Some part of me is wolf like. That must be the human part of myself. The part of myself that cannot exist in a digital & nuclear world. The radiation from the constant influx of information and the rapid pace of disconnection under the veil of knowing all of everything under 2 minutes under the veil of electronic truth. Once huddled in a library swimming in books and electronic databases with reliable ideas and opinions, we now swim in subjectivity and it truly is an existential paradise: we live in a time of no truth but the expectation of delivering with absolute accuracy your most inner truth.
This is my struggle. A world lost in itself. Consumed with itself and its presentation. I dont know if this sort of power and excitement is actually helpful or destructive, no one will know. It is exciting but technology doesnt always deliver utopia. Our countless authors have predicted dystopia. Are they afraid? behind the times? Or am I just out of touch? I miss the simplicity of a tide pool, slowly enjoying the world. I am in the undertow. My head is underneath. I am breathin but losing steam. I am gasping for the surface as waves and waves of information and changes occur. I feel like an old man. I am nearing 40, so with that milestone I presume I actually am an old man now haha
In the midst of all of this disarray and the heaping expectations upon me as a husband/father/professional, I have kept my nose to the grindstone and felt the art within me grow and blossom as a song writer again. I have recently completed another record. Who knows if it will ever be released? But probably has a better chance a sa solo effort. These songs have been in the oven for about 3 years now. Plodding thru life creating when I can until I had a big spike in personal writing and recording. I wrote about 15-16 songs in the last year, and basically saw them all thru from beginning until end. With the amount of time I actually have to dedicate to these efforts, it might as well be 100 if that was my actual job. I am proud of what I accomplished here. Daydream Werewolf is the title.
1- BloodSHED- this song I wrote in the shower. I had this entire poem as a freeflow song for months and couldnt find a collaborator and this was one of my first efforts to see a vocal melody thru from my skull to an iPad and into a full entire production. It is a manifesto of sorts. It is the first song because it tells you exactly what I am up to. That to be real and to be a human artist, I must strip my entire being away until I am so free I can walk thru the crowds in the nude. Its bloodshed. its a piece of my body for the listener to chew upon and gnash on with my complete and utter honesty. This song sat around as I tried to get it into various other bands. It really wasnt until one of my collaborators, Natalie, said, "Did you ever think of just doing a solo record?" Well No, I was either too afraid to or lacked the confidence to do so, both probably, but when I saw the material and the challenge, I was excited. BloodSHED was always the opener.
2. Worms in the Wires- This was a B-Side instrumental outcast that was a ear worm. I loved the music and I loved the bridge break. Somehow the lyrics Worms in the Wires came about when I was writing the actual lyrics. I spent Aug 2014 t0 Feb 2015 working thru this song until it found it out. The end was a podcast on biblical references to Worms and its seeds in the devil. It really is a song about the technological overhaul of humanity.
3- Luna- My friend and amazing drummer/musician Raymundo Rascon sent me the music for this after listening to older records I did with my brother Clint under our moniker geppettoGESTAPO, which has since been laid to pasture. the Name itself was too long and too divisive. It was an idea similar to Marilyn Manson but with a different concept. It wasnt an homage to the Gestapo but that evil force was the evil workings in our little universe. I digress. Luna was a song that came easy. It was explained to me that its inspirations came from The Knife and the common knowledge amongst my musician friends that i am a sucker for strong pop inclinations, so when I was writing to this song it was late nights outside in the back. I would boil tobacco in a hookah and jam and record ideas for songs. One night the full moon was shining down and was ominous, the song just made me dance and dance and dance. I was moving I was jamming and the hook just came down from heaven. I imagined myself as some primordial native with no knowledge of what the moon actually was or is, only a beacon of time and powerful. The lyrics have everything to do with giving grace to the nature and blessings around us. It is simply as song about how beautiful it is to simply be along and by yourself and just dancing under the moonlight.
4- The Gavel- Ferguson. That's all I can say about the idea of police brutality and the military police state from armored vehicles rolling in like the Army. The song says that our police have become like Judge Dredd and our courts opinions and backing of police enforcement in lethal outcomes have only allowed it to blossom like a virus. We cannot have death be the most absolute means for self defense. We need ninjas out there I guess. But the song is about this. It ends with a recent lecture from Noam Chomsky on the historical precedents from slavery to the 60's and MLK, and how this just feeds into the timeline. It isnt about Michael Brown solely. It's about the idea of a justice system that locks up and targets the poor, dismantles the community's ability to provide, breaks up families, and how enforcement techniques of shoot first and ask later, breed the ultimate distrust and its a pressure cooker. These thoughts are propellents. They feed the fast pace of the song.
5- Hearst Castle- relationship building can occur with heightened awareness and changes in ones consciousness. there is a lot of support for this.
6. The Eagle & the Hawk- This is a cover of John Denver. I originally heard this from Bonnie Prince Billy's acapella version. I was going to write the music and just overlay this. However, this did not happen. I instead had an idea for an entire production. I just love the lyrics, its a poem about this country. I spent a lot of time on the production here from the sounds of nature to the various instruments. I used the basic music and notes from Tabs online to write it.
7. DayDream Werewolf- Another song I wrote in my head and then translated into music. Just a beat before. I didnt even know I had written a bass track and piano in the back until a few months ago. It was long and rambling and then I found 8 bars that accentuated the music and went with that. This song is about a dream I had of my father that defined my relationship for a long time. Fear. Every life choice was not just fear from an image of him as a werewolf chasing me thru a house as a young boy, cowering as he banged on the door, but the fear of not living up to my potential. Ultimately, the true fear is that I will become him and in many ways I have had to face these demons. It is not easy knowing some piece of what you hated of your father lives in how I know father.
8. Something in the Way- I spent a good month reading and listening to everything Nirvana. I even read a book on In Utero on its production on every facet. A book in a series called 33 1/3. all his records, all the magazines. His life and how important he was to my new world became apparent. In my high school days, there was so many young teenage boys who wanted to be Kurt Coabin, the clothes, they played the music, they wanted to live and die for their art. They didnt want to conform or be successful but live in obscurity. This idea is the complete opposite of who I became later on in college and in music then. But who I am now relishes the underground. Kurt Cobain would love music today in that regard. He may have never been discovered except in some blog and left in the undertow and grind. Today is his world and influence. But we all still want to make it out of the ocean and onto the shores of fame in some small way. I found this song to just be the most pure and biographical for Kurt. There is something in the way, blocking him from moving on from the pain, something blocking us all from reaching our fulfillment. A recluse has always been attractive to me. Living in my own world and building a universe with no worries and commitments. Cobain living under a bridge, eating grass, with rodents his only friends, the Seattle rain pouring upon him, everything about this atmosphere was attractive to me and the production was my own, in my own style. All my covers are only skeletons with new skin. This is a perfect example.
9. Take the Light In- This was another B-Side with another collaborator. At one point I was searching for the end of a album for another group. Worms in the Wires, this song, and Far Off Land were all apart of this search for the perfect album closer. It had to have a vibe, it had to have some beauty, it had to leave the listener with a certain something. For a few months, this song was going to be a sampled instrumental and the companion to Hearst Castle. However, when the hook came to me, I knew this was going to be something important and special. What's more the lyrical backbone was about how as I get further away from the death of my father, the fragments of him start to dissipate like the light of a distant far millions of light years away that hit my eye on any random night outside while smoking the hookah and devising a new song. The middle section is sort of a homage to a former artistic persona as a spoken word artist, the Catastrophe God. I see this as inspired like a Beatles song, simple, pop, but layers of depth. I am certainly not close to the Fab 4, but I feel this song to be an homage to their brilliance.
10- Far Off Land- this song was a pretty controversial one. I was so sure of its vitality as a album closer, as a means to help others, that I had a war with my collaborator verbally to get it on the record. I couldnt force it however, and I left it alone. Luckily it is now MY album closer and I am pretty happy with it. Most good songs come fast, the best do, and this is no different. I came up with this one in the car and at home on a weekend where I was watching my daughter. Im sure if you took the vocal tracks you could hear her yelling about the house. This one is about the darkness and the light and trying to sort thru it. It is as much a manifesto as BloodSHED and a fitting conclusion.
These are just some of my thoughts on the record.
I hope to have it linked and out soon. This is an obscure place. It is like going out to the forest and sitting in solitude. thats Xanga.
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