Night Errand
Making music when you can't find the words
Words are failing me this week.
Not just because of the infuriating horror of our government sending armed, taxpayer-funded troops to terrorize our fellow citizens in Minneapolis and elsewhere, though that in itself has been profoundly nauseating to witness. But there’s also been a lot of heaviness happening closer to home for me, including having to say goodbye to my girlfriend Shannon’s beloved beagle Barney last weekend right before we got completely snowed in for a couple of days. I usually hate Januarys anyway, but this one has felt especially long, mean and desolate.
My spiritual battery is currently on “low,” my physical energy not appreciably much higher, and writing right now feels like trying to push blood clots through a fountain pen. Thank the gods, then, for music — not just the recorded stuff (though that’s certainly been helping a bit), but the actual playing and recording of it.
A few months ago, in one of those textbook “Fuck it, life’s short” moments, I splurged and bought myself an Epiphone Casino, a guitar I’ve been jonesing for ever since I watched The Beatles: Get Back. Guitar (and Beatles) nerd that I am, I purchased a 2010 reissue with the same look and specs as John Lennon’s 1965 sunburst model — 16th fret join or no deal, baby! — and it’s been blowing my mind on a daily basis ever since. If there’s such a thing as finding your spirit animal in the form of a guitar, “Oscar” (named after my wonderful cat who passed away in November) is it.
I can’t remember exactly where I heard it, but I was listening to a podcast a while back where someone uttered the phrase “Creativity IS the point” — a concept which resonated deeply with me. We’ve been so conditioned in this society to see creativity as merely a means to an end (Money! Fame! Ego Gratification!), which in turn has caused so many people to lose sight of the fact that the very act of creating can be a wonderfully cathartic, rewarding and transformative experience in and of itself.
For several years now, I’ve been occasionally writing and recording music as The Corinthian Columns, a one-man project that’s beholden to no particular sound or genre. Sometimes I’ll write instrumental tracks that could have fit on the soundtrack of some 70s cop show or Sci-Fi flick; sometimes I’ll write songs about strange dreams I’ve had, or evocative memories from my teenage years; sometimes I’ll write Christmas songs, or novelty funk tracks about Sasquatch. Anything goes, because there’s no pressure or need to stay within any stylistic or conceptual confines; and once I’m finally happy with something I’ve come up with, I’ll post it to my Bandcamp page for others to hear, and maybe even download.
It’s always a thrill when someone tells you that they dig your music, or forks over some hard-earned cash for it — just like it’s always a thrill when someone leaves a positive comment on one of my Substack posts, or I get a notification that there’s a new subscriber to Jagged Time Lapse. But while the audience for my music is but a fraction of the one for my music writing — and I gave up on trying to “make it” as a professional musician 25 years and about four waist sizes ago — the process of writing songs and recording them is nonetheless still just as much of a kick for me as the process of writing an article or essay… and sometimes the results are far more surprising.
Late last summer, shortly after Shannon and Barney moved in with me, we drove over to our local “transfer station” (other municipalities might refer to it as a “dump”) to rid ourselves of some cardboard boxes and other detritus from the move. Our transfer station has a donations area, which is kind of like a tiny thrift shop filled with household goods where nothing actually costs anything. I rarely find much of interest in there, but occasionally I’ve gotten lucky — like the time a few years ago when I found a huge stack of Finnish-language pop singles from the 1960s and 70s, some of which were actually pretty fun, like this cover of Wings’ “Hi-Hi-Hi”…
“Let me just duck my head in there for a sec,” I told Shannon, heading to the donations area while she and Barney waited in the car. “I have a good feeling about this.” Three minutes later, I emerged bearing an Al Caiola record I’d never seen before, and an M-Audio Axiom 25 MIDI keyboard controller. “Told ya I was feeling lucky,” I beamed.
The Axiom 25 is fairly outdated — it was originally released in 2010 — and this one definitely needed some cleaning and a new power supply; whoever tossed it probably did so because its USB jack was broken. But with the help some of MIDI cables, I was soon able to get it working in conjunction with GarageBand, allowing me to access (and play) a wide array of different keyboard sounds.
I’ve yet to figure out the full extent of what the Axiom 25 can (or can no longer) do, but I have occasionally experimented with it since bringing it home, using the MIDI controller to add some flavors and textures to various tracks I’ve been working on; it was only a few weeks ago, however, that I actually wrote something with it. Not that I had any intention of writing anything in particular when I initially sat down and plugged it into my iPad — but once I stumbled upon an ethereal, almost vocal-like synth sound, I decided to see how it would work over an electronic beat. I found a groove I liked, then doubled it with another drum machine playing a slightly different pattern at the same tempo. After coming up with a basic melodic pattern, and started messing around with a bass sequencer, and things just kind of took off from there…
The next thing I knew, I had completed a nearly five-minute minute piece of pulsating electronic music that sounded (to me at least) like a mixture of 1970s Giorgio Moroder, the first Neu! album and some of Studio G’s more synth-oriented offerings. In fact, this instrumental track — which I decided to call “Night Errand,” in honor of its urgent nocturnal vibe — was the first all-electronic track I’ve ever created.
My guitar-obsessed 17 year-old self, who firmly believed that synthesizers and electronic drums were the work of The Devil, would have been completely appalled by this journey to what he saw as the dark side. (And being equally lyrically-obsessed at the time, he would have been quite puzzled/annoyed by my decision to leave this track as a vocal-free instrumental.) But while I dearly love that kid, he was needlessly uptight about a whole lot of stuff, especially when it came to things like ideas of “musical integrity,” and it’s nice to finally be free of such self-imposed restrictions.
All I know is that it was an absolute joy to get completely lost in “Night Errand” as I was making it and refining it and editing it and mixing it, and the thrill of finding just the right hi-hat pattern to truly bring the whole thing together gave me a genuine, lasting dopamine boost amid my massive January doldrums. And it made me realize that, if I’m going to stay remotely sane amid the challenges of what’s ramping up to be a truly difficult year, making music is going to have to be more than just an occasional thing for me.
Therefore, in an effort to counteract my encroaching feelings of despair churned up by the daily onslaught of authoritarian awfulness and whatever else the fates and weather systems may throw at me, I’ve challenged myself to pen and record a new Corinthian Columns track each month — and put it up on Bandcamp as a way to raise awareness (and funds) for various charities and community organizations that are working to make this country a better and more equitable place.
All proceeds from purchases of “Night Errand” — this month’s track — will go to fund MONARCA, a rapid response immigrants rights group that has trained over 20,000 Minnesotans as neighborhood observers to help peacefully protect the rights and fundamental freedoms of their communities, as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. You can find out more about them at: https://monarcamn.org
(You can also find info about many other ways to help at the Stand With Minnesota website.)
Obviously, my reach isn’t going to be anywhere near that of, say, Bruce Springsteen, whose new song “Streets of Minneapolis” shines a welcome high-wattage spotlight upon ICE thuggery. But I figure if even just one person likes my monthly Corinthian Columns track enough to drop a couple of bucks on it, that’s a couple of additional bucks I can then pass along to a good cause. And if just one person decides to directly support an organization that I’ve introduced them to or reminded them of, then that’s a small win too. Creativity is definitely the point… but if I can also send a ripple across the pond with a well-tossed pebble, so much the better.
Thanks for reading and (hopefully) listening. See you back here next week… and see you back here next month with a new song. And fuck ICE and all who support and enable them.
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You're a good dude, Dan. Truly one of the good ones. ✨
I loved this Dan, and I love that you are finding a way not just to be creative for creativity sake but also to do so to bring yourself cheer and help others.