Jody Whitesides

Category: News

From X-Files to Real Life: The Tech, Tone, and Truth Behind “Spiral Event”

Once upon a time there was a fantastic country that seemed to have everything going for it. Lots of people running around doing whatever they pleased and were generally happy. Underneath it all there were some people who wanted to impose their perceived way of life on others and things began to dwindle into a Spiral Event.

Add to that, a recent phone call informing me I was named in a rather serious situation. Something I had no part in, is out of character and all because of what? I have fuckin name recognition and a memorable look due to my height and hair cut. I pity the current culture of people throwing others under the bus because they can’t face the consequences of their actions.

The outlook is foggy now that our data wranglers have been fired and a giant mess is brewing because a narcissist wants everything for himself. Well, maybe he wants some for his other hoarder style friends. Which trods down upon others.

Hearing about others wanting to flee, or actually fleeing, before the whole system collapses on itself is a duality of what seems like a cop-out and also something to be desired.

Watching in real time as our rights are stripped away is utterly disgusting. Which is part of what I had in mind when I originally wrote Spiral Event. The kick off for the whole idea was sparked by something out of The X-Files. There’s an episode about history. That it can only live as long as we remember it. After that, we’re doomed to repeat it.

Sadly, now we have started to repeat history – despite having historical record to learn from. Compound that with skewed realities being spewed forth steroided (yeah, I know I made that word up) by a constant stream of made up facts.

We’re headed into a real life Spiral Event. One that was once a figment of my imagination. I hold out hope we’ll pull the nose of the plane back up before we smash it completely to bits.

Otherwise, I might pull the very same continent hopping trick that others have either already done, or in the process of doing, or contemplating doing.

Stay tuned for more next week.

2025-10-28
From Vaporware to Victory: A Story Behind “Coming Home”

It’s one of those moments when I need to remember that I should go back to my old way of announcing things, when they are already done. There’s an extremely prevalent issue in the music industry where things get announced and then they don’t happen. I’m sure it’s the same in the tech world too. They call it Vaporware. In music it’s just par for the course. In a way, it’s like Coming Home or full circle.

For the longest time I had lots of things going on around me early on in my career. Where lots of opportunities were getting promised, along with tours, merch, signings, etc… I immediately learned not to open my mouth about them because so many of them turned out to be hot air that went nowhere. By my 2nd album, I had learned that it’s better to have it all in the pipeline and on it’s way before ever uttering a word. Today’s artist that does this best? Taylor Swift. Say nothing until it drops.

Which is why, I’m bummed at myself for my last week’s update. I was so sure that I’d get a certain aspect of my email setup working that it was gonna fly on Thursday and be ready for Friday. Then plans changed. I didn’t get a chance to work on it, and even now a week later – it’s still not fully functional. ARGH!!! Thus, know that if you sign up on the email list right now, you can. That is working. Even the intro emails to welcome you in are working. That’s a plus. But it’s the true functionality that I was hoping to be ready, that is still not ready.

Which leads me into this week’s release: Coming Home. When this first came out, several decades ago, I had members around me that were gung-ho and labels that were on the prowl. While I like to express happy news and I don’t tend to harbor bad news (meaning I’ll straight shoot it at you), I had band members that were more willing to shoot off about all the good things as if they were already a done deal. Then the original release date got postponed – the manufacturer fucked up the initial run. Therein is the lesson – until shit is in your hands: “Shut the fuck up.”

Coming Home was an homage from that first album. An homage that wasn’t a secret, and yet somehow it still flew over a lot of heads. Very few people got it. Which is fine, but I couldn’t make it any more obvious from a writing and playing standpoint. Like the torch got passed along, I picked it up and passed it on again.

The remix of this particular song is something. The re-release of it is even more. A spark that sent me down a road I didn’t expect 2 years ago when I started futzing around with my back catalogue. To that end, it really was a matter of Coming Home. Figuratively and literally.

Coming Home has been one of my favorites for a variety of reasons and an upcoming version of it is the pinnacle of that, more on that soon. Though as the world learned yesterday, you also can’t always count on AWS (Amazon Web Services).

2025-10-21
The Dark Harmony That Gave Egoman Its Edge

Feverishly working on a backend system that will not only simplify my life, but will also improve your experience as a part of my Jody Army. There’s a good chance I can still get it fully working before Friday when Egoman releases. The first song I ever used a vocal tritone harmony on.

For the system, I put the pieces together correctly, but for some reason it isn’t sending the email. Somewhere in the system I mussed up a setting or the information in a variable. Once I find it, it should work flawlessly. Which will allow me to get out weekly emails with much less effort. Or to send them bi-weekly or monthly based on your choice. The page/part where you can choose how often, that works.

Power to the listener!

With this week’s release it was power to me when I took a concept from my then roommate, Jeff Scott Soto. He had recently recorded a track for a situation where he’d asked me to do some gang vocals on. Then he did a bit of a volume ride to bring in a vocal harmony. I’m pretty sure he lifted it from Prince, and I lifted the idea from Jeff.

The impetus of the song itself came from a mutual friend of Jeff and I. We were all given a shot at writing some songs for an actor who had joined a hit TV show (Melrose Place) and somehow also got a record deal. A small group of us wrote songs for him and I was asked if I’d be his touring guitar player if things took off.

Egoman was my contribution. It was heavier than the selections the rest of us had submitted, but he was looking for something heavy with a grunge vibe. Yeah – it was during the grunge era. In the end, the situation fizzled despite some cool songs and all the demos.

I took the song as my own and de-grunged it as I didn’t see myself as a grunge artist. Though I did keep it more simplistic by not going with a flat out guitar solo.

The part in question in terms of the vocal harmony and a volume right happens in the chorus. There’s a dark harmony that rides in every other time the title is sung. It coincides with the dark nature of narcissism and the dark corners of fame that come from it.

To say that I enjoy singing and playing this song live is an understatement. Mainly because it reminds me of a time when a fair amount of action was happening around me and it seemed like the world was going to be my oyster.

Stay tuned for more coming next week.

2025-10-14

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