dear reader,

are you enjoying the fall air? our apartment is actually quite cold, since september is not the time for heat, and that’s made it an excellent week for hot food.

the weather and temperature have not conferred any special advantage, however, on my songwriting this week. the clear evenings and slow mornings seem promising, often, but i forget quickly how much timing (and precise timing, at that) is of the essence.

generally, things go something like this: inspiration strikes and i write some good songs, effortlessly; then, excited by the new material, i decide to write some more songs; lastly, with much effort and not much success, i give up on writing ’til the inspiration strikes again, and come away with a newly-minted resolution to respect the visitation of that inspiration.

(if i were a literary device, i would certainly be that of the untrustworthy narrator. how do i lose something that i’ve lost and subsequently found so many times prior? on one hand, such a propensity to weakness is something i strive against as i struggle to build continuity of consciousness that i do not feel as a fragmented person in a fragmented world. on the other, each new day brings its newness as strongly as it brings its misremembering. perhaps i should be thankful.)

inspiration: the unseen movement of an unknown, shorthand for what is probably a long list of misunderstood phenomena. all i can say is that it is fleeting.

“boldness has genius in it” comes to mind–perhaps on the subject of an impetus to strike while the proverbial iron is hot?–not only because of its content, but because its widely-attributed author, goethe, didn’t say it. some scottish guy, in a work published 1951, included the famous “translation” with some of his own writings on a similar subject. i suppose it’s possible that he deliberately fabricated the line, but i’d like to think its much more likely that he simply misremembered.

yes, fleeting: both inspiration and memory. maybe there’s only room in us for one.

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,

it’s been a while, truly. august is largely a month off, which for the first week has meant a combination of rest and working steadily at all sorts of things i’ve meant to do for a long time.

one thing i’m not doing is songwriting. for me, that creative process is a pretty long pipeline, generally begun in this sort of sleeper phase where the world is unequivocally inspiring and provocative, and ideas seem constantly to swirl around me. during this time, my facility for language seems to increase, and i largely do nothing to work on songs. intermittently i’ll get a big chunk of music that feels urgent, and i immediately work it out on some instrument, but in these early stages it’s more often than not forgotten.
it’s only in the last stages of songwriting that i actually say, ‘ok, let’s write the verses, plan the structure,’ etc. since the writing timeframe for our single releases was so condensed, the spring and summer felt like one long session of this last phase, often with no early stages preceding at all.
if you have no idea what i’m talking about, just imagine some kind of weird groundhog day in which you repeatedly write a research paper in one draft without having actually done any research; alternately, you might picture yourself starring in a movie, only you have no idea who your character is, where the plot is going, or even the title of the film, and haven’t read the script. you read your lines off cue cards as the scene is being filmed. shooting goes on for months in this fashion.

all that to say, i’m experiencing a prolonged feeling of relief to just have a few weeks off to let some words tumble around in brain, work on my guitar rig, and spend time with people i really like who are not actually members of good, night states, like my wife. this is the break i thought i’d get in july, but didn’t.
the world is exciting again. i’m rediscovering positive emotions, and even, perhaps, a modicum of optimism (at least one of my bandmates undoubtedly just read that and came to some harm, perhaps by coffee traveling through his or her nose).

as evidence of (and segue from) this, i found myself in a political discussion of sorts with a good friend yesterday in which i appeared as the hopeful, ideologically relaxed one. (for those of you who haven’t met me, understand: karl marx is more ideologically relaxed than me, and he has a manifesto.)

the one sensory experience that seems consistently to burst in on my happy, conceptual peace is the constant barrage of evidence and indication that our country has completely lost its fair-mindedness and most of its rationality. mostly, i’m talking about the trend in political rhetoric of just about everyone using moral terms to describe a need for the government to make laws that benefit him or her. special-interest government is fascism. totalitarianism is still totalitarianism even if it’s the will of the majority.
granted, those coercive means of distributing resources (whether to the many or the few) in our country are not likely to change, but for goodness’ sake stop talking about them in terms of right and wrong. this is not a partisan complaint. everybody needs to shut up.
the last straw of late, it just so happens, are these preposterously undertaken congressional hearings with oil company executives. basically, if you haven’t followed them, these sessions have consisted of various congressman attempting to make some of the most powerful businessmen in the world feel bad or something. (don’t worry, it’s all being paid for by you and me.) congress may need to make a bunch of laws to take money away from oil companies and spread it out in camden or whatever (although i might suggest they start by just removing the inappropriate tax breaks for said corporations, i.e., stop GIVING them money), but once again, i submit: we have no need for political maneuverings in which nothing is done, blame is ritually assigned and re-assigned, representatives preen and posture and demonstrate their apparent concern for constituents, and the highest of horses are led out to bear political interest more disgusting than the lucre on trial.

we are quickly becoming a society that protects the opportunities of its populace to make money, and attempts to punish people who take advantage of those opportunities. a more schizophrenic premise i can barely devise.

if only, if only, if only my annoyance could somehow serve a creative purpose. it seems a waste, as an artist, to not write some hallowed protest song. somehow these feelings, equally as strong as the euphoric ones, find a different channel in my brain and never end up in the ‘hey, maybe i should write a song about this’ category (actual name of mental folder).

at the end of the day, though, i’m glad that’s the way it is. ultimately my complaints about our country and government are just that: complaining. the action, the reality, the change we hear so much about these days, is not and never will be legislated. it’s person to person, nuts-and-bolts, voting-with-your-wallet-and-putting-your-money-where-your-mouth-is.

the hope of these days is that in a few weeks i’ll have some songs to remind myself, and maybe a few other folks, of that.

in the meantime, thanks for reading.

dear reader,

firstly, thanks so much for commenting. it means a lot.

secondly, if you’ve downloaded “long coats, no energy,” thanks again! if you paid for it or decided to then buy the whole album, then you’re just about my best friend. i sincerely hope you’re enjoying the song.

we’re working really hard at these songs–recording the may 1st release this coming weekend, and writing the june 1st song last weekend–and it’s starting to seem like there isn’t anything else in life. honestly, i don’t even unpack anymore. the only thing i have to decide on a friday (or thursday night) is which of my half-packed suitcases (still invariably on the floor of my bedroom) i’m going to take that weekend.

but i’m not posting to complain. actually, i’m not complaining at all. i wanted to make the first mention here of some material joe and i have been working on in extra time afforded by the unparalleled convenience of living in the same state. the additional outlet has so far been refreshing and stimulating creatively, and the music shows both a continuity with and subtle distinctness from gn,s material to date. insanely, we are going to be releasing one track every month in addition to the full-band first-of-the-month release.

“arsonist’s blues” will be up on this site for download next tuesday the 15th. reception to follow.