The Weblog of Daniel Tashian

Leslie and I cleaned up quite a bit, and the French Open was on, and watched that with the sound off. We listened to some music on my itunes. Leslie played “Talk Talk”, and when Phoenix came on, she said: “Who is this? I like this song.” and we dealt with a lot of laundry. I talked on the phone with Jon Wright and he thinks he can get funding for our musical if he gets Big Kenny to sing a song on it. Went to my parent’s house for dinner and it was Bob Newborough’s birthday and we asked him to make a speech and he said: “As unaccustomed as I am to making speeches on occasions such as these, I would like to keep it short. I would just like to say how very nice it is to be spending my birthday with all of you, and thank everbody very much for being here.” There were delicious brownies for dessert and I ate only one. Went home and went to bed pretty much right away.

Cleaned up and washed the dishes, took the dogs on a long walk and it was nice and cool and there were no cars. I think I just get lazy in the summer because it’s so damn hot. Answered some emails and Brad Jones wanted to play tennis but I forgot to check it. Cleaned up both houses and watched tennis. Picked my parents up at the airport and took them home, then my dad took me home, and the caddy wouldn’t start. Lex Price called and asked me to come meet him and Mindy and some other people, but the Caddy was dead in the water, so I called him back and said I would have to wait for Leslie to give me a ride. When she came home, we both went to Jackson’s ($9) and had a couple beers and Mindy is hilarious. I told her I couldn’t take off my jacket, and she said she didn’t need (laughs) any explanation why! But Leslie says they are starting back up on her record, and they must have found some one else to play because they haven’t called me. Went home and watched some of “Wedding Crashers”, and I don’t know why, but Vince Vaughn is kind of hard to stomach sometimes.

Took it easy, mainly. took my grandma out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory ($28) and then watched some Tennis and took a nap. Cleaned up after the party and Leslie went home and I stayed around and cooked some stuff. Went to Heather and Jason Lehning’s party and they had good food. La Hacienda. And thier dogs were there and they were really stealing the show. Drinking out of the Keg and stuff. Talked to Brad Pemberton, and told him I really liked Ryan Adams “29″ a lot and we were going to start a club band. Nicole Hart said she liked movies from the 40’s with some badass bitches in them. John Deaderick had just played someone’s private party in France and was telling all the details about meeting some royalty. It made me miss the jet set style of living to hear him descibe it. It was a nice party. Leslie and I left, had a couple chardonnays with my grandma and went to bed.

Woke up and walked the dogs early, then Leslie had the idea to go to the farmer’s market and get some vegetables and we took my grandmother and she was interested in the corn, so we got some corn. We got about 2 dozen tomatos and other stuff. Then took a nap and watched some tennis and played the piano a bit. About 10 or so people came over and we had hamburgers and hot dogs and stuff and it was a nice party. Bill Demain and Helen, Joe Pisapia, Bob Bradley, Tommy Keenum, Scotty, and Sandra and Andy Torrente were there. Also Micheal Waller from D.C. and it would have been nice if there were more girls because it ended up being a lot of guys talking to each other, but what can you do? Melissa showed up at the end and watched the rest of “Match Point” with us.

Woke up and walked early and I am going to stay at Hopkins for the weekend while my parents are away. I threw a couple novels and Bartlett’s and some clothes in a duffell bag and legged it over there. I kind of decided that I wouldn’t really do anything too strenuous and just take it easy for the weekend and watch some movies. I called Leslie and then we got the idea to have a barbecue Saturday night, so I started just calling people in my phone and I got to about the h’s and had to stop. Rented the Woody Allen film “Match Point” on Jen Rouse’s reccomendation and it’s really really good. It might be one of his best. I love all the little English expressions he captures, like when an ederly woman says: “I’ve always been a great one for saying what you mean, and meaning what you say” or something like that. Moved in and it’s comfortable there.

I called Ten Ten and nobody was in the office and, to be honest, I don’t think they want to sign me at this point, because we made plans to have lunch (even though it was my suggestion) and it didn’t happen, so they weren’t making it a priority. And I don’t blame their skepticism, I mean, I haven’t proven myself in the country market, this is true, but I don’t know. Maybe I just thought everything else I was doing would be so impressive, they would forget about that, but we’ll see. Patrick Clifford called in the afternoon and agreed to listen to my demos and I took them over and he said they were too elaborate, I should just make guitar/vocal demos and that’s what everybody tells me. But he wants me to write with Angelina Presley and he played me some of her stuff and she’s brilliant. So, I was feeling somewhat deflated, because I felt certain that the demos I was doing were undeniable hits, and maybe they still are, but they failed the first mission. Back to the drawing board.

Emily west came over and she’s hilarious. The whole way she talks to her dog is unbelievable. We tried to write a few different ideas but it wasn’t happening, so I pulled out a song idea and said “I have this idea.” So she ended up liking the idea and singing a little demo of the song, it’s called “That’s alright, i’ll let it slide” and it sounds kind of Dylan-ish. I hope it sounds Dylan-ish, I should say. But Protools kept crashing and it was really frustrating and if I didn’t have Jason Lehning I don’t know what I would have done. T-Bone Burnett was playing and I should have gone to see Marc Ribot and Jim Keltner and T-Bone and I called Gillian and Dave, and sort of said: “Well, are you guys going?”. But nobody called me, so I guess they must be out of town. I should have gone anyway, but it’s like that Norah Jones song sometimes: “I don’t know why…”;There’s no way to explain why you didn’t do something, it just doesn’t happen.

Natalie Hemby came over and we worked on a couple ideas and she has such a great voice. We made up a new musical idea, but we didn’t have any lyrics so we agreed to work on it another time. She sang some background vocals of the other song we wrote and the demo is finished now. She said she loved what I did with the demo. Liz called and said Jessica Maros was playing and I was on the list so I was going to go and John Deaderick called and he said he was going to Baja so I met him ($9) and he said he’s tired of everything on his ipod and just feels general malaise. We went to the mercy and Jessica is such a good performer. She was dancing and the energy level was much higher than most gigs you see. The guitar player was having technical problems, but she opened with our song, which was flattering. Then Melissa Mathes played, and she sounded great. She played 3 of our songs and it was neat to hear your songs performed in a club and I could kind of hear what was good about them, but also what could use improvement. Faster, for one thing. I could be wrong. But Angelo and Chuck Prophet were there and they were buying me drinks and so was Liz and I was doing more “Long Dancing” but I wasn’t drunk or anything. I just like dancing lately. Laughed quite a bit and came home.

Worked on demos of 2 new songs and went to the gentleman’s club. Leslie says it’s just an excuse to drink and I told that was hogwash. David Mead was about to embark on the first leg of his tour for “Tangerine” and Emerson was discussing politics and I think he’s a Republican. Jason asked the bartender something and a moment later she emerged with an alligator-skin pool cue case. Had 2 Miller Lites ($9) and went home to bed.

Worked more on the demo. No Naps. Pretty much stayed in the room except went to my parents house for chilli and cornbread which was good. Maybe I should make a chilli. Posh gets her stitches out tomorrow and then she can play with Sula again. Leslie was watching the movie “Studio 54″ and Steve Rubbell’s character is so funny the way he goes outside the club and points at who can get in: “You….not you or you….”