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.

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.

Don't Do It, It's Bad!

Trust me. Of all people, this hurts me the most. I've been reading pretty much everywhere that multitasking doesn't help, and actually hurts productivity. The general consensus is that, in switching from say, your email to a paper you're working on, your brain has to make a transition every time. And even if this transition only takes 10 seconds, it all adds up over days. And also, in this mode, you're sort of thinking about all the things you're working on, all the time. This graph from Creating Passionate Users illuminates things:
I'm a compulsive multitasker, but I found this article about being mindful, helpful. I'm working on it...but like any personal transition, it will take time.