort of compilation of songs from the last three albums, just some of my favs. With a funny synopsis of each song in the letter. Don't know if I labeled the CD itself, but songs like softening were just FLOWS through me. me just sitting there LOST IN THE FLOW of it. and IF YOUR BABY COULD, ALL THIS IS BEGINNING TO FEEL LIKE AN ENDING, VERONICA was another, (this song is about to be released nationally as a single--scary) just FLOW, feels like ME AND GOD/GODDESS SECRETLY WORKING TOGETHER WITH BIG SMILES ON OUR FACES. Juliet  that's what it feels like!!! When you're in that flow state and a new song is peeking its head out of the womb in your mind. Your heart beats faster and blushes, mind starts racing, I get giddy like a little kid, running around the house, looking for a tape recorder or a guitar or running to the piano, jumping up and screaming 'holy shit holy shit! Do you hear that fucking new song?! Oh my God! oh my God!'

You get lost for a while in it. and then when I come out of it, maybe upon waking the next day, go back and play the song and ... wow, that really is nice isn't it... its almost like being drunk or something. gone into another world. When songwriting is flow, that's what it feels like.

Perhaps according to your ancient folklore, all songs come from this one ‘original song,’ the ‘universal lullaby...’ [wow goose-bumps] and that's what we are trying to do when we are writing songs, one after the other, trying to capture a piece of that one original song that we remember from when we were in the womb ourselves... you know that's what it feels like in a way. That’s a nice idea. Trying to get/stay closer to God/Spirit.

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Last opera of the season tonight. Turandot, Puccini’s unfinished last great one. Jazz was late—I was of course incensed. Explaining to her that I almost always go alone. Maybe once a year I will bring a date. “You just sit here by yourself in these two seats?” “For years. Yes. It’s the only place I can get a really good sleep these days.” we laugh, but I explain that Its just a very sacred thing to me. Better to go alone than to bring someone who isn't going to increase the pleasure of it, or worse, not understand the sacredness of it, or appreciate it. There's like one in ten million people who can sing opera. Probably a lot fewer than that. so its just an amazing thing to behold. Few people can understand it. So I spend some time screaming like a madman. She had never seen this side of me before. “you're crazy. this is why I will never be in a relationship with you.” “I didn't ask you to be in relationship with me! I asked you to go to a fucking opera! Is someone dead?!” “No. why?” “Well then how the fuck can you be late?!” She says I am frightening her. I tell her that it is just the nature of the artist; don't be frightened. Artists scream. That's what we do. I haven't performed in a few weeks. I get like this if I don't perform for a while. Need to let it out of my system, or I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself. She promises to speak French the whole time to make up for it. Drunk on Champaign, chocolate, and Puccini. The Nessun Dorma was pretty bad. The guy just didn't have it going on. Although it was nice to see it finally in its proper setting. Never had heard it live before.

The whole evening made my heart long to meet a girl with the grace and presence of mind to understand that it is as uncivilized to arrive late to an opera as it is to show up on-time to anything else. Where the hell are you my angel, my queen, my princess, my light? I am tired of waiting. When we meet I am going to bow down at your feet and worship you for an eternity like you’ve never been worshiped. I am going to compose great symphonies in your honor and sing you songs of love and joy and devotion and make you laugh like crazy till we are both resting in our graves. “Principesa, come to me Principesa....”

[taming the animal: there was this moment when we were getting seated... some people were sitting in my seats. Because I sit in the same seats every year I was very rude, short, and snippy about the whole thing (is snippy a word?). I didn't even care to listen to the intruder’s explanations or bother to look at their tickets that they were trying to show me. I was actually on my phone and just demanded that they move so we could sit down... they finally did figure out what was going on and realized that they were indeed in the wrong seats. So they moved. But about five minutes later I just had this overwhelming feeling of what a bastard I was. So I leaned over and apologized to them. “You know I was just so terribly rude. I am very sorry. Pardon me.” it made all the difference in the world. And I am sure we all enjoyed the ensuing performance that much more because I acknowledged that and spoke up, rather than continuing to defend my bad behavior in my own mind. Its like sometimes you just have to accept that as humans we can be dogs and just totally misbehave. We have to get used to the idea of correcting ourselves just like we would our pets or children. I don't think all of us are like that. I know some people who were just born with good manners and grace. Unfortunately I was not one of them. sometimes when I am in line at a store or restaurant and just want what I want when I want it and I have found that I was short and impatient with the people who helped me, I walk myself all the way back to the store, even if it’s a long walk, and go say thank you with a big smile. Its like training a dog is what it feels like. I'm like, “Fishy, turn the hell around you animal and go say thank you to those people....”]

Woke up this morning obsessively watching the three tenors live DVDs skipping to Pavarotti singing nessun dorma. He really does do it fantastically. I mean, its not a myth or anything. He owns the song now. Breathtaking everytime. I study the sheet music in front me and listen and watch him sing. I rewind over and over again, listening, reading, studying. I have been trying to capture this song for two years now. Michael Bolton does it now, and actually does a very impressive version. But luciano takes it all the way home like no other. Just nails it. 

Had the realization that men DO HAVE a biological clock. Perhaps science hasn’t yet discovered it yet. [remember that it wasn't until the 1980’s that they started realizing that men also go through a sort of menopausal state (they call it a midlife crisis). I believe that men also feel some kind of hormonal pull in their system as they get older like the infamous biological clock that is spoken about with women. Talking to jazz the other night about what it feels like... this shift inside from being the happy go lucky artist who is content to live in complete poverty and squalor just so you can keep creating, to slowly feeling a shift over the years towards an almost near obsessive desire for empire building, safety, and security for myself and my family. One minute you are quite happy to be the lone adventurer eagerly throwing your arms around the entire world, and in the next you find yourself longing to find the ONE and begin pro-creating and making a family. For years all I cared about was the next song, the next novel, the next diary passage, the next screenplay, the next album... and now I notice that these involuntary life-long obsessions are accompanied by a very strong impulse to question “how will this make me money?” when you are a young artist you just never even think about things like that. as you get older, you cannot help it. has to be hormonal in some way.