Higher Hill "All Lit Up"

Invention starts with a blank page.?It could stay blank, or it could go somewhere, anywhere.??That blankness can be intimidating.??Once you have an idea and choose which direction to take, you might find yourself with something magical that revolutionizes an industry, or it could be a dud.?

My favorite part of my CEO job was making those first squiggly drawings of ideas.?Yes I also had to secure funding, manage culture, hire the team, run the numbers, and keep customers happy.??But that first spark when I drew?on the white board of the conference room, on a piece of printer paper, on a napkin… that always brought me energy and joy.?Bill Fang, my CTO, could divine the good idea underneath the bad drawing, and he would translate it into a honest-to-goodness block diagram.?Together with the team, we would refine, add some things, simplify other things and then go again, and again, ...until we were satisfied.??We knew which ideas to push hard and get fast to market, and which ones to quickly walk over to the trash.???I had my job to do and Bill had his. Together with our team we were definitely MORE. That doesn’t happen very often in life.

It turns out that I beat the odds, and found yet another partner who can help me bring things forward from a blank page, because technology isn’t the only thing that uses a creative spark. ??Let me tell you a bit about my Paul.???

Paul Bullock is a unicorn. Since high school (in the ’80’s) he has consistently held jobs as a?professional, paid?musician, all while going to school, getting a masters degree in engineering, and then becoming a patent holding CTO for one of the largest telecom companies on the planet.?Sounds easy, right??

While CTO for the largest worldwide account at?Ciena, he played with their corporate band,?OTN Speedwagon, and earned a brick with his name on it at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.?Paul didn’t hide in the closet alongside most corporate musicians. His other band, Infinite Journey, was broadcast on AXS TV'sWorld’s Greatest Tribute Bands live to Millions from Whiskey A Go Go in Hollywood.?Every time I go to an Infinite Journey concert I hear the women at the front of the stage giggling and screaming and throwing articles of clothing at him.??If they knew how amazing he was as a husband, they would crawl up on stage after him.??

Paul also hand crafts, one-of-a-kind, bespoke, electric guitars at?Bullock Guitars. I found my very own renaissance man and he is indeed mine-all-mine.???

During quarantine Paul and I could regularly be found on the porch playing guitar and singing a song.?I bring an idea (words and melody) and Paul brings all the musical “oomph” and structure. Together we are more.

Paul and I have worried about our friends who are professional musicians or sound engineers who didn’t have the luxury of a day job.?They were devastated as the majority of their income came from touring… and there was no touring.??They couldn’t even play local concerts as many of the local businesses went under from the strain.??????

In a moment of weakness Paul agreed to me sharing one of our songs with some friends of mine in the music business,?Clayton Durant?and?Amanda Montgomery,??who then shared the song with a few producers.?

Have you ever seen an image of a snowball growing momentum as it rolls downhill and grows and grows into something quite different...Imagine our surprise when not one, but several of the producers said they thought the song was worth taking to market.?Then one of the producers said “send me everything you have, no matter how rough."?I told him we only had one song and he scoffed: “I’m not buying it, I know songwriters, if you have one, you have a book full… gimme.?You don’t get to filter, that’s my job.”?We sent over our book.?Turns out we?are?songwriters.?

Let me tell you, just as being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart, writing songs together is not for every couple. It is hard hard hard. Paul and I learned to trust each other in a whole new way. I learned to trust that his “weird” guitar sounds that I thought perhaps "over the top" were interesting and clever.???He learned there are some people who actually listen to the words and that lyrics are important too. There were some rough patches in the middle, where one of us was emotionally invested in our part of the creation, and the other did not appreciate it for the genius we knew it to be.?

Not only did we work through those bumps, imagine our delight when we got to work with and support (and be supported by) the best musicians, engineers and producers the music scene has to offer.?Paul and I encouraged the producers to include as many musicians as they could in each project, given the hardship most musicians were dealing with.?Each producer lit up with joy at that request. Off to the races!

Paul and I will be perfectly happy if all that happens from this project is these spectacularly talented musicians were able to pay one more light bill as they helped us bring our music into the light of day.?

It was inspirational watching the artistry of these producers, engineers, and musicians who can bring our songs to life.?The magic of a producer who hears things that should be there, but aren’t… knows when to accent with ooh’s or ahh’s, when to cut a phrase short, or when it needs to be doubled.?How to add a laser sound to the intro, or a crazy conga drum beat into the rock and roll ballad, or when to pass on the song altogether.??

Our first release is All Lit UP, produced by?Jeffrey Trott?(Sheryl Crow, Hootie and Blowfish, Stevie Nicks).?We were honored by the all star band and engineers he brought to play and work on our project including Fred Eltringham, Billie Justineau, Andrew Petroff, Buckley Miller and of course Jeff himself. I wouldn’t dare pick up an instrument in front of this crowd, but Paul jumped right in. ?It turns out that just like my day job engineers, a good sound engineer is worth his/her weight in gold.??In this picture Armando from Luminous Sound is working with us while Jeff produces remotely on the screen.

All Lit Up is a song about quarantine. My dog was the only one in the house who was thrilled we were all cooped up, and we may have "opened a bottle...or maybe two” from time to time.?

Jeff told us ahead of time his approach to this song was going to be Retro Indie Rock. When I asked what that meant he answered: “think Black Keys...it has blues elements but it’s steeped in retro indie sounds, it grooves and it’s sparse.” Jeff was gracious, encouraging, and put us both at ease.

Take a listen, “like” it on your favorite music service, and please click subscribe button above so you can be a part of the Unplugged family.?You will hear how the Unplugged articles this past year were in many cases the spark for the songs.?

If you are wondering why Paul and I chose the name Higher Hill, it is because we all have choices to make when things get hard. We made choices to keep going.?It wasn’t always easy.?When we can pull ourselves up into a new place, just one step at at time, then we can get to that HigherHill, the world will look different, and we can decide where to go from there.?Sometimes the choice is to lend a helping hand to someone else who deserves their time to be heard.??That is?the foundation HigherHill Studios.??If you click on the picture below it will take you to all your favorite streaming services.

Copyright 2021 Vanessa Ogle. All Rights Reserved Rock&Roll Hall of Fame Picture by Nick Dihigo. Paul and Vanessa Picture by Lindsay Robertson