The threesixfive project may be over, but Ace Reporter is just getting warmed up. To start, I’ve released four EPs featuring some of my favorite songs from the project. They’re all available for free right here: acereporter.bandcamp.com. I’m also playing a number of NYC shows in the next few months — April 21 at The Delancey and May 7 at Cameo Gallery. Finally, come May, I’ll be heading out to a farmhouse in the mountains to record my first full-length record. Lots to look forward to, but for now, enjoy those EPs!

-Ace

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, and I’ll be honest with you — I miss it. Over the course of 2010, this project became not just a routine, but a structure. Routines are habits; they can mean something, or not. For the most part, routines don’t really mean anything. In fact, it’s quite common to complain about our routinized lives. But my routine — songwriting, recording, posting — was different. It was something I poured myself into. It was a journal, of sorts, of my physical and mental state. I wrote songs in odd places: on an Amtrak train, on a plane to Denver, in a cab in Queens, in a hotel in Toronto, on a beach on Long Island, at my childhood home in Los Angeles. (I’m probably forgetting a place or two.) I wrote songs when I was tired, buzzed, and caffeinated. I wrote some of them with a clear idea of what I wanted, and I wrote others with no premeditation at all.

But now, for what has felt like a very long stretch of 21 days, I haven’t written a damn thing.

This was, in part, deliberate. I needed a break. I needed some sleep. I needed to see friends and watch movies and catch up on Mad Men. I needed to spend some quality time with my wife-in-training, for pete’s sake. I also needed to get some space from the project, to reflect on what I’d done, to figure out what comes next.

But now, three weeks into 2011, the absence of the daily song is starting to gnaw at me. No no, I’m not going to start in again with some all-consuming musical experiment. But I think the quiescent period is over. It’s time to get back to work. After all, I have EPs to release and shows to play…

A friend sent me this excerpt from Keith Richards’ autobiography, which I now think I’ll have to read.

What is it that makes you want to write songs? In a way you want to stretch yourself into other people’s hearts. You want to plant yourself there, or at least get a resonance, where other people become a bigger instrument than the one you’re playing. It becomes almost an obsession to touch other people. To write a song that is remembered and taken to heart is a connection, a touch of bases. A thread that runs through all of us. A stab to the heart. Sometimes I think songwriting is about tightening the heartstrings as much as possible without bringing on a heart attack.

Lisi Niesner/Reuters

Couldn’t help it. I’m an addict. I promise I’m done now.

Thanks to the friends and family who helped me sing this one last night. Happy 2011!

—Lyrics—

should old acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
should old acquaintance be forgot
and old lang syne?

for auld lang syne, my dear
for auld lang syne
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet
for auld lang syne

and surely you’ll buy your pint cup
and surely I’ll buy mine
and we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet
for auld lang syne

we two have run about the slopes
and picked the daisies fine
but we’ve wandered many a weary foot
since auld lang syne

we two have paddled in the stream
from morning sun till dine
but seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne

and there’s a hand my trusty friend
and give us a hand o’ thine
and we’ll take a right good-will draught
for auld lang syne

Just like Lewis and Clark at the edge of the world, my journey is seemingly over. 365 songs, 15 and a half hours of music, and a thousand hours spent putting it all together. It’s been… well, it’s been kind of amazing. Thanks for following along.

Happy New Year. Let’s see what 2011 will bring…

—Lyrics—

take me back to the beginning
because i’m stuck at the ending
everyone all the time pick a friend suddenly float away
show me what i’ve been missing
in all the time I spent a-singing
patient eyes on your back tv style it’s a red red precious sun
just like lewis and clark at the edge of the world
i wonder what they said to themselves as the ocean unfurled beneath them
you need a saint in the house and
you need a taste for inner monologues
you should hide in a corner you should breathe for a minute
a c c c an l an x and a v
i don’t yet know what it will mean  to me
all i know is that it’s been a very very good year
just like lewis and clark at the edge of the world
i wonder what they said to themselves as the ocean unfurled to meet them
just like lewis and clark underneath pacific skies
they couldn’t be farther away from their homes if they had tried
and they tried…
just like that i’m a free man but i’d like to spend the night
if it’s alright i will lay my head beside your head tonight
just like that i am standing with the finish line in sigh
tif it’s alright i will rest my head beside your head tonight
just like that it’s a new year and i’m a new man in my prime
if it’s alright i will lay my head beside your head tonight
just like lewis and clark at the edge of the world
i wonder what they said to themselves as the ocean unfurled to meet them
just like lewis and clark underneath pacific skies
they couldn’t be farther away from their homes if they had tried
and they tried…

14 hours after leaving my front door in Brooklyn, I finally made it to Los Angeles. It’s wonderful to be home, and only slightly odd to be preparing to end this project very far from where most of my nights have been spent. Then again, the project began in a snowy farmhouse a few hundred miles from Brooklyn, so in a way it’s fitting to have my view of the finish line framed with palm trees and sunny skies. (And family, of course, which is what today’s song is all about.)

—Lyrics—

windy days
go away
i tried to stay
but you blew me away
a lemon tree
sways in the breeze
free of fruit
trampled underfoot
it’s only a broken bone
wrap it and take you home
hush and feel no pain
hush you’ll breath again
out of sight
out of mind
out of charms
and out of time
this year’s end
my old friend
drinks too much
and goes to bed
it’s only a broken bone
wrap it and take you home
hush and feel no pain
hush you’ll breath again
call somebody
have a party
this old body
needs to know it
knows how to move
call my mother
call my brother
with each otherall together
all together now
it’s only my tiny home
wind-swept and valley-grown
hush and feel no pain
hush and laugh again
call somebody…

I realized that even though I’ve done just about every damn kind of song during the past year, I had never written a song in which bass is the only instrument. The bass is like the viola of the rock band, except that I happen to think it’s way more important than the viola. (Sorry, violas.) Maybe that’s why I could never really get into Sleater Kinney. So I did: every instrument on this track (except for the drums, obviously) is a bass. Actually, I wish I’d tried this earlier, because there’s a lot of directions I could’ve taken this, and I wish I had time to explore more of them. Next year…

Also, I dug the car out of a drift on 24th street all by myself this morning, no thanks to the City of New York.

—Lyrics—

took a drive in the dirty snow
took a ride got no place to go
looking for me
took a drive into jeopardy
ice was thick it was slippery
looking for me
what you’re hiding who will ever find it?
keep your eyes on me
what you’re hiding i will never find it
keep your eyes on me
i think you know what you got into
i think you know what you got into
looking for it
i think you knew what had fallen out
after all that had come about
looking for it
it’s been a while, forever and a while
since the last we spoke
it’s been a while, forever and a while
i think i get the joke now
took a drive into jeopardy
ice was thick it was slippery
looking for you

Holy moly, only three more days. I’m beginning to sense the obvious, the inevitable: with a project like this, surely there will be some sense of exhilaration at the end, but for the most part I’m counting on anticlimax to rule the day. Just as there’s no way Day 365 is going to be the best song of the project, there’s no reason that December 31st will represent some emotional peak. Believe me, there have been emotional peaks and valleys with this project, and in many ways they have mirrored my level of physical exhaustion. Currently, that level is quite high. So listen, a piece of advice for free: if one of your friends ever says that he or she is going to try something like this, tell them that they will quite possibly succeed, but only at the expense of health and sanity. If this friend of yours lives with someone, tell them that that person had better be a saint. (I got lucky there.)

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is one about anticlimax: I know it’s coming, and I’m prepared. I’m going to sleep for a month and then get on with making this project mean something for 2011.

—Lyrics—

the city’s asleep someone turn out the light
i wish i could stay and spend the whole night
but i’m walking asleep and my work isn’t done
truth to be told i haven’t even begun
it’s late
my lady’s gone to bed
but i’m waiting up instead
for whatever’s in my head
to take a turn
delirious for you
i’m delirious for you
take me to bed when you wake
delirious for you
i’m delirious for you
put me to bed on the first
the city’s adrift someone drowned it in white
it’s muffled a mattress with springs out of sight
it’s put me to bed for a year, every night
this isn’t farewell, it’s a thanks for the company

Well, here we are, stranded in Brooklyn when we’re supposed to be back in Los Angeles. I think we’re the only ones left in the building. This morning, the snow outside was so thick that it covered half the windows and muted the sounds so much that all you could hear was the quiet ticking from the radiator. Cars are buried. 4th Avenue is mostly plowed, but the side streets remain gummed up with snow. Good thing we’ve got DVDs and food in the house. Oh, scotch too. Yee-haw.

—Lyrics—

summon my cellophane page
i’m getting cold
wrap me up tight i will sleep
here in a bowl
try to make room
i know you have room for me
try to make space
i know there’s a place for me
leftovers from a party no one came today
all the guests were stranded somewhere far away
it was a long night
she wore a winter flower
it was a strange flight
out to a christmas isle
summon my cellophane page
i’m getting old
wrap me up tight i can wait
here in a bowl