…if I could just move on, maybe you would too.

2007 is damn near over and I’m stunned at the speed in which it happened. We’ve done about 70 shows since brian joined the band july 1 and it’s felt like a fast forward sequence of an action movie. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

I write this from my hotel bed in las cruces, new mexico, where miggs seems to have some great fans. This leg of the tour has been interesting. Phoenix was a blast with a cool outdoor show and then we hit a few places that may need someone telling them it’s now the 21st century! Time warp stuff, for sure but we had fun. We always do.

So to end 2007 we’re completing that new album, UNRAVELED, which will be released overseas initially and then here in the states early in 2008. That is the plan. Unfortunately, things can change due to circumstances beyond our control. See, we are negotiating a deal here in America and if we sign they could decide that the release date be X even if we want Y because they may feel it’s smarter timing and we want to give UNRAVELED every chance for success. Got it? Music 101 has ended for the day…

Anybody out there read rolling stone? The 40th anniversary issue has a great editors note from jann wenner about the state of our country and the incredibly poor leadership we’re under, the global warming issue, this war we don’t even understand and music. I just read it and it makes me want to not WATCH this election go by. We all have to decide to become part of the solution. It’s not too late. This year we have a chance to do something never before done. We could have a black president. A female president. All very cool. What I hope is that we pick the RIGHT president because time is running out on making things better. Don’t mean to sound like a downer but we’re on the titanic and the wedge of ice would certainly capsize us if we weren’t melting it so fast! And I know that I do things every day to make things worse, so this isn’t don miggs on a soap box. I’m just worried about where we’re going. I like being alive. See, the earth isn’t in danger. We are. The earth will survive and mutate and do it all again. Just visit a museum to see that. It’s us humans that are in trouble!

Ok, enough of that. I’m getting depressed!!!

But there is hope. There is a new miggs album coming out. A shedding of the skin, if you will. Excorcising our demons, our past. Staring at the future. Wow, that was terrible!LOL UNRAVELED is a period at the end of phase one of miggs. If you’ve been to a show lately we are dusting off older tunes every day and adding in songs just written. It’s been a challenge deciding what to play each night so we wing it instead. Tonight we get to play for two and a half hours so we will throw everything but the kitchen sink at the audience. And if it gets nuts enough, maybe even the kitchen sink…

Fave CDs at the moment:

New coheed & cambria is kicking my ass
New ryan adams EP
New killers
New bruce springsteen

Meet the day and be good to each other,

miggs

Labels: arizona, elections, global warming, hilary, insomnia, jann wennner, killers, late nights, miggs, myspace, new mexico, obama, Q time patio, rolling stone, truth, U2, unraveled, youtube.com

there's a fire burning out her heart...

so we've spent the last week holed up in tampa working on the album that is to come out in scandanavia in the new year, as well as doing pre production for the NEXT release internationally. it's a crazy time. we have all this music and want to share it but don't want to introduce it all too early and then when the album comes out, you're all like "been there, done that" on us!

but the UNRAVELED album is coming along nicely, thank you very much. we just got the mixed version of NOTHING and it sounds pretty great. look for it to post on myspace for a little bit. if you've heard the acoustic version from LATE NIGHTS & EARLY MORNINGS, it is that on steroids- complete with brian totten smacking the drums and electric guitars (remember the acoustic version has no electric guitars and jason played brushes-no drum sticks).

this album will contain some songs already released but redone in the current format of miggs, which is a bit more raw and stripped down. we're doing this album for IMPORT and decided to mix the last 3 albums since the european people didn't get the first albums (unless they went to iTunes or something like that). and then we will try to get a completely new miggs album out in mid 2008 so stay tuned there.

where was i? ah yes, so we're mixing some stuff and it's been cathartic revising these songs and playing with expectations a little. INVISIBLE was a song i really loved and am excited to rethink and finally put on an album. the orchestration that jason gianni did to that was magnificent and i want people to hear it. in fact, you should leave here now and visit jason at jasongianni.com. tell him we said hi.

if you didn't go yet, thanks.

go buy bruce springsteen's magic. i'm not 100% sure i LOVE every bit of the album or am just so impressed with his ability to tell a tale and write a relevant album that isn't missing the commercial mark. i appreciate that he is out there. and i think i do love the album cause i listened to it for 5 hours today flying from tampa to LA.

ok, off to vegas for some shows. be good.

Labels: anyway, insomnia, killers, late nights and early mornings, miggs, miggsband.com, myspace, perfect, tour, truth, unraveled, youtube.com

"there’s a windshield staring at my face, there’s this rearview saving my mistakes and there’s a few..."

this trip i've been on- making music with miggs- has been a crazy one. changes and more changes. it's all cool for me and i love the journey and am glad you alll are taking it with me. i know it's weird seeing new faces over and over again and i wish i had an easy explanation. being in a band is hard work. it's close work. too close for some. i'm probably not the easiest guy to work with- who knows. but at this point, i don't see how i'd replace michael and brian. i believe i will play with these two as long as they let me. both want to be IN miggs, and that matters a lot. we'll see where it leads but i'm stoked (i was just in santa cruz area so i've adopted the lingo for you to read) to share a van with these two. they just love to play. wherever, whenever. it's cool. give them lot's of love when you see them live or in myspace, please...

we just got back from the first leg of the tour and i'm exhausted tonight. we played a place called the brookdale lodge in ben lomand, ca. it's supposedly haunted, making the night always more enjoyable. rumor is that while our friends in silver griffin were playing, the ghost was messing with their sound, making the speaker go in and out. it sure SEEMED like a technical glitch but who am i to know, right?

we always stay in rooms there when we play and i do half expect to see something of note. something besides michael's ass climbing into the bed across the room, that is. it is white, it is scary but it ain't a ghost.

our friend richard spent the night and i would like to publicly thank him for keeping me awake with his little snore-fest. i love him for it.

so, the show. we did play a show. and we did it as a three-piece. i've resisted this for a long time. i hate miggs as a 3 piece but instead of playing with people we KNOW we aren't going to keep or aren't really interested in staying with us, we've decided this is how we'll play until we run into the right person. what does this mean to you, the person spending money to see us? well, it means i will certainly do less moving around, likely it will mean you will get sub par guitar solos but hey, i never said i was good! and you'll hear the songs without as much icing. can you handle that? i knew that you could......

friday we played bakersfield at jerry's pizza. it's this basement venue that has a very cool vibe and it felt good to go down there and sweat it out. it was also brian's first "awaY" show with the band and he didn't wet the bed or need to leave in the middle of the night to go home so we considered it a success. our boy seems all growsed up.

and the tour leg started thursday night at the famous malibu inn. conveniently located about 5 minutes from my house so i LOVE playing there!LOL john carta stopped out and played guitar for us, which was fun. and aron and matt came out to watch so it felt like reunion night. i half expected to see jason gianni walk through the door....

speaking of jason- he is kicking ass and taking names in NY at the drummers collective. go to his site, drummersbible.com and say hello and see what he's up to.

the best part of the touring is knowing that we'lll have new videos up at youtube.com, pictures in the forum and friends made. oh, and making brian listen to all my favorite music to see what he likes. so far, so good. guy's got good taste to go along with his good hair.....


seize the day,

d

Labels: arizona, ayn rand, insomnia, late nights and early mornings, miggs, miggsband.com, myspace, new mexico, Q time patio, youtube.com

"sometimes i do this all the time"

i've been away so long from the journal and all of a sudden, i'm blogging like i get paid by the word. go figure.....

recently i did an interview and this question came up. the person did a history check and saw the evolution of the band and all the changes through the years and asked the obvious...what happened?

it's complicated and it's simple i told her. we grew up, grew apart, had different ideas of what we wanted, etc.

in some cases, the people never really belonged and we were filling a spot. in other cases, it was the perfect fit with the wrong time. it happens.

in the end, i appreciate the time and effort EVERY member contributed, big and small. it all brought me here today.

"and what is today?", she asked.

another good question.

MiGGs is MiGGs. It's a band thing, it's a solo thing. i guess today it's a collective of sorts. it's a FEELING, a place in time and if you see it tomorrow, you may see it differently than you remembered and that's not a bad thing. that's the "way we roll" these days so expect what you may not expect. we know SOME people want their McDonalds to always taste like McDonalds but we bet there are a whole lot of you that like to eat at off-the-beaten-path places and don't mind an element of surprise with their latte and maybe want to believe that you can still be floored by a taste, a feeling, by music, by a place and a time and that you might go back to that SAME room tomorrow and put on the same music but feel a completely different feeling. MiGGs wants to be better than a good pop band AND our promise is to keep that spirit while trying to shoot out the freaking moon at the same time.

i was asked what my music means to me:

my music means life to me. i can pick out the years, mark the moments, see where i've lived up or down to the potential of that minute. it's a roadmap, my personal atlas. how i got from here to here....

it's my muse and my enemy, music. a new song either delights or haunts me. last night i woke at 3:15. why? because i was ONE LINE SHORT of finishing a new song. one line. i could just rhyme something. i could just repeat something but no, this freaking line has to BEG to be written. and when begging isn't enough, it starts kicking and screaming until i can't get rest with it undone. that's what music does to me. and when it's perfect, it's like seeing a great wave or a sunset. it just happens and all is right in my world.

and do i miss the "guys" and the all for one and one for all of original miggs? yes. every day. but as 2Pac says "life goes on" and i can't dwell. i miss white mist guys, the alliance guys, aim cryer guys- all of them hold a place in me. and when it ended uglier than it should have, i have learned to accept my part in the wrong and then i can just remember the good.

i'd like to think that the music is bigger than the characters. maybe that's grandiose but it's what i'm ending this on, so there....

Labels: insomnia, late nights and early mornings, miggs, miggsband.com, youtube.com

"can you hear me now?"

ok, two posts in just a few days. i'm on a roll or something like that. we've been talking about re-releasing the Late Nights & Early Mornings EP with a small twist but one i'm kinda in favor of. we would release the original masters.

i know, "what do you mean by that don?"

well what i mean is that when chris manning and i originally discussed this album, the idea was to do an intimate recording. maybe even just guitar or piano and vocal. somehow that got away from us. actually, it was the fault of the song "nothing". as we were doing we thought it was a shame not to fill that one out a bit. it seemed bigger than that. we stuck with no drumsticks or electric guitars, though. so we did and then the rest of the songs sat funny when listening back so we dressed them all up except the title track. i wanted that to be me and a guitar and that's it.

where was i with the reasoning again becasue that paragraph above isn't the reason......oh yeah.

so we sent the album in to a great mastering company and what they do is they give the songs that added punch and depth. and they are the reason some of your albums are louder than others. and if you notice, the new albums you're buying are WAY louder than anything else in your iPod, right?

there is a huge debate going on right now in the industry that louder isn't better. in fact it's compromising the quality of the recordings becasue the louder you make it the more you "crush" the mix, losing the dynamics- making the instrumentation indescernible. i hate it. i know that old recordings are lower but the SOUND of them is better. we're fooled becasue these recording seem "crisp".

man, this is a long explanation. chris and i were really happy with the initial mastering but when we put it on the iPod, the songs soulded flat. especially against other acoustic albums, so we kept pumping up the volume and mastering, which makes the song sound smaller in a weird way. it compresses and crunches it. i'm sure chris could explain this so much better than me, sorry.

in the end, i went against my heart and released the EP as highly compressed as we could. i love it but i feel like i've littered in some way, if that makes sense. or i've contributed to the dumbing down of music listeners and then my manager started reading about the backlash and she agreed with me and this idea came up to release the "producers cut" for us. and if some of you want it, even better. but be warned, it will not be a NEW album of material so don't waste your coin if you don't want to be frustrated when you put random on the iPod or CD shuffle. got it? good.

i'm going to make a commitment to myself that the next full album we release will NOT succumb to the trend of the day. we will master this album to sound full and rich but not just LOUD. see, the other kicker is that radio stations compress the songs for radio so they get an extra "mastering" and are even louder. this is why if you ever hear your fave song on the radio and then listen immediately to the CD, there is a difference.

man, that wasn't easy.

be the ball, danny...........

Labels: DVD, insomnia, late nights and early mornings, mastering, miggs, miggsband.com, mixes

"cause the truth about the truth is that it’s not going away..."

i'm sitting in the sky lounge at LAX, waiting for my flight to tampa and decided to say hello. who knows who reads this but i appreciate that i have a place to talk to myself if that's all that happens!!!!LOL

i've been reading BLINK and another book called THIS YEAR I WILL... and that's about making changes that actually stick. it's been a great read so far. it's amazing how we KNOW what we want to do and that that fact rarely is enough to have us do it, in the end. people eat, tell themselves they should stop. but can't. they smoke. they cheat, they lie. whatever it is and it got me thinking about the line i wrote up top when it comes to the truth. it's there. you can hide it but it doesn't change so it'll come out.

i got to this thinking becasue i've gone through some crazy personal stuff where these questions have come up and where i've found myself defending some things that i KNOW are facts and not being able to convince someone. what i realized is that every time i work so hard to convince someone, i'm cheapening the truth or making it harder to find. does that make sense? so it's best to just say your piece and let it go becasue it'll come out as it should when it should. and i'm finding great comfort in that and also get to shut up more, which is a good thing!!!!

i was just in europe. actually on my honeymoon if i must say too much.....

anyway, it was so cool to see the world as we did and see history from the BC period. i mean, we saw the acropolis in athens. how the hell did they build that without computers and all the technology we have today? forget the freaking CRANE to lift the millions of tons. just mind-boggling and beautiful.

and prague????? my God. to walk those streets. wow.

we also visited paris and then london where i was able to finally use my favorite quote from the movie FLETCH...."look kids, big ben, parliment. i can't seem to get left!!!"

classic.

if you've not seen these countries. go now....

new music:

jesse malin: glitter in the gutter.

get past his voice at times and it's great stuff. i'm a fan of early bruce springsteen and the repplacements and this gives me that fill.

hold steadys: boys and girls in america.

heard so much about it. it's SO new jersey i laughed but it's good stuff

black rebel mototcycle club: new one.

haven't gotten too much time

KISS: LIVE box set

now i have all their live CDs. oh goody.

maroon 5: new one.

it's produced well

Linkin Park: new one.

rick rubin is a great producer. drums and sounds are all great. some good songs. some mediocre ones but it's always entertaining.


ok, plane is a coming....be good

Labels: black rebel motorcycle club, insomnia, late nights and early mornings, miggs, miggsband.com, truth, youtube.com

"and if i'm such a joke, then why aren't you laughing?"

spring has sprung and i'm wide awake. how about you? i know i owe some detail in this entry so sit back and take a load off your feet. i gots things to say.....

it's been a great year so far. a sold out show in san francisco. thank you to all who came. we filmed the show and hope to release it as a DVD. we'll see how it looks first, of course. some fan video is up on youtube.com that i saw and it looked cool as hell with the crowd singing "options" and me standing there in semi-awe.....i am a geek, what can i say?

i bought the first 9 seasons of south park on DVD, by the way. those guys are truly amazing. the scenes may slip into some bizarre stuff but they are dead on with their points. do yourself a favor and check this stuff out. some side-splitters, as they say.....

had a nice little surprise on the florida run of shows with michael and matt joining me. it was still acoustic based but a lot more fun with them out with me. it sounded good all stripped down. we did some different songs, too, which was fun. and then we worked on some brand new songs for the next electric album, whenever that will rear it's head. maybe early 2008 but who knows. we just released "late nights & early mornings" and i'd like to release a CD with all the songs miggs never released but recorded. there are some that i really like and a few i should probably leave off but i figure we took the time to record them so maybe you'll want them. that should release before christmas time and i think i'm calling it "unraveled". you heard it here first.....

oh yeah, i definitely liked reading "haunted" by chuck palahniuk. the short story "guts" was a tough read through because i thought i may hurl at a few points. i was laughing and holding it in at the same time. classic. now i'm reading "long way down" by nick hornby and then onto sidney poitier's "measure of a man" and then someone sent me "perfume" by patrick susskind and said they could only send this to me...which i will decide what that means after i read the book, i suppose!

back to the new songs, though. it was fun demoing up some of my new things with michael and matt. they definitely added an element that wasn't there before. well, since i only recorded vocal and acoustic, i guess THAT wasn't too hard!!!LOL

the song titles being worked right now are:

-"weapons" (which you can hear the acoustic demo on myspace.com right now, unless i've come to my senses and had it taken down): i wrote this as a Killers meets american idol pop song but with lyrics about how WE make the decisions we're forced to live with. like george bush. and that what he or we say isn't nearly as bad as what we actually do....
-"fire": this whole the fray phenomenon puzzled me. nothing wrong with them and whose to argue with a gazzillion CDs sold, right? right! but they seem like coldplay light and coldplay (God bless them too!) are U2 light so wonder how light we can go before there is no buzz at all!!!!!! this is my light, light, light, light version of this genre......with some balls, i hope.
-"dear diary": some of you heard this song december 3rd 2005 when we debuted it at great american music hall in SF. it was the first and last time we played it live becasue that version of the band stopped at that point. i've resurrected it back to the way i originally wrote it and hope to have it see the stage again soon. i wrote this after reading "diary" by palahniuk. it's about not just sleepwalking through life, basically.
-"pretty people": i wrote this around the same time as "diary" while on tour. sep, the guitarist at the time, heard me playing it in the van a million times and liked it. one day he came over with some modifications, added the prechorus and we finished the song up. we did it a few times. it rocks. i've sort of revamped it again and there is a version with some lyrics added by phil barnhart, a grammy winner from nashville i write with some and i'm not sure which lyrics will ultimately be used but it's cool to have choices. ironically, i wrote this song about two things- all the hype for paris hilton and her "type" but also based on some stories sep would tell about he and his wife's relationship with this wealthy family and how they could be. it's ironic now for so many reasons that i won't go into but i learned my perception of this family was wrong even though the song still resonates!
-"enemy": i love greg dulli and i know that listening to his last solo album "powder burn" influenced this song ultimately BUT i wrote it while waiting for kyle cook to appear at my door for a writing session in nashville. he was a little late and while i waited this entire song came out. it sounded VERY nashville at the time i played it for him and he said it was complete. but i thought it was too nice. i got home and the proverbial "shite" was hitting the fan and the lyrics sort of moved from where they were. then the song sat becasue i wanted it to rock more and the chorus didn't. recently, i came up wiith a better chorus, moved the chorus to the bridge and there is was. complete.
-"everyone but me": i like this one a lot. i'd been toying around with this riff for the past couple of years. it was a cool time signature but kept the feel of a rock song. that was jason gianni's influence and i bet i initially did it to impress him! but then the chorus came together and i had a song. matt, michael and i played it once when we three had to do a show in Utah. and then we never played it again. it's like foo fighter-ish.
-"running out": i love jeff buckley and wish i could sing like him. period. i can't. i forget which book i had finished when i worte these lyrics or the exact circumstance and i am not interested in researching right now!LOL i like the chord choices here. a bit too mature for me but it's good. almost put this on the acoustic album but it didn't seem to fit. not simple enough.
-"for you": i've spoken about this one before. new love will get you everytime.......
-"crawl inside": this is definitely dulli influenced. sweet with just enough sour. i've not gotten the sour down right yet but i'm working on it. and my piano playing is so bad it works.

there may be more. who knows!!!!

ok, what i'm listening to? a lot. just ordered the hold steady's and hear that he is a genius songwriter.


what else?

come see us on tour, buy the new album, visit us at myspace, tell friends in the towns we're in where you are not to see us and say hello........

i do the photo shoot for the new website friday. it's looking cool and i think we launch it may 10th. a great day. and bono's birthday.


oh yeah!!! my late nights song review i promised. here it is:

NOTHING: i wrote this song after i finished a book by........guess? yep, chuck palahniuk. but also a book by tiffanie deBartolo called "how to kill a rock star". do yourself a favor and find this book. great read. the genesis of the song was a night in reno where i wrote the "tape look running through my head" line and couldn't get much further. it sat and one day finished itself while i slept! in the studio, chris (manning) and i made the decision to "work this song up" instead of just an acoustic and voice. this is what changed the direction of the whole album because it was originally going to be quieter but this song begged for more production and then we did the rest to follow suit (except late nights...). i love that this vocal take is the scratch track. that's the name for the recording you do to just keep place for the other stuff. it was never intended to be the FINAL vocal track but i sang it like i meant it so we kept it. we got jason gianni to play WAY outside of his comfort zone on the piano and he did same good stuff at the end. we had him listten to black crowes a bit before we hit record! i just remembered that i came up with the "it get complicated with the lights on" line while running through chicago. i was looking at two rather large people kissing and thought how it must be tough to get "busy" and then saw another couple who seemed to not want anyone to know they were a couple and the words just fit both scenarios.
TO BE WRONG: this is a track i've recorded 4 times now. 2 electric, 2 acoustic. each differently. it resonates for me so i wanted it on. i wrote it for a friend who needed to assert herself and trust her intuition. it's a woman's anthem and i'm proud of it.
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN: my friend sean o'malley was the singer in the alliance, my high school and early 20's band. he sings like steve perry, sort of. i used to write songs for his range and one day he didn't show up at a show so i had to sing. it humbled me but also made me work for more range! he wrote these lyrics and i immediatley gravitated to singing it like he could easily. since i can't, i went in a more jeff buckley direction. it's a nice song. we recorded a version for what became insomnia CD but never released it. this one is much different.
DON'T FIX ME: my manager had the words for a chorus in answer to coldplay's "fix me", a song she loves. she gave these to me and i wrote a song around it. it's supposed to be a song like the who would have done. i would like to hear this one electric. maybe one day. i like the bridge a lot. very zeppelin-y. i had a fan/DJ surprise me and ask me to play it live one day and i didn't remember most of it and the chorus is so high i couldn't hit the notes so early in the morning. a real train wreck....
PAYING FOR MY SINS: this is the song that marked the end of my relationship. it said it all. the vocal take is basically one take and it pained me to sing it. i insisted on the heartbeat bass drum pattern but think the song would benefit from moving away from that in the bridges. oh well. another one i'd like to see fully done with electric guitars and drum sticks (both of which were not used on late nights at all). the phone dialing is us actually dialing a number and recording it and the surprise was the woman picking up saying "hello" so perfectly. and the screaming kids are chris' boys getting a bath and we recorded it. they may hate that in 20 years!
LATE NIGHTS & EARLY MORNINGS: the album was done regarding song selection and i wanted to always write a song with this title. i did use it on "choices" but only becasue i didn't want a song named "choices" on the same album as a song named "options" but what could i do!?!?!?!? gavin mackillop HATED this song title and the request to name the album this. said it sounded like an acoustic singer songwriter title. so when i did the acoustic singer songwriter album......i had a name! anyway, chris said if i came up with something that night, great, we could record it. i went home and this song FELL out of me. the whole song hinged around the last line "i've learned my lesson, that's for sure. it's not funny anymore.....come home". after that, it was easy. i recorded this live- guitar and voice- first take. and we left it right there.

have a great week people,

d

Labels: american idol, insomnia, killers, late nights and early mornings, south park, U2, wide awake, youtube.com