Category: Recordings

This is a blog category with posts about some records I have helped make over the years. Hope you enjoy!

A Renaissance Within

And some delightful paradoxes

There’s a wonderful quote, attributed to Henry J. Kaiser –

“When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.”

I don’t know in what context the famous industrialist said that, but I generally like the advice. I also can’t completely follow it.

Someone else said, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” Seems that’s been attributed to a number of notables, its origin unclear.

I ponder these quotes as I find they present certain paradoxes. Artists have to say something about their art, usually, even if it’s minimal. “Here’s a song I wrote last week,” actually gives an audience a lot of context. From that we know we’re going to hear a new song, and an original song, by the singer. So naturally we then perceive it differently than we might if the singer simply started in playing the song cold.

Then you have artist statements, which can present a resounding rejection of Mr. Kaiser’s advice, as illustrated by one of my favorite interweb properties, the Instant Artist Statement Bollocks Generator. (Hours of fun, that!)

And I can see dancing about architecture. Surely, why not? Dance about anything, I dance about frogs. I will swim about poetry this morning.

This last year or two, or four or five – the hazy continuum of societal madness we surf, trying not to lose our own minds – I’ve been on a prolific creative roll as a songwriter and home record producer. As I’ve mentioned before, part of it is therapy, for lack of a better word, processing it all, and trying to keep my head and heart right. And I have become quite free with my words – free associating, as they call it in Therapylandia – trusting instinct with curiosity to learn what’s going on between my ears.

In the course of these adventures, I started calling some of my songs Beet Poetry, in an obvious nod to bongos and the Beat Generation, and vegetables.

One of my favorites from this batch is Me And The Little This Is Fine Fire Doggie

Really fine therapy, that was, and I’ve been grateful to learn from some friends that it provided them too with some soothing medicine.

So looking back on recent years, I’ve made more new original song recordings than I ever expected or planned to. Paradoxes upon paradoxes, these interesting times provide a wealth of inspiration, though I would prefer a stable, rational society. Travel and friends and work and family and conversations and births and deaths all in, I seem to be inspired generally, these days. And I have this new song I’ll publish this weekend, which is a celebration of all of that.

There’s another quote I remember from childhood, “The world is as you see it.” It’s from a famous Indian guru, whose name escapes me, though I’m pretty sure the idea has been passed down for millennia. It’s another imperfect but useful thought, and I work with it. Since we are each a perceiver of the world, the world exists within each of us, and therefor how we perceive it is how it is. And extending from that, those around us may tend to pick up our vibes and see things similarly — I mean, if you’re around people who are miserable, that can tend to rub off, and same if you’re around happy healthy creative joyful generous people. So a gift we can offer others is to try and be well and happy ourselves.

The Vogons, brilliant invention of Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, are not happy beings. They are miserable, and they would prefer it if you are as well. I liked it best when they were safely ensconced in that hilarious work of fiction, but somehow, apparently, they have leaped out of the book and were put in charge of our federal government. This too shall actually pass, and I address the matter directly, in my new song!

Let us dance about architecture and eels, celebrating life, the universe and everything, standing on the desks, my Captains, and willing a Renaissance to be.

Yours fondly,

Eric Din
Berkeley Cat Records

reposted from my Substack

The Many Moods Of Din

Caturday dawn musings

“Too many notes!” goes the famous line in Amadeus, Miloš Forman’s classic Mozart biopic. How many notes? I love that scene and may watch it again soon, my goodness, that was 1984? Time does fly. Of course, the depiction of Salieri is unfair and probably very wrong, but hey, movies gonna movie.

How many notes? How many words? Ah, I know! However many the composer wants there to be. I’m no Mozart but I have been a prolific composer of late, and I enjoy it. That’s the first dimension of success, for an artist, I believe, and it is one that is easily overshadowed by the soul-destroying horrors of late-stage fuckery. Does your work get “Likes?” Do people buy it? Are you wearing expensive gear on Instaderp to make your friends and rivals jealous, all this rot. It’ll give you boils.

I love the song Hot Mess, by girli. Like many a brilliant young artist before her, she declares and takes control of her own art and life. I play that song to get moving in the morning sometimes, as it inspires me a certain way. Her live presence is also fantastic, as I have mentioned before in these very pages.

Pages. Pages and pages I used to write, during my protracted bout of the dreaded Writer’s Block. Wait, I wrote, then? What about the Block? Well, that’s the fun of Writer’s Block, campers, it can take many forms. I tried to write. This is not the same thing as writing. Not to flog the tedious but yeah, I wrote, in my teens, fluently. By the time I was 22, I was trying to write. The world had caught up with me, terrible facts of adulting, with nothing making the grand simple sense that it did when I was 17.

Eventually, I learned to write again. And writing is SO much more fun, than trying to.

What brings this up? Oh my, I have ONE more BOX worth of old notebooks from that blocky period, having gone through four already, slowly but surely when I find time, to see if there’s anything in there I want to keep rather than scrap the whole pile. I may tackle it this weekend or next. I am reminded of Spalding Gray’s Monster In A Box, though his meaning was not exactly the same. For me it’s page after page of me trying to understand, which, took the form of trying to write.

This song I wrote Monday, Just Waiting For The Rain, is very short, practically a jingle. It actually got shorter as I worked on it, as the point was pretty simple. It’s a prayer for rain, in context of current events and all that means. There’s no musical bridge, no instrumental lead part, just a strummy, folky hi and bye. Quite unlike much of my material, which can be very wordy and elaborate indeed. Let the song lead, I say, that’s my method, that’s the fun, for me! The song will tell you how many notes.

Glad it’s Caturday, gonna enjoy some maintenance on ye olde studio office home cattery, do the laundry and such, chop wood, carry water. And I suppose I’ll look at the contents of the “monster” box, now that it’s on my mind.

Letters To A Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke. Nancy Hess gave me a copy when I was 25 or so, and it was a significant gift. I recommend the book generally, as it is a fun read, and also specifically, if you or a friend may be wrestling with the ol’ Block.

What moods might motivate me to write again? I do not know! But I feel like a kid on Easter wondering what shiny colored surprises await behind the next hedge. And I enjoy, finally, my complete uncertainty as to how others may perceive the ones I’ve found before. If I get an idea that I like, then once I commit to it, I just try to get out of its way and let it come to life. This can happen quickly and easily, or it can involve considerable effort. Either way fine with me. I like my song journal, now. In 2015, I didn’t. I felt it was woefully incomplete. Now, it feels current.

Ten years since my dad passed, Sept. 25, 2015. A few days after that, I thought, hmm, ya know, I don’t have forever to do this. So I started producing my own material. And all of this happened:

https://ericdin.bandcamp.com/

Many moods indeed.

I don’t use generative Ai for any creative work – writing, images, music, just none, ever, for reasons having to do with The Very Meaning Of Life. But, I don’t judge anyone for trying that stuff, hell, it’s their business, not mine, and after all I get all kinds of writing assistance the gent in this photo. To each and all their own,

Carpe Diem,

Din

Originally posted here

More Sensible Comments From The Weird Dream Olympics

Waking up from afternoon naps is weirder during times of mounting catastrophic societal failure. We established this earlier, in the scientifically accurate Pogo Dancing In My Sleep, as detailed here.

Today, I once again participated in the Weird Dream Olympics after lunch, with a fairly nostalgic and realistic episode.  I was discussing an upcoming UpTones performance (this is not a thing) with a promoter and someone who was our actual manager during some of the actual times, and we needed to pick another band to play on the bill. Someone asked if we should ask Translator and I said sure, even though I didn’t know if they were still active, in my dream, or in waking life.  Then there was a thing, in this dream, where we started rehearsing our set, and at a point, I realized I had written a set list earlier and forgot to make copies, and then, things turned odd as dreams do.  Giraffes complained the bass wasn’t loud enough and requested peppermint. It seemed reasonable to me, and then, waking up, to daylight, as happens in naps, I had the odd “what time is it” and “what’s the  deal” and “oh there isn’t a gig and giraffes plus Translator” moment.

OK.

And was reminded again of my very recent uproarious outbelt (I just made that up – outburst + belting = outbelt, carry on), I Promise Not To Drunk Text Bobby About Getting The Band Back Together. A missive so verbose and riotous that even the title was too long for part of BMI’s song registration interface. Success.

Artwork for this is in progress, and in meantime, the photo of me observing a flagrant violation of any drink James Bond would have, will hold the post valiantly.

We hope your day is grand, and if you attend the Weird Dream Olympics, you win medals.

This Worldly World launches into.. This Worldly World!

AND in the spirit of completion, on this lovely foggy morning, I just uploaded my This Worldly World album to the streaming services of the worldly world. It’ll land in said places in the next few days and then you can play it in your Pandora and Spotifys and Apples and Oranges. OK, no oranges but DEEZERs, yes Deezers! Gesundheit.

The pieces we were waiting for, before taking this momentous leap, were some voice memos from a few of our pals, who dutifully chimed in on “Whoops, this is the wrong future,” for the fade-out on track 14! The finale, if you will. Took me a minute to mix that all to my liking, and I enjoy the result, and hope y’all might as well.

The whole album will also remain in perpetuity, apocalypses notwithstanding, at our beloved Bandcamp! At which, it happens to be Bandcamp Friday. Bandcamp is not a streaming service, it is a different thing in this worldly world.

There it is ^ ! Not terribly hard to find.

I decided a little while ago, after MUCH contemplation and consternation, to release Berkeley Cat Records’ records to ALL of the streaming outlets, AND Bandcamp. There are some good arguments for NOT doing it this way, and argue with myself I did, but this is my conclusion, and I doubt I’ll change my mind on the subject.

Can I share this exciting moment with you? I do get a thrill out of this..

fly, my pretties

That’s the last step in the Distrokid interface, after the songs are written, recorded, mixed and mastered, puzzled and pawed at, played with and pondered, the great heave-ho to send them up from this bedroom producer’s desk into the streaming wilds. I LOVE some aspects of The Future! Heck, we talk on video like freakin’ Star Trek with friends a thousand miles away, there’s just so much cool about our present day. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” wrote Charles Dickens, but did he have ANY FREAKING IDEA what was coming?! I cannot know.

Near the end of my song, Dystopian Hot Mess, I sing, “..And baby we’re so blessed, if we only knew it.” This album is informed by everything that’s happening, good and bad, crazy and sane, the worldly world through my often astonished eyes. I hope it gives you some laughs and smiles along your journey.

And off I go, for a little river adventure with my esteemed colleague and UpTones fellow, The Rev. Paul Jackson! Who knows, maybe we’ll come up with a tune? It’s been known to happen.

Carpe Diem,

Din

Funs and Thank Yous

Good mornings and Happy Fridays

I appreciate the “This is the wrong future” voice memos a few of y’all have sent in! This weekend I’ll mix the rest of ‘em in and make a final mix of

Meanwhile, here’s an amusing.. amusement, from our beloved Bandcamp:

What you need to know about evolving global tariff policies

It’s.. a

!!

But hey, a lot of people are saying..

Gosh darn it.

I miiiiiight do one other more remix before releasing this album to the streaming wilds. Possibly maybe

since the bass tone is a little bunchy clunky, and I haven’t yet determined if I think that’s a feature or a flaw.

I DEFINITELY support the California redistricting measure and hope you will too. It’s awful that it comes to this, but come to this it has.

Oh, speaking of remixes, I mentioned a while ago that I made some minor remixes of some of these songs, for this album, after releasing the initial mixes as singles. A fun bit: Those minor remixes really helped the tracks, to my ear. The title track in particular, This Worldly World, really benefited from this extra attention. And, I realized another thing about that song, which continues to reveal itself to me, in its journal-like way: The whole song is a tribute to my friend and career counselor Luke, not just the last verse. I mean, I think, as songs do, it can mean anything to anyone, and I hesitate to spell out its meaning to me, but for this one, I will. The first verse:

If I could just see round the bend
Or someone tell me how it ends
I wonder what-ifs leading to and from that day
Could it have gone another way?
I honestly can’t say

Could be about any pivotal day, right? When a fateful decision was made, or a dreadful accident happened, or an election went terribly wrong, even. Right? Anything. And let that meaning be open. But what it was, when I finished that song, was Luke’s suicide. It’s hard for me to even write that word. It remains impossible for me to fully grasp. Luke was infinitely successful, and brilliant, and widely loved. I’ll speak of him from time to time as I unpack all this and move along.

Shannon Wheeler drew the lovely cover artwork for my original single of This Worldly World, and on seeing it, I thought, that’s also an album cover. So, some months later, it is. Much love to you and yours,

Eric

Crafting Craft Music in This Worldly World

Greetings fellow travelers.

One of my favorite moments on my new album This Worldly World
is the outro on Tropical Snow. That whole piece flowed out of me in a fun process of observing, really. I listened and let my hands do what was asked of them by the music as it emerged. Took a few short hours and was very complete, and the ending part was a delicious surprise.

Sometimes, sometimes and not always but sometimes for me, creating original music is easy and fun and satisfying. It’s almost always fun and satisfying in some unique ways, but not always so easy. Tropical Snow was all of these, and when I hear it, I hear a calm and peaceful place in myself which I’m glad exists, and that I can visit sometimes.

A nerdly guitar note – I used my Joe Meek VCQ3 optical compressor rather heavily on this track, especially near the end. Hard compression can be a really cool guitar effect, but I usually don’t have much use for it. For this, however, it was just the medicine on the lead line near the end, when the song fades into the sunset.

Semi-nerdly related notes – I used, on this album, three main instruments: a Martin acoustic, a Fender B-bass, and my one-off custom Telecaster-ish bit of magic which came to me by luck and circumstance decades ago. For the drum tracks, some of them are me playing hand-percussion at home, others are edited and looped studio tracks from some of the great drummers I’ve worked with in sessions over recent years. The vocals are almost all mine, and I still don’t use autotune for anything. It’s a choice, not one to be on a soapbox about, but a solid choice for me because I like the unique quirks in our human voices, and I do not consider them imperfections at all. I wish less recording artists and producers would squash the “real” out of their human voices, but that’s just me.

As for soapboxes, I will get on mine to say I think Ai-generated music and other Ai-gen content is a Bad Thing That Causes Harm. Caps for emphasis. Especially regarding artistic or creative work, it is antithetical to creativity. It makes me sick and I wish it would go away. There will be examples of gooder (sic) uses of it, but I think in sum it is Bad For The World (more caps, more emphasis). Part of my passionate opinion there comes from my knowledge of the joy and discovery involved in creating (ahem) CRAFT MUSIC! A term which makes me cackle – it came from a colleague of mine in jest – he said that’s what music made “the old way” or words to that effect may eventually be called, like Craft Beer and such. Slow food? Anyway I worry for younger folks who enter a world where this exists, where you can text-prompt a thing to make a thing and there it is and whoop, you’ve done little with your hands, little with your mind, and less with your heart. I hope instead they go to music lessons, practice their scales diligently for hours upon hours, feel the exhilaration of mastering a difficult passage which had once seemed daunting and out of reach, and then play it joyfully with their hands, with their hands. And I’m sure many of them will, and I hope folks encourage it. It does wonders for a body and soul. I guess I wouldn’t harumph so hard about Ai-slop if it were not for the absolutely horrible environmental consequences it brings, at a time when we should be actively and literally saving the earth from doom. This is of course, the kind of thing I rave and rant about in some of my songs.

Well, I hope you enjoy my Craft Music, Slow Food record, made by me mostly, with the help of a few great human friends, and a pair of wonderful cats. Still waiting a few days til I finalize track 14 – which will have a few more voices chiming in at the end, per this fun. Then after that I’ll send it to all the streaming services.

OH! Also, streaming release of Russ Ellis‘ Songs From The Garden album TBA soon, in another post. It’s been available on CD and on Bandcamp since November of 2021, and along with being a personal favorite of mine, it is also Berkeley Cat Records’ biggest seller. It too, was made by human voices and hands! Quite a great bunch of ’em, in fact.

Til next time, Good morning and good luck,

Eric

Berkeley supervises a mix

“I Was Here,” and other motivations

This weekend I’m delighted and surprised by this album I’m finishing, called This Worldly World. It occurred to me a few months ago that the title and artwork for my single of the same name, would work well for a title track and album name. After finishing my most recent outings, Delete And Report Junk, and The Wrong Future, I thought, OK, time to compile and start putting together a running order. This is where the surprise comes in – it flows together beautifully, to my ears, and feels like an intended album. A “concept album,” even, to use a rather “prog rock” term!  Why not?  It’s a concept album, sure. Didn’t plan it that way, but it happened!

All of the songs, even the instrumentals, came out of me like journal entries over the last year or so, with one exception – a remaster of a track I first released in 2020. It fits the concept perfectly so I added it in.

We all cope in various ways, or try to, and for me, creating music and songs which take a satirical or humorous look at the horrors our society is living through, actually really helps me.  It is a kind of therapy, and it costs less than a psychoanalyst! I had one, for a month, a year ago or so, expensive yet worthwhile. At our second session I asked him, “Do you offer advice?” His answer was no, that he hopes to help his clients become their own best advisors. I thought that was a first class answer.  Honest, and immediately helpful. I then told him about my dear departed friend Luke, who was, in the last years of his life, my career counselor. Luke, I went to for advice, and as a career counselor, he offered it. To my great fortune, Luke’s advice was golden. Actionable, wise, self- and life-affirming in ways I can never adequately express my gratitude for. His advice changed the course of my life, infinitely for the better.

After Luke died, I felt so much grief that I decided professional help was needed, hence my seeking out a psychotherapist, specifically for grief counseling. And it helped, it did, yet the question I asked above was key to the whole experience. I wanted some more good advice, and there was none to be had, outside of myself.

The third verse of the title track on this album, is to Luke:

“(You said bring)
My whole self into the building
(So I did)
Not holding back, no I am building
I am so grateful for your memory
Your wisdom give me strength to shine
And I know
This worldly world will carry on, even if we don’t,
This worldly world, all along, forever more”

He was here, he lived, and he made a huge and positive impact on mine and really many others’ lives. At his memorials I met some of his other clients and was struck by how they all expressed similar gratitude, for how he guided and advised them. That’s quite a career, isn’t it? I’ll say plainly: Luke changed the way I look at myself. Made me like myself more, honestly. What price, self-esteem? I got so much more than I bargained for when I asked for career advice. I got that, but I also got ME advice.

My dad died in 2015, so he didn’t get to see all this, my last ten years being among the best I’ve had in my life. I’m sad I didn’t get to share this time with him, but I have a certain faith that spiritually we carry on, and that he’s with me. I’m also glad, in the same breath, that my dad never saw these chapters of dystopia that started, really right after he died.

Paradoxes pile upon paradoxes, and here I’m in a place of happiness in my life and career, a blissfully single crazy cat man making my own records on my own dime and time, while this dystopian hot mess plays out. I enjoy any day that the hills around me aren’t bursting into flames, literally or figuratively. I’m grateful for each day that my friends and family members live, as we all get older, and start to lose our peers.

And I’m here, and my records are here, and these are records, I’m glad to leave here when I am eventually gone. A little recorded legacy. That feels good to me. And while I’m here, I get a thrill out of sharing them, and I think for some folks, the “therapy” is there, in the tracks. A little remedy from the astonishing unspeakable stupidity and madness that plays out. That, I hope.

14 tracks. Loading ’em up into Bandcamp today. When I share the album, I hope you’ll give it a blast on your stereo appliances, and share with your peeps all around this worldly world.

Love and gratitude,

Eric

UPDATE 8-25-2025: Aaaaand, here is the album!

Exile On FB Street

Peculiar end to my Facebook saga:  After trying unsuccessfully to quit, numerous times over the years since 2007, I was unceremoniously banished on December 24, 2024. They won’t tell me why other than that they can’t confirm my identity. Well, that’s a chuckle, because, I can’t, really, either!  Who am I?  OK, well I mostly know. Eric Din. Eric Roy Dinwiddie. Same same.

But FB. I could go further with the effort to get back in, but nah. I wasted some time there, as one does. It’s a time-wasting engine, designed to suck your energy oh and yes they are ruining society in myriad ways. Bye bye. So the 1500 or so people who I was friends with there, they can still find me if they want to, and anyway FB wasn’t showing most of them my posts anymore, which was frustrating.  If I shared a cat photo it would get all sorts of likes and loves and awwws, but post a new song and like, two, three people respond. I get it, I prefer cats too. But how much is indifference from my pals, and how much is FB simply not showing the Bandcamp or other external links to them?  No way to know, and weeds grow in the mind.

I have less weeds in the absence of all that.

Twitter, I quit that venue the day whatshisbutt took over and called it “X,” I mean, come on, the worst rebrand since New Coke, and as much a failure.  Everyone should quit but they won’t cos I don’t know why.  I guess the more followers one has there, the harder to leave, and I get that.

So now this blog is a tree falling in the woods.  I wonder if anyone sees it.  I could look at the stats but I don’t care that much.  I’ve become indifferent to indifference.  I feel at peace with myself and my work and my art and my cats and the earth.

Last year saw some monumental disappointments, near and far from me.  My longtime friend and more recent career coach died by his own hand, a little more than one year ago, and that’s still very hard for me to even comprehend.  His choice, he rests in peace, no judgement here, but I do wish he had chosen to stay.  Then the Nov. 5 debacle to end all debacles.  And right now not one but two of my dear old friends are dealing with cancer, and I pray for their victories and health.

What does it all add up to here for me on this Thursday morning with a little welcome rain approaching this weekend?  Gratitude.  For this moment and all the moments.  For all the moments with each of the aforementioned friends, which I remember so vividly.  I have in this life tried to spend my time with people who savor life and music and art and tend to treat themselves and others with love and respect.  And the mind in its vastness can hold so many memories and some in startling detail.

60, I’ll be 60 soon.  With some amount of surprise, I now feel that’s an accomplishment in itself.  I like the number, I like the age, so much more than I had earlier expected to, somehow.  I keep my memories with me, they are wealth.  Even the hard ones, all gifts.  And in some contrast to the state of the world, my own life has been full of luck and good work and good play and wonder and joy over these recent years.  We never know when something will go awry and I am grateful for every good moment.

This song, which went live in the streaming worldly world today, was a nice step in my journey, dealing with some of the above.

Caturday Log, Supplemental

I improvise, when cooking or preparing food, much as I improvise while creating music. At this moment, I am eating a toasted garlic-sourdough slice adorned with my own riff on the basic tuna salad. Tuna, mayo, a smooth German mustard, chopped onion, sweet pickle relish, some chopped avocado, chopped tomato, and dashes of salt and coarsely ground black pepper.

Delicious Caturday fare, and of course, the actual cats take an immediate interest. Not eager to give them too much tuna (the good veterinarian advises the mercury levels can cause problems), but not wishing to exclude them from this activity (and run the risk of their ire), I separate a chunk of the fish before mixing with other ingredients, and provide it to the felines in their proper eating area thereby satisfying them just long enough for me to have time to complete the hooman-food preparation unmolested.

In another life I am a chef. In this life, I also cook music. Of my recent outings, I am particularly fond of some instrumentals. Being a wordy lad, it’s been satisfying for me to just make some enjoyable music rabbit holes for a change of pace. In reverse chronological order, these tracks I created entirely at home.

One might argue that the latter two are not strictly instrumental, for they involve a few words, more spoken than sung. These I find loosely in the tradition of The Skatalites‘ treatment of Guns Of Navarone, where the title is the lyric, and it’s said a few times and the rest is carried by the band.

In the WORDY department, one of my wordiest, the epic Push the Better Button has a new remastered single out on Berkeley Cat Records, and I’m frankly a little giddy about it. See, unlike the above 3, Better Button took a lot of time and effort to create. Not a quickie tuna-salad on a Caturday, nay, it involved weeks and multiple revisions and wranglings to create an actual functioning all-purpose Better button.

The Button became track 1 on my 1st solo album STREET PARTY, and yes, I was pleased with the outcome, but by that point I was also exhausted by it. Not in a terrible way, though – I learned a LOT about my own processes, both technically and emotionally, working on that song, and collaborating on it long-distance with some of my UpTones musical brethren.

That was in 2020, and here about 5 years later, I’m releasing a smashing remaster of it, by audio masterblaster Leo Frappier. It’s very gratifying for me to hear this track with fresh ears, I do love this remaster, and I hope you might press the button yourselves, in the name of bettering.

And now, cats and hoomans fed, despatches sent, I’m going to practice some tunes on the acoustic guitar, for to sing next Sunday at Ivy Room opening for Psycotic Pineapple.

What else, after that, then? Oh, I suppose I’ll make something up.

-Eric Din