Here’s a hastily thrown together kitchen recording of a new song called Day Job. We’ve been playing it for a few months now. I had the chord progression and lyric; Jim wrote that opening guitar riff the 2nd or 3rd time we played through the song. The drum and bass parts on the full band version are fantastic.
Day Job
They say you got yourself a day job
And that when the day is through, there’s nothing left of you.
They say you got yourself a day job
Now everyday feels the same. Just called by another name.
All the things we always thought we’d do
We’re never gonna do, so stop dreaming and work.
All the thing we always tought we’d be
We’re never gonna be, so stop dreaming and work
You went and got yourself a day job
No more playing in a band. Now you’re working for the man.
Here’s “Carnival”. I’ve thankfully grown out of my out-of-key falsetto phase, but here is clear documentation that it existed. There’s probably not enough auto-tune in the world to fix it.
This song has two or three lyrical rip-offs from Buffalo Tom songs. This is fitting, since it was Buffalo Tom that got me hooked on tremelo and using a capo on every damn song. I’ve left the tremelo phase behind it seems, if only because I never have enough cables to correctly set up my pedal board. Jim has tremelo in his line, but he uses it more sparingly and tastefully than I ever did. The trem on this tune is straight out of Gibson Explorer, which is the main amp I used on the “Low” recordings. Jim used his Fender Princeton, amongst others, just in case anyone is taking notes.
“I’m a haunted mind, that much is true…my moods change from black to brown to blue…but don’t be afraid, I’m never leaving you.”
We are playing the Lakeside Lounge on Friday April 9. At Ed’s request, we’ll be playing “The Empire Falls” off of our album “Low”.
It’s one of three songs on that record that begin with the word “Don’t”.
It’s also one of the bunch of songs that I wrote in a weekend flurry of songwriting. Most of those songs ended up on Low. I’d recently gotten married, but at the same time it seemed like the rest of the world was falling apart politically. The whole record deals with that issue, but particularly this song. I’m kind of proud of both verses:
Don’t talk..Don’t say a word…I’m so sick of the government…sick of talking about the government…sick of thinking about the government…I just want you.
Don’t fret…Don’t worry your mind..If the sky will fall, let it go…when it crashes down we’re sure to know…so put a record on the stereo and stay right here.
Here’s another from the vault. It was recorded live into my Powerbook about three weeks after I purchased it, which was about one week before it was stolen.
It’s only been played live once, never with a full band. From the sound of it, I’d guess I was trying to rip off Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker album.
It’s called “Musburger”, on account of I was living with my friend Brent “Musburger” Gollnick when I wrote it. He used it in a short film he was making, so I saved the file with his name.
Years back, I told Jim that for my birthday, I wanted him to make a home recording of him singing one of our songs. I left the song choice up to him. He chose “My Friends”, one of my personal favorites as well. We’ve never recorded it for a record, but we play it live quite a bit.
Here is a version by Jim. He plays all of the instruments and sings.
Here’s an acoustic demo of the song “The Last of Your Kidnapped Brides”. A lovely full band version of this appears on our CD Low. This one suffers from the absence of the B3, the Pigeon Club’s beautifully out of tune piano, and Mia Riddle’s backing vocals, but the general structure of the song remains unchanged.
I wrote the song after seeing a documentary about these women in Uzbekistan who are kidnapped and forced to marry. The documentary looked out how many of the women eventually settle into their marriages and end up relatively happy. In the end, they allow their own daughter’s to continue the cycle. The lyric is intended to be a daughter addressing her mother as the moment of her kidnapping approaches.
Many years ago I bet my wife that if I could write and record a song before she finished making dinner, she would sing on the recording. I won the bet.
I used a coffee can filled with change for percussion. I stole the title from the Yo La Tengo song by the same name. The recording is a little rough, but there’s a certain charm to the lo-fi, thrown together nature of this recording.
Way back in 2003 or so, we went to record our demo at the Pigeon Club in Hoboken, NJ. We hadn’t been playing together for very long. Some of us had never been in a recording studio before. We recorded 5 songs live in one day and used that demo to hustle gigs around NYC. We sound nervous on the recordings, but there’s a certain charm to the session.
Here is one of the songs. It’s called Girls in Skirts. We still play it, but it’s become much looser and noisier than this version.
In my craft or sullen art Exercised in the still night When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arms, I labour by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart From the raging moon I write On these spindrift pages Nor for the towering dead With their nightingales and psalms But for the lovers, their arms Round the griefs of the ages, Who pay no praise or wages Nor heed my craft or art.
