New Music: KCDC Preview

In the interest of both creative challenge and ego erosion, my partner Kwame Copeland and I took the RPM Challenge, aka co-write-an-album-in-a-month, in February 2013. Employing an Allen Ginsburgian/Beat Poet/first-thought-best-thought approach to writing, we sat down and wrote a song together every day for two weeks. It was a pretty straightforward effort: we threw whatever we had against the wall and kept what stuck, culling the results to songs we found interesting enough to complete.  After the RPM Challenge ended, we kept going with most of the material, rallying a rhythm section and recording the basics of what has turned out to be an eclectic batch of tunes that dips into country, latin, post-punk, straight-ahead rock as well as balladry. Over the past several months we've been completing overdubs and mixing the tracks with Mike Stevens at Lost Monkey Studio...and we're just about finished with KCDC 1.0 (in the middle of recording and mixing songs from RPM 2013 we did the RPM Challenge again in 2014, so yes, there will be a second collection). It's been an organic and refreshing project, a departure in many cases from our individual work, and we've had a lot of fun. We'll be releasing the first KCDC collection of songs sometime this summer. In the meantime, here's a preview of the intro track, Go Through That Door:

Ode to Pliny

"I have a big inner life. My struggle is how to organize it." -- Baz Luhrmann  New York Times 2/9/14

Rainy day here. Rainy days. As California basks in belatedly falling rain and snow, I'm happy to be warm at home, reading the Sunday paper, recovering from my venture into beer tourism.

 I'm not a big drinker and, when it comes to alcohol consumption of any kind, I'm more apt to have a nice glass of red wine. However, my SO has a high regard for IPAs and enough interest in craft beer to brew up a batch at home from time to time. So when another friend who is likewise partnered to a beer lover invited us along to enjoy Russian River Brewing Company's annual release of its renowned Triple IPA 'Pliny the Younger,' we said sure. 

As the event showed up increasingly in the press, it dawned on us that the Pliny the Younger release was a very big deal among beer drinkers. Expensive and time-consuming to brew, Pliny the Younger is considered one of the very best tasting beers in the world, but is only available at the Santa Rosa pub for two weeks each year (with very limited shipments elsewhere). People from all over the country (world?) — we'd meet a woman from Texas who flew in and got up at 5 in the morning to get in line — gather in Santa Rosa each February to consume the rich beer. And so I found myself rising early Saturday to join my friends and the gathering throngs to await our turn to taste Pliny.

The drenching rain didn't keep the crowds away and it was late afternoon by the time we were let inside Russian River Brewing Company.
 Inside the brewery, it was nearly standing room only, shoulder-to-shoulder, elbow-to-elbow, as the capacity crowd toasted glasses and sipped on the golden ale.  The pub serves an extensive list of other highly regarded and artful brews, including Pliny the Elder,  all year, but it was Pliny the Younger's day.
"Are you leaving?" I asked a man getting up from an adjacent bar stool, hoping to secure more perches for my party. 
"No," he said, looking at me aghast. "I'm staying 'til they close. 
Eventually, we got a table to sip and further consider this year's Pliny over pizza and pub sandwiches. 
Was it all that? I'm hardly the best judge, but I will say it was the smoothest, most drinkable beer I've tasted.

We're again participating in the RPM (write an album in a month) Challenge this month. I don't know this Ode to Pliny will make the KCDC 2.0 cut, but this is what appeared today:

Ode to Pliny the Younger

What you'll do for a fine craft beer 

Why wait in the rain in a soggy chair

As Triple IPA is a strong and special thing

May alter your reality, may make you sing

Oh Pliny the Younger, you sneaky little thing

Oh Pliny the Younger, 

Oh Pliny the Younger, 

Hoppy, smooth, a beer so right

We waited for hours

And now everyone's a little tight

We stood outside though the rain did fall

What folks will do for rare alcohol 

The cops came, the merchants swore

But we all bought T-shirts 

From The Pliny the Younger store

Oh Pliny the Younger, 

Oh Pliny the Younger, 

Hoppy, smooth, a beer so right

We waited for ours 

Then off we went in the night

Will you do it again? Some won't some will

Fly from all over to get their fill

Maybe if there's another sort of inebriation

Perhaps a quadruple IPA creation?

---KCDC 2/9/14

RPM Challenge Listening Party on Saturday

The dust from the flurry of February songwriting has settled and the RPM Challenge is hosting listening parties across the nation to give an ear to all that work. A song from the project I did with Alex Walsh, "Crooks/Walsh Blues"," will be those featured during the East Bay Express produced Bay Area shindig. This weekend, Fox Theater Oakland. Come on down. But rsvp: Jody.Colley@EastBayExpress.com
They will be telecasting the party to other cities, projecting their parties live, and talking to RPM bands from around the world!

Saturday, March 28
6-8pm - Free Admission
The Den at the Fox Theater
1807 Telegraph Avenue
Oakland CA 94612
BART riders: exit at the 19th Street Station

www.thefoxoakland.com