They Were Bold Before...

...Now they're just being ridiculous. Samantha and I were driving home after a long day of shooting. I pulled the car into the driveway, to see a coyote lounging in my front yard. Not just sitting there, but mocking us. He was dead center in the yard, very comfortable; settled. He might as well have been holding a martini in one paw, and a sign saying "this is my house now" in the other (do they even have paws?).

As my headlights approached him - his reaction? Boredom, mostly. He was certainly not intimidated by us or our big bright vehicle coming his way.

He slowly pulled himself to his feet and ambled towards the house next door. Samantha tried to take his picture but it was pretty dark and he was too far away for her flash to work. So she basically got picture of pitch black...and one glowing eye.

Absolutely chilling. It looks like she sighted a sasquatch or something.

Brick By Brick

Ryan Newman has begun work on the album art and I couldn't be more elated. Did he just get more brain cells than the rest of us?

We returned from our Highway Girl shoot in Vegas earlier this week. Got lots of great footage. While we were there, I wrote the final song for the album on my laptop in my hotel room. I do love technology! When we got home, I just dumped it to my home computer, recorded some vocals and VOILA -- done.

The last two days we've been shooting interviews with some really amazing artists I won't name here (that will be a surprise for when the show launches). Trust me, you like.

More shooting today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and then I'm off to simultaneously edit the show and master my album. Juggling is fun.

The Highway Girl

SMtv and The Samantha Murphy Show have now become The Highway Girl. Many wonderful changes in store for our show!


For the next few weeks, Samantha and I will be shooting segments left and right for our new season, goofing off in front of and behind the camera. We have some very exciting, very big artists coming on board.

Many more details to come. New website on its way. Until then, you can read The Highway Girl blog.

And you can still see our seven awesome episodes from South By Southwest (which includes my "it's so hard to tour with Hannah Montana" rant, my "cannonball problem," and my general willingness to alienate myself in front of my music heroes) at smtvmusic.com. You have to sign up to watch, but it's free and it's just so we have an idea of who's watching.

Dining With the Dead

On Oscar Sunday, instead of going to an Oscar party (I was dying to watch the awards, but Tivo'd them back home instead), we went to a dinner party for members of the exclusive Pho list. I met tons of important people and embarrassed myself, as usual. The worst part was, the restaurant was playing the Oscars on all the TV's. And it was muted, with the captions on. So I would try desperately to avoid it, and then would accidentally catch a split second, and see the captions saying things like "and the winner of Best Costume Design is Sweeney Todd."

This happened more than three times.

By the end, I was exhausted from all the socializing (have I ever mentioned I'm a total introvert?), and dragged myself to bed...after taking one picture:


The Kabuki hotel really treated us well. And Monday morning, I woke up to this:

Ahh.

Monday brought the San Francisco Music Tech Summit, which was attended by many brilliant folks including the founder of YouTube, the former drummer from Creeper Lagoon, the creator of CDBaby and tons of musicians and web people. Quite a meeting of minds.

During the afternoon, we interviewed John Perry Barlow, one of the songwriters for The Grateful Dead. What a thoughtful, intelligent man.

We filmed and filmed and filmed some more. Interviews and panels and behind-the-scenes, oh my! Samantha hosted a panel sponsored by Digital Freedom:

She also played a show at the end of the day for the hundreds of smarties. And afterwards, we were personally invited to join John Perry Barlow (of the Dead) and Claudio Prado, the Vice Minister of Culture for Brazil, for some Korean barbecue. To hear these two trade stories was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Over the course of the day, we heard tons of great ideas, brilliant internet strategies and genius theories, all of which I promptly forgot by the car ride home.

A Night by the Fire

So, after the embarrassment that was the Jonathan Coulton interview, Saturday couldn't really get a whole lot worse. That day, I was scheduled to play Paul Schreiber's house concert. Paul works as a programmer at Apple, and he hosts these house concerts every month or so. He's earned quite a reputation as a tastemaker, previously featuring artists like The Weepies, Kyler, Adrianne and our very own Samantha Murphy.

He's also earned a reputation for being a ridiculously hospitable host. Paul spent the day preparing chocolate cake, donut holes and banana bread from scratch. This guy's not kidding around.
He set up his bedroom as the green room, complete with tea, magazines, paper and pens for my set list -- you get the idea. I felt very much at home.

And the place was packed. I played two sets of 45 minutes each. It was great fun to play for so long, because I was able to pull out some songs I don't often play, like "The Road" and "Ferris Wheel."

I got a great response from the audience, who were a great bunch of listeners. Sometimes it's hard to tell if a crowd is diggin' it, but they seemed pretty into it.

I Am Not Stalking You

I realize that I'm way behind on my blog. So here's a little catch-up.

Last Friday, Samantha and I piled cameras, tripods, a keyboard, a guitar, suitcases, CDs, cables, a PA system, bags of videotapes and so much more into my tiny compact car for a business trip to San Francisco.

When we arrived six hours later, we immediately jumped into work. For the TV show, we were covering Jonathan Coulton's (or JoCo's) sold-out show at the Great American Music Hall. This show was quite important to him, as a massive and well-paid camera crew was filming it for his upcoming DVD, and we were filming the filming. Samantha and I are both big fans, and were very excited.

It was interesting to meet his fans. I wasn't surprised at all that they were all nerds, as his music is total geek-rock (and I mean this in the nicest way). However, Samantha and I were both very surprised that they were all rude. Not sure if it was a San Francisco thing, or a nerds-who-have-never-seen-sunlight-and-have-no-social-skills thing, but every single one that spoke to us was shockingly unkind.

Despite all the angry dorks (or maybe because of, who knows?), Jonathan put on a fantastic show, filled with references to robots, zombies, monsters and concluding with the announcement-masquerading-as-spectacle, where Jonathan and various popular bloggers played his song from Portal, "Still Alive" in Rock Band (surprise, everyone!). The collective geeksplosion of brain matter was sort of gross. But fun.

(A fan gave him this creepy doll, which they created, based on his song, "Creepy Doll." How nice...and obsessive.)

The whole night helped me realize that although I am a geek, there are perhaps levels of geekiness, and those people are on some crazy "we-go-to-Comic-Con-dressed-as-Joss-Whedon" level.

After the show, we headed backstage for an interview with Jonathan. At this point, I should mention that Samantha told JoCo in her previous interview with him (which you can now hear at smtvmusic.com) that I am a huge fan. I was not present for this. She went further, saying that I'm basically stalking him. She has continued to joke that I am in love with him every time she's talked to him in the months since then. She even put the horribly embarrassing picture from this previous entry on her Flickr page. He's a little freaked out, I'm guessing.

For the record, I like his music. That's pretty much it. I don't want him to do my dishes or wash my laundry or clean my toilets. I just want to listen to "Still Alive" every now and then.

That said, Jonathan seemed downright afraid of me from the word go. This made us both completely uncomfortable. But we did our best to create a little video content...

...that I probably won't be able to use. I'm scheduled to edit this footage tomorrow, and I'm honestly dreading even looking at it. Surely, I look like a complete idiot. Either way, you'll be able to see for yourself when it airs later this month. [Sarcasm activated] I can hardly wait. [Sarcasm deactivated].

Wow, I really am a geek.

The Highlight of Your Week Is Coming Up!

Do you live in or near San Francisco? Well, lucky you! I'll be playing Paul Schreiber's house concert in San Francisco on Feb 23rd. Who's Paul Schreiber? Well, other being a programmer for Apple (which is pretty cool on its own), he happens to host the coolest house concert in San Francisco. He's previously had amazing artists like Adrianne, The Weepies and yes, even the fabulous Samantha Murphy.

Your mind will be blown. You'll eat tasty food. You'll hear old songs, new songs, maybe even crazy Willie Nelson cover songs performed blindfolded and drunk. But probably not the last one. If you'd like to attend, please RSVP at http://concerts.shrub.ca/

I hope to see you there.

Oh, and if you don't live in San Francisco...well, lucky you! I'll be playing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on February 27th. Some chick named Miley Cyrus. Never heard of 'er. Hope she's good.

Re-assimilating

It's been really hard to settle back into a routine since I've been home. I was all excited to be in one place, waking up in the same bed, that I just sort of assumed I'd be able to get back on a schedule. But I've been working a lot, and not sleeping much.

I did feel a little better today, because Samantha forced me to drink a nasty warm maple syrup tea with lots of spicy cayenne pepper and lemon. Disgusting, but just as she said, it picked me right up and took away my congestion. Good thing, too, cause we had a lot to get done today.

We spent the day shooting some host segments for the TV show. We'll be going live with our very first episode at South By Southwest next month, so we've got a limited time to create and edit the pre-taped segments.

I have a nice yard in the back of my house that doubles as a park, an alley, a zen garden, an orchard and a patio. It will be heavily featured.

Tonight, I spent several hours editing interview footage we shot last August of Inara George (The Bird and the Bee) and Mike Andrews (Donnie Darko), at the Bessie Smith tribute. Good stuff, and you'll see it soon.

But right now, I'm exhausted. I need to rest up for my bright and early appointment with the doctor.

Geeks Speak

We're working away like elves on The Samantha Murphy Show. I'm so excited for you all to see what we're doing.

One of the segments, "Geeks Speak," features Samantha and I answering questions about all things tech, including websites, computers, gadgets, software, the junction of music and technology, etc. This is where you come in.

Got any questions? Any comparisons you'd like to see? Anything you'd like to ask a couple of huge geeks?

Non sequiters

More video on the way. I've been having lots of fun going through the pics and videos I took on the tour, and it's nice to know that you guys are enjoying them too.

In completely unrelated news, I was stunned to hear that a big-screen version of the cancelled TV show, "Arrested Development," is currently in the works. I could cry. Story here.

Tonight, I went to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater here in Hollywood with Ben and Samantha. The hilarious Jeff Garlin (Curb Your Enthusiasm) does stand-up there every Sunday for $1! It doesn't get any better than that. Jeff and friends Nicole Parker and Mark Marin workshopped new material and we laughed our little lungs out.

It's so good to be home. I feel so calm and rested and on my way to finally shaking this weird flu/cold/bronchitis thing.

Lest I forget their creepy omnipresence in my neighborhood, a coyote slunk down the sidewalk as I got home tonight. It glared at me. Like a warning. Oh yeah, I forgot. They own this place.

Miscellany

Samantha interviewed Jonathan Coulton for our TV show. I'm a huge fan, so of course I was completely flipping out. During the interview, she had him call me to ask which song he should play on the show. I missed the call (I was in Georgetown, trying to get some sleep), but Jonathan left a message. I'm still bummed about missing it.

Anyway, when I got to LA, she gave me the Best Gift Ever:


Here's a sign from a Wendy's bathroom near Cal Poly. The very definition of irony.


Miley's teacher, Linda, has accidentally become my movie buddy. I went to see "Charlie Wilson's War" in Cleveland, and she was there for the same movie at the same time. So we watched it together. Fun! Then again in Georgetown, when I went to see "There Will Be Blood," we ended up at the same showing. I look forward to accidentally seeing something with her again soon. Here she is with my Mom at the Vegas show:


Billy Ray played with us at Vegas show #1. We love working with him. He's one of the nicest people I've ever met.

L to R: Miley, Billy Ray and Brandi Cyrus

The band says I have the largest family in the world. Nearly every show I've had some family showing up. Pictured here is our big ol' Vegas reunion:

L to R: Mom, me, Aunt Elsie, Dad, Aunt Nancy, Aunt Ivy and Aunt Jessie

Look At Samantha Go!

My dear friend and business partner, Samantha Murphy, has just done a spot for DigitalFreedom.org.

A Strange Pictorial

Some hilarious photos of our Thanksgiving evening can be seen here, courtesy of Samantha.

Adventures in Middle Tennessee

Yesterday, we arrived in a gloomy, wet Nashville. Ahh. Just as I left it.

My sister Christina and her husband Doug live here, and my parents flew down so we could all enjoy Thanksgiving together. Christina was really impressed that we're staying at the Loews Vanderbilt, saying it's really swanky. It is. However, the view from my room is not:

We headed out to Christina and Doug's place in Antioch, and met their delightful new kitten, Samson. He's pushing the boundaries of cute:

He's fluffy and adorable, but of course my cat allergies prevent me from enjoying him close-up.

Last night, we ate at a Persian restaurant. It seemed sort of like a combination of Greek and Indian food, but I'm sure I'm missing the gentle nuances of the cuisine. It was good. However, I could have done without the "Yanni: Live At the Acropolis" video playing next to our table.

This morning, Thanksgiving Day, I was scheduled to have a business meeting at Starbucks with Dave Jaworski and Skip Franklin of PassAlong Networks, as well as the always delightful Samantha Murphy.

I Google-mapped out the directions and left precisely enough time to get to Samantha's house to pick her up. As I was pulling onto her street, she called me to say she'd be out in the driveway. Right on time! Her house was 45 Bel Air (number changed for obvious reasons), I saw 43 and 47. No 45 in sight. Where 45 would be, there was a patch of grass and a sad little hill. After chatting about this, we deduced that I was all the way out in Murfreesboro. This was basically the boonies, and totally wrong. I didn't understand how this could've happened.

Samantha borrowed her Mom's car to head to the meeting, cause there was no way I'd get back there on time.

She gave me the beginning of the directions to get back, and said she'd call me when Dave and Skip arrived, cause they're Nashville geography experts, basically.

They called me about 20 minutes later, and through some grand miscommunication, they thought I was heading into Nashville, when I had already passed it and was heading out. They advised me to continue in the same direction. I rattled off the names of exits I was passing (Old Hickory, Briley Parkway) and everything seemed cool. I later found out that both of these streets loop all the way around Nashville, and I was seeing the wrong Old Hickory and the wrong Briley Parkway.

By the time we figured out what was going on, I was almost to the Kentucky border. And to make things worse, I found out that the Starbucks where we were meeting was five minutes from my hotel. So I'd been driving for an hour and a half for no reason at all.

At least the trees were pretty.

Samantha and I later investigated the problem. I entered Bel Air instead of Belair, and even though I entered the zip code (which should have put us in the right neighborhood), Google Maps got it totally wrong. We tested it again and duplicated the same bad results. MapQuest, however, got it RIGHT. [Note to self: Never use Google Maps again]. Sam and I both agree that zip code should take priority over spacing of street name. I'm tempted to write a letter.

But I digress. I finally arrived at the meeting, and it was lovely. Dave Jaworski even recorded a podcast with me (let me know if you find that anywhere).

Samantha also joined me at Christina & Doug's place for our Thanksgiving dinner. My family cooked up a delectable meal that I'm still digesting many hours later.

It was so nice to spend some quality time with my sweet family. It seems like we see each other less and less these days, and I really missed them.

My sister's so awesome. I just love her.

Oh...my Mom said something hilarious that I'll never forget. Just nonchalantly and in the middle of a discussion, she tossed out, "As a mother, you try not to get involved, but..."

Samantha and I laughed for quite a while about that one. I still chuckle when I think of it. My parents are awesome, and a constant source of entertainment for me. And they just happen to be the most generous people I've ever met. So that's convenient.

In other news, my cold has umm...sunken. It's not in my face anymore. It's moved down to my chest, which is unpleasant in a brand new way. Now I've got a crazy painful cough, which sounds...beefy. Really hoping not to cough during the show tomorrow, which my family is coming to. Maybe I'll be nervous for a change.

Just realized that I'm really overusing ellipses in this post. It happens.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYBODY!

(L - R: Gerry Schmid, Violet Schmid, Mike Schmid, Christina Pflueger, Doug Pflueger)

Gigs! Gigs! Gigs!

The gig last night at Genghis was a total blast. I shared the stage with Andrea Stolpe and Samantha Murphy. It was a perfect combo of different songwriting styles and personalities. I hope I have the pleasure of sharing the stage with them again very soon.

I've decided to take the Hannah Montana tour. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication. They thought I had all my own gear. As a result of the MIDI project studio becoming so feasible, I sold all my synths a few years ago. Now I keep all my sounds in my computer and control them from a keyboard that has no sounds on it. This is a problem. I have to buy new synths for this tour. I still don't know if Disney is going to cover them, but it certainly won't be a dealbreaker. I'm heavily entrenched in Research Mode right now.

Next weekend, I'm playing a one-off gig with Kenna in Orlando. I love Kenna's music, so that should be a lot of fun. And they're running all their sounds out of Logic, so I don't even need to provide a keyboard for that. I'll just show up and play. My favorite. The lugging and setting up of gear is the main thing about live shows that I don't like. It's like moving, minus the U-Haul.

The World Goes Round

Despite the fact that this blog has been exclusively Bioshock posts as of late, there's been a lot going on. (I have managed to squeeze in some sweet Bioshock time though).

Samantha and I have been shooting crazy quantities of footage for the upcoming Samantha Murphy Show. I'm very excited about it. Sunday night we went to Inara George's annual tribute to benefit the Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon. It featured Inara, Eleni Mandell, Mike Andrews (composer of Donnie Darko and Me And You And Everyone We Know (one of my favorite movies) Priscilla Ahn and Tom Brosseau. It was a lovely evening, and we got some great interviews.

Hopefully I'll have more announcements about the show soon. We're headed to San Francisco tomorrow morning to tape a backstage interview with Crowded House (psyched to meet Neil Finn and the guys!). While we're in town, we're also slated to each play sets at Apple world headquarters. Very exciting.

I've been working on a brand new VH1 show called "With A Bullet." It's a hilarious mockumentary show about a has-been singer who makes a comeback. I wrote the song that the show centers around, "My Retarded Heart" (their title, not mine). Samantha sang it. This morning, we visited the set. We just missed Alanis Morrissette, who apparently loved the song. We watched a bit of the shoot it and was a blast. Everybody had the song stuck in their head. I felt like I should apologize. I have to say though, my favorite moment was when we met Jane Lynch (I'm a big fan) and she couldn't stop singing it. Hopefully the pilot will get picked up. More news soon.

An offer just came in for me to backup Hannah Montana on her upcoming tour. I'm not really familiar with her music, but I know she's Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter, a huge Disney star (the tour is stadiums only), and mostly aimed at teens. It's not my demographic, but it sounds like a fun gig. The tour runs through January. I'm still deciding.

Also, my new album is almost done and will be released this fall.

So whew! Lots going on.

The Samantha Murphy Show Is Coming Together

I'm honored that Samantha has chosen me to direct her upcoming internet show, and we've been having lots of fun filming segments for awhile now. Yesterday, we taped a music video-type-dealio with Cataldo (Eric Anderson and crew) a fantastic band out of Olympia, WA. It was a blast, and for some unknown reason, there was much half-nude cavorting (don't ask, I don't know -- but you'll see it in the video!). It's hilarious, and we're still laughing even after seeing it all night.

We started filming around noon, and by 3am the whole thing was shot, edited, color-corrected and rendered. Yup, we're on the fast track around here!

And tonight, we filmed a live performance and interview with the incredible Rob Giles, who sang and played beautifully and ripped my heart to pieces (and that's a good thing)! I'm excited for you all to see these shows. More details soon on when that might be.

Much editing to be done this week, but it's all been lots of fun, and everybody's been so easy to work with. That makes it all easier.

Coming up on Thursday we're shooting one of my new favorite musicians, Buddy. I've been listening to his album, "Alterations and Repairs," almost nonstop for the last week. Whatever you're doing right now, drop it and go listen now now now now! I promise you won't be disappointed. It's a perfect album, and that doesn't happen often.

The Bathroom From Hell

Our master bathroom is just mean. It's got all pinky-peach colored tiles, little seashells everywhere, a nice big shower, it says "hello! Enjoy your time in the restroom!"

But then you come in and the shower is populated with baby things, not usable. The sink has gotten a cold or something -- it's become congested and basically only trickles water. And to cap it all off, the toilet has stopped flushing. Entirely. Mean bathroom.

As Samantha says, "It's so inviting and sparkly and then it shits all over you."

Well anyway, I had a Roto Rooter guy over, who helped remove the obstruction in the sink. And the toilet, believe it or not, I fixed it myself. Yes, I actually went back to the dreaded Home Depot and picked up a tank leveler and installed it on my own. It took me almost a half hour to get the thing in too because the old one was very stubborn. But it felt good to not pay the Roto Rooter guy $185 to do it. And hooray for me. The little baby got all growed up.

It's all about the little triumphs.

So now the bathroom isn't such a tease. The shower's still full of stuff though.

My Late Night Adventure

It's been pretty cool at night lately, so Samantha convinced me to start opening the windows to save money on A/C. The light breeze is nice, but the downside is I can hear cars pass the house when I'm trying to sleep, but I can usually block that out after awhile.

Tonight, I laid down in bed around 1:30am for some nice shut-eye.

That's when I heard it.

A sporadic rustling sound just outside my bedroom window. I listened from bed for a bit. Footsteps. Sounded human. Sounded like shoes. Sounded like someone trying to move quietly. I got out of bed and went to the open window. It was very clearly someone moving. But it would stop for a minute at a time, and then move again. It was coming from further back in the house, so I first made sure all the doors were locked, then went to the back porch. Very clear. But it wasn't in our alley. It was just on the other side of the ivy wall separating my house from the neighbor's. This would have been comforting, but all of their lights were out, and I know they go to bed fairly early. So someone was in their yard, moving slowly and sporadically.

I listened for almost an hour and it didn't stop. It sounded as if they were walking around the perimeter of the house. After the recent vandalism, I wasn't about to take any chances.

I dialed 911. They said they'd send an officer.

Around 2:30am - a wailing sound. Very disturbing. Like a large bird in pain.

Around 3:30 - the officer showed up. He searched the yard next door. One by one, motion lights came on. I thought, "those should have come on before if it was a human." He walked around for a few minutes and then walked up to my porch. He said he'd found nothing and not to worry.

As he was leaving I heard the loudest sound yet. It sounded like someone running.

I said, "Did you hear that? Just now?"

He said, "Yeah that was me next door."

I said, "I mean just now."

He said, "Oh. No. I'm sure it's just some small animals." He walked to the car and drove off.

Am I completely off my nut? Have I totally lost the gizzard? Am I insane?

So I'm sitting here now at 4am, writing this blog entry on my laptop, listening to the same extremely disturbing sounds, feeling slightly more secure but still a little worried. Probably it's not some psychotic knife-wielding lunatic, or even a pack of coyotes. But what is it?

I suppose it's back to bed. But I'm closing my window. I'd rather not know.

SMtv & Miniature Tigers

We've been taping segments for the upcoming Samantha Murphy show. Yesterday the house was filled with lights, camera equipment, c-stands...you couldn't walk through, but it was lit well.

Tonight we went to see Samantha's latest find, Miniature Tigers. They're spectacular. Listen to their interview here. "The Wolf" is our new favorite song, but beware, you will never get it out of your head. It will stay lodged in your brain till the day you die.

They were playing at The Silverlake Lounge tonight at 9. We got there a bit late and only heard one and a half songs. And we didn't even hear "The Wolf." BOOOOOOO. That's okay, cause it's playing on repeat in our heads...for eternity.

Then we drove around for ages looking for food. Business as usual.