I haven’t done much busking this summer, but I got out there today in Woodinville at their little Farmer’s Market and played for a few hours. It’s interesting because it’s such a different experience – tho’ less so at the start because I grabbed a few chairs at one end and pointed them at me and ended up with a real live audience for most of my first set, a few sitting, several standing to watch. But with no sound system and no mics and no cables, it’s a singularly raw experience – there’s nothin’ between you and them. And I sold a CD and a bunch of people took my miniflyers and I really need to put my actual concert dates on those things, don’t I? Damn, I need to get ahead of this curve!

Studio studio studio! It’s been another distracting week (particularly with power surges – it sounded like goddamn Old Star Trek in here during the last storm what with those rrRRRRvRRvvvRRvRRRR!! burning dynamo noises) but I have some more musics in the can, which is awesome.

There’s nothing new finished (sigh) but I’ve made some really good progress, particularly on “Shout at the Desert,” which I want to get on the website soon. It’s one of the songs from this past winter that I’ve moved forward onto Dick Tracy, mostly because, well, it’s kinda awesome. YEAH I SAID IT. I should just say “I’m really excited about it” or something but fuck that, it’s awesome, particularly when paired with “Stay Away,” which will also be on Dick Tracy.

I made room for these by deciding “Life in the Underground” really is an instrumental (it has lyrics, but fuck ’em, it’s better off without) and moved that and “The World Falls Down” (which was to be the second instrumental) onto Distractions, leaving Dick Tracy with just one, “Cascadia (How I Have Missed You).” The result will be a stronger and higher-energy album – “Life in the Underground” is kind of an old-school folk-dance tune with the slight rewrite I’ve given it since ditching the lyrics, but “The World Falls Down” is all introspective and contemplative, and thematically works but musically didn’t belong there, in the end.

I still like it, tho’, and you’ll still get it on Distractions. You can hear a little snippet of it that I stole for an extended outro on “Thought You Knew” – everything after the last line of lyric is borrowed and transposed from “The World Falls Down.”

Distractions is going to be more robust than I realised, I think. Originally it was gonna be pretty short, a real side-project kind of thing, but at this point… it’s getting kind of long. That’s not a bad thing.

NEXT CONCERT: June 1st, in Renton! See you at Renton Farmer’s Market at the Piazza for opening day! I don’t know what the stage is like but they have a PA for it. Stage time 5:30pm.