David Cook = 42

Race for Hope visitors, please review some links below that I hope will be helpful while you spend the weekend in Washington DC.

• Map of Freedom Plaza and Environs. A few highlighted lodging and dining options around Freedom Plaza and the Warner Theatre, and local pharmacies. This is in no way comprehensive and some links in one “category” would fit equally well in others. I’ve personally visited some establishments and have heard good things about the others.
• Washington Post Best Bets. From dining to bars to special events to the usual favorite sights and sounds, this is a quick roundup of some of WaPo’s staff favorites.
• Washingtonian’s Best Bars. Slightly easier than WaPo’s site to navigate by neighborhood (the neighborhoods nearest to Freedom Plaza are “Downtown,” “Penn Quarter,” “Mt Vernon Square” [some guides also refer to "Chinatown"], and “Logan Circle”). Also links to dining and events.
• WMATA (Metro) Home Page. Download a map to your iPod, use the Trip Planner, and learn about farecards and passes. Two general tips: The best stop for some Smithsonian museums is not always the Smithsonian, and one-day Metrorail passes can be a good deal but only if one plans to make several trips or to travel between several stops.
• Capital Bikeshare DC. For an alternative to Metro or driving, Capital Bikeshare offers 1-day rentals of bikes for as little as $5 (with a hefty preauthorization hold; don’t use a debit card) and riders can return them to any other kiosk.

Both literal and figurative.

The first studio vid since September (which I think is mostly a comment on how many times schedules meshed to get significant amounts of recording done between September and December) needed to say a lot in a brief period of time, since fandom abhors a vacuum, and tends to fill it with theories when facts are not publicly available. Now, it’s unlikely that these sessions were staged for the cameras, as I don’t think they had the time to spare, but film in the end is all about editing, and one can draw conclusions from the order and tightness of the framing.

So, which messages do we get from this video?

Cook is wearing his glasses. It’s not a deliberate sartorial statement so much as an acknowledgment that he’s spending hours looking at backlit ProTools project screens and nobody wants contact-induced dry eyes during that. Glasses are for work.

Cook is wearing a giant watch. Yes, it’s been a long time, and he hasn’t forgotten, and is working to beat the rapidly ticking clock.

Serletic is with him in the studio most of the time. Pop super-producers may have written with Cook, but the album is still being produced as a cohesive whole. Furthermore, said producer (who may have been the target of certain grudging thoughts during the drought of studio sessions) is clearly asking Cook what he wants the mixes to sound like. This is not the story of a musician who has no control over the sound of his album.

The instrumentation is more diverse. There is a tin whistle(?), a piano, and a wisp of a big chorus. Even the now-familiar guitar riff of Paper Heart is more complex than many on the previous album.

Band collaborations are priorities to make the album. The a Cook/Skib/Tiemann song gets vocal tracking and the only visible lyric sheet we’ve seen since the process began. How this ties into the lyrics from the earlier part of the video is uncertain, but the point is that it is there.

Paper Heart officially exists. Sony was not strong-arming fans and launching strikes out of reckless asshaberdashery. It may have been short-sighted asshaberdashery, but at least it was with the purpose of protecting intellectual property they intended to use.

And, finally:

Fiat lux. Candles glow, spotlights shine, screens reflect soothingly. Arms gesture, fingers tap, and heads nod. The light at the end of the tunnel is, cautiously, in sight.

Or my advisor, who made me read a lot. Either or.

I was trying to figure out the rhythms of this new teaser video.

David Cook Studio Teaser

And it occurred to me that what this video is really about? It’s not RCA trying to stoke interest without, you know, actually letting much recognizable music be released into the wild.

It’s about the Protestant work ethic, or demonstrating hard work as a commitment to a higher purpose.

There are a few moments of leisure, but the overriding theme is concentration. Focus. Effort.

The loop of the music, with its gradual build. The stopping, starting, and trying again. The attempt at new instruments (PIANO!). And the physical workout as well as the mental one. (Seriously: my trainer was making me do new and exciting things with my abs yesterday, so just watching that made them ache still more in sympathy. Owwww.)

And finally, after all the effort, all the concentration, and all the various and sundry experiences one can fit on a t-shirt, something comes out of the speakers that pleases.

Hard work. Paying off. Let’s hope it does.

Once upon a time there was a girl who liked incongruous things.

Such as making a trippy ambient masterwork out of the shuffling attempts at blue-eyed soul by a Canadian pop moppet.

Or watching a band dressed all in dress whites and blacks playing in 95-degree Virginia heat.

And because this girl liked incongruous things, she wondered what would happen if she put them together.

Now, this girl had no resources of her own to do this, nor did she know anyone who had. But if, hypothetically, she had found the way to do such a thing, this is what it would sound like.

And as some out there don’t care for hypothetical renderings of incongruous things, please take, and share, discreetly.

battement de coeur lent. (ETA: The original didn’t compress properly [added some funky codecs], so I’ve done some old-fashioned converting into mp3 after the fact. It makes for a cleaner and smaller file. Enjoy!)

Once upon a time, somebody counted up the circle references on Analog Heart at my request. I forget the number, but it could be safely described as “several.”

So finding out about the Busch Gardens shows seemed appropriate. My first concert of the Declaration Tour was in Williamsburg, and while this wasn’t a DeTour stop, it was the last series of shows before the new album cycle. So, between the chance to ride some rides, see some sights, and draw a curtain on this particular musical adventure ride, it was an easy call. (It was made even easier when the fabulous MagazineFreak offered me a free pass to the park! Go procrastination.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome.

Presumably you and your family will want to eat while you are in town. Here are a few suggestions.

Pre-Race Pasta Loading

• Al Tiramasu. Lots of seafood, but the pasta is reputably good too.
• Sette Osteria. Marine Corps Marathon runner approved.
• Sette Bello. The executive chef’s Cafe Milano is supposedly better known for taking care of celebrities, but the service and energy at the Clarendon location works for me.

Post-Race Brunch

• Tonic. Casual for race goers, Washington Post approved.
• Luna Grill and Diner. Probably not suitable for large groups, but tasty egg dishes and low-key atmosphere.
• Tunnicliffs. Some service issues, but a good brunch in a casual atmosphere. Also Washington Post approved.

Burgers

• Palena. Legendary DC burger. Still getting food press after being on the menu for years.
• Ray’s Hell Burger. The best burger I have eaten in my life under $10. It was good enough for Pres. Obama, it should be good enough for all of us. (Possible crowd issues and zero ambience or privacy, though.
• Central DC. Lobster Burger. Ah-may-zing. Heard some menu items are not up to this caliber, but if you can get this and the kit kat bar, it doesn’t matter.
• Five Guys. Not even linking, because they are everywhere.

Bars and Clubs.

Bourbon. PX. Churchkey. Little Miss Whiskey’s Golden Dollar. Gibson. 18th Street Lounge. Something for every mood. But I admittedly don’t know from bottle service, and have more often attended divey happy hours. I can wholeheartedly endorse Spider Kellys, though: good and not divey.

Enjoy. Race well. It’s a good town; hope you have fun here.

Part I Here.

Things are in ever sharper focus. Now he’s convinced that they’ll be back in the studio by February, still anticipating a summer release.

And again, this strikes me as not that unusual. Because he’s preparing for it.

Here’s a twitvid from Andrew Cook, the content of which I will ignore for this analysis. (Although if you watch it for that, it’s quite adorable and genuine.)

The point here? He’s living at his brother’s house. He doesn’t play instruments. One can therefore assume that any and all performance-related equipment is Dave’s. And it looks like this room (which I won’t call a studio because that would mean more acoustic sealing and rugs) has quite a bit of it.

He has a small amp, a keyboard, and a fairly expensive piece of drum production software. The guitars will probably come home when he does. (And I’m sure there’s some nice piece of audio interface equipment to get all of that onto the computer.)

Assume that the band keeps writing, then gets off the road sometime in December, and everyone returns home. Cook mucks around through December and early January, and probably brings back five (or even more) “rough demo” songs before the band goes into the studio. They continue to write and record over the next few months, and then go for mastering and post production in early-mid summer.

Again, I just don’t think it requires superhuman skills to go from where they are to an album in the next 10 months or so.

So after many months of insisting that he would not Twitter, no way, no how, he gave in. I’m sure it was a necessary step just to root out the fakes.

But I remain amused at the way his attitude turned from active disdain to grudging acceptance as a potential promotional tool to embracing it like a…person who embraces things enthusiastically. (I finally knew it was him when he started following Katy Perry. [sigh] At least he’s following Orianthi, too.)

(For the record, I do not Twitter. I could go into very long, detailed explanations as to why, but they largely boil down to: 1) I want to know what I’m clicking, not play guessing games with bit.ly, 2) unthreaded replies can suck it, and 3) the credulity threshold on Twitter seems to be lower than on the internet at large, if that’s even possible. [Also, no matter how many text messages I receive, seeing "u" for "you" still makes my soul shrivel.])

Now, there’s been some popcorn-worthiness already, including a sibling twitwar that probably annoyed their mother to no end.

Of course, having 27K people peering over one’s shoulder, 2000 of whom are actively egging things on, makes the whole thing a tad bit strange.

But I’ll be curious to see what happens next. Just please, for the love of all that’s holy, never actually respond to an unfollowed fan tweet. It will cause a ruckus.

And in conclusion, I think this sums things up nicely:

@thedavidcook Yay! I’m so excited to see you here, sir! (And I, um… apologize in advance for the internet.)

For whatever reason, the multiple pull quotes regarding Cook’s potential timeframe for a new album (back to the studio by the beginning of the year, with an album possibly out next summer) seem to be causing people to clutch their pearls. How can this be?

I don’t think it’s overambitious at all.

In 2008, Cook came into making an album with two albums of pre-Idol material, but no guarantee (or, probably, intention) that all would be used. In the course of the next few weeks, he and his cowriters knocked out between 20 and 30 songs (I’m extrapolating from the “60 songs” figure bandied about in a few interviews). Half of the next few were spent on tour rehearsals. He then spent 53 days on tour, squeezing in additional cowrites, demo recording, studio tracking, and band selection, until a solid five weeks arose at the end to finalize the album. By my count, that gave him 81 days to develop an album from start to finish. Yes, it was rushed, and oddly sequenced, and the production was lacking in places, but it managed to be a solid effort.

Compare that to what he has now: 4/5 (or maybe even 5/5) of a band with a strong musical chemistry, a very good working/social relationship with some of his cowriters and his producer [even if I wonder if he might look elsewhere], 60/70 song ideas AND the remainder from the first recording session. And, not exactly immaterially, the opportunity to be in one place to supervise the melding of all those elements.

I just don’t see two or three months of solid writing and demoing, followed by two more of culling, tracking, and mastering, as that insurmountable for someone who has already had a trial by fire.

Of course things could change. Of course he’ll want to let ideas marinate. But the band is starting from a place orders of magnitude better than where he was last summer, so I have no concerns about their ability to produce something they’ll be able to put their names behind.

Every once in awhile I realize that the flood of interviews and soundbites is a double-edged sword.

Sure, it’s great to hear him talk about his songwriting process (5:33) and how he wants to reach people and how he credits so many others for helping him learn and grow.

And even the constant “I either a) have my very own special dictionary that none of you mere mortals have ever seen or b) am just fucking with you because it amuses me” word choices can be endearing in small doses.

But sometimes…

Sometimes I am confronted with the fact that he would say with a straight face that Journey makes better music than Depeche Mode or the Cure.

I am off to go clutch my copy of Disintegration and sigh loudly.