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Titular (SGnB) Essay 23 September 2019

I wrote this basic song in my dorm room in Cumberland Hall at the University Of Maryland College Park in 1987 or 88. People tell me I have an unnatural gift for remembering songs. I suppose that's true. I honestly don't know. I know this, though. By the time I bring a song to a bunch of players I've played it at least 500 times. That's why I get mad when people ask to change something. It's like asking someone to change the function of their cardiovascular system. Sure it's possible. It's supremely unnecessary. That doesn't mean I'm not open to suggestion especially in a project as expansive as THE NEVER ENDING OPERA.

I understand the problem. The way that popular music has evolved since the proliferation of electricity has served as a limit to people's imaginations. The concept of the album is arbitrary. I owe it absolutely no allegiance and neither should you. Why should the limits of what can be pressed onto a slab of vinyl in the 1950s be the template for whatever the fuck I'm goddamn writing? Please tell me I want to know.

The problem is mine and mine alone. Of course one can parse the blame around but, being as complaining and whining are now the bedrock of the United States Of America to such an extent that this nation has elected the king of whining and complaining and blaming as the motherfucking president (just right quick before I move on - Imagine General Lee blaming his troops for his loss at Gettysburg - It's unfathomable - But in the words of Bob Haney "I digress" ) the problem is mine. Here's the reason. I'm the only person I've ever met who has a problem with the album system. I've been attempting to change the way that people think of popular music. I haven't succeeded in the slightest. I haven't even convinced the members of the SFP collective.

That's fine. I don't want to put too much on their plates. It's MORE than enough that they're willing to help AT ALL! I can't express the deepness of my love for these people. If any word sums up my attitude to those I share creativity with it's gratitude. Also this, yo. We're all middle aged punkass motherfuckers bitten by the need to rock (silly but true) when we were fucking children. I believe it's in all of our DNA. I merely want to establish a completely new template upon which to display out creativity.

I can hear you getting pissed. "Stop being so vague, Dave!" your shouting at your blue tooth device on your way to work. "I'm already pissed I got to go to fucking work and now you're berating my because YOU haven't explained to me what I don't understand." Well, commuter, today's your lucky day.

I write a lot. When I was a kid pouring through rock bios of the Beatles and the Who what struck me was the business like approach to songwriting that Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Townshend employed. Later on I discovered the Velvet Underground and how Andy Warhol nudged Lou Reed in the same direction at "The Factory." Write like it's your job. Also, in my formative years, I stumbled across the saying that all young writers stumble across: A writer writes. So that's what I did.

As a fan of music, and by music I mean certain combinations of notes, beats, and language, I became curiously amused at how Broadway was taking pop artists and constructing musicals around them, jigsaw puzzling "plots" from hits by the likes of Abba and Frankie Valley. It made more sense to me to produce the Who's Tommy because it was written as a narrative. Aye, there's the rub! It was written as a narrative because Pete said it was. I went about constructing operas out of my songs. My thinking has always been that there's never a good reason to NOT try something artistically. If you fall into that trap you're not an artist. Obviously that's totally cool. Trying to force people into being something they ain't is for the fucking birds. 

I'd been writing narratives with songs since I was literally a child. Dammit. I just realized I spent a bunch of words explaining something and the answer is not anywhere more near than it was at the beginning of this sesh. For fuck's sake. Really, I've spent a lot of time making sure that shit lines up. I just wish we didn't need to be hassled with subsistence so that we could release the NEVERENDING OPERA on a schedule that only paused for holidays.

Goddammit. Still. Why should you believe me? Ain't it too much to ask that someone attempts to understand an artistic POV with no beginning and no end? I say it isn't asking too much. That's what the originators of civilization asked of their workers eons ago. They came up with religions and gods and retributions and salvations and blabbity blues. All I ask is that you enjoy these songs. 7.

Yeah

Well if it's true

Then she'll force it out of her mind

Congratulations

Fucking up for the umpteenth time

They say it's wrong

Spaceships guns and boobies ain't got no home

But it's a song

Can't forget the future when the past ain't ever known

She has an Elvis on her dashboard and a Dawn in pendant heart

And a dog tag of a fella who was there to play a part

When she spreads her legs and kisses everything goes down in flames

Just because it's life and death don't mean that this here ain't a game

Well had she known

She never would have entered but then she did anyway

Infatuation

That's for little punk ass mealy mouth with nothing much to say

But then that's us

Just a bunch of followers just glad to be alive

It's in the rulebook

Right after the chapter that says how to shuck and jive

Gimme a one shot dagger

Destined to blow my mind

No in between

Either the top or the bottom line

Singing on down the line

Spaceships

Guns

And boobies

She Fought For What Essay 14 September 2019

Back in college I was in a band called Forgotten Sons. As college bands do if you ain't REM (old as fuck reference #1) the band broke up and I was embittered. Being a John Lennon acolyte I wrote a "fuck you" song to Joel Baily, who left the band, in the spirit of "How Do You Sleep?" and a gazillion rap beefs that were on the horizon. Of course this isn't that song. But on the album that I wrote and recorded between Forgotten Sons and Doom Cookie, which I dubbed A BRIDE A DAY in honor of my buddy Paul Deboy who wrote a song called "Sporadic Sunjam" the chorus to which was "a brighter day" which I misheard as "a bride a day," I did write a song called "We Fought For What." Look, I repurposed much of that record for this record. But back to the original song it was kind of a primer on American wars and how I sided with the losers. The first line is "In the Civil War I would have been a rebel." I took solace in my racist stance by aligning myself with Chuck D who sang in "Prophets Of Rage" off of IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK "I'm a rebel so I rebel." The lie of the American Civil War is that the Confederacy was racist and the Union was not. That's as bullshit as it gets. You merely had apartheid in the north whereas in the south you had full blown fucking slavery. Race is still the greatest unspoken conversation of our republic. A little history lesson may be helpful and I never hear anybody making this point these days. Let's just use Iran aka them death-to-america-motherfuckers as a jumping off point. Iran is Persia. They have a loooooooong history. They had plumbing, cities, art, education, and medicine when the anglo-saxons and the nordic folk were wrapping themselves up in animal skins and beating each other with sticks. The ascendance of white folk is an anthropological blip. Here's another example - motherfucking Afghanistan. They used to be the Khwarazm Empire until they made the mistake of insulting the Great Khan - but even before that. This is the region subjugated by Persia, Rome, the Byzantines, and the Ottomans. You think US troops standing around for 20 years makes a difference to these people? This all ties into SPACESHIPS GUNS AND BOOBIES. Everything ties into everything. A bit less intellectually challenging, however, is how the original song was reworded so as to act as the bridge piece between TRAVELOGUE and THE SAGA OF REMOTE CONTROL. Charlene is Remote Control. That's the main point to take away from this song. I ain't quite figured out how it happens. I think maybe she's like the next evolutionary spurt and is exceptionally long lived or maybe even immortal like Jack Harkness/The Face Of Boe. Maybe she gets gifted immortality from the El Camino TARDIS.

Musically ol' Ochster really does well here, underplaying much to the benefit of the song. Many times while dubbing Andy has already recorded his percussion tracks and I use his accents for my extra parts. It's fun. While Brian and I were doing the vocals we didn't have the jack to plug the microphone into my guitar rig so I attempted full blown Yoko mannerisms. Obviously I've learned lo these past few decades that Yoko's vocal stylings are rooted deeply in international musical expression. That she was laughed at in the late 60s and early 70s is another example of the backwater nature of northern europe through-out most of human history. Growing up isolated and behind the rest of the world, anglos and nordics were never exposed to the grand awesomeness of the silk road. The close minded and short sighted dumbassery is now currently on display with the leadership in both Great Britain and the USA. Shit,we didn't even get a full century ruling the world and now we'r beat a hasty retreat from our global leadership role. Whatever, right? It's only international human rights and giving a shit about food and water.

But there you go, folks. Ideally Brian and I would be doing our weekly breakdown over the course of an hour but things are too hectic right now. That's fine. One needs to constantly adapt in order to survive and then prosper. By the way I love you all.

On the interstate Charlene was just a rebel

Wrong as long as you're the one carrying a badge

In the aftermath of that sky blue El Camino

When she took one hell but it didn't hurt too bad

Now a polarized consensus leaves a girl without her senses

The aftermath was thus as much as but

She fought for what

Just to make it clear Charlene's Remote Control

You could see this swerve like a heel turn telegraphed

If you didn't know the scent of burnt rubella

Has a healing cypher and a myth just do the math

chorus

     in the place where the bison thunders echo

     lead that fuel gas her up and get go oh no

So the time space loop in the multiverse of stoners

Making stories up so the moon becomes the sun

Here's a reprobate sexier than Cleopatra

Let her fill your lungs up and smoke that son-a-gun

chorus

Dave and Dennis speak on Dennis's movie CATONSVILLE: MUSIC CITY MARYLAND, a Sunrider 9 Production.

https://www.facebook.com/sunridernine/

https://sunrider9.com/

https://vimeo.com/358125873

Nowhere Ones Essay 5 September 2019

This is convoluted, but then again so is everything. Fuck. Here is an immediate existential digression. Follow it? Why the fuck not. Maybe go stream of consciousness. That always feels like a cop out. Who fucking knows. The thing with stream of consciousness is that it's the amalgamation of everything one's little pea brain is sorting through. Just because the words come tumbling out doesn't imply a lack of preparation. That's the biggest thing that pisses me off about motherfuckers who can't grasp the complexities of improvisation. Improvisation is the exact OPPOSITE of lack of preparation. It's living one's life constantly in the state of immediate creation. It's just that when improvising the artists shines the artist's spotlight on the shit purging itself from the soul of the vessel-artist. Then again artist as vessel is another hoary cliche. Anything that smacks of "otherness" is annoying. Like there are different "things." Things? Really? Is there ONE thing. Is one infinite. Of course it is, dildo head.

As for the Nowhere Ones it's all there. It all fits. I always think of the movie YELLOW SUBMARINE where the psychedelic words spell out "nowhere" then they desperate into "now here." It's there. It's here.

Initially this song was called "Nowhere Son" and it kicked off A BRIDE A DAY, the cassette I did between Forgotten Sons and Tude and Doom Cookie. It served as a reset there and it serves as a reset here. A lot of these initial bits are from that period, riffs wise, probably because Andy is drumming and he drummed Love & Hate and Forgotten Sons. It's amazing how much I have stayed on point in terms of large lyrical concepts.

Anyhoo, the story continues. This is concurrent with 1993. There the mundanity of existence bumps up against the harsh realities of young adults finding out that fucking up has consequences. Here though? Pure fantasy, baby, and yes I say "baby" too. It's not that there are no consequences in THE SAGA OF REMOTE CONTROL as much as it's an attempt to apply improvisational techniques to long form storytelling and seeing where the story goes. There is an outline of 30 something records for THE SAGA OF REMOTE CONTROL. That's the backdrop. That's the fabric of existence. That's the land upon which we stand as we set forth into by the minute story telling recreated in a studio and brought to YOU, you brilliant motherfucker.

I have to give all due props to Matt Besser and his podcast IMPROV4HUMANS. They make it up, duh, with even less preparation than my absolute holy grail of improv podcasts Scott Aukerman's motherfucking brilliant COMEDY BAND BANG. I bring up Besser, though, because I consider him a peer simply in that we're the same age and grew up punk as fuck. Of course he fulfilled his artistic dreams and I'm still slogging through. When he has on musical guests, mostly alt-country (natch), he asks what a certain lyric meant. I imagine he's asking me about a certain lyric from, say, Meltdown Shuffle from ACT 9 ATLANTIS and replying along the lines of "I'm really not sure what it means. It was just improvised in the larger story, like when you guys make shit up. Later you can go back and figure it out. In the moment it was stream of consciousness - in so much that every thought is stream of consciousness." I've quoted it a million times because it's perfection: "turn off your minds relax and float downstream."

"Nowhere Ones" is an attempt to bring lonesomeness into a universal realm, to try to include all the people who feel out of focus and invite them all to the party. To me that was always the great promise of rock and roll. Everyone is invited and everyone is accepted. That's pretty much a good way to approach existence. At any rate, friend, 7.

Fifty damn years on down the road

I was driving late at night

Under pollution lights

But it didn't stop the sun from coming up

To interrupt

Everything I seen

And everyone I known

My young self stumbled by

Too drunk too wonder why

Ain't no stars in the sky for the nowhere ones

That never won

Beat you black and blue

Bleed a drop or two

I see it in my sights

I glimpse it in the night

I don't know what is right for the nowhere ones

That never won

We're the nowhere ones

That just begun

00  Otis Redding

05  It's the science fiction western.

10  If there's ten songs he put a shaker on nine of them.

15  ...And he played in the Sprouts?

20  Paul bought it.

25  That was for six!

30  It just doesn't feel right.

35  Nothing is to be dismissed.

40  It might not be my chair.

45  You have some riffs.

50  I smoked pot at the first Circle 9 practice.

55  They were surfing in Tahiti.

60  He...he...he...he....

Peace and love, motherfucker and you know this yeah

Peace and love with a ruckus and you know this

Yeah yeah yeah

It's got to happen because it's right

In every feature in every sight

Drawing a bead on for loving's sake

Peace ain't a funeral love ain't a wake

From where I'm singing direct to you

I want it bad you want it too

I want it from you give it to me

'Cause peace and love that shit is free

So I walk down to the bar I saw some cover band with used guitars

And a heart made out of gold that's already been sold

From town Manila to Katmandu 

Cantankeronus I got that too

Give me your loving you got that right

'Cause peace and love that shit is tight

Stoner Wintertime Essay        17 June 2019

The essay for the song before this, the "Fireplace Memories Essay," barely dealt with the song. It's hard to be so emotionally bare in a format in which you haven't spent your entire life dicking around. Suffice to say I can sing about my dad but I sure as fuck can't write or talk about him. But THIS essay, why this one may be TOO song specific.

Or maybe it will have nothing to do with the song at all. Part of the joy in being creative in a format that you made the fuck up is that you, the royal "you," are free to leap into flights of fancy. How much irrelavent tripe is too much? Tell you what, I'm not sure that relevance itself is relevant. Every once in a while I don't know what to do. But that's a lyric in a song called "Sinkin" to be dropped sometime when it's cold, most likely.

"Stoner Wintertime?" The band was having trouble with the time signaure changes so we changed it. I kept the original version I used on the demo and started the record with it because one of the main points made in the larger piece is that the categorization of music is beyond arbitrary bordering on insulting. Everyone on Earth should be angered. Everyone on Earth should also crave truth and freedom. NEITHER of those things are happening.

This is a moment in time, essentially, in a quantum amount of ways. In ways that I can percieve it's the wrapping up of the SFProject I undertook because Brian didn't want to do 1993. It's a little weird, right? I love playing with Brian and Wil but it's better for each of them if they aren't in the same band, at least to mine eyes. The major plus up in this bitch is that I've worked withPaul now for for 1 3/4 years. I LOVE the way WINTER 1993 turned out. I'm ecstatic. I ain't going to go into the ins and outs that go into putting together a record. Suffice to say that, as a fella who LOVES writing, I'm blessed (in a way that pays no allegience to the fictional characters known today as "deity') to have pockets of likeminded friends, up for experimentation. At the last SoSHEDity Fringe Players practice ole Pork was talking about the TV show Classic Albums, the one about WHO'S NEXT, and how nobody understood Pete Townsend's concept at all! Laughingly he said that reminded him of me. And of course it does! I can see it but I'm rightly convinced I'm the only one. There are parrallels in pop culture, mainly insanely ambitious and financially nation-sized ones like MVU and GoT. You see? I got the three letter thing down, motherfuckers - SFP!

My brain's scattershot right now. My motherfucking sinuses are causing me a great deal of "goddammit." It drains the energy of the human body. All my extra juice is used fighting the inflamation. Healthy living remedies it to a certain extent. I irrigate the fuckers, I take OTC drugs, I run, do yoga, do body resistence. Every once in a while my sinus laughs at me. If I was a dumdum human living a hundred thousand years ago trying to make sense of this I'd ascribe all sorts of idiotic rememdies to something I couldn't understand. That's what people have done through-out the ages. Even as recently as 5,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, or maybe even 700CE or such. Do you see where I'm going? If you do you're a brilliant cynical motherfucker who is out of sorts with todays backwards looking society based on fear and paranoia. And while fear and paranoia do, in fact, "rule" as they say, pleae burst free from the chains of monotheism, thinker, and embrace LAST century!