Nell James, etc.

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Whew. I just ordered a Boss GT-8 Multi-effects processor! A chunk of it was paid for by profits from CD sales of “Tempus”. My music is starting to pay for my music! Yay! I’ve never had any really decent guitar effects pedals, so this is long overdue and much-needed.

I’ve been planning to get this particular pedal for a long time, but I always stall big purchases like this because, well, it’s a big purchase and I like to let the idea sit and stew. But I’ve had a pretty uninspired day, and haven’t gotten much done, and felt the need to really do something, so I just went for it. Ordering things over the Internet really is different from a store purchase - the latter being more difficult to go through with.

Due in a few days, the newest addition to the bedroom studio and hopefully a source of new sounds and inspiration:

I’ve had “Going Mobile” by the Who stuck in my head for pretty much all of today. I’m at the beginning of what may become a serious Who phase. (This was partly triggered by a very interesting VH1 Classic documentary about the making of “Who’s Next”, among other things.) I’ve always been really drawn to their music but haven’t seriously dug into it yet.

My walls need something new, and this poster is very tempting. I don’t really endorse the whole guitar destruction thing, but it’s a great photo and would probably stand up to long-term display. I keep thinking of how the Lips played with Pete Townshend on his girlfriend’s ‘net show the day before I saw them last month (it feels like much longer ago), and Steven made him play a crappy half-broken synth guitar. I remember Steven holding this synth thing and telling me “Pete Townshend played this”, and me thinking - why would Pete Townshend play that? Oh, because Steven took the nice guitar. Yeesh!

I’ve not been keeping this blog up-to-date at all. There have been a few great events recently, primarily Prog in the Park at the beginning of the month and a recent trip to the symphony in NYC. I’ll write about those retrospectively at another time.

I’ve just received a very satisfying review for “Tempus” from one of the biggest progressive rock websites on the Internet, Sea of Tranquility! It’s also featured as CD of the day on their front page. Read it here. The reviewer Pete Pardo really seems to have understood what I was going for. I like this line:

“Rarely do you come across an album that is so brimming with sincerity, so honest, and so heartwarming, as she has put together here.”

By the way, I’ve made the title track “Tempus” available for free download (look to your upper left).

I was just in New York City seeing the Flaming Lips for their two days at Hammerstein Ballroom. And by “seeing”, I mean seeing (hours and hours of sitting around, putting batteries in lasers, etc). I’m going to post some photos and anecdotes on my Drozd fan site very soon. Here’s a little window into the experience:

And here’s my all-time favorite photo that I’ve ever taken, though I had to resize it:

I finally fulfilled my long-time goal of being an onstage dancer with the Lips: on Monday my sister and I were the grooviest Santa Clauses you’ve ever seen (or not seen - we were in the back of the bunch). I made it my business to rock the house.

I didn’t get the interview with Steven because my audio recorder spontaneously combusted on the spot (well, it broke, anyway - I had an incredible streak of bad luck all that day). However, he is going to answer my questions via email, so it should happen at some point.

I will be spending tomorrow and Monday in New York City, seeing the Flaming Lips at the Hammerstein Ballroom. I’m going to get Stevie D to do an interview with me for my Steven Drozd Appreciation Club. I’ve also just added an automated member-joining system to the site, and a mailing list for announcements relating to the club.

I confess I’m addicted to Last.fm. (I’ve been scrobbling King Crimson’s “Discipline”.) I recommend it to anyone who’s into recommending things to other people, or discovering new music from other people, and meeting people with similar taste. I’m especially glad I joined because I’ve met some interesting new friends there, including Dominik Müller, a fellow teenage prog musician who records by himself (and is very good). Better yet, he’s German. I will be writing more about his work in a future entry.

On Thursday I had my first violin lesson, which went well. Yup, I’m taking up another instrument! Right now I’m renting a cheap violin through October. If I’m still into it by the end of the month I’m going to buy a vintage violin and become the next Ray Shulman / Stephane Grappelli / Allen Sloan. (Just kidding.)

My songs “Hunger to Know” and “Tempus” are featured on episode #157 of the Internet radio show BZT Weekly with Jeff and Jenny. They say lots of nice things about me; thanks guys! (Can I quote you?) And thanks to Jeff for wedging Gentle Giant’s “Just the Same” in between my songs. It’s an honor to hear those finger snaps cross-faded over my own organ fade In addition to that, on Thursday my cover of “South Side of the Sky” made an appearance on the Delicious Agony online radio show of the same name (the show is all Yes-related music). Thanks to DJ Don Cassidy.

I’ve actually been taking a little bit of action with promoting my music online over the last couple weeks. I’m sending CDs to progressive rock review websites (including sites in Germany and the Netherlands) and other online radio stations, so hopefully I’ll have more appearances to report soon.

If by any crazy chance you run a review site or radio station and would like a promo copy, send a request to nell@nellmedia.com.

For those of you unfamiliar with Gentle Giant, they are a “musician’s musician” band from the 1970s who were far more innovative and brilliant than they’ve gotten mainstream credit for. I have this (almost certainly wrong) theory that, assuming the human race is still around, GG’s output will be rediscovered a hundred years from now and a whole genre of new music will spring up from it, and this will become the generally accepted standard (the “new” rock music, if you will). They are just too good for the world right now.

Gentle Giant: Christianity took a while to catch on, so why not them? (P.S. I’m joking. Sort of.)

Moving on to the reason for this post, today is the 12th anniversary of what is the best fan resource that I’ve seen for any band, Dan Barrett’s Gentle Giant Home Page. Beloved by the musicians, composers and highly attentive listeners that are Giant’s cult fanbase, its been around almost as long as the Internet has, and the site can currently claim “over 360 pages comprising over 1600 files” of Giant-related goodness, offering nearly all the information, trivia, interviews, fan nostalgia, photos, etc there is to find online.

As a GG fan who was born long after the band split up (and never reunited - just one more thing that sets them apart from their contemporaries) and therefore never got to see them live or watch their career unfold, I am particularly grateful for a resource like this. This site has allowed and encouraged me to become much more informed about and connected to my favorite band, and to better understand (and be inspired by) their music and where it came from. I know this is true for many other new fans, as well as old fans from the ’70s.

If it sounds like I’m being over-the-top, realize that Gentle Giant was always relatively obscure and is currently totally inactive, so this website has long been the sole source of in-depth information for anyone who doesn’t have a GG-knowledgable friend. (And boy are those rare.)

In summation: thanks, Dan!!

* * *

For an example of the kind of gold one digs for at the Gentle Giant Homepage (I’m partly kidding - it’s most useful as a reference for information, not just nostalgia), I offer the following anecdote, edited for length, from the “Concert memories” page. Gary Fisher wrote:

“Gentle Giant was headlining and the crowd was rocking. At one point Ray stopped during a violin solo (I think it was during Plain Truth), and some guy up front screamed. Ray put down the violin and screamed back at him. Then the whole crowd and Ray started a screaming back at each other before he cranked out the rest of the solo. Needless to say the ovation was long and well-deserved for that number.

Soon after (Fall 1975 or Winter 1976), Gentle Giant was booked in Buffalo…I was on the edge of my seat when Ray started the same violin solo that I had just seen in NYC, and when the pause came I jumped up and screamed — all by myself in a nearly silent music hall. Ray looked at me and screamed back. Then the two rows of us stood and screamed as one unit back and forth with Ray. We were jumping and jiving and dancing and didn’t sit down until the next song started.”

I’ll leave you with that image.

My album “Tempus” has just been reviewed by Harp Magazine, a major music journal! (Available at news stands everywhere - or at least Borders, Barnes & Noble, Tower, etc). Read the review online here. I don’t entirely agree with everything it says (new agey? Suzanne Vega-ey? And Gentle Giant was certainly more scholarly than sci-fi - their lyrics were inspired by Camus, not Kirk!) but it’s generally quite positive.

The print version features a big quarter-page picture of yours truly. Here’s a photo of the article in context:

That’s me in the upper left, emerging from the darkness with Gibson in hand.

I’ve added two new song downloads, “Choosing” and “Patchwork”, to the nelljames.com music page. This is my first finished material after Tempus (outside of digital instrumentals). The songs might appear on my next album, possibly re-recorded, but I wanted to get them out while they were still fresh. They are part of a batch of songs I started working on in July.

Also available for download are digital instrumentals which I created in Reason. They’re sort of like my imaginary jazzy prog rock score for a children’s computer game.

These are all in my yard and on my street.