September 2010
10 posts
The Podcast Returns
We’re happy to announce the return of the mikegarrigan.com podcast.
The last podcast series (which ran from December 2009 through April 2010) was a monthly insight into the making of Voyage of the Malamander. The next monthly series will highlight live performances from the Voyage of the Malamander release shows.
The first podcast in the new series will air tomorrow, October 1st at...
Seeing an Idea Through to Completion
Sometimes finishing an album is so hard. I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s the procrastinator in me. Maybe it’s the perfectionist. Maybe it’s that I want people to like my music so much that I’m willing to not put it out to save myself the pain of rejection. All those things, probably.
When I finished Voyage of the Malamander, I didn’t have the elation that I had received in earlier works. At...
Experimenting
Being willing to experiment is a creative blessing.
In my creative life, when I’ve achieved some level of success with an album or a song, my immediate tendency is to figure out what worked with it and repeat it as much as possible. The problem with that thinking is that it’s the newness of an idea that makes it exciting in the first place. That’s the problem with sequels. With the...
Finding Relevance
Audre Lorde once noted, “There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.“
There are 12 notes. There are only about 1,000 coherent rhymes. There is a limited supply of material with which to create.
And yet, every day thousands of new songs are written. Every day, hundreds of albums are completed. Every day, there’s a new connection of a new listener to a new band.
One...
Avoiding Complacency
One of the blemishes on my artistic career has been the work-in-progress album The Return of Spring. I formally began working on the album back in 2007. As I recorded various tracks for it, I felt myself continuously revising, editing, changing, and manipulating everything. I was running in circles.
In a lot of ways, when I made The Lessons of Autumn and its follow up The Promise of Summer, I...
Finding a Voice
I haven’t met a songwriter who absolutely loves his or her first album. In my case, I view Building a Hole (my first full-length album) as an abomination. And yet, there are a hand-full of Chapel Hillians who were around in the early 90’s who saw the coffee house shows, who were a part of it all, and still claim that it’s my best work.
The main reason I don’t enjoy listening to Building a...
horrormovieaday asked: It took me a 2nd read but I just realized your setlist you posted on your blog a couple weeks ago was the Dirty Wake album in its entirety. Was this recorded and if so are there any plans to release it on your site? Hard to believe it's now been ten years since I bought it and then Lessons of Autumn/Chartreuse/Building a Hole in quick succession after that (with LoA having a near-permanent...
Dealing with Criticism
At one of our Artist’s Way gatherings a few years ago, we vehemently dove into the nature of criticism. The overwhelming consensus was that, at times, there’s some criticism that is completely unjustified and unhelpful. I became rather indignant and excited—I decided to write an Artist’s Bill of Critical Rights, something that all critics had to follow in order to deliver fair criticism. ...
How to Avoid Writer's Block: Work on Life
Anton Chekhov once noted, “If you want to work on your art, work on your life.” In my experience, that’s completely true.
In looking back on my creative life, the times when I’ve been the most blocked have been the times of greatest turmoil. Well, then again, there was that time in college in which my music took a grand cathartic turn (and, as a result, generated some of my most revered...
Everyday Writing Part 3 - Finish What You Start
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been musing the necessity of writing everyday. Here is a third technique I use to keep the creative flow flowing.
Technique #3: Finish an Idea
One of my favorite live DVD concert videos is the Foo Fighters’ Skin & Bones. It’s an unplugged evening with one of the greatest rock bands of the last decade. While explaining some of the group’s writing...