Love is radical.

I pray we can move past the contemporary racial narrative that Elites have so cynically crafted and delivered via media and academia during the past several decades. Why have they invested so much time and money in such a message of divisiveness, disempowering individuals from experiencing the give-and-take of pure love between themselves and their fellow human beings and replacing it with a political agenda of factious chaos?

Elites are leveraging their cultural and political influence to profit from our division as we suffer from the mass delusion they perpetrated to tear us apart and keep us apart, with “peace” always just one election out of reach. Are we truly promoting love when we blame hate on others, when we—as individuals—have the soul power to recognize and overcome the resentment and hatred in our own hearts?

Know: You are free, right now, to go forth in love and to create peace. Unity is your greatest responsibility. If you want it, you must own your part in it.

The peculiarity and variety of peoples’ perspective on America interests me. This song represents one of a few different snapshots of my own impressions, originally penned in the 1990s. It plays with the idea of what one does with the responsibility of carrying a message about your nation. I delicately tweaked two lyrical lines to more closely resemble my current thoughts. I recorded this song several times until arriving back to the basics of folk rock instrumentation (including the two chords I know on the mandolin!). There is a Phil Lesh-inspired emphasis on bass guitar celebrating the awesome Ampeg rig I recently acquired.

Saying goodbye to something can be difficult, even if the thing you’re leaving is damaging you. This song was inspired by 7 months’ alcohol free. The instrumentation is particularly sparse, which left room for some detailed production work. It also features a melodica solo. This reedy instrument can impart melancholy better than no other in my own repertoire of musicianship.

https://rodzroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/rodwest_-_quarter_master-001.mp3

Being the enforcer of speech codes can be lonely in my not-yet-fully-imagined futuristic Orwellian musical. In this song, I assume the role of a police officer charged with finding and eradicating non-state-sponsored materials littering the landscape of communication. Enthusiasm in the first half turns to gripes about the daily grind of destroying samizdat. Thanks to my daughter for lending her voice talent by uttering on of her favorite phrases, “Shut up!”

https://rodzroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/rodwest_-_thoughcop2084_master-001.mp3

Non-creative types can construe the artistic drive in others as confusing or off-putting. This song embraces that weirdness.

https://rodzroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/rod_west_-_weirdy_master-001.mp3

I haven’t had a drink since November 1, 2018. I captured this song  during a particularly lucid rumination on how I was feeling: Inspired. Ceasing the destruction of myself and becoming much more responsive to inspiration has begun to instill a sense this feeling is worth sharing.

Wearing my 80s production and Bowie influence on my sleeve, I present this work.

https://rodzroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/rod_west_-_geniuses_of_glory_master.mp3

This piece came to me all at once. Or, more accurately, it is the result of a couple of years of pontification about the zeitgeist. I crafted the beat and the main synth theme during my lunch break; to have waited would have been torture.

https://rodzroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/rwest_rod_west_-_friendly_friend_master.mp3

I happened upon a really infectious beat I created a couple of years ago and, after an enjoyable session, pulled a catchy melody from the universe. As fate would have it, I decided to listen to The Doors for the heck of it, and realized what I had with this song is a Doors-influenced piece of classic rock with a twist of contemporary production. And so, On Fire was born. It was fun to channel a bit of Jim Morrison, walking the line between psychedelic and Sinatra in vocal and lyrical styling. Yep, looks pretentious to have typed that out loud.

https://rodzroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/rwest_on-fire_master.mp3

I’ve been working on this song rather than processing my open mic videos (two shows in the backlog, one of which features a misguided attempt to play my piano arrangement of Redneck Vacation. Sometimes things don’t work out, but I do plan on sharing it soon.). At any rate, here is “Making a Living,” my first song of 2019. It is written for my daughter, who is 20 and feeling angsty about being an adult.

https://rodzroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/rod_west_-_making_a_living_master.mp3

Listen on SoundCloud: