Feeling grateful today. This is not a feeling I am usually very good at remembering to let myself experience, as I can often be a bit of a pessimist. But the last couple days have helped. Some good things:

—brand new Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar. Super inspiring sound and looks sexy as hell
—new guitar is inspiring new songs, which I really think are a breakthrough for me as a songwriter
—day job has been a stressful mess, but things are turning around in a good way
—birthday coming up and got a surprise dinner from my new father-in-law
—our cat is annoying and yowly, but she curls up with us in the morning and, this morning, she fell asleep with cheek resting on my cheek. Ok. Adorable.
—Rehearsal tomorrow with David to work on demoing the new songs
—got retweeted by Butch Walker and some new likes on our Facebook page as a result
—got to spend some relaxing time with my wife, which also involved fresh donuts

So…ya know…it ain’t that bad!

-ML

Hey everybody,

It’s been a while since you’ve heard anything from the good ol’ Elm City Council, for which I apologize.

But I have a pretty awesome excuse, if I don’t mind saying so myself:  I got married.  Ta da!  On Saturday, October 1st, I got married to the beautiful Laura Smith. 

Anybody who has ever planned a wedding knows what I’m talking about when I say that the last month has been a bit crazy in multiple ways.  But, despite all the endless to-do lists, I can honestly say this has been one of the best months of my life. Our wedding was a spectacular party with good friends and family eating, drinking, playing music, and dancing.  And then we went to Italy for our honeymoon and drank wine and sat on the beach.  Not too shabby…

BUT we’re back now and I’m psyched to get back on the music horse.  So, stay tuned.  It’s time to start booking gigs again and we’ve got some tunes in our back pockets that I’m just itching to get recorded properly…

In the meantime, check out a couple vids from recent shows:

“Clara, Get Down”

“Broken Bridges”

And there’s more where that came from over on our YouTube Channel.  Check it out.

Alright…more news to come in the coming days. 

Be well.

-Matt / The Elm City Council

Awesome article on Amy Winehouse and on music as artifice or “music as memoir”.  I think he’s really nailed one of the essential questions, as it were, that lots of musicians and songwriters confront: do you need to live a certain way to produce “authentic” art?

I actually went to college with Nitsuh (where we both studied poetry, believe it or not - Hey Nitsuh, what’s up?!) and that would be right around the time when I was fond of saying that you can’t separate the way you live form the art you make.  The interesting thing (in light of his article) is that I still think maybe that’s true.  Or maybe…and this is probably ridiculously vague and problematic…it’s not that you can’t separate the art you make from the way you live; it’s that you can’t separate the art you make from who you are.

What I mean by that is this:  Try as I might, I will never, ever be a free-wheeling, macho, hard-partying, free spirit, easy-going type of guy.  Yet, many of my favorite musicians were exactly that.  I mean, rock and roll is practically BUILT on the music of guys like that.  Now, I can make all the bad decisions in the world.  I can party until I puke, sleep with questionable women, tour the country and sleep on floors, make bad career decisions (i.e. focus on art rather than money), etc.  But you know what?  At the end of the day, I’m still a perfectionist nerd and control freak.  I’m just a tired, broke, lonely perfectionist nerd/control freak. 

I’ve done all the things listed above and I do think they’ve made less of an uptight kind of guy.  But somehow they haven’t changed me fundamentally.  Some of them I’ve enjoyed and some of them have been exactly as empty and demoralizing as you might imagine.  But what ultimately comes through in my music, no matter what I’m doing at the time (living “responsibly”, living like an idiot) is who I actually AM - my underlying personality.  I just simply do not do raunchy, rebellious, wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am rock and roll as well as I’d like.  But my thoughtful stuff seems to come out pretty well.

So, maybe the idea I would add to Nitsuh’s piece and to the discussion of art as artifice vs. “keeping it real” is that how you live can change who you are (slowly and minorly), but who you are is what comes through in your art, even if you make opposite choices.  If you’re a troubled wild child who manages to make good choices, I think all that intensity and all that struggle and all that pain and whatever else will come through even if you manage to NOT live it.  Maybe the real tragedy of Amy Winehouse is that, if she did live horribly in pursuit of “authenticity”, perhaps she never needed to in the first place.  She could have made great choices and her struggle with those demons would still have come through loud and clear and lent that “authenticity” anyway.  And, if she was just troubled…that’s sad no matter what and her art is the one positive she was able to make out of her pain.

agrammar:

… appear here; please enjoy

Check out my friend’s blog. He’s a really talented writer and he’s serializing one of his novels on this Tumblr blog. Enjoy!

bvandyke:

Set in New York City just before and after 9/11, “Stand Together, Fall Apart” tells the story of the ill-fated friendship between John Marion, a teenage drug dealer, and Horace “Ace” Mejeur, the Wall Street professional who believes he can reform John.

The book description above only mentions 9/11 in passing. That’s because this is not a 9/11 novel per se. Except that it is.

Read More

Sorry for not writing to you for a little while.  It’s been a busy bunch of weeks here, but full of good things.  Writing new songs, booking gigs (Rockwood Music Hall on July 29th is up next) and planning a wedding.  Yup.  I’m getting married this fall!  So, like I said, busy bunch of weeks…

And I am really pleased to announce the debut of one of the new projects I’ve been working on.  It’s a Web TV show and the debut episode is TODAY:

Cubicle Songs

The World’s Smallest Office-Based Music Talk Show

When: Today at 1pm EDT

Where:  http://www.cubiclesongs.com

Special Guest: Bucky Hayes

What?!:  Cubicle Songs is your official lunch-break music talk show.  Each week, I play a song and then invite a different singer/songwriter to share a song of theirs.  We do a mini talk show style interview, play a cover song together, and then it’s time to get back to work.  Best of all, we shoot the show live in an actual office space because, let’s face it, most office cubicles could use a little more creativity!

Our first guest is the one and only Bucky Hayes and, in addition to the musical highlights, you can learn more about the intimate relationship between Bob Dylan and cheese.  Tune in at 1pm EDT at http://www.cubiclesongs.com to find out what the heck I’m talking about.  The show airs every week at 1pm EDT on Wednesdays and we’ll archive the shows on Friday.

Tell your friends and give us your feedback.  Guests you’d like to see?  Songs you want to hear?  Hit us up!

http://twitter.com/cubiclesongs

Facebook

Love,

Matt Lenny / The Elm City Council

zenofblogging:

It’s an obscure number… you probably never heard of it.

Awesome.