Moving into two projects

So, there's lots of news. I'm starting up an actual band with a drummer and a guitarist, and a lot of the rock tunes I had been working on are now turning into material that we'll be performing as a group, rather than as a solo project. At the same time, I have a lot of stuff I've composed in Garageband over the years that doesn't really lend itself to a rock vibe -- it's too instrumental and ambient for that. I think, then, that the next step is to create two projects, each one a bit more manageable. The first is to finalize some of my Garageband stuff and release it as a solo -- part of me wants to bring in Kevin and make another Afternights collaboration CD. The other stuff will be recorded acoustically with live instruments and released as a stripped-down, performable series of tracks. I've got some good acoustic versions of some TLB songs already laid down, but they need drum tracks and possibly more guitar work before they're ready. Meanwhile, then, I'll focus on getting this electronic stuff polished away. It's sat on my hard drive too long.

Album progress

Things are coming along nicely. Dave's guitar does just the trick when I want nice jangly IN TUNE arpeggios, so I mostly did the slow stuff. I also discovered that I do have some pretty nice guitar work down from last summer that I can still use, so I'm looking at a good five-six songs basically down already (sans vocals, which is blah). I also had the extreme pleasure of recording the setar for the first time. It sounds wicked cool, even if it forced me to hear all the little problems in my technique. Here's where I'm now at:

Woodland cave (Setar song) -- I'll probably have to re-do the whole thing, since the setar intro was meh and the instruments weren't quite in tune with each other, but it sounds AWESOME.
Exposed (needs bass)
Trigun song (needs title) :)
When I am sane (yes!!)
Dirt (still good from last year)
Paste
Emily (has good guitars, just needs an electric when I get home)
Flowers (still has good guitars, although the rest of the song ..?)

So things are looking good!

Winter plans

This is just to say that I'm planning to record a short set of acoustic pieces next week. I'll be in Evergreen with my parents, no noise, no neighbors, no distractions, so it should be idea conditions. I have my fiddle, setar, tenor, and guitar with me, and I don't plan on using any software (partially because I installed a new system and no longer have Garage Band on my computer), so it'll just be live playing through my little recording box. The songs I hope to have done will be:

• Exposed (Tastes Like Burning)
• Green Lights (Tastes Like Burning)
• My little song
• Emily
• Paste (Tastes Like Burning)
• bassline (unnamed)
• dropD song (unnamed)
• woodland cave (ida)
• trigun-style instrumental
• dirt
• Maps and Legends (cover) / King of Birds (cover)
• Golden Age
• Maybe something by kingsbury manx

Where does Brother Wren come from?

“Cameron” seems to be a name made for changing around. At home, my folks call me “Cam,” but “Roonie” is a kind of pet name my mother uses for me. School names included Roon, Cami, Cameroon, Looney Tune, Camcam, Ham, and so on. As I started speaking other languages, “Camille”, “Camillo,” “Kemo,” “Kamil,” and “Kamran” have all made an appearance. Brother Wren is a play off of a special name my cousins had for me, Brother Ren. Musicians or writers who yearn for a pen-name may spend ages going over the various possibilities before settling on a name that simultaneously conveys the “real me” and the persona they want to project to a public. Brother Wren seemed like a good choice: odd, rather meaningless, yet nonetheless deeply tied to my own childhood experience of never having a single name or identity I could fully depend on.

This shifting, unsettled sense of identity may also reveal itself in my music, since it, too, is rather incongruous as a body. I grew up playing Texas fiddle, an old American genre that, as blues did for rock and roll, provided the foundation for western swing and modern rock and country. Fiddle introduced me to rhythm guitar, tenor guitar, and subsequently bass, all of which I performed on my two fiddle albums, Going Places (2000) and Salt River (2005). In 2001 I had my first experience in a professional band, playing violin with the Denver-based group Xiren. At the same time, my interest in electronica and experimental music grew, leading to my first batch of eccentric rock tunes recorded with my friends as Afternights. After a short break, I started getting more interested in playing live rather than working solely in front of a computer with my instruments surrounding me, and by good fortune I met some people interested in the same thing. This let to the group Tastes Like Burning, which lasted for about a year before I moved to Chicago.

Chicago has kind of killed music for me. It’s hard to find places to practice and school is so overwhelming I rarely have time. However, I mess around from time to time on the computer or with my recording gear and at this point I have quite a number of songs more or less ready to be released, once the final touches are added. For the time being, I’ll be publishing myself as a solo artist (Brother Wren) until the next thing comes along.