James Baldwin and writer's block, my current fav free plugin, and Bandcamp United
Heya folks,
It's great to write to you once again. As I mentioned last week, if you're in LA and want to see me play, save the date for the Pasadena Eclectic Festival, Sat, Apr 29. It's free!
It seems the theme of this week is "free."
I'm finding more and more that writer's block is a mental health issue
I'm reading Mary Gauthier's book Saved by a Song (not to be confused with Ellen Harper's book Always a Song, which I'm also reading), and she shares a thought from James Baldwin, that writing is "finding out what you don't want to know." It takes honesty and courage, therefore, to create. A couple weeks ago I shared a similar thought from Paul Simon. Pair these quotes with season 2, episode 1 of Ted Lasso, wherein one player catches the "yips," and they bring in a sports psychologist to help him overcome his block.
Get the Neve sound in your DAW with this free plugin
Bill Schnee, the engineer behind Steely Dan's classic, Aja, says Neve consoles have a way of thickening up a sound, thanks to all the transformers in them. I've been mixing an album for The Brothers Landau, and I needed something that did this warm, Neve-type thing but was also CPU-efficient enough to be used on every channel. I rediscovered an old favorite plugin of mine, Channel9, by Airwindows, which does just the trick. Chris from Airwindows is a gem, and his plugins are perhaps the best-kept secret in the biz.
Bandcamp United is a union of Bandcamp workers that needs our help
You may know how much I've loved Bandcamp. In the age of Spotify and Apple, no other music tech company pays artists so well. A year ago, I was organizing with Music Workers Alliance for streaming justice when we saw the news that Bandcamp, a beacon of hope in the indie music economy, had sold to Epic Games. Now, Bandcamp has been union-busting its workers. Tale as old as time. Bandcamp United is carrying on the mission of putting artists first, but they need better working conditions to do so. Here's how we can help.
Some odds and ends
Peace,
Arend
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