So now we are in the final stretch before getting down into the actual recording. Haruko and I were just talking about the lyrics. How we are trying to stay true to our original theme. “Every day Heroism”. But like all real artistic threads, they lead you in ways that you weren’t necessarily planning. The theme comes first. Then the elusive sounds and images flood in and sometimes disobey us. Refuse to walk in a straight line. Stories of hungry girls that have the apatite of scores of men. Giants keep appearing…

Ok I look at it all and start to see some patterns. All of the stories are about tiny beings who have or strive to have huge power. The struggle against “Giants” to find their power. Well that relates in a way to this idea of everyday heroism. Tiny ordinary beings that do enormous things. But somehow the manifestation has been twisted to not entirely “heroic” acts. Some of the stories just present a tiny being that performs incredibly monstrous feats. Is it “heroic” to achieve something a million times huger than yourself? Even if there is no benevolent action? Must sleep. LYRIC: “I have an apatite, of a giant man. I’ve seen little women, devour, three bento lunch specials… but my, apatite, is beyond. I gorge when I need to. Like a giant man. I belch with the best of the men, smashing my 8th bottle… but my, apatite, is beyond.”

A hero (from Greek ἥρως hērōs^[1]), in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, the offspring of a mortal and a deity,^[2] their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion.

Later, hero (male) and heroine (female) came to refer to characters that, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self-sacrifice, that is, heroism, for some greater good, originally of martial courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence.

Stories of heroism may serve as moral examples. In classical antiquity, hero cults, veneration of deified heroes such as Heracles, Perseus, or Achilles, played an important role in Ancient Greek religion. Later emperors employed hero worship for their own apotheosis, that is, cult of personality.

DOES ANYONE KNOW ANY INTERESTING WRITINGS ON HEROISM ESPECIALLY FROM UNUSUAL PERSPECTIVES? HISTORY OF THE WORD HERO… STRANGE TAKES…?

This is the 11th day of mad songwriting. The DAE house is rumbling with different sounds from different rooms. Today mr. producer Robb Kunz stopped by to hear the material that is materializing. Bringing with him ideas for adding french horns and bollywoodesque string parts. This daily ritual of massive tea drinking and focus is wonderful when it happens for hours every day. Things start to flow and grow. The album is starting to take some shape. Starting to get a feel for what this thing is going to be. Of course having to discuss it with Robb definitely brings a realist perspective. OK WHAT INSTRUMENTS WILL BE ON THE ALBUM? Round up the players for such and such a date. Ok reality. We start REAL tracking on Sunday.

HERE IS A LITTLE SNIPPET FROM HARUKO AND JEFF’s VOCAL SKETCH FOR “BAGEL BOY” for the new album.

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OH! Ian has posted a test clip from the film! Here it is. Just a little taste of what is to come:

And here is a little bit of funny footage from Ian, Haruko and I making music for the film out of carrots, blackberry roots and rubberbands!

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hi, so i’m pol rosenthal and i’m one of the newer members on this latest endeavor for the DAE. Haruko and Josh have asked me to lend my literary talents to songwriting, lyric construction. (if that’s not enough of an intro you can also get more on me here.)

h & j gave me a song tentatively titled, ’scam and search;’ it’s a sort of hiphop type piece. or it’s the dae’s take on a hiphop number. it is, of course, endowed with their strange and peculiar spirits. and i am totally in love with it. i think we might be changing the name to something like, ‘relief song.’ haruko has a great line that goes, ‘i wanna wake up/on the day that we find our relief’ that has been inspiring me for the last few days. thanks haruko!

we’ve been spending hours and hours just getting the words right. some kind of a positivity anthem. i think. it’s pretty whimsical at the same time. lots of overdubs and strange piano loops and chorusing vocals and something that is known as ‘the cheeseburger.’ if you are curious as to what a cheeseburger is in terms of vocals let me tell you: it’s just doubling up the original vocal and not changing the key. it might also be when you put some more meat on your head in the studio and somebody slaps you and says, “quit being so cheesy…” i hope not. i don’t like putting meat on my head and h & j keep threatening to cheeseburger everything.

i will shut up now. i am very excited to be working with haruko and josh and jeff. here’s some pictures from our session earlier today. i’m the guy who needs a haircut. shutting up.

I, Haruko Nishimura and Mandy Greer and Ian Lucero started our film sketches in Portland last weekend at Ian and Kamala’s lovely place. It was a VERY PERFECT PLACE to start out miniature scale sketches with our loose story board of what we wanted to try out, experiment, and a perfect place to gather and start to bounce our ideas off of each other, desires for the film and share each other’s resources. The meaty part of our dance film is going to be finalized and filmed, edited in this fall of september. Ian and Kamala has a lovely garden full of earthly PHOTOGENIC things like moist mudd, bright green cute clover patches, tall grasses and dwarfy trees, a bright orange cottage, HAPPY FARMER FENCE and lots of birds, squirrels,sometimes white sky, and warm 70’s sunlight. LOTS of earthworms.We had a monsoon-like violent thunder rain after our long day’s meeting and the next day we were able to start shooting for the images.I got into white makeup and laid in the wet cold grass.Mandy and I got our hands entangled in her crochet madness.Ian worked hard working meticuluosly with his camera, taking shots over and over until he got what he needed. I also got to GORGE AND CHOMP on DIRT-MARINATED CABBAGES for few takesunder their crawl space in the basement and enjoyed it very much.What I enjoyed most was a lot of our shootings were us going by our intuitions and strong visions… It is a good little start full of promises…

Portland

Mandy, Ian and Haruko are meeting in the Ian/Kamala Portland house for their first big summit on the film they are collaborating on to be shot in September. Portland is sunny. Perfect. They sit under Japanese Maple tree and iron out their ideas while humming birds feed above - Mandy’s boys are digging holes in the garden for kamala. Basically a perfect Portland day. This work will go on for two days, the goal to get things rolling on the project. Mandy’s son Hazel has been tricked into wearing a tassely gold-lamet dress to do his digging in. The film chronicles the life of a “Slug Princess”. There will be much footage taken in all of our gardens. Mandy brought samples of her crochet slug slime.

Seattle

Yeah. Getting Started. A lot of new projects rolling out. Yesterday Robb, Jeff and I got together to brainstorm the tactics for getting started on this new album. We will be recording demos for half of June and then jump into the actual album in the 2nd half of june. We are searching like mad for good recording locations. Just visited Pol at “TUBS” aka Soak and Poke, an old closed out hot tub joint. Its a mad place and Pol has generously made it an option for recording madness. Of course Robb, like the old man he is needs “natural light”… so Tubs seems like it will be the standby for the time being.

Haruko and I are spending crazy people time in our house working on writing songs and developing some new work for our next dance show. Playing on pots and pans, instruments strewn about our living room. Recording coffee percolation sounds and cracking eggs.

Thinking deeply about our next big stage show in March of ‘09. It seems a long ways off, but it will go fast for sure. Right now assembling the creative team. Juicy!

-Joshua