Tuesday, May 1, 2007

johnnyhickman.com road blog 12

Alright, it's been several months since my last official bloggish communication and that's just ridiculous isn't it? I've had my reasons and strangely, they were mostly physical. At the risk of sounding whiny I'll explain it this way...after fifty relatively healthy years I was suddenly hit with some dreadful maladies last fall. Without going into too much detail I'll just say that it involved some..um.... discomfort, some minor surgery and a rough recovery period. On the bright side, in the middle of said discomfort I traveled and performed three holiday season Cracker shows in Petaluma, San Francisco and Reno. Hallelujah! He moves! Music cures. Thank you to those of you who gave me some love and assistance out there. The wonderful David Immerglück would be at the top of that list, wheeling me around San Francisco in my chair barreling down crowded avenues to dinner and back, making me laugh myself silly with glee.

On the musical front, I am happy to report that I am currently involved with some new projects. Those of you who were in attendance at the recent Colorado shows will remember Jim Dalton, singer and guitarist from our support band the Railbenders...he of commanding stage presence and amazing, Johnny Cash like baritone voice. Jim and I are about 10 or 12 songs into an album of original material....very old school, sixties sounding country music which is sort of where I come from stylistically (as if you couldn't tell by some of my Cracker contributions and solo songs I guess eh? ). Some of the songs I write are probably just too country for Cracker and it's wonderful to have a home for many of them.....and it's great to write with Jim. We are both singing on the record ala Willie and Merle, Johnny and Waylon. Duets, harmonies and the like. Here are some titles; Mexican Jail, Hello Lonesome, Larimer County Blues, Hold My Drink While I Kiss Your Girlfriend......yeah Mr. Wrong lives.

Around my home town of Fort Collins CO, I've been playing shows with a great alt-rock / alt-pop band called the Piggies. I don't know what's in store for the future there, but something good I'm sure. I've played around in their private studio with a couple alternate versions of my own songs, just to get a feel for their masterful recording chops, and I will probably post the results of that first experiment on MySpace or somewhere else in the next year.

Last but not least in collaborations, I am also very proud to report that my friend Roger Clyne put the song we wrote together on a vacation (rest, sailing and tequila) weekend in Mexico on his new album. The song is "Bottom of the Bay," and the album is "No More Beautiful World." My current favorite songs on the RCPM album are "Andele" (no surprise I guess that I would love a pirate-themed song that mentions ravens, hmm) and "Maybe We Should Fall in Love".

Another bonus of all this collaboration is that doing all this writing and co-writing has got me fired up for some new Cracker music. I can feel it coming soon......Mr. L. and I have both been staying in the muse with other projects which always seems to lead us back to Cracker and new songs....or finishing ones that we started somewhere back in time. By the way, if you have not done so yet check out David's MOG site and devour his new song and video "Deep Oblivion". Enchanting. Okay, it's 4 am and we are not even to the middle of this Duo tour yet so, in the name of health and sanity I will sign off for now and send this to my ever-talented Webmaster Shay. Sweet dreams, Johnny