I’ve been on vacation and little bit under the weather for the past several weeks, aside from my appearance at the UMAs.
Dancin To DNCE
I’ve been helping my mom and sister with the building of a cool little vacation shack in the city of Torrey. It prides itself on being “The Middle of Nowhere”. Actually its right next door to a stunning national park called Capital Reef.
I shirked my musician responsibilities for a couple of weeks and donned my builder’s theory. I’m not a construction worker, but I played one for a couple of weeks. During the process I got to roll around in the dirt while playing with insulation and plywood. No. Really. I did roll in dirt in confined areas attempting to do stuff. Did it work? I think so.
Unfortunately, though I was wearing a breathing filter mask, I still took in a lot of dirt and probably some insulation as well. Shortly thereafter I came down with bronchitis. If there’s anything that sucks more for someone who sings for part of their living – its not being able to breath. Add to it the fact that you get to cough violently in the vain attempt of expelling whatever is filling your lungs with goo.
[sarcasm]Happy Happy Joy Joy[/sarcasm]
The end result actually is that we now have a really cool place to get away from civilization. Really get away from it. Real silence.
At night the stars are incredible. To the point where its extremely easy to see the arm of the Milky Way and a veritable plethora of stars, constellations, and pin dots in the black sky of night.
I’ve rambled… Back to DNCE.
A few days back, I was finally starting to feel better. Cough was abating. Nose not so stuffy. I hopped in the shower after putting on Apple Music (yes, I’m a music streamer). In the middle of the shower a song came on. It had me feeling so good that I literally started dancing in the shower. Before the song ended I stepped out of the shower as I wanted to know what I was listening to.
I dried my fingers and hit the home button on my iPad and it revealed that I was listening to Cake By The Ocean by DNCE.
I finished my shower, toweled off. Then tweeted about how I felt so good I was dancing to Cake By The Ocean by DNCE. Who’d a thunk. I looked up the twitter account for them. So new that it had very few followers. But people started RTing and Faving my tweet about the song and about DNCE.
As it turns out DNCE is a little project of one of the Jonas Brothers and another guitar player that I’m following on Instagram is playing for them. Go figure.
Its a weird title for a song. I wanna say its fitting they’re calling themselves DNCE, but it’s a bit to “hip” to be removing the ‘A’ from the title. Whatever. If a song can get me to dance in the shower – it doesn’t really happen – then they’re doing something right. Right?
Its always nice to get some recognition for the music I create. Recently I was nominated for Best Pop Song for the Utah Music Awards of 2015.
Best Pop Song
About a week prior to the event, I was contacted by the group putting on the awards and asked if I would be willing to introduce and announce the category for Best Soundtrack. I responded with a “Sure thing, I’d be happy to.”
Of course I told a few close friends and one of them asked – do you think they’re asking you because you’re not going to win your category? I wasn’t even thinking about it. But then I decided I’d go listen to the other songs that were nominated. One was a somber ballad. Another was an alternative rock song and the 3rd nominee was a folk tune. None of which really fit the category of Pop. I figured I was a shoe in and responded with nah.
Held at the Covey Center in Provo, it was like attending any other award show. People and musicians milling about, taking pictures, chatting and having a good time. I was given my card of nominees and the winner for Best Soundtrack just prior to the start of the event. I was given a seat front row center. I was feeling pretty darn good.
One thing I noticed about the awards was how fast they were burning thru the categories. Faster than any awards I’d ever been too.
It came time for me to head backstage to get ready to present for Best Soundtrack. When I was announced as the presenter, the announcer screwed up my name. WTF? ran thru my head as I walked out with mic in hand. Touch was playing in the loud system. and I walked out with a smile and proceeded to make a comment about doing music for soundtracks. Of course I’ve got experience with that.
I got a quick laugh with the off-the-cuff joke I made and on to the nominees I went. Reading out the names. I opened the envelope and announced the winner.
I was looking out into the audience and even asked if the artist was there.
The response was silence and then I was surprised by a video being played behind me of the winner making an acceptance speech video a pre-recorded video.
My thought as this happened? Thanks for informing me the winner wasn’t there and making me look like a moron on stage. Appreciate that one.
I got back to my seat and a couple of categories later, they announced the Best Pop Song. Read off the nominees and before the presenter could even open the envelope the screen behind him was showing the name of the winner and it wasn’t me. The presenter, clueless to the fact that he didn’t really need to read it, got his envelope opened and read the name. Odd that this was the only category of the night where that happened.
Was I disappointed? You bet. It sucks to lose. For a brief moment I wanted to go Kanye on the stage.
After the event, I did have several people question how the song that won was even classified as a pop song. What can I do? I didn’t have a hand in the voting or categorizing. I lost. But I will express it like this. I think I know how Metallica felt when they lost to Jethro Tull at the Grammys for Best Metal Album.