Dan Costello

Music Of The Harvest!

It's autumn again -- my favorite time of year in Boise. It seems like a few years have passed now where we haven't had that classic fall season, though. The one where the summer heat breaks in late August, and the breezy, cool blue-sky days seem to last from the first fruit off the trees, through the reddish-orange progressive painting of the leaves, and clear past Halloween sometimes all the way to Thanksgiving.

This year, I have a feeling it's back.

And to celebrate, I've helped put together a musical celebration of the season. The show, called "Music Of The Harvest," is Saturday, October 13th, at the Visual Arts Collective (VaC). Showtime is 7:30. More info available HERE.

I'm on stage first, with a short solo set, followed by a great touring string band called DumpTruck Butterlips, and then the band of a new friend of mine, Andy Hackbarth, whom I've gotten to know over the last couple years at some of the booking conferences. We both played a showcase last year at ArtsNorthWest in Eugene, Oregon. He played right before me, and I remember remarking to the crowd after I got on stage after him, "All this time, I never knew I had a little brother." Definitely kindred spirits in the music world.

So that's where you'll find me -- either out in the sunshine, kicking through the fallen leaves on these gorgeous Boise fall days, or at the show in the evening, weaving music from the Harvest.

The Balancing Act

The most dreaded question I ever hear (and I hear it often): "Oh, you play music... so what do you sound like?"

And I say, "Well... uh... what night are you gonna hear me?"

I constantly struggle with defining my sound. Most people seem to want a quick, less-than-four-word description that makes it easy to buy or sell. But as a full-time performer in essentially one market, I have to stay diverse and versatile to keep from burning myself (and you the listener!) out on the same old stuff night after night.

Even within a particular venue or with a consistent ensemble, I still try to find a way to keep myself, my fellow players, the venues' staff members that put up with us time after time, and the crowd on its toes. This may cause obvious issues with marketability, but I think the Swiss-army-knife approach has become a definition in itself.

My approach has been to try to find a balance between all the genres and styles that I love. I think of each of those styles as a rubber band that's wrapped around me, and I'm sort of suspended in the middle of a web of rubber bands. It's like my own personal string theory. (C'mon, I'm a musician, not a physicist -- gimme a little creative license here...)

Then sometimes it feels like those rubber bands squawk up, saying "I need to be stretched." Lately, due to a number of circumstances -- listening habits morphing a bit, venues or events needing certain music, or particular instruments that really call out for some playing time -- that squawkiest rubber band has been jazz.

And even within jazz, I see countless very defined avenues to explore. It can be an intimidating and sometimes frustrating genre to work within, where staunch traditionalists expect one thing while the heart of jazz itself, based on improvisation and innovation, demands another. Though my musical abilities have progressed steadily over the last few years, seemingly even the last few months, I find myself bouncing from the learner to teacher role within every set of jazz I play. Always present are those that possess skills far beyond my own, and those that look to me for new ideas and guidance. Even the songs themselves possess this duality. I occasionally lose myself in one chord progression for an hour or more during a practice session. Again, the need for balance is clear, even in the midst of stretching toward one extreme of my musical universe.

This makes me think of another visual system to express my view of music in my psuedo-scientist mind mode: that from any hub (be it stylistic, genre-driven, instrument-family-based, ethnic or nationalistic, et al) if one travels down any spoke, that spoke will lead to another hub, so on and so on in an endless path toward not just refinement, but to ultimate specialization. An infinite regression, if you will. (I tell you -- it's turtles all the way down!) Pretty soon you're playing ONE note on ONE instrument for exactly the same duration in the same club at the same time on the same night every week... OK, maybe that's going a bit too far, but do you see the same dilemma I see in that pattern?

So my path has led me to stay as open to all paths as possible. Learn at least a little bit from all that music has to offer. Hoping that those who DO specialize in a certain genre or style recognize my respect and love for ALL music. And hoping my forays into their chosen realm of expertise aren't viewed as insulting or somehow denigrating to their efforts and art form, but rather as an opportunity to share that expertise with a very willing learner.

Another defining element in my universe: YOU. Yes, you, reader / listener / co-conspirator. Your attendance and attention at a performance defines my sound in that moment as much as any other influence I can think of. That balance between musician and listener never falters -- it's always the highest common participation between the two. It's the old adage: "You get what you give." Lend an ear. Stretch a rubber band. Tune a spoke. Stack a turtle. Define, refine, be fine.

Album-A-Day. Easy, right? Ehrm...

To Tom7 (creator of the Album-A-Day (AAD) project):

Dan Costello from Boise, ID here. I'm a fan of yours in many ways! I adore your fonts, Escape, your writing style, your music. I hope this is still something you're actively involved with... A friend of mine and I just recently completed an AAD project, and we were hoping you could add it to the list. I have uploaded the tracks to my ReverbNation page, which can be streamed for free.

Before you read through all this to glean what I need to say to YOU... THANK YOU. Thank you for ever having mentioned this concept. This is a brilliant kick-in-the-ass process for ANYone, but I feel it's ESPECIALLY great for professional musicians too stymied in their own perfectionist worlds to just effing DO something, CREATE and have FUN and damn the torpedoes, COMPLETE a PROJECT. THANK YOU!!! 

I've been a big fan of the AAD concept ever since I read about it years ago your site. I've even scheduled previous AAD's to be recorded, but something else always took precedence. Being a professional musician made it even more daunting, knowing how much time goes into a good recording session, and whether or not I could overcome my perfectionist attitudes to allow some things to just live as is and submit the project without the typical fretting and stewing over every last detail.

When I brought the idea to my musical friend Russ Pfeifer (also of Boise), he was as fascinated with the idea as myself and we decided to try it as a collaboration. We'd worked together in a few bands and recording projects before, but nothing as artistically intense as the AAD that we were both building up in our minds.

We actually almost postponed it -- both of us had big home-repair projects that had popped up since the scheduling of the recording day. But Russ's amazing wife heard Russ thinking of putting it off to another date, and not just suggested but DEMANDED that he stick to the plan. She even set us up w/ a fridge full of food and drinks in the studio (nicknamed the "coral cave") and left us to our own blissful music-making devices for the next 24 hours. Bless your beautiful soul, Shelee! 

Russ has a great recording studio, based on Digital Performer software on a Mac. It's rare that he's tasked with a complete project from start to finish -- usually smaller project-studio stuff, edits, voice-overs or beds for video, rehearsal recordings, etc. so this was a great opportunity to flex both his musical and engineering muscles a bit.

Tracks 1, 2, 4 and 5 started with beats and basslines we built into various sequencers around the room (Russ's studio is also practically a keyboard museum!!) and were completed by multi-tracking in our voices and various other live instruments, including mandolin, 12-string electric guitar, melodica, hand percussion et al.

Track 3 (what became the title track, Harvest And Weave) was played live on an old bellows-driven mini-organ -- bigger than an accordion, but not much, and designed to be played on a table rather than held. I worked the bellows and Russ played the progression, which at first seemed pretty nebulous but upon listening back, had an easy structure to write a melody and a couple verses to.

Track 6 was our first attempt at "Select-O-Matic" which started "off the grid," no click or sequencing -- the bass drum was my fist on a wall; other sounds in the beat included claps, a toy piano, tambourine and a gourd cabasa. After having nearly the entire thing finished, we tried burning a test to the MasterLink recorder when the software crashed. Total loss! Hadn't saved, and all that was left were a couple oddly-snipped chunks on the MasterLink, which I decided to include as a track on the final disc in the spirit of the project. Listening to the two... you can tell we were getting a little bleary on the first one (which is track 6), and after realizing it was toast, but that we liked it so much, we gathered ourselves and re-recorded the whole thing with renewed resolve for the (somewhat) refined version you hear on track 4.

We ran too short of time to do another tune, so we let the sorta noodle-jammy "Sustantivo Nuevo" suite live... I'm glad we did. At first I felt like it was just filler, and we had specifically talked about trying not to stretch to the time needed w/ a silly space-guitar odyssey. But as we listened and then added in some hand percussion we realized we had a pretty cool thing happening through the full extent of it, so we included it in its entirety.

I almost feel like this is a spoiler section for those that might be thinking about doing this but haven't yet... I kinda suspected this would happen: I almost felt like I was getting tricked into learnin' somethin'. I didn't sign up for that $#%&.  ;-)  

We both learned an immense amount about ourselves and each other both as artists/musicians and as people. We revealed some major artistic hang-ups we each have -- both of us being pretty highly trained and relatively successful professional musicians but without a great deal of recent output as songwriters or recording artists. Russ unveiled some crucial elements about how his studio runs that he hadn't previously harnessed, and "gremlins" that he had wrestled with before that sorely needed to be exorcised.

We both thought about how incredibly informative (and fun!) it would be to do this on a somewhat regular basis, at least once every couple of months... Expect more AAD's from the Coral Cavemen in the coming year!! And if you have considered tackling this project, but have wriggled out of it at the last minute with some lame excuse: quit delaying. DO THIS.

Thanks again, Tom... ;-)

•••

Created from 4:10 pm April 1, 2012, to 3:56 pm April 2, 2012:

Harvest / Weave  by the Coral Cavemen (Dan Costello and Russ Pfeifer)

Buy the album experiment for only $5.99 or hear free at ReverbNation.

THPRING THPRUNG!!!!

Spring is HERE. Wore my first short-sleeved shirt yesterday, in what seems like forever, without a single goose-bump. It's gonna be a special season.

First off, gotta let you know about a couple great shows coming up:

IN LIKE A LION...

DAN COSTELLO  + JEREMIAH JAMES Duo Show

Friday, April 13th, 8:30-11:30pm, at the Piper Pub (8th and Main upstairs in downtown Boise):

My buddy Jeremiah James, the honky tonk sad bastard country singer, is blowing into Boise this week from North Dakota for a private event. But for the public, we're getting together for a FREE one-night-only duo show. With my songs, his songs, other fellers' songs, guitar pickin', harmonies, and maybe a beer or two.

No cover, the Piper's all ages until the kitchen closes (usually open 'til at least 10:00, sometimes later for snacks -- their battered and smothered french fries are perfect late-night munchies) and they have one of the best bar selections in town.

«Pictured, left to right: Jeremiah James, Ned Evett, Dan Costello. (Only one will not be playing together this Friday.)

RANDY MEENACH + RYAN BAYNE Album Release Party

Wednesday, April 25th, doors 7pm, at Visual Arts Collective (21+):

It's a dual album release party with Randy Meenach (co-owner of River City Guitars, with whom I'm playing) and Ryan Bayne. Randy's new album, Bowl Of Cherries, is a collection of his brilliant songs and guitar work (both steel-string acoustic and pedal steel), along with some fine musicianship from a few of Boise's best, and some gorgeous production from Steve Fulton and Pat Storey at the AudioLab. 

I recorded some guitar for this fantastic new album, and I'll be playing nylon, electric, and slide for the release party. 

The best way to describe Randy's songwriting? It's like one of those GIANT burritos, filled with everything meaty and hearty and spicy that you love, like Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, Townes Van Zandt, Waylon Jennings, Neil Young, Bob Dylan... and you KNOW you shouldn't eat the whole thing, but you do anyway because it JUST TASTES SO DANG GOOD.

OUT LIKE A LAMB (riiiiiiiiiight)...

A few other feats I've been involved in the past month or so:

TONY FURTADO in Boise + McCall

The Tony Furtado shows I opened for in Boise and McCall were really inspiring events, filled with excellent, soulful music, hosted by thoughtful and enthusiastic venue owners, and  appreciated by hundreds of eager listeners! Tony's the real deal. If you can't get out to one of his shows any time soon, check out his YouTube channel -- I'm particularly fond of his (so far) 4-part series titled "Songs And Sculpture," where he plays a tune and then shows you what he's been up to in his home art studio... the guy's a magician. Or just a really freakin' cool human. Either way, he deserves a bit of your time and attention for the artistry he shares with the world.

PATCASSO'S "Red"

The Patcasso "Red" art fusion event was actually a little nerve-wracking considering I didn't really have a band or two of the songs solidified until a couple days before the show...

I was involved in two different segments. (See a video.) One performance was playing nylon string for a song that Eryn Pascascio sang, and Jessie Steiger and Filmon Gebreyohannes Berhe danced to, which was more in my recent comfort zone.

The other was throwing down w/ bass and drums for a three-song Hendrix revue while Patrick Hunter did a live painting, with Cody Ramey on bass and Luke Meade on drums, who both knocked it out of the park, especially considering we hadn't even had one full rehearsal yet. I've played my share of Hendrix tunes, I guess, but usually a little less Hendrix-y if you get my drift. This was pretty chunky blues-rockin' electric-lady-land, and I had to channel a different muse than normal.

It all went great though, and the whole night was an amazing success. More of these to come -- catch one if you can!

ALBUM-A-DAY Harvest/Weave

I finally took the time to do a project I've had on the "back burner" (no, make that "still in the pantry, on the top shelf, behind the three 1/4-full boxes of stale crackers, gathering cobwebs...") called "Album-A-Day."

I decided to try it as a collaborative effort. I had told my buddy Russ Pfeifer about it months ago, and we set the date for April Fool's Day 2012 as our 24-hour window. I have a whole other blog post about it if you're interested...

Suffice it to say, it was a TON of fun and almost frighteningly artistically revealing. Hear the result, Harvest/Weave, on ReverbNation, or buy the experiment for only $5.99.