"Moth's Wings" - Passion Pit.

One of the best songs I've heard in a long time. It sounds like the hope I have for the Summer ahead. I love hearing inspiring new music while I'm writing and recording.

Enjoy.

JM

Staple x Mayer x Bayer tee shirt
Not sure when it "drops"
Check out Reed Space for more info.

Here is the first in a series...
The scope and quality of these videos will grow and get better as the album and the recording process does.

This experience is amazing; to take an idea from inception and watch it grow into a reality is beyond inspiring.

Hope you enjoy...

JM

We're nearing the home stretch on building the studio. The staff is here working full time and the energy is really starting to fill the house.
Even though the recording console is still being assembled, Steve and I had to take advantage of the tools of our trade being around us.
It feels GREAT to lose time and space by getting into a groove and staying there.

This is a jam on the chord progression to "Stitched Up." I decided to pick up my 8-string guitar and remembered that I had written the changes on it, so it came naturally to play it with Steve, who also played on the track. If you have a laptop you may want to plug headphones/speakers in, because the low stuff feels really good...

Sooooooon.......

JM

Sometimes I write songs by way of putting music to an idea, and other times I write by putting ideas to music. The latter is much more difficult but somehow more instantly gratifying. I still can't believe that I can take any sound file I want, burn it onto a CD and then listen to it in the car. I guess I love the way that the environment of listening to music on a road trip makes everything sound so much more official.

You see enough of the goofy side, but that's always to blow off steam after the more earnest part comes out to play for a while. I figured I'd give you a little balance.

Here's a tune that I was working on the other night before we decided to have fun with music theory, and ever since I started singing over it, it took me to such a beautiful and hopeful place, like that last hour of sun in the Summer. I figured the best way to get into the head space of the song was to literally sit in the scene I wanted to write about. I came home with a voice recorder full of melodies and lyrics. There's something I like about this groove that's hopeful but not shiny and bright.

Here it is. Gibberish. Lyrics that mean nothing. Arrangements set in sand. But a vibe. Maybe it grows into a full song, maybe it just informs another. But being my own producer (as all songwriters are) means saying to myself 'just write it.' Judging a song while writing it is like grounding a toddler. I don't know how, but trust me.

California Fleetwood Mac sunset post-shower going out window down new Summer hopeful.

This picture sums up the whole Mayercraft experience:

Show yourself.
Be yourself.
Enjoy yourself.
Play hard, so that you are in debt to yourself,
so that you must then work hard to repay it.
You're not better than anybody else,
but NOBODY is better than you.
Can't dance? SAYS WHO?

And when you've returned to dry land,
back into your roles,
where the world tells you what to do again,
right before you start doing it,
you'll smirk and think to yourself
"That was big, big, fun."

The word "fans" doesn't cut it.
Thanks for one of the best times of my life.

Love
John

Battle Studies, back online.
Load.
Please wait.
>>>loading
Show building process.
>>>loading

Kindle 2.0 Screensaver. This shouldn't be.

Here's the very nascent stage of this song called "Half of my Heart"... there's a chorus that's done, but I don't want to give it away and have you sick of it before I even track it.

As my own producer, the point of the entire game is to write without questions or fear. If it's not good, who cares?? I'll have good songs and I'll have bad songs in life, but if I fear 'bad' songs I won't be able to write anything from an honest place.

I should be done with this song by mid-week, assuming I stay on point and keep on writing.

This is fun... Glad you're along for the ride.

JM

Shows the work in progress element, beauty under construction...

"I was a killer, was the best they'd ever seen
I'd take your heart before you ever heard a thing
I'm an assassin and I had a job to do
Little did I know that girl was an assassin, too..."

Gonna play it on the boat.
I write this to you because telling you I'm going to play it on the boat will force me to finish the second verse.
Gonna play it on the boat.

One of the focal points of my approach to songwriting these days is something I've come to refer to as "conscious composition".

Conscious composition is composing not only chord changes, say for instance a 4-chord progression in a pop or rock setting, but also thoughtfully writing the lyrics and melody line above it. It's the exact opposite of "get in a room and jam." Sure, I could pull together a drummer, a bass player, an organ and a trio of background singers, but without the time spent investigating lyrics, ideas, note selection, etc, all I'm going to have (at best) is a groove that underscores nothing but very basic ideas. Even if I'm able to turn it into something sophisticated, that's still because I was thinking back on a past moment in my songwriting that was fully conscious, except I'll remember it as having come up with it "on the spot"... When there aren't enough of these conscious moments of songwriting to draw from, the creative energy of making music is lost.

Even going into the studio with a guitar and a microphone and singing and strumming until I get something worthwhile isn't conscious enough, because my mind still knows that there's somebody engineering the recording session and my performance brain will take over and make sure I don't sing or play anything embarrassing. The work has to be done alone and ahead of time.

Undoing self-consciousness and bridging into creative consciousness has been and still is a very daunting process. There's nothing new about the template; guy puts everything he has into making music, music rewards guy with everything he has, guy forgets how to make music like he used to. But there is a way to use all that music has given me to dig even deeper than I have before. I'm glad that I've had as many years playing guitar under my belt as I did before I became successful, and I'm glad I have the resources to do whatever it takes to stay focused in that place I know so well.

It's easier to end the day early and go to dinner, but it gets nothing accomplished in the way of answering the question "and why are you taking up space here on Earth again?"

I'm not saying I won't someday go through musical menopause, it's just not going to happen yet. It's being a conscious composer that's going to keep me relevant, and it's refraining from believing that I can jam for 2 months and make a record that's going to return the favor that success has given to me.

I don't like the "Battle Studies" typeface anymore... it's too "black powder war"... I think people will understand it more when I find the world's most beautiful and feminine script font. Let's update it this week.

Took a break from setting up the studio space and jammed a bit. There's something I love about playing with just drums, because it gives me the harmonic freedom to go wherever I like. And whenever Steve and I see each other and there's a drum kit and a guitar rig around, this is how we say hello to one another. For the playas: I'm using a '52 Tele through a Fender Princeton. No pedals.

BEFORE

AFTER

Conclusion: This is going to work well.

The idea is to run as many concurrent streams of production as we can. While Chad is wiring the mixing board, I'm set up in a room that will someday serve as a vocal booth, but right now I'm writing with a very modest songwriting rig...

I'd even like to have album artwork concepts while we're still recording. Why wait? Why not blow the album cover up to 8'x8' and record with it hung up on the wall?

Listen to this track.
A cover of the Blind Faith tune "Can't Find My Way Home."
What a voice. What a recording. What a tune!!!
Ellen McIlwaine - "Can't Find My Way Home"

Here's what Battle Studies is.
(Apologies for cellphone internet. Heavy media comes tomorrow...)

It's a house,
in a clandestine location,
that's being converted into a music studio.
No, not a music studio.
An entire music experience.
A living, breathing, ever-evolving organic space that contains every part of the record making process.
Everybody involved has left their comfort zone. Including myself.
I need to be disoriented again.

I'm going to share as much as I can with you throughout the entire process. Notes, lyrics, sounds, pictures, ideas, videos.

Tomorrow we look at some new guitars and I explain the approach in detail...

I hope you'll like it.

JM

Wow.

Thank you everyone.

You know, it's a blessing to know that you can learn how to truly appreciate something while it's still around... I'm beyond lucky to learn how to accept the beautiful life I have without saying "I wish I knew then what I know now"... Sure, I'm a goofball (I'm generally just uncomfortable), and I have a lot more lessons to really take in, but to know that I can grow and change and trip and try to turn it into a dance while I'm still in the center of living my dream is just about the greatest thing ever.

I think Jason Mraz wrote, recorded and SANG one of the best songs of 2008, and I hope this makes it back to him...

To everyone waiting under the machine that drops records into their hands, be patient, stay tuned, and remember that I'll never stop thinking about you.

I'm going to bed!

thank you
thank you
thank you

John

Count Basie Orchestra - Lil' Darlin'

Pretty esoteric if you're not a guitar player, but it might be cool anyway... Spending a lot of time practicing again, getting back into musical shape and loving it.

The cool thing is that I learned some things I need to change up just from watching the video a few times. Still a TON to learn...

Enjoy. Possibly.

Of all the highlights in my career, I don't know of one more sentimental than getting to walk through Sesame Street. Yes, there seems to be somebody always standing right below Elmo and his friends, mouthing along to everything they're saying, but somehow I'm too filled with wonder to ever look at them. When you make contact with those big beautiful eyes, you're done. Five years old again. Life is good.

More on the Sesame Street special later. It's an important show to catch. Airs April 1.

Twitter.

Still not convinced, but let's give the technology a go and see if/how we can make it organic... Heads up, I may drop it.

Heard this on the radio today, felt exactly like the day did.
What a great one.

Buffalo Springfield - "I Am a Child"

Charley Jordan - "Keep It Clean"
iTunes

I don't want a developed web site right now. I'm not a developed artist. I mean, I was. three times now.

But to evolve you have to dismantle, and that means accepting the idea that nothing you've created in the past matters anymore, except that it brought you here.
To pick up your new marching orders.

I want to use a blog to truly tell you who I am.
I don't want to link to someone else's culture,
like a titanium dinette set with chairs that look like little tables and a table that looks like a giant chair.
That says nothing about me that I want you to know.

I want you to learn about me through the process of writing, recording and producing my fourth album.

I want to host an Open House for bright things and dark things, for lame jokes and sad chords, and for melodies that lift me off the ground.

I want to be less fun at parties, and find it hard to meet new people.
I want to be happier in the house than out of it.
I want to be fearless and remember not to compromise a thing, until the work is done and it's time to shorten it for the radio.

I want to be myself and shut the rest out. Except for the people I love. (This means you.)

Two things I'll be acknowledging more from now on...
1.Thank you.
2.I am lucky.

I'm writing my Battle Studies.
And this time you're coming with me.

LOVE
JM