Checking Inn....

Just to say I didn't skip blogging for a week. It's been a busy one...car trouble, meetings, prepping for the rest of the month and into the fall. Susan played at a wonderful venue called Third Coast Theater in Port Aransas last night, which is tied to a gorgeous resort...where we were are staying. Same place where Terri Hendrix has her Life's A Song workshops that I've attended. We walked to the ocean last night after the show and were back again this morning. I am salty. In 30 minutes we leave for a show in Corpus Christi and then we drive all night back home, so Monday can start things all over again. More details shortly...and yes my car is fine!

Three Days In...

Whew! Dan and I wrapped up three days of recording on Friday and it was a great experience all around. We got a LOT done. "Switzerland" is pretty much where it needs to be, so we're going to let that one stew and come back to it. We started "Ritalin" on Friday and got a good ways into it. I was so tired by the end on Friday (which I'm not sure why, it's not like I'm doing all the work), so I had to yawn my approval...but I assure you kids, it is CATCHY. Who knew my songs would benefit so much from Hammond organ? We walked in not really knowing what we were shooting for...other than a certain vibe that some of our records have, but no set plot for instrumentation or anything. It ends up being fun to just kind of go at each tune and try things out. So we have a break due to both of our travel schedules, and then we'll meet up one day in August, and then another flurry of travel activity. I'm chomping at the bit just to play around more with these tunes, but I think some sit back and listen time is good for them, too. Once again patience is the name of the game.

Home Is Where Your Stuff Is

I moved into my current apartment in Austin last May, and my lease is almost up. I just picked up the paperwork to give my 30 days' notice. Sorry, apartments. You've been pretty nice except for the time you cited my friend Jim for "littering" his porch when in actuality a patio table and some plants are not "litter," really. I digress. The opportunity has presented itself to live a little closer to one of my jobs - "on site" if you will, and it also happens to make huge financial sense. Starting in May I'll be part-timing it in Austin in a rented room (not an apartment with a lease) and then other-part-timing it near the nifty town of Wimberley, Texas. The Boss has offered the use of a trailer on her property (next to a river be still my heart), so when I'm not sitting in the van going somewheres, that's where I'll lay my head...when I'm not laying my head in Austin. It's a little pieced together, except I've been living in my current place half time already it seems, so this isn't going to be that big of a shift except I'll be cutting my bills big time. This makes the frugal nerve in me twinge with joy. So I have about a month and a half to sort out my possessions and see where everything goes. My essential furniture will fit into my Austin room, since I pretty much live in one room anyway. I had a studio my first 2 years here and upgraded to a one bedroom...except I still just sleep and work in my bedroom anyway. The living room has been a good...bookshelf holder. It means Getting Rid of Stuff which is simultaneously daunting and exhilarating. I mentioned that I helped The Boss clean out her shed last week (partly so I can put some of my stuff in it), and you see how much you have that you don't really NEED to have. I know for a fact that there are things in my apartment I have not touched since I moved them up the 3 flights of stairs to get them there. Ouch. Away it goes. Except I might take some books back to New Mexico to live with Mom and Dad for a while. Books are great, even when you don't have anywhere to put them for the moment. Haha, Mom and Dad! Surprise! I'll admit it, it's not a typical living style choice, although...whatever. I have friends in grad school who live in student housing, and I have friends who have chosen to travel the world and sleep in hostels or huts in Africa. There is no typical in your 20's, I suppose. I think the chance to snowball some credit card payments and save up for making EP 2 is a good one, and the flexibility to tour some more with the Boss will only add to the experiences that will make up EPs 2, 3 and beyond. So that's my long winded way of saying...email me if you want a 13" TV, haha. If home is where you hang your hat...well...

Kerfluffle

I think kerfluffle is a really cool word. I don't know...where to start. Some might notice I've been buried from the internets lately. I come up for air every so often to Twitter or tell people what shoes I'm wearing on my Facebook status, but beyond that I've been a little busy. Not an overwhelmed, freak-out kind of busy. It's actually a nice, steady kind of busy. I'm enjoying handling some booking for someone other than myself a lot. It's hard to ask for money for yourself; it's easy to ask for money for someone you think deserves it (that's not yourself). Weird but true in my camp anyway. A bonus evolving from this booking relationship is that I have opening act duties in places like Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, and Lubbock now. Very excited. Some days I think I have progressed in my folk music grad school studies a lot. Some days I think I haven't at the rate I should. I think the trajectory in the improvement of my performance quality has been good, and I can't obsess over the lameness of my pinky too much, even though I do. Is there a marker of how fast I need to go? I think I'm doing ok. And I wear my monkey slippers for extra super powers.

Music To Take Away

Do you have The Early Year yet? Do your 5 closest music-phile friends? DO I HAVE A DEAL FOR YOU. (Excitement!) If you feel like sharing the love, I'll send you as many CD-Rs as you want with a hand-picked selection of J-Po songs, including a couple from the new EP The Early Year. You can hand these out to your friends, colleagues, coffeehouse hanger-outers, whoever you think might want to have The Early Year in their life. The Steps: 1. Send me your mailing address. I won't use it for anything but depositing goodness in your mailbox. Send it to janapochop (AT) gmail (DOT) com 2. I'll send you as many CD-R's as you think you can pass out. 3. You pass them out and share the love. That's called the grass roots way to do it, and I like grass, and I like roots. (What?) So let's refresh...come see a show or 3, check out the blog, and give free music to your friends. That's what I call a good day.

Juggle

I can tell this year will be a test of my skills to juggle about 8 million more things than last year. And I like it. The key is to not compromise my course, while taking every opportunity available to me and adding a little something to the planet along the way. The more opportunities the more decisions, the more decisions the more opportunities...if I do it right. I am learning a lot, and it's only January 13th. Saving all these lessons in my lesson piggy bank. I keep it on my dashboard.

Lookin' for the Heart of a Saturday Night

Good grief, almost a whole week without a post. My new year is kicking off slowly on the outside, hm? Lots of pondering and planning on the inside, though. Starting to think about the next record...meaning...editing and re-writing. Always a slightly hard thing for me to do. It's nice to have a producer for some thought and direction. It's hard to hear some things go back to the drawing board, but necessary for a desired end-product. Or end-art-project! I spent yesterday starting some of my new tasks as Tour Monkey. I need a more official title than that but I like the image that one brings up in my head. Also I like bananas. The boss lady has been on a songwriters' cruise in the Caribbean (how's that for working?) and I have been accomplishing things back here so that's good. Katie made some really good spaghetti last night and I didn't take any photos, so this post is photo-less in homage to the spaghetti.

Oh Nine

Happy New Year! Josh and I had a fitting end of the year meeting yesterday and decided we should do that every December 31st...Bourn Records schedules things ahead, I say. We geeked out with our laptops at Flying Star here in Albuquerque and made plans for the coming months and beyond. I have a goal list sort of made and will solidify it this weekend...it's on the front burner because oddly, I seem to be pretty good about checking things off my lists. Quite a few goals from 2007 and 2008 have come to pass. Some days I feel like I am the world's worst procrastinator but something in there works...maybe it's the caffeine. There's also the magic ingredient of The Unexpected. I have been the fortunate recipient of a lot of opportunities and happenings that I couldn't have schemed up, really. A result of preparation meeting opportunity and some dang nice people in the world, I think. Yay 2009!

Clean Clothes

Won't some aspartame-filled diet cola product sponsor me?? Come on. Anyway, greetings from the laundromat. It's kind of shocking how wifi'd up most places are these days. I get internet at home, at Red Leaf, in the merch van, at venues, and while doing my laundry. I get personally affronted when there isn't wifi, or when it's not free. Maybe I need to unplug. There's not much bloggage because there's not much to report beyond the usual routine. I'm still getting up early when I can, unless I roll into town at 4 AM like I did Sunday night. That would be madness, though it might invoke some interesting lyrics that would be unreadable the next day. As always, 2009 promises to be a year of big change and I hope, big progress. 2008 was definitely that. And here we go getting all year-end sappy. I had better put my clothes in the dryer.

Early December

So the whole premise of the title of The Early Year (do you have yours yet, and did you buy some for stocking stuffers? They're pretty with red and green) was the getting up at 5:30 AM to write. It was a particularly productive time for me, but 5:30 AM is not sustainable forever, especially because I don't retire at 9 PM. Ever. However, Dan and I decided on an Early Season of sorts...so we're once again waking up at 5:30 AM to get things done, like write and practice and take time to sit and be. Days fill up so fast, it's kind of nice to see the sun come up. I hope I'll get some new tunes out of this season, but whatever comes will be worth it, even if it's just a lot of sunrises. Also, Terri Hendrix posted a bunch of tunes from her new Retrospective CD and her Christmas EP on her Myspace -- AWESOME. Go listen. Then go order them. Bed time.

Be Intrigued.

I had some words tumble out the other day and I think they might be a chorus of a new song, but I'm not sure where they're going. All I know I like the words, the vibe, and the cadence. Bottom line, whatever my pen inked out is intriguing to me, and now it's like a fun scavenger hunt. That's what songwriting should be to the songwriter each time; intriguing.

The Fridays

Why am I so tired today, was my question until about 3 minutes ago. I can't seem to get a momentum going, so I've done things like answer loads of backed up email and go to the gym at a very slow pace, and then I took a nap. Then I realized I saw 4 nights of live music this week out of a possible 5, and the other night I was working and then playing it myself. And I was very good about not sleeping in and getting up at a consistent time each day. They say that's good for you, I'm kind of wondering about that right now! So...I will proceed to Target at a snail's pace but might pick up some caffeine on the way home. Who says productivity doesn't start at 3 PM on a Friday afternoon? Rock and roll. Also this post will be just text, to demonstrate my laziness, haha.

I believe...

I believe in patience in building a good life I believe in working with people who are good human beings foremost I believe in preparation and doing right by your values and morals the first time I believe in stumbling around and trying new avenues I believe in aiming for abundance and expecting great results I believe in trusting my gut I believe in hard work I believe in fairy dust

Trials of the CAPTCHA

(This is a pretty tongue-in-cheek essay about what a musician has to go through to be all networky on Myspace these days, all for the sake of anti-spam safeguards. Please don't take it too seriously...because I certainly don't). Ok, so I'll own up. I spend a lot of time on Myspace. I prefer to think of it as "networking" and "discovering new artists" rather than wasting time...and it can suck you in. You find a great deal of neat people and music, and as is now the vernacular, you want to "friend them." And then maybe you want to leave a comment. Innocent enough. Except I guess evil comment-making robots have taken over the internet, so Myspace (and a great number of other sites that allow commenting and the like) now require you to sometimes type in a CAPTCHA to prove you are a real person. In fact (nerd alert), CAPTCHA stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" (thanks, Wikipedia). Wow. Of course. So when you're up late at night, maybe like I was, deciding to friend some people because you like their tunes, and did I mention it's late and you had a long day with a 3 hour gig and then maybe you saw your friend's band play and it's...late? So here's how it goes for me, and why the CAPTCHA probably needs to die. (Note: I don't know how real CAPTCHAs are made so just bear with my lame examples). First time...an annoying string of letters, usually readable: I will occasionally screw this up. Maybe a "J" looks like an "I", or something. So it spits out another CAPTCHA at me to try again: For whatever reason, I swear it's always longer and slightly more askew. This skyrockets the chance that I will type this one in wrong, too. Sure enough I screw up, and now my humanness is in question. Try again: WHAT. Instead of the CAPTCHA machine thinking, "Wow, this might indeed be a human but a slow one...maybe we should lighten up," we inevitably get an even longer one with twisted letters and symbols that don't exist on a keyboard. At this point I get annoyed and bang out something approximate. I just want to comment on Katie's wall that her new cat photo is cute. That's all I want to do! Next: Oh that's nice. In a fit, I probably type something like, "HJA592QJAJDJ34SDJ4224FJ#)$*@)#*$@." Because that will fix it. Now the CAPTCHA wants to play games. Right. So I guess Katie will never know her cat is cute. Not due to me, anyway. And that Indistrial-Folk-Punk band from Glasgow I wanted to friend? Didn't happen. I hope you're happy, CAPTCHA. You have denied my humanity.

Exit Signs

Oh no. Someone found the "comic book" setting in photo booth. I did my first ever exit interview yesterday. It was short and sweet. I don't know if it's people in Austin's musically steeped culture particularly, or maybe people who have hired a lot of employees and been around the block -- but I have been getting a lot of honest "good for you's" in reference to switching over to Red Leaf to work. From people at the county, too. That's nice...transitions can be stressful or not depending on the mood around you when you're making the change. I have gotten a few, "Giving up sweet government benefits, hmmm?" comments...but I don't go to work every day just so I can get my teeth cleaned for free once a year. (For the record...I'm buying my own insurance. No sense in being a "starving artist" type with no means to go to the doctor in this day and age. That is so 1968 commune chic). ---------------- DIGRESSION ALERT! ---------------- Also I would like to point out for the record that as I was graduating with my history degree a couple of years ago, someone looked me in the eye and said, "Congratulations. Would you like fries with that?" Yes I would. Fries and a side of LIVIN' THE DREAM. ------------------------- PHEW ---------------------------- For the most part, though -- people who spend time around me know how I spend all my "non-working-hours" and they approve of how working at a music school aligns with that. I guess in the end we should all cheer our fellow humans on to whatever lights their fire. Delight in their successes and transitions. Give them a good word when they have a moment of doubt. That keeps the world full of excellence with plenty to go around for the next set of seekers, stumblers, and happy souls.

Milk and Cereal Revisited

WHAT?!?! Excuse me. I have an announcement. I was not trying to do this, because when I eat cereal in the morning the only thing I'm thinking about is whether I can pull off going back to bed or not. So imagine my surprise when this morning, I used up the last of my cereal. AND THEN I USED UP THE LAST OF MY MILK. (As you may recall, I posted about milk and cereal about a week ago, and how you always run out of one or the other, causing you to buy more and repeating the cycle). Now, this is made stranger by the fact that I am one of those weirdos that measures out both my cereal and milk with a measuring cup. I started doing it in college and never stopped. So anyway...it worked out exactly. And I don't recall opening a new carton of milk at the same time as the box of cereal (fyi it's Cinnamon Toast Crunch...I go through one junky cereal every couple months or so). So the fact that both carton and box reached their completion at the same juncture means two things: - My blog has special powers to shift reality. This never would have happened otherwise. - I have now broken free of the endless out-of-milk/out-of-cereal cycle. I am free. Free. Do with this info what you will. I am now going to ponder my newfound cereal-less existence. (The photo was taken so artfully by my friend Mary, whom I love, and who has her own story concerning a hole in her office ceiling. Ask her and she'll tell you. It's amazing).

Milk and Cereal

This morning I realized I am almost out of Cheerios, after I had just bought a couple of cartons of soy milk (which is really soy juice but whatever). So within the next day or so it's off to the store (again) to get more cereal. Inevitably, because I don't care to gauge how many cups of cereal line up with the amount of milk I have...I will have to go to the store and buy more milk because I have extra cereal on hand. This got me to thinking about those two industries and their co-dependence. I don't know for sure, but you'd think that the cereal industry would invest mightily in the milk industry and vice versa. Different products entirely, but most people these days don't consume one without the other. The health of the milk industry is forever intertwined with the health of the cereal makers, and since we don't buy them in equitable amounts, the endless cycle of "out of milk need cereal / out of cereal need milk" continues. What is the milk to the music business' cereal? What do musicians invest in to ensure a forever? Or maybe music is one of those rare cereals that just tastes good on its own. Thoughts?

Tuesday Night

You can tell my level of tiredness by the creativity (or lack thereof) in my post titles. I am working on a series of posts for next week (one a day!) that might explain my strange posting schedule as of late. Things are still shifting...though I feel like they have been shifting for about 16 years, haha. Good things, all...and patience is one of those virtue things they talk about, I hear. I got some new music so I am currently delving into Emmylou Harris, Jon Dee Graham, The Band, Springsteen, Lyle Lovett, and Kim Richey. Emmylou blows me away, always. I got more Jana Water in the mail from the nice folks there...a blog post about that is coming too for sure. Next time I'm in NYC I'm going to knock on their office doors and say hello. I hope they don't call security. I'll wear close-toed shoes, I promise! I really want to write a song right now. That and drink water.

13 Questions.

Over on Adam Levy's website, he has a list of 13 questions he sends around to guitarists he likes, and shares their answers with the world. Now, I've never met a list or a survey I didn't like...so I'm ripping off Adam's questions (with credit to him, of course). We've never met but I hope we do one day, and I hope he doesn't say, "You're the kid that stole my questions," haha. 1. Which was the first record you bought with your own money? Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Stones in the Road". 1994. 2. Which was the last record you bought with your own money? Kathleen Edwards' "Asking for Flowers" - I'm a release day nerd for certain artists, and this one just came out. 3. What was the first solo you learned from a record — and can you still play it? Probably something from a Mary Chapin record. In high school I took guitar as an elective and we learned "Red House" by Hendrix (Jimi) note-for-note. And I forget how to play it. 4. Which recording of your own (or as a sideman) are you most proud of, and why? The EP I am working on right now. It represents progress in all forms to me. 5. What’s the difference between playing live and playing in a studio? My thoughts about recording have changed since working on this EP. Dan works to create a very relaxed, fun studio atmosphere. So it's not a "studio" and we're not "making a record." We're playing songs. Which is how I feel about playing live. Achieving studio slickness isn't on my current list of Must-Dos. Maybe it will be later, who knows. 6. What’s the difference between a good gig and a bad gig? Frame of mind. When I decide to show up, it's a good gig. When for whatever reason I don't show up mentally, it could derail and usually does. I used to blame it on weather, guitar strings, crowd interest, and a multitude of other things...but it boils down to intention on my part. 7. What’s the difference between a good guitar and a bad guitar? I really have this intense fascination with anything with strings, so I think there's a purpose for every guitar. Even the $6 ones you get across the border in Tijuana. (I have a blue one). I have another one that is from Malawi...a friend in the Peace Corps had one of the kids in her town make me a guitar out of scrap metal, wire, and wood. It's full size and an amazing piece of work. I need to use it to record someday. 8. You play electric and acoustic. Do you approach the two differently? I feel more at home on the acoustic because I have played it more consistently for the past 7 years. Before that, though, I played electric guitar in a couple of high school bands and was much more practiced with it. This next year is all about guitar woodshedding (among other things). I'm pretty psyched. 9. Do you sound more like yourself on acoustic or electric? I'm hoping to develop the Jana Tone (TM) on electric over the course of the next few years...but I guess for all intents and purposes I am a songwriter who writes and performs my songs on an acoustic...so...acoustic. 10. Do you sound like yourself on other people’s guitars? I think so. I always enjoy trying other peoples' set ups, seeing what they do for their style and so on. Each guitar has its own personality, so I guess it's not about manhandling it into sounding like ME, it's just appreciating it for what it is. 11. Which living artist (music, or other arts) would you like to collaborate with? Mary Chapin Carpenter, The Edge, Kathleen Edwards. What I have been listening to lately, anyway. 12. What dead artist would you like to have collaborated with? Johnny Cash. Somehow...it might have worked. 13. What’s your latest project about? It's about being a baby songwriter but far along enough to be developing an identity. I'm over the part where I'm just trying to make a sound, any sound -- and I'm moving past trying to sound like anyone else. So my latest project is finding out what Me sounds like. And enjoying the ride doing just that.

On Songwriting.

The key to songwriting - in terms of writing something other people want to listen to - seems to be: - make it general enough that a group of people can identify with it. - make it concrete and specific enough that it's meaningful to you, because the people listening feel that. Simple, right? Right.

Thank you, technology.

My usual meeting style. Yesterday was face-to-face breakfast meeting time with Josh, or what I like to call "The 2nd Annual Sol Bourn Records Christmas Party," haha. We had a 2007 wrap up meeting by phone earlier this month, but not surprisingly the shape of 2008 has already changed within the last couple of weeks, so we were excitedly thinking ahead as well as reflecting over our bagels and fruit. As Josh said, it's cool to think that in 6 months we'll have an official business, and Sol Bourn will have LLC written after it, or whatever it will be (can you tell one of the things on our docket is researching this whole thing?) I was just thinking it is amazing that this even works on a logistical level. Twenty years ago we'd have to plan our long distance, across-state-lines meetings to a certain time and make sure we were both around our landlines to answer them. Documents would have to be snail mailed instead of saved as PDFs or emailed. We'd have about 45,000 fewer contacts than we do because we've met a lot of cool people through the wonders of social networking on the internet. It probably wouldn't work to be in different cities without all of these awesome tools at our fingertips. Now we Twitter and Jott and blog and upload documents to Zoho and check our Google calendars. Pretty amazing. But really, nothing beats an in-person chat...with all of the technology around us, it only facilitates the real life stuff, never replaces. That's a good thing. It'll keep Sol Bourn in business for years to come.

I'm Not There

"Who cares what I think? I'm not the President. I'm not some shepherd. I'm just a songwriter." - Cate Blanchett as Jude Quinn who is really Bob Dylan I just saw the awesome Dylan biopic "I'm Not There." It's a trip. I need to go read about 5 more Dylan biographies and watch some documentaries again, but the relieving part of this venture for me is that I got most of it. Or I knew what was going on, anyway. The main point being...no one really knows what's going on. We see 6 different facets of Bob Dylan...the folk/rock electrified icon, the uber-religious convert, and the rambling outlaw among them. These facets are not all continuous or even sensical. "Wait, NOW he's a converted Jesus-freak? What?" But how many times have we changed our lives? I know I am quite the shape-shifter these days...it might be the early 20's thing happening, but I hold new values today that I had quite frankly not thought about a year ago. It's interesting, and I can't map the path or justify it or promise it will remain the same next year. No one really asks me to do that, either. Everyone was asking Dylan to justify his actions, to create a "next step" as a protest songwriter, to give his opinion on the war, on civil rights, on people, on politics. That's a hefty charge for a 20-something, to be a non-self-appointed voice of a turmoiled generation. So what did Dylan do? He denied it. He changed as he saw fit. He changed his answers for every interview because whatever he said was not going to stop a war, he believed. While all the suits and personalities around him called him selfish for doing so, Dylan was probably doing the most responsible thing. Also, a side note in the form of a letter; Dear Cate Blanchett, You rock. You were the most convincing Bob Dylan on screen there could ever be, and I am amazed because frankly I was quite skeptical. I will be applauding from the comfort of my pappasan chair here in Austin when you win an Oscar for this performance. Unless you invite me to be your seat-filler when you go onstage and collect your statue. That would be nice. And then maybe perhaps you could let me hold the Oscar, maybe while you you hobnob with the media and give nonsensical answers to their mundane questions. You did learn something playing Dylan, right? Anyway, good job, Ms. Blanchett...if that is indeed who you REALLY are. There you be. Go see this film.

j.Po Thots: Maybe I really am in grad school.

I play in Houston this weekend and New Mexico next week, and I am preparing for these gigs with some allergies that I've never dealt with before and the general nit-picky setlist/gear stuff. Normally a cause for freaking out, because the logical voice-in-my-head says: "Dude, you can't help it. You have allergies. Your throat is gonna die." "Duuuude. Winging it is cool. It's spontaneous and exciting!" "Dude. Buy extra batteries in New Mexico if you need them. Walgreens are EVERYWHERE." But no (and yes I call myself "dude" and when we hang out I'll call you "dude," too). You don't walk into a test without having read the book (well, mostly...if you're in grad school you're probably past being an academic slacker). And you don't just accept that fact that you don't "get" a certain part of your field. You study it, you dissect it, and you take it in, and you own it. You see how many facets there are in your field and you address each one until you master it at the level you need to. So this week Dan and I worked on a little teeny tiny bit of "outward" because I will be playing a bunch of gigs next week and that is very outward. A little stagecraft study helps a LOT, and we are going to go indepth with it more next year (these next few months are still all about "inward"). At the Life's A Song workshop I talked with Terri about good and bad things for your throat when you're sick, and she recommended some mucous-clearing natural remedies. Pineapple is good. Most of those sprays and stuff on the market contain alcohol which...guess what? Just dries you out. Bad alcoholic spray. You taste like candy but you are oh so dangerous. Also, I had to ponder long and hard about setlist order, flow, and how my wacked out tunings relate to each other for maximum ease of switching song to song. It's like building a short story every night. It's kinda cool. So folk music grad school involves a little bit of acting and stagecraft study, a little bit of anatomy and medicine, and a little bit of storyboarding. And a LOT of practice and experimentation. Excuse me while I go wrap a tambourine in a towel and step on it.

j.Po Thots: Songwriting Frequencies

Tuned in...or trying to be. Greetings from the Dallas airport. I have watched 2 flights depart to Albuquerque, but apparently am not cool enough to be on either of them...hence I wait. And blog. I've heard many theories and explanations of how one writes a song, and I think two things hinder any kind of concrete study: a) it's different for everyone (how cliche, but true) b) most of the time, songwriters don't know where the heck it comes from anyway. Well, I mean...there's the "formula song" made for radio that is polished and henpecked into perfection. That's an art unto itself and I don't take issue. I would like to try doing that sometime, though it might make me cry on the first thousand attempts. Then there's that...other thing. The muse? The subconscious? Luck? The other day I was doing some really repetitive tasks, assembling packets of paper. Large ones. I have the paper cuts to prove it. I'm thinking along, minding my own business, when this line pops into my head. It was a pretty cool line. Now, I've had this happen enough at this point to know I need to stop and write it down or Jott it to myself (a great service for leaving yourself voicemail notes and things -- it transcribes them for you and sends them to your email! Or you can listen like a normal voicemail. Or you can download thesound file online. Jott is golden...but I digress). So I grabbed a pencil and scrawled it and went along my merry way. That line, from where I'll never know, is currently sitting as the first line of my new song, which is a pretty big responsibility for a line. BUT WHERE DID IT COME FROM? Why did it hit me then? I always quote Mary Chapin Carpenter, who was quoting Bill Monroe when she said she kind of picks songs "out of the air." I always loved that analogy. I've adapted it to my own brain, and lately I've been trying to write more...but when the songs are out there and I am here...what does "write more" mean? I've decided I'm like a radio, and my writer's brain can learn to scan frequencies. Now, the more frequencies you can scan the better, so that means I need to be constantly exposing myself to other forms of art and stimuli of that nature...different genres, new writers, the whole shebang. But it's not just the purposeful scan that brings up those good first lines. It's kind of being in tune to the scan...at all times. When you're driving, when you're assembling large amounts of paper together, when you're taking a walk or writing an email. I do think that as a writer, I am learning to be more in tune with the scanning for a larger amount of time. Maybe one day I'll be adept at plucking those gems out of the air like Bill Monroe and MCC. Or perhaps I am just hearing voices, hehhehheh.

j.Po Thots: Stuff vs. Experience

Two heads are better than one. Paul Graham wrote an awesome essay about Stuff. It kind of pertains to my thoughts about living in a small space...actually it sums up a lot of what I have been thinking lately. I am a Stuff Acquirer. Less so now than I used to be, but I still have my quirks. One day there was a giant corkboard outside by the dumpster fence...you know, in that place that people who are moving out put things because they don't want to throw them away. It's huge. It was blank. I like blank things, because it means I can cover them with stuff. I hauled it upstairs. That was in June. It's still sitting there in my apartment...bare. Mostly because there's no good place to hang it. It's that big. I'd have to rearrange my artfully placed photos and Mary Chapin Carpenter tour poster, haha. So...I'll probably haul it back down to the dumpster one day, and someone else with big dreams and a year to plan can pick it up. Silliness, huh? I've got shirts I bought at the thrift store that I never really wear. I've got books I don't read. Pots and pans I don't cook with. Humans are full of that "One Day..." syndrome. One day I might need this, one day someone might need to borrow that. In the meantime my studio starts to look like a museum and the number of items I actually TOUCH in it...as in...use on a weekly basis...is low. The most horrifying quote in Graham's essay to me is this one: "I know of one couple who couldn't retire to the town they preferred because they couldn't afford a place there big enough for all their stuff. Their house isn't theirs; it's their stuff's." Whoa. That's my idea of a nightmare. "Man, I'd really like to go live in Seattle now but I can't afford to move this china hutch and my collection of Peter, Paul, and Mary records that I will totally listen to once I get a record player." should never hold you back from experience. Experience builds you up as a person, stuff does not. And there's an article on Wise Bread about uncluttering that makes the excellent point that less stuff = clearer head. I feel great when I can see my floor. Wise Bread also makes the point that once you clear out some of the things you don't need, the next challenge is to...NOT BUY MORE. Oh, crap. What's better than spending a Saturday afternoon buying a CD or two at Waterloo (guilty: just bought The Weepies disc), heading over to Book People "just to browse," (guilty: new Hemingway tome), and winding it all up with a quick browse through Whole Foods? Curse you, 6th and Lamar in Downtown Austin and your pleasantly walkable shopping district! It's all about the experience, I guess. But who's to say I can't go listen to a whole CD at Waterloo without buying -- they let you do that -- then go page through a book or a magazine at Book People -- they let you do that, too, in a comfy chair! -- and then people watch on the Whole Foods patio with oh, a grapefruit? (Still on that grapefruit kick, kids). That would cost me $0.59 total instead of...well, like $50.00. Brilliant. And then there's nothing to store in my already clogged apartment, either. Baby steps, people. Baby steps. This is all part of a Larger Plan...that is still being, well...planned. But you can bet it'll get blogged about. In the meantime, we're just pondering. Ponder with me. Technorati Tags: songwriter, wisebread, clutter, essay, declutter, personaldeveloment, minimalism

j.Po Thots: Songs are like Grapefruit and Ketchup.

I have discovered the joys of grapefruit. Only this week, really. I have always thought them to be too tart or squishy or...off-color to be edible. They're not quite orange on the outside and inside they are what can best be described as a fleshy-pink. I always thought that anything that is pink and triggers my sour face was not worth my time. However, browsing the produce aisle after having read an article about grapefruits being the Best Thing Ever and Full of Fiber and Nutrients and Other Things with Capital Letters...I caved. And I liked it. Where have you been all these years, grapefruit? Why have I not been sectioning off your tangy spheres of loveliness for the past two decades? Then I decided that I wasn't ready before. The same thing has happened to me with coconut and rhubarb...both things used to make me scrunch up my face in that annoying kid-way (the "I just KNOW I don't like it, ok?" way) and refuse to eat whatever was baked by mom. Coconut had that weird texture to it (the way I was raised, coconut grows in little shreds as far as I'm concerned) and rhubarb? What IS it anyway? Again with the tartness, and the green color...that's not pie material, I thought. Now I can't get enough of either. (Coconut rhubarb pie? Interesting. Try it when I'm home, Mom!) You know this is going somewhere, right? I'm no food blogger, even though I read a bunch (my favorites: poco-cocoa (a fellow Austin blogger), Vive Le Vegan!, Everybody Likes Sandwiches, and Don't Get Mad, Get Vegan). But I digress. I think as a songwriter, you definitely grow into new realms and perhaps outgrow others. I got over hot dogs and Kraft singles cheese sandwiches because I found other things in the world that offer more taste and complexity. Song-wise right now, I can't even really stand to play some of my older songs. Some songs were written about a time and place so foreign (and maybe unpleasant to an extent) that I would not cry if I never played them again. But I will always take requests. :) I also feel that right now, thanks to Red Leaf, thanks to living in Austin, thanks to having more time because I'm not in school...I am challenging myself in my writing and playing. Stretching those fingers as well as my lexicon (or sad lack thereof). It's a good thing, but it's a long process. Just like adapting your tongue to curry after ketchup...there's a learning curve but it's definitely worth it. After that...can you go back to ketchup? Can you re-visit old songs that aren't YOU anymore? Sure. I think there's a time and a place for every song as a writer's library grows. Some grow with you, some are outgrown...but every now and then it's nice to have that documentation of a certain time in my life. And it's nice to go back...kind of like having a hot dog at a picnic on the lake in July. You wouldn't order it at a restaurant, but the hot dog is part of the overall experience. For the time being, as I work on writing more and prepping for a new record...you're going to get a tasty, tasty mixture of curry and ketchup my friends. Oh, and grapefruit. Ruby red. (Photo courtesy of uncommonmuse!) Technorati Tags: songwriting, muse, writing, grapefruit, austin, jana Powered by ScribeFire.

j.Po Thots: Songs are like Ecosystems

Yep, still thinking. I had a conversation with my Red Leaf guitar prof Kevin (who rocks the world) the other day about how songs are like mini-ecosystems. He's a deep guy. I played him my newest song and we've been examining it and prepping it for the adult world with a bit of editing and tightening up of form. Now, in college I lived with Beth the Biology Major for almost 4 years. We got along swimmingly and still do (now she's Beth the Med School Student), and she would tell me interesting things about biology and cells and science that I would promptly forget. I would tell her how I hated writing 20 page papers about the civil rights movement, but it sure beat chemical equations in my book. Point being, I am not exceptionally science-y. Beth in study mode. Some of us still wonder how she got into med school, hehheh. However, I am in the process of deciding what to do with the bridge of this song, and Kevin and I were discussing the merits of keeping it, modifying it, or taking it out all together. All viable options, really. There aren't really any rules, but you do need to be careful. Kevin pointed out a song is like a mini-ecosystem. It's got a LOT of parts going on in its 3-5 minute little lifespan, and being careless with the placement of any of those parts and drastically modify the song's effect on the outside world. This bridge in this song (it's called "Blonde on Blue" for future reference, because it WILL be on the next album) is a lot like...oh, maybe an ant species or perhaps a...bit of wildflower growing in a field. Sometimes, you can remove something from the system and it's ok...for whatever reason. The ecosystem will adapt and grow. Sometimes, though...if you take a species (or a bridge) out of the system/song carelessly...you train wreck. Something is missing. Things fall apart and break down. Then you're stuck. Point being...writing bridges is not for pansies, and I am learning more and more to appreciate each segment of a song that seems to flow into the next so seamlessly. A scenic view is made up of thousands of pieces of a system all pieced together and working in tandem, just like a verse-chorus-bridge progression. Nice. Maybe all of Beth's learnin' taught me something after all.

No TV Project: I'm Not Alone?

Check out this little factoid: 2.5 million LESS people are tuning in to the major networks this year compared to last year. Now, I'd like to say that act of putting my TV in the closet a month ago accounted for a nice chunk of that statistic, but really it wasn't that bad. I am enjoying the choice, though. It was a little weird at first. I was used to eating meals with Diane Sawyer or Charlie Gibson, getting my daily dose of catastrophe news and troop casualty counting in with my morning fiber twigs. Then I'd flip the tube on when I was just home, and inevitably get sucked into the latest episode of Trading Spouses which...come on, we all know they're completely freakishly opposite families maybe with a couple of jerky, lazy family members who see the light and everyone leaves understanding a little more about the world but really happy their mom is their mom. And that's cute, but if you need to go live with an Amish family to realize that, you've got bigger issues than I care to see on screen. I digress. My point was, I was used to the noise. I figured I would supplement my lack of TV noise with increased amounts of music...but that's not even the case. These days I wake up, I do my Morning Pages, and I eat breakfast...in silence. I can hear the birds chirping outside, the cars going by. I CAN HEAR MY OWN THOUGHTS. Creepy, huh? It's kind of ok. Plus, if I want to take a walk, the Simpsons re-run isn't going to distract me. (Ok, I do miss the Simpsons, but they exist on DVD without commercials anyway so it's not a huge deal either). I have gotten a Netflix membership, because one can't deprive oneself of the form of visual art entirely. I just like to think I've narrowed it down to watching actual art as opposed to...complete schlock. Sorry, network TV...you're not even missed.

j.Po Thots: Get in Line

Yep, this is still the Official j.Po Thots photo. Deal. Tonight I walked up the stairs to my apartment and noticed there's some interesting arrangement of planet-moon-star-star in the sky -- all in one perfect line. I literally slept through astronomy in college (I know, I know...it's interesting, cool stuff...but the last class of the day coupled with a dark room and cushy chairs...I was zonked the whole semester and still got an A). Hence, I have no clue what the planet is or if the stars are really just more planets...but I'm pretty sure the sickle shaped thing is the moon. Pretty sure I got that much out of class. It references how a lot of things in life align, even when you're not trying. Those stars and planets weren't coasting around space thinking, "Man! If we could just line up with the moon right now!" It just happened, if only from our vantage point on Earth at the moment. The point? Keep making connections and going places, because you will be amazed at what aligns from those seemingly random connections down the line. I'm proof. Ask me about it some day.

j.Po Thots: Songs Are Like Pants

The new "j.Po thots" photo. Because I look like I might be thinking. Deal with it. Work with me here. Everyone's got a favorite pair of pants. Mine happen to be some I wear for pajamas with a big "LOBOS" down the side...one of the few ways I exhibit some alumnus spirit, and only then with utmost decorum. However, they haven't always been my favorite pair and judging by the fact that they are sweats and it is summer again (translation: HOTT), I'm going to shift my pants allegiances pretty quickly. That's fine. It was nice while it lasted, right? Some songs are like that. They get outgrown, or the circumstances in which you began singing them (or wearing them...in winter...with school pride) change. Your POV shifts, and sometimes...the songs don't shift with you. That's when I begin that process of eliminating things from my set list. Some songs just don't fit anymore. On the flipside, some seem to grow and adapt with me without me having to change the words. That's how I generally tell the keepers from the "nice try's". I have a friend who is very easy to get to know on the outset...she's great with people and easy to talk to. I was shocked to learn one day that she doesn't really consider you a "Friend" until you've been through a whole year together as acquaintances, because she realizes she changes with the seasons and her friend group does too. I thought that was very wise. Some friends are just summer friends...your moods align for a while and it's good, but it was never meant to last. Some are there for the long haul, even when it's the most depressing day in January ever because the holidays are over and the snow is gone and it's just grey and April is SO. FAR. AWAY. (That's just me and January, though). So maybe I have "keepers" and "nice try's" and "after Labor Day" songs? I guess the only solution is for you, dear readers, to come to every show, track every set list in excruciating detail, run some numbers, and get back to me. I'll be shopping for summer PJs.

One Year Anniversary

Last year, round abouts now. This past Memorial Day weekend marks my one year anniversary of moving to Austin. I moved a bunch of boxes up 3 flights of stairs into a studio apartment (thanks to Mom and Dad...it did not take me 16 days to move -- we got it all up in about a day and 254 gallons of water) and said, "Well...now what?" It's been a good year. I won't say it's been all puppies and roses, but it hasn't been....wolverines and thorns either. (Based on those last couple of poetic attempts, maybe I should give up this songwriting thing entirely. Hm!) I have met some awesome, awesome people. Played some really cool places. Enjoyed life. Missed my home, but found out that's ok. Oddly, one year to the day, I found myself back on the road between Albuquerque and Austin. Strange how things work out.... This past weekend. See a trend? Fitting, I suppose.

Hello.

Mindy Smith and I would like to welcome you to the new jBlog, which will never again be known as the jBlog (because Apple can pull it off with the letter "i" but that's it). However, if you would like to purchase a jCD or a jSticker or a jBagel, email me. I'm kidding. This is probably what one would term a "test post" in which nothing interesting is said and the person posting it prays it all works. Oh. I guess. My name is Jana Pochop, I am a singer/songwriter, and I live in Austin, TX. I am from Albuquerque. I live at www.janapochop.com. Carry on. But come back soon.