It’s been forever since I posted, but there’s plenty happening so I’ll start with a little update:

First, our move to Topanga Canyon (and California in general) is really working out. What I was worried about in returning to SoCal is what rock critic Richard Meltzer once described as a lack of ‘existential reverb’ here; a certain placelessness that seems to be the defining characteristic of LA. I spent 10 years in the middle of it all, lived on the East side, prided myself on knowing all its little pockets of authenticity, but I still felt like I was passing through. By contrast, after a couple of weeks in Portland, I felt as Oregonian as blackberry milkshakes, and couldn’t wait to answer when someone asked, ‘Where do you live?’ It just felt like… a real place, where normal things happen, and people aren’t as concerned with the outside perception of things (to the point of wearing a few layers of grey fleece all the time).

So it was with a lot of trepidation that we returned to this part of the world, notwithstanding the fact that most of my work was here even while we lived all over the continent for five years. I told my wife on the drive down, ‘maybe I can handle it if we live in the middle of Topanga.’ I mentioned the ‘existential reverb’ thing to an old friend of mine (another rock writer, now that I mention it) and he chimed in that Topanga is the place to find it. We’re now renting his cabin.

I say it’s working out because we find ourselves surrounded by warm, community-oriented people who want to live closer to nature and share responsibility for the town, the kids… not unlike how we felt in our neighborhood in Portland, actually. I can’t say enough good things about it.

Secondly, I’ve finally found some time with Jon to mix my album. It sounds great, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. It sounds less like a collage of snippets from half a decade of wandering and more like… a record, with its own soul, its own little world. Anyway, the mixes are almost done now, so I’ll be updating about the status of the project soon.

As far as KC Porter’s project is concerned, we ended up writing a ton of songs from scratch, including lyrics (mostly in Spanish!), and have only put down basic frameworks for the recordings. So there’s a long way to go on that one. It’s gonna be killer. And there should be some high-powered guest appearances on it, so I’ll post more on that as it develops.

Thanks for tuning in.