{"id":20382,"date":"2021-01-22T05:30:24","date_gmt":"2021-01-22T10:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20382"},"modified":"2021-01-22T09:05:25","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T14:05:25","slug":"dave-desmelik-music-as-time-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/22\/dave-desmelik-music-as-time-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Desmelik: Music as Time Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Dave Desmelik ruminates upon the months on The Calendar Album<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Western North Carolina singer-songwriter Dave Desmelik has released more than a dozen albums, beginning in the late \u201890s and continuing to present day. But his latest project \u2013 a long-gestating one \u2013 is especially noteworthy. As its title suggests, The Calendar Album<\/i> is a collection of 12 songs, one representing each month of the year. But not necessarily this<\/i> year.<\/p>\n

Desmelik explains that the songs were written as a project seven years ago. He discovered early on that giving himself a prompt was a useful strategy for songwriting. \u201cWhen I tell myself, \u2018I\u2019m gonna do this, and I\u2019m gonna commit to it,\u2019 that definitely motivates me to do it,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m one of those people: If I start something, I want to finish it. Even if it\u2019s vacuuming the house.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the case of the songs that would eventually end up on The Calendar Album<\/i>, his goal was a bit more ambitious than keeping his home tidy. The songs capture the zeitgeist of each given month in a way that resonates with the songwriter. And while there are hints of melancholy, the record explores a wider range of human emotions and experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would get to the end of each month and then reflect on it,\u201d Desmelik recalls. By design, his writing style is open-ended, allowing the listener to personalize the songs. But even if it\u2019s not overt, each of the tunes has a specific meaning to its composer. \u201c\u2019June\u2019 is about the month when we lost our Golden Retriever,\u201d he says. \u201cBut to someone else, that song might be a completely different story. And that\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n

A songwriter\u2019s perspective can change with the passing of time, so it\u2019s fair to wonder if the lyrics of songs written in 2013 still resonated with Desmelik as he began the process of recording them in 2020. \u201cYou hear the old saying, \u2018There\u2019s no such thing as a time machine,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cBut really, if there is<\/i> such a thing, it would be music.\u201d He says that as he revisited the songs, each one \u201ctook me right back into the moments when I was writing it.\u201d And that experience reinforced his desire to complete the project.<\/p>\n

Of course, 2020 being what it was, Desmelik had time on his hands. \u201cWhen the pandemic started, I realized, \u2018This is going to be more than a short period when I\u2019m not doing my normal gigging,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cSo I thought, \u2018I\u2019ve had this written. I\u2019ve been meaning to get this recorded, and now is my time to do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

With that decided, Desmelik says that he holed himself up in his home studio \u201cand didn\u2019t come out for a little while.\u201d But The Calendar Album<\/i> isn\u2019t a one-man-band effort. Blues guitarist David Phillips\u2019 leadsarekey components of four songs.<\/p>\n

\u2018David is originallyfrom England, and he lives in Barcelona, Spain,\u201d Desmelik says. The two first connected even before the songs for the new album were written. \u201cDavid had heard my music, and somehow we made a connection via Facebook,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve never met face-to-face, but I consider him a good friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Desmelik began his solo recording sessions, he sent Phillips an offhand message: \u201cIt would be great if I could get your guitar playing on a few songs.\u201d But it was nothing more than idle musing, because Desmelik\u2019s preferred way of working puts all the musicians in a room together. Yet Phillips encouraged him to try something new.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had never done file-sharing before,\u201d Desmelik admits. \u201cI\u2019m very primitive in my home studio. I don\u2019t consider myself a fancy engineer who knows a lot of technology; I just want to be able to capture a song.\u201d But with Phillips\u2019 help, he integrated the guitar overdubs seamlessly into the musical fabric of The Calendar Album<\/i>.<\/p>\n

A limited number of CDs have been pressed; those will be available directly from Desmelik (\u201cwhen we get back to gigging,\u201d he hastens to add). \u201cBut in light of current times, I’ve been making a digital push.\u201d But part of The Calendar Album<\/em> is available now, and in physical form. Desmelik found that making a vinyl LP would be cost-prohibitive, so instead he released \u201cDecember\u201d as a limited-run 45 r.p.m. single. \u201cI got 30 done at American Vinyl Company here in Asheville,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019ve been getting snatched up. I literally have less than five left now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dave Desmelik ruminates upon the months on The Calendar Album Western North Carolina singer-songwriter Dave Desmelik has released more than a dozen albums, beginning in the late \u201890s and continuing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20384,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49],"tags":[237,3171],"class_list":["post-20382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","tag-asheville","tag-dave-desmelik","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20382"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20403,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20382\/revisions\/20403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}