WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!

So I know most of you don't live in Colorado - but if you do, I wanted to make you aware of the Colorado Public Radio Instrument Drive that's happening now through the end of March. If you have an instrument that you don't play please consider donating it - all the instruments go to classrooms around the state for kids to learn and appreciate the craft of music. You can find a donation center close to you right here. If you donate a theremin you receive one billion extra cool points.

MARCH 2011 NEWSLETTER

HIGHER GROUND VETERANS ASSISTANCE
Hey everyone - I just wanted to make you aware of a very important organization called Higher Ground - a veterans rehabilitation program that combines sports, family, and coping therapy to restore and rehabilitate men and women of the armed forces who have been severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the following week, 100% of sales at dustinedge.com will go to support Higher Ground. Or if you'd prefer to contribute to them directly you can do so through their website.

BOULDER SHOW
I'm playing a FREE show this Friday in Boulder at the Laughing Goat at 8pm - plus it's National Hug a G.I. day, so please please let all your friends in the military know how much you love them.
The Laughing Goat
Boulder, CO, 1709 Pearl St. MAP
3.4.11 @ 8:00pm

Thanks as always for reading - hope to see you soon!

Dustin

EDUCATION

Last night I went to a lecture on the history of the Denver music scene from the mid 80s through the mid 90s - I learned quite a bit and now have tons of music I need to listen to in order to get caught up on that era. For some reason, I feel as if knowing what was before provides a greater appreciation of what is current or what might be yet to come - the whole past is prologue thing I reckon.

THE BEGINNING OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP...

Yesterday, I went to the Denver Music Summit, an event designed to facilitate interaction between different people in the music industry in order to help them find new methods of enhancing the Denver music scene and assist them with their own independent careers. Governor-elect Hickenlooper made a speech during the luncheon, which I had no idea was going to happen. Listening to him speak, I felt invigorated that the arts and creativity seemed so important to the man who will be in charge of our state over the next few years. Regardless, the entire day was an inspiring piece of work. I met person after person who was not only helpful and nice, but genuinely invested in supporting the music scene here. When I was young and living in Louisville, Kentucky, I exhibited a considerable amount of verve for my hometown (and still do), even with the constant supply of teenage angst that is present within the majority of youthful minds. But until now, through all my travels, I haven't felt anything close to that previous passion for any of my newly adopted surroundings. Nevertheless, for the first time in a long time, I feel moved to participate, to help this city become something even better than it already is and support those who share that same vision. Even though I've only been here for a short time, I already feel like a part of it. And I feel welcomed to become a part bigger part of it. I think this is where I am supposed to be. So let's get to work...

ARTIFACTS

Do any other musicians out there have ideas in their heads that appear right as they’re doing something that prohibits them from being able to record them? Sometimes this happens to me when I’m doing something else that takes precedence or when I’m unable to muster the ability to divorce myself from my surroundings and capture that idea so I can work on it later or even right then for hours on end. Where do those ideas come from and where do they go afterward? Do they reappear someday in the future and make me think hey I feel like I’ve heard this before? Or are they gone forever, a promising notion that simply evaporates back into my psyche? I prefer to believe the former, since the idea emanated from my brain in the first place – if it surfaces again, it will only be from a different version of me, somewhere down the road, hopefully, wiser.

UNRELEASED NUMBERS

Below are five tracks that were recorded at the Gallery in Brooklyn back in late 2009 during the sessions that would ultimately lead to By The Numbers. I'll go into a short explanation for each of them so you can get a better idea of where they came from and why they didn't make it onto the final product. None of them have any vocals because we never got that far, but all the instruments are pretty much in place. Anyway, here we go...

I originally wrote this idea on the computer in Prague. It's in a strange time signature (13/4) and never had any lyrics, which made it a contender for an instrument track. This was the only song (other than NYC 05 below) to be recorded by a full band tracking together instead of a series of overdubs. Everyone happened to be there at the studio that night, so we decided to give it a shot together and find out if we could capture anything worthwhile. There's some very cool stuff here, especially Brian Forbes' guitar solo near the end. Ultimately it didn't fit alongside the other songs that were leading the pack - but it was a fun exercise. It was also the first time I had played with a band in almost four and half years, so that definitely counts for something.

I had high hopes for this tune. I liked its energy and thought it could be very accessible. Unfortunately, it never coalesced with the other ideas enough to make sense to include on the EP. I'm certainly going to re-record this song (as well as numerous others) into something more cohesive. Even though you can't hear them, the lyrics are story-based and have a lot of dark humor to them. And good gracious, Aaron Steel played some amazing drums on this track...

This song was written in New York sometime either in late 2008 or early 2009 (I can't remember exactly when). As you'll hear, it's fairly harmless in its current state, nothing of much consequence in my opinion. The words to this song also contain a liberal smattering of dark humor, which I thought was necessary at the time to offset the politeness of the chord structure. A few other story/character-based songs also came out of this period, all of which were fun to write, but didn't quite fit into the overall scheme of the EP. There's definitely a complete project in my head where all these types of ideas exist - it just hasn't make it to print yet.

This song was written in New York in early 2009. The original demo was on acoustic guitar and was also part of the series of dark humor story-based songs that I was apparently into creating at the time (this one has some unfinished lyrics about zombies I believe). We recorded this on the same evening as PRAGUE 39 - much like that track, this one has some weird time signature changes here and there. Overall I really like the structure of this song - if I can finish the words I think it will come together.

The demo for this idea came near the end of my time in Prague (55 out of 57). I'd been writing a lot of electronic compositions and just needed to rock a bit I reckon. And, as with most of the Prague ideas, I wanted to keep it short and succinct. Again, Aaron played magnificiently, as did Dan Asher on bass guitar. We'd recorded everything except the vocals when I came to the conclusion that this was a perfectly acceptable song that just didn't fit with the others. Once again, the lyrics were story-based and not overtly connected with the numeric theme of the album. I'm sure this will be reworked at some point because, well, it rocks.

Anyway, that's it for these ideas. If you have any questions feel free to email me.

HOME AGAIN HOME AGAIN

We were finally allowed back into our apartment on Saturday evening after a fairly tense 24 hours at a friends house, mostly spent wondering if we'd return to anything at all. It was definitely strange to see large plumes of smoke coming from the nearest ridge across the street from us - thankfully the firefighters were able to contain the fire overnight and prevent it from spreading much further. Thanks firefighters - you guys are kind of awesome.

domefire_small_2.0.jpg

EVACUATION

I was ordered to evacuate my home this morning after a fire broke out in the hills near our apartment. Deciding what to take and what to leave was quite the process. Although I'm fairly optimistic that our home is going to be survive the flames, I'm certainly a little wary of what the next few days might bring. Thankfully, I had time to grab a few important things before we left - a couple guitars, clothes, my toothbrush, and hard drives (always the hard drives). I'll try to post some updates they come along, even though I may be a bit busy with this in the near future. More soon...

Photo by Paul Aiken

TESTING THE WATERS

I've been going to a lot of shows in Denver over the past few weeks. Before we moved to Colorado, I'd heard some good things about the music scene, but wasn't exactly sure what it was about all because I couldn't experience it firsthand - I guess I'm an empiricist.

Regardless, I'm very impressed with the extent and caliber of what I've witnessed so far, as well as the enthusiasm of those in attendance. Live music (performing and supporting it) is undoubtedly ingrained in the culture here. There are tons of clubs and a myriad of local, regional, and national bands in town on any given evening. It's all very invigorating - and I'm excited to become a part of it.

REEXAMINATION

A few days ago I finally listened to the songs I was working on back in July. It was interesting to hear them again after a couple months away from the project, which actually feels very beneficial in retrospect. My life is completely different than it was two months ago. And my assessment was fairly different as well. I reckon it’s another lesson of the advantages of stepping away from something, then coming back to it in a new light. Hopefully I’ll remember that…