dear reader,

hopefully you have heard or will soon hear our new single, “the odd and the even.” we’re pretty happy with it. i’ve been mixing it on and off for a couple weeks, and as always the last few days have been a non-stop push.

but far from resting in the traditional sense, good night states is going to spend this weekend songwriting. dan, trevor and megan are going to work half days today and drive out to nj, where we’ll spend halloween playing music together.

i hope the weekend will be refreshing, if not physically relaxing, and we may even take some time out saturday night to support my father in a concert of no small notoriety (at least locally). i’m pretty excited about this, for many reasons: my parents are so, so supportive of us, and of course my dad has played a large role in my life-long love for and involvement in music; the album that maranatha made in 1971, soon, is something i just couldn’t be more fascinated by, though i think i’ve only listened to it four or five times. it’s just so… real. check it out:

anyway. i’ve got, as usual, a lot to say, about life, music, the truth, and of course politics, but i’ve also got a lot to do today and blogging is only one item on my list regardless of how many or how few topics i tackle in this post.

for now, be not so fearful of this tumultuous time; the panic of 2008 will surely pass (as did the panics of 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, and 1929–am i forgetting any?), but our ability and obligation as people to choose the right and good never will.

enjoy some candy corn, some “the odd and the even,” and, if you find yourselves in north jersey tomorrow, perhaps some maranatha.

dear reader,

i don’t have time for a proper post, but it’s been a long, long time since i’ve uttered a peep here. this weekend was both a high for me (we were writing a new song that’s coming along beautifully) and a low for us [we talked a lot about this whole conundrum of being an independent band, critical mass (not the bike thing), and what we’re doing right and wrong].

the end of the discussion never came, and i’m sure it will not come for quite a while yet.

chances are that if you read this blog at all, you’re already someone who’s helping to spread the word about us, but i’ll say it anyway: please share us with your friends. it would mean a lot to us. send them a link to this site, invite them to the show, or e-mail them one of the mp3s you’ve downloaded here.

if you’ve been to a show lately, i’d really like to know what it was like for you. e-mail me, or comment on the blog.

normally, this is where i start talking about the either the weather, something totally metaphysical, or politics, but i really have to sleep. a lot. having worn my les paul for about 10 hours yesterday, i am now the proud owner of a shoulder in pain. man, am i gonna be ready for our “behind the music.”

and to all a good night.

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.

try and imagine those three words in a triangle.

dear reader,

“she wrote a letter” was probably the most difficult single yet to mix. hopefully it’s not the most difficult to listen to. (actually, i’m listening to it right now, on our site. i’m always on our site now because i accidentally dragged my gmail bookmark right off the bar, and the good night, states bookmark is now where the gmail one was. imagine the confusion.)

yesterday i had a sudden influx of free time, which in some way, shape or form, is what most of my posts seem to be about lately, and which i knew then to be short-lived, certainly, so i spent it editing this long overdue video. i promise you will either find it charming or absolutely terrifying and not at all funny, in an understated way. anyway, you should watch it and share it, because i’m sure one of my band mates will make me take it down soon.

as is often the case, i was in the midst of mania inspired by mixing last week. i think it’s part of human nature for lows and highs to accentuate each other, mostly because emotions are generally dependent on perception (which for human beans is not real objective on the whole); and if said ups & downs are right next to each other, then you’ve got something really, really special.
again, well-tread ground on this blog is the fact that mixing creates that for me all on its own, regardless of whatever personal equanimity or lack thereof i’ve got, because of the process. unusually, though, the most memorable moment of last week’s blur is one of real euphoria; and like all truly great bouts of euphoria in my life, it was also a moment of great clarity.

(let me take another sip of coffee to really settle into an ironic tone.) that clarity was clearly exhibited last wednesday as i drove down the hills of allendale road quite a bit too fast, singing/screaming “OH YEAH!” on the way to my 3.30 session. it seemed like the only thing to do. you see, “she wrote a letter,” is really about (drum roll, please… ) CHANGE, in all it’s difficulty and destruction and most of all beautiful elation. freedom, people. fo rill.
i’m tired pretty much all the time now. joe’s theory is that no matter how careful we are, the in-between week is not long enough to catch up from the weekend. ever. that’s probably true, and i think it’s also true that a lot of my fatigue is really internal. in any case, the song reminded me just in time that nobody has to stay where they are–if marilee changed her dollars for pesos, her DMs for euros, baby, then man i can, too. specifics will die, nay are even now fading away. embrace the nothing-permanent.

without the details, of course, i’ve got no kind of dialectic, but that’s ok. i traded it for freedom.

ps. ok, SERIOUSLY, watch the video.

dear reader,

feels like the home stretch here. i sat here mixing for so long yesterday i don’t even want to do the math. on saturday, two very good friends are getting married (to each other, no less!), and i’ve got quite a bit more preparation to do for the pieces i’ll be playing.

but let me just celebrate for a moment with you. i’m really happy with “good times, so wearily desired!,” and i sincerely hope you’ll give it a listen (the in the impossible tension tracks have been moved in the player and are after the short films songs. you can do it. you can find it).

it turns out that working on songs very quickly goes a long way towards precluding the crafting of messages i usually try to do as a songwriter. this track, consequently, is maybe a bit more candid in some ways than most. granted, allyson still doesn’t know what it’s about, but she did say, “does it have something to do with proust?,” which is really pretty insightful/awesome. [earlier versions of the lyrics actually included proust AND his madeleine (!), but it just sounded too weird. (raise your hand if you have no idea what i’m talking about.)]

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS A LONG, PHILOSOPHICAL EXPLANATION OF THE PREVIOUS PARAGRAPH WITH LITERARY REFERENCES. IF YOUR FACE BEGINS TO HURT OR YOU ARE PREGNANT, SKIP IT.
the story runs thus: i had come across the original english title of marcel proust’s famous work, which i believe is remembrance of things past. it struck me because, although sort of pretty, it doesn’t have the strength or provocation of in search of lost time, which is more of a translation of the french title (i think there’s a later english version with that name). naturally, any confusion/comments/complaints/suggestions in the gretz household regarding proust are directly put to our resident proust expert, allyson. come to think of it, she’s the only expert on the subject i know–resident or otherwise.
the significant part of this is really the conversation that allyson and i had about proust’s re-experiencing of the past, and the questions it naturally raised for me. is it possible to remember ANYTHING factually, without re-interpreting the experience? can one even trust his memory, consequently? the more personal counterpoint is that nearly all memory has a sort of negative emotional screen for me, which is probably why i emphasize the interpretational aspect of “memory.”
END WARNING.

so, “good times, so wearily desired!” is a song that shares my experience of and outlook on memory, or at least part of it. the lyrics should be up pretty soon. you should probably disagree with what the songs says, ultimately, but you should also bop along to the consumer electronics of yesteryear.

oh, yeah, the celebration. i kinda got sidetracked there. well, i gotta go, but YOU should have a beer.

happy 15th.