My fellow monkeys,

Woohoo, here’s some new music!  ”Softly Softly Catchee Monkey: an über-acoustic, inter-album EP, made for primates, by primates,” has been released!  Produced by Neil Shah and featuring Massimo Majorana on drums and percussion, it’s been a whole lot of fun to record this three-song acoustic project and release it as something a little different in between full-length albums.  It’s now available on iTunes and the usual online retailers.  Click here for more details.

A word about the title:

Softly Softly Catchee Monkey is an expression I first heard used by my dad as I was growing up – I have some vague recollection of hearing him say it during a chess match when I was a kid (nerd alert!).  Bemused by the absurdity of the phrase, I would shake my head at its use (it’s not unusual to hear it in New Zealand), but began to understand that the phrase was used to indicate a cunning, patient and determined tactic.  I’m going to simplify here, because I’ve heard variations on the same theme (even the phrase itself alternatively appears as “Slowly Slowly”, rather than “Softly Softly”), but the origins can be found in a strategy used to catch monkeys in the wild – namely a stealthy, measured and persistent approach.

When I began playing some unplugged duo shows with Neil Shah in New York, I joked one day about our acoustic renditions of the ALL or NOTHING songs being “Softly Softly Catchee Monkey” versions, for no other reason than we were playing them quieter and more softly than usual.  The name stuck.  When our enjoyment of the stripped-back versions of the songs led to the recording of new songs for this EP, and the time came to choose a title, it struck me that not only did Softly Softly Catchee Monkey make musical sense, but it also encapsulated an underlying theme of the songs.

It sometimes seems that the journey of self-discovery is a little like catching monkeys in the wild – no sooner has a layer of self-deception been dispensed with, than another appears, in the same way that a monkey will dart off just as the would-be catcher is certain that the game is over.  There’s always more waiting to be revealed, and the further one goes, the more the mystery deepens.

I wrote No Solid Ground during a time of being frustrated with my tendency to chase after some idea of perfection, and in doing so, miss the perfection that was already here.  And that pretty much sums up the title for me: hunting for something that can’t be grasped, held or contained, and so missing it again and again between glimpses and near misses.  Until, finally, the hunt is abandoned, only to reveal that damned little monkey laughing and pointing from a nearby tree, having all the while been following close behind.

Recording Softly Softly Catchee Monkey

I want to welcome in the new year with a free song gift for you off my upcoming acoustic release, Softly Softly Catchee Monkey. I wanted to try something a little different from my usual sound, so I recorded this three-song EP as an acoustic-only collection in between full-length albums, with producer and pianist Neil Shah. I’ll post some more info on my sites once the EP is released in February, but until then, please enjoy this free track from the EP, No Solid Ground. Click here to download. (Link will only be available for a limited time).

For those of you on the East Coast, I have several shows coming up in January and February, starting with NYC on January 13th, and followed by shows in Philadelphia, New Jersey, and NY state. Please see the Tour page for details – I’d love to see you there. And once the first copies of the EP arrive next week, I’ll have them available at the shows (along with ALL or NOTHING of course).

January 13th, 6pm, NYC at Rockwood Music Hall (performing with trio)

January 20th, 9pm, Philadelphia at Lickety Split

January 27th, 8pm, Binghamton, NY, at Cyber Cafe West

January 30th, 2pm, Little Falls, NJ, at the Fine Grind

February 10th, 9pm, NYC at Angels and Kings (performing with trio)

It’s been a while since some of us spoke (particularly those of you in the US), so by way of a brief update on news from the second half of 2009, Alive began airing on New Zealand radio in November, making it into the Top 40 of the radio play charts for NZ artists, and Hiding So Long is preparing for an Australian debut in the coming weeks (Hiding So Long earlier in the year featured in the New Zealand Top 20).

As always, thank you for your support and I hope I get to see some of you at the upcoming shows! I’ll be in touch again to announce the release of Softly Softly Catchee Monkey.

Best wishes for a crazy 2010!

Si.

www.simonspire.com

www.facebook.com/simonspire

I’m getting ready to drive to Long Island for a show tonight with my acoustic trio (of which I am a part, i.e.,  a total of 3 ).   It’s a new performance lineup that began with in-store shows in June and has turned out to be a lot of fun…if you would like to come see us sometime, we’ll be playing in Philadelphia (August 22nd) and NYC (August 25th).   I also wanted to share the news of an upcoming  New Zealand tour in October.  The details of the shows are below.

Thank you to those of you who joined us recently at Rockwood Music Hall in NYC – below is a short video of the two Classic Hits winners from New Zealand who came to the show, with a little music thrown in as well.  The link to the ALL or NOTHING t-shirts mentioned in the video is here.

Stay cool and thanks for your support and for rocking out to the music!

Si.

Upcoming shows:

August 20th, Commack, NY, 7pm

August 22nd, Philadelphia, PA, 3pm, SEG Presents at ESPRIT, all-ages free show

August 25th, NYC, 8pm, SEG Presents at Ella Lounge

October 13th – 16th, North Island tour, NZ, check www.simonspire.com soon for details.

It’s always an interesting experience to perform songs that I wrote a couple of years ago, but that are only now reaching their audience.  “Do you get tired of playing the same song over and over again?” is a question that I feel artists get asked from time to time.  The answer, in my experience, is a resounding “No”.  But the reason for that is more humbling than it is noble.

I just got back to New York after an exciting six weeks in New Zealand sharing “Hiding So Long” and setting plans in motion for the future.  To me, performing a song requires one to live the song in the present – not necessarily to remember what the song meant when it was written, or what it’s supposed to be about – but to allow the experience of the song to offer something new, to be alive right NOW, to allow it to evoke something from within in the present.

And what struck me, as I performed the song day after day, and given that I often sing it while playing around with my guitar at home anyway, is how real the song still is to me.  The truth is, I feel like a different person from the one who wrote the song a couple years ago.  And, at the time of writing the song, I even felt I was writing it somewhat in hindsight.  But what the song continues to remind me, as it continues to feature in my daily life, is that the challenges of being human are never something we overcome and say goodbye to forever.  They arise every day in different ways, calling us to choose our response, to choose to either allow them to reveal new depths within us, or to struggle against them, deny them, react to them.

So I notice that the themes of Hiding So Long – self-betrayal, the denial of one’s own truth – still appear in my life in different ways.  The difference, now, is that I’m quite aware of my own choice in that, of my own participation in that drama: that the choice of really being true to my inspiration, rather than to my fear, though it may be a more intimidating path, is always available.

I remember hearing a vocal coach once say, “Learning to sing is circular. You keep coming back to the same issues again and again, but each time, you’re at a slightly higher level.”  It seems that it’s true of our learning in general.  Though it’s understandable that we often want to completely eradicate anything that bothers us in our lives, the reality is, we seem to move in spirals (hopefully, upward-moving spirals).  We meet the same challenges again and again, but each time with greater awareness and freedom than before.  And, hopefully, we remember that the point of arrival that we tend to strive toward, where we are free from all challenges, is called death; and that the journey itself is the vehicle of life.

Totally unrelated, here is a photo from a recent in-store performance at ESPRIT on 5^th Ave, with my acoustic trio.  Lots of fun, watching the rain pour down outside as we rocked out in the store window.

[in response to the question below...mad like crazy]

That anxiety-driven relationship to time, which today would say something like, Oh no, you have one less hour in which to get everything done!  What will you do?!?! is, to some degree, a part of our culture, and is also something that I find interesting to watch in myself.  It’s that same chasing-after-a-mirage-of-happiness energy of, When I get THIS I’ll be happy, or If only I could fix THAT then I could relax…in the end, it’s some form of striving after better circumstances or a better situation that always lies in the future, maybe just around the corner, that will finally allow us to be happy.

I don’t mean to judge it.  Only to question it.  I know if anyone’s guilty of this mentality, it’s me, so I’m certainly not trying to say I’m above it.  The recognition of this always-searching-for-more compulsion in myself was, in part, what I was writing about in Dying Daily. Even now, as I type, I can sense in the background a potential anxiety creeping in…Write your blog as fast as you can, you have a lot do and only 23 hours in which to do it! It’s absurd.  I’m enjoying writing, I don’t want to rush.  This whole habit of perpetual searching, looking for more, is absurd.  But it’s so human – maybe not ‘human nature’, but I think quite clearly ‘human habit’ in much of our culture.

So, I thought as I glanced at the time after waking and pondering the meaning of daylight saving time beginning today, what a perfect day – the 23-hour day in the US – to reflect upon our relationship with time.  Do our clocks serve us?  Or are they our masters?

The division between using time for life’s practicalities, and on the other hand, it dominating our lives, isn’t always a clear one.  But I think in the end it comes down to a simple question we can ask ourselves at any time: What matters most to me right now?  Is it getting everything done on our to-do lists?  Is it getting something over with, getting to some point where we can at last be at ease within ourselves?  Is it trying to get as much as we can, experience as much as we can, become as much as we can, hold onto as much as we can, and live for as long as we can, in the hope that this will make us more fulfilled?

Or, is it to make our inspiration primary, and all these other concerns secondary?  To make, above all else, our own core – our own truth – the force that really drives us and moves us.  When that’s primary, when that’s committed to, everything else falls into line behind it.  And the tick-tick-tick of the second hand is no longer the persistent badgering of a cold-hearted master, but a friendly and humorous reminder of the human tendency to betray ourselves today, in the hope that it will enable us to be more true to ourselves tomorrow.

Leaving Auckland (I think that's Piha Beach - a different perspective from the on-site photo in an earlier blog)

At last, a chance to see what all the Guitar Hero hype is about…

My Guitar Hero Debut

What now?  Do I dump my axe in favor of a tambourine?

"Song Failed". (Ignore the 98% completed. It's quite irrelevant. Failed on Easy, just to rub it in.)

It’s been a real thrill to see “Hiding So Long” being covered by other singers/guitarists/musicians!  Thank you for giving new expression to the song.  To me art is dynamic, never static, and always evoking something new in the moment in which we find ourselves, so it’s cool to watch the song continue to unfold.

When I first bring a song to my band or to other musicians to play, I write up a pretty simple chord chart just to speed up the process… I’ve had a couple of people ask online for a chord chart for the song, so here we go – I’ll post it here. Below is the same chart that I gave to the boys in New York and New Zealand when we first played the song.  Enjoy.

Intro

E Emaj7 C#m B A A B E Emaj7

Verse

E Emaj7 C#m B A A B E Emaj7

E Emaj7 C#m B A A B E Emaj7

Chorus

F#7 A E Emaj7

F#7 A C#m B B

Verse

E Emaj7 C#m B A A B E Emaj7

E Emaj7 C#m B A A B E Emaj7

Chorus

F#7 A E Emaj7

F#7 A C#m B B

Bridge

F#m F#m G#m A E B

F#m G#m A C#7 A B

Solo/Verse

E Emaj7 C#m B A A B E B

Breakdown/Verse

E Emaj7 C#m B A A B E Emaj7

Chorus

F#7 A E Emaj7

F#7 A C#m B B

F#7 A E Emaj7

F#7 A C#m B B

Chorus note: it’s F#7, not any kind of minor 7 (sometimes hard to pick that one out from the recording)

I usually play:

• most of the E chords as E5
• most of the B chords as B7
• most of the A chords as Amaj7
• most of the C#m chords as C#m7
• Whatever feels right…

Simon.