In Which I Shamelessly Plug My Friends

I spent yesterday recording with some friends of mine who comprise a band called Cliudan. They are of the Celtic genre, broadly speaking, and describe themselves as "driven progressive Celtic," which is a pretty good description once you've heard them, but probably doesn't mean much to those who haven't. Think traditionally-influenced melodies and the storytelling sensibility common to Celtic music, but with an earthy, percussion-driven intensity. Anyway, you should pop over and listen to them. Or you could wait until this album comes out next month and hear my small contribution, but why wait?

Recording is an interesting process of thinking you have everything all worked out, and then watching as things come together in quite a different way than you had planned. In this case, it was made more interesting by the fact that, although we have talked music a lot, we had never played together before, and two of them hadn't really ever heard me sing. How you get invited to sing on an album with people who have never heard you, I don't know, except that they must have taken me at my word that I can sing. I got to do one of my favorite things, which is figure out harmonies on the fly to songs I've never heard before. It all worked out shockingly well, and I ended up doing harmonies for four songs instead of the planned two. I can't wait to hear how it comes out.

All of this was helped considerably by having Glenn Forrester doing the recording and mixing. I guess I should wait and hear the final results before giving an unabashed plug, but he was pretty amazing to work with. I've worked with several sound engineers before, and none of them have had the ear that he does, or been so adept at making sure we have all the necessary tracks, done right, without over-managing the music or making everyone do eight gazillion takes.

So, this process has me thinking about those of us who are part-time artists of one sort or another, who squeeze our creating into the small spaces between "real life." I am fortunate to have a vocation that I also love, and that I would never give up for music, but I think most of us have fleeting thoughts of running off to devote ourselves to our art, and I was definitely in that zone yesterday.

I am not a poet. I write music, but that is not quite the same thing, and my brain is far too literal and linear to be truly poetic. But today, while searching for fodder for the wedding and vespers service I am doing this evening, I found this poem, which reminded me of daydreaming artists (and the potential pitfalls of being or working with one).

"To a Frustrated Poet" by R.J. Ellmann

This is to say

I know

You wish you were in the woods,

Living the poet life,

Not here at a formica topped table

In a meeting about perceived inequalities in the benefits and

allowances offered to employees of this college,

And I too wish you were in the woods,

Because it's no fun having a frustrated poet

In the Dept. of Human Resources, believe me.

In the poems of yours that I've read, you seem ever intelligent

and decent and patient in a way

Not evident to us in this office,

And so, knowing how poets can make a feast out of trouble,

Raising flowers in a bed of drunkenness, divorce, despair,

I give you this check representing two weeks' wages

And ask you to clean out your desk today

And go home

And write a poem

With a real frog in it

And plums from the refrigerator,

So sweet and so cold.