Today I would like to share with you, in what seems to be the beginnings of a new holiday tradition, my illustrated video for “Are You Lonely Tonight, Mrs. Claus?” It’s a song I wrote a few years ago with Craig Wright of the Tropicals, and I will be showing it to you every year until they shut down the internet. I hope you dig it.

I greet you from bright and absurdly temperate Los Angeles, where I’ve now lived with my family for more than two years. For a couple of months I’ve been taking the lack of winter for granted. But today as I strolled across a parking lot to my car, it suddenly struck me very strange to feel the sun warming my shoulders on December 6th.

Christmas sneaks up on a Minnesotan in a hot clime. Living in southern California, my body misses the progression towards the holidays: the slow change in the trees and in the air from summer to fall, then the first delicate snows on brown grass, then an inward turning of the psyche into a wrap of protective melancholy, and then the comforting sound of hopeful, super-sad of Christmas carol melodies on tinny speakers of commercial zones.

Here’s a good reason to buy a physical CD. Everybody gather ’round. I’d been listening to and loving the new Ben Fold Five album, “The Sound of the Life of the Mind,” but listening to it online. Back in the spring, Ben and I got together for several days to play music, listen to stuff, and talk. We didn’t write any songs, but a lot of good talk happened, partly about his upcoming BFF album, and partly just telling tales and comparing notes about being musicians. Anyway, the other day I went into Amoeba Music and bought the album, and was delighted to see this credit in the insert. “Philosopher.” I’ll take it.

Here is a song I’m really proud of, “The Great Escape.” Pink and I wrote it together in a funky and cool hippie hang-out studio in Venice, CA, and every time I listen I’m blown away by her vocal performance. I produced a whole 60s country AM radio version of the track, a la Skeeter Davis, but in the end she wanted me to make it vocal/piano/orchestra. A good call in the end.

Well, the show at Largo was the best ever. Sean said from the stage that it had been more than a year since I’d joined them. Good to be back!

We came, we played, we swooned. John Munson, Jake Slichter, Ken Chastain and I have played most of the Semisonic shows of the last ten years or so as a four-piece, Ken adding his amazing percussion grooves and a sturdy hand with the odd hunt and peck piano riff. But two nights ago we were joined onstage by a flotilla of MN musicians, all of whom added some swoon-factor to the proceedings. First of all, the Laurels String Quartet brought their elegant and dreamy tones to the stage for “Secret Smile,” four songs in, and they stayed with us to the end with only a few breaks. Then the swoonable Jeremy Messersmith, who had rocked the crowd earlier with a great set including soon-to-be-classic new song “It’s Only Dancing,” and his producer/drummer/keyboardist/co-conspirator Andy Thompson came up for an epic vision of Semisonic’s “I Wish.” That’s a song from “All About Chemistry” that I’ve always loved, the majesty of which (in my humble opinion,) we’ve never captured onstage. Until Friday. Took ten people playing at once, but we did it.

Here’s a video for a song Missy and I wrote for her new album. That feeling of being overwhelmed and yet also empowered by the ocean, beautifully captured. We also wrote another one, called “Set Me On Fire,” (more info here.)

I had the good fortune to perform on MPR’s live radio sketch comedy (with music) show, “Wits,” last week. It was nerve-wracking and way outside my comfort zone even to hit my mark and deliver one line in a sketch, not to mention being in the wings in time for my various entrances and exits. (A spacey person such as myself is better-suited to a show with one big entrance – the stage manager only has to hunt you down that one time.) But in the end it was fun, and bantering onstage with the legendary Fred Willard was surreal and wonderful. What a funny dude. The clip above shows a particularly fun segment of the show, where Fred and I are pitted against each other in a blast of faux commercialism. Of course the big draw of “Wits” for me is that John Munson is the musical director of the show and we got the chance to perform several songs together. Here’s a link to Andrea Swensson’s MPR blog about the show, which also includes a sound clip of one of my songs from the show.