The Weblog of Daniel Tashian

Spent the last 4 days at H. (House sitting for B&H) and reading about Godard and Truffaut, and making tea for my grandmother. Courtesy of NPR: A “Theic” : One who is addicted to tea! This certainly applies to my family. Set up my laptop (back and from apple and repaired!) on the kitchen table and worked on some promising new ideas in Logic and the new Garageband. Went to Jackson’s with Rachel Huesenstamm. Made several large salads and swam several miles. Still, it can’t be denied, I have a bit of a tummy. I wonder if it’s because swimming makes me so hungry, I then overcompensate by eating more than I burned? Had a burger at Jackson’s (Brad Jones style, no Ketchup.) and I didn’t sleep well with that red meat churning around. Once in a while, though. Simon Bruce came by and we hung out a bit, and I have to get that Eno book back from Troy. Oh, and I’ve been listening to “In Rainbows” by Radiohead non-stop, and I think it’s the best record i’ve heard in 10 years. Every piece is amazing. Some lovely songs on there. Each day, another one is my favorite. Weird Fish, All I need (devastatingly good) , Nude, 15 Steps. Wow. I almost had to quit music, because they are just so good. Oh and that song “House of Cards”- that is one of the most emotional pieces of music i’ve ever heard. But still, we must soldier on. They have a unique opportunity by having the luxury of being able to jam together a lot, and take years to make the records. But if you watch “Scotch Mist” on YouTube, you can see them play these songs all together, very simply, so, if you think the records are composed of studio trickery, guess again. They’re just fucking good. (Excuse the language.) Returned home and spoke to Helen Bransford and she said when are you coming to the Hamptons ? Maybe next week ? Lots of email piling up, and phone calls to return to schedule co-writes. The thing is, I just need to finish the songs for the S.S. residency. Oh and that reminds me, I need to get a poster made.

Went to the pool, then to the bank, and then to get my hair cut. VHS playing in the barbershop, of Tiny Tim getting married on the tonight show. He looked so happy. He just really wanted to be married. To east Nashville to work on Joy’s record again. Worked until 5. They were really sweet and indulged me and let me work up some of the arrangements. To swim again, and then Jason and David came over and we had a trio jam session. I think if we use the laptop live on some things, then the trio thing will work. “I just don’t want it to turn into some kind of melee.” said David. “I bet we can do half of our set like this” said Jason. I don’t know, I mean, on a certain level, I think people enjoy listening to bands experiment. I know I do. I just think if the experiment fails, it’s alright. I’ve been noticing something, and i’m not sure if this is completely true, but it seems to me, like the more expensive the record was to make, the less reverb there is overall. It would be a good theory to test. Went to sleep and I had troubled dreams of ex-girlfriends and band practice and trying to get my guitars off the stage in some club, before the next band started.

Well it was my brother’s birthday, and I sent him a little care package with my mom. I got him one of those Budhha Box thingys. Man. I kind of want one of those myself. I think that’s a good policy, though. Get someone something you would want. Worked in east Nashville on Joy Shaw’s record, and I had no idea how good she was. I mean, I thought she was good, but she had 2 songs yesterday that were amazing. I was playing keyboards all day which was fun. I could just do that all the time. Hags was there, and Marc Pisapia. Joy’s daughters are all really cute, and one of them, Adia, is on the cover of the new Raconteurs album, which I need to buy. I have been listening to the Radiohead on repeat, and it’s just amazing. It’s good to listen when you are driving at night. The podcast I did for Electronic Musician Magazine is up. God, I sound horrible. I sound like the most lazy, pompous, self-satisfied person. I can’t believe this is me. I hate the way my voice sounds in interviews. It’s much better in print, I hope. Oh well. Can’t win them all. I mean, I am proud that they wanted me to do a podcast but I just….nevermind. Home from the east side about 11 and w.t.b.

Well I’ve been swimming every day now for about 10 days and I feel pretty good. Spent a long time trying to figure out how to get my Nord Lead to chase Logic with midi. Went to the grocery and got some sushi for lunch. I have 4 records in my itunes now: New Radiohead, AIR, and 2 by Harold Budd and Brian Eno. Man, when you drive around and listen to those things, it’s like the world becomes a movie! I’ve been listening to a lot of ambient and electronic music, and there’s something nice about that stuff. It feels modern, and usually I’m listening to stuff that was made years ago. Also KCRW. I love listening to that. Alot of the stuff sounds great until the vocal comes in. Except Radiohead, becuase Thom Yorke has such an excellent voice. Still not drinking coffee, and oddly, I have more energy. Played Tennis with David Mead and Brad Jones. We invented a game called “Scones” where you don’t have to really serve, and you just play a 10 pt. tie-break. It’s really fun. Serving is the part that really messes my game up.  Home and showered and made cous-cous with yogurt and cucumber dressing, and had a couple pieces of rotisserie grocery store chicken. It was good, but all the computer work started making me really tired at a certain point. Then Melissa Mathes texted so I met her for a drink at PM. She’s really nice. She said her boyfriend Ryan got the gig playing guitar for Jewel. He’s a great guitarist. I really feel in danger of spending a lot of cash on itunes but I need to be careful about that. Home at 11 and played my most recent track for David Mead and he played a couple keyboard parts while he was brushing his teeth.

Well there were quite few yard sales going on, but i’m more in a phase of getting rid of than accumulating things. I went to Lilly Fish’s yard sale and I got “On Beauty” by Zadie Smith and a portable CD player for the car. Home and to the pool for a swim and then to lunch with Josh Rouse at Baja Burrito. We came back to the house and played guitar a bit, then I worked for a couple hours, on some instrumental stuff. McClean came over and she has a new boyfriend in London. On the phone to him: “And then I went to lunch, and then I came back home, and then I did some work….” It gave me heartburn to listen and realize that’s all you can do in when you’re away from someone. Tell them what you had for lunch! Back to the pool and then went to the block party of Will Ramsey’s down the street, and saw Peter Bradley Adams for a second but then Lilly appeared and we went to PM and I ate like everything on the menu. It was expensive, and I realize I have to eat before I go out if I want to save myself from financial ruin. I must go to the grocery first thing tomorrow, and actually, it’s a good time to go because the pool is closed, and nobody will be in the store! To bed about 12 and read 2 pages.

Well it was a bit dicey there for a minute.  The Powerbook crashed yesterday. I had tons of songs on the itunes and tons of lyrics and Reason ideas. I don’t know what I was thinking not backing that stuff up. I guess I just thought “It’ll never crash without any warning!” but it sure as hell did. My brother says every hard drive crashes eventually. Oh well. So to the Apple store and I got a new computer that I really like and I’m exploring Logic. It’s quite nice, I think. Swam 1 mile, and ate like I was heading for the chair. Did an interview with Electronic Musician magazine. I’m just realizing that all my demos were in that Itunes and don’t know if I have copies of them anywhere else! What am I going to do? But now there’s incentive to get more work done quicker I suppose. Truth be told, I was starting to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of under-utilized ideas on that computer! It was too much for any human to process. There is such a thing as too many good ideas, I think. Had dinner with Josh Rouse and Brad Jones, Hags and Marc and Liz and David Mead. It was a nice dinner party, although somewhat heavily weighed in favor of the boys. Lily Fish called and said she was thinking of coming to the dinner party if her headache didn’t go away, but I guess it did.

Memorial day, but shops still open, so to “The Walking Company” to return some shoes that broke when they shouldn’t have, and to the Apple store for a new battery for the laptop and a copy of Logic Express. Installed the software and it’s really intuitive and very fun. Went swimming and then went to Tommy’s party in East Nashville and the food was delish and I was so hungry. I had baked beans and tomatoes and sausage and a burger and some cole slaw and a glass of rose and a coke and some chocolate pie. We watched a bit of “The Deadliest Catch” and I felt sort of sorry for those poor crabs. Home about 6 and David Mead came over and made some food and we watched “Rendition” with Glen Close and Jake Gyllenhall. Not a very fun movie to watch, but it makes a good point about torture. It doesn’t work. People will say anything to not be tortured. So you end up with all this unusable intelligence and a bunch of really psychologically messed up people and I wonder if the movie was based on a real story? I really feel embarrassed by the US policy of torture. I think it’s horrific and we should never ever torture anyone!! I think if you are going to sign off on torturing people, (as Rumsfeld and D. Cheney have), you should have to undergo the same techniques that you authorize, so you know how it feels. Anyhow, worked a bit more and went to bed 12.

I think I kind of forgot who I was for a minute. I remember now that I like tea, and Tennis and the Sunday New York Times and chicken fried rice over salad and chocolate and, embarrassingly enough, k.d. lang and what else? Reading light English comic novels. Bit of an Anglophile actually. Okay, what is this ghastly song that’s on every time I turn on the radio and it’s just horrible, talking about getting low, etc. I mean, to call this a song is really a misnomer because the thing is like a loop with someone just kind of ranting about strippers, it’s really the kind of thing that bothers me. I mean, that really bothers me. I also am bothered by people giving away their pets when they get a new job and get busy. “He just needs to be with someone who can give him the love and affection he needs!”  Cleaned up a bit from the party and cooked some sweet potatoes and carrots and had that for lunch and watched a documentary on the ghetto, then took a nap. Went to Hopkins and worked on the piano a bit. Home and now i’ve decided I must get rid of some of these horrible shirts that I got from Express. The material is so…icky. The patterns are okay, but I just feel myself moving away from the collared shirts a bit. I also made a decision to not wear my baseball cap as much, even though I love wearing it, it kind of promotes this turtle-in-a-shell kind of personality, where I find i’m more reluctant to engage with people, and I just sort of hide out under my cap. To the Mercy lounge for Long Players and I ran into the wonderful musician Greg Leisz and we talked about when he was recording Ingenue with k.d. lang and I made a mental note to dig that out. Such a great album. I think I might get a portable CD player for the car because CDs sound so much better than ipods, but, as Paul Kennerly says: “Convenience beckons!” I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what’s cool. I mean, the thought of doing a rock kind of record sort of makes my skin crawl, although REM sure are good at it. This new record of theirs is amazing! Long Players were good and everyone gave me compliments and said I looked good. I went home with a bee in my bonnet re: Ingenue and tried to give it a listen as I was falling asleep but I couldn’t find my headphones.

This was the day of LIz’s birthday party so I got some supplies and got my hair cut. Somewhere in the fray of last night I managed to lose my wallet and all my cards…so I went to the bank and ordered new cards and I went to the DMV to get a new license but no dice: 4 hour wait. So I will have to use my passport for a while. Mindy Coleman picked me up and we went to American Apparel which I had never been to before and I got a sweatshirt and a wrist-band with my high school colors for the party. I tried to pay with a check but they said no. Went swimming twice and Kelly called. She said she would be performing at the Living Room on Monday. I called a friend of Helen’s called Lilly Fish and invited her to the party and the Workmans came over about 5 and they brought some Calypso food. Oh. Harriet, David Workman’s wife, her father is very sick and may die soon, so they were all sort of sad. David Mead and Rachel helped with the decorations and it was a fun party. Brad and Carrie came, and Robin Eaton. Also, Mary Catherine Bradshaw, and Marshall Chapman. I spoke to Marshall for a while and she’s so funny. But after a while people wouldn’t leave and it was like 2 in the morning and I was just kind of beat so I went upstairs and hit the sack.