Off To War! / After Humanity both got their start as background music for a model build video. I always intended to further expand and complete the music and now I have.
“Punch the Clock” had the working title of “Chicken On A Leash” and, had I not just released another song with the word “chicken” in its title, that’s what it would have stayed. Oh, well. This short, simple instrumental tune is just as easily the soundtrack for someone working as it is someone walking … a chicken on a leash.
“Chasin’ Chickens” is my first “new” track of 2022. “New” with quotes because the song has been in my head and on my hard drive in various states of undress for quite some time.
With “Tinfoil!” I am proud to release my very first wrap song. I’d never really considered being a wrap artist before now, something’s just come over me …
The musical seed for “Merkin” was a failed introductory riff I tried on another, yet to be produced song. While the riff didn’t work out as originally intended, it was simple and blunt enough to be used elsewhere, thankfully.
“Oubliette” is one of those weird songs with unhappy lyrics yet fairly upbeat (manic?) music.
It’s also a contradiction in that I really like the song, yet it just about ended up in the trash – and I’m still not 100% sure I made the right decision to release it as-is.
“No Talkin’ Points” popped up as I mucked about with a chord form in August of 2019. What surprised me was that this one-off noodle session based on locating inside-chords would evolve into a full song.
I’m not sure why, though. That’s pretty much how they all come to be.
“Erroneous Bosch” started out as noodling, grew into a theme, and then spent around 8 months in the “fiddly” stage. I even gave up on it for a while and woulda likely forgotten it had my wife not said: “that’s good, why aren’t you working on that?”
It’s a snowy day.
Yeah, the snow is coming down.
The sun upstairs asleep, so deep
behind curtains of grey clouds.
Well, it started out as rain,
dribbling down and spitting on us.
Then it froze and now it’s
big white flakes falling down
as my cigarette dies in the ashtray,
a long, grey untouched husk.
I sat down to record an acoustic track – with vocals no less – but wanted to warm up my fingers with some improv first. That’s when the rhythm to “Peace Bus” appeared.
No, “The Sand Bats of Manark IV” (3:27) is not a long lost ST:TOS episode but the next installment of my ongoing “CAE – Curiosities from the Attic” recording project.