Events & Ideas: A Blog
What's Happening in the World of Dawoud
6/25/25
I made an ad for Spaghetti Eastern's next two gigs this weekend. What do you think?
6/22/25
I was cleaning some files and found a chart for a song I wrote 20 years ago called Beyond Light. I wrote it during my sitar years. It was never recorded; maybe I'll record it for my next album. What do you think?
Someone recently reminded me of a decision I made years ago. I was in a difficult financial state. Someone approached me with a project; he was producing a series of pornographic movies and wanted to hire me to record music for these movies.
I turned him down.
Being involved in such a project would have violated my religious and spiritual principles. Now, I make no claims to being perfect; if you wish to examine an imperfect Muslim, I would make the most excellent model of study. And I try to avoid judging others. But I must do my best to adhere to my principles.
To his credit, the man was not offended and respected my decision.
I share this story as a reminder to myself to put my principles above everything else.
6/16/25
Did you catch David Belmont's review of my album The Power and the Longing?
You can read it here.
6/15/25
Today, I did an unusual performance. This happened at Caffeine Underground, a cafe in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Once in a while, I do a highly experimental performance with unusual and often abstract loops and samples, and an unusual array of instruments. Everything about it is risky. It's fun! It's also a good way to try ideas and find musical elements that I might not have found anywhere else.
One of the instruments I use is something I call The Instrument with No Name - IWNN. It has an interesting history. When I was formulating the idea that would eventually become the Dautar, I bought a rejected body from Limulus Musical Instruments. I used it to experiment and see what worked and what didn't. Looking back, I committed all kinds of crimes on that poor piece of wood! But after the Dautar came to life, I made the IWNN operational and used it almost exclusively for these experimental music performances.
6/13/25
Occasionally, I will share a story in this blog. That's what I'm going to do today.
Many years ago, I worked as a recording engineer and in-house studio musician at a studio owned by a small record label specializing in disco.
One day, we were booked to record a pop singer named Cynthia.
There was a producer whose name escapes my memory, but he was an excellent musician. He was producing Cynthia’s pop record because the pay was good.
A big Italian guy named Mike was the executive producer. Mike reeked of money (for obvious reasons, I prefer not to elaborate on this point). He wanted us to record basic rhythm tracks and a scratch vocal for Cynthia’s song. This wasn’t going to be a problem: the producer (I regret I cannot recall his name) was a talented, skilled, and experienced musician who knew what he was doing, and so did I. And Cynthia was very easy to work with. Mike left, and we did our work. It all went smoothly.
Now, I had recorded a rough reference mix on cassette, and we left the mix on the multitrack on the console. Mike returned to see how we were doing. We had accomplished everything we set out to do. So, I played what we did from the multitrack. Mike didn’t like it. He said it was OK, but it needed something. So, he started playing with the faders on the console. His contributions made a complete mess of the mix, with the VU meters slamming into the red on every track we recorded. He said it sounded a little better, but not quite what he wanted (keep in mind this was NOT intended to be the finished product).
Then I said, “Mike, give this a listen.” Then, giving the producer a quick look and a wink, I played the cassette of the exact same mix Mike didn’t like. Mike listened to it and said, “Now THAT’S what it should have been the first time!”
This is a true story.
6/10/25
Welcome to the first installation of my blog! This is an invitation to a glimpse into my world. I will be sharing both the day-to-day things that happen in my life, as well as thoughts about... whatever I need to express.
I look forward to seeing where this takes us.