Oh yeah – just in case you’re looking for the free MP3 album “Orchids for Betty”, you can get it here.

I’ve been working with the somewhat limited resources I’ve got and have arrived at the following conclusions:

I’ve been exhausted, mentally. Hence the delay in getting the new record out.
I may have outgrown my previous recording setup – the PowerMac G4 I used to make “Orchids for Betty” just isn’t cutting it anymore.
I worry about soundproofing, particularly since we have new neighbors and I like to record at night.
Perhaps the basement isn’t the most inspiring location in which to assemble new tracks and harmonies and what-have-you.

That being said, I haven’t given up hope. I’ve just been busy with all sorts of other distractions in life and haven’t fed my musical muse the way I’d like.

In any case, I’d like to give a shout out to my friends who are still patiently awaiting the arrival of a new Jack album. Especially Gumbo.

Gumbo, if you’re reading this, sorry I’ve been a stranger. Haven’t forgotten about you – I’m glad you’re still hanging around, I think about you sometimes and wonder what you’re up to. Hopefully we can reconnect on the RPM Challenge site for 2011.

Cheers!

- Jack Merlot

I apologize for the last-minute notice here, but I wanted to give ya’ll an update.

As some of you may already know, the RPM Challenge is having nationwide listening parties/CD swapping parties tonight at all the regional hubs.

Not wanting to be left out, I went ahead and found a spot for a (small) gathering of folks.

So, it looks like we’re not having an official regional listening party after all, due to lack of interest and also me being a procrastinating sumbitch.

HOWEVER:

I still really want to meet other RPM Challengers from the Twin Cities and swap copies of our CDs – we just finished a limited edition of 100 discs, all signed and numbered, and the artwork was letterpress-printed, suitable for framing, even. ;-)

And, the letterpress printing company, Lunalux , has graciously offered their space tonight so we can meet up if you want a copy of ‘Orchids for Betty’. The space is right off of Loring Park, right by the Walker modern art museum and the Sculpture Gardens, so it’s pretty easy to find.

Here’s a Google map to the shop – it’s right in between Cafe Lurcat and Nick & Eddie’s.

I’m probably going to play a short set on my acoustic guitar at around 8:00PM.

We have permission to use the store until 10:00, and the sound system at Lunalux is not that great, but it’ll still be a good time (and it’s sandwiched in between a bunch of bars, if we want to have an ‘afterparty’.)

Tell all your friends! The more the merrier. If nobody shows up, I won’t be disappointed – we’ll probably be logged into Second Life or the RPM Challenge website or whatnot, so it’s going to be fun no matter what.

Thanks,

– Jack & Friends

the original (unreleased) artwork for the Dragon Child single

Download Dragon Child over heah.

As in:

Ya’ll come back now, ya heah?

- Jack Merlot

Dragon Child

copyright 2004 Jack Merlot – some rights reserved

— — —

Written & performed by Jack Merlot

Producer/recording engineer: Toby Lucien

Mastered by Diamond Fiction

— — —

it’s been years since I felt like this
with a sweet little honey on my wrist
won’t you come stand with me in the night
before the clutch of our death-grip comes tight

Oh my dragon
oh my dragon you can come with me
I don’t know where I’m standing, on a cliff

with your heart in my hands,
I will decide
we are vultures in a state of denial
when you talked with everybody at the bar
the other night I laughed
cuz I know you’re coming home
and that’s what I planned

oh baby this time it’s gonna be rough
I don’t think I can fly any further, myself, oh no
it’s been years since I felt you in my heart
and this ocean’s only tearin’ me apart

it’s been years since I felt like this
with the sweetest little honey and she’s
pulling on my wrist
oh sweet dragon child dragon child my friend
I wanna be with you until the bitter end

I won’t die, I won’t die
but you gotta stay with me now now
I know I’ve been f*cking up a lot but
it’s the way I am

Driver Down (trip-hop) cover art - this track was never released, but we figured it was time.

So, go ahead and get yer Driver Down (trip-hop remix) right HEAH.

We didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into on this one, and it shows, for certain, but on the other hand, WHAT A KILLER SONG. (I say that knowing full well how biased I am towards this sort of thing.)

Who cares if the mix is shot, the vocals are a mess, and the studio masters were lost in the Great Hard Drive Massacre of 2004? We sure as hell don’t!

Anyway, give it a try. If trip-hop’s your thing and you just couldn’t get enough of Portishead’s Dummy when it came out, you might just like it.

If not, well, it’s free, so maybe just delete it or something. That’s what we do with stuff we don’t like around here.

- Jack Merlot & Johnny Osmosis

As Manny sits by the side of the road and waits
Sits by the side of the road, tempting fate
She slows down and looks through her rearview mirror
says, “he don’t look so bad” and he has no reason to fear her

he said, driver, take me back down, down
back to the city of lovers
I’ll be acquainted with angels
you’ll share me with no other

I had just gone down to listen to traffic and play
My mind wasn’t entirely gone, despite what they say
Glass in the bushes, streaks on the pavement etched
forever in my mind, I wonder what kept them together

driver, take me back down, down
back to the city of lovers
I’ll be acquainted with angels
you’ll share me with no other

driver, take me back down, down
back to the city of lovers
I’ll be acquainted with strangers
you’ll share me with no other

This take is pretty rough, as it’s all first takes and done on my laptop, instead of on my Mac desktop, but it’s pretty cool to hear an acoustic version compared to the album version, which has bass, drums, and production values.

Download Iris Florentine. It’s free!

Single Cover Artwork by Estelle Johnson

- Jack Merlot

If you want, you can make up your own lyrics to go along with the song. Then you can pretend you’re in a rock ‘n roll band, just like Ping. Except the difference between you and Ping, is that he’s actually in a rock ‘n roll band, and you’re not.

But don’t feel bad. Life on the road isn’t always easy.

Taking a break from the harsh reality that is being in a band.

Ping and Mr. Pibb have an on-again, off-again relationship that typically ends with me having to separate the two of them for a while.

Here, Ping strikes a relaxed pose, having just finished a brutally challenging marathon recording session revolving around too much caffeine.

However, when the title of “World’s Most Famous Finger Cymbal Soloist” is up for grabs, who can say that his attentions are being inappropriately focused on the most trivial of pursuits?

Not I, that much is certain.

- Jack Merlot

We’ve been trying to figure out this whole Facebook thing lately. So, you should either

A. Search for Jack Merlot on Facebook and Be My Friend.

or,

B.

Go to my Page and become a fan.

Or, both!

Also, you really ought to be following me on Twitter.

We’ve got a lot to say about nanotechnology, “Jolene” by Dolly Parton, and what it feels like to sound like (as one recent music critic put it)

kind of like a Jonathan Richman with a mild nerve disorder. like it.

- Jack Merlot

This track, entitled Ghost Dobro is one of my favorites from the new album. It’s got a rich, chocolatey texture and plenty of leather-bones stretching to the stars, which is spooky enough that sometimes when I listen to it I get goosebumps.

Go ahead and download the single, “Ghost Dobro”, right heah.

And if you like it well enough, and can spare five bucks, head on over to the online music store and get the full album. It’s pretty great – five bucks for ten songs, cheaper than iTunes (and we think the music we make is more, uh, *charming* than most of what you see on iTunes these days… but, that’s just like, our opinion, man.)

Thanks for stopping by!

- Jack Merlot

This version was recorded in 2008 for the first Jack Merlot release.

Download Bohemian Bus right heah.

(greetings and salutations, fellow RPM Challengers/Redditors/Facebook frenemies)

I’ve got a special treat for you today – a free single from Orchids for Betty, our new album that we just completed for the RPM Challenge 2009.

Download Witness Protection right here. It’s a rollicking good tune, in my opinion. ;-)

- Jack
a.k.a. dragonfly_blue

Great news – the new album, Orchids for Betty is out! The store is online now, as well, so you can go check it out. Thanks in advance for supporting local & independent music – we really appreciate every single one of our fans.

Included in the album are ten brand-spanking new songs for your enjoyment, a complete set of lyrics & liner notes, some extra artwork, and more. Dare I say that it’s our best work yet?

Available now from the Jack Merlot Music Emporium & Curiosity Shoppe. And, for just five bucks, you really can’t get a better deal on some fresh new tunes.

(Unless you’re a pirate. Yaaaar!)

— — —

Special thanks to Jenni Undis, Nick Christensen, Estelle Johnson, Peter Mack, Colin Mullen, and the rest of ya’ll for your support. I’m sure there are other people I’m forgetting, but I’ll get to them later, I suppose.

- Jack Merlot

What does this mean?

Well, it means that we should have a fully mastered copy available by March 1st. (Diamond Fiction has notoriously short turnaround times. We don’t know how they do it. We’re just glad they do it.)

The first copy will of course be shipped to RPM Challenge headquarters for their review and archive. It’s been quite an exciting month, and it’s all thanks to their fine work (and motivational posters.)

As for availability to the general public, we’re hoping that the new Jack Merlot Music Emporium and Curiosity Shoppe is online by March 1st as well. It’s currently in the private beta testing stage, and things are proceeding swimmingly.

This means that anyone with a PayPal account (and five bucks) will be able to download the MP3 version of the album as early as next week! How exciting.

Why five dollars, you ask? Well, we’re just trying to cover the costs of bandwidth and server space and whatnot. It’s pretty cheap, for a full-length album, (cheaper than iTunes, even), and we’re proud of our work.

So, while you’ll still be able to download some music for free here at the main site, starting next week there will be certain items that will only be available through the online shoppe.

Check back next week, though – we’re probably going to release a free single (or two) off the album, so you’ll be able to check it out before you buy. Downloads will be available here, as usual.

Sayonara, Willow Trees!

- Jack Merlot

The challenge:

Record an album in 28 days, just because you can.

That’s 10 songs or 35 minutes of original material recorded during the month of February.

You can read the Jack Merlot blog over at the RPM Challenge site, but I’m reprinting it here since this is the “official” Jack Merlot website.

From the blog:

— — —

Well, I’ve gotten off to a good start on the Challenge, but as I’m listening to the CD-R’s I’ve burnt of the tracks I have so far, I’m picking out little bits and pieces that aren’t quite as perfect as I’d like. Which is ok, since I still have plenty of time, but still, I wish I’d either learn to let go of the little things or discipline myself during tracking so the tracks would turn out “better”.

I’ve got 8 songs finished, which means that I’ll probably end up re-recording four of them for the final album. It’s little details like polishing up the codas on a couple tracks or wanting to capture solos with better phrasing that I’m getting caught up in, but at least I feel that the songs are solid enough to be listenable even without virtuoso performances on each and every part.

I’ve been getting a lot of bang for my buck out of my Yamaha DD-55 Drum Druid on this project, which makes me happy. I’ve had it for years, but it’s only recently that I’ve sat down and read the manual and explored all the cool functionality it has to offer. It’s fully MIDI-capable and programmable, so you can create custom kits on it to match the feeling of the song, and it has around 200 individual drum samples on it, so it’s pretty easy to create kits that are tuned to the song.

I’m running the Drum Druid through my Digitech rackmount units; I’ve got a GFX1 Twin Tube pre-amplifier that has some pretty sweet tonalities, which I then run through a seriously old-school DSP256 multi-effects processor. 16-bit, yo.

I like being able to add a little tube crunch and saturation to the drums sometimes; it makes the kits sound more like real drums (well, real drums that aren’t being mic’ed properly, perhaps ;-) and makes them sound a little more “dangerous”, which is what I’m shooting for. I usually track snare and bass on one track, and cymbols on another, and toms on another, but it kind of varies depending on the song.

I also run my (well, it’s actually my girlfriend’s, and it’s a long story) electric bass (it’s a “Matao” bass made in Japan; I’ve never heard of them, have you?) through the GFX1 because it’s got a nice compressor section in it, and sometimes put a little chorus or tremelo effect on it with the DSP256.

I’ve got a Washburn 12-string guitar that I’m using for most of the guitar parts; sometimes I use an Epiphone acoustic my cousin’s ex-girlfriend left over here, but it’s pretty rare. The 12-string is strung up with only six strings, and it sounds pretty decent to me when I spend the time to mic it properly (and running it through the GFX1 pre-amp doesn’t hurt, either.)

I’ve got three microphones involved in the project, too, which I use for guitar (I only have acoustic guitars right now, dammit, but I mic them and run them through the Twin Tube for a little distortion now and again), and for vocals, which is working out pretty well. I’m using an Audio Technica ATM61HE for most of the vocals because it has a pretty wide dynamic range for a dynamic mic, and also because I can’t afford a condenser mic right now. I’ve got a Shure SM58 on loan from my cousin, Nick Christensen, which works pretty well for acoustic guitars, and another Shure mic that I think is super low-end, but hey, it works.

All my tracking is being done on another seriously old-school machine, a Mac G4 tower. I’ve upgraded the RAM and hard drive on it as far as it can go, and I’m able to get about 8-12 tracks recorded in Audacity with it before the software starts crashing on me. (I try to limit all my songs to 10 tracks for this reason; crazy, isn’t it?)

The Mac actually works pretty well, though, overall, and I’m able to record 4 tracks at once at 24-bit, 48Khz, which is impressive (well, impressive to me, at least) considering the age of the host machine. I attribute this success to the Tascam US-428 unit I’ve been using as my interface. It’s only USB 1.0, sure, and it’s only got 4 ins and 2 outs, but it works.

For monitors, well, I couldn’t afford monitors (or a proper reference amplifier, for that matter) so I’m using a very old Marantz “Stereophonic Receiver” (seriously, that’s what it says on the front!) model SR3100 (it’s not even a tube amp, dangit, but it sounds ok to me from here) to power a couple massive Fisher speakers (I’m too lazy to turn one around to find a model number right now.)

So. To summarize, I am extremely proud of the results I am getting from my extremely low-budget setup. It’s really gratifying to be able to burn CD-R’s of my works-in-progress and listen to them on other systems, where I can really take some time to analyze the tracks and learn what is working, and what is not. When all is said and done, I’ve found that my favorite recordings aren’t necessarily my favorites because I tracked them particularly well, but mostly are my favorites simply because I spent a long time crafting the song.

It takes me a while to write songs, because I spend a long time on the lyrics, the melodies, the harmony parts, the bass line, tuning the drums, making multiple takes of each song to find the tempo that works best, and really, trying to capture the feel of a live band with the limited resources I have. It’s definitely a challenge, in every sense of the word.

Thanks for the kick in the butt, RPM Challenge! I needed that.

I should have some tracks available for download sometime soon; in the meantime, if you go to http://www.jackmerlot.com you can find some seriously unpolished “early work” to download. ;-)

Happy tracking!

- Jack Merlot

The new CD inserts are letterpress-printed.

Here’s the track listing, for your enjoyment.

01 Sayonara Willow Tree
02 Higher River
03 Double Dragon Sands
04 Sanctuary
05 Ruby’s Atelier
06 Dragonfly in the Heather
07 Aviation’s Over
08 Seeds
09 Bohemian Bus
10 Driver Down.
11 Fireflies

by Jack Merlot

copyright 2008

Download Sayonara Willow Tree

—– —– —–

I saw you at the Hippodrome
again at Camden Town alone
I know you been across the ocean
cuz you wear that crooked smile

Missionaries, Minnesota
Salamanders, South Dakota
Don’t you wanna stay in a Midwest way?
they’ll make it worth your while

you rode back to town on silver threads
with a pocketful of flattened bread
expectin’ everyone to hold the door
cuz you’re just all that and more

(and maybe you aaaaaarrrrreeee…..)

I think of the Chinese blessing
and of Mother’s mighty lessons
Asking Gypsies for directions
Isn’t that a howl

As you lay glistening in all your splendor
Painted rattlers, turtle shakers
Medicated Buddha-nature
Never show a pulse (to anyone)
Never show a pulse (to anyone)

you rode back to town on silver threads
with a pocketful of flattened bread
expectin’ everyone to hold the door
cuz you’re just all that and more

(and maybe you aaaaaarrrrreeee…..)

by Jack Merlot

copyright 2008

Download Higher River

Let the River Take Us Higher

—– —– —–

GM

Let the river take us higher

CM

floating potions

GM

bottled fire

CM

river branches

GM

spelling patterns

DM

spilling fortunes

CM

forgotten language

GM

then the water
writing freezes

CM

written tongue

GM

crystallizes

CM

and the message
when we’re

GM

floating over

DM

pages

CM

of land

GM

all the signs are
forming patterns

DM

as we flow up toward

CM

the high water mark

GM

copyright 2008

Download Ruby’s Atelier

Ruby

She’s been about three hours now
and he can’t afford to let
the time slip by so fast

And patience is a virtue, maybe
but a prince is a pauper
with a psalm and a heart of glass

All along the watchtower
is the tune that he whistles
as the moon transcends the hour

watching cartoons on the telly
melts the faces of the children
as he croons at the sky…

I’m really sick of chump change
center my political attire
help me with your steady hands
and I’ll release your wires

Welcome to my room where the
blues and the rubies atelier
where everything is holly and clover
when the snow melts away

she’s keeping track of time now
I wonder how she’ll be when she’s
pressed up against that cool alchemical stone

They seemed like such a match made in heaven
and it looked like lady luck
was beckoning them to build a home

Well, I could go all night with you
she whispered and her breath was honeysuckle
in the moonlight

if I could go home again maybe
I’d go as Jack Merlot and
be the bone of contention

I’m really sick of chump change
center my political attire
help me with your steady hands
and I’ll release your wires

Welcome to my room where the
blues and the rubies atelier
where everything is holly and clover
when the snow melts away

Recorded a long time ago.

Driver Down

by Jack Merlot

copyright 2008 – all rights reserved

—– —– —–

–
As Manny sits by the side of the road and waits
Sits by the side of the road, tempting fate
She slows down and looks through her rearview mirror
says, “he don’t look so bad” and he has no reason to fear her

he said, driver, take me back down, down
back to the city of lovers
I’ll be acquainted with angels
you’ll share me with no other

I had just gone down to listen to traffic and play
My mind ain’t entirely gone, despite what they say
Glass in the bushes, streaks on the pavement remain

I guess I’ll never know just what it was they were thinking

when she said, driver, take me back down, down
back to the city of lovers
I’ll be acquainted with angels
you’ll share me with no other

driver, take me back down, down
back to the city of lovers
I’ll be acquainted with strangers
you’ll share me with no other