What do you do when you’re bored out of your mind and going bonkers? If you’re me, you pick one of your most difficult songs to play (not to mention longest) that you haven’t played in a few years and make a video of yourself playing it, and that I did last week.
“Dog Seed Shuffle” was a song I wrote in October of 2005 in my very first apartment that I lived alone in at the ripe age of 32: a spacious and toadilly bitchin’ 1 bedroom apartment at 1936 Aldrich Ave in Minneapolis. I’d just had a really rough couple of years, mostly due to a lot of poor decision making on my part, and was finally getting back on my feet. Better late than never! After moving 8 times in the past 2 years, this was move #9 and I was finally feeling back in business. Here’s a couple of shots I took when I first moved in (the front of the building is from Google Earth):
3 days after I moved in (3 DAYS!!!) the caretaker knocked on my door and informed me that he’d just found out the buildings on the block were all being sold and turned into condos – note all of the FOR SALE signs in the image of my black station wagon up above. Those weren’t there when I moved in 3 days before! Thankfully I found a place right across the street after a week or two of panicking looking for a new place to live, but man, just when I thought I was done moving, another move was added to the aforementioned quantity of 9 moves bringing the number up to 10!
My then-new roommate Frank. Don’t get too used to that windowsill, buddy…
I made the best of it the month that I was there. I moved just about everything into the red living room including the futon I just bought because I didn’t want to get too used to sleeping in a bedroom that I loved but wasn’t going to be mine for much longer. I’d only had my cat Frank for about 4 months at that point and this is when he decided I was an okay human and started sleeping on my pillow right next to my head every night, something that he still does to this day. That weekend I set up my recording rig right in the middle of the room and got to work. “Dog Seed Shuffle” was one of those songs that just sort of spilled out on its own on that Sunday afternoon. It was the first song that I really figured out how to get out of my open G tuning rut I was in where everything started sounding the same. It was written for a hilarious little chihuahua named Poncho. The title was inspired by my mom. Many years prior when the fam all lived under one roof we had a dog and a pet cockatiel. Mom was talking about having to go to the store to get “dog seed” – she got her wires crossed on the pets and their food and I thought that those two words together sounded so cool. When this tune was being written I was imagining Poncho next to a great dane and how he’d look so tiny… something small.. like… a seed! A dog seed! A title was born.
I always think of “Dog Seed” around this time of year when I see Minnesota State Fair posts popping up in my social network feeds. In 2006 (I think?) I entered the State Fair talent competition with a truncated version of this song – acts had to be no longer than 3 minutes. “Dog Seed” is 6 minutes long and one of the most difficult songs to play that I’ve written; there’s a lot of rapid-fire string slides up to the 12th fret (simulating Poncho jump jump jumping) and the arrangement is pretty thick. It was my pride and joy though, and kind of still is as far as my acoustic tunes are concerned. I was more than happy to scale it down for the Fair – that’s about 3 minutes less of it to potentially flub! I went and played in the State Fair bandshell for round one in front of a couple hundred people and nailed it. I lost to a lady who sang a very generic karaoke version “Midnight Train to Georgia”. Oh, I see how this works…
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Fast forward to now: I decided to see if I could remember how to play “Dog Seed” – it had been at least 4-5 years since I’ve played it in its entirety… and hey, why not make a video of it while I was at it? I was looking to kill some time, and that sure as hell did the job. There were takes where I’d be about 15 seconds from the end and screw something up… and have start alllll over again. I probably started over about 2 dozen times before I made it all the way through to a point to where I had something I felt comfortable enough to share. There’s some flickering light issues in it but heck if I’m going to try and get it right in one pass again!! Here it is:
I also recently video-ed a song called “Ampersand” that I wrote a few months before “Dog Seed” when I was living at my parents’ house getting my shit together and trying to find a place to live. Here’s that one:
(Shameless plug: My album of all solo acoustic tunes can be poichased here)
