Nick Jaina

I recorded a bunch of covers over the winter for supporters of my upcoming album. People who gave a certain amount got to choose three songs for me to record. I’ve collected the best of those and am offering them to you in one convenient place.

It’s called Sleeping on the Covers, and features songs by Madonna, Kate Bush, and Sting. Yes, Sting.

I did it all in my friend’s studio while he was on vacation. All the songs that seemed like they would be the hardest to do something with ended up being the most touching, including the Sting song which I turned into a waltz and found to be rather sweet.

Daniel, the website guy here. Eleanor is one of my favorite Nick Jaina songs:

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Special treat from me.

Here is my latest column for Localcut.

It is about SXSW and American Idol and how they are maybe kind of similar and maybe not. And I refrain from reviewing all the tacos I ate while in Austin. (But man, I ate some great tacos.)

I traveled to SXSW with Menomena last week and wrote about it in my weekly column.

You can read it here.

Sample pull-quote: “Dad moved to Florida and is dating a really nice real estate broker, while Mom stays home and raises the kids while seeing Steve, who treats her well and is pretty cool and has a motorcycle.”

Joshua Jay Elliott directed a music video for my song “Another Kay Song.”

The Woods, a music venue in Portland, graciously allowed us to use their space for the day. It’s perfect for making a video, because they have several different rooms that can be dressed to look like different houses.

I was in charge of catering, which meant I had to visit the Cash N Carry, load up a big cart with discount cheese, and do my best to make it look pretty. I also baked some bread and  chocolate chip pecan cookies. I learned a while ago that you need to keep a film crew happy by feeding them.

We tried the method of filming us musicians playing at double speed and then slowing down the film to make it look kind of dreamy and weird. Singing a song at double speed for ten hours is like taking speed. Afterward it was hard to calm down enough to speak at a normal rate.

The big moment was the drink spilling scene. There were only so many times we could throw wine on poor Tom Patterson.

My dear friend Melanie Brown directed a music video for my song “Days in My Room.”

We started the day downtown at the only place in Portland where you can buy Super 8 film. “Don’t pay the meter, it’s a scam,” Melanie said as we went inside. “They never actually give parking tickets downtown.”

We returned to my van to see a parking ticket on the window. We didn’t have a specific plan of what we wanted to do, just that we would drive East and maybe go see Herman the Sturgeon.

The Super 8 camera works best in little bursts. You just hold down the button and wave it at a scene, and hopefully everything works out.

We found Herman at the fish hatchery, but the light was too dark. I kicked the snow in the parking lot, and we found some other pretty spots along the Columbia River. Because it’s film, we had no idea if it worked until weeks later when we got it developed, transferred to digital, and edited into a coherent piece. Jeremy Bird did a wonderful job assembling the images into a story.

Tim Nelson directed a music video for my song “Sleep, Child.” The outside shots were filmed in the Clinton neighborhood of Portland. It was a rainy day, which was possibly appropriate. The climactic bed discovery scene was shot at that college on the east side of town, I forget what it’s called. The sleepy-time and dancey-time scenes were filmed at Ariel and Steve’s apartment. Their bedroom really looks like that.

The idea was that in the Real World I am lulled to sleep by the band. I go off to Dream World, which is kind of gray and dreary and all I want to do is get back to sleep so I can wake up and be with my friends again. Why can’t I just be happy where I am? Well, come on, Dream World is so lame and everyone seems so mad at me. They just push me around and they won’t let me sleep. I just want to curl up on the bus bench and… oh COME ON! Do you really need to talk on your phone right HERE!?

This video is in the long tradition of music videos where white is black, dream is reality, Michael Jackson is street tough, etc. Best of all, it’s free, because nobody every tried to make money from music videos, and so when you watch it without paying anything you’re not destroying the world. So, please enjoy!