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Thursday, November 29, 2012
News and Christmas Sale Announcement!
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
A Tree Grows in the Gutter
Some twelve feet above the ground, in a gutter along the drip line of my neighbor’s roof, a maple tree struggles to grow. In early spring, from my
bathroom window looking upward, I first notice the green of the sapling supernaturally
peeking above the gutter’s metal confines. Its single, verdant green leaf – for
that is all it bears at the time – is in stark contrast to the shallow metal
container from which it springs so high above earth, its roots never contacting
a single gram of the ground below.
The gutter, having not been cleaned or rid of decaying
debris for many years, moonlights as a lofted planter, a trough, a wholly
unsuitable, obtuse vessel holding rich, alluvial soil in which a plant’s life somehow
manages to flourish. Never was a scene more dichotomous. Mere inches from the
sapling, the nearby downspout, clogged long ago, having never been cleared,
acts as a dam of sorts, collecting every leaf, nut or branch the sloping roof
above will tender until enough time and decomposed material exists to create such
a phony and shallow habitat.
I watch throughout spring as the maple slowly inches above
the walls of its stagnant, non-draining, seemingly inhospitable vessel,
spreading forth new, though tiny, branches and leaves. It reaches up, exceeding
all natural expectations despite such an unforgiving environment. The maple eventually
achieves a height of two feet tall before the gentleness of spring is replaced
by summer’s heat and intolerance. It wreaks havoc on the plant’s natural cycle.
This is survival of the fittest. The “soil” in which it grows is no more than
three inches deep. Yet, here, a few short months ago, a seed first fell, or was
washed down from the roof, thus finally establishing contact with enough dirt
to send forth a thread, a handshake, of a root. Here, in that shallow depth,
with nothing sustainable to reach into, the nesting tree begins to succumb to summer’s
drought and the direct baking of the metallic gutter and soil within, withering
its gentle inhabitant to the brink of death. The brown curling along the
leaves’ outer fringes are first hint that things are not well. Leaves droop,
browning completely, and eventually fall. All that is left is a vertical twig,
a skeleton of a young hope that, had it found its place among living, breathing
earth, might have grown to be monolithic, bountiful in color, a merciful
shade-giver, legendary.
Annually, this same maple tries to recreate its life in the very
same gutter. Every year it fails. The rain comes too little, too late, causing
it to die yet another small death. Every year I watch the tree’s straining,
hoping for its survival and success, knowing that its insufficient setting will
eventually stunt its growth, inhibit its thriving, wild nature, even exacting
its own destruction. The small deaths keep coming. Eventually a life is saved.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
News and Fall Release Tour Announcement
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Tuesday, May 1, 2012
BiRDS OF RELOCATiON Release Day!
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Monday, March 26, 2012
Digital Release Day Tuesday 3/27/12
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Sunday, March 11, 2012
BiRDS OF RELOCATION Digital Release Day MARCH 27
So pleased and excited to announce that the new album, BiRDS OF RELOCATION (produced by Ben Shive), will digitally release on Tuesday March 27 with physical copies to follow (TBA). I'm very excited for you to hear this album.
Though I'm still working on the final song order, I thought you would at least like to see the song titles:
The Old Year
Don't Hold Your Breath
Soul and Flesh
Where Would I Go
Lost and Found
Voices
Different, Separate Lives
Today Dream
No Stone Unturned
Summer of '69 (Not really. That's a catchy Bryan Adams song, though.)
The New Year
Fighting for Life
More info to come on pre-orders, touring, physical CD release. Stay tuned. THANKS and spread the word.
--
EP
Though I'm still working on the final song order, I thought you would at least like to see the song titles:
The Old Year
Don't Hold Your Breath
Soul and Flesh
Where Would I Go
Lost and Found
Voices
Different, Separate Lives
Today Dream
No Stone Unturned
Summer of '69 (Not really. That's a catchy Bryan Adams song, though.)
The New Year
Fighting for Life
More info to come on pre-orders, touring, physical CD release. Stay tuned. THANKS and spread the word.
--
EP
Thursday, March 1, 2012
BGVs, How I Love (Singing) Thee
After finishing singing all the lead/main vocals some time last week, I have begun singing BGVs (BackGround Vocals) on the album (still titled BiRDS OF RELOCATION).
This is the stage of record-making that is, in my opinion, absolutely magical. Drums and bass are fine and dandy, electric guitars and keys are rich beauties, but, for me, layered vocals, sometimes thick, sometimes sparse, padded oohs and aahs are where I'll put my money every time. I am thoroughly enjoying this opportunity to be challenged as a tenor male, as you are about to hear.
This is an example from today's work in the studio: you're hearing just the main vocal and BGVs/harmonies isolated and "acapella." This is the outro to a new song, "Fighting For Life." The guy at the helm is Andy Gullahorn, one of my favorite songwriters.
This is the stage of record-making that is, in my opinion, absolutely magical. Drums and bass are fine and dandy, electric guitars and keys are rich beauties, but, for me, layered vocals, sometimes thick, sometimes sparse, padded oohs and aahs are where I'll put my money every time. I am thoroughly enjoying this opportunity to be challenged as a tenor male, as you are about to hear.
This is an example from today's work in the studio: you're hearing just the main vocal and BGVs/harmonies isolated and "acapella." This is the outro to a new song, "Fighting For Life." The guy at the helm is Andy Gullahorn, one of my favorite songwriters.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Hopes Are Shy Birds
Though dark clouds have certainly passed and lingered before my eyes during this particularly slow period of work, I have not yet resorted to loitering on the couch, consuming Twinkies, and watching Ricki Lake re-runs. On the contrary, I have striven to keep myself occupied with various odds-and-ends work while delving into new, creative ventures I never would have imagined myself participating in even just one year ago. In truth, this has been, perhaps, the most creatively fruitful season I have experienced in my entire life, unquestionably so since first becoming a parent five years ago.For this reawakening and exploratory migration, I have, in part, John James Audubon to thank. For the courage and willingness to utterly fail, I have Christ the Lord.
In reading Richard Rhodes’ tremendous 2004 biography of Audubon, I learned how much (and little) I have in common with the man, the husband, naturalist, and artist: a deep admiration for birds, a staunch need for light, professional failure as a businessman, an incredibly supportive wife, and an indescribable need to create, to see color, to offer beauty, to make art, ideally, of lasting and permanent value.
In 1819, after his Henderson, KY business failed miserably amid a national economic disaster, Audubon and his family were reduced to few material possessions, significant financial debt, and a dark psychological depression, a melancholia I can all too easily surmise. However, rather than succumb to the despondency of the circumstance – the “saddest of all my journeys,” he wrote - it was at that crucial and pivotal moment that Audubon, broken but not hopeless, wholeheartedly devoted himself to his heretofore hobbies of collecting, drawing and painting bird species. With a stout heart, he dreamed of self-publishing an immense work, an opus of his own heart, mind and hands which, if successful, would allow him to solely – perhaps comfortably - support his wife and two sons. It was the unbridled American spirit, newfound in Audubon, at its very best. This monumental and risky undertaking, The Birds of America, would consume, nearly to his own detriment, the next fourteen years of Audubon’s adult life. To support and fund the endeavor, Audubon traveled throughout America, France and the UK to solicit subscribers and patrons (ahem, Kickstarter, circa 1825), collecting specimens, painting, exhibiting and selling subscriptions to the voluminous work with inexhaustible vigor and determination. All along the way, at nearly every stop, in order to provide for his family left behind along the edge of America’s frontier, he painted commissioned portraits, mailing this much-needed income to his ever-faithful, equally stout-hearted wife, Lucy. In short, Audubon leaned into his talents, trusting himself to them, giving himself fully to his innate need to create.
“The world was with me as a blank, and my heart was sorely heavy; and yet through these dark days I was being led to the development of the talents I loved.”
During my own particular downturn, in addition to the time spent working on and recording an album, I have invested a harvest of my energies in creative pursuit: painting, reinvesting in an old passion for B&W 35mm and Holga medium format photography, woodworking, in addition to my peculiarly obsessive home landscaping, a venture that is without end.
Temporarily set up in a corner of our master bedroom with a library of books and two children clambering for my attention, I paint. Here in this domestic non-quiet I quietly dream of securing a separate, private studio space, a dedicated work area where I can paint, write, and, if running water is available, establish a twentieth-century-era darkroom, a venue where my archaic Leitz enlarger, developing equipment, and my mind can together sow veritable seed, a place where scenes can appear from out of nowhere on the stark white space of imagination. I like to think this hope of mine is not wishful thinking.
With piles of wood siding and tongue-and-groove bead-board spared from our recent house addition, I, being too cheap (or wise) to relegate 100-year-old oak and pine planks to the wastes of a garbage dumpster, have begun repurposing much of it, building and constructing objects I never knew I could make: picture frames, a bunk bed, work table, key rack, coat hanger, various house décor. All things considered, I have, in short, delved into the realm of folk art. More pragmatically, in addition to these more or less creative outlets, I work sundry odd jobs to make ends meet, including, but never limited to: mowing lawns, pruning trees and shrubs, cleaning gutters, painting houses, degreasing kitchen appliances, cleaning up construction sites, substitute teaching, hanging ceiling fans. The list is ad nauseum, and rarely do the so-called ends actually meet.
There is never a simple answer to the question I am frequently asked, “What do you do with your time when not touring or playing music?” Perhaps the better, more direct question is, Why? Why cull, more likely cobble, together a mish-mash income year in and year out, each year the same, each one different, each one in hindsight a miracle? The years carry with them the same struggle, the same burden, only clothed in different hides. Some years are grimier, more pungent than others. That word: struggle. We bristle at it. The Greeks were no fools in their assessment: Mathe pathein. Learn to struggle. I ask again, Why bother? Why prolong a waffling, often floundering, capitalistically failed career? Why persevere? Why hope in distant dreams? Here, reader, you must believe me for I ask myself these very questions on a daily, if not hourly, basis. Too often the voices I lean into are ragged, mercilessly cruel, and tyrannical in their damning condemnation. And if they damn me, they surely damn God, in whose image I am made. And if it is true we are never fully alone, then the voices, reader, surely curse you as well. Take heart in Audubon’s response during his tremulous days of depression immediately following bankruptcy:
“Hopes are shy birds flying at a great distance, seldom reached by the best of guns.”
Hopes are slight angles. Without them – the birds and the hope - we have no need for light, no need for a soul. Without them the world goes pale and silent. St. Matthew’s birds of the air flutters across the sky, and the flurry of their incessant aloft song trills new beginnings. “A bird doesn’t sing because it has answers;” quoting author Sally Lloyd Jones, “it sings because it has a song.” Carry forth, carry on, carry, and be carried.
"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?” Matthew 6:26-27
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Eric Peters Update
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