I spent most of the day jamming on Love Don’t Ask. I tinkered with the bass line and settled on the overall song form (for now, at least). What’s kind of surprising when I heard everything together in draft state for the first time is a certain source of inspiration that was anything but conscious but not altogether bizarre. It’s B.B. King. Being a guitarist and having been drawn to blues– sometimes quite strongly– it’s not totally unusual that I’d hear King’s chops as I plugged away at my composition. Still, it’s a bit strange– or at least unexpected.

I believe I mentioned that unexpected sources of inspiration surfaced for ZLT too. Guitar-wise, I didn’t realize until I was well into the project just how I was hearing undertones of Mark Knopfler. Also, when I was laying down the drum patterns, in particular the snare, I was feeling the Clash.

I’m critical when I hear material I find derivative. I don’t think I’m in that territory. I think I’m subsuming to a respectable degree. My point here is not to match what I’m doing to what’s been done. I’m annoyed when people do that, because it’s as if they don’t know a way forward without those references. It’s intriguing to me has these past moments in the music life bubble up and seem to come out of nowhere– at a time when I’m asking for…that something.

And I played a few cycles of Fun d’ Mental (aka Song 2). That’s going to be a fun one too.