A friend and I did a beat battle where the only rule was to use a flute in the beat. This was the result! Made in 1 hour. I love super fast stuff like this. I really like the result even if it’s not polished.
I went to an event called Loveburn a few weeks ago and it was cool but I was bummed that the whole thing was seen as a revolutionary kind of event but that the whole thing was powered by diesel generators and required a lot of consumerism to be able to happen. So that mixed with being sleep deprived and eating shitty food I started making this tune. I didn’t super enjoy making this one once I got back to civilization because it’s more negative than my headspace usually and I didn’t enjoy going back there. I could spend more time with this but I want to move on.
This week is another cop out haha. I’m still not caught up and I have a conference this week in Atlanta that I’m playing at for Citizen’s Climate Lobby. This is a clip I made during the Summer Support Drive last year.
I went to Love Burn and then a retreat for work last week and so I’m a little behind on songs. I have some new stuff from these weeks but it’s just not quite ready yet. So here’s an older demo I had done with a buddy of mine that I never did anything with.
I recently got to spend some amazing time with a friend of mine. We camped at a festival in Miami called Love Burn and then went to a friend’s wedding and then a retreat in Orlando. I made this song this morning about last night. I’ve never had an experience then written the song about it the next morning and then showed it to the person from the experience the next day. Check it out 🙂
3/6 update
I keep noodling with this one. I wrote a bridge. I’ll probably actually record this one for Spotify
I think the singular focus of our time should be solving the climate crisis. And at the same time, I can’t carry that baggage all the time. I believe the biggest way I can contribute to change is through making my art. But this isn’t about making cheesy jingles for renewable energy or whatever. Sustainability is a lack of human connectedness to the systems around us. And these songs are about me processing my life through my art. I’m trying to walk this line of being committed to exploring sustainability and realizing that sustainability is so wholistic and big that we can’t do that without integrating our broader selves.
If you logged on for the summer support drive last year, you’ll remember this track as I wrote it back then. The idea was to celebrate a buddy Chris Castro for taking a job as the Chief of Staff of a new office of sustainability created with funds from Build Back Better and the Inflation Reduction Act. These represent the highest point of government spending to fight climate change and I’m super curious of the affects we’ll see from them. I love hearing updates from Chris about all of the work their doing. Super cool.
My favorite line from this one is “it’s too cheap to burn pterodactyls.
It’s always tricky trying to express sexuality. It’s such an easy topic to avoid as a someone who is unfortunately quite often hearing from friends how someone made them feel uncomfortable or were even assaulted. But we can’t just shelf our sexuality either. It’s a big part of what makes us us and it needs to be integrated into who we are. This is a tough one to release as a weekly demo because they are never perfect and this topic is sensitive enough that it’s difficult to put it out there with flaws. But in the spirit of making songs and moving on, here it is.
Well after last week’s song…I’ll just put this here…Haha. I might actually finish this one and put it up on streaming but I wanted to put the demo up here today. I think I might go back and layer the vocals more. I really love the rap a lot.
For the first time in a while I found myself turning to music making to cope with feeling overwhelmed with emotions. This week I told a really special friend of mine that I had feelings for them and they told me they didn’t feel the same way. And we were both so clear and open about both sharing that it made it sort of a beautiful thing. But it was still hard. Writing this was a big part of my processing and being able to listen back to it was so soothing. Enjoy 🙂
Lyrics
Onion peeling bummed I’m feeling
This is real heart holding honest feeling (pain)
Honor code I tried to hold a higher goal
Holdin doors open to my hopes until they close (eh)
Life is such a mix of give and take
Acceptance is a book and while we try and turn the page
Hold it to the light to try and make out what it says
But skipping to the end ya I wouldn’t recommend to you nah nah
When you told me nah
I felt it in my shoulders huh
Sorta sagged
Goofy laugh kinda sad
I don’t cry I fold in half
And try to walk it off and write til I don’t fuckin feel so bad
I guess I had it all wrong like ahhhhh
And what I said was hard to say
And when we didn’t feel the same
Fuck I felt that in my heart and veins
Expected to celebrate
Now I’m tryin stop a train
Tension in my back and brain
Defenses start to activate
But actually just accolades are in admission
She navigated that position she was in with some real precision
And meanwhile I might not get what’s missing
But that ain’t for me to say and I respect it either way cuz
Ain’t nobody gotta love you
But yourself
Ain’t nobody gotta love you
I didn’t think I was going to record or release this song until my friends said it was one of their favorites. I coped with the feelings of the last presidency by writing and rewriting this tune over the course of 4 yrs. The result is a really tightly written sardonic blues tune that features my buddy Joe Rodwell on horns, guitar, bass, and background vocals. I was originally inspired by Bob Dylan’s Motorpsycho Nightmare and I was going to call it Voterpsycho Nightmare.
October 20th, 2022
September 16th, 2022
I’ve been talking about this concept for a new album I want to create called ‘To Collapse Well…’ about grief and death and therapy and the planet.
But I don’t feel ready to make it yet. I feel like the concepts I have are grand enough that I want to develop my skills and my audience further first. And the only way I know to do this is make a BUNCH of stuff.
So over the next four years, I’m imagining finishing a project every two weeks that is somewhere between fleshed out ideas and finished songs. Some songs, like the one over on the right might just be a verse on someone else’s song. Others might be a full mixed and mastered song on Spotify. But all of them are part of me exploring more and more in preparation for the next album. I’m thinking all together this should be about 100 songs that I’ll write trying to find the perfect 10-12 songs for a masterpiece album in 2026.
More to come about this! But for now here’s the first one ->
September 2nd, 2022
Woah. This last month since the Summer Support Drive was action-packed.
I realized I really need to be doing more outreach to organizations aligned with sustainability. So I:
Demo’s of new songs:
Cubby – AY and I are making this one
Tired – New song 🙂
Letting Go – New song 🙂
I think I’m gonna make like a hundred songs for this next album and then pick the best 10-15.
Made an introductrion video
July 26th, 2022
I’ve really come to love the idea of “Building in the Open”. Instead of stowing away in the dark and completing an album only for you to hear it when it’s all finished, I’m sharing the journey of creating it by livestreaming my production and writing process.
So stop by a livestream and hang out and share what you think about the song as it’s unfolding. I’m hoping to get in a groove with when these happen so I can promise you a schedule.
As I’m finishing up this album and starting to think about the next one, one of the things these projects need is some cashflow. As these projects grow, I can’t fund them by myself forever. So I want to start working on making them more financially self-sustainable.
So I’m asking for your help.
Starting Wednesday July 27th and lasting through August 10th I’m going to be going live every night. I’ll be performing songs, hanging out, taking requests, doing solar designs, calling representatives, and showing you around my off-grid solar studio to raise awareness for the support drive. You’ll be seeing a lot more emails and posts from me over the coming weeks. You can sign up and support by going to DaneMyers.com. All of the contributions go towards furthering music and sustainability projects on my channel.
The overall goal for the campaign is to get 15 people signed up for as little as $5/mo.
Goal 1 – 3 Supporters
Goal 2 – 10 Supporters
When we reach goal two, I’m going to be able to pull the trigger on something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I want to make a song for the people who have dedicated their careers to sustainability. I’m going to reach out to anyone I can find that works in the space and collect responses from them about their experiences and turn that into a song to honor their work.
Goal 3 – 15 Supporters
When we reach goal three, I’m going on tour!! It’s been years since I’ve gotten to perform live for people. People who sign up to be supporters will get first dibs on hosting concerts on the tour.
Go to DaneMyers.com and consider lending your support!
The sheet metal ceiling of my trailer has been getting over 150 degrees in the afternoon and it makes the trailer totally unbearable. So I’m building a new ceiling with insulation on top of it so I can hopefully make the space much more livable.
Stuff like this always takes 10x longer than I think it will. So a lot of my time this month has gone to this.
I’m making a video about it! Can’t wait to show ya 🙂
July 6th, 2022
New Songs
Here are a couple new songs inspired by recent climate legislation.
This track is about Biden’s green new deal getting shut down by Joe Manchin.
This track is about Florida’s net metering laws almost getting shut down by FPL.
June 22nd, 2022
May 31st, 2022
I’ve always loved production videos that show the process of making music. I think back to watching Pharrell and Timbaland and now watching Kenny Beats and the amazing production community they’ve created online. And I wanted to do something to bring that creative process to life while showcasing the solar studio trailer. So voila! I bring you episode 1 of a new series called ‘The Mansion’.
I hope to keep doing regularly where I invite musicians I dig into my solar studio trailer to make music together. Let me know what you think!
Check out the new Annotated Lyrics Page for Salt n pepper to see deeper into the lyrics and stories that inspired the song.
May 9, 2022
I’m super excited to announce my first collaboration with the UN Youth Leader for the United States AY Young. He’s actually also a performer making music powered from solar energy and using his music to spread environmentalism.
Our means and methods are so similar I was so excited to learn about him and connect with him and now I’m super excited to be doing a project together! I’ll be sharing the finished song as soon as it drops!
Check out his music and what he’s doing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcU2gStRqmQ&t=11s&ab_channel=AYYoung
Here’s a little behind the scenes of shooting the studio performance footage for the Clouds of Different Colors music video.
This is really my first time working with another videographer to capture footage in a studio environment.
I had the idea of shooting in the hospital gown to express the huge costs to our health that sugar poses. We put Gatorade in the blood bag to symbolize our blood becoming sugary like Gatorade. Plus we couldn’t fill it with blood.
All in all I like doing videos in real life environments. It’s really easy for a video studio to feel cold or corny.
April 19, 2022
Y’all are the best for sharing the Clouds of Different Colors video and spreading the word.
The Palm Beach County Democratic Executive Committee finally published a resolution calling for Nikki Fried to put an end to the sugar burning which is poisoning the Glades communities.
Also! We proved that art can make a difference in environmental justice because the press release for the resolution being published cited the Clouds of Different Colors music video as the background context to the resolution being passed!
There is a LOT of work that has gone into the StopTheBurn campaign and my music video was just a small part of it. But I’m thankful to contribute my skills to this issue and see some change happening right after. Anyway, all eyes are on our state leadership!
In case you don’t already follow me on Instagram, my profile is like a running graphic novel of paintings like this one. My insta is @danemyers.
April 5, 2022
I got hitched in Canada
Up Next-
The Green Gatsby is taking it off grid
March 15, 2022
This month I purchased a 26′ snowmobile trailer and am in the process of converting it into a mobile solar-powered studio that I can pull from town to town with my Tesla.
This takes “Living in my Tesla” to a whole new level! I’ll be able to show you a bunch more creative sustainable lifestyle content like:
So think about a good name for the Green Gatsby’s new mansion because this is a big upgrade.
New Track!
Next up –
I’m chomping at the bit to show you this next song and music video coming next month. It’s been over a year in the making and I think it can contribute to creating some change in Florida. Can’t wait to show it to you. But first, check out the artwork for this project created by master painter Reinier Gamboa.
Let me know what you think the project is about based on this artwork!
Here are three things I can say about this music video.