What’s next for Sam Arnold, Musicianator?
Solo Acoustic – Avant Garde Country and Western, Opera Pants.
I played a satisfying string of solo acoustic shows at Carousel lounge this summer, and I’m looking to book more in the coming months. My buddy Bruce told me it was a blend of country and western plus avant-garde. I like that description better than my own (Progressive Pop Americana). And I only wear full-length trousers when I play this music, hence: pants. These shows gave me some more experience with playing my new album live, some fun challenging covers (Puccini, The Bangles), and songs from all 6 earlier albums. Speaking of Gentle Downward Stream (which I wrote in 4 days in an AirBnB in Washington DC in December 2018 and came out in June 2019), I’m headed back to DC for a week in November to see family. I plan to try to write another acoustic album at that time.
Omnectomy – Bedroom Metal
There is at least one beautiful thing that happens in this world: one person sits in their bedroom and records all the instruments and programs the drums for a full metal album. I call it “Bedroom Metal”. Necrophagist did it. A Loathing Requiem did it. Blut Aus Nord did it. To be fair, Leila Henley recorded some sweet saxophone on 3 of the songs, and most of the guitars were recorded in a room I do not use for sleeping (Bedroom Metal is an elastic genre). Anyway, Greg Yancey is mastering it for me now. The art is by Zach Hall and the logo is by John Zig. I would like to soon move to a second Omnectomy album produced by Mike Day of Vex with a live drummer and more musicians. But this time around, I thought I’d keep it simple with the tracks I wrote, arranged, programmed, and performed almost 4 years ago. This will be digital-only on Bandcamp and the streams. If you managed to get this far in my blog, you’ll hear about it when it’s ready.
Andrew Nolte – Delicate Explosion
Andrew Nolte is exploding. His genius has always been evident to most people for a long time (it was evident to me as I watched him in Mostly Dead, and played with him in Sweetmeat and the Secret Keepers). But now with an absolutely crushing band and subtle and immaculate production by Michal Ingber, he’s getting the attention he deserves. His new EP is a small step forward from his definitive debut – both of which are deeply lush, direct, and honest. This section isn’t really about me, except that I get to fill in on bass next weekend.
The Mispronunciation of Eoghan McCloskey – Hint: It’s not phonetic.
The virtuosic drummer of Vex (and many other projects) is actually a dang good jazz bandleader. I’ve been the guitarist in his quartet for a couple of years and it’s crazy fun. We have stopped playing live for now and are recording live in-studio performances at Amp studios with Adrian Benavides engineering/producing and Mike Day on bass and production. Derek Phelps plays trumpet. We did a song back in June and have another session in a couple weeks. For now you can check out the behind the scenes doc where Mike and Adrian geek out on gear and the rest of us show up as sexy sexy b-roll.
Edge of Sound Video – What is Prog?
The folks at Voyager Fest have been producing short documentaries about Austin progressive rock musicians and they picked ME! They came to my house and pointed cameras and questions at me, I yammered on interminably, gestured wildly, and now they have teased out a compelling and watchable narrative. Not sure when mine goes live, but I’ve seen a draft edit and feel great about it. Daniel James directed with Pinky Brand’s cinematography. See earlier installments here.
Why no, in fact, that’s not all
The above are just upcoming things I wanted to talk about at the moment. There are at least 4 other serious projects I am not ready to blog about yet. Super serious. But ain’t nobody need long blogs anyways. Just read the next blog, OK?
Sam Arnold, Musicianator 