A Song Called Madeline

Friends! 

I hope you’re doing well. I am, as off three hours ago (at time of writing), fully vaccinated and cautiously optimistic about the future.

I released a song called Madeline a few days ago. It came together in a supremely pleasing way and I’m proud of it.

• For Spotify users, click here.

• For non-Spotify users, click here.

• And I’m releasing lots of video content to accompany the tune, which you can find here:

Thank you Steve Watkins, Tyler Carroll, and Jon Lampley (all buds and bandmates from the Allen Stone universe) for lending your time and considerable talents to a song that’s 50% “doo-doo-dups.” 

Thanks as well to my Nashville bud Alex Bachari for playing some tasty slide, a skill still beyond my Jedi powers.

In the on-going COVID reality of having more time than money, I’m continuing to mix, edit, and produce everything myself, which is fun, and I’m bizarrely inspired by my fingers-crossed-temporary-yet-none-the-less-inarguable lack of mainstream popularity. 

Which means, naturally, I’m going to quadruple my artistic output and continue doing whatever the fuck it is I want to.

And to thank you all for being there, and believing in me. 

"Hiraeth" and updates

Ok, the main points…

• About a month ago, I released a single called “Hiraeth,” featuring my wonderful friend Megan Slankard on lead vocals. It’s my most-streamed solo release ever and I’m very proud of it. Here’s the Spotify link, or click here to listen on your platform of choice.

• I also made a fun little video for the tune, which you can watch here.

• The MoaT used to be a daily newsletter, but it’s now more of a “hey I’m doing a thing” Bat-Signal. You’ll be hearing from me once a month or so.

Now, the slightly more expanded version…

“Hiraeth” is a Welsh word that was introduced to me early during lockdown. It means to mourn the loss of a home to which you know you can never return.

Over the song’s four-ish minutes, about a minute of which is saxophone solo, I indulge lonely what-ifs, cautiously celebrate the potential of the unknown and, I suppose, give myself permission to let some stuff go. Thankfully, I’ve been able to process a whole lot during this surreal time, healing my little Trevor heart, grieving and accepting and moving on.

Last year stunk, this year will likely stink, but I’m still standing, still here, committed as I’ve ever been to sharing art and proffering both middle fingers and ass cheeks to the sham of a god who green-lit this unpardonable nonsense. 

As I march towards middle age still of little to no practical use to society, I’m confident that the world has enough accountants, that someone has to write the songs, and dagnabbit why can’t that someone be me?

Hang in there, friends.

Stillness

For the first time since mid-March, I’m packing up my humble mobile studio, whacking a few pairs of socks in a duffle bag, and getting the hell out of dodge. 

This Hiraeth project I’m undertaking was born from a lonely place, isolated and contemplative, but that’s only part of the story. Next chapters, foreboding as they can seem, also represent celebrations - of who we are, where we’re going and why, and it’s time to ruminate on these queries and more out in the socially-distanced world, where, over the past decade in particular, the best parts of myself coalesced into something resembling a rad human being.

It is, I suppose, a pilgrimage of sorts, to places I’ve spent time, places that shaped me, to sit in stillness with some memories, letting these songs tell their full stories. 

Sir Ken Robinson

During a break from comping drums, I rewatched Sir Ken Robinson’s classic TED talk about nurturing creativity in education.

It’s wonderful and important and so endearingly and heroically British I had to pause the video and make a cucumber and marmite sandwich.

Watch it here

Collaborating With Friends...

…is wonderful, provided your friends are game for your particular brand of insanity, which no doubt they are. 

And it takes the time honored traditions of overthought and inaction off the table. You’ve committed to an idea to the extent you’re willing to send it to someone, and said someone’s sent it back immeasurably better - this is no small gesture, and you’d be a real so-and-so if you let a song die on the vine because you presently regard the universe with justifiable disdain.

So this is where I find myself, celebratory bourbon in hand, shimmying all by my lonesome to beautiful vocals courtesy of Megan Slankard, equal parts excited and feeling the increasing weight of really, genuinely having no idea what I’m doing. 

But if my dance moves are any indication, things are heading in the right direction. 

Good News!

I mentioned a few posts back about this multi-album/EP project I’ve quietly been diving into. 

Philosophically, it centers around the concept of Hiraeth - homesickness for a place to which you can never return. Which is where we all find ourselves, in some way or another.

I’m beginning to reach out to touring friends, asking if they might like to play something, or sing something, or bash something against something else. I’ve got the songs picked out for the first installment, five tunes I’m thinking, all written during quarantine.

The idea is to take everything to the finish line myself - writing, arranging, producing, engineering, the whole deal - which is why I’ve been quiet until now, because I don’t know what I’m doing, and when you’re fortunate enough to have people in your life who do know what they’re doing, they’re inclined to tell you how to do things, which is antithetical to my goal of basking in edifying, blissful ignorance for, possibly, the rest of my life. 

So, yes. This is what will consume every waking hour for the next little while. More to come.

Marc Rebillet

Rather than doing responsible, bill-paying things today, I bathed in the nourishing genius of Marc Rebillet.

When asked to describe his music in four words, Marc chose “ass shaking meaningless garbage.” When asked to describe his live show in three words, he chose “too much Marc.” 

Marc Rebillet is a preposterous, beautiful positivity warrior. He sells out the same rooms as the Allen Stone project, performing 100% improvised sets of looped, borderline-incomprehensible madness, bedecked in ill-fitting glasses and a silk robe. 

Is his music good? Yes? If a thing makes you laugh out loud and dance in your underpants, get more of it in your life, especially during these trying times.

Check out his YouTube channel and bow before the master of, well, no one can say what exactly, other than we wish we were him, and goddammit thank you. 

Good Things

My little studio looks like a bomb’s hit it, with lyric sheets strewn every which way, cups of long-forgotten coffee perched precariously above electronics, and rogue pieces of popcorn I’m sure I’ll keep discovering weeks down the road, evidence of a post-eureka celebratory bowl toss.

I write this, I suppose, to remind myself that good things can come from mess. Even if things seem chaotic, it’s important to keep going. 

Beacons of Light

My wonderful friend Audrey Schaefer is featured in this recent NPR article about the state of live music in the greater DC area and beyond.

In addition to being communications director for the 9:30 Club, the Anthem, and Merriweather Post Pavilion - three of the best places to play in the entire freaking country - Audrey also leads communications for the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA).

If you’re generally conflict averse and a fan of borderline-offensive understatement, then the state of the live music industry could be playfully described as “up in the air.”

If you’re a pugnacious SOB who doesn’t mind losing a few teeth courtesy of reality’s wizened boot, then “grim” is spot-on, and appropriately flagellent.

But thanks to superheroes like Audrey Schaefer, there’s hope, and I’m inspired to continue fighting the good fight.

Celestial Heights

I discovered this quote today from Dr. Cornel West:

“Music at its best is the grand archeology into and transfiguration of our guttural cry, the great human effort to grasp in time our deepest passions and yearnings as prisoners of time. Profound music leads us - beyond language - to the dark roots of our scream and the celestial heights of our silence.”

Lavender

I spent the afternoon harvesting lavender, which is a wonderful thing to do if you’re feeling a bit fragile, or one more nanosecond of eq-ing your own vocals will inspire you to violence. 

It’s a calming reminder that all I did was whack a few plants in the ground and let nature handle the rest. All that I had to do, it turns out, was not screw it up.

So it’s enough - more than enough right now - to gently manifest cautious ideas and let them be, trusting they’ll find their own way. 

Blue

In a few hours, my neighborhood will descend into hillbilly chaos, so I’m enjoying this perfect record during the calm before the storm.

There’s an elegance, grace, and deep wisdom in Joni Mitchell’s music, and I stayed up all of last night taking in every lyric and melody, letting my mind wander wherever it needed to.

What a wonderful deep-dive. Highly recommend.

Deep Work

Some songs are a perfect alignment of head and heart, while others have to earn your trust a little bit. I’m wrestling with one of those today.

I’ve grown to appreciate they’re no better or worse than the ones that fall out of the sky - it’s still you, after all, putting in the deep work, disappearing inside the trance-like state where every detail’s spun and stretched until the secret’s revealed. 

And so twelve hours have passed like nothing, and I feel like a songwriter again. 

Writing Nooks

I have a writing nook now, a dusty corner of a previously drab room, adorned presently with psychedelic artwork and impulse bought, blinky-blinky ornaments. Through the window there’s lavender, and corpulent bubble bees, and my neighbor Big Country hurling obscenities at his deceased wife. It is a fine writing nook.

It is in this writing nook that the first sip of coffee hits my lips every morning and I resolve to be at least one percent less a miserable bastard. Perhaps on a day noteworthy for its rosiness, I could even be open to the idea that my current state of affairs isn’t quite the perplexing disaster I masochistically dream it to be.

It is, like I say, a fine writing nook. And there’s work to be done. 

Rebalanced

After a three week sabbatical, the MoaT returns in triumphant technicolor, ie beige, pewter, and a host of other unfashionable hues.

I’d planned on taking a month break, but I’m feeling more or less back in the game, and a flattering number of readers have been asking if I’m ok.

Thank you, sincerely. Yes, I am ok. 

I’ve been reading, writing, and working through the final stages of grieving the loss of my weird and whacky rock and roll life, at least the version that saw me committing fashion faux pas on TV. 

I wrote on June 7th about a “nourishing melancholy,” and that’s where I currently sit. It’s really not so bad. I’m learning a lot. 

And I’ve quietly broken ground on a multi-album/EP project - Matt Musty from Train and Tyler Carroll of Allen Stone/Jonas Brothers fame have sent me their parts for the title track, and I’ll begin recording vocals and mixing here at my cozy home studio next week. More on all this soon.

So, yes, I am, as I hope you are, maintaining a tenuous grip on asthmatic sanity during an epically dismal, yet perplexingly mellifluous slog. 

Hang in there, everyone. 

Anchors

I wrote a beautiful song today. It’s lonely and dissonant and filled with nourishing melancholy. I can’t sing it, which is I suppose inconvenient, but that’s what friends are for. 

We are all so correctly and productively engrossed in what’s happening, and it’s important we remain so. But there is space for just us, too, if only for a few precious, anchoring breaths.

Why?

Drew Brees is not a bad guy. He apologized, and I believe his apology is sincere. But this is an opportunity for all of us to turn the microscope inward.

Drew Brees is a wealthy, white, male, conservative christian, who plays the most revered position in American sports, a combination that lends itself to deeply indoctrinated, atom bomb-strength whoopsie daisies.

Because of his circumstance, Drew Brees had a Manchurian Candidate moment where he, triggered by the word “protest” and the headline-grabbing unrest from which he is largely shielded, jumped to attention and regurgitated a cliché he was assured, once upon a time, was on-brand and ok. He is a public figure, coached to lean on soundbites, which is, at best, lazy, and at worst, well, now Drew knows.

Drew Brees is not a bad guy, and had he paused and actually thought things through, I doubt he would’ve said the same thing. But he did say it, and why he said it needs to be a reflection point for all of us.

However egregious or subtle, we all have programing that needs to be broken during this time. And we can all can pause and think, and ask ourselves “why?”

Stick With It

For those struggling or feeling uncomfortable with expressing themselves, stick with it. Alchemize the friction to create change.

Do not deny the realities of others to protect yourself. Perfection is not required, from you or from anyone - learn wherever possible from those who really know.

This Is Wonderful

YouTuber Zoe Amira has come up with a brilliant method of crowdfunding for people who want to financially contribute but are cash-strapped.

She’s posted an hour-long, ad-saturated video on her YouTube channel that includes contributions from a number of black creators. All advertising revenue will be donated to organizations dedicated to racial justice.

The weight of the world is heavy right now, and I’m grateful my readership’s comprised of people striving continuously to learn, improve, and connect. 

Perspective

I was made aware of my new favorite phrase today, “the ecstatic unfolding of the enraptured heart.” Just lovely beyond measure. 

And please consider reading this article by Denise Herd, Associate Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, and following the links she provides.