Greetings Friends.
Been awhile since I posted. I’ve been holing up in my house a bit, writing rock & roll songs. Exciting. One of my friends lent me their father’s 1973 Fender Telecaster, and a whole new world of sounds and vibrations has opened up for me to explore. My ears are just eating up as much good music as they can. Been listening to alot of Kings of Leon, The Black Keys, The Morning Benders, Dead Horse, Filewile, Binary Star, Blackalicious and Mos Def. Kinda OD-ing on it.

There’s a bit of news…

My sister’s album. My younger sister, Sarah, is one of the most creative people I know. Among her limitless artistic talents, she plays guitar and sings her beautiful songs. She recorded 6 of her songs in 2005. I have been listening to these for the past 5 years, passing them to friends, who pass them to their friends and put them into their favorite playlists. She doesn’t like to be praised, but I will always sing her praise the loudest (good thing I have a big mouth). Available on iTunes in mid November (they say it takes 4-6 weeks to process and get it up in the store).

I met one of my musical heros. Jojo Mayer, extraordinary beats creator, he drums dnb and writes amazing compositions with his trio, Nerve (starring electronic wizard Takuya, and Bassist John Davis, as well as a kick ass sound engineer). Mico Liu, the drummer that formed Junglecat with me is now one of China’s premiere drummers. He and I wrote many songs for our live dnb project after listening to Jojo & Takuya’s stuff. So while Jojo was here on a drum clinic tour, Mico was his translator. We took Jojo & his manager Marco up to the great wall, went out to a few interesting late night underground clubs and had some good meals together. Very fun. Got me listening to alot of Junglecat rehearsals I’d recorded, and made me realize how much more capable I am musically…so somehow, those songs are going to come alive again in my near future from all of this inspiration.

Wow. Jojo Mayer is a genius. What a special treat to watch him from backstage performing some of his amazing tunes. From an energetic perspective, as I watched his back, I could see that all 4 of his limbs were undulating from his core. His control and speed, his space and creative thoughts are surreal and divine. Among the 500 Chinese spectators in Star Live, I was the only person dancing. I noticed that Mico was trying to contain his movement while he stood humbly by Jojo on stage. Pity. This kind of rhythmic creativity deserves some dancing…Jojo works the technically difficult rhythms into an enjoyable and dance-able ride…many drummers are too ego-conscious to allow the “show off” to subtly weave through good grooves that a non-musician can also get off on. Simply put, Jojo makes it all feel great. I admire skills like these alot. Look at the Photos HERE

Of course I was daydreaming of jamming with Jojo, but schedules didn’t allow for too much rest or play. I will catch up with him the next time I’m in NYC. I love improv over DnB…and it means I get to use my harmonizer and delay effects pedals for my voice. It’s badass. Listen to Junglecat live at the Midi Festival 2007 “Fall”

Oh yah, this holing up in my house has yielded 12 new songs, all in my latest genre; rock and roll. The way that I am writing now is so different from before. The songs are more crafted, the lyrics are refined and refined again. Melody is even stronger. Guitar riffs … oh my, I am excited. Rilke is an amazing source of inspiration. My friend MeiLan and I have collaborated on 2 tunes. She’s a stunning poet, and it is reflected in the lyrics.

So for now I am practicing my guitar skills combined with more complicated rhythms coming out of my mouth. It is just a matter of playing them more like I can hear them, and then I will start recording the demo. Can’t wait to share more with you. I am seriously in love with all these new songs. You will understand when you hear them.

Will try to be more regular about my blog, following the more bloggy fashion of posting a paragraph rather than an epic short story. I’ve also started uploading photos to my google account so you can see what’s been flying thru my perspectives. You can go here to have a look at what I’m building upon:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jessmeider

Enjoy your day or night where ever and who ever you are. If you like what I am writing, please tell me about it! I love FEEDBACK! JESSMEIDER at GMAIL.COM

Hi. I realize the template that I am using for this site has a really crappy photo-upload interface. Nothing as simple as facebook. So, until I can fix this temporary annoyance, I’d like to guide you to my photos, which are mostly all posted up on facebook. If you don’t use facebook, you can still look.

To my music page – click here:  The Talented Jess Meider on Facebook

For those of you with FB accounts, you can add me as a friend – Jess Meider

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wow. you guys! this was such a fun night. i’m sorry it was on a wednesday (for those of you who find it difficult to motivate yourself out for a pretty girl’s birthday), and that it was in beijing (if you didn’t live there). had such a wonderful time. the outfits on stage were very representative of our inner rockstar (because we wear it on the outside), and a beautiful array of hotties out there in the audience dressed fantazstically…thank you all for your support and love and light. here are a few shots, some by the bling blingy sof courtney, the hottie courtney brother’s wife/sisternlaw, and some by the hands of miss vossler. there is a great video clip on facebook when zac and sarah were teaching the audience to muppet dance while tristan and i did a little jazz numba for their dancing ecstacy.

i am grateful to everyone – it was an amazing birthday this year…i felt all of you, present, near and far, sending your energy and birthday love my way. good thoughts and astral hugs to you all from the white divine light of jess*** (the photos prove it!)

i am super grateful to the band – zac and tristan are such a great drum and bass brotherhood (and did i mention how good they look!?), and the beautiful sarah vossler on backgrounds – i did a gig recently without her and zac’s replacement backup vocals were just not the same (sorry zac), and to have marie-claude on accordion is just perfect…i feel grateful to the energy and creation we got going on that stage! next month’s cd release party will also include the famous fede, who juggles for our delight while we play.

so, the big news then is for october 22nd…cd release party in beijing and yugong yishan, and another big one i’ll have in nyc and pittsburgh in december. woohoo, yeehaw, goodnight!

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ah yes, the recording is going well. so far we’ve got scratch tracks down, and zac has begun to lay down the drum tracks. we’re using a condesnser mic for the snare, and my vocal performance audix mic for the kick drum. it sounds good. the room looks fantastic. got the blankets and sheets hanging to soak in the sound.

zac should get his tracks all nailed in by this afternoon, and tristan will begin his work as soon as zac is done. then my guitars, then my voice. getting excited by the idea of having this new album done. it’s interesting for me to have so many new songs (all new songs have been written in “open D” tuning by the way), and to be recording them right away. the songwriter album i did last year was a decade full of songs that i’d been feeling quite remiss about not recording for so long. to record this new album, it’s a new feeling to have such fresh material.

so far the list includes:
Over
Just Say It
It’s Happenin (an old tune)
Different is Beautiful (old Junglecat)
The Fire (Junglecat)
Burnin Burnin
I Get A Feeling
Hundreds of Years Ago
Ready for Something Good
then the rest of the tracks are questionable. I may include “Become my Future,” a tune I’ve performed with Junglecat (my electronica DnB band that is currently on haitus), a new accapella tune called “I’d Shed a Tear” and possibly another Junglecat tune called “The Rhythm of my Own 2 Feet.”
It’s interesting alot of my new tunes have a sense of blues written in (not the emotion, but the scale and chord structure).  We’ll see how it flies…to be continued.