I finally remembered to start recording my Christmas song early enough in the year so it would be ready to release in time for the holiday season. You could call it an anti-Christmas, or ambivalent, or Jewish Christmas song.

“Merry Xmas*” is available on bandcamp, spotify, apple music, and most other streaming platforms.

I asked Ben Varian to produce – I love his Riddle Rock EP among other works.

We recorded the basic tracks live in February with me on guitar, Nico Leibman from Harmony Index on bass, and Ben on drums.

Ben did a lot of the rest of the arrangements on his own, and we got together to finesse a few things, and I brought over my old toy xylophone for some overdubs. We visited Clinton Patterson who played trumpet, and I recorded my vocals and harmonies at home.

With Ben sporadically on tour, and me sporadically with a toddler cold preventing me from singing, the song wasn’t ready for mastering until early November, much later than I had hoped. I brought it to Stephen Kaye at SunKing Studios for that, and just caught Miles Wintner in time to do the artwork.

I guess I could have started recording in a previous year and been less rushed, but from a motivation standpoint, starting it in, say, the summer, and not releasing it during the upcoming holiday season was not appealing.

I wrote “Merry Xmas*” quickly around 7 years ago when Andrés Du Bouchet invited me to perform at a holiday-themed “Giant Tuesday Night of Amazing Inventions and also There is A Game” at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles. Here is a live recording of “Merry Xmas*” from that first performance.

This is my first music release in a few years and it felt like peeling off a band-aid, or breaking a seal, forcing myself to put it out there. I’m hoping this will help me let go and release my next album sooner than later which is in the works.

Years ago, I was the musical guest on the first episode of Talk Show, an interview series by the Safdie brothers. Now this episode is included as an extra on the new Criterion Collection Blu-Ray release of “Daddy Longlegs,” the brothers’ first feature film.

I haven’t been performing much since having a baby, but recently got to perform at two Zoom events featuring photographer Justine Kurland.

• May 6, 2020 “At Home with Justine Kurland” Aperture Fund
• May 21, 2020 “Reimagining the Image: Justine Kurland” International Center of Photography

At both events, I played my song “Lily” (2009) which is about another close friend and Kurland collaborator, and shared experiences of being in some of her early “Girl Pictures.” Kurland also shared some new collage-based work that is so good, I wish I could link to it, but I don’t think it’s viewable anywhere online yet.

Here’s part of a Vanity Fair article about the ICP event (I’m in a few of the photos included in the article at the link):

“Some of the girls Kurland documented became artists in their own right. At a Zoom event on Wednesday to celebrate the new book, Rebecca Schiffman, one of the girls who is now grown up, performed a song dedicated to the memory of another girl Kurland photographed, Lily Wheelwright, who died in 2007 at the age of 24. In our interview, Kurland quoted a few lyrics from Schiffman’s song that resonated with her experience of Wheelwright as a magnetic girl. “It’s a really beautiful song, and the lyrics are something like ‘knowing you is living,’” she said.

During the event, Kurland and Schiffman discussed their memories about the road trips and close relationships that undergirded the Girl Pictures two decades ago. Kurland became genuinely close to her subjects, and Schiffman and Wheelwright even sublet Kurland’s apartment for some time while she was out on the road.

Kurland asked Schiffman why she went on all the road trips as a 17-year-old. “You have a way of getting people to go along with you,” she replied, and mentioned a more recent moment in their friendship when Kurland coaxed her into a spider-filled shed to take photographs.”

I just hopped on this bill last minute. Playing a short solo set tonight at Highland Park Bowl with The Francine Odysseys and D.A. Stern.

It’s my first show since having a baby. And, actually my last show before having a baby was also a bowling alley show – at All Star Lanes with Calvin Johnson. And another coincidence is that last night I actually bowled at the Spare Room in Hollywood for my friend Max’s birthday.

Facebook Event