Little Thoughts

02021-12-07 | Photos, Santa Fe

  • “Bewilderment”, by Richard Powers, reminds me of “Stranger in a Strange Land”, by Robert Heinlein. Very different, decades apart, yet both cover some similar ground. Trying to wake the sleepwalking?

  • The original meaning of bewilderment was not confused. Rather, it literally meant a return to wilderness. The bewildered human, living in nature, with nature.

  • Humans as a species need to evolve. It seems so simple: we either change or go extinct. Sooner or later. It’s a natural cycle, of course, but it sure would be nice if we made an attempt. As it is we are running off a cliff, unwilling to change. Can the rapacious caterpillar turn into a butterfly?

  • I am over the largely sensationalist response of the media to a new variant of covid. I limit my news intake but of course I receive clips and links forwarded by friends. Of course the virus will mutate. That’s what a virus does. Some variants will be more dangerous than others. I think I am sick of the distraction. Yes, the virus is dangerous… but is it more dangerous than our industrial poisoning of rivers, destruction of forests? Is covid more dangerous than climate change? Why does the press have so much to say about the pandemic and so relatively little about climate change?

  • Several friends bought this little machine and recently I acquired one as well. It’s a little wonder. Four inputs, and microphone preamps, and the ability to record files up to 32bit and 196kHz. The Nagra of the 21st century. I also learned that the machine can record up to 12 audio tracks – albeit at 24bit instead of 32bit. Recording without a computer. Imagine, this machine will be able to record guitar parts for a new album anywhere… all I will need is this little MP6, a microphone, a cable for connecting the mic, and a pair of headphones. Electric power is optional. In my studio I was never able see the screen while recording so I am used to working without the visual. Record lots of ideas and edit later.

    • Wednesday Morning

    02021-11-10 | Photos, Santa Fe


    It was great to perform at the Lensic again last night. We enjoyed it very much. There was an interesting blackout during “Heart Still/Beating” due to the lighting console freezing and having to be restarted. We cruised right through that though.

    The above sunrise greeted me this morning.

    Sunday Morning

    02021-11-07 | Phone, Photos, Santa Fe, Travel



    I woke up early and went for a walk. Many trees in town are showing gorgeous autumn colors. Took a few phone snaps. What’s the best camera? The one you are carrying. It was the coldest I have felt in months, but the clear mountain air was a pleasure.

    Rain Play

    02021-07-31 | Music, Santa Fe, Video


    I have been organizing and packing and throwing away stuff for several weeks now. A 20 yard dumpster was filled with some of the detritus of thirty years – I moved into this house on my birthday in 1992 – and what I wanted to keep was moved into storage. I was exhausted from the work and hadn’t played guitar at all in a couple of weeks. This afternoon a lovely thunderstorm approached the house and I decided to play guitar accompanied by rain and thunder. The house is empty and the reverb in this room is now enormous. I leaned my iPhone against the guitar case and it recorded my guitar and the rain and some thunder.

    My friends say it sounds sad. I say that it should sound sad because it was wonderful to live here and to make music here. I am not moving because I don’t like this house and the studio. I am moving because if I don’t move now I will never move. That would be okay, too, but I want another adventure and now is the time.

    I recorded around twenty albums in the studio that’s less than fifty yards from this room. The first album that came out of here was ¡Viva!. We mixed the album here after recording it on the road in 1994. The 1996 release Opium was the first album to be recorded and completed here. In those days we still mastered every album at The Mastering Lab in Los Angeles. A few years later we took the late and great Doug Sax’s (who mastered albums for Pink Floyd!) advice who asked me why I was still coming to him for mastering when the material already sounded perfect. So we started to master albums at my studio as well. Innamorare and christmas + santa fe were released in 2000, Little Wing in 2001. If I remember correctly Little Wing was the first album mastered here. In the Arms of Love was the first album released on my label SSRI, in 2002. La Semana, released in 2004, was the first album I engineered by myself. Then came Winter Rose, in 2005, One Guitar in 2006, the binaural album Up Close in 2008, followed by The Scent of Light in the same year. That album was followed by POP in 2010, Dune in 2012, three-oh-five and Bare Wood in 2014, Waiting n Swan in 2015, slow in 2016, The Complete Santa Fe Sessions in 2018, Fete in 2019, and finally the Lockdown and Full versions of vision 2020 last year.

    Now I want to do something different. I’ll tell you more about my plans soon…

    Flying

    02021-06-11 | Santa Fe, Trees, Video

    This morning this stretch of road looked like space, three dimensional and with thousands of little spaceships flying around at great speed. Cottonwood season.