Tabletop...It's been an up and down day. Up in the sense that dinner with Leslie, Evan, and Caitlin was really great. Down because of feeling discouraged in the face of all of the seemingly never-ending schoolwork that I have to finish. A 7 page paper in Spanish, a 6-8 page paper for Media Studies, and another 2 or so page paper for Spanish is all due on Monday. On top of that, I need to prepare at least one more composition for Saturday, which I am not feeling too good about.
Today I had an interview with a journalist from Speakeasy Magazine. They are an online magazine (www.speakeasymag.com) and wanted to talk to me about the show on Saturday. The interviewer asked me questions about Nostra Nova and song-writing. One of the questions, he asked me what it was that, in my opinion, made Nostra Nova such a good record, or why people felt the record was good. I was kind of dumbfounded, mainly because it is not really that easy to explain the Nostra Nova album in one breath. Here is a letter that I wrote to a friend of mine that might say things better. These are the things I should have said in the interview:
"....If nothing else, Nostra Nova was something that proved to be somewhat of a small wonder. Ever since its release, people have approached me (less often now) to tell me how 'amazing' the record is, asked me about the writing process, or miscellaneous things about promotion and the indie-music world. I remain mystified by these people, mainly because I do not have the answers to their questions. I do believe, however, that Nostra Nova was mostly a work of magic, definitely not as much as that of the Greats (that is, most of our recording artists/heroes of the 60s, 70s and modern times). It was a moment of intense personal and artistic revelation for me -- pure feeling -- something of mystery in explanation or dissection.
Looking back on it now, though, I find that what came out on that record was astonishing in a number of ways. Nostra Nova was so poorly organized that its first (and maybe greatest) achievement is that anything ever materialized. None of those musicians on the record regularly practised the music together, there was very little communicated planning, and throughout the recording process there was never a set order or idea that proved that the band on the album ever existed in a concrete plane of reality. All of this was and remains an organizational nightmare but to hear the sound of one's own voice, one's mallet, a bow across a set of strings, the guitars, and the organs -- the mere attendance of each one in a set space and time -- is a miracle. The way that it all came together to defy these limitations is indeed amazing. The real success of Nostra Nova is its beautiful possibility despite everything else.
The second great achievement of Nostra Nova is its sounds. Sure there are commonplace and modern musical arrangements on the album but the sounds we captured -- the maelstrom of percussion and the doomsday saxophone on 'The Butlers and the Maids,' the triumphant and soaring organs and chorale on 'El Vuelo de la Paloma,' the sparkling timbre of the Tibetan prayer chime solo in 'Dusty Wing Spirit,' the fairy-like arpeggios in 'Voices from the Top of the Mountain,' the descent-into-the-underworld-like swirl of vocals (I am still amazed I was able to hit that high A) and the thick thud of the upright bass in 'Things I've Learned From Bells' -- all of these sounds give a vital ingredient and birth to a vision of rich imagination (something I hold very dear in our achievement). There are little worlds inside each of the songs on Nostra Nova, all of them governed by the voices of their own instruments. To me, this is the ultimate goal of creating.
The third greatest achievement was something totally uncontrollable and perhaps even more mysterious -- its affect on the listener. People have told me -- you have told me -- about how much the album has meant to them. If Nostra Nova can communicate equally effectively in one way to a person like Bradley Hathaway and then in another way to a guy like Andrew Lamplela, then I consider the record already a resounding success in and of itself...."
We'll see what the people from SpeakEasy have to say. I hope I don't sound like the babbling buffoon that I normally am. The show on Saturday should be different. I don't think that what I am playing is impressive at all. I doesn't really matter that much.
