A solo gig at Arlene’s Grocery on Thursday, July 29th!

Join me as I take a break from recording my next album to test out some of the new material live. It’s also the live debut of the new bass player, Shane! And it’s a week before my birthday! So c’mon down to get the fuck down!

Set time is at 8PM

Cover is $8

Arlene’s Grocery is at 95 Stanton St. New York, NY

The only thing that I “wrote” are the main melodic line and the simple thumping rhythm that make up the core of the song – Joe Renaud added his spice to the rhythm while keeping the simple pulsation cemented. We would play off of each other for the dynamics and the changes, and we would get fed the rest of the song from the audience at shows.

Hopefully, if you came to a show in 2008, you remember the song (for it had no name at the time). I’d start by asking the audience to think of one word or concept, and then tap into the collectively focused energy of the room and channel the lyrics and song structure from there. For me it was a public marriage of my spirit and music connections – and I’d like to think that for you it was, at the very least, moving.

In short, people loved it – and when it came time to record a demo of new songs last year, I really wanted to record this one. Capturing the same feel and intensity of a life improvisation, let alone one that was channeled through the audience’s energy, was a challenge to put together- and when the time came I just had to say “fuck it, it’s a demo”.

Well I think we fucking nailed it. And when I say we, I truly mean the big whole fat mass of collective “WE” (that includes you bucko). I’m just your medium on this one. It’s simple, haunting and beautiful.

If you came to a show in 2008, you wrote this with me. Your thoughts, energy, and feelings are in it. And for that I thank you. And, no, it doesn’t mean you’re getting any of the royalties so suck it.

Thanks again, and I’m looking forward to collaborating more with ya. Make sure to go to the music page to stream or download Conversations With A Knife, or just right click here and save it to your computer.

And better yet, you don’t even have to pretend to be friends with Microsoft to do so. Just go to my brand spanking new music page by clicking here. Find Kingdoms under the Downloads section, right-click and save it to your computer.

I’ll be putting out songs from this session over the next few weeks – so I’ll check in on you soon to make sure you’re listening and showering and brushing your tooth – yeah, I like to think my fans have one tooth they brush over and over again until it’s got more shine than a blood diamond.

see ya soon

-pheroze

Friends-

For this week only I have a BRAND NEW SONG available for download. From my demo recording session in the summer of ’09, my song Kingdoms is available for download at http://www.reverbnation.com/playlist7 – Click on Current Contenders and you’ll find my song. Go now, right now, and download it! Please pass this on to your friends, tweet it, post it, write it with permanent marker on your breasts, whatever ya gotta do  – but SPREAD THE WORD!

Again, this is available for this week only courtesy of Reverb Nation and Windows 7. So download away!

Kingdoms is a rocking tune – consider it my ode to vintage rock – this is the demo version, so think of it as a teaser for the final version. The esteemed Mr. Joe Renaud is on Drums and the fragrant Mr. Joe Pepitone is on bass. The flavorful Mr. Clay Holley tracked and mixed this one in a super short amount of time.

Again, please pass this along to whoever you know. I will likely be very annoying about downloading this week.

With love

-pheroze

And by “bitches” I mean Microsoft. Remember when I wrote that Microsoft had selected my groovy track “Lorelei” to be part of a campaign centered on indie music and their Zune-pod?

Well, the campaign is over and “Lorelei” went all Hulk and SMASHED expectations. Reverb Nation and Microsoft had set a number of downloads they expected “Lorelei” to hit – well “Lorelei” did EIGHT TIMES that amount. Yeah, 8X that amount. Follow the eight-fold path bitches. If they gave me $5 for each download I could retire comfortably for a month. But they didn’t, it’s a flat fee. They gave me enough to update to Windows 7 or get the new Halo game.They’re cheap, but I love them now. No, you can’t borrow money.

Thank you for downloading! And thank you for the support! And thank you for being a friend! You’re the best Golden Girls ever!

More free music coming later this week, and more NEW music coming soon.

Friends,
No need to flog me. I’ve self-flagellated enough already. I’ve been away as other parts of my existence have become a little more time consuming.

On the plus side, my nourishing typing now features Alpha hydroxy and extra-enriched moisturizers clinically proven for very dry, flaky minds. Keep reading my blog and, in time, your minds will be more moist than Miss Piggy’s snout after a swamp tussle with Kermit.

Why the internet was made

Beyond keeping grub on the table I’ve been writing MUSIC. Much music. I aim to have a follow up to Driftwood released in 2010.I’ll be putting some demo tracks from the upcoming album up here for free download soon – very soon. Stay tuned!

I’ll put some more lotion on y’all soon loves. In the meantime, I implore you to work those rough elbows with the little droplets that come from following me on Twitter. (www.twitter.com/pheroze).

-pheroze

Well folks- on the eve of my going into a studio to lay down some demos of songs for my next album, I get the news that one of my songs has been selected by Microsoft to be offered as a free download for a campaign they are running for Microsoft Windows Sponsored Songs.

What song was picked? Well none other than my lovely ditty “Lorelei” – a song that was about 7 years too late to make it into consideration for Gilmour Girls theme music. And for that I am thankful. Yet tearful.

So here’s the deal – I must make it clear that Microsoft is not sponsoring me as an artist. They just dig that tune and want to give it to you for free. And they are not making me fetch coffee for them or  rub the boils on their feet or even make claims like “Ballmer pwnz ur ass.” Peter Moore did call and say he would have gotten my name tattooed on his bicep if he still worked there. Then he snorted and cackled and made my phone disappear into a puff of smoke.

Well, the song is FREE. So go download it by clicking here:

Even if you already have the song- be awesome and download it again. Even Clippy concurs.

What is Best in Life? Downloading Lorelei!

Unless I get gored during the week by a runaway wildebeest- I’ll be playing this Sunday on June 21st at 7PM at Otto’s Shrunken Head in Manhattan. Come on down for, much like that wildebeest, it’s free! Unless it gets abducted by an alien and becomes a prime representative of our species for exploratory dissection. Thanks wildebeest! Details on the show can be found on my Tour page.

This show will also mark the first live show I’ve played with a bass player in the fold! Please welcome Joe “Joey Baby” Pepitone to the fold. He’ll be holding down the low end and I’m very excited to have him on board.

In two weeks I enter the studio to start demoing songs for my next album. The new songs are coming out great and I look forward to sharing some early recordings with you soon! This time I’ll even remove my bodily fluids from them. If you want a sneak peek soon, then come to the Otto’s show – where we’ll be unveiling at least 5 new songs. Who knows, Fred Hardcastle might even show up.

Joe Renaud, Joey Pepitone and I have been polishing these new songs up – and I think you’re in for a treat. So go to the fridge and make yourself a brownie sandwich or fried cat salad,

mmmm..... Cat Salad

then put on your reading glasses and peep these new song titles:

Show Me Tomorrow

Conversations with a Knife

The Stolen

Old Sad Laughter

Kingdoms

Wreckage of Liars

Caught in the Wheel

They’re so awesome I italicized them.

More soon, things are in the works.

I am a huge Chris Cornell fan. I could wax poetic about Soundgarden and his other various project’s meanings to me for eons. I was looking forward to picking up his new album Scream and, in my usual fashion with things I anxiously await, I avoided listening to singles or reading anything about it for the past year. I like to pick up an album and let it speak for itself with no preconceptions. But I couldn’t wait on this one. When I heard that the entire album was streaming on his MySpace page, I decided to check it out.

Well, I just listened to it 4 times in a row. And I wanted to “scream” my feelings from rooftops (haha. Puns are lame.). But instead, I’ve decided to delve into the ancient prophetic and phonetic art of Mad Libs. Bless the Mad Libs gods for so precisely and poetically spelling out my feelings on Scream:

-

The Wandering Woolly Mammoth

Many, many years ago there lived a woolly mammoth named Chris Cornell. This woolly mammoth was not like the other mammoths. He didn’t want to hunt great music. Even though he had a really seeping, pulverizing coat of hair, he hated the cold. He dreamed of living in warmer places.

One day, his dream came true. He thought he took a short winter’s nap, but when he awoke, almost all the ice around him was gone, and he was surrounded by grass and word holes. He had hibernated for 72000 years!

Chris Cornell decided to go explore his new neighborhood. Where his cave used to be, now there was a caveman era-story building with lyrically malignant windows and auto tuned doors!

He tried to get inside, but the doorman wouldn’t let him in, saying, “No Timbalands allowed!”

He didn’t know what Timbalands were, but he knew he was afraid of them.

Feeling a bit confused, he wandered around until he saw a sign that said “Zoo.” It smelled like his friends, so he decided to musically demolish himself in. He found a section called Britney Spears, and they seemed to be very friendly animals, so he made himself right at home. The zookeepers discovered him, and they were happy to see him. They brought him big buckets of vocal evisceration, ear rape, and brain sodomizers. He finally felt at home!

-

The Mad Libs gods are never wrong. They speak the truth of my disappointment.

I’m sitting here looking over notes and trying to piece together a new album – a process that I have always believed suffers in presence of a formula and thrives in chaos. Fuck the music as math credos – I want music as chaos. Organized chaos.

Maybe I need to take that notion back and reconsider my song writing stance as, over the years, I’ve found my own brand of chaos that works well for me. Part of which involves looking back over random hummings and strummings that have ingrained themselves over the past year in my phone’s voice recorder. And part of which involves looking back over scrawled scratches in the little bright orange notebook that accompanies me everywhere. And part of which involves picking up a guitar and observing where my fingers naturally fall and pushing them to go other places. And part of which involves euphoria and depression. And part of which involves stepping away from it so I can come back clearer and virginal to the songs. And part of which involves obsessing over one small melody to the point of insomnia. And part of which involves waking up at 3AM from deep sleep because some song, lyric, or image is haunting me and I have to get it out of my head. And part of which recently  involves trying to clear the fatigue, brain fog, and sometimes debilitating pain I’ve been feeling for the past four months so that I can actually concentrate on this shit.

Wiglet Can't Write Songs

So maybe there is a formula to it all. Maybe I should have paid more attention in the Music Theory classes I took high school and college that are all a blur to me these days. Classes I took because I thought you needed to learn this stuff in order to write decent music. And because I didn’t want to take math classes. Classes where I learned valuable stuff like you can’t have parallel fifths or octaves and that you should avoid large intervals. True, the large intervals rule has come in handy when crossing the street, but the rest has had no transference in my music career.

I’m not anti music theory. Learning theory in any aspect helps as a communication tool and a way to process information; especially valuable in major composition or learning other’s music.

I’m anti music formula. Formula can take the form of theory dictating composition, or habit dictating composition. Whether it’s a music theory expert that writes formulaic music or a chaos driven song writer who stylistically writes the same chords and lyrics over and over again – that shit gets boring!

At least it gets boring to me.

So as I sit down and look at a list I made of 15 partially written potentials for my next album (right now given descriptive titles such as “Disco-ish Bluesy Song” and “Runny Arpeggio Song”) maybe I’ll start sharing some thought process along the way with things that help me get out of my song writing habits and explore music creative process. Not song writing lessons, those are dumb. But explorations of things in my music tool bag. Maybe. I don’t know. If time allows.

By the way, who the fuck actually takes classes in song writing? Seriously, what the fuck? I mean I see the merit in learning some tips on creative process, but classes? That’s up there with “Social Media Experts” and “Penis Pumps” for things meant to suck money out of you based on the somewhat valid premise that people are idiots.

Ok, enough ranting. Time to get back to songs.