Listening. 

Is it the most important thing to do in relation to other people? It’s definitely important. There is also, empathy, understanding, discernment, judgement, care, grace, responsibility, truth, honor, kindness.

Still, more close-listening, less big talking is probably a good way forward. I think it comes in handy in politics & world events. Certainly, when playing music with other folks, the power and joy of attentive listening comes to the fore.

Listening. It is a great tool, but, of course, it’s all so very subjective too. Those sound-waves resonating in your ears, resounding thru your body, are so uniquely subject to your tastes, your opinions, your thoughts, your emotions. Your body too is an instrument, and those vibes will make you sing a tune uniquely you.

Lately we have been worrying over our own songs, new songs we’ve recorded, mixed, and are now mastering. It is all a master-class in listening. Turns out listening is a rabbit-hole. It is a mad-making activity. There is no “objective” way forward. There is no perfect. Sometimes there is not even consensus on what you are actually hearing.

As Sly Stone once sang: “Different Strokes for Different Folks.” You can do measurements. You can analyze sound-waves, you can try the scientific approach, but finally, the question: Does it sound good?  That is up to each individual listener. And each individual listener may be hearing different things. That’s the reality. A rabbit hole for sure.

And what devices are you using in your listening? Every headphone colors the sound. Every speaker system. Every player: Walkman, Home Stereo, Boom-box, cheap kitchen stereo, Car stereo.  Yikes. You want to create something that sounds good everywhere on every device.  Once you go down the path of close-listening you find it’s a gnarly web of indecision, and second-guessing. But that’s probably just the process. A working out, a working thru. Every little detail makes a difference. One small change can totally transform a song. It’s a wild, delicate thing. The more you listen, the more you hear. The deeper you go, the deeper it gets. The closer you look, the more you see. The closer you listen, the more you hear. There’s a lesson there. For sure.

– Jammer

Here’s a photo of the Jammer before the show and my sweet, sweet Ludwig drum, along with John Boyle, who was on the bill with us. Thank you to Montrose Saloon for having us, we got those WWSP vibrations going, and after the show a woman took my hand and said, “I loved your music and you are amazing and so inspiring, you must persevere!” And Persevere we must…. – Carla

Ah… well… the Lovely Carla and I, we turn away from the madness, and we chase imaginary rabbits down imaginary rabbit holes. Tom Petty called it, “Running Down a Dream.”  We are working on our music project, a new 9 song album, recorded, mixed, and now nearly mastered. It has been a long, meticulous, very detailed process. It is fun, and rewarding, and kind of exhausting. My partner and I are a chasing down some imaginary ideal, in a world where the ideal is a shimmery chimera always dancing just out of reach.

We are down to making decisions on how loud tracks are and how many seconds of silence work best between tracks. Yes. Silence. In this day and age of streaming services and playlists, maybe not the most important consideration. But if you are working on an album, a CD, who knows, maybe a future vinyl release, the amount of silence from one track to the next looms as an important, who knows, maybe a critcal thing. 

“Maybe for these two tracks 0 seconds works? Nice how one song segues right into the next one. Maybe 2 seconds between these tracks? Maybe 4 seconds for those two?”

Funny. Lost in the silence. We can fall into the gap between, and lose ourselves to the project. 

Not sure if anyone else on the planet will listen to these tracks quite as closely as we do. We, of course, hope so, but who knows?! We are truly deep down in the rabbit hole sifting thru all the little nuances and details. We do hope folks will give our album a listen, and will love it. We truly are “speaking our truth,” backed by a fabulous band of musicians. We think it’s the best work we’ve ever done, and we hope the world will embrace it with all of their attention & love too.

Anyway. Imaginary Rabbits. Imaginary Rabbit holes. We feel like we can get lost and hopefully found in the silence… – Jammer

Right on. Ganesha is known to be the “Remover of Obstacles.” Another way of saying. “Rock on and Damn the Torpedoes” whitewolfsonicprincess takes the stage at 8:00p.m. on Saturday, October 21.

When we have a “successful” outing with our band, (like we did yesterday late afternoon, on the street in our hometown); with a good-sized, deeply-enthusiastic crowd, a fabulous lineup of acts, supremely well-played sets, $ for all the musicians, happy, beaming faces, and an all around feeling of happiness & good-cheer, the word that always bubbles up and wafts over us: VIBES.

Yes. That’s right. As in “good vibes.” We are lucky beings who have on-going relationship with the vibes. It’s a strange thing. You can’t see vibes, but can feel them and absorb and embody them. The band, the players, the music, the songs, the lyrics, the location, the sound system, the gathering tribes, they are all just the set and setting for conjuring and luxuriating in the vibes. 

And it all just happens organically. You can’t will the vibes to appear, they just show up and descend upon us all in the doing.

LIVING WITH THE VIBE! 

It’s bigger than all of us, and includes all of us. We chalk it up to the power of music, creativity, and being alive in the moment; honoring life, love, doing the the thing you love to do with heart, head and soul all completely aligned, in communion with a gathering of fellow beings open to experiencing and mirroring-back those same positive, healing vibes. It sounds heady, and trippy and maybe a bit “hippy-dippy.”  Ha! SO BE IT! 

Yes. We must accept it. Our mission is to be true to the vibe, one note, one lyric, one song, one rehearsal, one show at at time. Be present. In the moment. There is a glimpse of eternity in that little moment where everything is true & possible. Yes. And, as always, damn the torpedos. – Jammer

Hello All – Bob Dylan’s great line: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

Right on, Bob. But when you perform outdoors, it makes sense to check in with the latest weather forecast.

This Sunday Sept 24: – 70 degrees. Breezy in the morning; otherwise, intervals of clouds and sunshine! 

It looks like the Weather Gods are smiling down upon us!

Expect “Old English Balladry” from The Flying Chaucers,  “Space-Age Lounge Jazz,”  from the Leisure Committee and “21st Century Druid Music” from whitewolfsonicprincess.

Food & Drink available from La Principal. It will be a total blast… – James & Carla

Making a record is not easy, it can be intense, fun, challenging and rewarding; everything you want from a good creative journey.

For Jammer and I, first comes the private song writing, with sessions, sometimes in the park with all the tree fairies and shadows and light, sometimes in the hallway of one of our dog walking/house sitting clients where the acoustics are stunning and inspiring and it conjures up visions of the magic evening when “Moonlight Mile” bubbled up out of the ether at Stargroves, or even in or cramped little kitchen that we sometimes convert into a little make-shift studio.

Then the collective work with the band as they embellish and paint the sonic flesh onto the bones of each song. There’s recording challenges too, the hope and aspiration of catching the butterfly. And the train is still not in the station, there’s working on the mixing and listening, listening, listening and if you get all that, the mastering is the cherry on top.

Each part is a link in the chain and you hope that it ultimately becomes a complete circle, you’ve corralled the beast, set the jewel, it’s a golden thread with the ends tied together to form a continuous revolution.

Jammer and I have different listening processes and we each have our strengths (for better and for worse), they do compliment one another, and we are ultimately above all else aligned creatively.

My thing is these ears!!!! They hear sooooo much!!! Everything! I mean Everything!!!!! Like for instance, when a breath or string noise is a feature or a flaw in a song!!! Sometimes I am like pleeeeeeease for the love of Mary! Make! It! Stop!!!!!!! Talk me down!!!!!!

I can let go though. I do know when we’ve gotten the project as good as we can. And I’ve gotten little insights along the way. Messages from the universe that say: “It’s going good girl, keep on truckin’…” Like the first day of recording, it was really intense and when I got home it felt like one of my debilitating migraines was coming on, they take me out for days, but thankfully I fell asleep, and Jeff Tweedy appeared in a dream and said “It’s all about the process,” and when we were getting close to finishing the mixes, I woke up one morning, reached for my phone on the bedside table, and a video of Rick Rubin was the first thing that came up, he was saying something like “Do your best, it’s not about what anyone else says, make the work as good as it can be, then you give the work to god.”

Good to get some outside guidance to help us with our la folie à deux. Which is what Jammer and I say to one another once in a while.

Anyway, we’ve been using Nina Nastisia’s “The Blackened Air,” (2002) as our guide and inspiration for this new project. We sent the first tracks to the Mastering Engineer Maria Triana in the far off land of The Netherlands and it was so wonderful to get this note back from Maria:

“Attached is the master of the (WWSP) track ‘Love Without Fear.’ From Nina’s track I loved the openness and intimacy, the air in the room. Even-though your track is more dynamic and has a different intensity, I wanted to look for the same elements. An intimate vocal, warm, open and also a tight clean low end. I wanted also for it to sound big. It kind of reminded me a bit of “Raising Sand” (2007) by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.” – Maria Triana

Very sweet reference, “Raising Sand” is one OF OUR ALL-TIME FAVORITES! – Carla

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Haruki Murakami: “It’s my belief that if you listen to good music, your writing will improve.”

This comes from one our greatest writers. I am thinking especially of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. Both the Lovely Carla and I have read it. Both of us totally loved it. Magnificent & Magical.

Carla and I listen to good music all day long. We are close-listeners. We really pay attention to the music. We still spin those magical little silver discs, it truly is the “golden age” of CDs, on our big, classic, multi-component, living room stereo system and our compact bookshelf stereo system on the counter in the kitchen. We are not play-list people. We don’t listen to singles. We listen to albums, we consider an album, a cohesive collection of songs presented as one artistic statement, as the one of the great art-forms.

Pretty sure everything improves when you are listening to good music: writing, cooking, philosophizing, talking, meditating, relaxing. I mean, it’s truly better living with good music.

What’s good? 

That of course is up to each listener. We all have very particular tastes, proclivities, and tendencies. Carla and I have every kind of music imaginable in our record collection. We both love (this off the top of my head): Dylan, Beatles, Stones, Modest Mouse, Wilco, Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac, John Coltrane, Led Zeppelin, Richard Thompson, Linda Thompson, Dead Can Dance, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Grateful Dead, Brian Eno, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Anders Parker, Drive By Truckers, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, Nick Drake, Aretha Franklin, Neutral Milk Hotel, Neil Young, Brian Eno, Lucinda Williams, Son Volt, Otis Redding, Pharoah Sanders, Floating Points, Sly and the Family Stone, Steely Dan, The National, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Nina Nastasia.  

Carla has her very particular favorites: Chet Baker, Nina Simone, Bon Iver, Natalie Merchant, Mavis Staples, Van Morrison, Art Blakey, Yoko Ono, Explosions in the Sky, Karen O. 

I have mine: The Who, Sigur Ros, Mogwai, The Kinks, Miles Davis, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Peter Gabriel, Big Star, Jason Isbell. 

We are always: spinning, singing, dancing. That’s the way to do it. Improving everything! – Jammer

The Lovely Carla and I were totally exhausted yesterday. Maybe still reeling from the heat? Last week’s Heat Dome really did a number on us, and we are still feeling the effects. We powered thru anyway and had a rehearsal with our band late afternoon.

We schlepped our gear over to our studio space, set up the P.A. plugged in, and played. We resurrected a couple of old songs, mixed in with some new songs, and ran thru a few songs that we always play. It was quite exhilarating. Nothing like a roomful of musicians all listening, and playing off each other.

Our exhaustion seemingly evaporated for a couple of hours. The kick of inspiration propelled us forward. It all sounded so good to our ears. Afterwards, we kind of collapsed in a heap. We trudged back home, crashed on the couch, sipped some cold Kombucha and watched an episode of Neil Gaiman’s  “Good Omens.”   A fairly ridiculous & silly show, but quite entertaining.

We settled into a fuzzy state of giddy weariness. The rosy glow of good vibes and musical inspiration wrapped us up in an envelope of good cheer. That’s the power of music, and the ability to play it. To play is the thing, damn the torpedoes.- Jammer

We usually only write about music here. But the Lovely Carla and I are in the middle of watching The Bear, and it just totally rocks our world. The soundtrack is amazing too. So why not?!

There are many reasons we love “The Bear,” a series streaming on Hulu now. Don’t worry, if you haven’t seen it yet, I am not giving anything away, no plot details. You should see it all for yourself. We are in the middle of season two.

The show blows my mind, blows open my heart. It’s a love-letter to Chicago. I was born and raised in and around Chicago, and the series totally gets the quirky, gnarly, beautiful, raging beast; one of the great American Cities. I mean, it is so Chicago-smart, down to the tiniest, grimiest, of details. It totally rings true. Paints a total landscape and mind-scape.

What really resonates with me is the cast of characters, the “common folks;” deeply flawed Human Beings, scrambling about, risking everything, staring down failure, grasping at finding some meaning & purpose in their lives. There is this deep-seated, need, a fuzzy-headed quest, to find something great, something excellent, some way to expend and apply themselves, giving it all up to something bigger than themselves, a state of being, a place, where “every second counts.”

Just people, very human beings with all their foibles, doubts, worries, insecurities, addictions, madnesses, depressions, side-shows, tentatively shooting for something greater than themselves.

Oh man. It’s the narrative of a”striving,” or the falling into certain circumstances that opens the door to something amazing & great. Applying yourself, working on yourself, finding something where you can be the best, even if it’s in the service of something seemingly inconsequential, simple, mundane, tedious, odd or weird. It’s a dropping the ego thing, subsuming yourself into a greater process and flow. Yes, it’s everything. Life. So good. Inspiring. Beautiful. Hilarious. Touching. Powerful. – Jammer