Hello all… hope everyone had a good and safe 4th of July holiday wherever you are.
Here in Golden, the 4th came and went uneventfully and forgetfully, probably because it happened to fall on a Wednesday this year (prompting the feeling of three “Mondays” in the space of a week) but mostly because there was a county-wide fire ban in place which included, of course, fireworks. And rightfully so. The fire danger has been too high this summer so most cities along the Front Range cancelled their usual 4th of July fireworks shows. The only fireworks that were heard – not seen – were from across the street when one of the neighbors set off 2 or 3 of them in his backyard. The Golden police showed up within 15 minutes and, I assume, a ticket was issued.
Thankfully, Mother Nature has granted a reprieve since then in the form of significant rainfall 5 of the last 6 days. We seem to be back to the usual seasonal “monsoon” weather pattern where we have rain showers and thunderstorms almost every afternoon and cooler temperatures. It couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Rain… “Beautiful Rain” (I’m thinking here of the BoDeans’ song off their album “Home”). The wildfires are now contained in Colorado, after extensive significant damage, though they continue to burn in several other Western states. We’ve been getting so much rain the last few days that now there have been flash flood warnings in the burn areas, but we’ll take all the moisture we can get.
Back at La casa NoV, June was an unusually creative and prolific month. After the new album “In 4 the Evening” was released in May, I said I was going to take a break for a while…. yeah, that lasted about all of 5 days. Actually, that’s not surprising given the intensity of the last 3 months finishing the album – I couldn’t stop working. And that was a good thing. I’ve found that – if you haven’t thoroughly depleted the creative well – beginning new work immediately after the completion of a major project is really the best time because once the pressure of completing something is off, you’re free to just get back to playing, experimenting, and exploring new ideas. And anyway, during the dry heat wave of June, the Mancave studio was really the best place to be (always 65 degrees, 30 percent humidity – yes, climate controlled).
So, new music is coming very soon – 4 (count ’em, 4) new titles: “Genjōkōan (The Way of Everyday Life),” “Aloft,” “Subtle Disturbance [in the Atmosphere],” and “The West, 2097.” I’ll be posting at least a couple of them online on Soundcloud and Reverb and the first one probably next week.
Until then, the new album is out and available as an MP3 download at all the usual places online and on CD through Bandcamp and the NoV website. Purchase the full album through Bandcamp or www.nightsonvenus.com and you’ll get the complete 4-song EP, as yet untitled, free as a bonus when it’s released toward the end of this year.
Craig Carrington / Nights on Venus 