Author: h

Wax Trax in Denver was very kind to me last weekend.  With an phenomenal selection of used and new vinyl for great prices (esp. the used!), my stack of records grew and grew until I had to get out before it got to be too much to carry back to the car several blocks away.  I found some stuff I’d been looking for in KC (The Pretty Things and “Who Are You”) for over a year.

The used records were in beautiful shape, and I only paid $3-4 for each!
The only disappointment; no “Kinda Kinks” or other early Kinks stuff I’d have liked.

Here’s the full list:

• The Pretty Things, “Savage Eye” and “Freeway Madness.”  Drew’s gotten me into The Pretty Things, a ’60s-’70s British band that was psychedelic before The Beatles, sprawling before Pink Floyd, heavy before Led Zeppelin, and somehow managed never to break in the U.S.  These two albums are mid-’70s stuff, right before some personnel changes, and so they’re not classic like “Parachute” or “S.F. Sorrow” but have some solid tunes.
• U2, “Boy,” “October,” “War,” and the “Where The Streets Have No Name” single.  I already have most of this stuff on CD, but the condition of the records and low price were irresistible.  The “Streets” single has two B-sides I haven’t heard, which is cool.  Old U2 really comes alive on vinyl; it can seem kind of bright and empty on CD, but the LPs fill in the space around Edge’s ringing guitars and make it all gel.
• Art Tatum, “Gene Norman Presents Art Tatum at the Piano,” vols. 1 and 2.  Tim loaned me a two-disc Tatum compilation a year or two ago, and I loved it.  I’ve been looking for some Tatum at a good price ever since, and these seemed like a good place to start.  His piano style is fully his own, taking familiar tunes and embellishing, improvising, and ultimately transforming them into music more original than most artists’ own compositions.
• The Who, “Who Are You.”  Besides being a great rock record, I’ve wanted this to continue filling in the gaps in my Lifehouse playlist.
• Bruce Springsteen, “Nebraska.”  I’m not a huge Springsteen fan yet (“Born in the U.S.A.” is my only other Boss record), but this seemed essential for several reasons: the title, the yin-yang it makes stylistically with “Born…,” and its reputation as a masterpiece.
• Neil Young, “Hawks & Doves.”  Young’s discography is intimidating, but I have a start, and this seemed like a good next step.  It’s pretty classic Young.
• The Cars, “The Cars.”  Six of these nine songs are on a Cars “Greatest Hits” comp, but again, the pristine physical quality of the LP and low price seduced me!
• Billy Joel, “Cold Spring Harbor” and “Storm Front.”  Neither of these are Joel albums I really planned to pick up, but there they were, calling out.  “Cold Spring Harbor” was his first as a solo artist, and most copies of it were pressed at the wrong speed; Billy was famously unhappy with it.  “Storm Front” is late-period Joel, so my expectations are low, but it does include “And So It Goes,” which I love.

Here’s the fourth part of the Listening Project series (pt.1 – pt. 2 – pt. 3); As our fifth birthday approaches in September, I’ve started listening to every release roughly in order, making notes as I go.

• MFR018 – howie&scott, “Summer’s End”
  • It had been a little over two years since h&s had been regularly playing shows when we did this day’s worth of sets for Scott’s band students at Plattsmouth Middle School.  Now it’s been almost 3 years since “Summer’s End,” but it feels like it’s gone faster since; “Summer’s End” could feel like just a year ago.
  • We played and recorded 4-5 sets through the day, and picked the best for “Summer’s End.”  The tracks *are,* however, in chronological order among the sets; each song was played earlier in the day than the following one.
  • Engineering-wise, this record was made using one condenser mic placed at the back of the band room.  Bone-simple!  My bass synth ran through my guitar amp to give some presence, and vocals/sax through a PA.
  • The vocal monitoring situation was… non-existent :-(
  • We planned to record that night’s show at Doane, but technical problems prevented that.  It’s kind of a beautiful shame; that night we played some of our best-ever electric performances.  Thanks to those who were there!
  • We just practiced for an hour or something the night before the sets.  Scott and I have always been able to pick back up after a break with minimal rehearsal.  I mean, we’re not The Tightest Band Ever, but we slip back into the groove easily.
  • I don’t know why the photo of Mars seemed perfect for the cover…
  • I should re-learn “Berlin.”  Listening back, I’d forgotten that it’s a pretty good song.  Scott’s clarinet and drum patterns have a lot of character.
  • The toms sound sweet!  See “Berlin” and “Houston.”
  • I’m still searching for the right recording of the “signs” material, still hoping to take another shot at it someday.
  • Hearing the Easter III riff is bittersweet.  I woke up once with an amazing riff from a dream in my head, and actually figured it out accurately, and I thought for sure I’d remember when I got up in the morning.  But didn’t.  The EIII riff is what I worked out from what I semi-remembered, not the original, so hearing it I’m reminded that it’s just an echo of a perfect dream-riff… but it’s an echo I love.

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• MFR019 – M/S Ride, “It’s a Trap”
  • The guitars were recorded at 5*Matt’s (sister’s) house, Cory’s overdubs in an attic bedroom filled with Barbie dolls.
  • Since the album had a political element, I was working to get it out in time for the ’06 elections, but didn’t make it.  Which took some of the piss out of it, I think, hearing it after the events it was written to affect.  Still, today, we haven’t seen near enough genuine outrage at the actions of the Bush administration.  More than plenty faux-liberal self-righteous indignation, but not enough true anger.
  • This has been my biggest experiment in production to date; not only the synth-drums, but no bass guitar – just organ.
  • This album is the middle of my “Kansas City trilogy.”  “Ventura” is about moving to KC, “It’s a Trap” about living here, and “You Have To Wear The Boots” was written as I was mentally preparing to leave.  (But I haven’t.)
  • I’ve told before how “Holy Moses” was the first Sally M/S Ride song after “Don’t Let Them Take Us… ALIVE” and a complete surprise, but its roots are in the tune “Abilene” by George Hamilton IV.  I learned a campfire version on a house-building trip to Mexico, and heard something in an A/Am chord change that triggered my imagination.
  • Not sure what to make of the nautical/military themes… they weren’t conscious when I was writing, they were just how I was making sense of things in terms of narrative and character.
  • I always love to hear my friends singing! (“Holy Moses” / “Back In The Fire”)
  • “Lookers” / “Baby Bells…” – There’s an interesting use of artistic voice here, personifying an organization with malicious intent toward the listener.  I guess the goal would be to give the listener a fictional experience that would provoke a real-life response.  (A similar trick happens at the end of “David S. Addington…” except the group is an “us” instead of a “them.”)
  • “Just Observing” is written with a terrifying detachment.  I guess I still care enough to sing, which is a bare hope, but hope.
  • The album as a whole is deeply skeptical.  Not quite wholly nihilistic, but it’s… rough.
  • I’m not too thrilled with the overall mastering, but I can’t pinpoint what’s dissatisfying.
  • On the third line of “We The People,” I wish I could go back and enunciate “We’*RE* all living…”  It sounds like “We all…” which would be a lame attempt at… I don’t know, rural authenticity or something, but was not my intent.  I don’t know how I missed it in the mixing.

The Production Advice blog posted last week on Diego Stocco, who makes music from sand and trees and burning pianos.

(Not all at once.)

Diego Stocco – Music From Sand from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

Update, 5 August: I don’t know why the video is now unavailable to embed, but Diego has posted for free a longer mp3 of “Music From Sand” and one other track!

Quote:

Why do I love it ? Because it’s:

* Beautiful
* Musical
* Witty
* Unique
* Original
* Punky

– wait, punky ? [Insert FX of record scratch/car screeching to a halt/etc]

What the hell am I talking about ?

Punk means something different depending which side of the Atlantic you grew up on, but either way, what do these delicate ambient textures and found sounds have to do with either the Ramones or the Sex Pistols ?

The answer is – DIY ethos.

Regardless of what it sounded like, a key element of punk was that anyone could make music – provided they sing a bit, or strum and hit something.

Ian, unknowingly, has become an accessory to our conversation on punk.  I think his answer clarifies the connection I have been trying to draw between punk and Tillich’s “Protestant Principle;” in both, the point is that we need to have and create the raw experience for ourselves.

We don’t need gatekeepers, whether they’re the priesthood of the church or of the music industry.

And this is why punk always has the potential to rise from its own ash, phoenix-style, even if it’s under another name.

Here’s the third part of the Listening Project series (pt.1 – pt. 2); As our fifth birthday approaches in September, I’ve started listening to every release roughly in order, making notes as I go.

• MFR014 – Bike, “A Wind I Can Lean Into”
  • This has been a brilliant album for me from the moment I heard it.
  • Mastering it was a bear, though, due to the wild variety of sounds, instruments, and tones used in different songs.
  • Nate and I thought for quite a while how to handle the various short songs / segues / song fragments.  I didn’t want to intimidate listeners with 18 separate tracks.  I think the breakdown pretty much works, in that the main songs are always at the start of the file (except the first track).
  • “The Horror! Oh, the Horror!” is a permanent favorite; its weird exuberance is another perfect expression of whatever spirit it is that animates “He Came To Steal Your Children” from “How Is That Possible.”  And coming after “My Blood, My Bones”… damn.
  • You know, I’ve never met Nate in person … or even on the phone … but through Bike, I feel close to him.

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• MFR015 – echoes, “Tonight, the Lone Wolf Rides Alone”
  • After the two punk-ish echoes EPs, I wanted to do something that reflected how my friends actually experienced my music, since I never put a band together (or meant to).  And I wanted to do some covers.
  • I recorded this at Nick King’s then-new house in Liberty, MO, because I didn’t feel comfortable cutting loose singing and playing at my place (which was my landlords’ basement).  So I got a key, and headed up there one day to set up.  He was at work.  I forgot a mic stand… so I had to make the 60-minute round trip to my apartment for one.  When I got to Nick’s the second time, slightly pissed at myself, and continued to set up, I discovered I’d forgotten the special holder for the microphone itself!  So I made a third trip.  I don’t think anything from that first day of recording made the album; I strummed everything too hard and fast.
  • Who knows why “Hymn for our T.M.D. (Technological Manifest Destiny)” AKA “The Picture Song,” is such a hit among friends.  People seem to love it, though.  It’s a hard one to remember how to play, but it has a line that stands out to me, “Only time ’til you and I decide between the torch and tinder…”
  • It was hard to find a Shacker song I wanted to do that wasn’t already on “The Dimly Lit Room,” but “Talk Me Down” worked with some different chord voicings.
  • My sister, Mary, took the photo and made the card that I used for the cover.  Maybe Christmas 2005.  That’s the kitchen table at home, a favorite place for trying out newly finished tunes; you can see the open 3-ring binder in front me.
  • Three cheers for the two local bands that were huge influences for me: The JV All*Stars (“Pushing the Envelope”) and Blacklight Sunshine (“My Time”).
  • I thought Sally M/S Ride was just going to be the one record, “Don’t Let Them Take Us ALIVE,” until I wrote “Holy Moses” one day.  “Holy Moses” was one of those rare tunes that just popped out, fully formed for the most part, and when it was done I had a striking moment of “Oh God.  I just wrote a new Sally M/S Ride song.”  And all that that implied.
  • When it was released, I included a cover of the Foo Fighters’ “A320” (from the Gozilla soundtrack), which I took down after the file received 100 hits.  I didn’t want to scuffle over rights – not that anyone would have noticed! – but of course I love Dave & Co., and would never want to cause them trouble.
  • “Hawaiian Bells” is this intuitive thing… the verse lyrics change every time I sing it.  It’s so slow, and I could listen to/play that guitar figure forever, there’s ample time to kind of improvise the words every time.  I’m pretty happy with how this version came out, but it’s missing some formulations that pop up regularly.  Probably worth it, not to have it be ten minutes long, though!
  • In typical Mr. Furious fashion, the album title is a botched quote from the film “Mystery Men.”  The actual line is “…hunts alone.”

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• MFR016 – Robot, Creep Closer!, “Why Aren’t People’s Heads Exploding?” EP
  • Aggressively fun; R,CC! nail their mission to be weird, loud, semi-lo-fi party metal here on their first set of recordings.
  • Look carefully at the cover art; see the extra robot, creeping the opposite and below the others?
  • Whew!  There’s not much to say about R,CC! – you get it, or you don’t.  It’s visceral, and ideally, bypasses the conscious mind.

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• MFR017 – Cory Kibler/Church Photo Directory starring Benjamin Axeface, “We Have Uh-Oh”
  • This is Cory at his sad-bastard-est.
  • We recorded Cory’s and James’ parts in my office in the church building one weekend.  The cement block walls reflected too much sound, so we hung choir robes from the dropped ceiling in order to dampen the room.
  • “Pretending to Break Strings,” Cory’s spoken-word piece from “Furious Instance,” came from these sessions.  I caught it by accident; I’d clicked the record button, then he launched in to this story without knowing we were rolling, and it was so funny I saved it.  I always laugh out loud when I hear it, which is kind of embarrassing at work.
  • “Where Did I Go Wrong?” is a tune I play myself, live, pretty often.
  • I have a clear memory of driving around midtown Kansas City – actually up 50/Blue Pkwy./Volker from Raytown – listening to the raw tracks Cory had laid down, and writing the vocal harmonies.  For some reason, singing along to something in the car frees up my creativity.  It’s like I’m bypassing the self-editing part of my brain, and just letting stuff spill out.  I’ll put something in the car and drive around singing to it for a few days or weeks until I’ve written something OK for it.

I talked with Rob of DreamNotOfToday.com and Arturo Got The Shaft last week, continuing the conversation started here about Warped Tour and punk in general.

Re-post:

Gonzo Podcast #11: Punk or Junk?

For this week’s episode of the Gonzo Podcast, we are joined by the owner of independent record label Mr. Furious Records, C. Howie Howard to continue a conversation started about the controversial lineup for this year’s Warped Tour.

Taking a deep dive on lightning rods brokenCYDE, Millionaires and 3Oh!3, Howie and Rob look for punk in these crossover acts, searching for legitimacy in a sea of polished loops and quantized leads.

I think I might have figured out what I wanted to say, and couldn’t formulate talking with Rob:

Punk is a principle

It isn’t a sound or an era or a culture or even a group of people.  Punk contains its own critique.  Every concrete realization of punk is exhaustible, but the principle – the spirit – of punk is unconditional, and can always

(I’m borrowing language from Paul Tillich here, mostly from his concept of the Protestant principle, which I also used in the podcast.)

The spirit or essence or principle of punk always has the potential to transcend its crystallization in one place and time and be both critical and creative.  Punk isn’t a revolution; it’s the animating spirit of revolutions.  Punk isn’t a culture; it’s a power in people that both criticizes and creates culture.

Yes, punk has a widely known sound and culture in our present and recent history.  But the power of punk – unique in pop music, even hip-hop doesn’t have this element – is that its principle contains the potential for punk’s rebirth.  In this way, the unconditional may break through into our conditional existence.  Among popular forms of music, only punk has this principle as part of its identity.

Coming full circle to the question that started this conversation; brokenCYDE, 3OH!3, and the Millionaires are not punk and don’t belong on Warped because they fail to become a channel for the critical and creative power that is specifically punk.

KC/Lawrence indie/electro/alt-rockers The Noise FM are giving away their album, “Dream of the Attack,” for free here.

CA called me last Sunday night because 5*C’s “Aasta” was playing on the 96.5 FM Homegrown Buzz radio show.  I kept listening, and The Noise FM were in the studio, chatting with Jeriney and playing songs from DOTA.  At one point they mentioned that they had posted it for free, and I’d liked what I heard.

If you like Five Star Crush, The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, that kind of dance-influenced rock, you’ll find a lot to enjoy on “Dream of the Attack.”  Solid hooks, a good rhythm section, and production that perfectly straddles the border between local band raw crunchiness and studio polish make The Noise FM a band to download now, and listen for in the future. -h

Subject: Lyrical honesty
To: howie@metalfistrockout.com
From: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org

This is a really cool interview, I think. I especially like the part at the very bottom about lyrical honesty (the subject matter of “Be Right” was practically made for me!)
Pitchfork – Wale Talks Debut Album Details, Dave Sitek Collaboration

Subject: RE: Lyrical honesty
To: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org
From: howie@metalfistrockout.com

sounds like quite a cat.

there’s a lot of gray surrounding concepts like “honesty” and “fiction,” and i reject the idea that they’re mutually exclusive; that the only honesty is physical fact.

fiction and poetry have a reality that is meaningful, regardless of their attachment to the movement of atoms in time.

now, then – people are justified in feeling misled, if someone like rick ross makes claims or implications about or in their art that turn out to be false.  i’m not trying to excuse that, or draw equivalence.

“…Boots” never literally happened, but it’s got a lot of honest stuff in it i think.  including contradictions; multiple perspectives on an event that can each invoke empathy, even though they exclude each other. fiction may be a more honest way for me to explore this territory, in terms of actually communicating something real with listeners.  -h

Subject: RE: Lyrical honesty
To: howie@metalfistrockout.com
From: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org

I agree: I’m fine with art blending fact and fiction in almost any ratio.  And I think there’s no need to say, “Well, some of this is true, and some of this is false,” etc.  I think you can just make a piece of art and see what truths it’s able to address without wondering or caring if it’s being wholly “honest.”  Art that aimed for the exposition of the literal physical truth would be pretty boring.

As you said, you shouldn’t write a non-fiction book about how you climbed K2 when you actually didn’t, but that’s pretty apparent.

The professor who taught the grad fiction-writing class that I took described fiction-writing as “telling the truth through lies.”  I think that’s what art is supposed to do, and that’s what I think something like “Boots” should do.

Furthermore, even if we tried to fully distinguish fact from fiction, it would be impossible; our perception of a real event might be more shaky and less real than a dream we had.

Subject: RE: Lyrical honesty
To: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org
From: howie@metalfistrockout.com

indeed; let’s blog this!

so, what’s your take on the rick ross business, or any case where an artist is caught mis-representing the blend of fact and fiction in their work?  it seems to happen a lot in hip-hop, where i think credibility is emphasized more than in other music.

does credibility play a legitimate role in our enjoyment of hip-hop?  (or other music?)  does it play a legitimate role in our aesthetic evaluation of such music?

it occurs to me that some jazz musicians have faced a similar standard of credibility.

is there a standard for disclosure?  of course, the second we say yes, it creates the opportunity for an artist to violate it artistically…  so what if an artist wanted to blend fact and fiction in their work and avoid misleading listeners; how should they go about accomplishing that?  -h

Subject: RE: Lyrical honesty
To: howie@metalfistrockout.com
From: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org

I think it would be easy to say that a piece of art should be judged by itself, rather than in any context or with any background knowledge, but I don’t think that’s true or even possible.

During a grad class, I heard about these paintings that were being sold that were supposedly painted by a five-year-old, and people were buying them because for a five-year-old, they were amazing.  As it turned out, the dude who was painting them was actually 45 or something, and everyone who bought the paintings felt boned-over (I think that’s how the story goes).  It seems to me that intuitively, these people had a right to feel screwed, and this guy was able to sell more paintings by lying about who he was and how they paintings were made.

Maybe there’s two different scales to judge art by: one scale might be, “How does this art compare with every other piece of art like it?  Is it better, worse, so-so, etc?”  The other, broader scale might be, “Considering all of the relevant facts regarding this piece art, is it any good?”  One of the relevant facts might be the piece of art’s integrity, or whatever you want to call it.  As I said, I think it’s just about impossible to objectively weight a piece of art in relation to other pieces of art without considering external factors, so I think the second scale is more realistic.

I think the big, murky issue is the expectations that people have.  For example, I expect most writers/musicians/painters to distort and change reality for the sake of art.  Maybe if you were kind of naive and listened to Fountains of Wayne for the first time, you’d think that all of their lyrics were literally biographical: “Wow, he flew a plane for American Airlines and then got fired for reading High Times.  Weird!”  But most everyone sees that it’s storytelling, and FoW would be the first to tell you they’re just making stuff up.

But with rap, it’s more serious, and it’s more about respect and cred, right?  I think a rapper lying to me in order to get my respect seems just as bad as you lying to me to get my respect.  I mean obviously, there are countless differences between you and the dudes from Clipse (or maybe not?), but if you told me a made-up story about how you saved everyone from a sinking ship so that I would think you were cooler, that’s wrong, correct?

Regarding disclosure/presentation: I tink that the best way to blend fact/fiction without being misleading is just to present it appropriately.  I think if it’s done well, people will know.  I know that’s incredibly vague and not at all helpful, but I think that it’s true.

Here’s another distiction with rap that’s important, I think: a rapper might rap about shooting people when he has actually never held a loaded gun or something like that.  But it’s usually never presented as fictional storytelling: usually, it’s presented as hard fact.  Maybe that’s the difference: while rap music is technically art/music, the lyrics are mostly presented as the truth and maybe something kind of separate from art.  With pure art, there are no rules, but with certain types of art (biographies, some rap songs?), there are rules (i.e., don’t make a bunch of shit up).

Thoughts?

Drew’s been up a couple times this week, and will be again today, tracking guitars for Fifty Bears in a Fight.  Sounds pretty vicious.

He’s created some great vintage tones for our guitars, and by that I mean trebly and still with plenty of body.  It’s loud, though.  There is no question; the neighborhood knows exactly what we are doing.

The computer has been behaving better, but not perfect.  It had been giving us blue screens of death, but after cleaning out the heat sink, I’m just getting a new soft error about ProTools not being able to pull audio off the E: drive fast enough.  It could be heat, or that our sessions are getting huge.  (There are currently 10 tracks of just *my guitar* in “Cold Burn.)  I think I’ll take the case off for today’s session, and see what that does.  The fan noise won’t make a bit of difference, given Drew’s guitar volume :-)

Here’s the second part of the Listening Project series; As our fifth birthday approaches in September, I’ve started listening to every release roughly in order, making notes as I go.

• MFR 010 – Bike, “Stroke Me Gently, Lady Luck” EP
  • This EP turned out to be a preview of “A Wind I Can Lean Into.” Only the single minute of “I Take Pills Everyday” isn’t duplicated on the album.
  • I think the mastering is ever-so-slightly different, though

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• MFR 011 – M/S Ride, “Don’t Let Them Take Us… ALIVE”
  • My memory of writing the riff and first lyrics to “A Come-on” is very clear; sitting outside on the grass behind Frees on campus at Doane, with Cory in the sun, just goofing off. Spring 2002, maybe? Or ’03? Probably ’02. Like “God Bless The Strokes,” it was immediately apparent it wasn’t a howie&scott song.
  • Building off of “A Come-on,” the idea was to write a big love letter to the college rock of the late ’80s / early ’90s – Weezer, Pavement, Radiohead, etc. It seemed a little fanboy-ish to do it straight, so we invented the backstory that our uncles had been in this band, and we’d found the tapes somewhere.
  • Cory’s uncle Dave – known as Dave Ryan In The Morning to those in the Twin Cities – plays Emerson Biggins.
  • The drums are cut, pasted, and sampled from old Shacker recordings. It was a cool challenge to figure out how to do little fills and things that would sound natural and fit the live-in-studio vibe.
  • Sally M/S Ride was supposed to be a one-off band, just for this record. We didn’t have any idea it would continue.
  • I love the scuzzy bass tone, and the guitars that are really responsive to touch; distorted when played hard, almost clean with a softer attack.
  • “…ALIVE” set a precedent for MFR projects. It was lurking in the background of h&s and Shacker activities for ’02, then ’03, then ’04… never getting to the top of the list. Finally I moved to Minnesota and buckled down. Now, of course, taking years to record something is our typical M.O.
  • “…ALIVE”‘s significance in creating for me the freedom to write different stuff probably can’t be overstated. It was so much fun to adopt a certain voice for a set of songs, and not feel like that voice had to be C. HOWIE HOWARD speaking earnestly to listeners, and know that once the record was finished I could hang that voice up and not have to use it again. Of course, paradoxically, that freedom from expectation is precisely why I’ve continued writing as Sally M/S Ride.
  • Cory really struggled hard to figure out what guitar leads and backing vocals would sound like, but he ended up nailing stuff. His solos are the ultimate anti-shred, which I love

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• MFR012 – XMAS (Compilation)
  • XMAS is accomplishing its mission, I think, which is to create holiday music in the tension between tradition, kitsch, and integrity. I didn’t really know *how* we were going to do that when we started, and each year has brought some surprise.
  • Each Christmas song I’ve written has been one of those surprises. The first one, “Merry Christmas” in ’02, seemed to pop out of nowhere fully formed; I don’t think it would work to set out intentionally to write a holiday tune. I figured it would be my only one. Then “What’s My Baby Want’n?” arrived the following year. ’05 brought “Mary be the One this eve,” one of my favorites from my whole songbook. I like that the guitar figure feels slightly Irish, to match the memory of Big Ben, and the minimalism, the melody’s meter, the bridge bit, and the clear rendering of one of the traditions of my household; the electric candles in the north windows whose bulbs had to be screwed in each night. “Snow is a Bear” was also unexpected. Somehow Joel’s draft lyrics and melody twisted into a Christmas thing for me. Now, I think I have something for ’09.
  • I can be pretty self-conscious about tracks like “Merry Christmas” and “What’s My Baby Want’n?” It’s not my strength as a writer to go out there with straight love in all its awkward glory; I’m more about the cool observation, the provocative abstraction, and the call-to-arms. Yet, something about the season must call it out, since I return to that more raw emotion year after year.

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• MFR013 – echoes, “Be A Ska Rat” EP
  • “I Don’t Even Know…” has a sort of manic energy that’s cool.  The chorus is pretty good, I guess.  It doesn’t quite gel for me as a song, though.
  • In general, I think this EP is packed with cool ideas, and I like that the arrangements and textures fly fast and furious, without being super-busy.  But somehow, it doesn’t add up the way I imagined it would.  It’s almost too smart for its own good.  The exception to this is “J. Cougar Mellensong,” which continues to be a pretty visceral tone poem to a certain feeling and need.
  • Looking back, I’m pleasantly surprised by the drumming, though!
  • I had just discovered Ted Leo + Pharmacists before I recorded this, which explains a lot.
  • “Assassination Love Mission” quotes the Clash’s “Clash City Rockers.”  The lyrics are abstract, but it’s just a story about how “fake it ’til you make it” works out in life.  The rock-out part still rocks.
  • Cari Ann asked me what “J. Cougar Mellensong” is about, and I was silent for several minutes.  It’s not a story, and it doesn’t have a message.  Eventually, I came around to saying it’s about needing a rush of energy and affirmation from the past – familiar places, familiar music, etc. – in order to take the next step into the future.  It’s hard to find words to describe it; the lyrics to this tune are very unfiltered, stream-of-consciousness stuff.  They’re the first words that rang true to the feeling of the music, unedited.

Matt just left.  We finished recording what will be Sally M/S Ride’s third album, “There is Something and not nothing,” tonight.

It will be two years in the making by the time it’s mixed and mastered, and it’s semi-odd that it will be my third because it’s really the fifth SR record written, after “Ventura” and “You Have To Wear The Boots.”

Thanks for your patience.  Thank Matt for being a good man, a great friend, and an incredible drummer.

Tearing down gear that’s been set up for a while is always a bittersweet feeling.  (Two of Matt’s drum kits have graced my bedroom and sitting room for… more than a year.)  I love the recording process and experience so much, it’s hard to let go of a part of it and know that what we’ve done will stand in flawed glory as witness to a given time.  But it has to give way if we’re going to get anything released, which is the purpose of the whole exercise.  It’s a whole mini-loss; death and rebirth.  Makes me sentimental; I’ve got to move on.

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Last night’s solo show with Church was a blast.  Thanks to Church, Chelsea, Cari Ann, Tim, Jill, B, Sarah, Micki, Roy, Doc J, Dave, and Peggy for their parts and for listening to mine.  I should do this more – probably won’t, until I’m not writing/recording so much – but should.

The setlist: 1 Coast & Plains – 2 Cooky – 3 While I Was Moving About Flyover Country – 4 Green Christine – 5 Open Columns – 6 Iron Horse – 7 Set You Ablaze – 8 Holy Moses – 9 Out – 10 Were In Love – 11 Lost