A Dreamy Recap of My Piano's "Last Stand"

I wanted to make a bad ass music video for my song "The Vulture." In order to match the song's theme of death, I planned on burning my big old piano for the main visual of the video. I was ready to say goodbye to this instrument even though I had spent the better part of my childhood sitting in front of those keys learning to make the sounds I wanted to hear. However, as all the pieces started to come together and the burn seemed imminent, the piano fought back and it's last stand turned out to be anything but a finale.

I could bore you with the details, but I think you better just watch this dreamy video that I put together of the piano's transformation and you can just wish you had been there to witness the magic. To all those that were there, from "Ruth who played here", to Jon who pulled off the unthinkable at the end of the event, and all the musicians and Pig Folkers in between, your energy has been soaked into the piano and I'm happy to have shared my most treasured possession with all of you.

The Vulture: Writing about Songwriting

I was recently asked about how I write songs. I want to answer the question because I think that the story of the songs might help me and therefore might help others.

"The Vulture" started out because I wanted to write a song like I had heard my idols sing. The rockstars I idolized were bad boys who abused themselves with hard lifestyles. Jim Morrison being the key figure.  Robert Plant a close second. These guys have a few songs with lyrics that ask the listener to go somewhere, to leave and to leave with them as the leaders. Nora Jones also sang a song called "Come away with me." Where am I going, I wondered.  If I'm going with someone I idolize,  Do I need to know?

To get inspired I thought about the last conversation a man might have while dying alone.  If a man was alone when he died who would his last conversation be with? I imagined it would be with a vulture who was about to eat him!

What would they talk about? The vulture would try to convince him to just give in so it would be easier to gnaw on his organs. The man would try to bargain with the bird to get one last dying wish.

Nora Jones's song "Come away with me" was a good starting point, but I wanted a darker sound so I used a different Nora song as my starting point for the music. I was also inspired by Jethro Tull's "Locomotive Breath" for the lyric about the steam of a locomotive.

The song evolved on the piano but became a different monster on the keyboard because I could not control the dynamics as fluidly as I could on the piano.  The ending had to have a much different feel than the beginning but I had to get inventive on the keyboard to make that happen. I went back to the original genesis of the chords in Malfunktion on my Triangular Conception album Concrete Windows in order to understand how to get insane on the keyboard.

That lead to this current version which is not flawless, but my getting close to where I would like it to be! I hope you like it. Feedback appreciated as you see it is an evolving beast.