Maybe it’s just me. It sure seems like it gets harder and harder to write good songs. I’ve done some mulling on the reasons, and it probably isn’t what you think.

It isn’t, for instance, that I have too much to do. I’ve had too much to do for the last 15 years. When I was 15 I had nothing to do. Hours and hours of nothing to do and the songs I wrote then were terrible. I can remember getting home from church on a Sunday, eating some dinner and rolling into my bedroom. I would often play and write until supper. 5-6 hours. Nothing to do but sit in there and hammer away. Wow…those songs were terrible.

When I first moved to LA I had nothing to do. I kept a diary for a time and reading that thing now is hilarious and quite sad. Sunday, May 9, 1992 “Ordered Pizza”. That was my entire days activity, and this was before the Internet.  I remember one Labor Day weekend where i left my backbreaking job moving boxes at 6pm on Friday night and did not speak to another live human being until Tuesday morning at 7:30am. Lots of writing going on. Not nearly as bad as the teen years, but not so great either.

It isn’t because I’m happy. Although I am now mostly happy. (As long as I don’t think about how much my cell phone company rips me off.) Most songwriters start writing in order to express feelings of sadness or anger. All that piss and vinegar makes for conflict, drama and good songs. (good art in general.) Once life sorts itself out and they make enough money to live and find someone to love them - they have nothing to write about. These often leads to a sudden and unfortunate loss of quality in the songwriting department.

There are artists that never really get it together. Life is one personal disaster after the next and this helps them avoid the problem entirely. But GEEZ what a life. That would be like agreeing to relive my 28th year over and over in order to write good songs about my personal misery. I’d rather take a bullet. No, like many of the writers I admire - John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett, to name a couple, I have gotten a handle on writing songs from a happy life. The songs aren’t happy, but I am. I just keep my ears open and my heart open and there’s enough pain and interesting stuff to fill my notebook. Of course, occasionally I do bump into some personal pain and that gets poured in as well.

It isn’t because I’ve said everything I need to say. I HAVE heard writers say this. “Well, I’ve got nothing more to say.” That strikes me as odd. Sort of like, “I have no more conversations I’d like to have.” or “I’ve met all the people I’d like to meet.” We all get burned out from time to time but I always seem to have something new that I’d like to tackle. Hell, I could write 10 songs that are attempts to do a better job of covering topics that I tried with past songs. If that makes any sense.

No…the reason it gets harder and harder to write good songs is that I seem to discover more and more rules. I see what people say about my records and my songs. It’s hard not to see it, because you’re trying to pass it along to others. I think I have a pretty thick skin in that I don’t take it personally. (After all you can’t criticize a critic for critiquing a record that you sent him to critique.) But when it is time to sit down and CREATE again…that stuff comes creeping back in. You play a riff and you think, “That’s a cool starting place.” and you hear a voice that says, “…retreading Rolling Stone licks isn’t country…” and you think, “Wait. Is that just a Rolling Stone lick? That isn’t really country, is it? That rhythm is too rock, and it takes the song too far away from what most people think of as honky tonk. Damn, maybe that isn’t good. Do we have any beer?”

You come up with a title that sounds interesting and you jot down a first line. Then you think, “That sounds mean. I sure have taken a lot of criticism for being mean. Maybe I shouldn’t write that. Is music supposed to be mean? Buck Owens wasn’t mean. Shit, do we have any beer?”

And sometimes you think…WHO CARES I’LL JUST DO WHAT I WANT. But if you do, and you finish, you still think, “You know my kind of country music can’t be like that. We could play the song…but doesn’t it just confuse the audience?” I suppose some writers are just like a machine that cranks out a clean and pure type of song. No questions. No variation. I can’t do it. I have a desire to wiggle around a little. Twist it. Turn it. And over time it’s easy to take the feedback that you’ve violated some sacred rules of songwriting for a particular genre. There are lots of rules, and as time goes on I seem to find a way to violate them all - “too slick”, “too dumb”, “too mean”, “too funny”, “too traditional”, “not traditional enough”. And of course…all the feedback could be right.

So, we’ll see how it goes. I’m hammering away now. It gets harder and harder. But I get more and more determined. I love this quote from Samuel Beckett.

“Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn’t want them back.”

As a local Free Paper FarWest has built a solid reputation covering the Alt Country and Americana Scene in Greater Los Angeles. Here’s their review by Scott Grusin of a show we played at the LA Farmer’s Market.

Grant Langston and The Supermodels: Stand Up Man
Live at the Ranch Party at E.B.’s Beer and Wine Bar, Farmers Market
By Scott Grusin

This Stand Up Man stands out - guess ya can’t sing like this sittin’ down. Grant’s full, generous voice and direct delivery lend a kindly moral authority to his songs’ celebrations of turpitude and degeneracy; the bawdy material presented with such guileless down-to-earth humor and taste as to pass muster with the Market’s family dinner audience. Rambunctious, wild, and dirty enough while convincing everyone it’s just good clean fun; mighty sly but with nary a wink.

These guys pay attention to their sound…Grant slings a fat sweet Gretsch (hooray for single-cutaways) that provides the link-size bed of jangle I’d expect from a couple acoustic guitars. Guitar geeks: check out the “Stand Up Man CD cover for a full-frontal of this gorgeous axe.

Lead Player Larry Marciano’s guitar pick spends a lot of time clenched between his teeth, freeing his nekkid fingers for pullin’, snappin’, and poppin’ the bejeezus outta them poor beleaguered string and yankin’ every last microgram o oscillation outta his hot overdriven Tele; puttin’ a contemporary crunch on that classic biting, punchy, duck-pluckin’ attack that instantly transports me into the back of a pickup truck on a ‘merican dirt road, nursin’ a cold open container, lovin’ life. Then there’s the searing southern-friend bottleneck-work and occasional steel-pedal simulation; straddling blues and country like a Texan on an Appaloosa, each foot firmly planted in its stirrup. Chops for days.

Kudos to Josh Fleeger for a most solid, propulsive foundation and for the deepest, richest, sweetest, warmest bass tone ever i heared outta an electric. Dammit, i was too caught up with PA pack-up to look and inquire regarding his amp and beautiful hollow-body Gibson, steal his secret-formula amp settings, etc. Flatwounds forever?

Drummer Tony Horkins keeps the train-beats chugging, swings the honky-tonks hard and lanky limbed, rocks the straight-ahead chargers, and lends subtly insistent motion to the quieter numbers. A tight and tasty rhythm section, band, performance…

While the CD’s occasional acoustic instruments and production polish soften it slightly compared to the harder edge of their live show, the album still rocks; somehwere between alt and classic, with enough catchy hooks to keep my itchy trigger finger from flippin’ a (dare I say it) radio dial except to crank it up.

You can come down either way you want: set ‘n’ catch your breath or keep you feet fleet (and enlist yer hips) through “Call Your Bluff (Swamp Version)”. This bonus-track’s shuffle groove keeps it from sounding like a redundant ‘remix’. Maybe they couldn’t decide on a favorite version; I can’t either - glad to have them both.
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“Where I see myself is a guy who’s doing a modernized version of that traditional California country,” Langston said. “I don’t want to just do tribute stuff, I don’t want to just revive an old style of music. I want to put a spin on it for today.”

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/weekend/ci_12904581

Some very good news about Stand Up Man. It’s moved into the Euro Americana Charts and is inching up the ladder. #25 and counting.

http://home.hetnet.nl/~noci48/

Hi all…we’ve got a couple of new reviews!

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Twangville - “I regularly listen to acts that really want to be Dale Watson, or really wish that they were as rebelliously reckless as they try to be. I also get plenty of albums that showcase lyrics that are supposed to be funny as the winking lead singer plants his tongue ever so firmly into his decidedly unfunny cheek. I say all of that to now say that when I come across a record that displays the rowdy qualities of a roadhouse combined with a cutting sense of humor, I am genuinely impressed…”

http://twangville.com/1363/grant-langston-stand-up-man/

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There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You - “Langston is never a pest humor, honoring the fights in the movies Burt Reynolds (Burt Reynolds Movie Brawl) or commenting on the non-desired effects of beer cocktails / analgesic (Shiner Bock and Vicodin).Fortunately, the guy is just as credible when it is the costume of crooner (Just Pretend You Love Me Tonight).

Les fans des Derailers, de Robbie Fulks ou des Old 97’s première période devraient tous se lever pour ce Stand-Up Man . Derailers fans, Robbie Fulks and Old 97’s first period should all stand up for Stand-Up Man.

Original French Site Here

Translated Site Here

Pleased to announce that the band and I have been added to the musical encyclopedia that is Pandora.

Click here to launch the Grant Langston Channel.

If you haven’t heard of Pandora, it is an online resource available both through their website and an iPhone app. You type in an artist that you like and their system analyzes the facets of that artist and serves up other songs by other artits that are similar - in a radio station format. It’s like having your own radio station that’s playing music to suit your particular tastes. It’s an ingenius idea that has turned me on to loads of interesting new artists and songs.

And the free iPhone app is consistently one of the most popular in the iTunes store.

I’ve written up a little piece about the show. You’ll find it in Blogs, here.