The New Album

The new CD -- what are we calling this? An album? -- is almost finished. In fact, the recording and mastering is finished. I'm calling it "Fight My Wars" which is the central theme of the songs. So, I just booked a show at the Fox and Goose on June 8th, 2013, and that show will serve as "CD Release Event" for the band. Exciting! One problem: I won't have any CDs at that time.

My solution is this. I'd planned to upload the album to Band Camp anyway, so I will make the album available on Band Camp, but I will have some "limited edition" CDs available for the show as well.

Mark your calendars! Saturday, June 8th, 2013 at the Fox and Goose in midtown Sacramento!

Upcoming Shows!

Friday, August 24th, with Be Brave Bold Robot at the Fox and Goose, 10th and R Streets, midtown Sacramento, 9:00 p.m.

Friday, August 31st, solo show with Christian Kiefer and The Kimberly Trip, Body Tribe Fitness Benefit, 8:00 p.m.

Sunday, September 2nd, for the Chalk It Up benefit, Fremont Park, 16th and P Streets, midtown Sacramento

With Nice Monster

Saturday, September 29th, with the Carly DuHain Band and Devon Farren, at Bows & Arrows, S and 19th Streets, midtown Sacramento, 8:00 p.m.

Friday, October 26th, at Beatnik Studios, midtown Sacramento

Squirrels Recording Session, 2012

We're finally recording our first record, and I'm finally realizing a major goal in my life. I've been working toward writing and recording my own material for years.

We recorded 10 songs with Matty Gerken at the engineering helm. I'm very happy with the sound so far, and I look forward to working with Matty through further overdubs and mixing.

Then, I need to decide what to do with the recordings. Do I press a traditional CD? Do I pursue a digital release? Vinyl?

Photos of Squirrels Recording Session, February 2012

Live at the Sterling Hotel - Roots and Horizons Benefit Show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlpbpp9Q7vw

Follow us on Twitter

@squirrelrock

Two-out-of-Three Squirrels

That's me with Ryan to the right. Photo by Sara Larossa.

Upcoming Show!

We have a big show coming up: May 20th at the Fox and Goose. We're sharing the night with Flounder and Majesty, two great three-piece rock bands. It will be a fun night! Please come out!

Upcoming Dates for The Secret Lives of Squirrels

March 5th at Old Ironsides
March 25th at the Fox and Goose
April 14th at Sierra College Earth Day Festival

JJ Abrams' Mystery Box

JJ Abrams is now one of my new favorite people. I've enjoyed some of his work (specifically "Lost"), but after watching this lecture, I've found that he is an energetic, intelligent, and brilliantly creative fellow. Check it out!

http://www.ted.com/talks/j_j_abrams_mystery_box.html

Jennfier Egan

I just came across this website after reading about it in the New York Times this morning. Very cool and very interesting in regards to writing. Egan creates short, spirited narratives that (surely) serve as the germination for longer stories. Good stuff!

http://jenniferegan.com/

Beautiful Things

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Hilarious and heart-wrenching.

http://www.minimiam.com/en/goen.html

Skip the intro, click on "gallery," and enjoy.

FAWM 2010

So, here it is again: February Album Writing Month (FAWM). I've participated in this challenge three times before, and each year I produce better songs, so I'm excited about FAWM 2010. The challenge: Write and record 14 songs in 28 days -- one song every two days for the entire month of February. I will post my demos (very rough demos) on My Space at http://www.myspace.com/kjasonroberts

I welcome constructive comments.

UPDATE: Damn, this is difficult. So I've written and recorded three "songs," so I'm on track, but, man, they kind of suck. Good little elements in each, but overall, they just don't come together. Anyway, I'll post them soon.

Project Song on NPR

This is really cool. Heard it on NPR yesterday. If you're into songwriting at all, it's worth watching (or listening).

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113659105&ps=bb2

300-Word Story

I assigned a 300-word story to my fiction writing class. I told them I would write one, too, so here it is:

The Last Time
She carefully sifted through his sock drawer to find the pack of cigarettes she knew he hid there, the two broken fingernails on her right hand like little daggers, catching between the fibers of his dirt-stained athletic socks. Lifting the pack of cigarettes from the drawer as if it was a ticking bomb, she walked to the French doors, opened them, and stepped onto the redwood deck outside, the new fall rain puddling in the wood’s striations. She sat on the first step and lit a cigarette, a mist of rain swirling in the evening air. Delicately she touched the reddening bruise now rising around her eye, the blood on her fingers sticky against her face. The orbital bone is cracked, she thought, running her fingertips over the skin, feeling the heat of the contusion, comparing its discomfort to the others. After several long drags, she flicked the cigarette into the soft, wet grass under the purple dusk light and watched as it billowed smoke like a tiny wreckage. Standing, she pulled the white door handle, noticing her cracked fingernails, the blood like a tattoo on her pale hand. Never again, she thought as she carefully shut the door behind her, wondering why she still moved timidly. A smile cracked her face, and she placed a hand over her mouth. No, she thought, then listened to the silence in the house, the stillness, absorbing the odd calm. She eyed the body on the floor, its forceful frame, its girth, its unbridled power now empty, the hilt of the kitchen knife jutting from its chest. Her heart filled and quickened as she stepped over the body – the sole of her white tennis shoe leaving its imprint in the puddling blood – picked up the telephone, and began to dial.

© Jason Roberts, 2009

Old SXSW kudos

I just found this while cleaning out my email inbox. It's a brief review from our 2008 South-by-Southwest appearance. I stick it here because I'm mentioned specifically, although not by name (I'm the lead guitarist). I don't often get press or kudos, so what the hell:

43 Songs About 43 Presidencies
(Sacramento)
standardrecording.com

My first big find of the fest: These guys are indeed billed as you see here, but according to their label's Web site, the "band" itself seems to be called: Of Great and Mortal Men. Yet according to Pitchfork, the project they're plugging (still to be released, apparently) goes by the full name: Of Great and Mortal Men: 43 Songs About 43 Presidencies.

Tonight, we get a total of 6 guys playing 8 songs about 8 presidencies, some with the band's introductory explanations as noted: "Rutherford B. Hayes" (mostly about his beard), "George H.W. Bush," "Zachary Taylor" ("he had the most face"), "Andrew Jackson" ("he was a jerk; he was, like, a genocidal f---wad, so f--- him!"), "Warren G. Harding," "Benjamin Harrison," "Ronald Reagan," and one of the generals who became President, though they don't say (and I can't catch) which one.

Leading the festivities is Christian Kiefer (at left in photo), who wrote the songs with Matthew Gerken and Jefferson Pitcher. And the songs are great. "Hayes" is hard Americana, "Taylor" breaks into a spirited hoedown, "Reagan" comes across like a truly touching Steve Earle song (I kid you not), and "Jackson" — ooooo, this is the best, a real scary thing, like the Coen Brothers taking over A Prairie Home Companion. The band is ragged but right, with a remarkable lead guitarist. By all means, track down the three-disc boxed set whenever it sees the light of day.

Yay, me!

Richard Price, Lush Life

I just finished Richard Price's novel, Lush Life. In one word: aggravating. It begins well enough. Price details New York City and its people with a gritty clarity ("gritty" is how we all describe urban crime novels, by the way). His dialogue is great, and the story he begins to weave is intriguing -- it's centered around the homicide of a young man, witnessed by his two friends. But after only a quarter of the novel, Price tells us who shot the young man (in retrospect, it was pretty clear even earlier), yet the novel is 455 pages long, so the story just keeps going with no real prospect for a decent or interesting pay-off. I kept going, holding on to the hope that he will surprise me.

Nope.

Now, like I said, Price delivers with his keen eye for detail about NYC and its characters, and the story of the protagonist is compelling, but he's not someone I was particularly rooting for. And Price does present an idea by the end of the unending cycle of crime in NYC and how the NYC police waffle between disdain and ineptitude for the constant crime cycle. I just don't think it's enough to justify 455 pages.

So, I'm on to Philip Roth's Zuckerman Bound.

Recession Fallout: Fewer Women Having Kids

Recession Fallout: Fewer Women Having Kids

This article is from Time magazine. I think it's an interesting example to which we can apply the Tipping Point theory.

The D.C. Show on YouTube

The fellow who filmed our Presidents show in D.C. posted a nice clip on YouTube (that's me on the left, hiding in the back).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4GHsT-VthI

Songwriting!

I signed up to participate in February Album Writing Month again (I completed the task in February 2007, skipped it in 2008). So far, in 10 days, I've written and recorded four songs. I'm relatively pleased with the songs, but not necessarily the recordings. I have a bit of trouble singing. I'm sing moderately well, but it's definitely my weakness. I'm trying to write simple songs and focus on vocal melody, my other weakness (you may ask, how in the hell are you writing these songs in the first place?).

So, it's a process, and as many people know, I dig process. I have definitely improved since 2007, so it's nice to grow as a writer and artist. However, the greatest challenge is finding my own voice. I listen to my favorite artists and emulate to them to a degree -- or maybe I emulate too much. It's a difficult distinction to make, really: Where does influence end and originality begin?