August 5th, 2009

Down

Shirk and I were back in the studio yesterday after a 5 month hiatus, due to my workload and travel schedule… only so many hours in the day I suppose.  Too long a break… but great to be back in there.

This is a song a wrote a few years ago called “Down”. We’ve been trying for some new vibes and sounds on this record…. hope you like where we ended up with this one.

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April 14th, 2009

Fallout 3…

So, progress on the record remains slow, but my hang with Dave last week was great, and relatively fruitful. In addition to providing his acting skills for an upcoming KEROSENE project (Dave revisits his role as the sexual professional, somewhat incognito), Dave and I successfully kicked off the development of three new songs. Here’s a rough of one of them, tentatively titled “Fallout 3″.

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March 21st, 2009

The coming of a speechwriter (LLC that is).

Getting prepped for a visit from my friend Dave Lowensohn, formally and currently of the duo Speechwriters LLC.  I had one of the best times of my musical career with him and Misha (his other half) about 5 years ago when we did a small college tour of the east coast.  Dave is one of my favorite songwriters and we’re getting together in the hopes of writing something together… or several somethings.  And potentially recording one or several of these somethings?  We’ll see how it goes.  But very psyched to put on my songwriting cap for a few days with an old pal from my running around days.

Couple links for y’all…

Dave and Misha just released another record which you can check out here.

Also, Dave created this FANTASTIC music video a few months back that I can;t get enough of:

PJ

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March 18th, 2009

thoughts in the lull.

Lots of time between sessions lately due to the enormous KEROSENE workload I’m carrying.  It’s all fun, challenging work, but often times my focus needs to shift, and right now, unfortunately, it’s shifted slightly away from the record.

Although, I’m never away from it, really.  My spare moments have been spent developing lyrics for the 6 songs whose words aren’t finished.  And my drive to and from work, I generally listen through the tracks, rethinking arrangements, coming up with new voice ideas, etc… And Adam’s been keeping things moving with his fantastic new piano/keyboard arrangements.

Lately, I’m thinking “Flora” isn’t Flora.  Right now I’m thinking it’s called “Christmas Day”.  Originally, I had wanted it to be a narrative song… in the general folk tradition of telling a fictional short story, maybe loosely based on something I witnessed or even experienced.  But I’ve never really written anything like that and I’m not sure it’s what I do.  I’m not sure it’s really want I want to do with these either.

My songs tend to be very personal.  For me, with all the other things I have my hand in, songwriting is the only purely personal thing I do that doesn’t involve a client, or a paycheck.  there’s something extremely satisfying and kind of liberating about it.

Still trying to figure out what the Untitled song is about.  the other are all pretty clear, but this one wiggly.  I mean I KNOW what it’s about, but articulating it into words had been very very challenging.  Maybe it’s an instrumental. Nah, it needs words.

Was listening to some Mike Doughty yesterday. “Skittish” is so fantastic, all stripped down like it is…. such a great vibe, and reminds me so much of living in Park Slope.  Hope he does another one of those.

And listened to Paul Simon’s “One Trick Pony” again for like the 100th time while I was drawing this past weekend.  it’s definitely not his best record, but it’s just so flawed and intimate and great.  The movie of the same name is also great…. definitely worth a viewing if you’re a fan of songwriting, specifically, 70’s songwriting.

Hope I can keep a few of these tracks vibey in the same vein.  It’s sometimes hard to pull back when you have unlimited tracks and voices at your disposal.

More later.

PJ

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March 12th, 2009

Blau/Flora

So, Adam and I have been going back and forth with a bunch tunes the last couple weeks.  He’ll send me a demo, I’ll send notes, demo, notes, and so on.  And I think we’ve nailed one.

Flora’s just about done, all but the vocals.  My mumbling-melody scratch track is in there for now… lyrics and final melodies to be added soon:

enjoy…

PJ

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February 21st, 2009

Who knew?

So last week in LA while I was working with Adam, he went online looking for my website (this blog), or looking up a track of music, or something (I can’t recall).  Either way, he entered my name in Google (both PJ and Peter Loughran) and told me he couldn’t find my site, or whatever it was he was looking for.  However, he did find a PETE Loughran, singer/songwriter living in Chicago who is working on his 3rd album.  WHAAA?  crazy, right?  Here’s a peak at the OTHER Pete Loughran:

Funny seeing my name attached to that hair.

And after a little more fishing, I discovered another Peter Loughran working in entertainment:

To think, I could have been a master of illusion.

So the trip was great, and great to hang with Adam… but we didn’t really get anything done.  There’s was lots of catching up, and touring his new house, and a smidgen of playing.  But not concerned… we’ve done this before. He’s going to be working on parts this weeks… will share the results with ya’ll once I get em.

On another, suffering from a bit of writers block.  I’ve been on 3 or 4 relatively long flights in the last month with very little lyric to show for it.  Open to any suggestions on how to shake this, cause it’s starting to get a little frustrating.

More as it comes….

PJ

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