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Category Archives: Blog
What Would Brian Boitano Do? Making Plans & Following Through
What Would Brian Boitano Do? Making Plans & Following Through - From The Mind of McFarland music blog. What would Brian Boitano do if he were here right now? He’d hit unexpected objects to make percussive sounds and record them. Why? Because he’s all about making plans and following through. If that makes absolutely no sense [...]
“Pay What You Want” EP Prerelease Announcement: A Trust Fall
“Pay What You Want” EP Prerelease Announcement: A Trust Fall - From The Mind of McFarland music blog. I’m about to try something that may end up being a terrible idea. I’ve decided to, at least for the moment, price digital prerelease orders of my next EP using a “Pay What You Want” structure starting at [...]
Burn The Fleet! Tour Planning, Hernan Cortés, & the Point of No Return
Burn The Fleet! Tour Planning, Hernan Cortés, & the Point of No Return - From The Mind of McFarland music blog. In three weeks I’ll be making the trek to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for the better part of a month, to record two EPs with internationally acclaimed producer Jason Rubal. Once that’s all done, there will be [...]
Psych Study on Letting Things Go–Scientific Validity of Bottle Rocket?
Psych Study on Letting Things Go–Scientific Validity of Bottle Rocket? - From The Mind of McFarland music blog. A few nights ago, I received a phone call from my father – not an entirely infrequent event, but calls from my parents are usually with a specific purpose, and not just of the “hey, I’d like to [...]
Geek Cred Acquired – George Takei shared my Sci-Fi Coexist!
Today I awoke to a text message from my good friend Eli asking, “Is that your coexist that George Takei used to celebrate 2,000,000 fans?” Now, to be fair, the text was sent at 10:00 AM, and my phone’s persistent notifications didn’t actually wake me up until 11:00 (what, I was up late last night [...]
Dog Tags & Log Books: A Memorial to my Great Uncle George
I hadn’t initially planned to share this for a bit, but I was struck with the feeling that, tomorrow being Memorial day, it was the appropriate time to tell my Uncle’s story. One question I’m asked very frequently – often by complete strangers, sometimes in an accusatory tone – is, “whose dog tag?” This question [...]
Tagged in memoriam, music, my story, travel
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What goes with me on tour?
I’m about to hit the road for 30 days on my motorcycle, playing over 20 shows in 15 different states. So what do I take with me when I hit the road? This isn’t absolutely everything (beef jerky & trail mix are missing from the shot), but it should give you a good sense of [...]
Tagged motorcycle, tour, travel
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Top 20 Albums: Tom Waits – Rain Dogs
Sometimes an album catches you at exactly the right moment. If you were to hear it on any other day, in any other situation, you might not care for it, but given the proper set of circumstances, it can become one of your all-time favorite albums. “Rain Dogs” by Tom Waits is a perfect example [...]
On Motorcycle Safety, and being “None of the Above”
So I’m now 11 days away from spending a month on the road on my beloved Condor A350 motorycle - my first tour that I’ll be undertaking entirely on two wheels. I’ll be playing more than 20 shows, covering most of the US east of the Mississippi, ranging from Chicago to Baltimore to Tampa to New [...]
Tagged motorcycle, music, tour, travel
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Top 20 Albums: Third Eye Blind – Self-Titled
I had a lot of fun a few months back putting together my “best albums of 2011” roundup, and in the process of writing that I came to a realization. I’d never be a good music critic, because apart from an occasional snark-fest (usually surrounding award ceremonies, or discussions of Adele) I don’t particularly enjoy [...]