Savannah
I just stuck my head outside, and as far as I can tell from the temperature, browning leaves, and direction the wind is blowing, it's September now, the fourth month of my monthly-song-release project. Since I'm still planning on releasing a total of five songs this way, that means I'm four-fifths of the way done. You math nerds might notate that figure as "4/5" or "80%", but I'm not here to tell you how to live your life.
Song #4 is called "Savannah", and of the four songs I've released, it's by far the quietest and most likely to leave you bedridden with a debilitating case of the feels. It's also pretty simple compared to the other four, in that it's really just a couple of guitars, a stack of vocals, and some tasteful cello punctuated by sparse percussion. I really enjoy writing and recording these slower acoustic songs, and I'm usually faced with an internal struggle to not overdo them and go overboard by adding too much. That's almost always an exercise in diminishing returns that ultimately detracts from the song, and when I can resist the temptation, I'm always glad I did (high-fives myself). I tried to keep the arrangement appropriately minimal here, and because of that, I think Savannah is a good example of letting a song speak for itself without too much excess clutter.
Also exciting: of the three geographic locations featured in the titles of songs I'm releasing as part of this series (Tucson last month, Savannah now, and ??? next month), Savannah is the one place I've actually visited IRL. Not only that, I've spent significant time there, and it's pretty spectacular. Now, that might just be a coincidence, since the full song stems from a 2010 demo - long before I'd spent any time in the city outside of one very hazy, marsh-themed middle school field trip - but I wouldn't worry too much about details like that.
Check out the song here:
In other news, I played a solo set at the "Local Brews Local Grooves" event at Tabernacle on the Sunday before Labor Day and had a really fantastic time. For whatever reason, I omitted all of these new 2018 releases from my setlist in favor of a random grab-bag of songs spanning an epic 2005-2017 timeline (wait, I remember the reason now: I'm super comfortable playing those songs because I've been doing so for THIRTEEN years), but I'm going to incorporate the new stuff into future shows, a few of which are in the planning phase even as we speak. In the meantime, click here for some video footage of my vintage song "Acting" from the Tabernacle show.
Keep an eye out later in September for new a new studio video, and don't forget to check out and follow ALL MY AWESOME SOCIAL MEDIA AND MY WEBSITE AND CLICK ALL THE BUTTONS AND TURN YOUR SPEAKERS UP. Thanks.