I think the 2008 tour schedule was particularly grueling for Daniel in many ways...
Perhaps Daniel is sitting back and enjoying some down time with his family and friends, though I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he's working on a film, recording new songs, playing regularly with the Nightmares, drawing daily, and maybe working on his screenplay...
In general, Dan seems to have established a schedule of heavy touring every other annum, with the intervening years each devoted to a nice long rest-up.
As far as precisely what he's up to now (aside from his annual SXSW appearance and presumably his regular rave-ups with the Nightmares), when Dan phoned me up the other day, he said that he wishes he had a specific project to work on, because having that to focus on greatly boosts his productivity. As such, I assume that at the moment he's in the middle of a minor songwriters' block.
One concept Dan tells me he's been toying with is founding a bootleg record label, in which (if I understood him correctly) his business model involves taking loads of existing bootleg albums by his favorite bands (Beatles, Queen, etc.), compiling all the best tracks from a dozen or so of them into one REALLY GREAT bootleg, then drawing the cover artwork himself and releasing THAT on his own label(!) I told him that he probably shouldn't place "setting up a criminal enterprise" very near the top of his "to-do" list...
And yes, Daniel once again brought up the proposed album co-starring him, me and Gibby Haynes (as he has done during every call or visit over the past two+ years now), but at this point I place the odds of the "Ghastly Trio" ever recording anything together at next to nil. Dan's wishes have been made known to Gibby (believe it or not, one night Daniel actually called my home phone at the same exact moment that Gibby called the cell phone of a friend who was visiting me!) but the boss Butthole Surfer has not display any interest at all in the matter.
I do have a verbal OK from Dan to take the JLA (Johnston/Lieck/Azarian) rough demos into a studio without him, in hopes of beefing up the tracks to mold the existing material into something that "rocks" and is worthy of album release. The engineer who was suggested to me for that project, and who seemed interested in charging headfirst into it
pro bono has faded into the shadows, though, as I should've known would happen. (That's the "Austin way" of doing -- or NOT doing -- things). So don't expect to find a JLA CD in stores any time soon! (I have completed the artwork for an animated video to our song "Mormon Nights", by the way).
Oh, for the record, Dan makes it sound as though the "December Blues" album he did with the Rhythm Rats won't be coming out any time soon, either.
Anyhow, I'm gonna try and get out to Waller, now that gasoline is affordable again. Maybe I can help Dan tune his energies in some particular direction -- any suggestions? I would already be plotting a short film with him, but my damn camcorder blew up and I'm still totally broke... (Say, now that I think about it, Dan's typically been known to keep a working video camera of his own around the house...!)
- notdan
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