My Musical Top 10 of 2013

My top ten this year in no particular order because I loved them all:

Holly Williams "The Highway"

With an unbeatable pedigree, Hank's granddaughter stands on her own with a strong set of songs.

Valerie June  "Pushin' Against a Stone"

A&R genius and friend, Kate Hyman, turned me on to her signing at BMG, Valerie June. From her stunning looks to her eclectic collection of songs tinged with soul, bluegrass, blues and funk, I can't wait for her next record already.

Tim Hecker "Virgins"

Everyone one who knows my musical tastes knows I have a sweet spot for ambient drone. Tim Hecker did it best this year. Nice cover design too.

Foxygen "We are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic"

I love a band who sounds like they just strolled out of 1968. And they have the greatest name.

Deafheaven "Sunbather"

When I was creative director at Roadrunner Records, I learned to get my metal on with the best tastemakers there are. When I heard this record described on NPR as "Explosions In the Sky with screaming on top of it",  I had to have a listen. With a pink typographic album cover and a frenetic collection of songs, I was mesmerized by this release.

Savages "Silence Yourself"

Because we all need a little Pretenders/Blondie/Siouxie in our lives.

Brandy Clark "12 Stories"

In what is a rare occurrence, Brandy Clark is the second female country singer on the list. She has written a collection of songs with the best lyrics of the year. And she sounds like the Judds. And the pedal steel is awesome.

The Mamas and the Papas "If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears"

I know, I know. It's not new but the mastering in the original mono by Sundazed Music's head honcho, Bob Irwin, is. And damn, it sounds great. When I started working at Sundazed in November, it was the first release I asked for. It's been in the car CD player for three weeks now.

Agnes Obel "Aventine"

I was a huge fan of her first release "Philharmonics". On "Aventine" it's pretty much more of the same. Which is alright by me.

London Grammar "If You Wait"

This probably is my most favorite release of the year considering how many times it has played on all my devices. In the vein of The XX, it is slightly trippy with beautiful emotive vocals.

Guilty Pleasure: Lorde "Pure Heroine"  She's got a formula that works and was not afraid to use it.

What to look for in 2014: The collaboration between Aimee Mann and Ted Leo, "The Both". 

Giving Thanks

So window replacement went well. At 9am the crew arrived in two trucks. One was completely outfitted with a carpentry shop and the other contained my nine new windows. The foreman introduced himself and the guys got to work.

Work crews, which I've become very well acquainted over the course of the church renovation, all have a dynamic. There's the foreman, a senior worker, a junior worker and the "intern" type, usually a teenager. While I held the door open for the junior and the intern who carried in the windows, I could hear the intern mumble "Damn, these are some big windows". "Yep", I replied to what had become a familiar chorus.
They protected the work areas first.

Then they got to window removal and replacement.

They worked with the precision and swiftness of Navy Seals. By 4:30, they were sweeping the floors and wiping down the kitchen counters leaving me with nine new beautiful working windows whose effect was immediate on the temperature inside the house.

In the middle of the process, which happened on a Friday, I drove over to the liquor store (after telling the teenager not to throw any wild parties while I was gone) and bought them each a six pack of local craft brews which I planned to give them as a tip and start their weekend right. As they were packing up, I opened the trunk of my car, showed the foreman the case of beer and thanked him for their good, fast work. The teenager was still sweeping up inside and as I walked up to the front door he was just putting the broom away. Again, familiar with the dynamic of work crews, I said, "Hey kid, I gave the foreman FOUR six packs of beer. Don't let him tell you there's no beer for you." "What, wait! Do you know which truck they put in?!" he exclaimed as he ran out the door and hopped in one of the trucks. I hope he picked the right one.
Window replacement could not have come at a better time as there has been a development that will keep me upstate for the winter months. I took on a part time gig as art director at Sundazed Music. As I've mentioned, left to my own devices I can develop some bad habits (you'd think I would have worked that out already!), so when Bob and Mary Irwin my neighbors and friends, offered me the job, I looked forward to a little structure and to be with people three days a week in an office.
Here's the building that I work in.

And across the street is the Sundazed warehouse in this beautiful building.

It is filled to the brim with vinyl which, of course, only makes it even more beautiful.

Not to mention the greatest part, Sundazed manufactures tons of special vinyl and their main thing is 60's reissues so the artwork is fantastic. While I was familiarizing myself with the Sundazed catalog, computer systems and projects in process, Bob asked me to work on some tee shirt designs. He asked Tim, one of my officemates and the head of sales and marketing, to show me the visual reference archives downstairs for inspiration. Here's just a fraction of the stuff that I found:

So, basically, it was like I died and went to heaven.
And finally, there's the commute. I pulled it down from Google Earth so you see the route:

It takes exactly two minutes and 15 seconds on foot from the time I lock my front door until I put my coat over my office chair.  Here is a photo of the north side of my property:

When I built the new deck, I had David crudely place pieces of the old deck onto the steeeeeeep slope to indicate the eventual terracing  that I would like to do which would provide quicker access to the river. When I finally get to do that landscaping, I figure that will cut down my commute to about a minute fifteen.
So, yeah, I've got a lot to be thankful for.

Saying Goodbye to 135 year old windows

When I first moved to the church, I was enamored with its huge windows. The interior glowed in the afternoon sunlight as it shone through the wavy glass. Our love affair ended when cold weather came. 135 year old single pane wavy glass windows don't do a very good job of keeping heat in and cold out. It was unlivable in January and February when I could FEEL the wind come whipping through the ground floor.

My lack of a regular schedule has me up late at night. It was about 12:30, the Golden Girls were on the Hallmark channel, when I heard an ad come on the TV. Renewal by Andersen was having a 2 for 1 sale so I wrote down the number and called them the next day. Andersen made my 8 foot patio doors, transoms and casement windows when I ripped out the back of the house and I could not be happier with them. I made an appointment for a salesperson to come over and take a look at replacing the windows.
Two days later, Scott, from Andersen's local rep Huff and Puff (get it?) out of Schenectady, NY came by the church to get the lay of the land. "Hmmm, these are some big windows" he says as he walks through the house. "Yep" I replied. We sat down and he explained the process of window replacement.   From the the moment I sign on the dotted line it would take somewhere between 4 and 6 weeks (Andersen has been making their windows in their Minnesota factory for over 100 years) with installation. He could send his installer to take final measurements and survey the job as early as next week. "So, if we do this today, I can have new windows before Thanksgiving?" He nodded and then brought in the sample window: tempered E4 glass, wood interior grills, vinyl coated exterior frame, window locks, tilt in function to clean them, gorgeous engineering where the window just glides up and down, no need for storms and easy to remove and install screens. I was in love. "So you can make them look just like what I have now? With the mullions and all?" His turn to say "Yep." "Ok, let's do this. Get out the calculator and give me the number." "This will make a huge difference in your heating bills, and my guys would really enjoy doing a job like this." I held my breath. "Um, you know that the 2 for 1 deal won't apply to this... that's for standard stock windows and these, obviously, are not. But I can apply our other promotion, 20% off, to your order." "Lay it on me, Scott" He gently pushed the paper over to me with the number. Well, it wasn't heart stopping but deep breaths were in order. Replacing nine windows that are nearly 3 1/2 feet by 7 feet ain't cheap, but you guessed that already. I signed. I had to. If you read this blog from the beginning, you know what I went through to bring natural gas into the church from the street and install a state of the art, efficient heating system to go with it. It was all blowing out those beautiful ancient windows in the winter. I had to bite the bullet. I wrote the check for 50% of the job and handed it to him.
On Monday, Adam the installer came by the church to take the final measurements. "Hmmmm, these are some big windows" he says as he walks through the house. "Yep" I replied. "This is a cool place, this would be a cool job" he tells me. That always makes me happy. We shake hands when he is done and he tells me he'll give me two weeks notice so I can clear the window areas and prepare the room for installation. I give him a thumbs up as he hops into his truck.
And on another "fall is here, winter is coming" note, this happened today.

Being gainfully unemployed

Two months ago, my friend Deb and I drove up to Saratoga Springs to see Mary Gauthier play a show. Mary came over to the restaurant next door and sat with us for bit before she had to go on. I told her that it felt weird not to have a nine to five and no fixed schedule. She replied "Do it long enough and that other stuff will feel weird." She was right. While I miss the PEOPLE, I don't miss the structure. Left to my own devices, I'm super busy but it's a different kind of busy than when I sat in front of a computer screen for most of the day.

Deb opened up a store on Routes 9W and 144  in Hannacroix, NY two weeks ago. I donated a logo design and I have a little space in the store where I sell vintage art, books, photographs and paper ephemera. Please come visit if you find yourself in the Hudson Valley! We're open Thursday thru Sunday from 11:15 to 7:15.

I started making "Ephemeral Inspirations" vintage paper packages after I witnessed the scrapbooking section of a crafts store in Albany called Joann's. I had never been there before and Deb and I took a drive up to get some supplies. I had no idea about scrapbooking, that it is a billion dollar industry, but the aisle looked amazing, an explosion of colorful papers, letters and art. It inspired me. Most of it was newly printed in China but my yard sale and thrift store experience told me there was tons of the real deal out there just waiting to be curated.

Here's the thing about old books. Most people don't want them or have room for them. They are put out on the curb in boxes or donated to church thrift stores where they are sold for a quarter, 50 cents or a buck. Books with beautiful maps, watercolor illustrations, flat color printing, etchings, woodcuts. Books with gold leaf, marbled endpapers and incredible hand done typography. From the late 19th century! They are usually fairly beaten up so I don't feel bad about cracking the spine and extracting the art. I've been going to local auctions and buying old handwritten letters (when handwriting was a work of art), postcards, die cut greeting cards and photographs. 

All of these things might be in the packs. I've sold about five of them in the store and just put them up at Ransom Marlowe.

Sometimes, I find books that I just want to keep in my own collection. Last week at my favorite book haunt, I found these:

Total cost: $5.00 Time spent looking through them: priceless.

Horatio Street is coming along nicely. I finally got all my stuff out of storage and was able to put up my artwork and set up the dining table. I found this piece of art at a yard sale last weekend for two dollars. It will be taking the place of honor in between the windows as soon as I can bring it down from upstate.

I still need a work desk, a proper victorian rocking chair (the Eames rocker needs to be reunited with its mate up at the church) and some shelves but it's starting to feel like my city home. I am patiently waiting for these pieces to reveal themselves at auction. Such is your strategy when you have little budget but lots of time!

Finally, I could not totally abandon designing music packaging. I will be working with the lovely and talented Lucy Wainwright Roche on her new record "There's a Last Time for Everything." She made a great record and I'm excited to rework the existing package and flesh it out a bit more. She writes s beautiful songs and she sings a cover of Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend" that literally brought tears to my eyes.