Thursday, March 31, 2011

Old Song: Earthquake (peak-oil mix) / Jumpin' Jehosephat

I probably recorded this in mid-late 2004. It started out as an instrumental track, and then I wrote a song around it. I recorded a million vocal takes, riffing on the words and melodies I wrote. When that was done I was at a loss for what to do with it all, so I gave the masters to my friend Komputadora. He did some really brilliant editing, and called it the "peak-oil mix", a reference to "the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline." (quote from wikipedia)

After enjoying the heck out of it for a while, we both more or less forgot about the track. But, Komputadora recently remembered about it and asked me for a copy, having lost his own when he destroyed his computer by wielding it in self-defense during a batched bank robbery. Rather than just send it to him privately, I thought I'd post it up here for the benefit of the entire human race.


Here are the lyrics. Cut up and improvised as it is, they aren't necessarily in order or super-accurate.

earthquake comes quickly underneath
welcome the new american species
feel the shake coming on so quickly

magma flows and panty-hoes are weighing out pros and cons
ya'll better know where mother goes, when everything's going wrong
gonna be accidents and fender dents when you put that pedal down
everybody jump like jehosephat when you hear that funky sound

i don't know but i've been told, the end is coming soon
floods and fires and pestilence, are sprouting up in my room
you might call me paranoid, and thats probably true
im just gonna jump like jehosephat its the sensible thing to do

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

I Got Physically Assaulted

It was a Tren Way Tuesday Birthday Ride in honor of Dionysius Marin. Probably the shortest ride I've ever been on, which was fine because we went to the freshest park in L.A. It's on a hill and they can't see you from the street when you're drinking beer and smashing a pinata and climbing on the various awesome toys. After that: Tren Way Park, more beers, singing, playing with yo-yos, and Spider-Man flashlights. Then we tried to go to Bowling Karaoke Place but they were CLOSED. So, we went to John's Stupid Fucking Bar. Lance bought me a glass of tasty beer and we proceeded to dominate the juke box for about 15 songs. We picked some really good stuff. I was happy because I was hanging out with some of my favorite people and I was drunk because I was filled with beer. During the silence between songs while the jukebox was changing cd's I would sing and fill the space. That's pretty much what I remember. I lost myself in the noise of the situation, as I tend to do from time to time. Things went on like that for a while.

Next thing I know, somebody has their hand on my neck and is rapidly dragging me through the bar, out the door, and onto the sidewalk. I've never been in a fight in my adult life, let alone surprise attacked by some big-ass motherfucker. It turns out the guy was the bouncer. I guess the bartender didn't like my singing, and he let the bouncer know. The bouncer then went ape-shit on Mateo. I was out there on the sidewalk and there were people all around, yelling and all sorts of bullshit, and there is some big ass dude that fucking HATES me, for no reason.

Honestly, I wasn't really mad at the guy. I was mostly just confused. I didn't know what his deal was, and I didn't particularly care. I wasn't at all interested in trying to hurt him back. However, I'll be god-fucking damned if I let anybody try to tell me what to do for no fucking reason, so I stood up, kept cool, and tried to walk back into the bar to resume the party, whereupon he pushed my stupid ass back on the ground. I'm pretty good at falling, so I think I could have kept it up all night. In retrospect, I think I was trying to do the "Jesus" thing, you know, turn the other cheek and all that. I was trying to show him what an idiot he was. If I would have reacted violently - or if I had run away - those are reactions that he is probably used to. Instead, I offered him a chance to see himself for what he was, a guy who would beat up some innocent drunk for no reason. Or not, I could just be totally self-righteous.

So anyway, after getting pushed down a couple of times, and getting back up to get pushed back down, Bouncer Guy is being held back and fuming like a bull at a rodeo, and now my own friends are yelling at me, telling me to stop it. I was broken-hearted. I was the victim and then all of a sudden my own friends are blaming me for something? Fuck them. Some douche-bag had been riding with us and actually got in my face and started trying to do the violent confrontation thing, too. Fuck that guy. I thought about it for a while today, and I'm pretty sure my friends were just trying to cool the situation and protect me, seeing as I appeared pretty intent on getting beat up all night long. But not douche-bag, he had hate in his eyes when he looked at me. Fuck him, still. But yeah, Kel yelled at me, and Borfo yelled at me, and I know they both love me so I got on my bike and rode my stupid ass off, along with everybody else. I was pretty rattled, so I stopped at the Stronghold to decompress a little. I have reason to believe that I passed out on the toilet.

I woke up fairly early the next morning and went through Pasadena on my way home to treat myself to a breakfast burrito at Lucky Boy. I missed my political science class, (thank god), but made it to orchestra rehearsal for our first read-through of Stravinsky's Firebird suite. My ankle hurts. My back hurts a lot. I'm blaming it on the playground equipment, though. No meathead stupid fucking bouncer can touch me.

4/4/2011 - Apparently it wasn't super clear and rather than go to the trouble of rewriting a stupid blog post I'm adding this post-script just in case anybody actually reads this. So: I was hurt at the time, but I realized later that my friends (Kel, Borfo, and those not named) were looking out for me and I am not mad at them at all. In fact, I love them more than ever. The End.

Monday, March 28, 2011

New Song: Salvation Mountain

I wrote a new song. It's the first non-freestyle song I've written in a long time. Also, I think it might be the first song I've written against a background of formal music training. I recorded it yesterday in my bedroom.

Click here to download the mp3

Thanks to Beth Willow Yeah for suggesting the theme. Here are the lyrics:

Early in the day I take a walk to Leonard's place
Where he builds his home / a castle for the god he knows

I believe in my dreams and then I forget

Drink my Trystero / bury your car / walk to the show
Trade your stupid clothes for rabbits fur / let your self go

I believe in my dreams and then I forget

Sometimes it's only in my mind
I'm just so busy swimming sometimes I forget I'm in the sea

God is dead and so is old Puree
We built our little church out in the desert / burned his effigy

Dance all night and sing / repeat your careless whispering
Take a walk with me between the stars down by the sea

I believe in my dreams and then I forget

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Freestyle: When What You Said Was Nonsense


This one is fresh. I haven't slept on it. It's just popping out. I added some effects to the second part, but the recording is uncut. Here be the lyrics:

when what you said was nonsense / i can't breathe in your face
oh what the fuck are you saying / about this human race
stop running / down the street
oh the dead bodies piling / in my truck
the friends of the friendless / don't give a fuck
they don't give a fuck about you and me we're friends in lobotomies
oh you and me we're friendly 'cause we got lobotomies

now / now
better go somewhere fast or else it's gonna…

when i was born i fell over onto the floor
doctors and nurses running around they don't know what to do
suddenly out of the shower came a big man wearing a shoe
he picked me up and he ran out the door
i don't know what for
but now i'm here
dying dying dying dying dying dying
dying dying dying dying dying

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Salton Sea IV - Death by a Thousand Cuts

The Range. They thought we weren't going to be there on account of the rain. Surprise, surprise; we were there in full force. At some point, Nicole says its bunny time. I stripped down and suited up. The hippie raver bike scum sound-bike showed up, and I took it on. Me and my megaphone vs. obnoxious dance music. I yelled at the speakers and made it better. Drum machines have no soul, unless you rub your soul all over them. I rubbed my soul all over everything. There was dancing and bike tricks and whatever else I saw in pictures later. Fucking awesome. I hi-jacked the sound-bike and played the Raising Arizona theme for ten minutes. I helped draw fishnet stockings on Greg with a sharpie, and gave him a Tomatoes “Wish Ya'll Were Here” sharpie-tattoo on on his arm.

Fashion show. Nicole on the mic. Apparently, she did a bang-up job. I was pretty solid into a manic phase, so I don't remember much. I strutted across the stage and then snuck over to the drumset. Thus, the fashion show transitioned into the music show. Me and Kel sang something, apparently. There's a picture to prove it. People in the audience requested “White Men Don't Name Their Babies Jesus” so I found a guitar and played it. Of course I played it in the wrong key and my whiskey-stained voice couldn't handle it. I guess it was cool, though. Beth told me about it later and she sounded impressed. After that I just watched people play. There's a picture of that, too. It was nice to sit and listen and clap.

Fashion show over. Time to disperse. I didn't know where to go or why. I ended up walking with Tomatoes' mom for a while and talking to her about something I don't remember. All I know for sure is that at some point I started crying like a fucking baby. I had to sit down. She crouched down with me and put her arm around my shoulder. It felt good to cry, I guess. It was a “good cry”. I don't know if I was crying for Tomatoes or what. It's possible. I read all his blog writings and published them. I'm now in the process of reading and editing his book, Tijuana Tap Water. I may have never exchanged two words with the guy in life, but I'm definitely getting to know his ghost. In fact, I would venture to say I know his ghost better than anybody. He's looking over my shoulder, right now, in fact. He thinks I'm an arrogant hack, both as a writer and as a musician. Whatever. Fuck you, Tomatoes. Return your mom's phone call. (Weirdly, Tomatoes' mom called me later on the same day I wrote this. I don't know how she got my number.)

I could have used a tour guide at this point. I wanted to see Charlie's place and play on his piano but I didn't know where Charlie's was and I was more concerned with not getting lost. As is my tendency, I wandered off alone. I didn't know where I was going or what I was doing. All I could do was walk. I headed back towards where I thought camp was. At the top the ridge overlooking camp, I hooked up with some kids with instruments. Banjo, trumpet, accordion. Awesome. They played songs up there and I held my megaphone out for the guy with the banjo because he was singing. Apparently they are a band called Gibbon and the Sluts. The next night I joined them as they serenaded the campground with an extended version of the classic: "Fuck You, Eat Shit Motherfucker!" along with some other great songs like "You're Still on Acid" and "Third Eye Blind Ain't Nothin' To Fuck With."

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Freestyle: A Spanish Motherfucking Breeze


I recorded this freestyle on February 3rd. Its got some really nice moments.

Funny thing, I didn't sit down planning to record a freestyle. Rather, I was testing some equipment and had the tape running, when all of a sudden I got possessed. Next thing I knew I had this perfect little thing. Three minutes exactly.

Here are the lyrics:

I got a spanish muthafuckin breeze blowing through my window - through my window
I cant fall down on on my knees anymore-anymore
I tell the stories about the times and the ways and all the drugs that I did and all the days that I splayed out, out on the pages, for you to read

when the time comes, all the spanish dancers, when the time comes to me

a notorious breeze, blowing through my window, catching the scoldiness of the oven, burning all the things that I put in the kitchen
electronic funk, folk music junk, recapitulating something else that I thunk, you know the metal up in my head its made of leaven, leaven bread you know the

the function of time is making me invincible sometimes, and I cannot help but whine, because im drinking too much beer

I aint made of fear I aint made of fire I aint made of nuthin but electrical wire
I'm coarsin' through your veins, I'm stickin' up in your brains, and I know I'm electric, oh yeah
I got that ink its all up ina your eyeballs, its making your eyeballs all sorts of different colors and childs are crying in the night cuz their mothers are missing, yeah

and there's no way to think about this sunk, there's no way to think about this sunken ship
but I know that I cant help but shake my hip, and I know that I cant help but play the chick
and I know that the keys are inconsistent, and I know that im playing in the rhythm
and the sewer in the bowl and the flowing through my mind, I cant bear it anymore I cant bear it anymore

but the time was when I was a children, all the made me into something
and I walked into the summer, and I fell down and my brother he was dying in the hole I couldn't reach him, couldnt reach him, and my brother was dying and I couldnt reach him anymore, I rode that van full of firewood into the sun into the sun, and it just kept burning out I rode that van of firewood into the sun and it just kept burning out

Improvised Songs

One of the things I do is improvise songs. Sometimes I call them freestyle songs, or freestyle jams, whatever. I was going to have a page dedicated to recent freestyles on the new website but fuck that. My html skills are about as basic as it gets and I can see that shit getting sloppy, quick.

SO: FREESTYLE SONGS ARE GOING HERE.

Oh, I'm sorry. You don't know what a freestyle song is? Let me explain. What I do when I record a freestyle song is this:

1) Set up recording gear. (microphone(s), mixer, computer, etc. check the levels and whatnot, engineering stuff, dig?)

2) Press "Record"

3) Pick up the guitar

4) Come up with a song completely off the top of my head: words, melodies, guitar parts, chords, rhythms, shouts, silences, stops, starts, everything.

90% of the time the result is no more than an audible turd, but sometimes I get lucky and cipher something that I like to listen to.

I used to make a lot of freestyle songs. "Freestyling at the Red House" is an entire album of free style tracks with bass and drums overdubbed to make it sound like a band. Going to music school, I kind of stopped playing guitar and got out of practice, so I suck a little bit now. Also, I learned a lot of stuff about theory and harmony so its really easy to get distracted by those kind of thoughts. The best freestyles usually happen when you aren't thinking about anything at all.

So anyway, they're gonna be here on this blog.