Blowing Up

Putting out new work —with help

I’d written a whole piece, another “what I think about as we pack up to move” story but then an important thing happened that doesn’t take place too often in my life so you know what, I want to tell you about it.

As a songwriter/artist and musician I used to work with record labels a lot —in the early days back in the eighties it really felt like there was no other way. True you’d get a lone cassette tape here and there from rogue DIY folks like Daniel Johnston, but the holy grail was finding a label who’d work with you and help release your music into the world. I was on some great labels: Rounder, Matador and Signature Sounds, and I’ll even put Koch in there not for their ethos or independent spirit but because they put out my first three solo albums thanks to a period where they had good people working there.

When Eric and I started performing together, we released our first duo album Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby on the revived Stiff Records label that was part of Trevor Horn and Jill Sinclair’s ZTT. I’d put out occasional discs myself to sell via my website and at shows, pre-streaming and digital music days, and that’s the approach Eric and I took for our second two albums, Two Way Family Favourites and A Working Museum. Things were changing so fast for musical artists, it was the dawn of Kickstarter /crowdfunding and social media and you could sell stuff directly to fans via mail order as well as get it up online yourself. I haven’t even tried to find somebody to put my music out for the last decade, partly because I’ve sold enough through playing lots of gigs and through my site and just keeping the official and unofficial releases and merch coming that I’ve made money (not tons, just a few different income streams that add up to something) and even had a good time filling orders and keeping in touch with people who’ve bought directly from me. Part of it is also lack of confidence and ability to sell myself except on a very small personal scale. Physical distribution hasn’t been huge, I don’t press a lot, runs of 300 or even 100, because records take up a lot of space and with CDs you can get another 100 in ten days if you need them. I guess I used the same approach to publishing my memoir Girl To City.

All this as a long-winded was to say —I’ve signed with record label Tapete for my next release, an LP called Hang In There With Me that’s coming out August 30. They’re based in Germany, did a great job with Eric’s last album Leisureland (he’d done his previous two albums himself through our Southern Domestic label) and are good people who have a nice thing going. They’ve given me a schedule for releasing singles and videos and it all feels exciting and also reassuring to have a partner in this crazy game. Bouncing ideas back and forth we came up with which single to release first and decided on Dylan In Dubuque. It came out Friday, along with a video for the song.

I wrote Dylan In Dubuque in 2021 when I was on an intense Bob jag, losing myself in learning and recording his songs that pandemic year of his 80th birthday: Not Dark Yet, I Believe In You, Foot Of Pride, My Back Pages, Long & Wasted Years. I remember I first played my new song live solo at Natalie’s in Columbus Ohio back in fall 2021—a rare gig in a year of stopping and starting due to Covid. Eric, Doug Wygal and I included it in a few of our live shows since then. We recorded a version back in late 2022 as I was intermittently going into Eric’s studio in our house to try to put together enough tracks for an album while dealing with my dad’s decline and his dementia and corresponding tumultuous living situation.

In other words, it was really hard to focus on creating an album during this period of my life, so things were a little piecemeal. But I don’t want to lay too much blame on my late Dad, because The Old Guys that came out in 2018 also took a couple of years of off and on recording. I did a lot of my own solo recording, having fun and blowing off steam on GarageBand alone in my room and that’s been invaluable. I rely on Eric to bring the sound for a full blown recording—he is brilliant at it—but it is a painstaking process and he is exacting and so very clear when things aren’t all the way there and so things can take a while. Not to the point of crippling perfectionism, but just able to say “no, we’ve got to try again” and I trust and respect him hugely for that. And that’s how it was with our first version of Dylan.

As for the song, here’s the little capsule description I wrote for Tapete to use: "Dylan In Dubuque" is inspired by a notorious nineties Bob Dylan concert in Iowa, where a lack of security led to chaos and a nonstop stage invasion that Bob simply took in his stride…If only we could all be so unfazed when things start to get weird!… Aren‘t things weird??

(I loved how when Tapete put the track up, someone had added the last line “Aren’t things weird??” and that just caps it off and makes it relevant - yes. )

I’d need to check some calendar notes to see when we went back in (or rather Doug came back over, because Eric and I are just y’know, in the house and that’s where the studio is). I believe it was March, 2023. We recorded pretty much live, Eric playing bass from his spot at the mixing desk, Doug in the room with him on drums and I stood on the other side of the door into the hallway playing electric rhythm guitar and singing a scratch vocal. A few months later, Eric had Leisureland finished and he and I were really pushing to stack up enough tracks so I could have a complete album finished before we dismantled our lives and the studio to make an overseas move. The pressure was on. I came up with a swampy guitar figure to approximate an early demo version I’d lost when my hard drive crashed, and Eric put in some brutal fuzz bass. I’d tried doing a low harmony all the way through the earlier version that had worked on the demo but sounded a little atonal over a more rocking track. Some vocals you have to work and some are better not labored over and this was one of those —don’t try to sell the song, let the words and music do the talking. Eric is a great vocal coach in the studio : “You need to be there, but resist the urge to join in,” is one of his koans that usually does the trick for me.

Self-portrait/collage from the studio—all packed up now

I told Tapete I could make a video for the track and knew it involved filming myself in a carwash. I just love going through the carwash, it feels like a safe space, very intimate and natural. I figured I could pop the phone in its usual dashboard stand , cue up the track on another device and lipsync along. I did the first verse easily enough but it was a little stressful when I realized the people in the next bay could actually see me doing my thing, and I got self-conscious. I decided to find another, more private car wash for verses two and three. I spotted one down in Saugerties, the next town south but as I pulled in I wondered if it was even still functioning, it was really run down and deserted looking. Which was actually perfect! It was completely unattended, took my money and had the really nice splashy red and blue brushes and some flashing lights. I cued up the second verse and put my dark glasses on.

Eric had the idea for the throwing of the Telecaster and I wanted to see how it would work, doubting whether it could!  It did work and I was amazed, so much that I grinned like a fool while we were doing it, instead of looking cool and nonchalant like I’d hoped to.

Part of the reason the song even exists is that a complete video of the Dylan show the lyrics refer to is available on YouTube - if you ever want a smile, just pick pretty much any moment from the show and you’ll be treated to random fans getting down with Bob. I’d hoped maybe I could animate a segment a la my single cover sketch, but things were getting down to the wire. I asked Emily Hubley for some tips and it sounded so fun to at least try but I froze up in my attempts to create more sketches, feeling the pressure. (Putting “learn simple animation” on my list of things to try in the future) I photographed some moments in the gig video and cut them together in CapCut, the app I’ve been using to make little clips for Instagram. In those Julia Cameron Artist Way quizes, I always put down film director in the list of things I wish I could be in another life and making clips briefly satisfies that dream. In the editing I was making things up as I went along and popped in some other images and video I had on my computer: gig photos by Scott Cornish and Don Ciccone; a live clip from City Winery NYC by Henry Laura. An abandoned video of me ironing I’d made to try and sell tea towels from my website.

So the single came out officially on Friday. As I was sharing the song and video, we were desperately trying to get our house ready for a potential buyer. I drank some THC seltzer, made a very short edited version and joined TikTok. I read Kim Gordon’s blowing up on there. I now have exactly one follower.

I’d love to sit on my laurels but I have a last window frame to paint. My daughter’s here for the weekend. And I need to come up with some visual ideas for the next single. Let’s see if we can get those numbers up —I don’t want to let the label down. It’s a pressure but also takes the pressure off a little, knowing they’re over there in Germany, six hours ahead of me.