Pre-Production

Pre-Production work for a new album has begun. We’re waiting on our buddy Dennis to recover from a recent surgery so we can fill these scratch tracks out a little more.

Video for "Kings, Gods, Fools" from GemsOnVHS

A Zoetrope

A brief retelling of the moving pictures in my memory of “Moving Pictures” , a short story by Andrew Jones:

Is seeing your fate in advance a blessing or a curse? What would you do with the power to see your future if you had it?

A young man was given a secret embedded in a simple toy. Through the slots in a cylinder he could see the last day of his life as it wound down. The preliminaries and the final event of his passing. The man told no one and buried the toy in a watertight box in the bottom of a forest pond. Once a year he would visit the pond and retrieve the toy to watch his last day. He would then sink it again and return to his simple life.
In his old age, the man’s four grown children began noticing strange sequences in his behavior on their trips home. Many crates were delivered to his porch. A locked door shut off a wing of the house. Inscrutable noises emanated from behind the door. Correspondences.
At his deathbed he gave them all knowing winks and smiles and quickly drank a tincture when all but one person were out of the room.
In his wake, he left instructions to take his ashes and a sealed box to a large house on a hill several days’ journey away. All his children went, one reluctant.
Before the arrival to this shrouded mansion on a hill, a storm began to rise. The few had barely arrived at the gate when the wind swirled gustily and the rain pattered hard on the cobblestones leading up to the house. They hurried to the door and were welcomed into the grand old home and ushered into the study of a young man who looked old. Or was he an old man who looked young? There was something about his eyes.
The Old Man laughed and twinkled and regaled the young travelers with stories of their father. He easily opened the locked box and produced a stack of bendable slides. He swore siblings to secrecy before unceremoniously tossing the bundle of pictures overhead. They watched them fly into the air above them and noticed for the first time, to their surprise, a crystalline dome in the tower above them which captured the picture slides in something like an updraft and held them there, hovering and swirling. The light from the thunderstorm now blowing full bore around the safety of the warm study flashed through the crystal dome and fractured, conjoined, multiplied, and bent the light, showing sequences of pictures. Some images fully familiar, some partially obscure, some altogether untranslatable flashed and danced around the walls of the room. All were enraptured and silent until the storm and the display dissipated.
The Old Man produced small packages in paper and whispered parting words to each of the four before demanding they retire before their long journeys home.

—

So you planned and saved and stored
Was your body slave or lord?

You were utilizing tools
Are we Kings or Gods? Or Fools?

New Video From GemsOnVHS ("Lower Tiers")

Listen to and download the single version of “Lower Tiers”:
bandcamp, iTunes

Some context.
GemsOnVHS is the popular YouTube channel helmed by my old friend Anthony Simpkins. Anthony came up from Nashville, Tennessee to visit us in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan during the early part of September this year (2019) and we worked up some videos in advance of my new album Toss Your Javelin being released.

A little bit about the song.
I wrote this song in 2013 after my album Living Is Trying had been recorded, but before it had been released. I was listening to a lot of Paul Simon (top) and learning some renditions of a couple Irving Berlin (middle) compositions to make myself better at the guitar. You can hear the Tin Pan Alley hat tip in the bridge and the Simonized chorus where I take that diminished chord on a little walk downtown. I remember having the goal to use every note in the chromatic scale in the construction of the song. I made some adjustments to do so in the editing phase. That’s that off kilter, accidental sound you hear. The blues in it.
I had been having some conversations with my sister about attempting to make art pay the bills and was in the process of one of those bi-annual, zoomed-out life reassessments. The thing my murky unconscious kept spitting up was this crazy optimism that doing the same behaviors repeatedly would produce the changes I so desperately wanted in my life and my career. Does Living = Trying? Serious question. Either way, I knew I had to aim SOME direction and shoot for it. What I didn’t know then is that there was some serious living and growing up I had to do. That’s called gaining footing. I was telling myself to “sit straight up and cast off all your spells”.

I’m really proud of this song.

My brother Joe recently introduced me to this painting I had never seen before (bottom). It’s called Truth Coming Out Of Her Well. This painting says to me better than what I can say to myself.

Thanks for the kind support.
If you’d like to help keep the fire alive so’s the storyteller don’t go hungry, you can blow some ashy dollars in the direction of the top left corner of the website or become a monthly subscriber on bandcamp. If you’d like something in return like a cd, a funny shirt or digital downloads, please visit either the store on my website or iTunes, bandcamp, Amazon, etc. Tell your local promoter you want John Davey to come to your town and we’ll get something going.
If you’d just like to listen instead, no big deal. Go stream the songs on Spotify, Apple Music, Google, YouTube or wherever you usually listen to music. If you subscribe, follow or add the song to your library, it doesn’t cost you much extra than a click, but it makes a big difference on my end.

I’ll see you soon!

-John

AUGUST TOUR (2019)

BIG OLD PHOTO DUMP FROM THE PAST MONTH.

THERE ARE SOME EASTER EGGS IN HERE.

The Singles Project

Several years ago I read an article by legendary mastering engineer, Justin Colletti, called Feeding the Machine (it’s long, but worth the read if you’re into that sort of thing). In it, he makes the case for returning to the method of releasing a lot of singles since at the dawn of the music industry, the whole apparatus was kept afloat by a tidal wave of singles, some of which “stuck” in the public consciousness, some of which didn’t. It was one of those paradigm shifting moments for me. I had friends that released singles on occasion, but my heart and mind were really with LP’s. It was the format I knew and connected with so well that doing anything other than that rarely even ever crossed my mind. However, Colletti made such a good case for the regular release of singles, that I’ve carried this concept around in the back of my mind for years, telling myself that when I ever get to the right moment in time and circumstance, I’d begin to do just that.
I happened to read Feeding the Machine at just the moment in time where my years-long road dog experiment was winding down. I fell into one of those chaotic in-between seasons, which happened to last for a few years longer than I expected. There was some upheaval in my relationship with my family, my living circumstances changed, my trusty Ford Escort finally kicked the bucket, I moved from one day job to another, learned a ton of classic country songs, got another car, moved to Tennessee with only a foggy picture of wanting something better and more, worked more day jobs, released a really cool record, fell in love with a girl who lived across the country, packed up and moved again, started adjusting to life in a way different climate and culture, began cultivating this life-long relationship, had a really cool, tumultuous band for a year and a half, played some shows, changed jobs again, got married(!) and finally life seems to be smoothing out a little. I’m out of choppy waters and aimed across a stretch of time fully supplied. That whole time, this little idea of regularly releasing singles kept twirling and dancing in the back of my brain and occasionally suggesting itself to me. Now I’m in a period where I actually have the time and resources and people around me to make it happen in a meaningful way that is satisfying to me creatively and that I can make work for me in a financial sense.
Working with audio engineer Peter Gummerson of Rivulare is a key part of this whole enterprise. He’s a cool guy with a great method who puts his money where his mouth is. We’ve worked really well together so far. I’m also excited to get my drummer Bud from my band The Ancient Urge back on board with me. Bud is a deep well, has a composer’s mind, and is great to bounce ideas off of, not to mention he handily plays numerous instruments and is therefore a treasure trove to tap for anyone in my position. Harold South is a really busy, very serious bass player who’s been making a living off of performing and teaching music for years. I’m getting to know Harold still and I’m excited that he’ll be part of this attempt at feeding the machine. I’m sure the revolving door will keep spinning and I’ll introduce other interesting characters (musicians, visual artists, audio engineers) as we go forward and get more songs in front of you all.
Thank you for joining me and for lending your eyeballs and earballs to this ongoing project.

-John Davey