dear reader,

that’s right; it’s me. i’ve missed you all. i decided some weeks ago to return to blogging here with a vengeance, but now it’s happening and i couldn’t be happier.

actually, i could be somewhat happier. the occasion of my first post in over two months is not, truly, something about which i’m particularly excited. owing to some not entirely unforeseen but certainly uncontrollable externals, joe and i will be departing shortly from nj to play a c. lunchtime show in pgh, and returning shortly thereafter to nj. (go ahead, check the time. i’ll be back here by 9 tonight.)

so… though i am sadly without brilliance or insight at this hour, you can look forward to blogs and tweets throughout the day that will no doubt keep you informed of our progress in an entertaining way.

ps. did you like “in the impossible tension?”

ok. i don’t really blog too much these days. i know.

nevertheless, i need to briefly weigh in on this iphone/touch/noise.io thing. we’ve been seeing it show up quite a bit on some pretty tech-y sites (engadget and synthtopia, for two), and we here at good night, states, are getting that the gadget-and-synth-savvy world gets this.

i’m quite flattered by the attention, but make no mistake: i didn’t program these sounds for synthheads (though i probably qualify for that label myself). dear reader, you who claim to play no instrument, who do not own your very own modular synthesizer, who frankly are not even sure you can do this, know that this project is for you! gn,s thinks synths are so great, everybody ought to have one; we like making noise over a pretty song so much, we think everyone should do it.

and what’s the worst that could happen? so you don’t play it exactly right this weekend. it’s ok. you’ll get better. (maybe we’ll even invite you to a rehearsal or two.) in fact, several of the sounds will probably respond wonderfully to any mistakes you might want to make, and that tiny speck of unpredictability in a universe of planning is really the point. art is humanity. humanity is unideal.

again i say, you can do it, dear reader. you can stride confidently to the front of the stage, device in one hand, lowly earbuds in the other. you can make the happy accident.

or, hopefully, an ep or two worth of them.

dear reader,

having been somewhat burned in the songwriting department by the experience and schedule of 2008’s internet singles “experiment,” i’ve had some anxiety about the prospect of a new record in 2009. am i still “inspired”? if so, by what? is inspiration even real?

over the last two weeks my fears have been put to rest. partially, this can be attributed to the successful penning of lyrics for my last contribution to “in the impossible tension” (which joe and i have been doggedly recording); but, mostly i admit unabashedly that i am tremendously excited about the complete failure of western financial markets. i know full well how insensitive this is of me, and i don’t take the personal losses of millions of people lightly, but the silver lining of this dark cloud shines so very brightly.

a good friend of gn,s’s commented at one point that we were “an apocalyptic band.” i’m not sure whether that description applies to every aspect of what we do, but the more i turn the phrase over in my mind the more i realize how applicable it is to my songwriting. i predict the failure of everything earthly. i predict the end of me, you, the national [no! surely not!, in my best (which is not very good) eddie izzard], cheap gas (these are not necessarily listed chronologically), amazon.com, hezbollah, those fake keychain carabiners, CDs, thai food, and then, eventually, money itself.

again, tremendous excitement. some days it feels more like anger, and i think maybe we’ll start recording protest songs. but even that is just sideways excitement. all through 2006, 2007, and 2008 (some of the “short films” songs were penned before that), i wrote about dissolution, the end of the old, inside & out. it’s an eternal truth, though sometimes writ very small in temporal circumstances; now, the graffiti’s so big it’s all you can see.

seriously. huge. hedge funds are going to start failing left and right. adjustments will continue, prime rates will stay near 0% for quite some time, deflation will deepen and spread despite the rabid out-of-control inflationary efforts of the Bush ‘N’ Barack economic policy, the u.s. will end up owing more money to china than even i personally care to consider for very long, and we will all lose money. a lot of it. (i think at last count there was something like $500 trillion+ to be “adjusted”–that means LOST, folks!–worldwide, but that might be now replaced by a bigger statistic.)

the weight of this presses down on my heart so hard that it’s like an energy there is being compressed and focused. all things appear in great clarity. the urgency, the need to put pen to paper and hands to instrument is almost overwhelming at moments.

certainly, there is the temptation to feel guilty, but at it’s core this is not a situation of rejoicing at the losses of others–far from it, in fact. art exists beyond all reason as a struggling, defiant expression of all that is real and true but unrepresented in circumstances. i write songs because my body’s motions everyday outline a universe to which i belong only secondarily. my left hand receives wages for the work it does. my right hand writes a lyric about the absurdity and emptiness of currency itself.

and this is beautiful. i find it breathtaking.

so, new record in 2009? yes.

what else are we going to do with all the new songs?

dear reader,

good morning, and welcome to the first day of 2009 as history will remember it. in the near future, the past 19 days will likely be relegated to phrases like “amidst a worsening financial crisis,” and the bitter cold that so recently swept the majority of our country isn’t even going to get that much attention.

by the time i’ve finished this post, we will probably be only a few minutes away from the first words of a greatly, enthusiastically anticipated president’s inaugural address. this is a man riding an incredible wave of centrist popular sentiment, like a more global, liberal ronald reagan, swearing on lincoln’s bible and reaching hard for the heights of fdr’s historical acclaim.

but despite his every effort to enter the white house in a great cloud of history, the forty-fourth president de los estados unidos represents to the world one thing: change. america is anticipating newness. i, in a rare moment of non-isolation and waning misanthropy, am waiting for it, too, standing in my heart on the mall as one of millions. if someone, chosen as a celestial juror for his or her ignorance of irrelevant detail, looks on objectively and perceives a slight difference in my attitude, it is perhaps the eagerness rather than fear with which i expect the annihilation of the known, and the person to whom my expectation is directed.

change, as i have written before and will write again, is the principal in a great mission. it sweeps aside–abstracts out–inconsequentials too beloved and incidentals too familiar. the new details of existence it brings are despicable by design, and the lesson is clear: despise the particulars, the incidentals; or, if you must love them, do it for their absolute dispensability and for the sake of the rock these receding sands uncover.

i cannot match the power of james a. garfield’s expression at his inauguration: “we may hasten or we may retard, but we can not prevent, the final reconciliation. is it not possible for us now to make a truce with time by anticipating and accepting its inevitable verdict?”

happy 2009, good reader; happy truce.

dear reader,

tomorrow, christmas will be only one week away. (unfortunately, i believe i’ve already missed the one-week mark for hanukkah, which was monday, no? although, if today were the 17th day of kislev, instead of december, i’d be right on the money… .) the solstice will be here even sooner, heralded for me personally by a vague recognition that i haven’t really seen the sun for A Long Time.

and in the category of Feels Like Christmas To Steve, we’ve got snow on the ground here in nj, a couple of nice little fake trees (that our cats insist on eating anyway) lit up in our apartment, and those red holiday cups at starbucks.

what could possibly be missing, you ask? how about a good night, states christmas song! i am not making this up!

in the fall we promised three more internet singles. after the halloween release, “the odd and the even,” our songwriting and recording schedule got a little difficult, so although you’ve seen photos of recording “if i can,” you haven’t heard the song yet. joe and i are still working pretty hard on that one, but we hope to get it to you by the close of 2008.

in the meantime–last weekend, to be specific–we did what any band in our position (one song in the works and one to go!) would do: set up at the hardings’ and recorded something very special for everybody who’s helped to make this a very special year for us.

there are sleigh bells, there’s a glockenspiel, and there is very much the sound of folks singing in the living room. so download the song tomorrow (it will be free! no excuses!), put it on in your living room, pour a glass of eggnog to go with your cookies (and maybe some silk nog for me if i’m lucky) and pretend we’re all together.

merry christmas to you.