music

This song was written under water.

On my last tour, our bus broke down and left us stranded in Idaho for a few days. When my band members and I finally arrived at a hotel, we were at first too dirty and disoriented to mind that we were either trapped in our rooms watching bad t.v. or trapped in the hotel lobby with sports fans and evangelist types. It got old fast, however and so did living on complimentary apples from the front desk.

I took refuge in the pool where it was quiet, swimming laps for days. Under the green, hyper-chlorinated water I began to time trip back to a winter night at Logan airport where I sat on a bench in the cold for hours, waiting to be rescued, as I was doing now. This is how songs work; they take your life stories and mix them up because, like old relatives and unconditional lovers, they really don’t care about getting it right, they just care.

When Mudrock suggested we throw a KH solo song down for CASH during the recent 50FootWave recording session in LA, I knew this was the song. Rob Ahler’s emotional drumming is somehow wintry, Mudrock’s production anthemic without pretense.

In order to reduce file sizes, we’ve made the mix stems available as lo-res mp3s as well as the normal (but huge) WAV files. Soon, I’ll be posting what someone called “sample packs” — short clips from each of the stems, to make remixing a little easier. Not this month, but soon.

I want to take a second to thank you all for your comments, your financial support and especially the time, effort and creativity shown by those of you who have chosen to post remixes on my “-RW” page. It’s been a great first month.

Love,
Kristin

Find this song and all my recent work, in multiple formats – including lossless, free for download on my CASH Music pages. Information on how you can support the creation and distribution of this music by becoming a subscriber is here.

Welcome to my sparkly-new CASH Music project.

As many of you may already know, CASH is an acronym — it stands for the Coalition of Artists & Stake Holders. The name indicates just what we’re all hoping to build here — a coalition through which we blur the line that’s traditionally stood between creators of content and the consumers of that content.

Just to head off any potential confusion, CASH Music is not “me”, or “mine”. It’s a group of people that have built a framework that is not meant for any single artist. I’m only the first. Look for more artists soon. The next featured artist and a co-founder of the coalition is Donita Sparks. CASH will soon be open to any and all independent artists who want a set of tools to offer their music directly to their audience for collaboration as well as financial support.

We’re all stake holders here. We all stand to gain from a productive relationship. Maybe it will help to think of this relationship as a conversation. For instance, I start the conversation by writing and recording a song every month, like the one I’m posting here this month, “Slippershell”. You respond by listening & sharing “Slippershell” with others.

Sharing is encouraged, I license my work through Creative Commons. If you’re unfamiliar with Creative Commons, do yourself a favor and check out the licenses I use. They’re in plain English and provide better, more realistic and rational copyright protection.

•••

Here are some beautiful things from a world none of us remember:

• a folk song is carried across the ocean, altered by the voices which relay it. Chord progressions, lyrics and instrumentation change as the original material is shaped according to different concepts of beauty in sound.

• a blues player walks a song from town to town, playing on street corners, in dance halls, at parties and bars. The song stays when the musician leaves, adopted and adapted to suit various personalities, voices and life stories.

•••

Art is by nature a conversation. I’d like us to make it a community. Think about what you have to offer. Read-only culture is not enough anymore. We’d like you to treat this stuff as read-write. I’d also like to hear your comments on the songs I post each month. I’ll read them all and reply too.

What does read-write mean? Maybe as you’re listening to “Slippershell”, you’re inspired to DO something: paint a picture, write an essay, make a video, remix, or even re-record the song. Please do so. And share your work with me and the rest of the CASH community by uploading it somewhere and sending me a link. I’m offering my Pro Tools mix stems to make it easy to work with my recorded material. We will review all the links submitted, I promise. At some point, I’ll release the songs I post here in the form of a CD. It’s my intention that the CD release should also include lots of the stuff you send me. I think that would be incredible.

What we’re doing today is just the beginning. It is in the nature of a share and share alike community to grow. Gradually, over the next weeks and months CASH Music will be revealing it’s “real” self. Other artists will be involved, the final and fully-capable site will be launched and new features will be added — all incorporating your input and creativity. CASH is a community that in the end will be defined by itself.

•••

Here’s an ugly thing we all see every day:

• Big business tries to replace your opinions because this makes big business money. But big business isn’t me and it isn’t you.

Here’s something you can do about it:

• Demand substance. Substance in music, in education, in art, in health, in film, in information, in everything. When you find people doing something you like, support that endeavor as an investment in the future of quality output.

•••

CASH asks for your financial support. Please consider contributing or subscribing in whatever amount is comfortable to you. Your money will support not only me and my work but CASH directly, allowing this community to grow and become something to be proud of. A forum for all of us as creative individuals to collaborate, creating “read-write” culture from user-generated content.

This should make for an exceptionally interesting conversation, don’t you think?

Love,
Kristin

Find this song and all my recent work, in multiple formats – including lossless, free for download on my CASH Music pages. Information on how you can support the creation and distribution of this music by becoming a subscriber is here.