iamdavidcook.com

Roll Credits

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:06:46 -0400

It was almost six years ago that Will and I started the band that has now become My Favorite Highway. It completely blows me away that we have been a band for that long. The past six years have been an amazing journey for everyone that has been a part of the My Favorite Highway family. We have had the pleasure of meeting so many inspiring people over the years, including our incredible fans and the bands we’ve toured with, who we are proud to call our friends. There are countless memories we have shared with each and every one of you that we will never forget. I feel that when artists release a statement that they’re disbanding they tend to sound as if they’re writing an obituary, well we’re not going to do that. Pat, Will and myself have been doing a little bit of soul searching this year and we all mutually agree that the My Favorite Highway chapter of our lives is coming to a close. This band has been the most important part of who we are for over half a decade, but we all feel that the time has come for us to move on. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to everyone who has ever believed in us and supported My Favorite Highway. A band is not the members performing on the stage, it’s a story, and everyone who has ever sung a line from one of our songs is a part of this story and is a part of this band. People come and go, stories last forever. We will be playing our final farewell shows in our hometown, Vienna, Virginia, in December. These will be our last performances under the banner of My Favorite Highway. We will also be releasing a live acoustic record of some of the performances from our Storytellers Tour very shortly. As for the three of us, we will continue to make music together and we are very excited for what the future holds. Thank you all for being a part of our story.

David, Will, and Pat

Shane Botwin

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 02:52:00 -0400

looks like my little brother, Lee. I can’t watch Weeds without having to constantly remind myself that Shane is not Lee, it messes me up. They even act alike, it’s quite odd.

I have no idea why he is sitting next to a superimposed image of Jim Carey holding a dove.

Here’s a preview from our Storytellers Live record that...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:17:31 -0400

Here’s a preview from our Storytellers Live record that will be released very soon. This is one of my favorite covers we played, I Can’t Get It Out Of My Head by Electric Light Orchestra. Enjoy.

Please

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:01:08 -0400

jhnmyr:

I’m not out to please everybody - I’ve actually been out to try not to displease anybody, and that’s even harder work. It’s like Prozac for creativity - cutting off the highs and lows and the risks and the rewards so that nobody walks away from a show or listens to an album with a passionate enough take on what they didn’t like. Maybe I’ll take ten minutes each show for the rest of this tour and just play shit I love but think might turn people off. Then when the tour is done I’m going to take a good long nap and work on becoming irrelevant. I think that’s what’s bugged me so much about the last few weeks of stupid media speculation. I’ve been hard at work since spring trying to become irrelevant in all the places where being relevant gave me a headache and made me rock my right leg back and forth and made me ask my therapist if my heroes’ ghosts would hate me and basically take a match to the bottom of any moment with half a shot of being a proud one. I think I owe it to my fans to disregard them during the making of an album. Writing music while also writing a future negative review of the music is a really great way to make slop. Of course, then I’d still be aware that I was trying to be unaware, so right there I’ve got the makings of a head-shaped hole in my own ass. Do you see what I’m saying here? If I don’t risk it all on tape soon I’m going to be in trouble. I need to be loud. Slightly out of tune. Stick around in a solo a little too long. Maybe not know exactly what I’m doing and let that be the document.

See? I almost did it again. I just told myself that I shouldn’t post this because maybe people would think I didn’t enjoy the tour I was on, which I absolutely love. I just considered the consideration, which is what I said I wouldn’t do. So now I’m definitely posting this. I’m excited. I keep talking about how I’m going to disappear on a ranch somewhere when really I’m going to go straight into a studio. But when I do I’m going to waste lots of time. Which really isn’t wasting time, it’s giving myself some room to play and jam and experiment. But I have to call it wasting time because my preset is to walk out of the studio on day two and have a “big” song with only a missing line in the bridge. I should call it what it is - being a musician and experimenting and not caring about anything else but what’s hiding inside and what I need to get out, no matter how long that takes. I need to make what I think is shit, which will be nothing close to shit. It’ll just be free.

This is how I talk when I get excited for the future but still have to live through the present. Oh, well. I’m gonna go track down a sandwich.

The Reality

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:07:23 -0400

Below is a blog from The Lefsetz Letter, sad, but true. I completely agree with everything he said. Everyone should read this, especially if you’re somehow connected to the music/entertainment industry.

Once upon a time, watching the Oscars was a ritual, as they say in the “Style” section of the “New York Times”, the Women’s Super Bowl. Watching Al Pacino win an Emmy, I thought of his role in the “Godfather” trilogy, of all those years parked in front of the television watching the glitz and glamour of the Academy Awards. I thought about watching them this coming year. Then I asked myself, why? I hadn’t seen any of the movies.

I no longer go to the movies. There’s nothing there for me.

Oh, there are indie flicks. But they go straight to video almost instantly, and they barely play on the big screen anyway. And the production values are good enough on the real big screen, inside the home.

But the big Hollywood movies, which dominate mainstream media discourse, which are marketed to high heaven, they’re giant pinball games, made to play throughout the world, and, as a result, they’ve become to a great degree meaningless in the U.S. Just like the music business. Wherein major labels hype bland, manufactured product in print and on radio and TV and expect that we should care. We don’t.

Oh, some people still go to the movies. And some still buy the Top Forty wonders. But neither drive the culture. The true fans have gone elsewhere. In other words, in pursuit of all the money, the movie and music industries are left with less money.

Yes, both are struggling. Music blames file-trading. But how to explain the drop in DVD sales? I could trot out a few explanations, but moviegoing, the supposed American religion, is in decline.

If you want truth, you turn on TV. All the big stars are working on the small screen. And the small screen tackles subjects deemed too tiny for the big screen. If it involves human emotions, if it’s complicated drama, it’s on the small screen. The big screen is reserved for special effects. Oh, of course they trot out drama in the theatres, but the focus is on production values, the story is secondary to the presentation. That’s like thinking a record’s production is more important than the songs, than the playing. Just like recording stars of yore spend a fortune to buff their product to a sheen that is impenetrable, using auto-tune and effects to achieve perfection, which no one can relate to. We’re attracted to humanity. And that’s gone from the big screen and major label music. In search of all the profits, with the goal of making a ton of money, the core audience has been turned off.

I love going to the movies. But I’ve been too disappointed to go back.

I love a great record. Which is why I ignore the Top Forty. Katy Perry works with Dr. Luke and Snoop Dogg and shows her tits and I’m supposed to care? What’s that got to do with humanity? A great singer used to be able to touch your heart, Katy seems to only want to touch your wallet, she wants to rob you of your money. And when we stop paying, the business bigwigs blame us, as if it’s our fault we don’t care.

If you truly want to succeed in the entertainment industry today, if you want to have a long career, you’ve got to think small. You’ve got to do exactly what you want, appealing at first to only those inside, who get it. Ratings/sales might start slow, but you’ve got longevity. Jay Leno reaches more people, but Jon Stewart means more. You believe in Jon Stewart, you tell your friends about “The Daily Show”. “The Tonight Show” is something you watch between your toes before you fall asleep and forget about as soon as you shut off the TV. Like the radio hits. Who wants to hear them once their time in the spotlight is done?

I can’t say that I watch a lot of TV. But I find it more satisfying than going to the movies.

The small records, released independently, are the ones that touch my heart, that I testify about.

Used to be you couldn’t reach everybody easily. Now, thinking you can, big time movie producers and record labels utilize modern marketing methods to hawk product with no heart, that’s made to appeal to everybody and appeals to almost nobody. We’re at a tipping point. The old institutions cannot survive, cannot maintain their dominance, because they refuse to stop, look in the mirror, admit their own humanity and change course. They might need to be smaller at first, but in an era where, especially in music, you can no longer wield distribution to your advantage, you’ve got to face facts and focus on the product, in order to survive.

The companies, the talent, they’ve all got to go smaller. It’s not about trying to reach everybody, but creating something good enough to survive, that inspires people to support you, to see you live and buy your merch.

Ever wonder why so many of the Top Forty wonders can barely play clubs? And acts most people have never heard of can work year after year on the road in theatres and arenas?

We don’t live in the mainstream world the mainstream news outlets tell us we do. We live in an alternative universe. And we don’t feel bad about rejecting the monolith. After all, there’s barely anything there, not even any nougat on the inside. Movies and Top Forty records are just a momentary, oftentimes unsatisfying concoction that we consume and discard. Whereas we save and treasure our ticket stubs to live shows by our favorite bands, we’re addicted to TV shows on cable that few people watch, but mean everything to us.

"Someday when this is over we may still have no answer."

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:14:10 -0400

“Someday when this is over we may still have no answer.”

This video makes me wish it was last summer.

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:12:54 -0400

This video makes me wish it was last summer.

Family dinner at it’s finest.

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 22:18:00 -0400

Family dinner at it’s finest.

I highly recommend this movie. It’s definitely on my top...

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:11:15 -0400

I highly recommend this movie. It’s definitely on my top 20 list.

Good morning.

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:41:54 -0400

Good morning.

My brand new duvet so conveniently matches our nightgowns.

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 04:03:32 -0400

My brand new duvet so conveniently matches our nightgowns.

The first thing our guests see when they walk in our house is...

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 01:13:43 -0400

The first thing our guests see when they walk in our house is this terrifying picture of me as an infant.

This song might possibly have the exact same melody as...

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:43:24 -0400

This song might possibly have the exact same melody as “Tale As Old As Time”, but perhaps that’s why I love it so much.

There’s a big clearance sale going on over at my online...

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 23:13:00 -0400

There’s a big clearance sale going on over at my online store right now. Shirts for $9.99, what a bargain. http://iamdavidcook.storenvy.com

This is probably one of the best live music videos I’ve...

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:16:06 -0400

This is probably one of the best live music videos I’ve ever seen.

"I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now."

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 03:20:29 -0400

“I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now.”

This song destroys me.

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:43:52 -0400

This song destroys me.

"Learn to let it bend before it breaks."

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:14:57 -0400

“Learn to let it bend before it breaks.”

If you said goodbye to me tonightThere would still be music left to writeWhat else could I...

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:00:04 -0400

If you said goodbye to me tonight
There would still be music left to write
What else could I do?
I’m so inspired by you
That hasn’t happened for the longest time

Who knows how much further we’ll go on
Maybe I’ll be sorry when you’re gone
I’ll take my chances
I forgot how nice romance is
I haven’t been there for the longest time

I don’t care what consequence it brings
I have been a fool for lesser things
I want you so bad
I think you ought to know that
I intend to hold you for the longest time

"Who says I can’t get stoned, call up a girl that I used to know, fake love for an hour or so,..."

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:22:44 -0400

“Who says I can’t get stoned, call up a girl that I used to know, fake love for an hour or so, who says I can’t get stoned?”