For a guy who seems to have a perpetual glass-half-empty philosophy, the New York singer-songwriter and actor Jay Brannan has been gaining a lot of ground recently.
Brannan takes self-deprecation to new depths (heights?). If you visit his Web site here’s how you will be greeted on the home page:
“hi. my name is jay brannan.
i’m a singer/songwriter living in new york city, and i’m as tragic as i look in the above photo (right).
i only own one pair of jeans and currently i hate them.
i maintain this website myself, which explains why it sucks. thank you for the offers, but for now i don’t really want it re-designed. i like it this ugly and under my own control.
i can’t imagine why you’d want to see/hear/know more, but just in case, you can find me in the following places online…”
Much to his own surprise, Brannan’s so-called career has been coming together beautifully lately.
Jay’s first “real” commercial recording, “Goddamned” (Great Depression Records), debuted on CD yesterday, following its digital release on July 1.
Tonight, Brannan is headlining a show at one of the best venues in Manhattan — the Highline Ballroom — and he will then be setting off on a national tour that will wind up in Chicago at the end of the month.
Thanks to the power of the Internet — especially Jay’s savvy use of YouTube and iTunes — the performer already has a sizeable international following and will be touring England later in the summer.
I first ran into Jay when he was promoting the John Cameron Mitchell film, “Shortbus,” two years ago. I did a story about him and the film which he was nice enough (or desperate enough) to post on his Web site.
Jay did a gig at the Ars Nova theater a few months later that was quite wonderful and then last summer I took some friends to see him at Joe’s Pub where — as they say in show biz — he killed.
Now that he finally scraped together enough of his own money to record and release a CD, I figured it was time for an update.
“It was so hard, to be completely honest,” Jay said of producing his own CD in a recent phone chat.
Jay put out a neat little homemade recording last year called “disasterpiece” that sold out on CD Baby within hours.
“That was just me in a studio, performing live — a total of 15 hours to do the whole thing — so it was definitely not the same,” he said of moving from DIY New York City recording to a Los Angeles studio where he worked with other musicians.
“The arrangements are pretty simple, but everything has to be metered, with a click track. I was never very good with a metronome because I always want to play to my own internal clock,” he said of the technical challenges behind his musical upgrade.
The CD features 11 tracks and demonstrates the fact that Brannan’s voice has gotten stronger with all of the touring and club dates he’s done over the past year.
The off-beat humor and charisma that Brannan can use in club settings to augment his performances don’t count for much in a merciless recording studio.
“I didn’t love that aspect…it’s a whole different skill you need to sing into a microphone,” Jay says of the cool, hard technology of professional recording.
“It’s weird. I know I have decent pitch…(but) when you listen to (the playback) it has to be exactly right for the whole song. People expect a lot from a recorded project. A club setting is forgiving for everybody,” he said.
Brannan got a big boost from “Shortbus” — which continues to find fans on DVD — but has been building an audience that knows him strictly for his music. Jay decided not to include “Soda Shop” on “Goddamned” since the song received so much attention on the film’s soundtrack CD and the Internet.
“I’m not trying to move past ‘Shortbus’ — it’s something I’m very proud of — but this is the next step,” he said of the CD and tour.
Brannan laughed when I asked him if he has been able to give up his day job as a proof-reader and move out of his tiny subsidized artist’s apartment in downtown Manhattan (he only got in by proving he made less than $29,800).
“No I’m talking to you from there,” he said of his 200-square foot apartment. “I hope to quit my day job and I probably could have if I lived somewhere like Phoenix where I might be able to have a real place to live on what I make.”
“I have made some money from my music, but I invested it in the album, so I could make it on my own terms,” Jay added. “I can’t say that tons of people are clammering for me, but I do have management now.”
“I found someone who was willing to be a trailblazer. He’s on board for that — ready to break some rules.”
(For more information on Jay’s music and tour, visit his Web site at www.jaybrannan.com.)
