Not Another More

The room was quiet. just the late light was spilling through the back room.. a cluttered place filled with things from broken towers.

 “Hello my lord”

Hadder was startled and jumped.

Hadder: “Hello? Mr Evermore? Is that you?… Where have you been?”

“I’ve been here.. watching... you fool. Do you think I wouldn’t see that fire in my Canyon. What’s wrong with you my friend.. I’ve been waiting to see who you would become.. the hole you dug was deep my friend. I wasn’t surprised. Did you smell the sage? How was your sleep?”

Hadder: “What do you mean?”

“The sage… it was poisoned you know.. Do you remember the fire? Have you had any dreams lately…”

(a soft laughter echoed off the wooden floors.. a low rumble that shook his very being)

Hadder  “Who are you?”

“Well.. let’s just say I’m from that place that never was.. even though you think you know. I am many things some of which you wouldn’t understand. I planted these oaks.. for you actually. Did you think I would leave you to die my little dead rabbit?”

(The oak branches tapped on the windows and scrapped the wooden roof overhead like a child dragging his fingers over a chalkboard.)

“It’s time I came back.. although it seems like it was so long ago… time really is nothing to me.. you’ve only just begun to awaken. You really weren’t ready yet.. for what is coming. But we started with small steps.. I’m proud of you although you really have been fucking around lately and I thought it was time to remind you again.

Hadder: Time for what? Remind me of what?

“Time to give you some more pages. Some more memories. You didn’t think you thought all this stuff up yourself, did you? Zabble, Evermore, BOK… dear lord Johnny or Hadder or who ever the hell you think you are today, a rabbit maybe who still believes he is imagining things under some oaks he accidentally stumbled into.

(A deep sigh rattles the twisted oak branches like thunder)

“I made this forest for you long ago.. it sat quiet for thousands of years. each tree was handpicked and sculpted from a tiny seed. “Master of the weeds”? Did you hear them last night? Have you noticed they follow you in the yard? Did you think these hadder tales were your doing? Ha my dear Johnny… when will you finally wake up. Oh you’ve hardly crawled from the twisted roots of your prison. It’s time to rise now and look around a bit more.”

Have you seen Zabble lately ?

(a strange laughter could be heard again. echoing in every room of this dwelling just as a large tree branch feel on the roof with a loud bang that literally sent chills up Hadders back. Jups took to the air and flew into a small hidden crack in the ceiling.)

Hadder: “Who are you?”

“The man behind that old door.. where you first started to remember.

Hadder: Remember what? Where does the door go?

“Hhhhh… young Hadder…. Enough of this “dilly dally”..  you should try to stay awake. The night.. oh she’s so dark just before the day light breaks. If you need me.. I’ll be inside the silver lights you hung. I’ll be watching your fire closely.. stay awake.. the things you need will come in due time.”

(The room grew very quiet and dark as the sunlight slipped below the horizon. Hadder sat in the dark thinking about that old place… and the doorway in the dream and the fire that changed his life. “Who’s the man” he still wonders. In the dark a few soft whispers could be heard… . “Not another more”... “Not another more.” They said… trailing off into the shadows of the day.)

Gold Rush and The lost ducklings

Image: A little graphic I was working on of my dear friend Klipso who sings to me each night here under the oaks. Who knows what he's eating out there each night.

Good morning in late April. It’s been a little longer than usual for an update, but, the wheels are still turning in the Hadder camp. How about a little update on some things.

I’ll be honest. I’m floating in the calm of the storm. The eye is above me. I might be enjoying my life under the oaks a little too much lately. I am a creature of nature and lately spring has been transforming my little mountain hideaway. A lot of what is happening to me lately has to do with what happened to me years ago. When I left my old mountain up on corral canyon and began this “Breakers” record, I always longed to return to the canyons. I was displaced, and in that displacement, I wrote the music for the first Diamonds Hadder record. But what now? I’ve come back to the oaks now but the wind she blows slightly different than she did before. Grief, she laid waste to the things I knew. The trees are grown up and wondering who the hell I am. There’s a great spirit here that I don’t really know. The nighttime here is filled with noises that make me want to sob in a happy way. The wolf certainly roams this land. I wander around in the yard cleaning the place up and repairing the towers that were here in the hopes of mending my soul. Hoping the blues and the birdfeeders will heal the broken heart I’ve carried for the last 6 years or so. Skinks and quails and tree frogs are invading my land. On the horizon I see a new record being born before my eyes, a record called “The Oaks”. A record about redemption and rebirth. Slowly I’ve been building the inside of this place. The center room, surrounded by the outer walls of this dwelling is where I’ve been spending most of my time. Designing the tower that will channel this new endeavor. My Noctua is ready now. In 1970, a record called “After the Gold Rush” was recorded in these very woods. This place also spawned The DOORS, “Roadhouse Blues”. It has a dark past as well, as its the place that Charles Manson called home when he arrived in Los Angeles. One thing is for sure, The lure of these oaks is mysterious and inviting and I can’t help but smile a twisted little grin at the thought of what I might create here musically in the coming months. Klipso sleeps very close these days and nights but the floors here they stay very cold as though they resent the warmth and coming of spring. I burn a lot of wood here and I think it's time I let the birds be birds.

Breakers Vinyl: As far as I know, the vinyl is in some stage of the manufacturing process somewhere in Europe. I've approve the vinyl remaster and it sound really good, much better than the digital release. You'll see soon enough. I wont say who did it just yet, but I'm very grateful for the work they put into it. They have now etched their name on this little breakers record of mine. I feel like during the making of the record “what was being recorded” always more important to me than “how it was recorded” and for that reason each song took on a life and sound of its own depending on what tower the song was recorded in. For that reason, the remaster was a bit tricky. The engineer had his hands full but he certainly reached for the gold and came away with some shiny stuff in the end. You can’t save every little ducking during a flood, but you can save most of them. That’s my philosophy on recording. Do your best to get it right, and don’t focus on the failures, instead… rejoice in the small victories and magic moments and move on to the next battle.

LITR: “Long Is the Road” Music video is in the editing stages. This is where I’ll be if you need me this spring. Knock loud because it’s noisy in here. I hope to be conjuring up something visually special. Something deserving of this record. Something maybe different than what we normally see. I’m in that world now and it’s a lonely but creative place where I’m painting the walls as I see fit and designing the rooms inside of the rooms without a single expectation. I aim to serve the thing that gave me this record. I serve the reasons this song exists and that’s all. Without a time limit and without a care about outcomes.

I suppose that’s all for now. Interesting times we are living in. Is it really that interesting or is this how it’s always been? Angry mobs and Sothern cross winds. Crooked politicians and hippie cults. Somewhere in the middle of it all, the Goat is hinting at a return to set things right and old music is growing ever more older under these same old twisted oaks that now have a hold of me. Ezra just grumbled, she grows tired of my philosophical meanderings. Ha. “Oh Really, girl. Go play with Jups.” I heard some advice yesterday, it was “Stay strong and hang in there.. I’m on it”, it came from above the trees. I’ll say the same to you.

Farewell friends

-j

Familiar Forests and the Noctua

Image: An image from some recent things I've been working on. One of the many doors to evermore.

Good afternoon from BOK.

Spring is springing. A few weeks have passed now since I’ve been settling in under the Oaks.  A little update is in order.

Beyond the Breakers Vinyl: The artwork is completed for the new breakers vinyl. Some very small details linger but nothing really to crazy. That part of the process is just about leaving my hands, which will free me up to dive back into music video production. The vinyl artwork certainly feels like its an extension of the record now. The cover was recomposited at 300 rez which was needed for the 13” dimensions of the vinyl. It was also wrapped around the record as a long panoramic and so that needed to be created over these last few months as well. Anytime I get to add real estate to the world of evermore, well, I’m up for the challenge, as well as for the fun of such a thing. So now on the back cover we get to see a little more of the world behind Mr Hadder and his friends from the front cover. The inside of the gatefold was a great place to put a photo of Hadder during one of his snowy visits with the witch on White Mountain. I have fond memories of that trip. Some strange things were happening at that time and so I felt that image was an important piece of the breakers record. Inside the gatefold you’ll find an insert with lyrics and a little something about the making of the record as well a photo of me and my Washburn. As I’ve said before, she did all the solos on the record, I just held her close. And finally, on the flip side of the insert… from left to right… you’ll find a photo collage spanning the life of the record. I scoured hard drives in all the places where I created the record, from my little home on the hill, 200 North, The Lex, and the dark tower I called the 408. This took the most time but it’s also the most rewarding part of the vinyl. A picture is worth 1000 words and for me, looking at this collage, it’s a novel of will and creation. A perfect end to the physical record. From what I understand, the Vinyl remastering is already underway. That’s all for that I suppose. I’ll be sure and keep you updated with manufacturing times along the way.

Music Video production: From one mountain of work to the next, I have no rest really. What is rest anyway. My new tower in the oaks is getting an upgrade for the video production side of this breakers record. A new I9 and a noctua 4080 for those of you who might know of such things. If you build it they will come, or so I’ve heard. I’m excited to re-engage in this visual chapter of my little breakers record. I was just about into the actual editing stages of “Long is the Road” before I had to suddenly switch gears to vinyl design a few months back. It’s good to get back to where I left off. Perhaps the time away from all the postproduction will give me some new perspective on the previous work I did. Everything happens for a reason I suppose, as some of the images inside the vinyl actually came from video footage stills for the LITR music video. Timing is everything in life. I’m sure I’ll post some little video clips along the way the next few months as vinyl is being manufactured behind the scenes. It should all lead to a nice summer release for it all, or something like that.

Other things: I wanted to take a moment today to thank you all for some of the emails I’ve received regarding the record. At times I’m consumed with all the fine details of this and that and life can seem to move at a snails pace some days. I’ve had my doubts about things along the way. I questioned my work and my will at times. Throughout the making of this breakers endeavor, there were hills and mountains to climb, but with every climb there was a fall as well. Much like ocean tides and sound waves with peaks and valleys, creation seems to follow these same patterns. I do believe there is no way around such things. However, in those darker times, occasionally I get an email from someone out of the blue and it’s a lot like pouring gasoline on a small fire. These little messages have fueled me when I needed them most. Like little taps on my shoulder. Little reminders of why I made this record. Why I did this or why I did that. Sometimes we can get lost in a familiar forest. Sometimes we listen to ghosts in the woods just because we’re lonely and it’s too damn hard to go it alone. It happens. Another reason why I don’t make permanent decisions until after a good campfire. Time and reflection has a way of solving all things, that and a cord of fire wood. I imagine my record has really only begun to live. Although it took a little while to make it, it’s really just a baby now in the wider world of heavy metal records. The true test of what it will become someday can only be decided by time. Having said that, the emails and emotional responses I’ve received over the last few months are very much appreciated. Regardless now of what truly lies beyond these breakers of mine, I can now wear a small and inconspicuous grin while sitting by the pacific, knowing that it mattered to at least someone, somewhere, out there. I think that’s all I ever really wished for it.

“My dear Mr evermore, guardian of the doorway. Thank you for waking me.”

May your own dreams show you the way.

-j