Tag Archives: fawm

a new album?!!!

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So here’s my thing:

I’ve got about ten tracks, written during FAWM 2010, that rock, and I am putting them into an album for you, the reader and eventual listener, to enjoy.  The album is tentatively titled Last Night in America, and will be released sometime in January 2011.  Here’s the tracklist:

01. Saturday
02. Tumbler of Love
03. Listen (is This the End?)
04. Last Night in America
05. Row You Row Your Boat
06. Maybe Not
07. Back Where We Started
08. I Give Up1
09. Counting the Days
10. Listen, This is the End

(You should think of the album like a vinyl, with two sides, 1-5 is side A and 6-10 is side B.)

I don’t have cover art or even finally mixed tracks (I have to redo the bass parts with the actual bass I now have, instead of pitch-shifting my guitar down an octave), but I’m shooting for a release date of January 25, 2011.

The rest of the year will, hopefully, see the release of three more albums (one every three months or so) as I clean out my back catalog of material.  I have a lot of stuff I’d like to get out there for you to hear, it’s just a matter of preparation!  Each album will have a totally different feel from the last.

Anyway, stay tuned to this blog for more updates on Last Night in America and other music news.  In the meantime, why not take a stroll down my Bandcamp (that sounds naughty) and listen to some of my other stuff? Yeah? You like that?  Yeah, you like that.

  1. A Cow Exchange cover. ↩

a quick update

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jello puddin pops

jello puddin pops

Here is a picture of me from New Years Eve.  The caption is there because sometimes, in the right light, I look like I’m doing a Bill Cosby impression.

Here are a few updates from my life:

1. I have started running.  By “started” I mean I literally started today; I ran/walked for about 20 minutes.  I have started a blog about this, and you can read it here: Josh Goes A’Running.  I won’t write about it here, though.  This blog is for self-deprecation and my strange mental patterns.

2. February Album Writing Month is next month (obviously), and I am participating.  I suggest that if you want to listen to the songs I create, you head to my profile there, as I am not going to update my blog about it, because that just seems redundant.  Also, if you are a songwriter or have ever wanted to be a songwriter, I suggest you sign up!  It’s an amazing community full of professionals and amateurs (and people like me, somewhere in the middle), who are all extremely helpful and kind.  It’s almost annoying how nice they are!  If you do sign up, say hello on my soundboard thingy and I will certainly listen or read your stuff!

3. I’m thinking about dumping the joshuabelville.com website.  This will be done because it seems awkward to run two completely separate websites, when all of the good stuff is here on this site.  My new plan is to merge the webspace together (as I had separated it earlier) and just forward joshbelville.com to zornog.net, or perhaps to a subdomain on zornog.net.  What do you think?  Do you even give a shit?1

4. There is no four.

I said that I would update this blog more and I have been lax about even that, and I apologize.  Truth is, not much is going on in my life right now besides working and watching every episode of 30 Rock on Netflix.  C’est la vie!

  1. It’s okay if you don’t. ↩

goodbye february! (& other things)

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Whew!  What a month.  Doing a show every weekend and participating in February Album Writing Month… it was pretty hectic.

You can listen to my FAWM output here: http://www.fawm.org/fawmers/zornog/  I think I did really well this year.  My songs are starting to find their niche — mostly pop/folk stuff, with some straight up rock thrown in there for good measure.

In a couple of days I will update the FAWM tab above to include an annotation of the songs, how I wrote them, what they’re about, etc.  Stay tuned for that.

Now, as for the show … I had mentioned in various cryptic Twitter messages that the show was getting kind of crazy.  I said I was going to blog about it, but after thinking about it for a while, I’ve decided that I won’t talk about what happened.  I owe everyone in that show a huge debt of gratitude for ushering me into the Portland theatre scene, and while not everything worked out perfectly, it was still a great experience and I appreciate everyone who I worked with.  Plus it’s just unprofessional and childish to write about things like that.  It wasn’t even anything serious, really.  No murders or extravagant gossip.  Sorry to burst your bubble.

So: what now?  Good question!  I plan on spending some time building up my monologue collection for future auditions.  Tangential sidenote: I went to Powell’s on Sunday for the sole purpose of purchasing a book of monologues1 and ended up buying The Confusing, System of the World, and Cryptonomicon, all in trade paperback, for $8 bucks each, thus completing my Baroque Cycle collection.  My reading year is complete!  Anyway, the point of this sidenote is that monologue books suck.  I’ll have to make a second trip but really the whole ordeal made my brain hurt.  There’s a lot of new plays out there that I have yet to read, and having to choose one or two is difficult.  I wanted to just grab Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and be done with it, but I knew I should be more discerning with my play choices2.

NEXT ITEM!

My hair is currently dark brownish because of Perfection.  I have the option of dyeing it again, or letting it grow out to it’s natural color.  Which do you prefer?

This:

Original color.

Original color.

Or this:

download

nnndarkdarkdark

Please note that that is not the greatest picture of me (the second one, I mean).  I do look a bit “cadaverous” as my friend Emily put it.  It’s just the glare from the computer screen, though.  I think it looks pretty good myself.

  1. From actual plays, not those crap “written just for the book” monologues. ↩
  2. Even though I love Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. ↩

fawm 2009 is on!

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I should be asleep but I feel the need to post this: FAWM is happening!  FAWM stands for February Album Writing Month, and the goal is to write 14 songs in 28 days.  This is my second FAWM and I already have two songs in the can, and I think you ought to listen to them.  So go to my FAWM profile and check it out!

Okay I really need to go to bed now!  The show I’ve been rehearsing all of January is opening THIS WEEKEND, and I need my sleep for long tech rehearsals … blegh!