I gave away my "One Possession"...

(Scroll down to see the video)
What can I say, I never thought this would happen. Seriously. People are constantly asking me when there will be a Last Gentlemen reunion. I always smile and shrug and say probably never. I'm not sure exactly why I felt that way. We broke up on friendly terms and most of us see each other from time to time. There have even been pairings in other musical offshoots. Brian and Greg played together in Sugarbuzz. Tommy played with me on the Three Chord Circus CD. I always felt that I'd be happy to make new music with any or all the former members but not happy to revisit Last Gentlemen. I suppose there are unresolved issues that I don't even realize. 


I was surprised one night a year or two ago while talking to Brian and having him say that he wouldn't mind getting together as "the band". Up until that time he also never thought it would happen and he had no desire to even think about it. I guess clichés are clichés because they so easily and accurately sum up the situation "enough water under the bridge", "time heals all wounds". There are probably a host of them that fit this situation.


When I started this acoustic project I made a list of people I wanted to perform with and Brian was one of them. He was happy to do it. The initial idea was that he would play with me on one of my songs. As luck, circumstance and timing would have it Brian was coming to town for a show with the band he plays with in August. I called him a few days before and asked him to bring an acoustic guitar so we could shoot a song. 


At this time Tommy and I had already gotten together to shoot a couple songs for my project. I'm not sure why, probably mostly because I was unprepared to do a song of my own but I asked them both if they would mind getting together to shoot a Last Gentlemen song. They said yes and it all just kind of clicked even though we didn't know which song or where we would film until the last minute.


The location was picked because of it's close proximity to the venue Brian was playing. Also there was a large festival happening across town that we wanted to stay away from because that would have sucked up a lot of time, for various reasons. 


The song we did seemed obvious. One Possession was the "A" side of our second single and the "big" song off of our first album. It was also significant because it was the first song that all four of the original members co-wrote (me, Brian, Michael and Greg).


I have to say it was really fun. It was also funny how we had forgotten the songs. I know it had been years but jeez, we played those songs a million times.


So here 'ya go, half of Last Gentlemen reuniting with One Possession.


jimhewitt.com

I have a tendency to put my foot in my mouth...

Yes the rumors about the video of me playing with myself are true.

In preparation for my possible political future I will handle this as you would
expect. I will :

A) Address the scandal head on by posting the video myself. (Read as: I'm an
exhibitionist and I want to make sure you see what I did) and B) Apologize. We
all know that really means I'm not sorry I did it, I'm only sorry I got caught.

But I'm not sorry, I won't apologize and I hope you watch the video 1,000 times!

Sincerely Your Future President (although I am not announcing my candidacy at
this time),


Jim




OK, well then...


This is "Rope". When I first decided to do this project I rushed and did a version of Rope that only a few people saw. That version really was a test version for me. I needed to test the new recorder, syncing the new recorder with the video and editing the video itself. I was very eager to get started and that version was, um...fairly messy.


So this time I took a little more time. 


What I've learned from this experience is that A) It's a lot harder to record songs in the studio when you are playing all the instruments, acting as the engineer and producer AND dealing with setting up the cameras.  And  B) My computer is W A Y outdated and is pushed beyond it's limits when it comes to multi track video editing.


By the way, you can see photos from that first video here.

"Nothing At All" August 8, 2010

The original idea for this project was to dig out some of my old songs that almost no one has heard, gather some musicians, find a location and perform the song virtually unrehearsed for the camera. The whole thing was meant to be a fun distraction from the new album I'm working on...and it has been...but it's also created a new distraction.





Nothing At All is a song of mine that's been around forever. Popgun5 fans will recognize the music as "Look At All The People". I always like for the singer to write the lyrics if possible since they will be the one delivering the song. When I started that band with my friend Howard Berg I decided to let Ralph (Roether) write his own lyrics and thus Look At All The People was born. I'll post the Popgun5 version of the song soon.


The new distraction is that digging these songs out has made me want to put a band together and perform. So Kevin and Tommy and I have started rehearsing the "rock" versions of these songs and this is one of the songs we're doing. It sounds much different "electrically" than it does in this acoustic performance. 


In this video:
On the piano, Kevin McGuire and on drums, Tommy Garza.

"Never Let You Down"

I don't remember when I actually wrote this song but Tommy and Kevin and I recorded basic tracks for a version for the "Three Chord Circus - Start" CD way back in 2004. That version has never been released but I keep thinking I should put out the "Complete Start Sessions" with all the songs we recorded. Here's the modern, unrehearsed, acoustic version recorded August 15, 2010.

Now we're getting somewhere

I'm not going to have a chance to render the video and sync the audio soon but we had a great day of jamming today. Hopefully there will be a decent performance in there somewhere.

It was Nothing At All

It was an interesting weekend of attempted recordings. In the end I ended up in a really cool space with Tommy Garza, my former Last Gentlemen brother, and Kevin McGuire. We worked through a song I had not planned on recording but because we were one person short I was sort of scrambling. This song will get posted at some point but for now here's a photo from today.

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"Time To Myself"

"Time To Myself" originally came out on my album "Jennifer's Boyfriend" in 1988. This recording was made at 9am Saturday morning July 24, 2010 at Allerton Park in Monticello Illinois. 9am is a little too early for my blood but I wanted to beat the heat and I had to get up anyway. So... More techy details for those who care - the audio was recorded with my Zoom R16 digital recorder using only the built in mics. This was not the plan. I had also brought a cable to take a direct signal out of the guitar but the cable didn't work when I got everything set up. I'm surprised by the quality of the mics but unfortunately there's some wind noise.


Here are a few pictures from the morning.

Starting soon, really I swear....

So, this past Sunday I had planned to go out and shoot the first song for this project but the weather had other plans. It stormed pretty much all day so I was stuck inside. Since I was in the mood to record I went ahead and did a song myself playing all the parts. This is not ultimately how I would like to go about this project so I won't post the song but I do plan to record it again with friends.

Testing 1, 2, 3...

Hello everyone. Welcome to the chronicle of my next unfinished project. The Summer 2010 Acoustic Song Project. I've written tons of songs that only a handful of friends have heard so while I'm working on my new album I thought this would be a fun way to break things up. So here's the idea: I play my songs acoustically (obviously - though I may vary from that from time to time) and I use a single camera to capture the performance (it is the youtube era after all). I'm allowing myself to overdub instruments and vocals as needed as long as those performances are also filmed with the one camera. I can then edit that so everyone can see what's being played.

So that all sounded like a fun idea but then I thought (yes contrary to popular belief I do think from time to time)... wouldn't it be cool to have some friends play live on the tracks with me. Obvious I know. I didn't say my thoughts were always deep. Then I thought - wouldn't it be cool to record these performances at various places around town... Live with friends.

So that's the goal.

I did a few test clips the other day to make sure I could sync the audio from the digital recorder to the video camera and it worked great.

Now I'm making lists of songs, locations and musicians I want to work with.

Beware: You might be on the list!

Stay tuned.