David Hinske -

October 14, 2023
Gadzooks I am terrible about updating my website!  Hahahahaha.  Just awful about it.  Anyway, I'm glad you found me here.  And the new album 'mmm' is here for downloading as well as the individual tracks.  Download away!  See the MUSIC page for details.  Good news/bad news: the CDs have all sold out.

I've been playing out on some very selective dates with a few more coming up.  See the IN PERSON page for news on that.  Also some new pics on the PHOTOS page.

Okay, so cool.  Hope to see you soon somewhere and thanks for your continued patronage.

 

August 12, 2022

Well, this global pandemic sure didn't help musicians (among many others).  I'm not getting any younger although I think I am making the best music of my life.  Another eight song EP coming out in a couple of weeks.  I might get out and play a little in support.  

I'm being very selective about the gigs and choosing to play only venues where the intent is to listen to the performer.  Nothing wrong with going to a bar to socialize with your friends and meet new people, it just isn't the environment that I want to present my music.  I've been playing live for over fifty years and I'm not interested in being background noise at a nightclub.

So, maybe you will come and actually hear me at some places some time.  I hope so. 

July 1, 2021

I’ve put more time into this next EP ‘Departures’ than any album I’ve ever done. I have been meticulous about arrangements, the appropriate tone and selection of the instruments, the lyrics and melodies, the song structures, the technical aspects of recording, the placement of the voices and instruments on the stereo spectrum, compression and equalization, the distinct volumes and distancing of the numerous parts, while constantly keeping in mind the ‘album’ as a whole and how the songs and music can and should reference each other and take a listener on a auditory journey from the first song to the last.  

It’s a long, wonderful process from song ideas to finished product of which I am wholly delighted and tremendously satisfied to partake in.  I hope you all will be as well.  I’ve done the best I could with this album. So, new eight song EP to drop late August. As the album title might suggest, I’ve stretched out a bit on this one.  About seven weeks away at this point. Thank you to so many of you lovely people along the way that have allowed me to continue this musical adventure.

February 18, 2021

Someday we will be together again in a coffee shop or a bar or a cafe or bookstore or some freakin' where listening and making music.  I'd kinda been thinking maybe I was mostly done with live performing (getting too old to haul the gear around and basically break even although thinking of it as a paid vacation kinda works...) but I am sure getting the itch lately.  I'd have to relearn a bunch of my own music though!  Hahahaha.

Anyway, I'm still in the home studio and have a couple new ones in the can.  Probably another EP out around the end of the year.  Thanks for all of the support for 'Some More Songs'.  It was a limited production run and you all have made it a complete sell out.  I don't need a lot of fans, just the right ones!

November 21, 2020

And now the EP is out and at the moment, only available directly from me.  Let me know if you'd like one at davidhinske@gmail.com    $8 for the seven-song cd includes shipping.  The digital download should be available at the usual outlets very soon - like within a few days.

November 5, 2020

The new EP is in production after being mastered in Nashville by YESMASTER.  They have mastered my last two albums and I really like what comes back to me when they have done their work.  Very clean.  The separation and isolation of the vocals and instruments is superb.  Easy people to work with and quick and well done.

These seven songs should be available sometime around the end of November.

October 13, 2020

Heeeelllloooo music lovers!

Carolyn and I are continuing to be vigilant of our health and hope and happiness through these troubled times.  America needs all of us to vote and we will surely be doing that next week here in Illinois.

As most of you know, I love to collaborate with other musicians.  I had studio time and a backing band lined up and then we got into sequester mode.  As tough as that has been for me, I really regret how hard its been on the folks running the studio and my fellow musicians.

Here's the good news: I am done with the tracking of the next batch of music to be released.  I've holed up in the home studio and have been working, working and working on these songs and I have six that I'm really happy with.  Hopefully you all will be happy with them as well.  I'm releasing this batch as an EP partly to make it as affordable for everyone as possible.  As usual, any income I receive gets turned around in the purchases I make of independent musicians recordings.

The next steps will be finishing the mixes, getting the tracks mastered, designing the package and getting everything manufactured.  The calendar looks to be around the end of November if things go well.  The EP will be titled "Some More Songs" and unless things change up some in the coming year or so (here comes the bad news) might be my last issue of new music.  Your support of this project could make me feel differently - as could a handful of things.  So never say never, I guess.

Here's a glimpse of the forthcoming EP:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUHnBCZCEhk    Old Ghosts and Everyday Angels

September 10, 2020

So, all gigs canceled, all studio time canceled.  These are indeed difficult times.  I hope you've been able to catch me on a few fund raiser video events and thanks to the organizers for inviting me to participate.  For age and health reasons, we have been and are continuing to be very vigilant in our safety protocols.  I hope we all can get back to more normalized lives at some point.

In the meantime, please support your favorite musicians - particularly the local ones that have mostly lost their means of support.  The former income streams for musicians (radio play, music sales) were drained away by Pandora, Spotify and the rest.  They annually profit in the billions and all of that money used to go to the ones that created the music.  So if you hear someone you like on a streaming service, please purchase that song or, dare I say it, even a whole album.  Let's work together to keep music and musicians alive.

Here's mine:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/david-hinske/1034932479

I'm working on new songs using my home studio - which is a gold plated way of saying I moved my Mac into our guest bedroom, laid out instruments on the bed and got the mics out of storage.  This song was written a month or so ago and the recording only finished last week.  The video was completed two days ago with my rudimentary iMovie skills.  I hope you like it - hopefully the homegrown album 'Some More Songs' will be out before the end of the year.  I'd rather be in the studio surrounded by creative players that bring their ideas to the sessions, but we do what we have to in these weird times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUHnBCZCEhk

December 10, 2019

Carolyn and I are headed west on Thursday for a couple of shows in Taos, NM (our old stomping grounds) and a show in Sabastopol, California.  The house concert in Taos will be a benefit for Taos Feeds Taos and the Sabastopol show will be a benefit for a local group that helps feed and shelter the homeless there.  We have never been to Sabastopol, but from looking at pics and talking the folks helping arrange the gig, it sounds very groovy.  What a good way to help out during the holiday season.  See 'In Person' for details.

I've been pushing back the dates for the next album.  I have enough songs ready and I would really like you all to hear them.  It is just taking time to find the right folks to join in the studio fun and to actually find a studio.  I am leaning towards a 'live in the studio' album of new material.  So, keep your good thoughts coming my way that I can make this happen. 

 

October 9, 2019

Here's an online interview I did about a year ago after the album 'The Story Continues...' came out.  I don't think the magazine every ran it, so here it is instead.  BTW, I'm gonna go ahead with the next album and make it a pretty stripped down acoustic record.  More on that as it develops.

Is there a story behind your album’s title?

In the 1980’s, anyone that wasn’t getting any real traction in the music industry by the age of thirty was thought to be over the hill.  Hahaha!  So, I purposefully but reluctantly set those dreams aside at that point and got on with life, accepting that responsibility was knocking on my door.

Now, at the age of 63 and releasing my third album in the last four years, the title, ‘The Story Continues…’ is a reflection on creative ageism and my thoughts on being an older, yet kind of a newcomer, in this nutty business.  Personally, I am playing the best I’ve ever played in my life and writing the best songs I’ve ever written.

So, the story does continue even during the times no one else is noticing.  All of our stories still continue and they are interesting and important.  Hopefully all of us, regardless of age, are continuing to grow and learn and experience new things and incorporate all of that into our ever changing selves.  And we all still have great stuff to share with each other.

Why did you choose to anchor the album with the songs you did?

The first song on the album is ‘Rest Your Heart’.  It’s a love song for grown ups and a reaction to the generic love songs that seem to be pervasive in current pop music.  At least from what I can tell from the videos that one of the bartenders plays at one of my favorite bars.

When I say that it is a ‘love song’, its actually a song about losing a loved one to the eventual ravages of the physical world.  Which can happen at any age.

The song starts with only my voice and an acoustic guitar, then little bits of a second guitar (the world starts weighing in…) and then suddenly about halfway through becomes kind of a funky jam thing, just like life.  At the end of the song, the closing door symbolizes the end of the physical realm but the jingles that were attached to the closing door is my way of saying the mystical music continues even beyond death.

I felt it was it was an encompassing song that underscores the album title and also alerted the listener that life, like the song, doesn’t always turn in expected directions.

The last song on the record is ‘How Many More Lives’, which I wrote shortly after the Parkland school murders.  Despite the fun and light hearted music peppered throughout this album, there are some serious and darker songs and messages.  This one is clear and deliberate in it’s content and it’s an issue I take into consideration on nearly a daily basis.  Putting it at the end of the album gives this song the attention that I think it needs and wouldn’t have if it was mixed in with the others.

Do you have any touring tips?

Don’t fall asleep at the wheel.

Listen to the conversations around you in the diners.  Appreciate the little details that are unintentionally shared with you by waitresses and check out clerks and motel staff and the evocatively interesting people that come in and out of your road life.  It’s only boring if you aren’t paying attention.

Appreciate the things you didn’t anticipate.  Plan to be flexible with your plans. Hydrate.

Do you write about personal experience, the experience of others, observations, made-up stories, something else or a combination?

Oh, a combination, for sure.  A lot of the details in my songs come from real life observations.  Sometimes not particularly flattering observations.  Which can occasionally get me in hot water with the people that know I’ve cribbed something from our lives to put into my art.  Or innocuous things like ‘she likes her coffee cold’ was when my wife was putting ice in her coffee a few morning in a row early this summer.  It felt like a nice character detail and ended up in the song, ‘She Loves Them the Most’.

A friend of ours called my wife once, upset about a song of mine she thought was autobiographical and was concerned about our marriage!  Which is in a way, flattering…

I have no idea from where the song on this album, ‘The Brief Affair of Ben and Imogene’ came from.  I can absolutely picture the bank in the song and the whole thing unfolds cinematically in my head.  That said, I can only barely even remember writing it - it just wrote itself while I watched the words appear on the page at the end of my pen.  I barely changed anything after the song finished itself.  It doesn’t usually happen that way for me, so it was a thrilling experience.

‘She Loves Them the Most’ was directly inspired by an abandoned house I parked in front of for a while in Roswell, New Mexico.  The story of the couple that I imagined could have lived in and left that house was palpable as I eyeballed it.  The song came together quickly and I had to keep pulling the car over every couple of miles to jot down the next verse.  i moved the house west of Boise, Idaho for the sake of the travelog aspect of song.

One song on this album came from a Facebook post by a friend that was out touring in Texas and lost a glove there.  I read that and had the song done in about an hour and half.

Some of them take a long time, years even, and sometimes include bits of songs that didn’t work otherwise.  I keep all of the crap songs because there are usually little bits of things that I can scavenge.

When/where do you do your best writing?

In the car, alone on a long trip.  There is a psychological space that appears while being only responsible for yourself - when you are going to stop, what you might eat, what motel you choose…  That flight of freedom from the realities of everyday life tends to unlock a place in my head that is open to creative suggestion.

At home, in the middle of the night, seems to be a good time as well.  When the house is completely quiet and no one else is awake and maybe I’ve awoken with something from a dream or a previous conversation or an observation that feels song worthy.

Who would you love to collaborate with?

Hahahaha!  I’ve been in bands over the years with other songwriters and I’ll text them a couple of lines and suggest we should collaborate and expand the lines into song.  Almost inevitably I’ll have finished the song by the time they have gotten around to reading my text.  I mostly work quickly once the idea begins to unfold.  The characters in my songs take on life and more or less march around within the context of the theme and in the end I just edit their stories for the sake of literary value.  

So to answer the question, I don’t think I’d be a good collaborator!  I’m happy and willing to try, though.  There are many songwriters I have a great appreciation for, but I’m kind of protective of my characters.  I know their truths and their lies and I don’t think i’d care for anyone’s input on who they are.  

That sounds pretty bullheaded of me… I guess I’d like to try collaborating and find out if I like it.  Or don’t.

What’s your favorite venue and why?

My music is best presented to a ‘listening’ audience.  It mostly isn’t for partying or dancing (although both of those things have happened at gigs and there’s nothing wrong with that).  House concerts of a certain reasonable size work really well.

Or any audience that comes with the expectation of paying attention.  I’m not good at huge venues or arena size crowds…or maybe I should say I haven’t experienced enough of those to quite figure out how to get my music across to an audience of that size.  I’ve played some regionally and nationally recognized festivals and found it difficult to respond to a large audience.  I wouldn’t mind learning how, though, to be better at that. I rather imagine I’d get the feel of it if I did the larger crowd thing more often.  There is nothing quite like playing to a small, close audience and interacting with them directly.

What’s the best advice you have ever gotten from another musician?

Not too terribly long ago one of the musicians in a band we were in said basically, “You know, this band isn’t working out.”  And I thought to myself, “Oh!  Holy moly!  I thought this band was totally working out.”  Hahahaha!  She was so right and I was so wrong.  It was a good lesson that took me a while to value.

September 9, 2019

Well, I have enough good songs for another album.  I am on the fence whether to actually spend the money and go through the recording process.  It’s one of those most fun things I’ve ever done, but the expense rarely outweighs the reward.  I know there are a bunch of you out there that appreciate my songs and I’d like for you to hear them - to have them.  Hmmm. If I do, it will probably be the last one.

June 3, 2019

I'm all settled in now in Evanston, Illinois and back after a two week tour of the eastern American states.  Thanks for having me come play and meet such a diverse and interesting bunch of nice music-loving people.  Connections are happening in the Chicago-land area and it's been great to swap songs and jam and begin making music with a handful of local folks.  More announcements to come as there are a handful of irons in the fire!

February 27, 2019

Whew - a lot of changes going on, starting with the biggest one: relocating my home from Taos, NM to Evanston, IL.  It's been a considerable process and still isn't complete, but pretty much.  Sold all of the furniture with the New Mexico house, so have had to refurnish the new place.  Kind of fun, really.

So from rural to urban.  And now jumping into the local music scene a bit at a time.  Starting with a house concert around the end of next month.  Woo hoo!  More as it gets scheduled.  I have a small handful of new songs and will be looking around for a studio and some fellow musicians to help me flesh things out.

November 6, 2018

Wowzer, the last night of the tour was last night at the Adobe Bar in Taos.  Thanks to all the folks that had me play at their venues and homes over the past month.  It was an extraordinary experience for me to have played my music all over the country.  And then finish up in my hometown for so many kind friends here.  If you didn't get a chance to purchase the new record, you can get it here: https://store.cdbaby.com/Artist/DavidHinske  or email me at davidhinske@gmail.com for a physical copy.  Nice to meet you all on the road!

Sept 22, 2018

Hi everyone!

I just finished the tracks for the third album, "The Story Continues".  This one was made with the excellent guidance of Don Richmond at Howlin' Dog Studios in Alamosa, Colorado.  Don plays a plethora of instruments and with the addition of other superb players on keyboards, sax, drums and clarinet, we made an album I'm very pleased with. 

Each album has a different feel and this new one is a little country and a little jazzy.

The mastering is up next with the files going to Nashville and back.  I hope to have the completed record by the middle of Oct 2018.

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Thanks to Tony Boris, Evan Yee, Carolyn Hinske, Laurie Mitchell Dunn, Pam Miller, Dan Cassidy, Bill Moeller, Theresa DiMenno, Jon Hornyak and any other photographers I may have left out - see Photo page!