Adam Cole: Arfing Startist

This is a hard song to share for several reasons. It's about as unprotected and raw as I could make myself in a song. It's also so vulnerable that it verges on the silly. It walks the line between "truly sad" and "pitiful." It's the balancing act that I find interesting. In my mind it teeters again and again, but there's something true in the song that keeps it from toppling.

The title is a case in point. Most people don't associate Bruce Springsteen with tears. The association is extremely personal and might not even translate out. What I meant to indicate was that there was something vulnerable in the way he presented himself that was okay somehow, powerful and yet safe and acceptable. It was superior to the way I had been presenting myself as vulnerable, which left me very exposed and was unattractive. I was saying that I learned "how" to cry by watching and listening to him, that I found a safe way to cry by emulating him, but that it didn't answer the deeper question of [...]

Hi, AC Watchers, One of the great privileges remaining to us in this modern world is to watch unrepeatable events as they are happening. You can watch replays of amazing events all day long on YouTube, but to say you were there...

Last night I attended a unique event: A live CD recording by Joe Gransden's Big Band, a 16-piece jazz orchestra. It'll be called "It's a Beautiful Thing at Cafe 290." It'll be available at www.joegransden.com. You're going to want to buy this one.

For the last year Joe's been holding sway at Cafe 290 on the 1st and 3rd Monday of every month. He's been getting his group tight enough to pull this stunt off. Hard, you say? To record an album in a month is hard. To record an album in a night is suicide! You'd need the best recording engineer, the best sound guy, the best audience...oh, and you might need the best musicians in town. Well, let's see:

Among the saxophone players was Grammy Award Winning Mace Hibbard and Atlanta Legend Sam Skelton. Trombonists [...]

Dear friends,

Thanks to my summer and the cooperation of my lovely wife, I've had time to get to long-awaited projects. I've completed the editing on two new novels: my science-fiction nightmare, A Thousand Points of Darkness, which is almost ready for press; and my adult fantasy The Childbearer, sequel to The Myth of Magic, which I expect to be ready to go in about a year.

I'm also contemplating how to present Unplayable Upon the Harp, my music murder mystery. Most likely I'll let you read it in segments here on the site in advance of its publication. Please let me know your interest! I may even have a contest to see who can guess the ending!

Nice talking with you!

Love,

Adam

Hi, friends,

Tuesday night I attended a jazz jam session. I used to go all the time, but since I started school 7 years ago I've let my jazz activities slide. It's been years since I've jammed.

I chose the friendliest session in town, Joe Grandsen's Tuesday night session at Twain's. Joe's amazing. He makes everyone feel like they're the most important person in the room. On top of all that, he's a consummate musician and a virtuosic player.

That really helps, because jam sessions aren't easy things to go into. Typically you wait around, listening to other people play, never knowing when you're going to be called up. Once you get up there, if you're a piano player, you don't always know what you're going to play, because a lot of times the sax, trumpet or singer is choosing. If you're lucky, you get to play with other good players, but sometimes you wind up with folks that can't play, or don't play well with you. Worst case scenario, you'll spend three hours waiting to play five [...]

Cold Kind of Comfort

When I was a young man I used to write songs like these all the time as a way of dealing with my frustrations with certain women. Now that I'm married and never get frustrated anymore, I write songs like these for fun, just pretending that I'm frustrated. Yep.

I envisioned this as a guitar-song, but I don't play guitar well enough, and don't even own an electric. Surprisingly, the stride-piano thing actually worked. There's a rockabilly connection that seems implied. It really needs two vocalists, especially for the end of the song, but remember I did this with a cassette recorder. No overdubs. For the new version I added a flange/chorus in the voice which does add to the rock'n'roll feel a little.

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