This is pretty much all I’ve been listening to since finding them.

Panama is ridiculous (FYI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWjyj9gUElM),

but check out "I’m The One":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdflys0LqFs

This is just… it’s him going kitchen-sink crazy. And the lick sounds like a damn horse in a full sprint. It’s from the first record, his tone’s a little more ragged, and has a lot more to prove.

The guitar’s totally out of tune by the end, which would absolutely never happen now, unless it was an actual affectation.This is what ‘going for broke’ sounds like, to me.

No one else has ever captured what he has, with more money, better gear, bigger budgets, diplomas from Shredder Universities…Forget it.

FORGET IT!

PS: "Unchained," same deal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91zPg4f2K0g

FORGET IT!

Mike Errico official site: http://www.errico.com

Available at: The Official Mike Errico Store || iTunes || Emusic.com

Also at: Facebook || Twitter || MySpace || Last.fm || Pandora || ILike || MOG

 

According to today’s Huffington Post, “Some of the world’s largest recording companies are suing “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” claiming producers violated their copyrights by playing more than 1,000 songs without permission.”

It’s just an allegation, and if Jon Gosselin has taught us anything, it’s not to… wait. He hasn’t taught us anything. But on behalf of people who make their living getting paid making music, Ellen, please tell us you’re paying for the music you’re playing on your wacky show.

If not, I can only hope that hell will look like you sitting trapped at a desk, listening to one horrifying singer after another, for all eternity. Oh wait, that’s going to be your life. Never mind. We’re even.

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Mike Errico official site: http://www.errico.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mike-Errico/8888939428
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Resolved: Quantity always trumps quality.

As an artist working in several media at once, I’m having to create a lot of work under sometimes crazy deadlines. And it stresses the hell out of me. Once, while worrying about the quality of work done quickly, I was taught a great lesson from an unlikely authority: my dad. The guy who never taught me to shave and still hasn’t given me “the talk” (I’m flying blind on both topics) turned me on to a game-changing story from a book called Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland.

The story discusses an experiment done in a ceramics class. Instead of paraphrasing, I will flaunt the rules of copyright and quote it here:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work — and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Get me drinking some night, and this story will come out. That’s basically a guarantee. Not that the story is the cancer cure of my artistic life: I’m still a self-doubting pile of disaster every time I debut a new song, score a TV theme or complete an article. I’m simply reminded not to be so damn precious. Completion of anything is success, and at worst, I’m stumbling in the best of all possible directions.

In hopes that you will identify, I’ve catalogued two basic art-spasms I have, and have given the corresponding quote from Art & Fear that talks me out of the trees:

SPASM: Wow, I think I just created something that totally sucks.
QUOTE: “The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars.”
LESSON: It’s not really for you to decide if what you do is good. The reward of your most recent work is your next piece of work. So get on it. Or, to quote the Foo Fighters: “Done, done/on to the next one.” Wow. I just quoted the Foo Fighters.

SPASM: I suck.
QUOTE: “There is probably no clearer waste of psychic energy than worrying about how much talent you have — and probably no worry more common. This is true even among artists of considerable accomplishment.”
LESSON: Art is a muscle. So go to the gym.

I’m not shilling a self-help book. I don’t even know these guys. I’m just saying: This helped me. I hope it helps you.

Art & Fear:Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
David Bayles & Ted Orland
Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0961454733/kkorg-20

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Mike Errico official site: http://www.errico.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mike-Errico/8888939428
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