Journal

Hold Music for Pocket Hotline

2012-05-23T18:22:44Z

Hey friends, I was recently asked to do some original hold music for a new startup called:

Pocket Hotline

They offer a volunteer run help line for any topic on which they currently have volunteers. So, if you're baking a cake and can't remember how many eggs go in, you can call their baking hotline and some kind volunteer will walk you through it over the phone.

But before they answer, you'll get to hear this...

Jeremy Current - bass
Josh Goleman - electric, acoustic guitar
Drake Margolnick - electric guitar, piano

France

2012-05-16T14:53:55Z

I went to France. I read three books. Here are some photos.

Flagship

2012-03-15T23:24:35Z

I'm tour managing this amazing band right now. It's inspiring, fulfilling and will assuredly lead to new music from me.

This is Flagship:

Watch their new video on American Songwriter here.

Drinking my coffee (for Tim)

2012-02-28T16:52:47Z

Men At Work

2012-02-10T05:36:29Z

I'm sorry.

I'm unavailable at the moment.

I'm in the studio with Flagship

The Knife preview from Flagship on Vimeo.

Flagship - Older live (Full) from Flagship on Vimeo.

Winter in New York: Episode 39

2012-01-18T02:35:17Z

Podcast 39 by Jeremy Current Subscribe in iTunes...

The taxi cabs aren't the only place to keep warm. There's subway steam and one more drink before you have to get outside and freeze your nip nips. I'll tell you what the most frustrating thing about New York City in the winter is (not that it's actually been here yet. We're in some sort of warm/cold purgatory at the moment). The hardest things to deal with in the winter are the damn heaters. If you recall, I recently mentioned that winter hasn't arrived yet. The heaters have. I'm sitting in my living room sweating my balls off because it's 47 degrees outside and my superintendent is in "winter mode" because no one has told him about the purgatory I briefed you on a moment ago. For all of you who would rather be chilly than hot, cry a little baby tear for me. I'll just have to go on humidifying my apartment and opening all the windows.

I've heard rumors that they have snow in New York. Actually, I saw it first hand, along with feeling an earthquake and a hurricane. But I've only had one of each and I've lived here for almost six months. This may sound like complaining to the common reader but I assure you it is a mixture of relief, surprise and complaining. The winter here so far is pretty chilly for the most part. Hanging out in the 30s and dropping down into the teens in moments of rebellion. On the bright side: I'm happy as hell to be going over to Utah for Sundance Film Festival next week and I can assure you they'll have snow. Or at least that's what I've been told.

Tuesday something controversial: Episode 38

2012-01-17T00:53:50Z

Podcast 38 by Jeremy Current
Subscribe to my podcast in iTunes...

Creativity is a mysterious thing. I'm reading Steve Jobs' biography right now among a couple other books on the night stand. There are two remarkable things about him that were surprising to me at first but maybe they shouldn't have been.

The first surprise was that he was a regular drug user. He grew up not only smoking marijuana in high school but regularly dropping LSD. Now it makes sense to me that John Lennon and George Harrison were smoking a bowl with Lucy in the sky or Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr were doing a line in the chinese restaurant bathroom, but think about a computer nerd getting down with some drugs. The stereotype I have in my head of a pocket protector wearing engineer goes right out the window. Jobs was serious about computers but he didn't take the typical path. Now some of you are sitting there thinking, "He had Steve Wozniak doing the nitty gritty technical stuff so he didn't have to be so technically saavy." Point taken. Still though, as a leader of people and someone SO incredibly confident in his own opinions, I'm impressed that he was willing to lose control of his senses. It takes trust in oneself to use drugs. To see where your mind goes when most of the train is led by the subconscious. And he wasn't super private about it either. He would pop raunchy interview questions to prospective employees to try to throw them off and see their true colors. "How old were you when you lost your virginity?" he would ask. "How many times have you done LSD." He was perfectly comfortable with his decisions and I think it came from a lot of personal searching and experimentation.

The second quality was that he was intensely critical of people. On more than one occasion he would call the work of his designers and engineers "total shit" for no other reason than to get to the final product. Anything less than the final product being shipped was total shit. It's a very black and white mentality but it caused Apple to produce some intensely cool shit. Criticism is something so scorned these days. People just aren't strong enough to be confronted with the fact that most of the work we do could be way better.

So here's the thing. This isn't about Steve Jobs. He's just the messenger. We're living in a world where few people are strong enough for criticism and there's a ton of mediocrity in the world. I spent half the afternoon looking for bands to play shows with in the areas surrounding New York. Ninety-nine out of one hundred bands were total shit. I'm not saying everyone should do a bunch of drugs and be critical of one another but I think we could use some personal searching and exploration and maybe we shouldn't settle for mediocrity. If you're going to be something, be something great. And if you're going to create something, maybe drugs and criticism aren't the worst tools to get you there.

Monday cover song: Episode 35

2011-12-20T00:49:08Z

Podcast 35 by Jeremy Current

Much love to all of you this Christmas week. If you need me to ask Santa for anything, I'm on my way to Macy's.

Monday cover song: Episode 32

2011-12-12T05:38:58Z

Podcast 32 by Jeremy Current

Radiohead may be one of the weirdest bands I've actively been a fan of. Recently, I've been listening to their first few albums and The Bends is incredible... However, this song off of Pablo Honey inspires me because I think the message is hitting home for me real hard. I DO want to be in a band. I want to be playing guitar no matter what catastrophe I face. And I am facing the pressure of wanting to be the next Jim Morrison, Neil Young, Ryan Adams, Jeff Tweedy... the list goes on. The important thing to remember is I had a hell of a lot of fun recording this with Bailey, and I enjoy sharing it with you.

Love,
Jeremy

Photo by Josh Goleman

Monday cover song: Episode 24

2011-11-28T04:55:14Z

Podcast 24 by Jeremy Current

Here's a chance I get to play a song with no effects like reverb or delay and it feels right. The songs Townes Van Zandt wrote and recorded were intimate and intricate. He wrote his soul in songs and he took the time to be a poet.

The American tradition of playing instruments with no effects is fading out. I played a fiddler's old time jam this weekend in Pennsylvania. People just playing acoustic instruments and listening to one another. It's so human and refreshing.