Davey

mixed bag

In all honesty, I have been quietly considering stopping this blog.

Not because I didn’t have anything worth talking about, but because everything I’ve been doing has been sort of… mechanical. Not mechanical in the sense that it’s emotionless or straightforward, but I’ve literally just been doing the “work” part of my art for a while.

I have been creating… so, it’s not that.

I’ve been recording songs with my band for months at this point. This is where all the creativity becomes tangible, and as much as it IS creative work, it’s also a realization of things we’ve already created. It’s a difficult thing to blog about because the process takes some real time to accomplish.

It’s a mechanical process in a lot of ways.

I’ve also been writing quite a bit. Also a difficult thing to specifically talk about for a big pile of reasons without sharing what I’ve been writing. I suppose I’m not averse to that, but it would lack context at this point.

I’ve been learning how to create guitar pedals.

Again… a difficult thing to talk about directly without getting into the weeds. It inspires creativity, but is very mechanical in it’s execution. If one is proverbially supposed to walk before they metaphorically run, then I am figuratively crawling right now.

I’m training, but not for any particular event.

It’s hard to discuss training for an event that doesn’t exist just yet. I’ve got my eye on a race or two that I’d like to run, but it’s difficult to know if I’ll be able to participate before knowing what my performance schedule for the summer is. Though… I’m sure to do some fitness blogging soon.

So; that, too, is a bit mechanical.

And then spiritually…

Well, I won’t say I’m at a stand-still spiritually… but this time of year, by spirituality is strained because I live in Canada and my spiritual connection to nature is on an extended pause.

HOWEVER… I have been on a bit of a journey of self discovery that includes seeking out some professional help in assessing my modus operandi and what makes me tick; upstairs, and it’s been a wild ride so far. I’m not sure how it relates to me on a spiritual level other than the fact that I am a spiritual person who’s going through some stuff… but I guess we’ll see! It’s been really insightful and special, but there have been some definite times of absolute suckdom, if I may be so bold as to invent a word for it.

Again… not something I can really dig into until I have a formal diagnosis but I’ve certainly been challenged, and overwhelmed, and enlightened, and I’m certain that there is some meaningful writing coming around the bend.

So please stay with me as I gradually get to a place where I can be more open about what’s been happening… because it’s a lot.

full plate

This is a time of year I have a lot on the go.

With the turning of the year behind us comes doctor’s appointments and dentist appointments… then there’s festival booking schedules, photo shoots, the planning of a release party for a new album, and the time and money spent making that album become a physical product… it’s also a rather busy time at work gearing up for the fiscal year end, which is a significant part of my day-job and involves some travel. I’m also anticipating some life changes for some people in my family, including my daughter who becomes a legal adult and has just been accepted to the University of her choice.

It’s also Valentine’s Day today… but I won’t dig too far into that.

I’m also still recording. We don’t talk about it widely because it’s such a long process, but as we Confusionaires prepare to release an album this year, we’re also embarking on recording an album to be released next year… or whenever it suits us, really. We’d really like to have one in the chamber ready to release if and when the time is right. If this year’s album creates a lot of attention for us, we want to be ready to follow it up and would really rather that unpreparedness not be a factor.

It’s important to handle the self care in the midst of it all though.

It’s a hard time of year for those of us who have mental health difficulties, so as a baseline there’s a daily regimen of physical activity, nutrient-dense diet, and a decent amount of sleep; decent sleep being the hardest of the trifecta to implement.

And as much as life is happening and things are moving forward in all aspects, I still feel like I’m waiting for the finish line to come to ME in some ways. Anticipating a referral call… Anticipating appointments… anticipating deliveries…

To say I feel helpless would be a BIG stretch… as big as the stretch my great dane gives up when he climbs off the couch after a day of snoozing… but patience is certainly a virtue that is escaping me at the moment.

I’ll be okay.
I always am.

Oh, and uhh… Happy Valentine’s Day.
It’s not every day that we get wrapped up in the sentimental nature of a holiday invented by retail companies. Try and enjoy it!

milestones

I’ve been dancing around talking about this because the process is so long, and occasionally painstaking, but my rock & roll band has completed another record. It’s bittersweet in a number of different ways…

It’s a pleasure to have completed what we set out to do, and the record sounds absolutely massive. It’s a relentless rock & roll record, to be pressed on 10-inch vinyl with 7 songs on it. The artwork is a fantastic contribution from a friend and favored artist. Everything about it is exciting.

However… now that the work is done… the work begins.

It’s not enough to make a record, and it’s not enough to have it mixed and mastered, and it’s not enough to have killer artwork.

We have to go cram it down everyone’s throats for the coming year or so.
We’re put thousands of kilometers on our tour vehicle, to play dozens of shows all over Western Canada. Digital uploads to streaming services, piles upon piles of gas receipts, burger joint stops, disposable coffee cups… merch booth set-ups… drunk patrons… amazing fans… playing shows with amazing bands… in amazing venues… all in hopes that we’ll run out of our brand new product as fast as possible.

It’s all coming at us quickly and we’re excited to share what we’ve done – so sometimes it’s hard to just stop and enjoy the moment of completion…

But I think we have to take those moments.
This rock & roll thing is really fun and as difficult as it can be to get our thing done the way we like it to be… it’s super fun and I am honoured to be able to do it with THESE guys.

There will be more shows.
There will be more songs.
There will be more records.

No reason not to stop and relish in the accomplishments when the opportunity to do so arises.

outlets

I’ve recently taken on a new project, and a direction of learning I’ve never spent any time with before. It’s a wild trip, if I’m being honest. I purchased an online course during boxing week and it’s likely the closest thing to a New Year’s Resolution I’ve ever done… though the timing is somewhat coincidental.

I’ve decided to dig in on Brian Wampler’s guitar pedal building course, which is a very thorough and fairly in-depth way of learning all the ins & outs (HA!) of guitar pedal building.

I’ve long been frustrated with the availability of things I need in order to accomplish what I want to accomplish as a performer. I have a number of great pieces of equipment I’ve acquired over the years but there is a piece of the guitar effects market that; I feel, anyway, is largely ignored. I can’t be certain that there’s a market for what I’m hoping to accomplish once I attain the knowledge I’m setting out to find, but it’s quite possible that there is. I’m hesitant to get into what that is in the event that this does turn into some measure of side-hustle but there are some things I know about myself that are definitely helpful here:

I am really good at playing guitar
I am really good at getting sounds I am happy with
I have an intense level of focus
I have an artistic vision

But… if all I end up doing is building things for myself then I honestly think I’ll be happy with that… but you never know how things will go until they go. Anyway, it’s very exciting and extremely nerdy and I’m happy to have this new direction of learning.

If you tuned in to this blog from some spiritually-driven snack, and feel like you’ve been denied that, don’t worry… I’m not done yet.

It might sound a little bonkers, but this is truly something that aligns with me spiritually and is truly helping me navigate the prairie winter months. When I am immersed in this, it can only happen in real time… it’s an incredible experience where I am not thinking about food, or work, or anything except for what’s in front of me. It’s an incredibly meditative (active meditation, obviously) and grounding (HA!) experience that seems to tie me to the present moment in a special way.

Sure, I have other things in my life that offer that level of detachment from the world around me, but the way my brain seems to thrive is to have a few options to alternate through – songwriting and composition, recording, performing, my vintage automotive pursuits, and now this new exercise – all provide me with a break from my distractions and put me into a moment where I can completely lose track of time and just create.

It’s thrilling.

refinement

The holidays in the rear view, the statistically-speaking saddest week of the year is behind me, and yes; even the contingent of people who made New Years’ resolutions to go to the gym and stare at their phones while obstructing equipment have started to thin-out as the temperatures get colder here in Alberta’s capital city. You may not be experiencing that 3rd event just yet, but it’s fair to say there weren’t that many people who resolved to go to the gym in the early morning hours as there were who resolved to go after work.

I’ve been feeling like it’s time to refine things a bit – to add structure.
Lofty goals require lofty means.

I’m currently on the treadmill between 45 and 60 minutes 3 days a week, on a stationary bike for 30 minutes 3 days a week, and lifting weights 2 days a week (“a push day” and a “pull day”) and before you tell me that’s 8 days per week, a workout is 2 hours.

For those who care, the new target is 45-60 minutes of cardio, and 2 sets (to failure) of 5 exercises, 5 days a week.

I’m also compelled to refine my art life. Specifically songwriting.

One of the things I like to do while I’m on the treadmill is listen to an album front-to-back that I am either (a) no very familiar with, or (b) a total stranger to… and in so doing, I’ve learned that not all music is treadmill music… but I’ve ALSO come to critique and scrutinize my own methods of making songs by way of hearing elements of songs that make me think “I wish I was doing that!”

Now, I don’t wish to change what I’m doing from the ground up, but there are elements of songs that I’ve come across from the twangiest bluegrass, to the durgiest synth music, to the heaviest metal that can sometimes be the difference between a good song and a great song – in any genre. I don’t want to spill the guts any more than that, other than to say that the greatest bands take on a life of their own at a certain point, and they become bigger and better than the sum of their parts.

I believe my band has already don this, but there are still ways to hone and shape what we’re doing to take it somewhere new… because another thing that great bands do is transcend their own genres… because a genre is just a box, and once you figure out how to break out of that box without compromising your own values, that’s when it gets really wild.

That’s where I’m going.

ability

It’s funny… as soon as I post a word salad about listening to music while on the treadmill, I start listening to podcasts and audiobooks again. I guess there’s no wrong way to do that (other than to not do it, of course). Anyway – in that auditory word exploration, specifically by way of the podcast “Ologies” and even more specifically by way of a couple specific episodes of that podcast, I’m finding that I may have some specific… modus operandi, we’ll say.

I’m going to proceed to dance around what that is and what it means from here on, because I have not had a formal diagnosis of any kind, though I am thinking I may pursue one.

A formal diagnosis could provide explanation for my food addiction compulsions, the way I think and act, and why I’ve had such trouble being understood throughout my early life. If I were to confirm what’s up (note: I’m avoiding saying there’s something wrong with me) then I may also receive some validation for some of the coping mechanisms I’ve implemented in my life. It should also explain the folks I keep around me (by this point, if you have what I think I have then please don’t spoil the ending for the rest of the class)

This is coming at a time when I’ve actually been wondering what to do with this blog… whether I should shut it down or not. I don’t know how anyone else who regularly reads this (though there are a bunch of you and I am grateful for that!) might feel about it, but it’s felt a bit rudderless to me lately. I enjoy doing it, so I persist, but going back to the beginning I was primarily documenting triathlon training, going vegan, and a great number of spiritual conquests surrounding addiction and my relationship with environment.

I take that stuff with me everywhere I go, but I’m not actively training to compete, and I’m not going to stop being vegan. So I talk about the art life. I love the art life… but it’s subjective. I’m reluctant to talk about the process of recording music because it’s such a long process that context is hard to give unless I start blogging daily (pfft no) and continuing a longer story. I don’t want to do that.

So I’m excited about this nugget of self discovery that may lead to a new line of narration here.

I guess we’ll see what shakes out.

performance enhancing

I don’t write these every Saturday morning. I don’t think I’ve ever written one of these on a Saturday morning, actually. As I write this particular post, I’m sitting in my home office, listening to Art Blakey and drinking my third cup of coffee for the day.

What am I doing as you READ this? I’m in Grande Prairie, Alberta on the morning of a 2-day stint at The Great Northern Casino, playing guitar for an award-winning Elvis tribute show. As this is being posted, I’m preparing to make my way to a local tattoo studio to hang out with a friend who’s in-turn going to cause me pain for a few hours. There’s a vegan bakery / breakfast spot across the street from the studio. Should be a nice lil’ Saturday.

Anyway… following a conversation with a biohacker earlier this year, I decided to rekindle my coffee addiction. Caffeine provides more benefit than detriment – a piece of trivia I have always known, but never thought about in such terms. Caffeine is a performance enhancing drug that is zero-calorie in it’s purest form (which I sully with a carefully measured 1/4 cup of oat milk as of late), and it’s side effects include suppressing hunger, and life longevity. It’s also delicious and makes my house smell fantastic.

Historically, I’ve been a podcast and audiobook guy in my gym-related efforts, but I’ve decided to embrace music streaming, which is something I’m ultimately pretty new to, honestly. I’ve always been a fan of physical formats – vinyl records, especially – but have officially joined the 21st century, and if anything it’s helped me to be more intentional with my record collecting. But on the treadmill, it’s been a game changer.

My favorite maneuver right now is find a record I’m unfamiliar with, or have never heard… or at least haven’t heard in a long time… and get on the treadmill and listen to it front-to-back. There are some things I’ve found that are good, but maybe not good for the treadmill, some things that are good specifically for the treadmill, and some garbage. What’s interesting is how my performance on the treadmill varies.

What should shock nobody is that Rock & Roll is a performance enhancing drug.

Previously, I’d decided for myself that to zone out to music while doing physically demanding things was somehow not ‘living in the moment‘ and while I’m sure that’s still the case, I suppose I’ve concluded that not every experience needs to be meditative. I still prioritize momentary living as best I can, however I do need to acknowledge that I also believe that to entertain people is a noble pursuit, and one that I actively take part in as often as I sensibly can – so allowing someone to entertain ME while I do hard things can’t be as bad as I’d previously thought.

Maybe I’m evolving in my thoughts on this.
Maybe I’m devolving.
Maybe it doesn’t matter.

If I was talking to someone else besides myself right now, I’d tell then to listen to whatever helps them to move their bodies… whatever enriches their lives… and whatever speaks to them.

And right now, rock & roll is speaking to me.
Rock & roll is always speaking to me.