I wrote two songs this weekend, like flipsides of a coin: one bitter and detached and the other one guarded and head over heels. Pretty much the A-side/B-side to my life right now. So far they seem to be titled “Splinter” and “Hold on Me,” but lyrics are still in flux. God, where the hell did this come from? Two months of dry spell and suddenly i have something to say. Go figure.
my music
As sick as i may or may not be, there will be a new Trio tonight. If you have any requests, get them in now so i can rehearse.
Trio: Season 1, #14
Been waiting for a Trio, have you? Well, get prepared for a monster-sized new-guitar special: 8 songs & 30 minutes long! Witness me tear through “Bridge,” “A Long Time Since,” “Inadequacy Song,” “Punk,” “Almost,” “World In My Hand,” “Relief,” and the always sparkling “Under My Skin.” I make no promises as to the quality of this recording: i’ve been playing this guitar for under 24 hours, i’m sick and i can’t hear the sound of my own voice, i’m dealing with wacky amplifier distortion, i haven’t done a Trio in a month, and i’m sure i clipped the microphone at least three times in every song. But, anyway, if you’re the sort of person that cares about this sorta thing, it’ll be up for your listening pleasure come midnite. Enjoy.
While you’re waiting for me to upload the new Trio (almost 5megs, and still as low quality as ever), feel free to check out some other new audio: namely, the three ad-libbed love songs i wrote for the folks over at the SurvivorBlog2 PeanutGallery in a blatant attempt to win their affections earlier this week. “ErnDawg,”(Tony,) I Want More,” and “Revirginized Honey.” The first is on a bass played an octave high to simulate a guitar, the second is on an electric guitar missing a significant amount of strings, and the third is played just as bass-melody. Funky. Which is your favourite?
Matt’s amp is buzzing. To get any kind of volume out of it you have to turn up the Gain knob, which distorts the signal a little and leaves you with this constant amplifier hum. It feels expectant, as thought some rock band’s big sound is going to come crashing out of the amp any second in a tidal wash of big guitars and growling bass, but really it’s just me sitting on the floor trying desperately to read sheet music from the Bass Cleff of a Tori Amos book.
The apartment is otherwise empty. I did a lot of wash yesterday, so the bedroom looks somewhat organized. In here is another story … everything scattered – papers, cds, jackets, shoes. It’s really the fault of this weekend; i didn’t spend much quality time with the apartment this weekend. Saturday night Drexel had their homecoming dance and i have this single glowing picture of me with a tie tied around my head as though i was some kind of savage, sweating like a horse and smiling madly. I love to dance, that’s all there is to it.
It took me fifteen years to learn how to do the mashed potato correctly. I’m not sure that the learning curve is so steep … i think instead i had to spend time learning all sorts of other little rhythmic pieces of the puzzle before i could put it all together. A decade and a half is a long time to have spent doing anything. I’ve been in school for fifteen years now… i’ve been out of my first house for fifteen years… i’ve had my Thundercats for fifteen years. it’s funny, i only have a decade on my closest cousin and he won’t ever know the same things i knew as a child. Thundercats, GI Joes, Madonna, George Michael, Casey Kasem’s countdown, Johnny Carson, Ronald Regan, the Gulf War … all of those things are vivid emotional and psychological building blocks of my life.
I’m the only one of my cousins that will remember my Grandmother. My nine-year-old cousin Dale wouldn’t have any memories of her active and laughing since he was five or younger, and all of my other cousins are only four. I’m the youngest person in the family to know her; we spent hours sitting at her kitchen table playing solitaire, lying on her living room floor watching Golden Girls every week, eating Golden Grahams before i got picked up by my carpool on the way to middle school. Last night i was on the phone to my mother and she reminded me how long my father’s mother had been in a managed care facility … time had shrunk it down to only a year, but she was out of her own home months before we left my home of sixteen years in SouthWest Philly (which she owned).
That was almost three years ago. It’s been a long time since i’ve sat and played solitaire with her, but to me it doesn’t really seem so expansive. She’d always get up and dance when she won… singing “Let the Good Times Roll” and dancing around the kitchen. I eventually learned to jitterbug so i could join her, but by then it was too late.
A song about love, in 3/4. One strum per beat, one chord per measure, four measures per line. Dm, then C, then Dm again, and so on. It needs something more, though…
love finds a way and it winds its way into your heart that's where it starts burrows in to you funny how it chooses don't know how you fell in there's so many losers first sight that you got hit you like a shot there's simplicity in her beauty you try to hide it but we all know it's there don't disguise it lay your heart out bare