JEFF IFTEKARUDDIN

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Hear Jeff sing in Spanish!



Hey. So first off thank for taking time off from facebook to stop over here. Is it just me or is myspace somehow falling second to Facebook? Maybe its just me and my Facebook addiction.



So I was lying in bed and thinking about things, mostly "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole. It's really a great book and if you don't know the story, John posthumously won the pulitzer. He committed suicide in 1969 and it was his mom who hounded a certain English professor by the name of Walker Percy. She had her son's seven year old manuscript on really crummy paper and the professor didn't want to read it thinking that this woman was just another nut pushing nonsense on paper. He finally promised to read the book and was blown away. It was published and because of his mom's efforts, John's masterpiece has been able to reach so many people. It's a great book, genius if you ask me. Why am I telling you all this? Because it's these kinds of stories that make me want to write songs. I find myself stunned by Toole's verbiage and his ninja like deftness as he slings adjectives and metaphors about with precision.



When I think about my songs or what I am trying to do it's just telling a story. You see something happen, you watch somebody do something, you feel something as you're stuck in a Manhattan bound L train that just stops under the Hudson. I could write and give you a generic bio but I would rather tell you why I love to write songs and the kind of music I love to listen to.



This sounded so much better in my head when I was thinking about what I was going to write.



The truth is I am always trying to tell a story through my songwriting and most of the time I am writing from a "Joyce" style in that I just let my subconscious flow. I will usually interpret later but most of the stuff that I write that I really like, well, I don't always understand it at first. It's kind of like you have to interpret it like a dream.and sometimes it changes. There are songs out there, groups, songwriters, that have created this kind of aural art that has both stunned and inspired me at the same time. I remember getting to meet Les Paul in NyC and finding it hard to fathom that I was standing before the guy whose signature was dashed across so many legends. I was equally astonished to learn he had an unrivaled bawdy wit. The guy who after he wrecked in his car had his arm set so he could still play guitar. The guy who pioneered multi-tracking with his gal Mary.



That in an of itself inspires me. People's stories and their conquests their journeys and their adventures have always inspired me as a songwriter to keep learning to tell stories and to make my own adventures.



At the end of the day my goal is to listen to my stuff and know that I was being totally honest Maybe the lyrics are vague and maybe they're distorted, but I know if they're honest or not. I think that's why lyrically I have always trusted my subconscious. My sub doesn't always provide the best rhymes or slant rhymes, but it's always on point. My feeling is that if I'm honest, even if the music is not your type, you'll feel the honesty.



When I listen to my own songs I can remember exactly what I was going through or what I was feeling. Those emotions tend to change as time goes on, just as it changes how I feel when I hear "Pride (in the name of love)". The first time I heard Bono take that note wayyyy up high I literally choked on a Mrs. Fields brownie. And I know that many humans have had that brownie choke moment where a piece of music just makes you feel completely undescribable.or is it indescribable? Not sure.but I think you get what I mean. I remember when my mom played Lennons entire Imagine record the day he died.I heard something in those record grooves that has stuck with me my whole life. I was in rite aid a few nites ago and "Watching the wheels go round" was playing throughout the store's speakers. I stopped in the analgesics isle and just listened. My eyes gazing hazily at neosporin while I listened to John's magical vocals glide through the store on that quiet Silverlake a.m.



That is my quest, what I'm always striving for, and I've learned that it can never be forced, it just happens and my goal is to someday make that kind of music.



My biggest influences and most favorite artists are as follows: Def Leppard, Big Wreck, Franco De Vita, Eros Ramazzotti, Soda Stereo, Extreme, Joe Satriani, U2, Van Halen and Vivaldi. There are tons more but these guys have hit my heart hard. It may be a 72 track vocal or a "brown" sound on "Cathedral" or a chorus that stops me in my tracks on an airport concourse and makes me sing at the top of my lungs walking through the dirty Hollywood rain.



Music is a huge part of my life and I am guessing it is also a part of yours and I think that is awesome. Long live music and the people who make it and the people who drink it up like a magnum bottle of champagne.



J



Hear Jeff sing in Spanish!