tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:/blogs/300-songs?p=3
300 Songs
2018-07-07T12:26:32-04:00
Cracker
false
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/3002416
2014-06-09T08:10:46-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:23-05:00
#84 Sugartown: San Pedro, SugarBeets and Portuguese Fishermen
<p> </p>
<iframe src="https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify%3Atrack%3A62TmrmwJwH99bhPgfeimIc" style="display:block; margin:0 auto; width:300px; height:380px;" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true"></iframe>
<p>Buy <em>El Camino Real </em>at your local record shop.<a href="http://www.recordstoreday.com"> Click here for locations</a></p>
<p>The Song <em>Sugartown </em>is the 6th track on the Camper Van Beethoven album <em>El Camino Real (2014). </em>This album is part of a two album series on California. The first album <em>La Costa Perdida(2013) </em> focused on Northern California while<em> El Camino Real </em>focuses on Southern California. In particular El Camino Real celebrates the polyglot poly-cultural history of Southern California</p>
<p>The fictional Sugartown is a combination of the working class neighborhood of San Pedro and the early 20th century sugar beet plantations of Seal Beach and Los Alamitos. San Pedro is situated at the mouth of the Los Angeles River and faces the massive Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach. Seal Beach and Los Alamitos are on the mouth of the San Gabriel river to the southeast on the other side of the two ports.</p>
<p>Both cities are (or were) home to large and diverse immigrant communities. San Pedro is now known for it’s Italian neighborhoods, but was also once home to large populations of Croatians -actually Dalmatians, Greeks, Portuguese and Irish. The Dalmatians are perhaps the most interesting group as they settled here when California was still part of Spain. I wanted to use the Dalmatians as the fishermen in the story but lines like “We Came from Portugal to fish the sea” didn’t sound as good with Croatia, Dalmatia Brač, Hvar, Vis or Korčula substituted. So the Portuguese got the focus.</p>
<p>Los Alamitos and the adjacent Seal Beach were the center of Southern California’s briefly thriving sugar beet industry. The sugar beet farming and processing industry attracted a lot of immigrant labor. When the sugar beet farming collapsed in the 1920′s one of the big owners John Bixby started leasing out land to immigrant farmers including many Japanese families (many later ended up in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manzanar">Manzanar</a>) further diversifying the population.</p>
<p>Finally Sugartown also makes reference to Crocket or as the locals in the North San Francisco bay call it “Sugar City.” Crocket is most clearly distinguished by the big C&H (California and Hawaii) sugar processing plant that faces the Carquinez strait. Interstate 80 is carried over the city by a massive flyover bridge hence the line in the song “Stay up upon the bridge at sugar town mind your business don’t come down.”</p>
<p>So essentially the story is this: Portuguese fisherman come to California to fish the sea. The fishing dies out and the lucky ones get jobs at the sugar processing plants. Of course the sugar beets are not even grown locally anymore. So they process sugar cane shipped from hawaii. The unlucky resort to smuggling drugs “sugar cane” (probably heroin) using the local port and what’s left of their fishing fleet.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">The sea is empty now</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">It’s all we had</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">So we sell sugar cane</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">God is our judge</p>
<p style="text-align:left;">This little area is so rich in history, I feel like I could have done a whole album just on this area. The Portuguese began exploring this as far back as the 1540′s. The Spanish used this as a regular port shortly after. The Tongva-Gabrieleño had villages here for at least 8,000 years. They were expert seafarers and traders. They had ocean going canoes something of a rarity among the native populations.</p>
<p style="text-align:left;">The whole sugar beet boom involves various railroad and banking tycoons and some genuine 19th century robber barons. The aforementioned John Bixby deserves his own treatment. Finally their is the fate of the Japanese americans who were forcibly relocated to Manzanar during WWII. Most of them lost everything.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Sugartown</strong></p>
<p style="text-align:center;">We come from Sugartown</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">At the river’s mouth</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Nestled in soft green hills</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">A factory town</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">it comes from cross the sea</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">raw sugarcane</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">it comes in railroad cars</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">we make it pure</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Dont you show your face in Sugartown</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">we dont need your kind around</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">if you think you’re better than we are</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">you can leave at anytime</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Stay up upon the bridge at Sugartown</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Mind your business dont come down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">If you show your face in sugar town</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">You know what happen last time round</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">We cam to Sugartown from the old country</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">We came from Portugal to fish the sea</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">The sea is empty now, its all we have</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">So we sell sugar cane, God is our judge</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Dont you show your face in Sugartown</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">we dont need your kind around</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">if you think you’re better than we are</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">you can leave at anytime</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Stay up upon the bridge at Sugartown</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Mind your business dont come down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">If you show your face in sugar town</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">You know what happen last time round</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p><br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/uncategorized/">Uncategorized</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2840/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2840/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2840&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/3001307
2014-06-08T12:17:56-04:00
2017-02-04T00:24:54-05:00
#83 Dockweiler Beach & Someday Our Love Will Sell Us Out-Surfing Under the Runway at LAX
<p><iframe src="https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify%3Atrack%3A6nEHCTlnl7A1DqcZdyCTeT" style="display:block; margin:0 auto; width:300px; height:380px;" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true"></iframe><br>
Support your local indie record store. Buy new album local. <a href="http://www.recordstoreday.com">Click here to find store.</a></p>
<p>Flying out of LAX you almost always takeoff out over the Pacific Ocean. Even if you’re not going west. The aircraft climbs to a few thousand feet and then banks north east or south. I’ve often looked down and noticed the beach below us as you climb into the air. Although it doesn’t seem like there are ever many people on the beach, it clearly has it’s devotees. Most surprising is that there are a series of state park RV campgrounds along this stretch of beach.</p>
<p>When Camper Van Beethoven was filming the video to <em>Someday Our Love Will Sell Us Out (</em>from last years<em> La Costa Perdida). </em> We ran out of time to film in Northern Californian and had to finish up in Southern California. We were staying at the lovely (?) Hacienda Hotel in El Segundo. This happens to be across the street from our Tour Manager and Video Director’s apartment. So he know this funky little stretch of the south LA coast pretty well and suggested that we go down to this beach and film some of the video there. The idea was that the aircraft taking off would make a nice backdrop to the song.</p>
<p>When we got down to this beach we also discovered that there are these two natural gas fired power plants on the beach. These power plants made impressive and contrasting backdrops for the video for <em>Someday Our Love Will Sell Us Out.</em></p>
<p>I assume the power plants are here because there is this enormous petrochemical processing complex in El Segundo that runs from Sepulveda all the way down to the pacific ocean. (The plants must burn the natural gas byproducts?) The petrochemical plant is impressive in it’s own right. Especially when you’re sitting on the patio of one of the down-home restaurant/cantinas in tiny downtown El Segundo and Chevron designed to burn “flare” off some excess flammable gasses. The night sky turns this eerie orange color. It frightened me the first time I saw it. I thought we were in for a <em>toxic airborne event. </em>The locals didn’t even bat an eye. Continued their small talk and ordered more drinks.</p>
<p>There is also a huge cluster of defense and aerospace companies between El Sepulveda and Aviation. Northrop Grumman, Rayethon, Boeing, SAIC and numerous smaller companies. Direct TV is also in with this lot. So if you think you are in your typical Southern California beach community you are wrong. This is a serious redoubt of the military petrochemical industrial defense complex. This is a serious component of our nations imperial might.</p>
<p>That said there are also three pleasant old school surfer hangouts right next door. Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach. So here you have the makings of a camper van beethoven song. The bucolic surfer lifestyle literally in the shadows of some of the most toxic elements of our national imperial might: petrochemicals, armaments and the deafening and relentless global air traffic at LAX. This became the inspiration for the lyrics to Dockweiler Beach-which is the name of the state park under the runway.</p>
<p>So the character in song has lost his wife or girlfriend to a “rogue wave” which sucked her into an undertow. He’s descended into madness and is basically living in a trailer in the Dockweiler Beach RV camp weighting for her body to reappear.</p>
<p>++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p><span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="450" height="284" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/251ZiqB4fb8?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe></span></p>
<p><em>Someday Our Love Will Sell Us Out.</em></p>
<p>In June 2011 Camper Van Beethoven was supposed to play a show at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur. The performance is not in the library but always outside on the grounds. It rained and they postponed our show for a week. So instead of flying home to Virginia we decided that I should stay in Northern California and Camper Van Beethoven should use the time to write a new album. That week of songwriting produced 17 songs that make up the bulk of both <em>La Costa Perdida and El Camino Real. </em></p>
<p><em>Someday Our Love Will Sell Us Out </em>is a track off the Camper Van Beethoven Album <em>La Costa Perdida. </em> This song is about an illicit love affair between two military intelligence officers who meet at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey California just up Highway 1 from Big Sur. Even after they are deployed to Afghanistan they continue their affair. This song tells their story.</p>
<p>There is also this super cool Acoustic Demo of the song. It’s simply us sitting around in jonathan’s living room in oakland when we made up the music. That’s why you can hear us giving each other instructions. Later I overdubbed the vocals onto this.</p>
<iframe src="https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify%3Atrack%3A6Xq8DjioN30Z2lGEp7gzfL" style="display:block; margin:0 auto; width:300px; height:380px;" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true"></iframe>
<p style="text-align:center;"> <strong>Dockweiler Beach</strong></p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I am waiting in the water</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I am waiting at El Segundo</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I am waiting for that rogue wave</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"> bring your body back</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I saw you go into the water</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I saw Neptune’s Trident Shine</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Took you by the hand my darlin</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Took you in the Undertow</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I will wait ten thousand years</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I will wait ten thousand years</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Eternity</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Ten thousand years</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Montgomery Atoll</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I am living in a trailer</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Dockweiler Beach at LAX</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Planes take off for Tokyo</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">They are never coming back</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Oceans filled with submariners</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Dark secrets and chemicals</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Night time lit by gas flares</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">bring my baby’s body back</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I will wait ten thousand years</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I will wait ten thousand years</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Eternity</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">ten thousand years</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Montgomery Atoll</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong> Someday Our Love Will Sell Us Out</strong></p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Someday our love will sell us out</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Someday they’ll come stone us to death</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Someday the sun will burn our flesh</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">The crows will come they’ll eat what’s left</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Someday our love will sell us out</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Someday my love forever now</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Eternity is you my love</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Someday our love will sell us out</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">The drone is perched high up above</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Black winged bird don’t give us up</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Just one more night I can’t explain</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Just one more night I can’t explain</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Someday our love will sell us out</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Someday my love forever now</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Eternity is you my love</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Someday our love will sell us out</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Someday our love will sell us out</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Someday my love forever now</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Eternity is you my love</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Someday our love will sell us out</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Lyrics for La Costa Perdida by Camper Van Beethoven</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Copyright 2012 Camper Van Beethoven Music.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Published by Camper Van Beethoven Music Company BMI</p><br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/camper-van-beethoven/">Camper Van Beethoven</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2834/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2834/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2834&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/2992235
2014-06-04T08:56:16-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:23-05:00
#82 Camp Pendelton – Echos of New Roman Times.
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="https://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/el-camino-real-front.png"><img src="https://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/el-camino-real-front.png?w=297&h=300" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="el camino real front" height="300" width="297" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Camp Pendelton- Camper Van Beethoven.</strong></p>
<p><em>Last year Camper Van Beethoven released La Costa Perdida (loosely “the lost coast”) which is a set of songs about Northern California (see Northern California Girls or Come Down the Coast as examples). This year Camper Van Beethoven releases the companion piece to this album “El CaminoReal.” This time the album thematically focuses on Southern California and Baja California.</em></p>
<p><em>Whereas La Costa Perdida was a look back at the “back to the country” hippy period of northern California with references to Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan, The Grateful Dead and even The Beach Boy’s “Big Sur” period this one is firmly planted in the present and further down the coast in Southern California.</em></p>
<p><em>The best way to look at the new album is to draw a contrast between the two. On La Costa Perdida the ocean is calm, benevolent and feminine; on El Camino Real the sea is “filled with darkness, secrets and chemicals.”</em></p>
<p>Camp Pendelton is the Camp Pendelton is the 4th track on the new Camper Van Beethoven album <em>El Camino Real. </em>The song tells the story of a marine in either Iraq or Afghanistan (most likely Afghanistan). He is manning a remote outpost somewhere and in his head he is speaking to his wife:</p>
<p>“<em>Keep the children safe</em></p>
<p><em> dress them the same</em></p>
<p><em>cause I have changed</em></p>
<p><em> I’ve changed forever”</em></p>
<p>The idea is that he is fully aware that he is suffering from the effects of his long deployment. Maybe PTSD although it’s not really clear to me and I wrote the song. You might compare him to the character in<i> The Hurt Locker. </i>Although the similarity is purely coincidental because this is the one song that we didn’t write FOR this album. This song has been kicking around since 2003 in the form of of a half finished demo. This was when Camper Van Beethoven was working on their alternate history sic-fi rock opera <em>New Roman Times. </em>In fact it was intended to be a track for that album. It would have loosely fit in somewhere between White Fluffy Clouds and Might Makes Right. We didn’t include it because it seemed like we didn’t need this “in between” stage of his character development. I sort of forgot about the song.</p>
<p>Skip forward 8 years and I was looking for B-sides for La Costa Perdida and I came across the demo for this song. What a surprise! How could we leave this unreleased?</p>
<p>Fortunately it’s set in Southern California and considering that Camp Pendelton and Twenty Nine Palms take up 85% of the landmass of Southern California (joking folks) it seemed like it was perfect for the album.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.recordstoreday.com">Buy the album at your local record store</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fopen.spotify.com%2Ftrack%2F0kFUjl60bNHUtoB6iS4rtd&ei=C5qOU4akEY6GogSTsYGQCw&usg=AFQjCNFdtmNsi2G52vyiYq0wH2CHDY8ILg&sig2=ajy1RioIwSjWmIjJ3QSLfQ">or stream here.</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Camp Pendleton</strong></p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I have dreamed immortal suns</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I gazed upon the fiery surfaces</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">and I have fought down burning roads</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">The highways littered with our humanity</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I see your face safely at home</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Baby keep the home fires burning</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Keep the children safe</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">and dress them the same</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Because I have changed I’ve changed forever</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I have dreamed immortal sun</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I gazed upon the fiery surfaces</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">always fear but never falter</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">onward forward Christian Soldiers</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the lights on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">©2014 Camper Van Beethoven</p>
<p> </p><br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/uncategorized/">Uncategorized</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2825/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2825/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2825&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/2991307
2014-06-03T18:39:05-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:22-05:00
#81 Classy Dames and Able Gents – Southern California’s Military-Academic-Industrial-Electronic-Espionage-Complex
<p><a href="https://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/oceanview_club.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/oceanview_club.jpg?w=450&h=298" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="Oceanview_Club" /></a></p>
<p><em>The Oceanview Club on Kwajalein Atoll which will be the site of Camper Van Beethoven’s 2027 Reunion show. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>In number <a href="http://300songs.com/2010/10/05/60-im-so-glad-she-aint-never-coming-back-how-an-unfinished-jam-became-a-song-other-unfinished-unreleased-outtakes/">#60</a><em><a href="http://300songs.com/2010/10/05/60-im-so-glad-she-aint-never-coming-back-how-an-unfinished-jam-became-a-song-other-unfinished-unreleased-outtakes/"> I’m So Glad She Ain’t Never Coming Back</a> </em>I posed a little riddle about where I found the titles for three unfinished demos I exhibited in the blog. These titles were</p>
<p>“Infidel Sorcerers Of The Air”</p>
<p>“Peppermint Mind”</p>
<p>“Classy Dames and Able Gents”</p>
<p>Only a couple of people figured it out. It was a reference to a website that appeared to be the semi-secret homepage for the Forsythe Associates. This audiovisual services company was the “cover” company that operated <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/travel/12heads.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">the secret underground bunker </a>beneath the Greenbriar Resort in West Virginia designed to house the US government in the event of a nuclear war.</p>
<p>This is not a joke. This actually happened. This is not some wacko conspiracy theory thing like the <a href="http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4194">Denver International Airport Conspiracy. </a></p>
<p>So after reading about the Greenbriar bunker I decided to try and track down information on the Forsythe Asscoiates. Eventually I came across a webpage that seemed to have no obvious purpose. The website had 4 screens that were supposed to be live camera feeds but all 4 only showed static. Each of them had a cryptic title. That’s the three titles above. My first thought was “What fantastic band names!”</p>
<p>Think about it? Especially the first two “Infidel Sorcerers of the Air” and “Peppermint Mind.” <em>Classy Dames and Able Gents</em> is more like a wedding or corporate gig band. However it does make a good song title. So I used it.</p>
<p>+++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHLelReSWdY">So what in God’s holy name are you blathering about in this song? </a> I’ll tell you what I’m blathering on about. I’m blathering on about elements of the military-academic-industrial-electronic-espionage-complex that covers much of the Southern California coast from Vandenberg AFB to the Mexican border. The whole southern half of the state is bristling with sensors, antennae and mysterious military installations. Most people who visit Southern California don’t really notice this or if they do give it much thought. But California is pretty much a garrison state. It’s pretty well chronicled in this book <em><a href="http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/83rdm5yw9780252071034.html">Fortress California</a>. </em>This song riffs on this theme and throws in references to other important military and electronic warfare installations in the Pacific. The main character who is some sort of government contractor has just returned from being stationed at the military installation on the the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Instead of speaking literally and directly I had him speak in a style of cryptic prose that I borrowed from the aforementioned Forsythe Associates website. It’s perfectly logical in a Camper Van Beethoven sort of way. As some of our readers have already noted it seems to have confused the starched shirts over at <a href="http://www.americansongwriter.com/2014/06/camper-van-beethoven-el-camino-real/">American Songwriter.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.recordstoreday.com">Buy at your local record store</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fopen.spotify.com%2Ftrack%2F5tEptvOWuQqyY0FwCgUJfi&ei=61aOU8CICsOPyATs6YDYBw&usg=AFQjCNFYwYMR8fSF_RGDXXAefiPd7Ny24w&sig2=mJ65xZocAfta8u4KjTIN7w">Or stream here. </a></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Classy Dames and Able Gents</strong></p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I Augustine, the fishes widow</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I knew the crawfish, I lived on shellfish</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Under a sail</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Lived on atoll</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I had a foreclosed motorhome</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">At Kwajalein tracking station</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I’ve got friends not on vacation</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">They got big ears they got big eyes</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Classy Dames and Able Gents</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Classy Dames and Able Gents</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">We’re here to serve our government</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Classy Dames and Able Gents</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">There was a fire under water</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Bring me my space suit!</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I always wear it</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I feel like Elvis</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">A million bucks</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I lived in Baltimore</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I work greenbriar</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I worked for Foresythe associates</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">A Kwajalein tracking station</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I’ve got friends i can be trusted</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">i got black bags i got black hands</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Classy Dames and Able Gents</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Classy Dames and Able Gents</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">We’re here to serve our government</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Classy Dames and Able Gents</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Classy Dames and Able Gents</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">We’re here to serve our government</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Classy Dames and Able Gents</p>
<p> ©2014 Camper Van Beethoven.</p>
<p> </p><br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/uncategorized/">Uncategorized</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2817/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2817/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2817&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/2988741
2014-06-02T21:30:33-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:22-05:00
#80 It Was Like That When We Got Here & I Live In LA – Northeast Los Angeles Party at the End of the World.
<p><a href="https://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/screen-shot-2014-06-02-at-9-18-14-pm.png"><img src="https://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/screen-shot-2014-06-02-at-9-18-14-pm.png?w=450" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="Screen Shot 2014-06-02 at 9.18.14 PM" /></a></p>
<p><strong>These two tracks are from the new Camper Van Beethoven album <em>El Camino Real. </em>Release date June 3rd 2014. </strong></p>
<p>I was recently in Highland Park a neighborhood of what might be loosely referred to as Northeast Los Angeles. I was there to record an episode of<a href="http://www.wtfpod.com"> Marc Maron’s immensely enjoyable podcast WTF.</a> I realized I was not too far from the apartment where the “Playing on a flying saucer over Los Angeles” story took place as chronicled in <em><a href="http://300songs.com/2011/01/10/68-the-long-plastic-hallway-playing-on-a-flying-saucer-with-the-talking-heads/">#68 The Long Plastic Hallway-Playing on a Flying Saucer with the Talking Heads. </a> </em>Funny. Regrettably I failed to tell Marc Maron this story in our interview.</p>
<p>It seemed like all throughout the 1980s every couple of years I would end up at some strange party in this area of Los Angeles. Some weird mix of rich people, hipsters and low lifes. Socio-economically strange as well. On the east side you have the extremely wealthy enclaves of South Pasadena and San Marino. I mean really rich. Like Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos corrupt ex-dictator rich. Indeed this is where the former filipino president and his wife lived after being overthrown. Various relatives of the Shah and other members of foreign oligarchs seemed to settle in this area. And of course the wayward scions of New England establishment fortunes. I assume dwindling fortunes cause they always lived in some decaying mansion. Think grey gardens.</p>
<p>But back to geography. To the north you have Glendale and Pasadena. To the south high-rises of Downtown. To the west Los Feliz and Hollywood. All relatively affluent places, home to power brokers of various kinds: banking, entertainment, military-industrial academic (Cal Tech/JPL) and political. But in the middle of this are a series of neighborhoods like Highland Park, Eagle Rock, Atwater Village, Montecito Heights, Mt Washington and others without name. Within these neighborhoods you have poor areas, usually in the flatlands, and up on the hillsides are nicer houses and generally wealthier people. Not Imelda Marcos 15,000 pairs of shoes rich, but not as poor as the folks in the flatlands.</p>
<p>It was in a relatively new and nice compound near the top of one of these hills that I occasionally attended parties with a few of the the punk rockers from the Inland Empire. I don’t know who in my IE group of friends got the original introduction but somehow we were on the guest list from time to time. The hostess was a woman reportedly from spain, but I always wondered about that because most of the cars were tagged with Mexican “La Frontera” licenses plates. The rumor was she was variously the daughter, mistress or wife of some gangster. This was the early 1980′s and the Mexican and Colombian drug cartels hadn’t really made any headlines, so we always assumed that our host was connected to the Sicilian Mafia. Which somehow made it seem safer.</p>
<p>Regardless these were pretty typical LA parties, mostly booze and a little bit of drugs in the back room somewhere. Some impossibly arty musical ensemble. Inevitably someone was keeping time on an oil drum or some other large piece of metal. Guitars, Synthesizers and a often more than one bass player. At least one of the band members was always from the UK.</p>
<p>One night we all went outside because there was an enormous brush fire in the Angeles National forest that had worked it’s way down into the foothills of Pasadena. It may have even been the La Tuna fire that burned parts of Verdugo Mountain between Burbank and Glendale. It looked like the end of the world. But this only seemed to enliven the guests.</p>
<p>Their are two songs on the record inspired by these parties and their mysterious hostess. <em>It Was Like That When We Got Here </em>is largely about the party on the night of the fire. <em>I Live in LA </em>is about the hostess.<em> </em></p>
<p>Buy album at your local indie record store</p>
<p>Or</p>
<p><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/el-camino-real-camper-van-beethoven/27571304?ean=795041799524">Buy album Here</a></p>
<p><a href="http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/05/stream-camper-van-beethovens-new-album-el-camino-real/">Stream Album Here</a></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>It was Like That When I Got Here</strong></p>
<p style="text-align:center;">It was broken on the floor</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">It was like that when we got here</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">A piece was stuck in to the door</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">It was like that when we got here</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">There was this girl I kind of know</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">It was like that when we got here</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">In an Army Uniform</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">It was like that when we got here</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I’m a mess baby and you’re a mess baby</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">So why can’t we be more than friends</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">You and I were meant to be together</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I’m a mess baby and you’re a mess baby</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">So why can’t we be more than friends</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">You and I were meant to be together</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">An Endless pool of summer light</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">It was like that when we got here</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pasadena burning bright</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">It was like that when we got here</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">A phoenix rising from the smoke</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">It was like that when we got here</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">The mountains rising up in flames</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I’m a mess baby and you’re a mess baby</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">So why cant we be more than friends</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">You and I were meant to be together</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I’m a mess baby and you’re a mess baby</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">So why cant we be more than friends</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">You and I were meant to be together</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">It was like that when we got here</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">It was like that when we got here</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">It was like that when we got here</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">It was like that when we got here</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">
</p><p style="text-align:center;"><strong>I Live in LA</strong></p>
<p style="text-align:center;">
</p><p style="text-align:center;">She comes in like a star</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Wearing jewelry and fur</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">with her own entourage</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">hanger-oners in clogs</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">From some small town in spain</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Its never explained</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Sufficiently</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Or the security</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>I live in LA</strong></p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Come and see me someday</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">You can stay at my house</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I’ve got plenty of space</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I live in LA</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Come see me someday boy</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">If you wanna have a good time</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">A good time with me</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Black SUVs in the drive</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">tinted windows and guards</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Cowboy boots and shaved heads</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Italian suits tattood necks</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">the party rages inside</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">but its never explained</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Sufficiently</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Oh boy I hope its not too late</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I live in LA</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Come and see me someday</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">You can stay at my house</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I’ve got plenty of space</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I live in LA</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Come see me someday boy</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">If you wanna have a good time</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">A good time with me</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Done ever ask where i’ve been</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Dont ever ask where the money comes from</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Dont ever ask who I am cause it cant be explaind</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Sufficiently</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Or the Security</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I live in LA</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Come and see me someday</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">You can stay at my house</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I’ve got plenty of space</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I live in LA</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Come see me someday boy</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">If you wanna have a good time</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">A good time with me</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I live in LA</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Come and see me someday</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">You can stay at my house</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I’ve got plenty of space</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I live in LA</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Come see me someday boy</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">If you wanna have a good time</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">A good time with me</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">© 2014 Camper Van Beethoven</p><br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/uncategorized/">Uncategorized</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2809/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2809/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2809&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/2985816
2014-06-01T08:38:09-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:22-05:00
#79 The Ultimate Solution- The Polyglot Polyculture City-State that is Los Angeles
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="https://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/el-camino-real-front.png"><img src="https://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/el-camino-real-front.png?w=297&h=300" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="el camino real front" height="300" width="297" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>The Ultimate Solution- Camper Van Beethoven.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>The polyglot poly-cultural city state that is Los Angeles. </em></p>
<p>Last year Camper Van Beethoven released <em>La Costa Perdida</em> (loosely “the lost coast”) which is a set of songs about Northern California (see <em>Northern California Girls</em> or <em>Come Down the Coast</em> as examples). This year Camper Van Beethoven releases the companion piece to this album “El CaminoReal.” This time the album thematically focuses on Southern California and Baja California.</p>
<p>Whereas <em> La Costa Perdida</em> was a look back at the “back to the country” hippy period of northern California with references to Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan, The Grateful Dead and even The Beach Boy’s “Big Sur” period this one is firmly planted in the present and further down the coast in Southern California.</p>
<p>The best way to look at the new album is to draw a contrast between the two. On <em>La Costa Perdida </em> the ocean is calm, benevolent and feminine; on <em> El Camino Real </em>the sea is “filled with darkness, secrets and chemicals.” The choice of the masculine title subject <em>El Camino Real </em>as opposed to the feminine<em>La Costa Perdida</em><em> </em>was an intentional contrast. On La Costa Perdida the bucolic rural past is the focus; on <em>El Camino Real </em>it’s the urban polyglot multi-cultural landscape of Southern California that is celebrated. <em>La Costa Perdida </em>is laid back where <em>El Camino Real </em>is fast paced and frenetic.</p>
<p>Generally when journalists have written about Camper Van Beethoven they have inevitably associated the band with Northern California because of the band’s long residency in Santa Cruz CA. But it’s often overlooked that the band originally formed in the gritty and rural “Inland Empire” region of Southern California. This album is a gentle reminder of the band’s roots.</p>
<p>The album starts with the track <em>The Ultimate Solution. </em>Essentially an ode to the City of Los Angeles. Frommer’s has described Los Angeles as “Less of a melting pot and more of a tossed salad of overlapping cultures.” This song essentially sums up this view of Los Angeles as the ultimate polycultural American megapolis .</p>
<p>If there were a video to this song it would be a high speed stop action video that took you down vermont from the Hollywood hills through downtown Los Angeles. There would be stops along the way for snacks like “Armenian lamb kabobs served in Mayan pickled cabbage tacos” or “Filipino style curry udon.”</p>
<p>Alternately you could take a larger east to west cross section of the megapolis and travel from the celebrity suburbs of the far west sunset drive, through downtown Los Angeles all the way out to the far end of the San Gabriel Valley. On this drive you would encounter large communities, of Russians, Mexican-Americans, Persians, Samoans, Koreans, El Salvadoreans, Filipinos, Hasidim, Indians, Japanese, Armenians, Arabs, Greeks, Chinese, Turkish and Afghanis.</p>
<p>I once took a city bus from the Fairfax district all the way down pico and into Boyle Heights with a native Angeleno specifically to experience this aspect of the city. Oh and to sample the food at various restaurants along the way.</p>
<p>Finally I reference the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAPD_Rampart_Division"> LAPD “Rampart Division” scandal.</a> Los Angeles as a true city-state has often operated it’s police department as an almost militarized internal security force. Sometimes acting more like a<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Guard_(Spain)"> <em>La</em> </a><em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Guard_(Spain)">Guardia Civil </a> </em>than a traditional city police force. The most bizarre chapter in the LAPD history concerns an anti-gang operation out of the Rampart substation that rumored to have acted as it’s own gang, with it’s own tattoos and spray paint tags.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/el-camino-real-camper-van-beethoven/27571304?ean=795041799524">Buy New Album Here.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/05/stream-camper-van-beethovens-new-album-el-camino-real/">Stream New Album Here.</a></p>
<p style="text-align:center;">The Ultimate Solution</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I was living happily</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">waiting for the world to end</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">eating pickled cabbage in a taqueria</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I was waiting patiently</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">For the geminids to show</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I was staring happily in to the sun</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">And every day is just like a dive</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">into the ultimate solution</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">violins and violence</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Samoa town Los Angeles</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">In Tagalog Korean girls</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">say Oyster Pearls</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">are like the Ultimate</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Ultimate Solution</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Ultimate Solution</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">I was on a new game show</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Dancing with the Rampart squad</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">everyone had gang tattoos</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">and designer luggage</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Waiting on the El Al Bus</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Security was tight that day</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Pico and Sepulveda</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">all the way to Baghdad</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">And every day’s just like a dive</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">into the ultimate solution</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">violins and violence</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Somoa town Los Angeles</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">In Tagalog Korean girls</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">say Oyster Pearls</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">are like the Ultimate</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Ultimate Solution</p>
<p style="text-align:center;">Ultimate Solution</p>
<p> </p>
<p> <br>
© 2014 camper van beethoven music</p><br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/uncategorized/">Uncategorized</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2801/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2801/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2801&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/1486956
2012-04-08T20:04:45-04:00
2022-04-30T02:25:42-04:00
Trichordist
<p>Hello everybody.</p>
<p>I’m making some changes to the this blog. So for the time being I have unpublished all these posts. I’ll put them back on line as we go through them. thanks.</p>
<p>You can also visit me at <a href="http://www.trichordist.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.trichordist.com</a></p>
<p> </p>
<br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/uncategorized/">Uncategorized</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2758/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2758/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2758&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/155736
2012-04-08T15:04:45-04:00
2021-02-23T00:43:51-05:00
Trichordist
<p>Hello everybody.</p>
<p>I’m making some changes to the this blog. So for the time being I have unpublished all these posts. I’ll put them back on line as we go through them. thanks.</p>
<p>You can also visit me at <a href="http://www.trichordist.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.trichordist.com</a></p>
<p> </p>
<br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/uncategorized/">Uncategorized</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2758/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2758/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2758&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/135228
2012-01-21T08:42:46-05:00
2017-01-13T18:56:18-05:00
#78 No more bullshit. The top 10 lamest excuses for stealing artists music
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/photo-12-e1327174911869.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/photo-12-e1327174911869.jpg?w=450&h=600" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="600" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><em>I am on the fucking warpath this week.</em></p>
<p>Lamest arguments in favor of illegal file sharing from the past week. I’m not making this shit up. These are real arguments people presented. And argued vehemently.</p>
<p>1. “Marijuana is illegal. File sharing is illegal. Therefore it’s okay.”</p>
<p>Response try filesharing your pot dealer’s stash with 5,000 strangers online and let’s see how long you live.</p>
<p>2. “The RIAA is secretly behind filesharing. They make more money suing people than by selling albums. There are Youtube videos explaining all this therefore it’s true. Therefore it’s okay to steal from cracker and camper van beethoven”</p>
<p>Response: The RIAA was also behind 9-11, Global Warming Hoax and the Kennedy assassinations. Usher is behind Justin Bieber. And Camper Van Beethoven tests cosmetics on lab animals.</p>
<p>3. I heard that the record companies ripped off Willy Dixon in the 1950′s Therefore it’s okay to steal from Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven.</p>
<p>Response: Very clever. You figured out that Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven have a time machine. We all went back in time to the 1950′s (before we were born) and took $20 dollars from the man’s wallet while he was sleeping. Curses Foiled again.</p>
<p>4. Louis CK. Is successful and his stuff is on Youtube. Therefore it’s okay to steal Cracker’s songs.</p>
<p>Response ask Louis CK if he would prefer his income stream or his idol George Carlin’s Income stream from album sales, video sales, book sales in the 1970′s and 1980′s. Louis CK is making a lot of money. But nothing like George Carlin. And in the process he is helping Google/Youtube add to the piles of gold bullion that Google keeps in secret spaceship deep inside the mantle of the earth below their mountain view “campus”.</p>
<p>5. Music should be free it belongs to the universe.</p>
<p>Response: Okay then come to my house and do YOUR job for free. My car needs it’s oil changed and someone needs to pick up the dogshit in the backyard. There is a signup list on our website. Last i checked my car and the dogshit also “belonged to the universe”.</p>
<p>6. In the middle ages there were no music sales. It was all based on live performance.</p>
<p>Response: Yes and doctors bled you or covered your torso with leaches when you were sick. Also it was permissible to beat your wife with a stick as long as the stick was not larger in diameter than your thumb .</p>
<p>7. “Music sucks today. I’m gonna steal music I like. You bad. No No.”</p>
<p>Response: There is no official response. We have been advised by our legal counsel that the above referenced statement exhibits such a degree of logical incoherence that the statement:<br>
A) was made by a mentally disabled individual<br>
B) are lyrics to a Red Hot Chili Peppers song<br>
C) A zen koan created by a zen master operating on a higher level of consciousness<br>
D) or any two of the above three.</p>
<p>8. “You’re not the boss of me. You can’t tell me what to do”</p>
<p>Response: Actually I personally am the boss of you. Check with your attorney. Unless you are in international waters. Now get out in the backyard and clean up the dog shit.</p>
<p>9. “The Record labels and Musicians failed to adapt to the new hi tech reality. So it’s okay to steal music by Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven”.</p>
<p>Response: So it’s okay to steal handmade boots, organically grown farm produce from family farms, and custom motorcycles? You’re right I’ve been stealing custom choppers for years. How stupid of me. You win.</p>
<p>10. “It’s okay to steal from musicians cause they are all rich”</p>
<p>Response: Although I am dictating this into my solid gold jewel encrusted dictaphone from horseback I’m not rich. Now Steve Jobs he was rich. You know he was buried in a 300 yard long platinum coffin along with 50,000 of his favorite servants? A funeral procession 66 miles long stretched from Vacaville California to Mountain View. Thousand of Buddhist monks burned themselves alive. I’m not rich.</p>
<p>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p>A lot of you may be shocked by this response. But should you really be surprised? I mean i’ve spent 29 years making music for people who think the world is full of a lot of unadulterated bullshit and can see the humor in it. Have a sense of humor people.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/19-no-more-bullshit.mp3">19 No More Bullshit</a></p>
<br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/uncategorized/">Uncategorized</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2607/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2607/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2607&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/107457
2011-08-01T02:54:11-04:00
2018-07-07T12:26:32-04:00
#77 Exile in Beach Flats–Lulu Land, Wasted and Surf City 1985
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/screen-shot-2011-07-31-at-1-02-47-am.png"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/screen-shot-2011-07-31-at-1-02-47-am.png?w=450&h=334" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="334" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><em><strong>Ted Kaczynski’s Santa Cruz vacation shack.</strong></em></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/04-lulu-land.mp3">04 Lulu Land</a></p>
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<p>In 1982 I lived in the tiniest house imaginable. It was at most 400 square feet yet it boasted a kitchen, bathroom, living room and two bedrooms. My bedroom was 6 x 10 feet. big enough for for a single mattress on a small platform. The small closet could hold about a ½ a dozen shirts, a couple of jackets and a sweater or two. I rolled up four or five pairs of jeans and stuffed them onto the shelf at the top of the closet. The rest of my clothes I kept in a suitcase that I slid out from under my bed when I needed it. This is where I also kept my guitars. I had two plastic beer crates. I stacked these on the floor one on top of each other. I kept a few books, a couple of writing journals and my supply of cassettes for my cassette recorder. The cassette recorder was on the top of the stack. In the corner I kept a small fender amp. A Fender super champ that somebody with excellent cabinetry skills had reworked into a separated “head” and speaker cabinet. This was my songwriting workstation.</p>
<p>I can’t remember if the living room had any furniture in it. I know we had my roommate’s stereo in there and one wall was filled with our vinyl collections. The other side of the living room had a couple of guitar amplifiers, my full size SVT and some miscellaneous drum kit parts. I can’t imagine there was any room for any furniture. Plus I can not recall ever once sitting in that room.</p>
<p>The house was part of a collection of a dozen beach cottages crammed into the parking lot of the Santa Cruz beach amusement park. These were originally meant to be summer rentals. But this was during Santa Cruz’s deep nadir in popularity. Air travel had rendered Santa Cruz’s oceanfront irrelevant to the Bay Area’s middle class. Yes there were tourists on the weekend but they were a decidedly working class and rowdy lot.</p>
<p>This area was called Beach Flats. It was really just a sand bar barely above sea level. It was protected from the San Lorenzo river by a 12 foot levee. Aside from a few students living here the area was populated by Spanish speaking immigrants. Most worked in the local restaurants. Everything about the place suggested impermanence and transience.</p>
<p>In the summer it was occupied land. A foreign army of daytrippers from San Jose, Milpitas, Watsonville and Fremont encamped upon these shores. Their <em>River’s Edge</em> Baja Bugs, Low Riders and tricked out pickup trucks were like the chariot armies of Carthaginians to our Roman sensibilities. Thus we avoided their beachhead.</p>
<p>But most of the time, especially in the winter, it was a lonely outpost from the rest of the city. The city bus neglected the area and it always required a lonely and dark walk along the top of the river levee. Alternately you could walk across a small pedestrian bridge attached to the railroad trestle that spanned the San Lorenzo just as it emptied into the ocean.</p>
<p>During heavy rains directly below the bridge there was a violent mixing of river current and storm driven waves. If you fell into this you would surely drown. I’d often encounter neighborhood youth smoking pot or drinking beer on this bridge late in the evening. They stared at me warily. Their alliances were uncertain. I never knew if we were friend or foe. On many occasion I imagined they might throw me off the bridge just for their own amusement. For this reason I often carried my all aluminum Ultraflex skateboard. I rarely rode it, but both tail and nose were worn down into a sharp edge. It was like a 30” Celtic sword with urethane wheels.</p>
<p>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p>Corry Arnold defines a music scene as a neighborhood or city that is a “net exporter of concerts”. In other words</p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>Let A = the number of concerts performed by the bands in a scene outside their neighborhood or city X. </em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>Let B = the number of concerts performed by outsiders within that neighborhood or city. </em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>City or neighborhood X is a music scene If and only if A> B.</em></p>
<p>By this definition I’d say that Santa Cruz (barely) qualified as a music scene in 1982.</p>
<p>Arnold also notes music scenes rely on low property values in particular transitional neighborhoods. Neighborhoods that had once had another purpose but now had fallen out of primary use. Cheap space and a tolerance for noise are important commodities for bands.</p>
<p>You could argue that the old beach rentals along the lower end of Ocean street and the neighborhoods clustered around the old harbor qualified as <em>in transition</em>. Too seedy and rundown for beach rentals these houses were subsequently occupied by the more adventurous. Arty students, musicians and other <em>slackers </em>now occupied many of these cottages.</p>
<p>But our cottage was effectively cut off from these neighborhoods by the river levee. In retrospect I now see it was very Dungeons and Dragonsish of the locals to refer to the homeless population that slept in hideaways along the river as “trolls”. Indeed walking to my house at night I learned to steer clear of these trolls as many were quite aggressive or totally insane. You definitely felt penalized after unexpectedly making contact with these folks.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/screen-shot-2011-07-31-at-1-48-05-am.png"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/screen-shot-2011-07-31-at-1-48-05-am.png?w=450&h=275" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="275" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>But the isolation was very good for a couple young mathematicians and songwriters. I was able to really dive into the most difficult proofs and songs in that cottage. Later when I moved to a better part of town I found that I had to go to the science library to get any deep thinking done.</p>
<p>My roommate was also a mathematician and songwriter. His name was Paul MacKinney. Recognize that name? We covered one of his songs on the 3<sup>rd</sup> Camper Van Beethoven Album. The song is <em>LuLu Land.</em> We also named our CVB fan club after him. The Paul MacKinney Fan Club. People were completely mystified as to why the Camper Van Beethoven fan club was named The Paul MacKinney Fan Club. Paul was also mystified. As always CVB was Inscrutable.</p>
<p>I’m not really sure what Paul had in mind when he wrote Lulu Land but in my mind I always associated it with that walk along the river levee. An unplanned conversation with one of the sad crazies was surely the root of this song! But who knows.</p>
<p>Also it should be noted that Paul, Joe Sloan (of Spot 1019) and I had a short lived band about this time called The Jaws of Life. It was actually during this time that I began performing the Black Flag song “wasted”. This was later carried over into Camper Van Beethoven’s repertoire.</p>
<p>Paul would often finish his math homework well before me. He’d come into my room and hover. Or he’d try to help me with whatever proof or problem I was working on. Once I was finished he’d celebrate by handing me a PBR (or joint). and dropping the needle on his well worn copy of Black Flag’s Nervous Breakdown EP. Wasted was one of the songs on the B side. We became fixated on the simple genius of the 40 second song. How could we not cover it?</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/03-wasted.mp3">03 Wasted</a></p>
<p>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Beach Flats makes another small appearance in a Cracker song. Once I moved to the eastside of Santa Cruz I rarely went back to this neighborhood. Except to go bowling. Go figure.</p>
<p>Boardwalk Bowl (I remember it as Surf Bowl-anyone else?) was on the western edge of Beach Flats. Right where the land began to slope up and become Beach Hills. To be accurate it should be noted that the cheap beer was more of an attraction than the actual bowling. This and the two old dive bars The Asti Café and the Avenue were for a long time my usual hangouts in Santa Cruz.</p>
<p>But one day my girlfriend Jennifer (see fear and loathing in Las Vegas #….) ruined it for all of us. She had become fixated on the bowling shoes at the Surf Bowl. She wanted her own pair but the ones that were available commercially were nothing like surf bowls cool retro beauties. So one day she just walks out with a pair on.</p>
<p>When I discovered this I was quite mad. Because we were regulars and she was quite the beauty. There was no way the middle aged men who worked in the bowling alley would not remember us. No more Surf Bowl. All for a pair of shoes.</p>
<p>So in Surf City 85 I sing.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/surf-city.mp3">Surf City</a></p>
<p><em>Then you stole some bowling shoes</em></p>
<p><em>What a pathetic criminal you.</em></p>
<p><em>What a pathetic criminal</em></p>
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<p>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p><strong>Lulu Land- (Paul MacKinney)</strong></p>
<p><strong><br>
[Am]</strong> Pictures of <strong>[C]</strong> movie stars <strong>[D]</strong> fade and grow old<br><strong>[Am]</strong> The hot dogs and <strong>[C]</strong> pretzels are <strong>[D]</strong> always served cold<br><strong>[Am]</strong> Take nothing <strong>[C]</strong> with you when you <strong>[D]</strong> leave but your soul<br>
In <strong>[E]</strong> Lulu Land</p>
<p>How can you lose when you choose what you feel?<br>
The scab will fall off when the wound starts to heal<br>
Luck’s on your side and it’s your turn to deal<br>
In Lulu Land</p>
<p>In <strong>[F#m]</strong> Lulu land, the <strong>[G]</strong> walls are soft and <strong>[F#m]</strong> dark<br>
In Lulu <strong>[G]</strong> land, the secret <strong>[F#m]</strong> heart<br>
is in com-<strong>[G]</strong>-mand in Lulu <strong>[E]</strong> Land</p>
<p>How can you lose when you live in the past?<br>
Nothing can happen that happens too fast<br>
Live is a furnace and love is the blast<br>
In Lulu Land</p>
<p>Where innocent promises turn into bad debts<br>
Where things that you do you live to regret<br>
Your life is a movie and the world is a set<br>
In Lulu Land</p>
<p>In Lulu land, the wall are soft and dark<br>
In Lulu land, the secret heart<br>
is in command in Lulu Land</p>
<p><strong>[C#dim]</strong>-<strong>[Cdim]</strong>-<strong>[C#dim]</strong>-<strong>[Cdim]</strong>-<strong>[B]</strong>-<strong>[A#m]</strong>-<strong>[Am]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[Am]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong><br><strong>[Am]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong><br><strong>[Am]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong> <strong>[E]</strong><br><strong>[F#m]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong><br><strong>[F#m]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong><br><strong>[F#m]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong><br><strong>[E]</strong></p>
<p><strong>Surf City 85</strong><br><strong>[INTRO x2 (also: chords for verses):]</strong><br><strong>[Am]</strong> <strong>[Dm]</strong> <strong>[F]</strong> <strong>[G]</strong> <strong>[Am]</strong></p>
<p>Schoolgirls walking down the street<br>
In schoolgirl uniforms<br>
There’s a sadness at<br>
The centre of the world</p>
<p>Well days they seem to drift away<br>
I don’t know where they go<br>
There’s a sadness at<br>
The centre of the world</p>
<p><strong>[CHORUS:]</strong><br>
So <strong>[G]</strong> come pick me up<br>
At the tea cup<br>
We’ll go <strong>[Am]</strong> down the seaside lanes <strong>[F]</strong><br>
We’ll watch the <strong>[C]</strong> girls<br><strong>[F]</strong> We’ll bowl a few <strong>[C]</strong> games</p>
<p>Nothing to do<br>
But there’s the red room<br>
Then you stole some bowling shoes<br>
What a pathetic criminal you<br>
What a pathetic criminal</p>
<p>Blair and goldie on the sand<br>
It’s raining in the surf<br>
Well that’s nothing lost<br>
And nothing gained today</p>
<p>They tried to go their separate ways<br>
But all roads circle back<br>
Well that’s nothing lost<br>
And nothing gained today</p>
<p><strong>[CHORUS:]</strong><br>
So come pick me up<br>
At the tea cup<br>
We’ll go down the Asti Café<br>
We’ll watch the girls<br>
Just like every Saturday</p>
<p>Nothing to do<br>
Ride out to Bonnie Doon<br>
We thought she had it made<br>
But you crashed your bike on ice-cream grade<br>
And then you were dead</p>
<p><strong>[KEYBOARD SOLO then GUITAR SOLO (chords as INTRO)]</strong></p>
<br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/camper-van-beethoven/">Camper Van Beethoven</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/category/cracker/">Cracker</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2594/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2594/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2594&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/105998
2011-07-18T11:57:39-04:00
2020-11-06T07:15:41-05:00
#76 Camper Van Beethoven and the Border Patrol-The Day Lassie Went to The Moon.
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/screen-shot-2011-07-17-at-1-01-12-pm.png"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/screen-shot-2011-07-17-at-1-01-12-pm.png?w=450&h=307" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="307" width="450" /></a><br><em><strong>Very early Camper Van Beethoven. From Left to Right. David Lowery, Mike Zorn, David McDaniel and Boris Yeltsin.</strong></em></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/02-the-day-that-lassie-went-to-the-moon.mp3">02 The Day That Lassie Went To The Moon</a></p>
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<p>Camper Van Beethoven was originally called <em>Camper Van Beethoven and the Border Patrol. </em>We shortened it after about 9 months. Nobody was listing the full name of the band anyway. There are only two or three posters that I’ve ever seen that show the full name of the band. But this was the original name of the band.</p>
<p>The band name was the brainchild of David McDaniel. David pictured above (in the bowling shirt) had an odd sense of humor. At the time we formed Camper Van Beethoven he was also working on this sort of stand up comedy routine that involved these carefully constructed “jokes”. they had all the rhyme and rhythm of a joke but made no sense. I only remember one. And it was intended to be delivered with a sort of generic foreign accent.</p>
<p><em>“My country, where I come from is SO SMALL! SO SMALL that when they change the tire everybody laughs”</em></p>
<p>The next joke might not have the foreign accent. There was no coherence to the character. They were like computer generated one-liners read by randomly selected people.</p>
<p>So Camper Van Beethoven and the Border Patrol was in the same vein. It sounded like it was supposed to make sense or be a pun. It had the rhyme and rhythm but it fell short. And it also kind of wandered off on a tangent. Still it somehow evoked the bands music.</p>
<p>David McDaniel was also the spiritual leader of the band. Literally. He was just beginning his studies to become a Pastor. I’m not quite sure what denomination. Just that it was somehow in the Charismatic branch of American Christianity. Charismatic? Best explained by one of my friend’s very Mexican American Catholic mother:</p>
<p>“I think they are snakehandlers”.</p>
<p>If you are uncomfortable with Mrs Gonzales’ definition, how ’bout the one from wikipedia:</p>
<p><em>The term charismatic movement is used in varying senses to describe 20th century developments in various Christian denominations. It describes an ongoing international, cross-denominational/non-denominational Christian movement in which individual, historically mainstream congregations adopt beliefs and practices similar to Pentecostals. Foundational to the movement is the belief that Christians may be “filled with” or “baptized in” the Holy Spirit as a second experience subsequent to salvation and that it will be evidenced by manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Among Protestants, the movement began around 1960. Among Roman Catholics, it originated around 1967.<br></em></p>
<p>For you Europeans who are unfamiliar with pentecostals, they are known for celebrating <em>baptism in the holy spirit.</em> This can include speaking in tongues, ecstatic dancing and yes, Mrs Gonzales, snakehandling.</p>
<p>Some of you might be surprised that a devoutly religious young man was one of the founding members of Camper Van Beethoven. Or perhaps it makes sense. I mean California was home to people like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonnie_Frisbee">Lonnie Frisbee</a> and the whole Jesus Freaks movement. In the 70′s a lot of these Charismatics came out of the counter-culture movement. So David wasn’t really a Jesus Freak. No, he had to much new wave post punk awareness. A Jesus Punk?</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/lonnie_frisbee_in_the_1960s.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/lonnie_frisbee_in_the_1960s.jpg?w=450" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a></p>
<p><strong><em>Lonnie Frisbee in a Camper Van Beethoven promotional Tunic.</em></strong></p>
<p>It’s nothing we really thought about very much. Except maybe once. As Victor Krummenacher, Chris Molla and myself pulled up stakes and decided to move Camper Van Beethoven from Redlands (in the Inland Empire) to Santa Cruz we asked David if he was gonna come along with us. He really looked at us like we were crazy. No he was gonna become a pastor. And that is indeed what he did.</p>
<p>++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p>David was only in the band for three or four months but he left his mark on the band. He co-wrote and sang The Day Lassie Went To The Moon. The early rehearsal tape I posted here last summer in #23 has a version of Lassie with David McDaniel singing.</p>
<p><a href="http://300songs.com/2010/08/09/23-ms-santa-cruz-county-cracker-who-were-the-blue-ladies-ode-to-santa-cruz/"> http://300songs.com/2010/08/09/23-ms-santa-cruz-county-cracker-who-were-the-blue-ladies-ode-to-santa-cruz/</a></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/01-1983-demos.mp3">1983 Camper van beethoven rehearsal</a></p>
<p>The lyrics to this song very much set the tone for most of the early Camper Van Beethoven albums. Light and happy but somehow deeply warped. Like a subversive children’s song. We repeatedly re-used this voice.</p>
<p>Final note on Lassie. The chorus chord progression must have been unconsciously lifted from Wall of Voodoo’s version of Ring of Fire. (we listened to a lot of Wall of Voodoo ). The riff begins at 3:13</p>
<span style="text-align:center; display: block;"><a href="http://300songs.com/2011/07/18/76-camper-van-beethoven-and-the-border-patrol-the-day-lassie-went-to-the-moon/"><img src="//img.youtube.com/vi/0f5nUqko3Ug/2.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a></span>
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<pre><strong>The Day That Lassie Went to the moon.</strong>
<strong> . E A D A e|| -----------------|---2------------- || B|| ---0-------2-----|-----3-----2----- || G||.-----1-------2---|-------2-----2---.|| D||.-------2-------2-|-0-------------2-.|| A|| ---------0-------|---------0------- || E|| -0---------------|----------------- || </strong></pre>
<p><strong>[INTRO & BREAK (see tab)]</strong><br><strong>[E]-[A]-[D]-[A]</strong><br><strong>[E]-[A]-[D]-[A]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[REPEAT BREAK]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[E] My little [A] dog [D] ran away the [A] other day [E] (yeah ye-[A]-eah yeah yeah, [D] yeah ye-[A]-eah yeah yeah)</strong><br><strong>[E] I can’t be-[A]-lieve my little dog [D] Lassie ra-[A]-an a-[E]-way (yeah ye-[A]-eah yeah yeah, [D] yeah ye-[A]-eah yeah yeah)</strong><br><strong>[E] She packed her [A] bags and [D] got into a [A] hot-air bal-[E]-loon (yeah ye-[A]-eah yeah yeah, [D] yeah ye-[A]-eah yeah yeah)</strong><br><strong>[E] Then my little dog [A] Lassie, she [D] sailed [A] off to the mo-[E]-on (yeah ye-[A]-eah yeah yeah, [D] yeah ye-[A]-eah yeah yeah)</strong></p>
<p><strong>CHORUS:</strong><br><strong>[E]-[B]-[Bb] The day</strong><br><strong>[F#]-[A]-[G] the day</strong><br><strong>[E] That was the [Bb] day that [F#] Lassie [A]went to the [E] moon</strong></p>
<p><strong>My little dog Lassie packed her bags and went out onto the porch</strong><br><strong>Her golden fur glistened in that sunny blue backdrop sky of Kansas</strong><br><strong>Before her stretched majestic wheat fields and over to that great city to the west</strong><br><strong>Lassie knew she had the duty to serve the youth of America and the stars above</strong></p>
<p><strong>REPEAT CHORUS x3</strong></p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/105899
2011-07-17T14:57:18-04:00
2020-01-27T02:49:25-05:00
#75 KQED’s The California Report on Big Dipper
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/giantdippervp1.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/giantdippervp1.jpg?w=450&h=294" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="294" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong><em>Giant Dipper. The Roller Coaster of Love.</em></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/03-big-dipper.mp3">03 Big Dipper</a> Click here to play big dipper.</p>
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<p>This is an interview I did with KQED for The California Report. As part of their California Songs series they ask me about Big Dipper. So todays blog is simply the audio recording of that interview.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201107151630/d">http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201107151630/d</a></p>
<div>
<p>Look for the full or extended interview file.</p>
<p><img src="//u.s.kqed.org/2011/07/15/DavidLowery.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></p>
<div>Gabriel Coan/KQED</div>
<div><em>David Lowery</em></div>
</div>
<p><em>The wooden roller coaster on the Santa Cruz boardwalk is a magnet for families, kids and teenagers on dates. It also inspired musician David Lowery’s song “Big Dipper.” Lowery studied mathematics at UC Santa Cruz, and “Big Dipper” appears on the album titled “The Golden Age” released in 1996 with his band Cracker. Lowery tells us the story behind the music.</em></p>
<p>Here is the short version as it was broadcast:</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/2011-07-15d-tcrmag.mp3">KQED California Songs David Lowery/Big Dipper</a></p>
<pre>
: Am . C . F . G . Am . C . F . G .
e|--------0---1-0--|----1p0-----------0h1|0-----0----|--------------------|
B|----1-3---1-----1|--------0h1-3-1-3----|-----------|----0h1-3-1-0-------|
G|--2--------------|---------------------|--2-----0--|--2-----------2-0---|
D|-----------------|---------------------|-----------|3-------------------|</pre>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>[SECTION 1 (see tab):]</strong><br><strong>[Am]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[F]</strong>-<strong>[G(sus4)]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[Am]</strong> Cigarette <strong>[C]</strong> and carrot juice <strong>[F]</strong>-<strong>[G(sus4)]</strong><br>
And get yourself a <strong>[Am]</strong> new tattoo <strong>[C]</strong> for those sleeveless <strong>[F]</strong> days of <strong>[G(sus4)]</strong> June</p>
<p>I’m sitting on the Cafe Xeno’s steps with a book I haven’t started yet<br>
watching all the girls walk by</p>
<p>Could I take you <strong>[F]</strong> out<br>
I’ll be yours without a <strong>[Dm]</strong> doubt<br><strong>[C]</strong> on that big <strong>[G(sus4)]</strong> dipper</p>
<p>And if the sound of this it frightens you<br>
we could play it real cool<br>
and act somewhat indifferent</p>
<p>And hey June why did you have to come, why did you have to come around so soon<br>
I wasn’t ready for all this nature</p>
<p>The terrible green green grass, and violent blooms of flowered dresses<br>
and afternoons that make me sleepy</p>
<p>But we could wait awhile<br>
before we push that dull turnstile<br>
into the passage</p>
<p>The thousands they had tread<br>
and others sometimes fled<br>
before their turn came</p>
<p><strong>[REPEAT SECTION 1 x2]</strong></p>
<p>And we could wait our lives<br>
before a chance arrives<br>
before the passage</p>
<p>From the top you can see Monterey<br>
or think about San Jose<br>
though I know it’s not that pleasant</p>
<p>And hey Jim Kerouac brother of the famous Jack<br>
or so he likes to say “lucky bastard”</p>
<p>He’s sitting on the cafe Xeno’s steps with a girl I’m not over yet<br>
watching all the world go by</p>
<p>Boy you are looking bad<br>
Did I make you feel that sad<br>
I’m honestly flattered</p>
<p>But if she asks me out<br>
I’ll be hers without a doubt<br>
on that big dipper</p>
<p>Cigarettes and carrot juice<br>
and get yourself a new tattoo for those sleeveless days of June</p>
<p>I’m sitting on the cafe Xeno’s steps<br>
I haven’t got the courage yet, I haven’t got the courage yet,</p>
<p>I haven’t got the <strong>[ending Am]</strong> courage yet</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/105756
2011-07-15T02:43:11-04:00
2020-11-09T04:56:45-05:00
#74 Hits are Black Swans-Take the Skinheads Bowling
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/camper-skinheads.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/camper-skinheads.jpg?w=450&h=454" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="454" width="450" /></a><em>The <strong>Black Swan Theory</strong> or <strong>Theory of Black Swan Events</strong> is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept that The event is a surprise (to the observer) and has a major impact. After the fact, the event is rationalized by hindsight.- wikipedia.</em></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/12-take-the-skinheads-bowling.mp3">12 Take The Skinheads Bowling</a> (click to play)</p>
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I’ve mentioned this before. Success in the music business is completely unpredictable. No one can really predict which artists will end up being successful. No one can really predict which song or album will be a hit. And a lot of times the songs, albums or artists that become the <em>really big</em> smash hits seem to just come out of the blue. They are often surprises to the record labels and artists themselves. The smaller hits and the minor hits seem almost predictable by comparison. The really big hits are truly outliers.</p>
<p>In technical terms these smash hits are <em>Black Swans</em>. Further there appears to be a distinct lack of causality. By this I mean, spending money on radio promotion, publicity, advertising, production, videos etc etc seems to be inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Sure it’s unlikely that a band with no budget or promotional push behind them is gonna be a massive hit. But having a million dollar promotional budget and the full might of Warner Music Group behind a band doesn’t guarantee success. Money might sometimes be a necessary condition but it is not sufficient.In fact it leads to success in perhaps 1 in 10 cases.*</p>
<p>Sadly talent is overrated. Yes there are very talented artists and songwriters. While talent is a subjective quality there are clearly artists that we all seem to agree have talent. We can be objective and say they have talent. And to be sure these talented artists always have a much better chance of becoming stars. They have a much better chance of having hit songs, multi-platinum albums and large crowds at the their shows. But it is not guaranteed. In fact most “talented” artists do not become stars. T They toil in obscurity until they finally give up or become too old to be marketable. Its just a lucky few that make it. And it is luck.</p>
<p>And the opposite is also true. Sometimes fairly untalented artists have big hits. Sometimes it’s the strange one hit wonders like Right Said Fred. Other times fairly untalented artists can have long and successful careers. Take for instance Kid Rock. This is not a jab. I believe there exists a scientific proof that can establish that Kid Rock is fairly untalented. I’m just stating facts. I have a feeling that Kid Rock might admit that he is fairly untalented and extremely lucky.</p>
<p>Talent is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for success.</p>
<p>ab</p>
<p>It’s not that there really is no rhyme or reason to an artist’s success. It’s not really random. It’s just that the process of making a hit or a star is <em>irreducibly complex,</em>unpredictable and impossible to model. It can never be duplicated. What worked for one artist doesn’t work for the next artist. All we can say is that <em>empirically </em>the secret alchemist formula for success has little to do with money, clout or talent. These seem to lead to only marginal improvements in total sales. And this is usually only once an act or a song has <em>already</em> generated some success on it’s own.</p>
<p>Yet everyone in the music business seems to think otherwise. Artists, managers, agents and record executives will argue otherwise. They will cite their own personal narratives that show how their actions and decisions led to some spectacular success. But there are always a few strange logical fallacies at work.</p>
<p><em>“Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan”- arab proverb.</em></p>
<p>What this means is not that a successful project has many fathers helping to guide it on it’s way to success. No, this means that many people claim to be associated or responsible for a project’s success no matter how tenuous. People play up their role in a successful project but downplay their role or completely disavow involvement in failures and disasters. It’s a genetically encoded survival feature of <em>Homo Corporaticus. </em>By doing this people artificially increase their win/loss ratio. Equity traders would say they fraudulently increase their <em>alpha</em> or skill quotient.</p>
<p>This also helps create an illusion of causality. It helps us tell <em>ourselves and others</em> the lie that our actions decisions and theories usually result in great success. There’s also something called the <em>narrative fallacy</em> whereby an individual will look back on events and select a cause and effect narrative that brings order to what were really chaotic and random events and decisions.</p>
<p>For instance Quincy Jones might naturally and understandably think that his production of Thriller was the most important and consequential narrative in the unprecedented success of this album (100 million worldwide best selling album of all time). When in actuality totally unrelated seemingly random developments and events were likely greater factors:</p>
<p>1. A burgeoning middle class in the developing world that identified with american Soul and R & B.</p>
<p>2. satellite television that distributed american music videos worldwide</p>
<p>3. the guest guitar solo by Edie Van Halen on<em>Beat it</em> suddenly made it okay for white suburban kids to listen to Michael Jackson etc etc.</p>
<p>I’m skipping a few things here but in short we lie to ourselves not because we are bad or evil, it’s just seems we can not function comfortably with a universe that is chaotic and unpredictable. We need to make sense of the world in a way that comforts and soothes us.</p>
<p>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p>I teach a class at University of Georgia about the music business. As part of the class I like to give the students a sort of proof by contradiction that outcomes in the music business can not be reliably duplicated and are highly unpredictable. Here’s how it goes:</p>
<p>Suppose that the music business is perfectly rational and predictable. If that’s the case you could design a Hit Machine that models the music business. For example if you put inputs X Y and Z into the machine you get a predictable volume of sales or revenue out of the other end of the Hit Machine. Every time. No Variation.</p>
<p>For example suppose for each album</p>
<p>we spend exactly the same amount on advertising.</p>
<p>We use exactly the same radio promoters.</p>
<p>We use exactly the same publicity firm.</p>
<p>We give the band the same amount of tour support.</p>
<p>They play the same number of shows in exactly the same venues.</p>
<p>The recording and video budgets are exactly the same.</p>
<p>We even use the same creatives: record producer, engineer, video director, songwriting team and studio musicians.</p>
<p>We spend the same amount on Black Ops: strippers, hookers, drugs and payola.</p>
<p>The list goes on and on.</p>
<p>If there were a hit machine we would get the same result each time. The exact same sales. Each album generates the same revenue. <a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/screen-shot-2011-05-17-at-9-09-53-pm.png"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/screen-shot-2011-05-17-at-9-09-53-pm.png?w=450&h=251" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="251" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong><em>For each album, the exact same inputs (left) produce the exact same number of sales (right).</em></strong></p>
<p>Of course we know this is absurd. No one would really expect this to happen. We reasonably expect there to be variation in sales for each successive albums. No matter how firmly we control the inputs to the machine. There are just too many other variables. The songwriter is off his/her game on one song. Global cultural tastes change. Current events make a song’s subject less or more engaging… etc etc.</p>
<p>So let’s redesign our Hit machine. We introduce some variation. A little randomness or pseudo randomness. Now we get something that seems more reasonable. If we put exactly the same “inputs” into the machine for each album you get varying sales out of the machine. In this case you get what mathematicians and statisticians call a “normal” or “gaussian” distribution. <a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/screen-shot-2011-05-17-at-9-10-09-pm.png"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/screen-shot-2011-05-17-at-9-10-09-pm.png?w=450&h=261" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="261" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>The Exact same inputs (left) produce a normal variation in sales (right).</strong></p>
<p>But as it turns out we know a lot about the variation in album sales. Album sales do not vary in this “normal” or “gaussian” way. They vary “wildly”.***</p>
<p>And here wild is actually a real mathematical term. So if there is a hit machine it would have to generate wild variation in sales with the same inputs.****</p>
<p>Like this: <a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/screen-shot-2011-05-17-at-9-11-09-pm.png"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/screen-shot-2011-05-17-at-9-11-09-pm.png?w=450&h=278" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="278" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>I’m skipping a few logical steps here but basically the conclusion is that the “inputs” to the hit machine – those things that the artists, managers, record labels, agents and songwriters have control over – have only a marginal effect on the end result. So marginal they are pretty much irrelevant. And if the cumulative actions of managers, labels, agents, artists, songwriters, producers and video directors have only a marginal influence on the outcome then it’s fair to say success in the music business is due to luck. or success in the music business is random or unpredictable. Q.E.D. sort of…</p>
<p>To use Michael Jackson as an example again <em>off the wall </em>had pretty much the same inputs as <em>Thriller</em>. Yet the results were wildly dfferent. 2 million vs 100 million. Or in gross revenue terms 16 million versus 800 million. You could plausibly argue with a straight face that $16 million dollars of <em>Thriller </em>was due to skill and $784 million dollars was the result of luck. I know this is an oversimplification but it still illustrates my point that most of the profit in the music business is not due to skill, talent or expertise.</p>
<p>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/fractal.gif"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/fractal.gif?w=450" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a></p>
<p><em><strong>This fractal design is “self similar” Each smaller piece is exactly the same shape as the whole.</strong></em></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/fields.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/fields.jpg?w=450" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a></p>
<p><strong><em>While similar to fractals this is something mathematicians call a “Dork”. </em></strong></p>
<p>Another important fact. This “wild” variation in sales of albums or songs is also <em>Self-Similar. </em>By this I mean that no matter how you slice and dice the sales data, no matter which subset of albums or songs you might create you still get a wild distribution.</p>
<p>For example if you look at the subset of just Camper Van Beethoven songs. And you look at the revenue generated by each song, you get what appears to be a wild distribution. It doesn’t matter whether you look at one quarter’s income or the lifetime cumulative income the distribution appears to be wild.</p>
<p>But I doubt that it is just Camper Van Beethoven. I don’t know for sure but I suspect that in the sub-genre of black metal, that if you looked at income for every album in the genre you would get a wild distribution. I suspect the same for the Narco-corridos sub genre.</p>
<p>This is <em>Self-Similarity</em>. Without going into it in detail- I don’t want to make your brain explode- everywhere that you have wild distributions you usually find <em>Black Swans Events. </em>And in the music business these <em>Black Swan Events </em> are the Hits. Camper Van Beethoven’s <em>Black Swan Event </em>was Take the Skinheads Bowling.</p>
<p>********************************************</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/cvb-1985.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/cvb-1985.jpg?w=450&h=298" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="298" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><em><strong>CVB writing a smash hit in 1984. The guy in the hat was not visible to the naked eye. He was only visible using certain film and special cameras (Usually KODAK EKTACHROME 160T). He is a minor demon of the Santa Catalina class. We would often accidentally conjure him during moments of intense creativity. He told us his name was “doobie”. </strong></em></p>
<p>Honestly in 1984 I never thought that much about the song Take The Skinheads Bowling. It was part of our repertoire but it wasn’t like people talked about this song much after the show. If they did talk about it they didn’t talk about it anymore than the other songs.</p>
<p>I don’t think it was until after we recorded our demos or the first Camper Van Beethoven album (and before it was released) that people began to notice this song. Usually because we had given them a demo tape. Our friends were also dubbing and passing around our cassette. It started to become one of our popular songs. At least within our circle of friends.</p>
<p>But it was not the only song that people liked. Lassie, Where the Hell is Bill and Club Med Sucks were also popular with our friends. In fact Where The Hell is Bill and Lassie were much more popular with our friends.</p>
<p>So it should not surprise you that I never thought that Take the Skinheads Bowling would become a Hit. If someone had traveled from the future and told me we would have a hit on our first album I would not have picked this song as being the hit. Not in a million years. I would have more likely picked Where the Hell is Bill.</p>
<p>Why? we regarded Take The Skinheads Bowling as just a weird non-sensical song. The lyrics were purposely structured so that it would be devoid of meaning. Each subsequent line would undermine any sort of meaning established by the last line. It was the early 80′s and all our peers were writing songs that were full of meaning. It was our way of rebelling. BTW this is the most important fact about this song. We wanted the words to lack any coherent meaning. There is no story or deeper insight that I can give you about this song.</p>
<p>Lassie and Where the Hell is Bill were silly but there was at least a point to the songs. Plus both songs were pretty jokey. Something that seemed popular at the time.</p>
<p>When we first put out the Telephone-Free-Landslide-Victory we mailed out a fairly limited amount of albums to radio and press. We got a few good reviews and a handful of college radio stations began to play a couple of the tracks. Where the Hell is Bill was one. Club Med Sucks was another and then of course Take the Skinheads Bowling. We were pretty excited. There were probably 20 college radio stations in the country summer of 1985 that were playing our record.</p>
<p>In September we decided that we should mail out another round of promo copies of our album. We expanded our list of college radio stations we added a few commercial stations like KROQ in LA and WLBS in detroit. Someone also suggested we send copies to two or three BBC DJs in london.</p>
<p>Sometime later that fall something unexpected occurred. We began getting reports that BBC 2 was playing Take The Skinheads Bowling. Simultaneously it began getting regular airplay in Detroit on WLBS .</p>
<p>Up until this point College Radio had been mildly supportive of Camper Van Beethoven. But somehow word began to get out that we were being played on the BBC and suddenly our cool factor went way up with college radio. I had been calling various West Coast college radio stations for some time. I was always trying to find gigs for Camper through the college stations. I was also aware that this also helped to promote airplay.</p>
<p>I was always treated decently by these college station program directors but I could tell that some were just humoring me. So it was very apparent when the sea change came. Suddenly <em>everyone</em> would take my call. And everyone wanted to talk about the fact we were getting played in the UK. Shortly after this we began to see our record charting on nearly every college radio station in the US (as well as a number of commercial stations.)</p>
<p>I have no proof that the BBC playing Take The Skinheads Bowling led to more US airplay. It is just a strong hunch. And I think I am probably right. But what I know to be true is that Camper Van Beethoven acquired <em>Gravitas </em>when the BBC began to play us.</p>
<p>For a band like Camper Van Beethoven <em>gravitas</em> was an important property. Without it we would have been regarded as novelty or joke band. We would have been regarded in the way our friends (and fellow travelers) The Dead Milkman were regarded: A cute band, an interesting and clever novelty. (BTW I <em>do not agree</em> with this characterization of the Dead Milkman).</p>
<p>The Dead Milkman were a punk band from Philadelphia. They put out their first album almost the same week Camper Van Beethoven released their first album. They were funny and irreverent like Camper Van Beethoven. Like CVB they mixed serious songs with silly punk rock anthems like “bitchin’ camaro”.</p>
<p>Camper Van Beethoven was definitely a weirder ensemble but the bands were very very similar in many other ways. Our fanbase overlapped a good deal. They were also on a very small independent label. The same college radio stations played us. And they also were completely self directed.</p>
<p>For the early part of our career the two bands were traveling in parallel. With the Dead Milkman being perhaps a little more popular than Camper Van Beethoven. But after the BBC airplay Camper Van Beethoven began to be to be regarded as more serious. Serious mainstream journalists began writing favorable stories about us. Spin magazine and The Village Voice featured us. We also began to garner interest from major record labels. IRS records which was on a hot streak came a-callin’. We turned them down but we were able to parlay our newfound <em>gravitas </em>into a distribution deal with Rough Trade Records. More importantly Rough Trade functioned as our label in the rest of the world bringing greater sales, publicity and radio play across Europe and Australia. Camper Van Beethoven quickly surpassed The Dead Milkman critically and commercially. It wasn’t until long after Camper Van Beethoven had disbanded that The Dead Milkman had their big commercial success with the MTV hit <em>Punk Rock Girl</em> and sadly they never acquired the <em>gravitas </em>that they deserved.</p>
<p>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/ipp-booklet-cover-web.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/ipp-booklet-cover-web.jpg?w=450&h=230" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="230" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>So I don’t really know what made Take the Skinheads Bowling a hit. I’m sure it was a lot of different things. But I’m gonna drill down, and focus on one tiny element. I know it’s not likely correct to attribute the success of this song to this one small event. It’s simply an exercise to show how a tiny accidental decision can make a huge difference in the success of a song, album or artist.</p>
<p>Assume that the BBC playing Take the Skinheads Bowling was the primary engine of success for this song. Then one little handwritten note on the beautifully designed <a href="http://www.independentprojectpress.com/">Independent Project</a> stationary made all the difference in the world for this song.</p>
<p>See someone told me that many of the BBC DJ’s did not accept unsolicited submissions <em>unless </em> they were accompanied by a personalized handwritten note. But this was not common knowledge . Somehow this little factoid filtered down to us and when our album(s) were mailed they included a personal note to the DJ from one of us or Bruce Licher . I don’t recall who wrote the notes just that they were included. I like to think the handwritten note on Bruce’s beautiful Independent Project stationary caught someone’s eye. This made our album stand out from the stacks of albums that the BBC would receive each week. And this small detail, this tiny flap of a butterfly wing made Take the Skinheads Bowling a hit.</p>
<p>* ”throw ten records against the wall and see which one sticks” This is often attributed to Atlantic records founder Ahmet Etegun. I’ve googled it and find no evidence he ever said it. Still the modern 1950-2000 music business was based on a success ratio of something like 1 in 10. 1 success for 9 failures.</p>
<p>*** It is know that there is “wild” variation in book sales and other cultural products. Since YouTube views of music videos seem to vary wildly and using YouTube views as a good proxy for album/single sales I’m not going out on a limb by stating album/single sales also vary wildly.</p>
<p>**** Actually this last statement does not really follow. I know many of my readers are smart and will quickly point this out. For the sake of readability I am completely fudging here. I believe my conclusion is true but it’s a much longer argument and involves some induction.</p>
<p>“If a hit machine existed it would have to output wild variation in sales because in actuality the variation in sales of albums are wild” No that doesn’t follow. Previously we were assuming that the inputs were exactly the same. The only way this follows is if all albums in the known universe have the same inputs. Clearly they don’t.</p>
<p>Instead the logic is much more complex. It first involves the fact that there are known pairs or even triplets of albums that have substantially the same inputs. The variation of sales in these pairs or triplets of albums is so great (thriller vs off the wall) that this inductively suggests the hit machine will produce a wild variation in sales.</p>
<p>Or another way of looking at it. If there were a hit machine the market would eventually nudge the labels into using only the best inputs, those that produce the greatest sales. These would all be virtually the same inputs. But the market doesn’t do this because it “knows” the inputs don’t matter all that much.</p>
<p>(And the market may know this because at times in Nashville and Hollywood the record labels have come very close to using exactly the same inputs over and over again and they still got “wild” variation. For instance in the late 1990′s at any time the top 10 modern rock tracks were usually mixed by just 3 or 4 mix engineers!)</p>
<p>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
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<p>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<br><strong>[INTRO:]</strong><br><strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[Fmaj7]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[Fmaj7]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[Fmaj7]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[Fmaj7]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[C]</strong> Every day, <strong>[Fmaj7]</strong> I get up and pray to <strong>[C]</strong> Jah <strong>[Fmaj7]</strong><br><strong>[C]</strong> And he increases the number of <strong>[Fmaj7]</strong> clocks by exactly one <strong>[C]</strong> <strong>[Fmaj7]</strong><br><strong>[C]</strong> Everybody’s comin’ <strong>[Fmaj7]</strong> home for lunch these <strong>[C]</strong> days <strong>[Fmaj7]</strong><br><strong>[C]</strong> Last night there were <strong>[Fmaj7]</strong> skinheads on my <strong>[C]</strong> lawn <strong>[Fmaj7]</strong></p>
<p>CHORUS:<br><strong>[G]</strong> Take the skinheads <strong>[F]</strong> bowling<br>
Take them <strong>[C]</strong> bowling <strong>[F]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong> <strong>[F]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong> <strong>[F]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong><br><strong>[G]</strong> Take the skinheads <strong>[F]</strong> bowling<br>
Take them <strong>[C]</strong> bowling <strong>[F]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong> <strong>[F]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong> <strong>[F]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong></p>
<p>Some people say that bowling alleys got big lanes (got big lanes, got big lanes)<br>
Some people say that bowling alleys all look the same (look the same, look the same)<br>
There’s not a line that goes here that rhymes with anything (anything, anything)<br>
I has a dream last night, but I forget what it was (what it was, what it was)</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS</p>
<p>I had a dream last night about you, my friend<br>
I had a dream, I wanted to sleep next to plastic<br>
I had a dream, I wanted to lick your knees<br>
I had a dream, it was about nothing</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS x2</p>
<br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/camper-van-beethoven/">Camper Van Beethoven</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2523/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2523/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2523&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/105656
2011-07-13T18:32:10-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:17-05:00
#73 South California Revisited – St. Cajetan.
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/13secession_map-popup.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/13secession_map-popup.jpg?w=450" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a></p>
<p><strong><em>South California as proposed by secessionists.</em></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/05-st-cajetan.mp3">05 St. Cajetan</a></p>
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<p>I was browsing the web last night and came across this <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/us/13secession.html?_r=1&hp">NY Times article</a> about the Inland Empire and 10 other counties wanting to secede from the state of California. The idea is to form their own state called South California. Not to be confused with the Mexican states of Baja California Norte and Baja California Sur (Lower California North and Lower California South). If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you already know about the Inland Empire of California. It’s geography and how it differs significantly from the rest of the state. But here’s the quick synopsis.</p>
<p>The Inland Empire, Mojave Desert and much of the Central Valley (think Bakersfield) are very different than the rest of the state. It is poorer, more agricultural than a lot of California. It is also populated by a lot of people that moved along the southern wagon trails, railroads, highways and interstates from the Southern States of the US to the California. Also there was a significant Mormon migration (The Mormons once envisioned their own seperate nation that included this area of California).</p>
<p>The City of San Bernardino was first the center Morman migration to California and next a significant Pro- confederate settlement during the Civil War. This area has often acted like it wanted to be part of something other than California. And much of the time it has shared a sort of affinity with the US Southern States.</p>
<p>When my family first moved to California from Spain. (My father was in the US Air Force) I saw so many “confederate”* flags I assumed that Southern California was somehow part of the Confederacy. That wasn’t that far fetched. Indeed it tried.</p>
<p>From KCETs excellent <a href="http://http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/history/32239-how-southern-california-tried-to-split-from-the-north.html">history of secessionists in California (both from the Union and state of California):</a></p>
<p><em> On August 25, 1861, troops under the command of Major William Scott Ketchum secretly moved into San Bernardino amid rumors of rebellion. The next month, in the nearby mining town of Belleville (close to the present-day site of Big Bear Lake), the presence of Union dragoons in the streets quashed a election-day riot by secessionists.</em></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/lynyrd-skynyrd-the-early-years-1974-75-dvd-31994.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/lynyrd-skynyrd-the-early-years-1974-75-dvd-31994.jpg?w=450&h=438" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="438" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong><em>Sweet Home San Bernardino.</em></strong></p>
<p>To further the feeling that I was living in a lonely outpost of The South or at least Texas, <em>Southern Rock </em>became enormously popular in the Inland Empire. I know Lynyrd Skynyrd was enormously popular everywhere in the US but in the Inland Empire that popularity extended far down into the lower echelons of Southern Rock ie Charlie Daniels Band, Molly Hatchet,The Outlaws etc. Green Grass and High Tides was as important an high school parking lot anthem as Stairway to Heaven. Indeed in the late 70′s it was not un-common for local FM station KCAL to boast of playing a 1/2 hour of uninterrupted southern rock.</p>
<p>And why shouldn’t this stuff have been staples of FM rock radio? all through the 70′s, the stuff wasn’t that different from what The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin were playing. Both played southern blues and gospel based rock. The difference between the english blues rockers and the southern blues rockers had mostly to do with their public persona. The Stones and Led Zeppelin may have sang about the working man the poor and downtrodden from time to time, but they decidedly cultivated an image as being part of some sophisticated elite. Albeit a dangerous, decadent and hedonistic elite. Contrast that to the Allman Brothers earthy notion of “The Family” or Lynyrd Skynyrds sneering contempt for elites and northerners. You got the feeling that the English bands sang the blues ( and sang it well) but the southern rockers actually lived it. They were still decadent and hedonistic but it was a <em>down home </em>working man’s kind of hedonism. Hell raising. Boys being boys.</p>
<p>As the the New York times article nicely notes there is also a recurring sense of victimhood in the Inland Empire. Similar to what you find in the south. In the Inland Empire it goes like this: the hard working, poorer inland californians have a better and more traditional way of life but it is constantly under attack from northern, sacramento or big city elites. “<em>And if we were just left alone to run their own affairs things would be so much better”.</em> Does this sound familiar? This is not to say that like the other southerners they at times do have a point.</p>
<p>I believe it was that subtle subtext that made southern rock so appealing in the Inland Empire. That and the family ties to the US south.</p>
<p>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p>All of this was intended as an explanation of how two california boys, myself and Johnny Hickman , became well versed in southern rock.</p>
<p>I classify St. Cajetan as a southern rock song. It’s what we were intending to create with that song. Hear the southern rock “oooo’s’ in the chorus backing vocals? The stomping drone of the guitars and drums. The fabulously overplayed climatic guitar solo. If we had 4 guitar players there would have been a 4 part guitarmony at the end.</p>
<p>Its also the song on the first Cracker album that most differentiated it from Camper Van Beethoven. While Camper could expertly play with the Jimmy Page/ Peter Green english blues rock oeuvre, <em>mythologizing</em> it in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes">semiotic/Roland Barthes</a> sort of way, CVB never really played with the southern rock sound (despite the fact Greg Lisher sounds so much like Dickey Betts at times it’s uncanny). As one of the ways of differentiating Cracker from CVB we went a step farther and embraced southern rock. This is not to say we weren’t embracing it in the same post-modern** way that CVB embraced Led Zeppelin, we weren’t trying to be 100% authentic. It was a tip of the hat to southern rock from a couple of South California rockers.</p>
<p>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p>St. Cajetan was named after the performance space in Denver. An old Catholic Church in Denver now part of the university there. Camper Van Beethoven was playing a show in this venue and I was sitting around with an acoustic guitar backstage. I came up with that riff and named it “St Cajetan”. Camper Van Beethoven broke up before i could ever turn that riff into a song. So this was probably the first or second Cracker song.</p>
<p>Loosely the supplicant in the song is asking St. Cajetan for a cool drink of fresh water. Which is not water at all. Salt water being being heartache. Nothing more to it.</p>
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<p>*I know this is a misnomer the flag commonly called the confederate flag was not actually the confederate flag.</p>
<p>** All ROCK IS POST-MODERN. IT IS AT THE HEART OF THE GENRE. THERE IS NO AUTHENTICITY. ROCK WAS BORN AS A MONGREL. STOP ARGUING ABOUT IT.</p>
<p>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p><strong>St. Cajetan</strong></p>
<p><strong>[A(-Am-A-A7-A embellishment)]</strong><br><strong>[F#m]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong><br><strong>[A]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[F#m]</strong>-<strong>[E]</strong><br><strong>[A]</strong>-<strong>[Cm]</strong>-<strong>[A]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[A]</strong></p>
<p><strong>You know I don’t feel well.</strong><br><strong>I gotta thirst in my mouth.</strong><br><strong>And all I want is a cool drink of water.</strong><br><strong>You know I don’t feel well.</strong><br><strong>I got salt in my wounds.</strong><br><strong>And all I want is a cool drink of water.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Can you hear me, St. Cajetan?</strong><br><strong>I once knew a well so sweet.</strong><br><strong>I put my lips, my lips to the pail to drink.</strong><br><strong>But I would give it all up for some water.</strong></p>
<p><strong>You know I don’t feel well.</strong><br><strong>Got the salty taste of my tears.</strong><br><strong>And all I want is some relief from this.</strong></p>
<p><strong>You know I don’t feel well</strong><br><strong>Been tossed and turned on this ocean.</strong><br><strong>And all I want is this one wish.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Can you hear me, St. Cajetan?</strong><br><strong>All I want is a cool drink of water.</strong><br><strong>Can you hear me, St. Cajetan?</strong><br><strong>All I want is a cool drink of water.</strong><br><strong>Can you hear me, St. Cajetan?</strong><br><strong>All I want is a cool drink of water.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Can you hear me?</strong><br><strong>Can you hear me?</strong><br><strong>Can you hear me, St. Cajetan?</strong></p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/91675
2011-01-30T21:12:23-05:00
2017-01-13T18:56:17-05:00
#72- Marigold- A small fragment of a much longer story.
<div>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/ship-building-porthole-windows.jpeg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/ship-building-porthole-windows.jpeg?w=450&h=325" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="325" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong><em>Did I dream this?</em></strong></p>
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<p>Listen to Marigold. <a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/07-marigold.mp3">07 Marigold</a></p>
</div>
<p>I awoke from a strange dream just before dawn. It was Nov 3rd 2005. I know this because I wrote the dream down in much detail using my laptop. I can see the date the file was created.</p>
<p>I wrote it down cause it seemed like my subconscious had been processing something. My head or rather my brain seemed like it had been churning a vast multi axis array of data all night. My head felt hot. And i was hungry and exhausted. Because of this I thought it might be important.</p>
<p>It wasn’t as coherent as what you will read below. It wasn’t linear either. It was a few big semi-continuous scenes. And a series of fragments. I wrote them down in the best order that I could. To try and make them make sense. The main points were these:</p>
<p>In the dream I knew I was dying. I had a brain tumor that was affecting an area of my brain that made it difficult for me to find the proper words when i spoke. The other key part of the dream was that I went to Ecuador to find my ex-wife (who was not my ex-wife in real life). There were a series of apocalyptic events while in ecuador ; an earthquake, a civil war and a perhaps a tsunami. I was often with a tall african man who In my notes I dubbed Queequeg (after the fictional character in moby dick). At other times I was guided by a Turkish or Arab man who wore an eye patch. A repeated scene: I was underwater trying to bring to the surface this Incan artifact. A golden statue of an animal that looked like a koala.</p>
<p>Because much of this seemed so specific I started googling things. Like “Ecuador” or “Arabs in South America” “Golden Koala” and “Civil War Andes”.</p>
<p>Although the mystery of the dream never really did present itself to me, something surprising began to happen. An alternate narrative began to form as I googled these phrases. I began to incorporate it into my notes.</p>
<p>Previously I had noted that draft emails composed in the gmail browser would often have provocative, funny or unusual Google adwords links on the the side of the gmail window. Remembering this I began to drop whole sentences even paragraphs into a draft email. Save it. Close it. Then i would reopen and look at the ads. At this point the narrative began to explode into this rather long… Poem? Short story? Treatment for the next Cohen Brothers movie? I don’t know what this is.</p>
<p>At one point I thought that I would make an album or something out of this. I wrote the first song. It’s this song. It’s called Marigold. And as much as I like this song, I don’t think an album of pop music could ever come close to the wonderful weirdness of this bit of prose that I dug out of my googled subconscious.</p>
<p><strong>Conquistador</strong></p>
<p><em>neon clouds swirled above the alcohol like a flame</em></p>
<p><em>yet i followed her</em></p>
<p><em>for the health of my disease hung in the balance</em></p>
<p><em>i had no choice</em></p>
<p><em>i flew southward into a chaotic metropolis.</em></p>
<p><em>i rode in taxis and stuttering tramcars</em></p>
<p><em>I rode in jitneys up steep hillsides</em></p>
<p><em>dirt trails through villages</em></p>
<p><em>the chaos dwindled</em></p>
<p><em>the dramamine and cane liquour shared with strangers</em></p>
<p><em>i drew closer</em></p>
<p><em>and knew i was dying.</em></p>
<p><em>at the last town a friendly hotel</em></p>
<p><em>in the ruins of a conquistador redoubt</em></p>
<p><em>i shared a room with a cyclops</em></p>
<p><em>i slept with a knife and an antique pistol</em></p>
<p><em>we never spoke except in the rowdiness of the bar</em></p>
<p><em>i shouted in english he in turkish</em></p>
<p><em>yet i came to understand he was a bandit</em></p>
<p><em>who likewise lost an eye to a greek sailor</em></p>
<p><em>languid, drifting, i was without purpose</em></p>
<p><em>days months or years passed</em></p>
<p><em>i have no recollection</em></p>
<p><em>i had lost my purpose</em></p>
<p><em>i knew i was dying but even that i postponed.</em></p>
<p><em>alas an unknown offense was committed</em></p>
<p><em>a huddled circle, murmurs from the shabby tea room</em></p>
<p><em>a quick glance over the shoulder from the bandit</em></p>
<p><em>it was settled</em></p>
<p><em>i was to be exiled.</em></p>
<p><em>the desk clerk obliged me with a guide</em></p>
<p><em>his name was queequeg</em></p>
<p><em>jolly and earthy</em></p>
<p><em>but always darkened when my flask appeared</em></p>
<p><em>and these days at the shadowless noon</em></p>
<p><em>he took me to high valleys</em></p>
<p><em>to my singlemindedness</em></p>
<p><em>and at last it appeared</em></p>
<p><em>we stood on a ridge and queequeg pointed down</em></p>
<p><em>into an improbable green valley</em></p>
<p><em>like ahab i limped towards her white tent</em></p>
<p><em>the grass beating arythmic drum brushes on denim</em></p>
<p><em>queequeg stayed on the ridge counting his pesos</em></p>
<p><em>then he watched us and waited</em></p>
<p><em>she greeted me happily</em></p>
<p><em>the tent was zippered</em></p>
<p><em>at dusk when we emerged</em></p>
<p><em>queequeg was gone</em></p>
<p><em>we built a fire and sat close together</em></p>
<p><em>I would awake in the tent <span style="font-size:11.6667px;">to bright sun.</span></em></p>
<p><em>to my stillness</em></p>
<p><em>the sea of grass eddying quietly</em></p>
<p><em>the andean cold only a hint in the wind</em></p>
<p><em>and always she was away</em></p>
<p><em>with the aboriginals</em></p>
<p><em>in their high villages</em></p>
<p><em>returning only at night</em></p>
<p><em>awakened by her warmth and moist breath</em></p>
<p><em>i woke before her one morning</em></p>
<p><em>the malaise had returned</em></p>
<p><em>I knew it would stay this time</em></p>
<p><em>i drank from my flask</em></p>
<p><em>the earth rumbled below me</em></p>
<p><em>a curious thing</em></p>
<p><em>Appearing its way along</em></p>
<p><em>like an aardvark in the grass</em></p>
<p><em>a vectored wave and then another</em></p>
<p><em>what was that? she asked from the tent</em><br><em> that same day we packed and moved higherinto the mountains.</em></p>
<p><em>oblivious to those thousands buried alive under mudbrick</em></p>
<p><em>for the radio had been abandoned when the batteries quit</em></p>
<p><em>within weeks we ceased speaking full sentences in english</em></p>
<p><em>or any language.</em></p>
<p><em>then we lost even the single words</em></p>
<p><em>things were no longer named</em></p>
<p><em>nothing was discreet there were just areas</em></p>
<p><em>broad tones</em></p>
<p><em>yet we lived</em></p>
<p><em>grunting and pointing</em></p>
<p><em>like the german tourists in themarketplace in quito</em></p>
<p><em>the world without names was curious</em></p>
<p><em>a pull tab glinting in the sun,was also the sun,</em></p>
<p><em>and the sun was also a smell from my childhood</em></p>
<p><em>that ended with watering eyes a deep and powerful sadness</em></p>
<p><em>all things ended there</em></p>
<p><em>the singularity.</em><br><em> I should be happy i thought.</em></p>
<p><em>eating guinea pigs as snack food</em></p>
<p><em>in the high villages</em></p>
<p><em>dribblling quechua.</em></p>
<p><em>still the lurking mass metastasized and blocked the sun.</em></p>
<p><em>I lived in the shadows</em></p>
<p><em>when the militia men and teen soldiers visited</em></p>
<p><em>i may have been happy</em></p>
<p><em>which was also the sound of the grass left behind,</em></p>
<p><em>and also the burning taste of the L’aguardiente they traded with me.</em></p>
<p><em>our incan hosts feared them</em></p>
<p><em>weltering like smallpox blisters</em></p>
<p><em>nevertheless stoic they donned their bowler hats</em></p>
<p><em>an english court</em></p>
<p><em>formally and coldly played their strange waltzes</em></p>
<p><em>meters cut neatly in half, by duples, martial drums</em></p>
<p><em>marching waltzes</em></p>
<p><em>other times the shining path in black masks,</em></p>
<p><em>their ages impossible</em></p>
<p><em>their violence implicit.</em></p>
<p><em>i shared our dwindling grape with them</em></p>
<p><em>she was aroused by their danger and violence</em></p>
<p><em>we always retired early to our hut</em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:11.6667px;">They drank and took delight listening to our couplings.</span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:11.6667px;"><br></span></em></p>
<p><em>after the earthquake i remember the C5-As</em></p>
<p><em>Enormous but from our vantage above they were playful toys</em></p>
<p><em>circling otters on the sea of thick air</em></p>
<p><em>fortified with smoke rising from the ruined city.</em></p>
<p><em>smoke rose always in this land</em></p>
<p><em>everywhere, which was also her hair</em></p>
<p><em>which was also a certain smell from childhood</em></p>
<p><em>which was different than thatother smell</em></p>
<p><em>but ended with watering eyes and the deep sadness</em></p>
<p><em>the singularity</em></p>
<p><em>I captain ahab now drunk on fermented quinoa</em></p>
<p><em>In desperation took a vow</em></p>
<p><em>to begin speaking again</em></p>
<p><em>it was awkward</em></p>
<p><em>i would shout”likewise a tit is better than nothing”.</em></p>
<p><em>The villagers didn’tunderstand but laughed with me</em></p>
<p><em>as days passed I found other crooked phrases</em></p>
<p><em>i shouted them in the village</em></p>
<p><em>or whispered them to her at night</em></p>
<p><em>“never ignored.. . but never more has been barked”</em></p>
<p><em>she stroked my hair and rubbed my stiff leg</em></p>
<p><em>which about the time of talking had developed a tremour</em></p>
<p><em>I knew i was dying</em></p>
<p><em>and that was all</em></p>
<p><em>there she stayed</em></p>
<p><em>in villages of altitude sickness</em></p>
<p><em>for a nobler cause than I</em></p>
<p><em>like a deep sea diver who surfaces to fast</em></p>
<p><em>i had left the continuous wordless realm,</em></p>
<p><em>and entered into the discreet world of language too fast</em></p>
<p><em>noxious gases had formed and chemically bonded with the words</em></p>
<p><em>new molecules of speech were born</em></p>
<p><em>twisted strands and double helixes</em></p>
<p><em>benzene rings</em></p>
<p><em>an alchemy of sorts</em></p>
<p><em>i could only share my secrets with other alchemists</em></p>
<p><em>the rhyme for orange</em></p>
<p><em>the strange beauty of the word “vacuum”</em></p>
<p><em>one night she sent me away with the militia men.</em></p>
<p><em>she sobbed and spoke in perfect non crooked english.</em></p>
<p><em>i was dissappointed she did not share my gift</em></p>
<p><em>i cried and was angry</em></p>
<p><em>in the valley of the whispering grass a trap was sprung</em></p>
<p><em>shining path rose black against the moonless sky</em></p>
<p><em>i laid down in the grass and listened to echoes of bullets</em></p>
<p><em>the echos stopped</em></p>
<p><em>the shining path walked around and slit the throats of the wounded and dying</em></p>
<p><em>when they came to me i waited for the knife</em></p>
<p><em>instead water from a cup.</em></p>
<p><em>a bit of bread</em></p>
<p><em>“vacuum” said one of the hooded</em></p>
<p><em>at dawn i woke in the eddying grass</em></p>
<p><em>surrounded by the still surprised militiamen</em></p>
<p><em>though of course they were still dead</em></p>
<p><em>perverse relief i had not dreamed this</em></p>
<p><em>improbably queequeg was on the ridge where i left him</em></p>
<p><em>many many months ago</em></p>
<p><em>queequeg spoke of the earthquake</em></p>
<p><em>the city was dangerous and ruined</em></p>
<p><em>full of armed gangs and american marines</em></p>
<p><em>there was a civil war</em></p>
<p><em>although he offered to take me to the conquistador hotel bar</em></p>
<p><em>to see the cyclops</em></p>
<p><em>i shook my head to decline</em></p>
<p><em>along the coast to queequegs home</em></p>
<p><em>an old colonial port city</em></p>
<p><em>curious blacks and melungeons</em></p>
<p><em>with japanese surnames</em></p>
<p><em>an endless circle of bars</em></p>
<p><em>queequeg lived amongst the colourfully painted tin</em></p>
<p><em>in the tidal flats along the beach</em></p>
<p><em>each morning he took a crowded bus to the north</em></p>
<p><em>shrimp farms amidst the dead mangroves</em></p>
<p><em>disapproving witness to a bloom of nitrates fingering to the sea</em></p>
<p><em>while i was drunken abuelita on the bus</em></p>
<p><em>proffered seats and gently led off</em></p>
<p><em>the bus cobbled away into the old quarter slums</em></p>
<p><em>streaming beyond</em></p>
<p><em>i limped to each bar in succession</em></p>
<p><em>these a legacy of a bauxite boom</em></p>
<p><em>in the previous century</em></p>
<p><em>grave nations preparing for carnage and war had found this gentle place</em></p>
<p><em>flattered her</em></p>
<p><em>brought her to flowering</em></p>
<p><em>and then abandoned her.</em></p>
<p><em>an apartment building on the bluff above</em></p>
<p><em>built to resemble a ship</em></p>
<p><em>porthole windows,</em></p>
<p><em>looked to sea</em></p>
<p><em>jilted</em></p>
<p><em>only now as an old maid was one of her suitors to return.</em></p>
<p><em>embarrassed by it’s continued youth and virility</em></p>
<p><em>she pretended to have forgotten him</em></p>
<p><em>she looked away to the sea.</em></p>
<p><em>at night marines filled the bars</em></p>
<p><em>i had ceased speaking</em></p>
<p><em>they called me the mute, gently mocked me and bought me drinks.</em></p>
<p><em>they helped me into the converted hearse</em></p>
<p><em>a cab driven by one of queequegs uncles or cousins</em><br><em> the seasons were a gentle wobbling</em></p>
<p><em>barely perceptable but at the equinox a rotation occurred</em></p>
<p><em>the first marines bawdy</em></p>
<p><em>these were mean conscripts</em></p>
<p><em>the first night they beat me unconcious</em></p>
<p><em>i awoke after some days in a military hospital</em></p>
<p><em>my countrymen were like aliens</em></p>
<p><em>they smelled of milk and disinfectant</em></p>
<p><em>they told me i was dying</em></p>
<p><em>i tried to sign a document</em></p>
<p><em>i was given cash by a civillian with a terrible mustache and reflective glasses</em></p>
<p><em>i was assigned a congenial MP and a wheelchair</em></p>
<p><em>he talked of affairs i knew nothing about nor cared</em></p>
<p><em>an oil pipeline had been sabotaged the day before</em></p>
<p><em>the crisis in my former country</em></p>
<p><em>he took me to queequegs colourful tin</em></p>
<p><em>but i refused</em></p>
<p><em>at last he understood and carefully wheeled me into the don quixcote</em></p>
<p><em>with its yellowing bullfight posters and blaring television</em></p>
<p><em>that night i dove into that lake of drear</em></p>
<p><em>swimming along the bottom i found a golden dead koala</em></p>
<p><em>i knew this was my alchemist prize</em></p>
<p><em>all the crooked phrases had unraveled the singularity</em></p>
<p><em>i clutched it to me before the blackness hit</em></p>
<p><em>i was kicked by a barmaid</em></p>
<p><em>she was shouting in spanish</em></p>
<p><em>my tattered denims were warm with urine</em></p>
<p><em>the tile of the floor was cool on my cheek</em></p>
<p><em>this soothed me</em></p>
<p><em>a crowd gathered around me as if i was dying</em></p>
<p><em>i clutched the koala to my chest</em></p>
<p><em>no one would take it.</em></p>
<p>©2005 David Lowery</p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/91647
2011-01-30T14:17:46-05:00
2017-01-13T18:56:17-05:00
#71 The Palace Guards- A Superhero In Need of a Restraining Order.
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<p>Listen to <a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/02-the-palace-guards.mp3">02 The Palace Guards</a></p>
<p>I am totally hijacking the 300 songs blog for a few days to blatantly promote my new album solo album The Palace Guards.</p>
<p>It comes out Feb 1st 2011 and you can buy the CD here from:</p>
<p>click here for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Palace-Guards-David-Lowery/dp/B004AAKEPC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1296431264&sr=8-1">Amazon</a></p>
<p>download from itunes <a href="//itunes.apple.com/us/artist/david-lowery/id409207682?uo=4%22%20target=%22itunes_store%22>David%20Lowery</a>">click here</a></p>
<p>I was driving around in my car listening to the reference master of my new CD The Palace Guards. I like to listen in my car because it’s a good to hear how your albums sound outside of a studio or on something other than a high end set of speakers. Beside this is where most people I know listen to music. I had my 11 year old with me and I sort of forgot he was listening to the album as well.</p>
<p>“Dad, didn’t this song start out as a kid’s song” my 11 year old asked.</p>
<p>I had to think about this. Yes indeed he was right. I remember that a few years ago when he was really really young (maybe 7?) I had been playing this bit of music and thinking it would make a good ironic post-modern parenting type kids song. I asked my same son then 7 if I was to make a kids album what should it be about?</p>
<p>“Space or the planets”</p>
<p>Actually that’s a good idea. I mean there are 9 planets. Well maybe 8 but you could do a song about whether pluto was a planet or not. 9 Tracks on an album not bad. Plus you could have a track about the Moon as an iTunes bonus track and one about the Sun as an Amazon.com bonus track.</p>
<p>And <span style="font-size:11.6667px;">the whole concept makes for some very good ironic post-modern kids album titles:</span></p>
<p>Venus is Hot (and so is your mom)™</p>
<p>Mars is Angry (and so is your dad)™</p>
<p>you get the idea.</p>
<p>But this was just kind of a passing thought and I eventually forgot about it. At least until my 11 year old brought it up.</p>
<p>“Dad ? what is this song about?”</p>
<p>“Um that’s a little hard to explain”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“Well cause it’s sort of a superhero team, The Palace Guards’ but they aren’t exactly good, and they are not exactly telling the truth.”</p>
<p>What I was getting at is that in my song “The Palace Guards” are a group of superheros who have crossed some sort of line. They’ve gone from being the public’s protectors to being overprotective, secretive and controlling. They’ve turned into Stalkers.</p>
<p>Yes it was intended to be a metaphor about the growing power of government!</p>
<p>Just kidding. It’s just an accident that it happens to work so well as a metaphor. Watching the protests in Egypt you could very well think of Mubarak and the ruling national democratic party as The Palace Guards.</p>
<p>The other curious thing about this song: The song shifts between third person and first person. When in third person the narrator praises The Palace Guards and portrays them as noble, selfless and a tad misunderstood. But than the narrator shifts to first person and you realize that he is actually one of The Palace Guards. Not only does this make the narrator seem much less “reliable” it also suggest that he is a little crazy. Continuing with the theme of authoritarian governments, it’s a little like the pro-government newspaper praising and making excuses for the authoritarian government. They are essentially the same thing but they pretend to be otherwise.</p>
<p>And then there is the end of the song. I love singing this part. Getting to finally drop the whole charade and scream:</p>
<p><em>I work my fingers to the bone </em></p>
<p><em>to keep the little piggies safe in their little straw homes</em></p>
<p><em>I rip my heart out every day for you</em></p>
<p><em>I rip my hear out every day for you.</em></p>
<p>See I’ve painted this totally crazy un-reliable character and then I try to make you empathize with him. And if i’ve done my job you do empathize with him <em>and now we are all mad</em>. Get it?</p>
<p>This is NOT how I explained this song to my 11 year old son. But he still managed to grasp some of this from my watered down description. Cause suddenly I get this from the peanut gallery:</p>
<p>“So he is not a normal Cartoon Network superhero, he is more of an Adult Swim kind of superhero, Right?”</p>
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<div><strong>The Palace Guards.</strong></div>
<div><strong>the palace guards they’re working hard</strong></div>
<div><strong>they stay up late with beaker jars</strong></div>
<div><strong>they’re mixing things in laboratories late at night</strong></div>
<div><strong>don’t look at them</strong></div>
<div><strong>you’ll make them mad</strong></div>
<div><strong>the palace guards are they’re working hard</strong></div>
<div><strong>they have your best interests at heart</strong></div>
<div><strong>they are making song of great enduring strength and beauty</strong></div>
<div><strong>somewhat fruity</strong></div>
<div><strong>all top hits</strong></div>
<div><strong>I love you and cause I do</strong></div>
<div><strong>don’t ever leave me</strong></div>
<div><strong>I’ll smash your stuff up if you do</strong></div>
<div><strong>I love you and cause I do</strong></div>
<div><strong>I’m only joking</strong></div>
<div><strong>It’s just my sense of humor y’all</strong></div>
<div><strong>The palace guards love you and me</strong></div>
<div><strong>they don’t discriminate they’re free</strong></div>
<div><strong>they’re open minded intellectual atheletes</strong></div>
<div><strong>who won’t compete</strong></div>
<div><strong>in weird mind games</strong></div>
<div><strong>The palace guards are real rockstars</strong></div>
<div><strong>don’t give them things not up to par</strong></div>
<div><strong>they play guitar and regulate the atmosphere</strong></div>
<div><strong>with telescopes and bread machines</strong></div>
<div><strong>I love you and cause i do</strong></div>
<div><strong>i’ll never let you go</strong></div>
<div><strong>to london without me along</strong></div>
<div><strong>i love you and cause i do</strong></div>
<div><strong>i hid your passport</strong></div>
<div><strong>i put you on a no fly list</strong></div>
<div><strong>and the palace guards</strong></div>
<div><strong>and we work very hard</strong></div>
<div><strong>we got all of your best</strong></div>
<div><strong>all of your best interests at heart</strong></div>
<div><strong>we go up</strong></div>
<div><strong>we go down</strong></div>
<div><strong>we go where the job takes us</strong></div>
<div><strong>to keep you safe and sound</strong></div>
<div><strong>i work my fingers to the bone</strong></div>
<div><strong>to bring the bacon</strong></div>
<div><strong>bring the bacon home</strong></div>
<div><strong>i work my fingers to the bone</strong></div>
<div><strong>to keep the little piggies safe</strong></div>
<div><strong>in their little straw homes</strong></div>
<div><strong>i rip my heart out every day for you</strong></div>
<div><strong>i rip my heart out every day for you</strong></div>
<div><strong>i rip my heart out every day for you</strong></div>
<div><strong>i rip my heart out every day for you</strong></div>
<div><strong>well the palace guards</strong></div>
<div><strong>we work very hard</strong></div>
<div><strong>we’re not asking for much</strong></div>
<div><strong>a kind word a kind touch</strong></div>
<div><strong>we’re the palace guards</strong></div>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/64517
2011-01-26T11:43:18-05:00
2017-02-01T15:02:20-05:00
#70 I Sold the Arabs the Moon- When we fly we all become philosophers.
<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/helicopter-lowery-1-rotation.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/helicopter-lowery-1-rotation.jpg?w=450&h=600" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="600" width="450" /></a><br></span></p>
<div>
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<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/06-i-sold-the-arabs-the-moon.mp3">06 I Sold The Arabs The Moon</a></p>
</div>
<p>First of all let me openly acknowledge I am hijacking my blog for a few days to talk about the songs on my upcoming solo album The Palace Guards. Available everywhere Feb 1st.<br>
And I know I have a lot of competition this week. It looks like a number of my peers are releasing records. So let’s quickly review them.<br>
First off Iron and Wine has a new album out. Kiss Each Other Clean. I am told it is a 45 minute field recording of Sam Beam humming The Theme to a Man And a Woman while he vacuums.*<br>
Then there is the new Deerhoof album which is titled Deerhof vs Evil. This is also a strange album. It consists entirely of Brittany Spears covers with vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki singing in a fake texas accent ala Stan Ridgeway of Wall of Voodoo. **<br>
Finally there is REMs new record “Mine Smell Like Honey” which is a concept record about Michael Stipe’s testicles. ***</p>
<p>So as you can see you are much better off spending your 8, 10 or 12 dollars this week on my new solo Album The Palace Guards.<br><a href="http://www.newburycomics.com/rel/v2_home.php?storenr=103&deptnr=548"> Click Here</a> to buy an autographed CD from Newbury Comics.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/palace-guards-cover-final.png"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/palace-guards-cover-final.png?w=450&h=455" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="455" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>**************************************************************</p>
<p>There is this magnificent book by gabriel Garcia Marquez titled the <em>Autumn of the Patriarch</em>. A sprawling first hand account of a south american’s dictators improbable 100+ year rule.<br>
Throughout the story the dictator repeatedly sells out to various world powers eventually selling the sea to the Yanquis.<br>
I loved this phrase. I’ve turned on my tongue many times while strumming guitar trying to fit it into a song.<br>
I never found a home for this phrase until in 2009 I found myself inexplicably flying in a US Army combat helicopter 2500 meters over Iraq. We were on our way from the Coalition base at Basra International Airport to a US armed forces base variously referred to as<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Air_Base"> Camp Adder by the US army or Ali airbase by US Air Force. </a> Most People call it Talill.</p>
<p>We were engaged in what had become the familiar GI shit talking on headsets as we flew. Questions from the crew about details of life touring in a rock band. Us asking questions about their lives, their experiences and some good gossip about celebrities politicians and others they had ferried around Iraq.</p>
<p>At some point one of the pilots or crew members mentioned that we would be flying over the Ziggurat of Ur. Although I had spent a good deal of time prepping for this trip by reading histories of Iraq and accounts of both Iraq wars, I didn’t know what this was.</p>
<p>“It marks the city of Ur which is literally the birthplace of civilization”</p>
<p>“Ur was probably the first or one of the first urban human settlements, the first city”. another unknown voice on the internal comms chimed in.</p>
<p>The pilots obliged us by banking the aircraft in a large arc as we went into Talill so we could get a look at this historic site.</p>
<span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="450" height="284" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/D2FR0hOOZi0?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe></span>
<p><strong>The ziggurat comes clearly in focus at 0:12 seconds.</strong></p>
<p>I remember looking down at this and getting this weird sensation. This feeling that you sometimes get when you are flying and you see the curvature of the Earth.</p>
<p>You get this sense of how small you are. How short your life is in the span of human history. How insignificant your small deeds and actions. At the same time you get a glimpse of the huge yet unseen forces that shape everything we do.</p>
<p>The green of the land between the rivers Euphrates and Tigres. The great arc of the fertile crescent that produced the first large groups of non-nomadic peoples. How the land itself shaped who we are and what we do. Farming and craftsmen then produced a (relatively) gentle life that produced cities scholars and philosophers. The great expanse of desert on one side. A harsh wilderness to some but a home of sorts to nomadic tribes like the arabs. They became skilled warriors and traders taking goods from once place to another.</p>
<p>The Kurds on the other hand in their distant blue mountains, their strongholds they are independent and wary. Their great herds of livestock still the cultural link between the eurasian steppes and the Persian gulf. The people of this land also straddle the linguistic divide between the semitic languages of the south, the Indo European mother tongue to the north and the mongol horseman borne languages of the East.</p>
<p>At an altitude like this you can see how the land shaped the people. At an altitude we all become philosophers.</p>
<p>And other things. I had an officer comment to me that we won’t leave Iraq for a long time because:</p>
<p>“we’ve scrambled their economy and now it’s reassembled around our supply lines. The gulf arabs come in from the south and the Turks from the north. They use our supply lines. It started with their mobile phone companies now it’s their construction companies, and so on…when you fly back to kuwait you can see the flow of containers and equipment coming in. It dwarfs what we are taking out”.</p>
<p>There it is again. When you fly you become an economist, a geopolitical scientist and a philosopher.</p>
<p>So here I was a son of a career US Air Force NCO. I couldn’t help noticing the vast infrastructure of the Air that we were building. Rows of antennae non-directional helixes, which told me they were for speaking to “birds’ or satellites. As well as the more familiar satellite dishes. Air Traffic towers, infrastructure for unmanned ariel vehicles, airstrips for our large aircraft, and the strangely a high tech reprise of Edwardian blimps bristling with sensors and cameras. All this showing no sign of a drawdown. Sure we’re removing most of our ground forces, but instead we leave behind our dour civillian contractors with their mustaches and sunglasses. Our clever Australian, South African and English engineers to build and man our lethal redoubts. Our invisible fortresses in the Air. No one will notice.</p>
<p>Although unsure about the wisdom of this naked thrust of our imperial might my chest couldn’t help swelling with pride for my country. I suddenly felt like chanting USA USA USA!!</p>
<p>The English and their grey warships. They controlled this part of the world by controlling the sea. The Turks with their masterful bureaucrats backed by cruel and efficient armies. The Mongols with their highly disciplined calvary of squat horses. The Arabs with their swords, caravans and the crescent moon of Islam. And two dozen other forgotten empires. They all came to rule this part of the world.</p>
<p>And so on my way out of Baghdad on the roof of what serves as the passenger terminal for officers and US government employees in and out of Iraq I began composing this.</p>
<p>“I sold the Yanquis the Sky, I sold the English the Sea. I sold the Mongols the Steppes. No too obscure. People will think ‘steps’ instead of ‘Steppes’, I sold the Ottomans… no people will think furniture, I sold the Mamluks the… ? Who? I sold the Romans the chariot? sounds sort of pathetic. I sold the Arabs the Moon.”</p>
<p>I also thought of my father as I was writing this. I couldn’t help because he actually died this day (January 26th). I wondered if all those years of flying around in planes had made him a philosopher. He never really talked about much in a geopolitical context. Although I do remember a vague memory of him pointing out the faint arrow straight outline of the roman road out of Londinium towards Dover. And of course scrambling around on Moorish and Roman ruins when we lived in spain. He clearly had some sense of the bigger historical picture. I also document this in the Cracker song Riverside. My father metaphorically stands on the bank of the river Styx which in greek mythology separates the land of the living from the land of the dead.</p>
<p><em>I can’t see you standing by that riverside.</em></p>
<p><em>I can’t see you standing by that riverside.</em></p>
<p><em>See you on roman roads, aqueducts and matadors</em></p>
<p><em>See you on Moorish walls, Alhambra, Seville</em></p>
<p><em><br></em></p>
<p><em><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/05-riverside.mp3">05 Riverside</a><br></em></p>
<div>
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<p>*, **, *** I’m only joking. It’s just my sense of humor y’all. And my father would approve of this kind of joking. And *** was actually borrowed from ashley knotts.</p>
<div>I WAS THE MAN THAT SOLD THE ARABS THE MOON</div>
<div>And I was the man who sold the arabs the moon</div>
<div>The emirate princes their hands manicured</div>
<div>Their servants with luggage they followed behind</div>
<div>The african concubines regal and tall</div>
<div>And I was the man</div>
<div>who sold the arabs the moon</div>
<div>they festooned their flags with</div>
<div>crescent moons</div>
<div>And i was the man who sold the English the sea</div>
<div>They wanted the afternoon breezes it bore</div>
<div>The sweet smell of spices from over the sea</div>
<div>The afternoon showers it brought during tea</div>
<div>And i was the man</div>
<div>who sold the english the sea</div>
<div>i cowered before</div>
<div>grey battleship guns</div>
<div>And I was the man</div>
<div>who sold the yankees the sky</div>
<div>the black of the night</div>
<div>and the blue of the day</div>
<div>the endless horizon</div>
<div>of hope and desire</div>
<div>I was the man who sold the yankees the sky</div>
<div>the english the sea</div>
<div>the arabs the moon</div>
</div>
<br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/cracker/">Cracker</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/category/david-lowery-solo/">David Lowery Solo</a> Tagged: <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/i-sold-the-arabs-the-moon/">I sold the Arabs the moon</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/riverside/">Riverside</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2461/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2461/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2461&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/91285
2011-01-23T11:28:29-05:00
2017-02-01T15:37:39-05:00
#69 Deep Oblivion- A Victorian Love Song.
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/doubful-guest.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/doubful-guest.jpg?w=450&h=297" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="297" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><em>The Doubtful Guest. By Edward Gorey. Eventually I’ll get around to explaining what this has to do with the song.</em></p>
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<p>Pre-order autographed copy of this CD from Newbury Comics. <a href="http://www.newburycomics.com/rel/v2_home.php?storenr=103&deptnr=548">click here.</a></p>
<p>Deep Oblivion is a track from my first solo album <span style="text-decoration:underline;">The Palace Guards </span>(Feb 1st 2011). I originally started this solo project in a deep depression about the viability of making albums. By this I mean the rampant illegal downloading of songs had not just reduced CD and Album sales but had eliminated much of the infrastructure that made it possible someone like me to spend time recording music: The record label.</p>
<p>We artists bitch about our record labels all the time. but ultimately the record label is very useful. If you have a record label, you don’t worry about all kinds of things. Manufacturing CDs, getting them distributed, shipping them out, floating the 100k you need to record distribute and promote a CD, setting up press, setting up radio visits, bugging program directors to spin your record more and trying to get on late night TV. With a record label you spend most of your time on the creative aspects of your career. Writing songs, recording music, making videos, writing your blog or updating your cat’s twitter feed.</p>
<p>(btw the band Best Coast -who I’m about to interview- really does have a twitter feed for their cat “Snacks”. It’s often pretty funny. They also have an ongoing contest to caption pictures of their cat. You get free tickets if you win. Here is my entry. I hope i Win!)</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/snacks.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/snacks.jpg?w=450&h=600" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="600" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong><em>“Death to America”</em></strong></p>
<p>Without a record label you end up doing that stuff yourself. Even if you have the cash to hire independent specialists to manage this work for you it is a mental distraction managing and directing this process. Ultimately not having a label directly affects the amount of time you spend on creative endeavors.</p>
<p>Indeed in 1985 when Camper Van Beethoven first started pitch-a-tent records it was because no one else was interested in releasing Camper Van Beethoven records. It was not because we had some sort of DIY ideology that dictated we do this. We knew it was gonna be a lot of work to have our own label. And as predicted Jennifer and I spent long evenings stuffing the vinyl into album sleeves or carefully packaging and mailing albums to radio stations and fanzines.</p>
<p>But we were young and it was enjoyable in a certain way. We could buy a cheap bottle of Chilean wine at<a href="http://shopperscorner.com/"> Shopper’s Corner</a> and watch Star Trek re-runs and turn the work into a sort of party. If it was warm enough we would open the big Victorian bay windows at 1025 Broadway. You could sometimes hear the break of the surf or the Giant Dipper roller coaster on the boardwalk and imagine you were at some seaside resort in southern England. Brighton? Margate? (This is purposeful “Victorian seaside” foreshadowing for the second half of this blog)</p>
<p>In 2007 after more than 20 years of recording and touring with the help of a record label or two, I was dreading the fact that we didn’t have a record label anymore. Our various one-off deals had run out and it didn’t seem like anyone was much interested in giving us the kind of deal <em>to which we’d grown accustomed. </em>Sure we could have got deals with various labels that would have offered us 50/50 profit splits or small advances. But check this out. Any contractor reading this will immediately grasp how expensive it is to record an album:</p>
<p>Like it or not the minimum amount of time to mix and record and album of 12 songs is about 18 days. I know no professional highly regarded bands that will make albums at a quicker pace (unless you go the live in studio route**). So say there are 4 people in the band. Then you need and audio engineer and an engineers assistant. aside from the engineer’s assistant everyone is a highly skilled specialist. So you are looking at 5 people who should be compensated in the range of 250 – 500 a day. Then there are the studio costs. The cheapest home studios charge 300 a day. What if you had your own studio? well did you get the mixing console and microphones for free? The computer software or tape machine for free? NO. Minimal cost for setting up the crudest pro level studio is 25k. Protools HD hardware and computer is 20k by itself. What about lodging or travel? So trust me when i say an 18 day record ultimately costs a minimum of 36k. You may defer payments to your side musicians or engineer or even the studio. But when the CD comes out they will need to get their money.</p>
<p>Further I would bet nearly every modern (post 1980) album you own was recorded in more than 18 days. There are exceptions, but no one has made a career of recoding “live in studio”.</p>
<p>Then you must consider the costs of marketing and distributing a CD or even download only. Again you can’t even get noticed by the bloggers unless you hire a specialist an independent publicist or two. They use their personal contacts to bring (even a cracker ) an album to their attention. The popular and influential bloggers, like the magazine reviewers are overwhelmed with submissions. It wouldn’t even matter that we are a “brand name. “</p>
<p>Commercial even large non-comm radio? Forget it. You need to hire one of these independent radio promoters that essentially bribes stations with “promotional buys” or events.</p>
<p>Okay. ”But aren’t you gonna make a lot more money if you sell the CDs yourselves?” Yes. But most people don’t realize that an album that sales less than 25k its first week can chart as a top 5 album now. A few years ago that would have been impossible. Maybe 100k minimum to get you in the top 5. I just looked at the Sound Scan report for one of our much more successful americana peers. Their last album. touted as their “highest charting”, sold less than 50k copies in the US! I’m not even gonna embarrass them by mentioning their name. Suffice it to say that Cracker’s last album sold considerably less.</p>
<p>You see how this “start your own label” thing is ultimately a sketchy proposition? You put considerable capital at risk and it’s a distraction from the necessary creative “work” an artist must do. It is generally profitable for someone like us to put out our own record, but not guaranteed.</p>
<p>Not saying I wouldn’t put out our own albums on our own label again, if I had to… Just saying I don’t want to.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:12px;">+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</span></p>
<p>So this solo album began as an experiment. I decided I would dispense with the most expensive parts of making a record.</p>
<p>First? The Band. Living in 4 separate cities it’s virtually impossible to get either band together without dropping a grand. But there was more to it. Going <em>bandless</em> suited my artistic purposes. I was recording the solo songs that ostensibly were solo songs cause they didn’t seem like they fit with either band. Even my two extremely talented and versatile ensembles. There is also a certain charm to those homemade one-or-two-people-playing-most-of-the-instruments recordings. “Lawrence of Euphoria” anyone? Or pretty much any of the Sparklehorse albums.</p>
<p>Second I wasn’t gonna bother releasing this as an album, CD, vinyl LP or download. There was no distribution or marketing in my plan.I wasn’t gonna do any promotion. I was gonna go right to the source. YouTube.</p>
<p>Let me explain. Robots have recently colonized our planet and made us slaves.</p>
<p>As a result we humans have been reduced to sitting in little cubicles emailing YouTube videos back and forth to each other.</p>
<p>Most people call this “their job”.</p>
<p>Well I know where to find everybody. Right? YouTube.</p>
<p>So why not record my songs in my basement? Occasionally take the files to Sound of Music and have Alan Weatherhead or Miguel Urbiztondo play some stuff on the songs, or let John Morand mix the thing? They could use a break from their YouTube-video-emailing jobs.</p>
<p>And why not make a video and put the song on YouTube? At last complete <em>disintermediation</em>. The internet has been promising this for a while. Let’s see if it works.</p>
<p>I put the songs <em>Deep Oblivion </em>and <em>All Those Girls Meant Nothing to Me </em>on YouTube. And some of my friends started emailing the links around. Even Adam Duritz!</p>
<p>But while it was a fun experiment it was ultimately unsuccessful.</p>
<p>I mean it was succesful in the sense that I got a lot of people to watch these songs on YouTube. And WEQX even picked up and spun the song <em>All Those Girls Meant Nothing To Me</em>. But it wasn’t really like releasing an album.</p>
<p>See everyone kept asking me “When is it coming out?”</p>
<p>I’d say “It’s Out. It’s on YouTube”</p>
<p>They’d look at me funny.</p>
<p>“You know the place with all the cute cat videos and rednecks water skiing on trash can lids?”</p>
<p>“Oh I know what YouTube is. I was just wondering when the record comes out”.</p>
<p>The ”forward thinking” music journalists and bloggers were even worse. They wouldn’t even look at it on YouTube. They were not ready to take seriously a completely “virtual” song or set of songs. Besides the video did not have any cute cats in it or fat people falling down.</p>
<p>I found this quite unfair since we musicians take their “virtual” magazines ( ie Magnet and Pitchfork) quite seriously.</p>
<p>(Due diligence: I don’t believe that www.pitchfork.com actually exists. I think it’s a some sort of unexplained atmospheric oddity like<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfa_lights"> the Marfa Lights</a> or it’s actually a parody site created by “The Onion” with the aid of semi-sentient machines).</p>
<p>(Due diligence two: As far as magnet magazine goes, I’m glad they stopped making a print issue because it was starting to freak me out. Each cover was exactly the same: Nick Cave! But they would just have him wear a different shirt. It was like groundhogs day. Nobody else was noticing and it was really really starting to FUCKING FREAK ME OUT. I swear I’m not making this up).</p>
<p>However eventually the effort I put into these songs paid off. I was at my part-time job at a hedge fund emailing YouTube videos of funny cats to my friends at the SEC when I was interrupted by an email from Jared Levine saying that Savoy/429 Records was interested in putting out my solo album. How rude! however I bit my tongue and accepted the offer.</p>
<p>+++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p>What does any of this have to do with Edward Gorey?</p>
<p>One of my favorite stories as a kid was the Doubtful Guest. As follows:</p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;">When they answered the bell on that wild winter night, </span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;">There was no one expected — and no one in sight</span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></em><span style="font-size:11.6667px;"><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;">Then they saw something standing on top of an urn, Whose peculiar appearance gave them quite a turn.</span></span></em></span></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;">All at once it leapt down and ran into the hall,</span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;"> Where it chose to remain with its nose to the wall.</span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;"><br>
It was seemingly deaf to whatever they said,</span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;"> So at last they stopped screaming, and went off to bed.<br>
It joined them at breakfast and presently ate</span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;"> All the syrup and toast and a part of a plate.<br>
It wrenched off the horn from the new gramophone, And could not be persuaded to leave it alone.<br>
It betrayed a great liking for peering up flues,</span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;"> And for peeling the soles of its white canvas shoes.<br>
At times it would tear out whole chapters from books, Or put roomfuls of pictures askew on their hooks.<br>
Every sunday it brooded and lay on the floor, Inconveniently close to the drawing-room door.<br>
Now and then it would vanish for hours from the scene, </span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;">But alas, be discovered inside a tureen.</span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;"><br>
It was subject to fits of bewildering wrath,</span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;"> During which it would hide all the towels from the bath.<br>
In the night through the house it would aimlessly creep,</span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;"> In spite of the fact of its being asleep.</span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;"><br>
It would carry off objects of which it grew fond, </span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;">And protect them by dropping them into the pond.<br>
It came seventeen years ago — and to this day</span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size:medium;"><span style="font-size:large;"> It has shown no intention of going away.</span></span></em></p>
<p><span style="font-size:medium;"><em><br></em></span></p>
<span style="text-align:center; display: block;"><a href="http://300songs.com/2011/01/23/69-deep-oblivion-a-victorian-love-song/"><img src="//img.youtube.com/vi/5tu4Etsd1cI/2.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a></span>
<p>So my song Deep Oblivion starts the same way. sort of.</p>
<p><em>“winter’s night a creature strange and bright appeared upon the porch in a dark storm”.</em></p>
<p>This is the image I had in my head. Drawn in that strange pseudo Victorian style. The setting was one of those Victorian beachfront mansions in southern England. But the important thing is the creature.</p>
<p>It’s a simple metaphor for depression and madness. My own.</p>
<p>Before all depression was turned into a medical disease and chemical imbalances that required little blue pills and psychotherapy, people would get depressed for a while and then shake it off. Or just learn to live with it by drinking a lot and/or smoking weed. Eventually th doctor would say “Hank, you got to cut down on your drinking you are destroying your liver” and after a few tries Hank would quit. The second wife would run off with the owner of The Shamrock Lounge. But the upside was Hanks adult children would now stop by for a visit from time to time.</p>
<p>That is the way it has worked for generations of men of the great pan-celtic diaspora. Why fuck with the formula?</p>
<p>Then again there are people who really are chemically depressed. Really do have the bad brain chemistry. I don’t really think I’ve ever had it. I’ve just had the kind where life get’s you down you drink too much and end up in a fight with the dude dressed in the Sheriff Woody from Toy Story costume at 6 flags Magic Mountain. In front of your kids no less.</p>
<p>“Dad remember when you got in a fight with Sheriff Woody and got arrested?” the oldest reminds you.</p>
<p>“Funny daddy” your toddler chimes in.</p>
<p>Not that I’ve ever done this.</p>
<p>When I wrote this song I was in one of those kind of funks. I’d not done <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=man%20dance">The Man Dance</a> (def 1 please!) with any dream works characters yet, but I had recently woke up under the desk of the publisher of spin magazine and wasn’t sure how I’d got there.</p>
<p>I was a middle-aged. At best a minor rock star. With few other prospects. A small brood of kids. Way over my head in real estate and alimony payments And now virtually the entire CD side of the music business was collapsing in front of me. Ugh. Only touring? we’re supposed to make a fucking living only touring? I took long walks with the dog. I drank a lot.</p>
<p>I taught the dog to drink.</p>
<p>Eventually the dog died and alone I had a lot of time to reflect.</p>
<p>I saw myself doomed to playing chili cook-offs until my youngest son (finally after 8 years of college) graduated from Bard with a degree in Feminist Snowboarding.</p>
<p>I could see it perfectly in my minds eye. At the very moment he reached for his diploma I would be wrapping up the last few bars of the saxophone infused jazz-fusion version (think Sting) of Low at the <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&q=blue+lake+casino+humboldt&fb=1&gl=us&hq=blue+lake+casino+humboldt&hnear=blue+lake+casino+humboldt&view=map&cid=15109756829513753613&iwloc=A&ved=0CD4QpQY&sa=X&ei=u5M7TYLfHKXAyQWG0Pi3DQ">Blue Lake Casino</a> and I would fall down dead. Like some poor exhausted salmon in the upper reaches of the Mad river. ” I… Made …….it.”</p>
<p>And at last I’d get some rest on tour.</p>
<p>But our manager Velena wasn’t having any of it. As romantic as this notion sounded it didn’t appeal to her. I wonder why?</p>
<p>In the song I say:</p>
<p><em>We were crossing English channels </em></p>
<p><em>In Victorian times</em></p>
<p><em>In midget submarines</em></p>
<p><em>with parasols entwined</em></p>
<p><em>I was going under</em></p>
<p><em>In some deep oblivion</em></p>
<p><em>you bravely took my hand</em></p>
<p><em>and sweetly came along.</em></p>
<p>First of all if relentless badgering can be described as “sweet” then this song is an accurate description of what happened next.</p>
<p>Second. Velena’s house is full of antiques (that would make a southern drag queen proud) so it was the natural “Victorian” setting for the song and video. The fact that Velena was in an 1980′s all-girl goth band further bolstered her Victorian credentials.</p>
<p>Many of the original comments on this video came from women who really seemed to enjoy “The Kiss” in the video. Perhaps the real spontaneity of the kiss is what appealed to many. Velena hadn’t eaten anything all day and she was beginning to complain about how long this video was taking. Every man knows or should know that one of the best ways to end this kind of behavior is to kiss the<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=broad"> broad</a> and then take her to dinner. This is exactly what I did.</p>
<p>Now to those women out there that find this kind of talk sexist and employing outdated gender biased stereotypes I say to you:</p>
<p>well then stop responding so perfectly to our gender biased solutions and we will eventually stop.</p>
<p>There is also something mischievous about the kiss. At the time I was making this video, our relationship was not widely known. We were rightly or wrongly concerned about a number of things. Foremost was the notion that if Velena was seen as “just” my girlfriend people in the business wouldn’t take her as seriously. At the moment of the kiss I am daring her to come clean. This is what makes the video in my opinion.</p>
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<p>Pre-order autographed copy of this CD from Newbury Comics. <a href="http://www.newburycomics.com/rel/v2_home.php?storenr=103&deptnr=548">click here.</a></p>
<p><strong>Deep Oblivion</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<div><strong>a winter’s night</strong></div>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<div><strong>a creature strange and bright</strong></div>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<div><strong>appeared upon the porch</strong></div>
<p><strong></strong></p>
<div>in a dark storm</div>
<div>the minister said</div>
<div>it’s clearly mad in the head</div>
<div>pay it no mind</div>
<div>it’ll go away</div>
<div>you and i were</div>
<div>thinking about a place</div>
<div>below the sea</div>
<div>in stinging anemone</div>
<div>coral bright and white.</div>
<div>and i was on a fast train</div>
<div>to a deep oblivion</div>
<div>you didn’t try to stop me</div>
<div>no you asked to come along</div>
<div>come take the light</div>
<div>of creatures of the deep</div>
<div>electric eels are fun</div>
<div>but tend to bite</div>
<div>oblivion</div>
<div>rhymes with vivian</div>
<div>rust red things are grey</div>
<div>beneath the deep</div>
<div>you and i were thinking ’bout</div>
<div>a de-commissioned sub</div>
<div>a place submarine</div>
<div>we’d live a life so serene</div>
<div>we were on a fast train</div>
<div>to a drunk oblivion</div>
<div>you bravely took my hand</div>
<div>and we went merrily along</div>
<div>jets and boats</div>
<div>always found them fine</div>
<div>the creature on the front porch</div>
<div>can’t unwind</div>
<div>the sea-captain said</div>
<div>we’ll fix him up with this</div>
<div>gin and quinine</div>
<div>keeps away malaise</div>
<div>we were crossing english channels</div>
<div>in Victorian times</div>
<div>in midget submarines</div>
<div>with parasols entwined</div>
<div>And i was going under</div>
<div>in some deep oblivion</div>
<div>you bravely took my hand</div>
<div>and sweetly came along</div>
<p></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/74402
2011-01-10T10:29:00-05:00
2017-01-13T18:56:16-05:00
# 68 The Long Plastic Hallway-Playing on a Flying Saucer with The Talking Heads.
<p> </p>
<p><strong><br></strong></p>
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<p><strong><br></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/12-the-long-plastic-hallway.mp3">12 The Long Plastic Hallway</a></p>
<p><em>“The music business is cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway, where thieves and pimps run free, where good men die like dogs. And then there is a negative side.”-attributed to Hunter S. Thompson</em></p>
<p>There is actually a debate as to whether Hunter S. Thompson said this or not. I suppose because there are variants that are similar attributed to other people. Really? It sounds so much like the guy it has to be Hunter S. Thompson.</p>
<p>Part of this post is a story you may have heard. I like to tell part of this story at shows. usually as an introduction to the song <em>The Long Plastic Hallwa</em>y. But it definitely needs to be written down for posterity. So here goes. It also allows me to get into the history of Box O’ Laffs one of the bands that preceded Camper Van Beethoven. Like the Estonian Gauchos and Sitting Duck there are a number of Box O’ Laffs songs that ended up being Camper Van Beethoven songs as well. Most notably I<em>ce Cream Everyday</em> and <em>Flowers. </em>So Box O’ Laffs’ story is integral to the history of CVB.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/14-ice-cream-everyday.mp3">14 Ice Cream Everyday</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/11-flowers.mp3">11 Flowers</a><br></em></p>
<p>Box O’ Laffs consisted of Eric Curkendall on vocals, Chris Hart on Guitar, sometimes Chris Molla on guitar, keyboards and drums, and then a host of different drummers, Anthony Guess, Chris Pedersen and Richie West. All of which played with Camper Van Beethoven at some point. I’m also quite sure i’m forgetting a drummer or two. But you’ll forgive me if I just move along with the story?</p>
<p>And yes that is how we spelled it: Box O’ Laffs. Sometimes we wrote it this way Box O’ Laffs™ as the name was supposed to evoke a toy or board game. Often the venues would list our name wrong in ads or on flyers. They’d spell it “Box of Laughs”. This drove us crazy.</p>
<p>So Box O’ Laffs™ was formed in 1981 when I met Chris Hart and Eric Curkendall at College 5 at UCSC. I was still living on campus and so was Eric. We constantly struggled to find places to practice. We rarely managed, so much of our rehearsing was done live at shows. There was a neat little formula. Chris and I would make up a couple of very simple repetitive grooves. Then we’d alternate between the two while Eric improvised lyrics over the top. Each “song” had a title and generally Eric sang about pretty much the same thing but each performance was always different. Sometimes radically different.</p>
<p>It was very easy to add a new song to the repertoire. As long as me and chris alternated correctly between the two or three grooves that made up a song, usually the drummer could follow along. And Eric? well he was good at just making shit up on the spot. After a while these improvisations became more and more settled. Eventually they would come to resemble normal songs.</p>
<p>Mostly the college kids we were playing for didn’t notice this process. The grooves we played were kind of bouncy and were easy to dance to. As long as we didn’t stop they danced. No one seemed to notice that Eric would be singing lines from Aleister Crowley’s <em>Book of Thoth,</em> Dr Seuss stories or even laconically announcing a LA Lakers vs Boston Celtics game like a stoned <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_Hearn">Chick Hearn</a>. This is how we worked out the songs. Sounds crazy i know but the over all effect was we came off like a slightly funky californian version of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_(band)">The Fall</a>.</p>
<p>But a little bouncier. So a lot of people compared us to The Talking Heads.</p>
<p>So what does this have to do with the Hunter S. Thompson quote?</p>
<p>In the summer of 1983 Chris Hart our guitarist was living in LA. He was working for Eric Curkendall’s father in Pasadena. At the very end of the summer he started to call me repeatedly insisting that he had managed to get us a gig supporting The Talking Heads in Los Angeles.</p>
<p>Chris was never the most reliable person. Although he was the most normal or straight laced looking member of the band there was something not quite right about him. Aside from being a poor judge of character he would constantly end up in some fucked up situation. He of course would profess that he was a completely innocent bystander and had no idea how these bad things kept happening to him. The truth was we had all watched him put himself in dangerous situations over and over again. It was strange to us. Cause otherwise he was (and probably is still) an intelligent and thoughtful person</p>
<p>Still we had our guard down when Chris phoned us and said he’d got us a gig with the Talking Heads. We were skeptical but we wanted to believe. We called people we knew in LA for some sort of independent confirmation. Anthony even called KROQ to see if any of the DJs had heard anything about us opening for the Talking Heads. We know from our friends in LA that we weren’t in any advertising. It was 1983 and it wasn’t like we could look on the Goldenvoice website to confirm we were playing. It seemed improbable to us… still we wanted to believe. So after a little badgering from Chris we decided to make the 400 mile drive Santa Cruz to LA to play the gig.</p>
<p>Anthony Guess was at that time the drummer for Box O Laffs. Anthony and I got Joe Sloan to drive his pickup truck to LA. Anthony me and the gear road in the open back of the truck 400 miles to the leafy Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena. It was nearly midnight when we made it to Eric Curkendall’s parents house. Early september. We waited out in the yard smoking cigarettes and enjoying the mild night. we waited for quite a while for Chris Hart and The Talking Heads’ “percussionist”. They didn’t show.</p>
<p>Joe Sloan started to get really impatient and agitated. Finally someone figured out where this “percussion” player lived. We drove over to the apartment which was in a much sketchier area of Pasadena or perhaps even Alta Dena. There we found Chris Hart with a person who in retrospect was very clearly a crack head. Chris seemed pretty disoriented and stoned himself. Did I say apartment? It was really more of a crack house. An upscale crack house, but nonetheless a crack house.</p>
<p>Immediately our spirits fell. Still there is nothing like wanting to believe that something really implausible is true. We began to pepper the “percussionist” with questions.</p>
<p>“What time do we load-in?”</p>
<p>“How much do we get paid?”</p>
<p>“How long do we get to play?”</p>
<p>“Why aren’t we in any of the advertisements?”</p>
<p>The “percussionist” began to get more and more agitated. Finally he’d had enough of us and our ridiculous questions.</p>
<p>“Man I’m not talking about <em>that</em> gig. <em>That </em>gig is the fake gig. I’m talking about the real gig. And the real gig is after <em>that </em>gig. The real gig is on a flying saucer above Los Angeles”.</p>
<p>Joe Sloan is a big man. And at first I thought he was gonna attack the “percussionist”. Instead he turned his attention to Chris Hart. I really thought he was gonna beat the crap out of Chris. He didn’t. But he didn’t do anything to rid Chris Hart of the notion either. That is the rest of the night Chris kept a wary eye on Joe, certain that the ass-whipping was about to come at any time.</p>
<p>Now to quote the lyrics from the third verse:</p>
<p><em>playing on a flying saucer</em></p>
<p><em>box o laffs was supporting talking heads</em></p>
<p><em>everyone was high and having a real good time</em></p>
<p><em>they was having a real good time.</em></p>
<p><em><br></em></p>
<p><em><br></em></p>
<p>The story doesn’t end there. In the summer of 2000 I went to the wedding of Virgin CFO Ken Pedersen. There were several other celebrity guests at the wedding and I was delighted to find out that I was sitting at the table with David Byrne. Wow. This is so cool. David Byrne, ever gracious, stood and introduced himself to me as I approached the table. We exchanged greetings and then I said:</p>
<p>“We actually played a gig together a long time ago”</p>
<p>“Really?!”</p>
<p>“Yes, it was on a flying saucer above Los Angeles”.</p>
<p>At this point David Byrne backs away almost imperceptibly.</p>
<p>“It’s a long story, you don’t remember because <em>they</em> erased your memory of the event”</p>
<p>Now he perceptibly takes a step back from me. Of course I then realize that i may have genuinely freaked him out.</p>
<p>“I’m joking… well sort of…”</p>
<p>It all ended up okay and I did manage to explain the whole story to David Byrne and he seemed to think the whole thing was amusing. But at the same time I could tell he was thinking what I sometimes think:</p>
<p>“some of our fans are out of their minds.”</p>
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<p><strong>The Long Plastic Hallway</strong></p>
<p><strong><br>
CHORUS:<br>
La la la la la la<br>
La la la la<br>
La la la la<br>
La la la la</strong></p>
<p><strong>REPEAT CHORUS</strong></p>
<p><strong>Cigarettes and carrot juice<br>
Marijuana and lots of booze<br>
I threw the flower of youth into that stew</strong></p>
<p>The serpent’s tongues were red and pointy<br>
But they were wearing very cool shoes<br>
Who wouldn’t wanna sell their soul?</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS x4</p>
<p>We waited in line for hours<br>
VIP passes bouquets of flowers<br>
To see the brand new siren sing her song</p>
<p>The virgins then were thrown into volcanoes<br>
A beating heart, it was held aloft<br>
And no expense was spared</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS x4</p>
<p>Quezacotl and Busby Berkeley<br>
Hanging out in Pasadena<br>
Rodney on the ROQ, and David Byrne</p>
<p>Playing on a flying saucer<br>
Box o’Laffs were supporting Talking Heads<br>
Everyone was high, everyone was having a good time (a good time, they were having a good time)</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS x4</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/box-o-laffs-2/">Box O Laffs</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/category/camper-van-beethoven/">Camper Van Beethoven</a> Tagged: <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/flowers/">Flowers</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/ice-cream-everyday/">Ice Cream Everyday</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/the-long-plastic-hallway/">the long plastic hallway</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/991/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/991/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=991&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/57640
2011-01-07T14:21:34-05:00
2017-01-13T18:56:14-05:00
#67-Turquoise Jewelry- Grace Slick Where Art Thou?
<p> </p>
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<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/07-turquoise-jewelry.mp3">07 Turquoise Jewelry</a></p>
<p><em>come down from that condominium treehouse</em></p>
<p><em>stop driving around in that station wagon with the wood on the side</em></p>
<p><em>take off that jumpsuit you look like grace slick</em></p>
<p><em>staying up all night drinking that 7-11 coffee</em></p>
<p>Funny story about this song. It was all pretty much based on the alleged sighting of Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane) at a 7/11 in the north bay of SF. Sausalito? Mill Valley? I’m not really clear. I’m not even sure who told me about it. Paul MacKinney (my old college roomate) Jackson Haring (our former manager) one of the guys in Spot 1019? Anyway the alleged sighting was approximately this: Someone had seen Grace Slick buying coffee at a 7/11 or other convenience store. She was wearing some sort of fashion forward pantsuit or designer coveralls, and a fair amount of jewelry. I’m pretty sure that the turquoise jewelry part was my embellishment of the story. More on that in a minute. The part of the story that makes me question the veracity of the story is that she left in a Buick roadmaster station wagon. No self respecting Northern Californian hippy would drive a Buick station wagon. Any former hippy who needed a station wagon would naturally choose a Volvo station wagon. I’m pretty sure it’s in the handbook.</p>
<p>Either that or it wasn’t Grace Slick.</p>
<p>Or the entire story was made up by one of my friends.</p>
<p>But what this song clearly illustrates is Camper Van Beethoven’s delight in picking apart the bones of the dead or dying Norther California hippy scene while simultaneously praising and emulating hippy culture in general. For at the same time the songs distinctly owes it’s narrative voice to Don Van Vliet. That’s Captain Beefheart to you civilians.</p>
<p>Check the distorted harmonica, disjointed and seemingly random horn parts, the hoo hoo hoo vocalizations and most tellingly the barked non-sequiturs.</p>
<p>I know Captain Beefheart was from Southern California. So was Zappa. See even the guys from Northern California in the band seemed to prefer <em>these hippies, </em>these musical anarchists to their Northern Californian cousins.</p>
<p>We were mocking the <em>flower power, peace and l</em>ove part of hippiedom while simultaneously trying to emulate and update the bomb-throwing part of the movement. Using Captain Beefheart’s voice to comment on Grace Slick was just one way of doing it. We didn’t really dislike Grace Slick or Jefferson Airplane. They just happened to be innocent bystanders. Collateral damage if you will…</p>
<p>(and too be fair Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane were a lot more edgy and punk than we gave them credit for).</p>
<p>****************************</p>
<p>But as previously noted Camper Van Beethoven was also defining itself against the punk and post-punk scenes. To a lesser extent the new “college rock” movement. Back in 1986-87 we actually wore a lot of turquoise jewelry. It was one of our ways of rebelling against the punk and college rock movement. It worked too. If you wore a fake indian pancho, giant turquoise belt buckle, laminated scorpion bolo tie and turquoise beaded mocassins into Hollywood’s Club Lingerie in 1987 people loked at you like you were crazy.</p>
<p>We didn’t wear the good stuff. Just the knock-off fake stuff you’d buy at a truckstop or “indian” trading post along I-40 somewhere in the southwest. We also spent a lot of time in thrift stores in this part of the world. Tucson and Albuquerque still have some of the best thrift stores around. I mean they were (and probably still are) hip deep in fake indian panchos and bolo ties with laminated scorpions and of course turquoise jewelry. When we’d return to Santa Cruz from one of our periodic tours, it was usually via the 40. Inevitably we’d come home looking like a deleted scene from movie <em>Billy Jack. </em></p>
<p>Right on.</p>
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<p><strong>Turquoise Jewelry.</strong></p>
<p><em>Come down from your tree house condominium </em><br><em>And start driving around that station wagon with the wood on the side</em></p>
<p><em>Take off that jumpsuit, you look like Grace Slick</em><br><em>Stayin’ up all night an’ drinkin’ that 7-11 coffee</em></p>
<p><em>And take off your turquoise jewellery </em></p>
<p><em>Shake your medicine rattle </em></p>
<p><em>And fill a sock with an herb</em><br><em>Put on your fringe skirt</em></p>
<p><em>Come sit down next to your man, he’s hankering for some company</em><br><em>Come sit down next to your man and let him cough in your ear</em></p>
<p><em>‘Cuz you bring me sticks and stones</em><br><em>You bring me everything</em></p>
<p><em>Take off your turquoise jewelry</em><br><em>Shake your medicine rattle</em></p>
<p><em>‘Cuz you bring me sticks and stones</em><br><em>You bring me everything</em></p>
<br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/camper-van-beethoven/">Camper Van Beethoven</a> Tagged: <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/turquoise-jewelry/">Turquoise Jewelry</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2366/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2366/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2366&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/61828
2011-01-05T10:55:07-05:00
2017-02-01T14:59:05-05:00
#66 -Raise ‘Em Up On Honey. Notes on the etymology of the word cracker
<p> </p>
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<p>The word Cracker has an interesting history one that I felt worthy of further elaboration. It’s origination is widely disputed. Was it from the ’crack’ of the whip of the white vaqueros that herded Spanish cattle in Georgia and Florida? Was it because they were such poor people they cracked and ate their seed corn?</p>
<p>The most interesting etymology of the word purports to illustrate a history of friction between the dominant English culture and Celtic subculture of the British Empire including North America. This is not my theory. It has been thoroughly researched and written about by several historians. Much is in dispute but clearly the word Cracker is intimately associated with Celtic culture in particular the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_American">Scots-Irish</a> of the American frontier. The most notable author to propose this is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grady_McWhiney">Grady McWhiney</a>. In his book<em> <a href="http://http://www.amazon.com/Cracker-Culture-Celtic-Ways-South/dp/0817304584">Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways of the Old South</a> </em>McWhiney argues that Cracker is synonymous with being of Celtic origin. Here is a brief summary of historical uses of the word.</p>
<p>Cracker as in a braggart or sharp and entertaining speaker. In Shakespeare’s King John</p>
<p><em>“What cracker is this same that deafs our ears with this abundance of superfluous breath?”</em></p>
<p>Craic in middle english also was used to mean “to enter into” conversation. Especially loud boisterous conversation. Hence to “crack” a joke.<em><br></em></p>
<p>McWhiney points out that this is exactly the use and spelling of the Gaelic word <em>craic</em>. This and other uses of the word from this period generally reference the Scottish and other Celts of the British Isles. These included not just the well know Irish, Scottish and Welsh but also lesser known Celtic groups like the Cornish, The Manx and the Hebrideans. One must remember that at this time the British Isles had yet to be fully conquered much less anglicized. Later many of these troublesome un-anglicized groups were shipped overseas to the North American colonies. The southern American colonies and maritime Canada were prime destinations. Many of these wild celts arrived in the new world fully un-anglicized. Speaking their native tongue and chafing under the English ways.</p>
<p>Certainly by the time these Celts hit the new world at least some of them were being called “Crackers”</p>
<p>From Wikipedia:</p>
<p><em>As early as the 1760s, this term was in use by the English in the British North American Colonies to refer to Scots-Irish settlers in the south. A letter to the Earl of Dartmouth reads:</em></p>
<p><em>“I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by Crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who often change their places of abode.”</em></p>
<p><em><br></em></p>
<p>First a little curious fact about the state of Florida. It was a spanish colony from 1513-1763. It then became an English colony for a brief 20 years. In 1783 it was handed back to Spain after the American revolution. But during those 20 years, many colonists from Georgia and colonies to the north were encouraged to settle in Florida. When the spanish regained control they continued to encourage American settlers to move there by offering land grants. About 20 thousand american immigrants and 40 thousand spanish colonists lived in florida at the time it was ceded to the United States in 1819.</p>
<p>The white cowboys who herded cattle in Spanish Florida alongside the Spanish Vaqueros were purportedly called “Quáqueros.” A corruption of the spanish word for Quaker which was also generic insult for any protestant. Others say they were given the name “Crackers” by other white Floridians and Georgians because of the crack of their spanish whips.</p>
<p>McWhiney and others argue since these were mostly freed Scots-Irish indentured servants they were already called Crackers. Further the pan-celtic preference (at that time) for ranging cattle on common land ( in this case sparsely populated Spanish Florida) as opposed to the english preference for penned sheep and hogs, lends some credibility to the account. Cattle herding was the preferred livelihood of many of these immigrants.</p>
<p>As a footnote the battle between the advocates of private land for grazing and the advocates of a common free range often played out violently through American history. It ended in a stalemate. East of The Rockies most grazing activities happens on private land. In the West, The Federal Government owns much grazing land through the BLM or Bureau of Land Management. Historically this agency then doled out grazing rights.</p>
<p>I have often wondered if the Scots-Irish had a such a deep seated ideological preference for ranging and common grazing land as McWhiney proposes, what did those in Texas think as the US army methodically killed and subdued their Native American analogues? By this I mean the Comanches and other buffalo herding plains Indians. For ultimately the Indian Wars were a process of converting the Indian common lands to private land. Yes they may have been happy to see the murderous cattle rustling Comanche vanquished and confined to reservations. But were they not saddened by the following influx of settlers? For it were these settlers that destroyed the greatest commons the world ever knew. It was settlers from the east that divided the great sea of grass into a patchwork of poor farms and meager homesteads. Did the Texan Scots-Irish descendants secretly prefer the commons loving Comanches to their new neighbors?</p>
<span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="450" height="284" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SdPyPVJebtI?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe></span>
<p>Allow me to divagate for a moment so that I can make perhaps my most glancing reference yet to a song from our catalogue. <em> Raise ‘Em Up on Honey</em>. This is the opening track from my Solo Album <em>The Palace Guards (Feb 1st 2011). </em>In this song the protagonist proposes a very Cracker-like return to the <em>common. </em>Although for the purposes of marijuana cultivation.</p>
<p><em>Go up on the mountain build a little shack just over the line</em></p>
<p><em>well BLM they won’t complain cause no one surveyed this in a while</em></p>
<p><em>home school the children give them weapons training</em></p>
<p><em>just in case the DEA comes snooping round again</em></p>
<p><em>go up on the mountain where the water comes from glaciers blue.</em></p>
<p>With my red beard, cowboy hat and preference for the wild frontier I could easily pass for one of these Scots-Irish “lawless rascals” so detested by the English overlords. And why not? My murky family history would support this. Lowery is a common enough name not only in Celtic parts of the British Isles but very common through the main Cracker heartland. Indeed my great grandfather came from “somewhere in Georgia” and settled deep in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piney_Woods">Piney Woods</a> of Southwestern Arkansas. The Piney Woods are a distinct ecoregion covering 54,000 square miles of eastern Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, southern Arkansas and extreme southeastern Oklahoma. But it must also be somehow culturally tied to the Georgia and Florida Cracker heartland. And for a simple reason. Spanish Cattle.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Those Crackers herding cattle in Spanish Florida were herding a type of cattle that is still referred to today as “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Cracker_cattle">Cracker Cattle</a>“. This is somewhat of a misnomer as this breed of cattle is a Spanish breed that the Conquistadors brought to Florida. Cracker Cattle had a very close cousin further west known as Pineywoods Cattle. These also were remnants of the Spanish herds. Whether they were brought west by Florida Crackers or whether Florida Crackers followed them to the piney woods is immaterial. There is somehow a connection. Indeed some historical sources equate the term “pinelander” and “cracker”. But <em>This Is Pinelander Soul </em> doesn’t have the same ring.</p>
<p>Finally the Piney woods immediately reminds me of another Pejorative. Peckerwood. My grandfather used to endearingly refer to me as his little Peckerwood. Years later I looked it up and was shocked to find it was probably the only known slur for red haired white people.</p>
<p>In 1999 I returned to the Piney Woods for my grandmothers funeral. There was a sea of people at the small church graveyard. More than 100 people. Most of these were my blood kin. The majority direct descendants of my grandmother. There were 90 year olds and nursing great-great grandchildren. It was impressive and beautiful spring day. The children were beginning to run in a pack. My wife at the time, Mary was pregnant with our first child. She looked out at the crowd and gestured with her head ” I want one of those”. I looked at where she gestured but i didn’t understand. ”One of those” she pointed at a flaming redhead of a boy that bounded past us barefoot and freckled. Two more followed. I looked across the churchyard and realized that my clan was full of these redheads. I laughed. ”Careful what you wish for”.</p>
<p>My grandmother was of course famous for saying of her red-haired progeny. ”red-hair is how god marks the crazy ones”.</p>
<p>We must have seemed exotic to Mary. Her family also of Celtic origin are textbook <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Irish">Black Irish</a>. The Black Irish largely from counties in the west of Ireland, are not “Black”. They almost look spanish with their black curly hair and dark brown freckles. And as it turns out for good reason. The Black Irish do appear to be from the Iberian peninsula as they share common genetic markers with the Galicians, Basque and Portuguese. I reference Mary, her sisters and their love of broken, old and decrepit houses in this track I recorded with Mark Linkous.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/16-eyes-of-mary.mp3">16 Eyes Of Mary</a></p>
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<p>Raise Em Up On Honey</p>
<div>going up the mountain where the water comes from glaciers blue</div>
<div>take along my sweetheart gonna raise ourselves up a brood</div>
<div>raise em up on honey from bees and buckwheat wine</div>
<div>if we can go do this make our clothes from hemp and twine</div>
<div>go up on the mountain where the water comes from glaciers blue</div>
<div>go up on the mountain build a little shack just over the line</div>
<div>will BLM* they won’t complain cause no one surveyed this in a while</div>
<div>home school the children give them weapons training</div>
<div>just in case the DEA comes snooping ’round again</div>
<div>go up on the mountain where the water comes from glaciers blue</div>
<div>every fortnight or so the bible thumpers they come around</div>
<div>they’re worried ’bout the eternal souls of our daughters and our sons</div>
<div>they’ll be fine they’ll move into the city start black metal bands</div>
<div>give up and move back up the mountain again</div>
<div>raise their little broods on mountain waters from glaciers blue</div>
<div>Eyes of Mary</div>
<div>You were born<br>
With it inside<br>
A secret twin in your wounded side<br>
Bits of hair<br>
Teeth and String<br>
And Yellow flowersOpen Up<br>
Let it all in<br>
Let the strange parade begin<br>
A piece of pie<br>
A piece of cake<br>
For Every sister
<p>Let the eyes of Mary<br>
Carry you away now<br>
Let the eyes of Mary<br>
Carry you away now</p>
<p>A baby born<br>
It’s made of leaves<br>
And Carried round the maypole tree<br>
By Irish Girls<br>
With jet black hair<br>
And dark brown freckles</p>
<p>Let me bring<br>
You bits of string<br>
Tired and worn and sagging things<br>
Under the weight<br>
Of old crows feet<br>
And the seasons</p>
<p>Let the eyes of Mary<br>
Carry you away now<br>
Let the eyes of Mary<br>
Carry you away now<br>
Let the Brides of Jesus<br>
Carry you away now<br>
Let the Brides of Jesus<br>
Carry you away now.<br>
Away now<br>
Away</p>
</div>
<br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/cracker/">Cracker</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/category/david-lowery-solo/">David Lowery Solo</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/category/sparklehorse/">Sparklehorse</a> Tagged: <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/raise-em-up-on-honey/">Raise 'Em Up On Honey</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/the-eyes-of-mary/">The Eyes of Mary</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2320/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2320/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2320&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/90495
2011-01-02T19:00:00-05:00
2017-01-13T18:56:16-05:00
#65 This is Crackersoul- Reflections on race and music. Also were the Flinstones black?
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<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/cracker1.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/cracker1.jpg?w=320&h=320" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="320" width="320" /></a></p>
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<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/03-this-is-cracker-soul.mp3">03 This Is Cracker Soul</a></p>
</div>
<p>Cracker Soul. Perfect song to come up next in the cue. Especially after the previous two posts touched upon race and ethnic identity in the music business.</p>
<p>I think there is a misconception that the music industry is very “integrated”. That it must be more “advanced” than the rest of our society. It has always been at the cultural vanguard so it must surely be much farther ahead of the rest of america in marching towards some post-racial society. It isn’t.</p>
<p>There are black record labels. There are “Normal” labels. Under the multinational conglomerates? Black and Latin imprints or sublabels. Our old label Virgin records didn’t really have a separate black imprint, but did have a “urban” department. In a completely different part of the Foothill Rd complex! I remember the offices and cubicles seemed to have been set up by a different interior design firm. There are completely separate sets of publicists, radio promoters and concert promoters for black and latin music.</p>
<p>No one ever talks about this. It’s like some dirty family secret. Racial and ethnic Identity is actually heightened in the music industry.</p>
<p>So i’ll be the first to admit that it is weird that I never really thought much about naming the band Cracker. We chose this name almost on a whim. Although we were aware of the socio-economic/regional/racial connotations of the word, we also enjoyed the fact the word had a host of other meanings. Some well known like Cracker as in Ritz Cracker. Some very obscure like Cracker as a perforative for scottish or (gaelic speakers) in 17th century England. There was also the fact that in the early 1990′s there was a sudden trend towards one word band names, oftentimes words for everyday objects such as food e.g. Sugar, Cake etc.</p>
<p>But the main reason we named the band Cracker was because we had a song on the demos called <em>This is Crackersoul. </em>There is a simple story behind the title to this song.</p>
<p>Each night after we finished working on our demos we’d walk down from Oregon Hill over to one of the bars that lined Grace street next to Virginia Commonwealth University. One of our regular stops was Marvin’s. One night sitting at the bar in Marvin’s we were discussing our new project with our multi-racial bartender. Johnny was describing how our demos varied from the Camper Van Beethoven sound. That they were based more on country, bluegrass and good dose of “White boy blues-rock, southern rock, and soul influenced rock. Things like The Band, Little Feat even Lynyrd Skynyrd”.</p>
<p>“Cracker soul music” our bartender helpfully interjected.</p>
<p>Exactly. Here were several meanings of the word jumbled together. First Cracker as in “Southern Rural White”. Second to specifically refer to residents of Georgia and northern Florida (Little Feat and Lynyrd Skynyrd) and third the murky Scots-Irish roots of appalachian and southern white folk music. There was fourth meaning that also applied although our bartender could not have known given that he hadn’t heard any of the lyrics: Boasting or Shit-talking. Cracker’s narrative “voice” was noticeably cockier and trashier than Camper’s.</p>
<p>Notably absent was any reference to the word as a racial insult.</p>
<p>In 1990 very few white people on west coast, in the north or even the urban centers of the south would have been very familiar with this word. Conversely I had heard this word from a young age. My grandfather would often use it to refer to himself and his buddies who were all from the piney woods of southwestern arkansas. They all now lived in the Coachella valley in California. They did this to distinguish themselves from the native Californians. Around this time Senator Lawton Chiles would openly refer to his rural white supporters as his “cracker voters”. It wasn’t till much later in the 1990′s that this began to be popularized as a racial slur. I’m not saying it wasn’t a racial slur in 1990 but it was relatively obscure term in white america.</p>
<p>So Johnny had this neat little riff that maybe evoked Little Feat or something. It was catchy and bouncy and as I didn’t have any words for the song so as a working title it became Cracker Soul. Thank you very much mr. bartender. Later once I developed words to this song it changed to <em>This is Cracker Soul.</em></p>
<p><em>********************************</em></p>
<p><em><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/cracker-prez.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/cracker-prez.jpg?w=400&h=308" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="308" width="400" /></a></em></p>
<p><em>Speaking of Crackers….</em></p>
<p>And then there was the fact that Cracker became a shorthand for a certain distinction between the public persona of Cracker versus that of Camper Van Beethoven. This is of course greatly exaggerated but the members of Cracker (Johnny and I) were more rural “southern” and working class in outlook and upbringing. My father was from Arkansas. Both Johnny and I were raised on military bases. Anyone who spends much time around military bases realizes much of the military is drawn from working class, rural and especially southern families. I was born in the south. If San Antonio Texas counts as The South. (It’s really more part of the southwestern borderlands.) Our experiences going to high school in The Inland Empire also seemed to bolster our working class credentials.</p>
<p>Conversely Camper Van Beethoven was seen as solidly upper middle class and a college band. Chris Pedersen’s father was a doctor. Victor’s family owned pharmacies. Not quite a doctor but solidly upper middle class. Jonathan’s parents were both college professors at UC Davis. Camper Van Beethoven also seemed to be very much a product of the culturally sophisticated Bay Area. Not a working class ensemble with roots in rural america. Of course this was also an extreme exaggeration.</p>
<p>Case in point: Jonathan Segel. His parents were college professors, but his mother was a microbiologist that had a detailed knowledge of sewage treatment plants. Jonathan once spent a summer touring Warsaw Pact sewage treatment facilities. She was like the honeymooner’s Norton with a PhD. Jonathan grew up in a college town , but this college town was Davis. It’s an Ag college. In the early days of Camper Van Beethoven Jonathan chewed tobacco, fished, camped and occasionally shot guns. He hung out with bluegrass players and generally qualified as a country boy. His credentials as a “cracker” are actually much better than either Johnny or I.</p>
<p>Nevertheless there must have been some subtle difference apparent to others. For when we began touring for Key Lime Pie we hired a new crew member. His name was Bobby Bell. He was an African American and he was from Texas. He immediately pegged me for being a little different than the other Santa Cruz/Berkeley/Bay Area indie rockers he’d worked with. He started calling me MC Cracker D. (Yeah I know it’s a little cheesy now but Hip Hop culture was new to all of us then.) He’d write it on my passes and laminates. It became my Nom de Tour.</p>
<p>So in this way calling my new band Cracker was simply a way of differentiating it from Camper Van Beethoven. I wasn’t trying to say Cracker was an authentic country-roots-southern rock band. Just that it had a little more of that in it than my previous band. So Cracker Soul got shortened to Cracker and Cracker became the temporary project name for our new band. It just ended up sticking.</p>
<p>**********************************************</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/flintstones.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/flintstones.jpg?w=435&h=336" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="336" width="435" /></a></p>
<p><em>Was I was punk’d?</em></p>
<p>My friends father, an African American, once told me that the modern racism was no longer based on white people thinking they were superior to blacks. It had been replaced with a more subtle bias, the fact that Anglos thought they were the<em> Normal</em> people. Everyone else was to varying degrees <em>not normal</em>. Like being Anglo put you at the center of some pre-Copernicus universe. Being a WASP was neutral and everyone else had small co-factors and properties that did not read a perfect zero. You might be a perfect zero on skin tone and hair kinkiness but the +3 Irish and +2 catholic variation from the ideal pushed you away from the center. Although readily accepted by white people poor Sammy Davis had an incredibly complex variation from the norm. +4 Black +3 Jewish +1 Italian Mob for association with Frank Sinatra plus he was in show business.</p>
<p>So the logical conclusion: If Anglos came to think of themselves as just another quirky tribe from a foggy, poor and cold island; a people of strange music and customs;a tribe noted for their spotty skin, bad teeth and overcooked vegetables; Then at last we would all co-exist as equals in a relativistic racial/ethnic universe.</p>
<p>Calling my band Cracker was also me doing my part to achieve this Utopia.</p>
<p>“Yes I am from a quirky Scots-Irish tribe of red-headed rural southern people who pretty much fry everything and are inexplicably born with innate ability to parallel park a vehicle hauling a trailer.”</p>
<p>But before you go all crazy with this concept due diligence requires that I tell you my friend’s father also told me that The Flinstones were actually African Americans. When I pointed out that I couldn’t recall a single non-white character on the show he became agitated and told me that <em>All </em>the characters were black. Further Hanna-Barbera had carefully filled the show with subtle cultural cues and flags. They didn’t need to draw the characters as black. I was white and therefore I didn’t catch these cues. It was one of the more amusing arguments i’ve had in my life. Still I’ve googled this and haven’t found anyone else who shares his opinion. In retrospect I think the erstwhile professor was taking great delight in pulling my leg.</p>
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<p>********************************************</p>
<p>This is Cracker Soul</p>
<p><strong>[G]</strong><br><strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong><br><strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong><br><strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[Bm]</strong>-<strong>[Am]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong></p>
<p>Hey hey it’s okay to make<br>
a little mess out of your life.<br>
‘Cause you don’t need a diagram<br>
to show you how to have a good time.</p>
<p>CHORUS:<br>
I said hey (hey)<br>
Don’t mean to frighten you away.<br>
This is Cracker soul, it comes so easy.<br>
I said hey (hey)<br>
Don’t get your head a mess.<br>
This is just the best, it comes so easy.<br>
It comes so easy.</p>
<p>Hey hey it’s okay to never know<br>
the answer but ask why. (why oh why?)<br>
‘Cause you don’t need another burden<br>
come and party with your spirit guide.</p>
<p>I said hey (hey)<br>
Don’t get your head a mess.<br>
This is Cracker Soul<br>
It comes so easy.<br>
I said hey (hey)<br>
Don’t get yourself distressed.<br>
Love is just the best<br>
when comes easy.<br>
It comes so easy.</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS</p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/88470
2010-12-01T19:00:00-05:00
2017-01-13T18:56:16-05:00
300 Songs on Vacation until New Year.
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/l_2048_1536_2cc4b525-81c9-46e0-a9f5-8c031c7cb529.jpeg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/l_2048_1536_2cc4b525-81c9-46e0-a9f5-8c031c7cb529.jpeg?w=450&h=337" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="337" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>Bob Lefsetz is a smart and entertaining music business theorist and writer. Yesterday he was comparing the level of innovation and risk taking in the tech world versus the music business. As an object lesson Google and Groupon. Here is his piece.</p>
<p>http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2010/11/30/googlegroupon/</p>
<p>Odd thing. It turns out that Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven play a small role in this story. Here is my letter to Bob that has been making the rounds of the Blogosphere.</p>
<p><em>Read your article Bob. Nice piece. Largely you are right about the risk averse backwards thinking folks who run the music business now. But strangely music types played a small but important role in the history of groupon. In particular myself and my two bands.</em></p>
<p><em>In 2008 I was appointed to the board of advisors of a small web startup called <a href="http://www.thepoint.com">www.thepoint.com.</a> The site the brainchild of Andrew Mason was a ” tipping point” mechanism, a social networking site that allowed people “commit” to take group action. In particular the hope was they would take group action for social change. The investors quietly noted there was not a clear way to monetize Andrew’s experiment. However they hoped that by watching the way users used the tipping point mechanism, a viable way to monetize this website would present itself. </em></p>
<p><em>I was asked to start a campaign on <a href="http://www.thepoint.com/" target="_blank">www.thepoint.com</a>.”To get a feel for it”. Not being very socially conscious I decided that I wanted to use The Point for my own narrow self interests. </em></p>
<p><em>Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven have a festival, The Campout. It’s rather remote and since we produce the small festival ourselves we take considerable financial risk. While the previous years had been marginally successful we were worried about the rapidly deteriorating economy (I believe Bear Stearns had just gone bankrupt). So I started a campaign to get a “break even” amount of CVB and Cracker fans to commit to attend the festival. In this way our fan’s promises to attend would become a sort of promissory note. no pun intended. While you couldn’t exactly peg it’s value, these collective promises to attend at some point seemed to be worth enough to go ahead and book the flights, PA, lights, and port-o-potties. </em></p>
<p><em>Other successful “campaigns” on The Point also involved similar commitments for group purchasing. It wasn’t long before The Point became Groupon.</em></p>
<p><em>Okay so that’s a story about Groupon, that has smart music people and smart techies helping each other and they all live happily ever after.</em></p>
<p><em>Now here is another story about Groupon that illustrates YOUR point that the modern music business is run by risk averse technophobe idiots. </em></p>
<p><em>The financial backers of Groupon as well as CEO Andrew Mason are music fans. (Andrew apparently played in bands and had dreams of becoming a rockstar.) Groupon’s founders wanted to demonstrate the power of the now wildly successful Groupon by putting on a series of concerts. There was a significant element of altruism in their efforts, but it had not gone unnoticed that most concerts have a lot of empty seats. And Groupon works best when the “incremental” cost of adding clients/patrons is very low. Adding concertgoers to a half full arena is a perfect example of low incremental costs. So concerts were seen as a natural fit for Groupon. I was enlisted to try to get a Groupon only concert going. Twice! Both times artists agents managers promoters all failed to understand the concept. Even my wife, Velena Vego who is a brilliant concert promoter didn’t really get it.</em></p>
<p><em>(editiors note this: is not quite true. concert promoter and groupon user Lucy Freas seemed to understand the concept) </em></p>
<p><em>(Due Diligence requires me to point out that there may be a strange mathematical logic to having consistently half full arenas. The theory is that in the long term the artists will bear the brunt of the inefficiencies of half full arenas while LiveNation reaps outsized rewards on the sold out shows. It’s a complex argument and it involves what options and derivative traders call Volatility Trading Theory, but it at least partially explains why LiveNation has been supposed to go out of business for the last 8 years yet has not. But alas I divagate).</em></p>
<p><em>In general, this is the story of the last 25 years of the music business. Everybody now thinks they are geniuses if they have one artist that is a hit. They think you can take something and make it a hit. They do not understand the roll of luck in this business. Instead they expect certainty and take no risks.</em></p>
<p><em>They no longer understand the need to make MANY risky bets. They have forgotten that most bands and artists will be commercial failures. They no longer have the stomach for failure therefore the modern record company spends 63.4% percent of it’s time trying to figure out who to blame for the failure, instead of moving on, getting back to work and searching out the interesting artists and new ideas.</em></p>
<p><em>After Virgin America signed CVB president Jeff Ayeroff told me ” Just keep doing what you do. one day you guys will write a hit, maybe even by accident”. exactly. </em></p>
<div><em>It’s now the Venture Capitalists and Tech Entrepreneurs who understand how to take risks, how to use their gut instincts, how to stomach the failures in search of the big hits.</em></div>
<div><em>Ahmet Ertegun was a Venture capitalist. A brilliant risk taker, and he knew how to stomach failure. He also signed artists purely on gut instinct. In many ways these new VC’s and Tech entrepreneurs resemble him.</em></div>
<div><em>thanks for letting me spew my observations at you. and keep writing.</em></div>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/61956
2010-10-14T20:00:00-04:00
2022-03-14T06:11:23-04:00
Don Smith Photo Addendum
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/dcp_0042.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/dcp_0042.jpg?w=450&h=300" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="300" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/dcp_0042.jpg"></a>Hey all. Jill Smith daughter of Don Smith was kind enough to send this gallery of photos to me. You may want to go back and read post #61 that is largely about Don Smith. I’ve updated it with these new photos.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img004-11.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img004-11.jpg?w=450&h=376" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="376" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>A very young Don Smith March 1981<a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img_0145.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img_0145.jpg?w=450&h=337" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="337" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>Me and Don. This must have been from around 2003-2004? I remember it was my first pair of reading glasses.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img009-21.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img009-21-e1287118443395.jpg?w=450&h=292" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="292" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>The gang that couldn’t shoot -i mean record straight. Bugs, Michael Urbano, Davey Faragher, David Lowery, Don Smith, Johnny Hickman, Rich Hasel. In front of “sound stage” in Pioneertown, Feb 1993 Kerosene Hat record</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img029-22-e1287118473373.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img029-22-e1287118473373.jpg?w=450&h=306" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="306" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>Don either at his home studio he jokingly referred to as cost-a-lot. Or back deck at bearsville. Gentleman’s blues period.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img031-3.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img031-3.jpg?w=450&h=284" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="284" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>Don and his beloved MCI 2 inch machine.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img032-31.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img032-31.jpg?w=450&h=304" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="304" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/untitled-402.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/untitled-402.jpg?w=450&h=314" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="314" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>Another Very Young Don Smith. Tom Petty and Heartbreakers era?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/untitled-41.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/untitled-41.jpg?w=450&h=328" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="328" width="450" /></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/untitled-431.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/untitled-431.jpg?w=450&h=286" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="286" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>Classic Don smith at work.</p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/61954
2010-10-10T20:00:00-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:16-05:00
#64 The World Is Mine- Cracker. Gillette been very very good to Cracker. Suerte Loca.
<p><span style="text-align:center; display: block;"><a href="http://300songs.com/2010/10/11/64-the-world-is-mine-cracker-gillette-been-very-very-good-to-cracker-suerte-loca/"><img src="//img.youtube.com/vi/DGX72GOjHC4/2.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a></span></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/09-the-world-is-mine.mp3">09 The World is Mine</a></p>
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<p>So besides the our obvious big hits there have been three other significant money making events in Cracker career. The last two were especially important cause they carried us through some dry periods.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/clueless-album.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/clueless-album.jpg?w=450&h=450" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="450" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/08-shake-some-action.mp3">08 Shake Some Action</a></p>
<p>1. The inclusion of “Shake Some Action” in the film Clueless. And it’s subsequent appearance on the soundtrack album. We were at the peak of our career (sales wise) when this song was licensed. Bryan McPherson our attorney at the time demanded and received top dollar for the rights. Well actually half the rights. The song was written by The Flaming Groovies. So the Publishing half went to them. The other half was credited to our virgin account which at the time was recouped. And not only was the price dictated by Cracker’s stature at the time. We were also in the secondary phase of the great Alternative/Grunge asset bubble. There are three phases to every asset bubble, the three “I”s : The Innovators, The Imitators and finally the Idiots. I make no judgement upon the band Creed. But i did meet Scott Stap around 1996 and he was an arrogant idiot. This was before they were really famous. So by my own set of empirical data Creed marks the beginning of the Idiot phase of the Alternative/Grunge bubble. When we sold “Shake Some Action” it was about a year or two before the Grunge asset bubble peaked, but the price of all alternative rock songs were artificial inflated. The record companies were flush with primarily their Hootie/Counting Crows and second their Nirvana/ Songe Temple Pilots cash. There was too much money chasing too few bands/songs. The result to things like this is always an asset bubble. Similar bubbles have appeared throughout the history of the record industry. But that’s another post.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/041108-lez-zeppelin.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/041108-lez-zeppelin.jpg?w=351&h=394" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="394" width="351" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Auntie Led Zeppelin</strong></p>
<p>2. A careless miscalculation by another major record label (not ours) involving the trademark Cracker™ cost this record label dearly. The holy grail for trademark infringement litigators is a clear and demonstrable case of ”confusion in the marketplace”. We had that.</p>
<p>Quite a few people warned me that we were making a catastrophic career mistake by suing this large major label and artist. That they their associated managers and agents would never do business with us again. That they would blackball us from the industry. That all doors would be closed to us forever. These were serious respectable people giving us this advice. And apparently they felt they were receiving this information from credible sources.</p>
<p>The problem with this is that all the doors to the music business have always been closed for me and my bands. Except for a brief period in the early to mid 1990s. And they were certainly closed for us in 2004. I have spent much of my career prying the doors open or sneaking in through the mailroom. Plus your typical music business executive agent, manager will gladly sell his/her soul if there is a buck to be made. So if we have something that others think will sell they will always do business with us. Logically it was always an empty threat. But it’s amazing how often I hear managers advise artists to not rock the boat.</p>
<p>It is always better to be respected in the music business than it is to be liked. Get the distinction? Anybody that tells you otherwise is setting you up to be ripped off.</p>
<p>A legal settlement does not allow me to discuss this any further.</p>
<p>3. The Gillette company decided to use the Song The World Is Mine in a commercial. The commercial is positively dismal and unimaginative but the great thing is that we re-recorded the song for the commercial. So we didn’t have to pay anything to Virgin records. Second the commercial hasTiger Woods, Roger Federer and Thierry Henry so it was shown practically non-stop worldwide. Also worldwide is very key. Unlike the US and Canada in much of the industrialized world significant airplay royalties apply to commercials. Finally because we re-sang the lyrics to match a new structure for the commercial we were considered voice talent so all kinds of AFTRA/SAG (actor) fees began to apply. So yes Gillette has been berry berry good to Cracker.</p>
<p>But this also illustrates one of the finer points about my career as an artist and every artist’s career. All of an artists success is wildly unpredictable. When you make an album you never really know what songs will be hits. It’s only clear in retrospect. It always seems logical but this is because we are the victims of something called The Narrative Fallacy. In retrospect we re-arrange our actions, emphasizing some discounting others to make it seem that we logically and methodically acted as if we were certain the hit song was a hit song all along. But even stranger is that a song does not have to be a “hit” to generate significant revenues. <em>The world is mine</em> was not a hit. The obscure CVB demo “guardian angels” was not a hit, but somehow some advertising executive plucked it from obscurity and put it in a Citibank Commercial. Finally the most bizarre and unpredictable bit of success involves the CVB track Opening Theme.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/cd_margaritis_02.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/cd_margaritis_02.jpg?w=280&h=280" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="280" width="280" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/01-opening-theme.mp3">01 Opening Theme</a> CVB Version.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/01-__pening_theme.mp3">Opening theme Giorgos Margaritis</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.greekshops.com/q_/asp/RefID=725/ProdID=GC5364-792/_q/detail.htm">Giorgos Margaritis</a> is one of the best known Greek singers. I don’t know much about his career except that he was considered a bit of an old fogey when he made a sort of edgy comeback album: <em><a href="http://www.greekshops.com/q_/asp/RefID=725/ProdID=GC5364-792/_q/detail.htm">Ola tha ta diagrapso</a></em><a href="http://www.greekshops.com/q_/asp/RefID=725/ProdID=GC5364-792/_q/detail.htm"> (</a><em><a href="http://www.greekshops.com/q_/asp/RefID=725/ProdID=GC5364-792/_q/detail.htm">I Reject Everything</a></em><a href="http://www.greekshops.com/q_/asp/RefID=725/ProdID=GC5364-792/_q/detail.htm">)</a>. The record was quite successful in that part of the world (Greece and the Levant). The “cover” of Opening theme was apparently the idea of producerThodoris Manikas. He purportedly found the track in a pile of discarded CDs. This bit of CVB success was freakishly unpredictable.</p>
<p>Finally this is my last public 300 songs post for the near future. I will most likely resume in January 2011. It has been a great experience but I must continue doing things like writing and recording music, things that actually pay the bills. I appreciate everyone who has contributed donations. I am using those funds to hire an editor to make this into a book. I promised to turn this into a book and I will. I will resume writing this when I get those details worked out. probably sometime later this fall or winter. thanks so much.</p>
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<p><strong>THE WORLD IS MINE</strong></p>
<p><strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[B]</strong>-<strong>[A]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong><br><strong>[E]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong><br><strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[E]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong></p>
<p>Well we went to the station<br>
They were looking for Vegas<br>
But I was stuck in my beat phase<br>
Like it was 1959</p>
<p>They say the girls wanna hip-shake<br>
They say the boys wanna ball-break<br>
But we couldn’t be bothered<br>
Cuz we’re hipper than y’all</p>
<p>And everyday I resolve to say<br>
The world is mine</p>
<p>So will you bring me salvation<br>
Or a standing ovation<br>
Cuz I really deserve it<br>
And so much more</p>
<p>The big kid in the magazines<br>
You and me, we went to make the scene<br>
?Better get your? name, man<br>
And tomorrow you’ll be gone</p>
<p>So everyday I resolve to say<br>
The world is mine</p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/61951
2010-10-10T20:00:00-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:16-05:00
#63 Everybody Get’s One Free- F*ck Montreal. CVB Get’s Ripped Off.
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/13-everybody-gets-one-for-free.mp3"></a><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/montreal-hc-jersey.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/montreal-hc-jersey.jpg?w=425&h=425" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="425" width="425" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Little Known Fact. The “H C” on the Montreal Jersey is an abbreviation for the city’s motto: Heist Central. Over the last decade many many bands have had their gear stolen in Montreal, not just CVB. </strong></p>
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<p><strong><br></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/13-everybody-gets-one-for-free.mp3">13 Everybody Gets One For Free</a></p>
<p>In the wee hours of the morning oct 20th 2004 someone broke into the Cracker/CVB trailer and stole a bunch of our Camper Van Beethoven instruments. We were in Montreal Quebec. Few people down in the states realize this but Montreal is a little like Manhattan. It’s a relatively safe cosmopolitan big city, but you are really asking for it if you leave your band gear unguarded in the van or trailer.</p>
<p>We hadn’t. We had parked our trailer in the parking lot of the Hotel in the supposed “secure” lot. It really did seem secure as it was just around the side of the building from the reception. Maybe 40-50 meters from the front door. Also we had backed the trailer up as close as we could get to the fence, so it was not really possible to open the back doors very far. Nevertheless some sophisticated thieves managed to get break in. Check it out. These guys were pros:</p>
<p>They drilled a hole or series of holes through the back door next to lock hasps. Then they used something like a “saws all” to cut a rectangle all the way through the doors around the lock hasps. Say 6″ by 6″. this was through 2 layers of sheet metal and 3/8″ plywood. They were there for some time. Then they managed to get the doors open about a foot wide. They squeezed in and took all the guitars, amplifier heads and any item they could get through the opening. Basically all our instruments. The most expensive stuff. The loss was covered by our insurance but still we lost our original instruments. The loss was and still is incalculable in our minds.</p>
<p>And stop asking us if we ever got our instruments back. No we didn’t. Not one.</p>
<p>But that’s only where the nightmare begins and why the Camper Van Beethoven junior hockey league team we sponsor has an F and an M on the Jersey. It stands for “Fuck Montreal” which since 2004 has been the official CVB motto.</p>
<p>(It was changed by unanimous vote of the board of directors on Oct 22nd 2004. Formerly the motto had been “the last band to never stop saying ‘a bad idea is still an idea’”*).</p>
<p>First it had to have been an inside Job. There was only an hour and a half in which the trailer was un-attended. One of the guys had gotten in very late I think it was Victor. Like 4:00 am or later. He went to the van to retrieve something and when he went in the building the night security man asked him if anyone else from the band was coming back to the hotel? This did not seem odd to him at the time. He figured the guy wanted to lock the door and take a nap.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/police-montreal.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/police-montreal.jpg?w=450&h=362" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="362" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>I wasn’t intending to be funny when I searched for images of Montreal police. But this is what I found. They made me do it.</strong></p>
<p><strong>“Fellas: try spending a little less time grooming the moustaches and little more time fighting crime. OK?”</strong></p>
<p>There is a parking attendant’s kiosk in the parking lot. At 6:00 am the parking lot attendant came in and found that his kiosk had been broken into. He explained to me that all the keys were in a pile on his small desk. Like someone had tried to find our van and trailer keys. (Like we would be stupid enough to leave them with a parking attendant.)</p>
<p>So in this short period of time our trailer was robbed. And either the night security person from the hotel, possibly the parking lot attendant or both were in on the scheme.</p>
<p>I don’t remember who discovered the theft. But suddenly we were all at the van. I went to the desk to call the police. We waited some time and the police did not arrive. I went back to the desk and asked them to call the police again. This time they put me on the phone with one of the detectives who told me they were just around the corner and to walk over to the police station. This seemed odd to me. There was a crime scene after all.<br><em>“The Montreal Policeman</em></p>
<p><em>He wouldn’t get off his ass</em></p>
<p><em>So all your shit was stolen</em></p>
<p><em>What’s s’matter with that?”</em></p>
<p>There is a policing technique especially popular in the gallic world. In order to keep crime rates down the gallic police technique is to pretend that no crime ever happened. Try to discourage the victim from even making a report. This makes these french cities seem relatively crime free when compared to their anglo/american counterparts. This is very handy when making the point that french civilization is superior to anglo/american civilization.</p>
<p>It also incentivizes the police officers and detectives because then they don’t actually have to do any work.</p>
<p>At the police station I was asked to fill out a form. Like some kind of petty theft. When i protested i didn’t have room to write all the items stolen and the form was clearly for thefts less than $10,000 CAN (it was printed across the bottom in french and english) I was asked archly If I was “trying to tell them how to do their job?”. Assholes. It went downhill from there. They wouldn’t even come to the crime scene.</p>
<p>“You don’t want to come over and maybe look for evidence or fingerprints?”</p>
<p>“Again Mr lowery you are once again telling me how to do my job. okay? enough”.</p>
<p>They could not have cared less.</p>
<p>Jonathan and Victor had gotten the word out on the internets our website, myspace, friendster even a few gay cruising chatrooms. That was actually me. Hey whatever takes. Word was spreading fast. I suddenly got a couple of calls from the press. Somehow one of the reporters called the local police precinct to find out what they knew.</p>
<p>Did I already tell you that the Montreal Police couldn’t care less? I was wrong. They give a shit about geting interrupted during their 3 hour lunches by journalists.</p>
<p>I got a call on my mobile shortly after this press inquiry. It was the detective in charge of our case. He made it clear we were on his shit list for talking to the press and being prodded to do his job. He told me he was making our case a low priority for making it “political”.</p>
<p>Political? WTF? It took me a while to figure out that i’d wandered into some kind of francophone/anglophone thing. Something to do with which newspaper made the call. Fuck I can’t even figure out the politics in my own country much less Canada’s .</p>
<p>But I do know this. Every country has rivalries between the various levels of city/state/county/provincial/national police. I needed to literally make it a Federal case. This detective and these police were not gonna do shit. So I might as well make there lives miserable. I was in Toronto by this point so it was easy to find how to do this. One of our friends in Toronto worked for the Crown’s attorney office. Basically I made a complaint to federal Canadian authorities that the police in Montreal were not doing there job, and the detectives conduct was completely unprofessional. About 2pm the next night I get aapoplectic call from someone I assume is the same detective. He is now lapsing into mostly french to to chew me out, but apparently to emphasize his points he has to cross back into english to say “mother fucker” and “shit list’.</p>
<p>I would think that a grand language like french; the language of Sartre, Baudelaire and Tocqueville; the language in which Bastiat debated Proudhon, the language in which Galois wrote the foundations of Abstract Algebra; and the language of Monty Python’s famous Flying Sheep sketch; this language would have a word for “shit list”. Apparently not.</p>
<p><span style="text-align:center; display: block;"><a href="http://300songs.com/2010/10/10/63-everybody-gets-one-free-fck-montreal-cvb-gets-ripped-off/"><img src="//img.youtube.com/vi/jxM3M7pgkJY/2.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a></span></p>
<p>Regardless. I was on this guys shit list. As I went through the process of trying to get our insurance money we continued to spar. Copies of the police report of course were needed. Well just put the insurance adjuster in touch with Detective Liste de Merde. Et Voila more angry phone calls! and on and on it went.</p>
<p>Finally I just wrote the fucker into this song.</p>
<p>Yes there’s more to this song than that. It’s got a reference to the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century"> Project For A New American Century.</a> It’s got the Inland Empire, it’s got the usual self-deprecating remarks about our musical career and fortunes and of course “papa was a preacher and mama was a go-go dancer”</p>
<p>This song was not designed to be thought about much. It is what it is.</p>
<p>Musically the most interesting thing about the song is that after we recorded it, live it evolved to have a much better ending. I prefer the live version to the album version. perhaps some of you will be so kind as to post a link to a good archive.org version.</p>
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<p>*actually this was the Spot 1019 motto. CVB never had one before that.<br><strong> Everybody Gets One For Free</strong></p>
<p><strong>[INTRO:]</strong><br><strong>[A]</strong> <strong>[D]</strong> <strong>[A]</strong> <strong>[G]</strong> <strong>[D]</strong> <strong>[A]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[A]</strong> I talk to the waitress<br>
Yeah she was pretty hot<br>
She gave me her number<br>
But that’s all I got</p>
<p>CHORUS:<br><strong>[D]</strong> Everybody gets one, everybody gets one for<strong>[A]</strong> free<br><strong>[G]</strong> Everybody gets one,<strong>[D]</strong> everybody ‘cept for<strong>[A]</strong> me</p>
<p>Started a conversation<br>
About the United Nations<br>
Had to use imagination<br>
She was talking about reincarnation</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS</p>
<p>Stayed up all night drinking<br>
When I should’ve been home<br>
Had a vision of the blessed virgin<br>
Butt now I’m not sure at all</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS</p>
<p><strong>[INSTRUMENTAL: CHORDS AS VERSE THEN CHORUS]</strong></p>
<p>Miguel Urbiztondo<br>
Backstage New Year’s Eve<br>
When the policeman came to look for him<br>
He said “What the fuck do you know?”</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS</p>
<p>She from the Inland Empire<br>
Her dad was an umpire<br>
Her mama was a go-go dancer<br>
Everybody got in for free</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS</p>
<p><strong>[INSTRUMENTAL: CHORDS AS VERSE THEN CHORUS]</strong></p>
<p>I know that our last record<br>
Didn’t do very well<br>
But now we’re back on the block<br>
With our freedom rock?</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS</p>
<p>The Montreal policeman<br>
Wouldn’t get off his ass<br>
So all your shit was stolen<br>
What’s the matter with that?</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS</p>
<p>I got a yellow carnation<br>
I got some Kevlar pants<br>
I got a new American Century<br>
Do the freedom-hater’s dance</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS</p>
<p>I was driving in my car<br>
It was filled up with yams<br>
For no obvious reason<br>
That’s just who I am</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS x2</p>
<p><strong>[G]</strong> <strong>[A]</strong><br>
Last call<br>
Find the one</p>
<p>Everybody gets one<br>
Everybody gets one ‘cept for me<br>
Everybody gets one ‘cept for me<br>
‘cept for me</p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/61948
2010-10-08T20:00:00-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:15-05:00
#62 I Could Be Wrong I Could Be Right-Cracker. Just your usual southern rock track set on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/york-or-big-medicine.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/york-or-big-medicine.jpg?w=343&h=599" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="599" width="343" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Member of the Lewis and Clark expedition the explorer York. The Arikara Indians of South Dakota called him “Big Medicine” and the nickname stuck.</strong></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/07-i-could-be-wrong-i-could-be-right.mp3">07 I Could Be Wrong I Could Be Right</a><br></strong></p>
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<p>I stated before some songs are coherent stories that can be explained easily. Some are just collections of words that sound good together that evoke a mood or sentiment. And others are somewhere in between. I Could Be Wrong I Could Be Right is one of the the latter.</p>
<p>On one level it’s a playful jab at my wife and manager Velena, and our very complex personal and business relationship. We’ve known each other since 1989 but finally got together in 2006. On another level it is about Sacagawea and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_(explorer)">York</a> the only African American member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. In my song they have a volatile and semi-secret affair.</p>
<p>York was Clark’s slave. But on the expedition York was purportedly treated the same as any other member of the expedition. Given weapons, full voice and voting rights on all major decisions made by the explorers. By all accounts a very intelligent man and superb outdoorsman he was also of quite large stature. The Arikara Indians were duly impressed and gave him the Nickname “Big Medicine” and this name stuck.</p>
<p>Other accounts portray “Big Medicine” as being quite the stud. Fathering many Indian children along the way. Some of these reports seem quite fanciful or at least exaggerated. They would seem to me to be products of racial stereotypes of the age. But there does seem to be some consensus this is at least partially true.</p>
<p>The sad thing about York is that when he returned to the United States he lost all of his freedoms and returned to being a slave. He petitioned Clark for his freedom but it took at least 10 years (if at all. accounts vary) before he was finally granted his freedom. While he was on the Lewis and Clark expedition his wife was “sold” to another family in Kentucky. He supposedly died of Cholera in Tennessee while on his way to rejoin Clark’s household after his business in Tennessee failed.</p>
<p>But there is also a fictional ending that made the rounds. A bit of folklore it would seem. But the fictional ending is that he is freed and he makes his way back to Wyoming where he lives out his days with the Crow Indians. (Another ex-slave may have lived with the Crows about the this time)</p>
<p>But what’s interesting about this story is what it says about “us”. That is our ancestors of the 19th century. We knew that the voyage of discovery was the only time that York was truly free and treated as an equal. And in some way we were ashamed of that.</p>
<p>So “Sacagawea and Big Medicine” in the song is a big messy composite: forbidden love, unrequited love, freedom, a crowning achievement, one’s zenith, and a sad slow fall, the fictional happy ending like a fevered dream.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/lewis-clark-trail.gif"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/lewis-clark-trail.gif?w=450&h=277" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="277" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>The Agency Group’s Proposed Routing For Camper Van Beethoven / Built to Spill 1806 Tour.</strong></p>
<p>Like Lewis,Clark and Big Medicine returning home, Camper Van Beethoven was working their way from Portland Oregon back into Montana. At some point we crossed the bitterroots and Velena was wearing tall brown boots and I made the rhyme connection in my head. I wrote it down somewhere. I keep a collection of overheard things and phrases in a notebook, or sticky notes on my desktop. They sometimes become a songs.</p>
<p>Later that year Johnny and Sal were playing this lick at soundcheck. We were in Berlin. (Note to self: this is the 3rd song created at sound check in germany. must tour there more often.). I thought it was cool so i recorded it into my macbook as usual.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/blue-berlin-riff.mp3">blue berlin riff</a></p>
<p>But it wasn’t until late 2007 that we actually made this into a song.</p>
<p>Oh and the chant over the riff? I think subliminally I was influenced by the theme song to The Wire. ”Way Down in the Hole”. I didn’t even think about it till much later. But this was around the same time I was watching a lot of The Wire.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/snoop.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/snoop.jpg?w=450&h=323" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="323" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Snoop is an excellent carpenter. Especially with a nail gun.</strong></p>
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<p><strong>I Could Be Wrong I Could Be Right.</strong></p>
<p><strong><strong>[E]</strong> Baby don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole please<br><strong>[A]</strong> Darling don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole please<br><strong>[E]</strong> Baby don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole<br>
‘Cause the<strong>[D]</strong> devil come out and keep you<strong>[G]</strong> for<strong>[D]</strong> his<strong>[E]</strong> own</strong></p>
<p><strong>Baby don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole please<br>
Darling don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole please<br>
Baby don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole<br>
‘Cause the devil come out and keep you for his own</strong></p>
<p><strong><strong>[E]</strong> Long brown hair and tall brown boots<br><strong>[D]</strong> You came across the bitterroots<br><strong>[A]</strong> To finally take what you knew was always<strong>[E]</strong> yours</strong></p>
<p><strong>I was glad to go along<br>
I didn’t think it’d be too long<br>
‘Fore you were bored and on to the next big thing</strong></p>
<p><strong>CHORUS:<br><strong>[C]</strong> I could be wrong, I could be right<br><strong>[G]</strong> You and I so much alike<br><strong>[D]</strong> The devil tried to keep us far a-<strong>[E]</strong>-part<br><strong>[C]</strong> Now i was stoned and i was high<br><strong>[G]</strong> But everything it felt so right<br><strong>[D]</strong> I could be wrong, I could be could be<strong>[E]</strong> right</strong></p>
<p><strong>Baby don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole please<br>
Darling don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole please<br>
Baby don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole<br>
‘Cause the devil come out and keep you for his own</strong></p>
<p>Baby don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole please<br>
Darling don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole please<br>
Baby don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole<br>
‘Cause the devil come out</p>
<p>Sacawagea big medicine<br>
Had a thing they knew must end<br>
When they finally saw the western sea</p>
<p>I was glad to go along<br>
‘Cause the best laid plans are always wrong<br>
They come apart they always end in misery</p>
<p>I could be wrong, I could be right<br>
What’s wrong with you is also right<br>
There should be laws to keep us far apart<br>
Now i was high and i was stoned<br>
I didn’t want to be alone<br>
Is that so wrong, is that so wrong<br>
It must be right</p>
<p><strong>[BREAK - CHORDS AS CHORUS]</strong></p>
<p>I could be wrong, I could be right.</p>
<p>Baby don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole please<br>
Darling don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole please<br>
Baby don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole<br>
‘Cause the devil come out and keep you for his own</p>
<p>Baby don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole please<br>
Darling don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole please<br>
Baby don’t you go don’t you look down in that hole<br>
‘Cause the devil come out and keep you for his own</p>
<p>I could be wrong, I could be right<br>
You and I so much alike<br>
The devil tried to keep us far apart<br>
Now i was high and i was stoned<br>
I didn’t want to be alone<br>
Is that so wrong, is that so wrong<br>
It must be right</p>
<p><strong>[CHORDS CONTINUE AS CHORUS TO FADE]</strong><br>
I could be wrong, I could be right<br>
I could be wrong, I could be right<br>
I could be wrong, I could be<br>
I could be right</p>
<p> </p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/61943
2010-10-08T20:00:00-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:15-05:00
Full interview and performance with the Holdsteady.
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/blshabbasshirt1.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/blshabbasshirt1.jpg?w=450&h=450" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="450" width="450" /></a>No 300 songs today. Walter don’t roll on shabbas.<br>
But here’s the full The Hold Steady Interview.</p>
<p><a href="http://http://radio-va.com/2010/10/09/david-lowery-interviews-the-hold-steady/">http://radio-va.com/2010/10/09/david-lowery-interviews-the-hold-steady</a>/</p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/61942
2010-10-06T20:00:00-04:00
2021-02-09T02:06:39-05:00
#61 My Life is Totally Boring Without You, The Good Life- Cracker, Don Smith and The Heartbreakers.
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img004-1.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img004-1-e1287101578752.jpg?w=450&h=538" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="538" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Cracker Producer Don Smith. A Very Young Don Smith 1981. </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/05-my-life-is-totally-boring-without-you.mp3">05 My Life Is Totally Boring Without You</a></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/01-the-good-life.mp3">01 The Good Life</a></p>
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<p>Although most of Gentleman’s Blues was recorded at the legendary Bearsville studios near woodstock NY a few of the tracks were radically revamped in Agoura Hills at Don Smith’s studio “Costalot” (see #48 Friends).</p>
<p>We were supposed to be mixing by the time we got to Don Smith’s place but mixing is a very loose concept when you are working with Don. It might suddenly involved singing the lead vox again, putting a new drum track on the song, or in the case of these two songs, completely stripping them back to the acoustic guitar part, vocal and drums, then starting anew.</p>
<p>When I walked into the studio I had expected to see Benmont Tench (from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) there working on a hammond and piano part. This was planned. Benmont had been playing on our records since the very first album. (he is actually on Kerosene Hat uncredited).But I did not expect Mike Campbell to be there. Mike was playing a plinky muted guitar part to the track “My Life” that along with Benmont Tench’s bubbly organ part the song was completely transformed. And much to my relief no longer sounded like a b-side or an outtake. I had begun to worry that this song was living up to part of it’s title. Boring. I guess Don had been thinking the same thing cause he, Mike and Benmont pretty much rearranged the song.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/mike-campbell.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/mike-campbell.jpg?w=432&h=432" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="432" width="432" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Mike Campbell</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/benmonttench.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/benmonttench.jpg?w=450&h=337" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="337" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Benmont Tench sets The Controls to the heart of the San Fernando Valley by way of Florida.</strong></p>
<p><strong><br></strong></p>
<p>Okay, Okay, this is probably cool. At least that’s what I was thinking. Johnny’s part was still in there and he generally doesn’t get too territorial about sharing the guitar space when it’s one of his heroes like Mike Campbell.</p>
<p>But then what started to happen next really started to make me wonder what Johnny was gonna think.Don put up the track to The Good Life. And again he stripped it back to acoustic guitar drums and lead vocal.This song hadn’t really been bothering me or anything but I did feel unfinished in some way. It certainly didn’t feel like a lead off track or a single.</p>
<p>Johnny had a fairly rock lead at the top of the song, and also in the middle. It seemed like a nice album track.But Don was just listening to the song Acoustic guitar vocals and drums. He was doing his patented head bob, which everyone who worked with him knows.</p>
<p>Bounce your head up and down in time on the quarter notes, but alternate which speaker you are looking at on the 2 and the 4. It’s very dramatic if you have a big ‘fro like Don did. And it usually meant he was digging the track. The groove.</p>
<p>He hadn’t been doing this before. Not till he stripped it back.”Mike just play along”.Mike Cambell nearly immediately-say within 8 bars-is playing the signature riff that starts the song. This is not the what Johnny had played. In fact Mike probably hadn’t heard anything that Johnny had played.</p>
<p>“yeah man that’s great” Don encouraged him.</p>
<p>Only it didn’t sound like that. Don was from Texas,his accent and his unknown ethnicity made him nearly impossible to understand unless you’d worked with him for a few weeks. So that probably sounded like:</p>
<p>“yahhmamnumuh dat n grayheyy”</p>
<p>And yep it was great except I was thinking “Uh oh, what is Johnny gonna think”. Shit. It transformed the song. It made it way better.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img032-3.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img032-3.jpg?w=450&h=304" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="304" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Don Smith. No head bob.</strong></p>
<p>Now before you think Don Smith was some arrogant producer guy who just never consulted the band and did whatever he wanted, let me tell you he was not. I’d never really seen him do anything like this before with Cracker. In fact Don usually never told anybody what to play other than the most general suggestions.</p>
<p>“lay it back a little”</p>
<p>“what if you straightened out the drums”</p>
<p>or his classic</p>
<p>“I don’t think it’s done yet. Not sure why. Let’s move on to something else”</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/michaelurbano.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/michaelurbano.jpg?w=320&h=425" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="425" width="320" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Michael Urbano. </strong></p>
<p>If a song didn’t work he just moved on to something else. Always. Don was more about vibe than anything. Setting the mood. Great sounds of course. Amazing 3D stereo soundstage in his mixes. But yeah he worked on some entirely hidden or unseen level. As drummer Michael Urbano said in about Don</p>
<p><em>As I get older I’m finding most of my greatest lessons were taught to me years ago when I wasn’t looking. Don Smith was the best. He didn’t construct records on a grid. He created a space, to conjure a vibe, then captured the beast out of thin air and trapped it onto a tape or a hard drive. All with a Cheshire Cat smile on his face.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img009-2.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img009-2.jpg?w=450&h=292" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="292" width="450" /></a></em></p>
<p><strong>Cracker and crew during recording of Kerosene Hat. Pioneertown CA. Bugs, Michael Urbano, Davey Faragher, David Lowery, Don Smith, Johnny Hickman and Rich Hasel.</strong></p>
<p>So I’d never seen Don so deliberately take a song apart and construct it anew. AND I was freaking out about what Johnny would say when he got to the studio.By the time Johnny did get to the studio, a totally different song had been constructed. Benmont had added some good atmospheric keys. It was sounding like.. well a little like a single.</p>
<p>When Johnny did walk in Don just acted like it was no big deal.</p>
<p>“Hey Johnny check this out,… check what Mike just played … it’s awesome, awesome”</p>
<p>(which actually sounded like this to the rest of you mortals:</p>
<p>“haayfffjjunheeeehnbijflajljannzcyerjkhgdhfkjsahfklhkgjh”)</p>
<p>Johnny cocked his head to one side. Like he knew the song. it was familiar but couldn’t quite name the song. I was on pins and needles wondering what was gonna happen.</p>
<p>“Oh my god” when the vocals came in and he finally figured out it was the good life. ”That’s way better than my old part”. He then slapped Don on the back, or high fived him or something suitably manly.</p>
<p>That’s the great thing about Johnny, he can keep his ego out of the way. If it makes the song better it makes the song better. And he quickly grabbed a guitar and added that slide answer to Mike Campbells guitar lick. Second fiddle to Mike Campbell? No big deal.</p>
<p>+++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/untitled-43.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/untitled-43.jpg?w=450&h=286" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="286" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Don hard at work behind the console. Gentleman’s Blues era.</strong></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img029-21.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img029-21-e1287116933966.jpg?w=450&h=306" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="306" width="450" /></a></strong></p>
<p><strong>I think this was on the patio at his home studio he joking referred to as Cost-a-lot.</strong></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/untitled-401.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/untitled-401.jpg?w=450&h=314" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="314" width="450" /></a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Don probably mid early 1980′s. His sauve period. </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/don-late.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/don-late.jpg?w=450&h=337" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="337" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Don Smith 2009. Scarf? Why not. If anyone calls me a pussy remember I’ve got Keith Richard’s knife.</strong></p>
<p>Don Smith died on Jan 26th 2010. A few hours after my father died. It was quite a sad day. In many ways Don was like a father figure to me also. At least when it came to making records. (Dennis Herring of course is more like a mischievous big brother).</p>
<p>Don had an incredible discography as an Audio Engineer and Producer. His most famous stuff and the stuff he was most proud of was his work with Keith Richards and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. His friendship with Keith, Benmont and Mike Campbell was quite deep.</p>
<p>When Johnny Hickman Davey Faragher and I drove out to meet him in 1991 he was working at a small studio in the far western valley. Chatsworth which primarily known as the hollywood of the porno industry.</p>
<p>We walked from the bright sunlight into the dim room. There were candles lit. It smelled of burnt sage, and the walls were covered with tapestries and all manners of vibe making gear*.</p>
<p>Don was wearing a flat brimmed cowboy hat of some kind. His ample curly hair was sticking out on either side of the hat, he was smoking a<a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bestcigarprices.com/shopcontent/images/schimmelpenninck_cigarillos.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bestcigarprices.com/cigar-directory/schimmelpenninck/schimmelpenninck-cigarillos-cigar/440-18064.htm&usg=__JA19IKaoPLW7Pwvn8F9jMpF0yZk=&h=360&w=480&sz=179&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=vsXxPzdsAk972M:&tbnh=157&tbnw=209&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dschimmelpenninck%2Bcigars%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1093%26bih%3D636%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=467&vpy=353&dur=4474&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=143&ty=141&ei=ZNmtTOOpDcL58AbLoLy-BA&oei=ZNmtTOOpDcL58AbLoLy-BA&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:12,s:0">schimmelpenninck</a> cigarillo. There was a large switchblade on the mixing desk. Open. It appeared to have a real pearl handle and was perhaps jeweled. He was like some kind of New Orleans voodoo priest.</p>
<p>“Nice knife”</p>
<p>“yeah keith gave it to me”</p>
<p>Of course i didn’t really understand what he said. It would be a couple weeks until I could understand his accent.</p>
<p>He popped in the Big Dirty Yellow demo tape and went straight to St. Cajetan. He started blasting it through the studio big speakers. The gist of what he was saying seemed to be he really liked this track. Every once in a while the assistant engineer would interject and interpret Don for us.</p>
<p>We left after an hour or so. As we drove off we started discussing him. Davey Faragher immediately started referring to him as “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gris-gris_(talisman)">gris gris</a>“. gris gris sometimes is used to refer to an amulet or bag that believers in Voodoo wear to keep them safe from bad spells.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/schimmelpenninck_cigarillos.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/schimmelpenninck_cigarillos.jpg?w=450&h=337" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="337" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>“I like that gris gris guy. we should do a record with him”</p>
<p>“yeah he seemed pretty cool”</p>
<p>“what was his accent?”</p>
<p>“I dunno, new orleans? cajun? mexican?”</p>
<p>We drove along for a while then I finally asked the question that we were all wondering but were afraid to ask.</p>
<p>“um is he black? or hispanic?”</p>
<p>” I thought he was like indian or something.”</p>
<p>“he’s not asian?”</p>
<p>“asian? his hair!”</p>
<p>“no those yakuza guys always have perms”</p>
<p>“could be jewish, like really sephardic”</p>
<p>“but he wouldn’t be Don Smith”</p>
<p>“maybe that’s like some witness protection name”</p>
<p>“they don’t give witness protection people jobs in hollywood”</p>
<p>This would become a running gag. Why no one ever asked him is also kind of funny. It became a sort of “It’s pat” of ethnicity. And we sort of didn’t want the show to end.</p>
<p>The funny thing was when we had african-american artists in the studio with us, like Charlie Drayton or Steve Jordon we were sure that his language and accent became more african american, and we were also quite sure they were treating him as if he were black in some subtle way.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/bugs-in-studio.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/bugs-in-studio.jpg?w=400&h=284" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="284" width="400" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Don’sdoppelgänger.</strong></p>
<p>Then we brought Bugs (#50 the antechamber of hope) into the Kerosene Hat sessions, Don adopted him, as his mini-me. They looked alike, dressed alike and seemed to share some cultural heritage which then led us to assume Don being from Texas was hispanic. They could spend hours discussing the subtle differences in the variety of chiles grown in the Rio Grande Valley. hmm. After the Kerosene Hat sessions, Don always hired Bugs to cook or be in charge of the boxes of “vibe” that he used to decorate the studio.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/paganblackcandle.gif"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/paganblackcandle.gif?w=300&h=300" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="300" width="300" /></a></p>
<p>One day I thought I’d help out. I bought a bunch of different candles at some sort of mexican santeria type shop. I was taking the candles out when Don leapt across the room and started pointing at a set of candles like it was a viper.</p>
<p>“get those out of here! get them the fuck out of here!’</p>
<p>He was gesturing at a pair of black candles.</p>
<p>“Are you insane!? No black candles in the studio!”</p>
<p>No black candles. Okay maybe we are back to New Orleans, accadian, creole?</p>
<p>Shortly before we started the Gentleman’s Blues record Don came to visit us in Richmond VA. Johnny wasn’t in town so it was just me and Bob Rupe kicking around town with him. We went to Sound of Music Studios, and a couple other places. It was 4th of July and we finally ended up at The Hole in the Wall, a bar which served as the Sound of Music Lounge. No one was in there. It was the holiday and the heat. The Hole in the Wall had really poor air conditioning.</p>
<p>Don started talking about how he used to come to Virginia in the summers. How hot it was. This was back in the early 60′s.</p>
<p>“Yeah my grandmother, she lived by Roanoke. One time we went into Sears and this was during segregation-”</p>
<p>Okay here it comes i thought. I looked at Bob.</p>
<p>“- and I went over to get a drink out of the water fountain, and and suddenly she slapped the back of my head, almost knocked me down, then she pointed to the sign it said ‘whites only’ “</p>
<p>Bob and I looked at each other. Finally. But wait Don wasn’t finished.</p>
<p>“oops-I mean ’Blacks only’, haha woops meant to say blacks only”</p>
<p>If I hadn’t have been there I would have never believed it. You couldn’t write anything any better.</p>
<p>Don Smith we all miss you. You were perhaps the best audio engineer this country ever produced. A true american treasure. There are legions of engineers, well regarded engineers who learned from you or learned from your works or those you taught. Every young engineer who decorates a recording studio with your voodoo vibe and tapestries, because that’s what Rick Rubin does, should know he got that from you. You were also just a great all around human being. Our lives are totally boring without you around.</p>
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<p><strong>My Life Is Totally Boring Without You.</strong></p>
<p><strong><br>
[D]</strong>-<strong>[A]</strong>-<strong>[E]</strong>-<strong>[B]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[A]</strong>-<strong>[E]</strong><br><strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[E]</strong>-<strong>[F#m]</strong>-<strong>[B]</strong><br><strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[E]</strong>-<strong>[F#m]</strong>-<strong>[B]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[E]</strong><br><strong>[F#m]</strong>-<strong>[E]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[A]</strong>-<strong>[B]</strong>-<strong>[E]</strong><br><strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[E]</strong>-<strong>[F#m]</strong>-<strong>[B]</strong><br><strong>[ending:]</strong> <strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[E]</strong>-<strong>[F#m]</strong></p>
<p>My life is totally boring without you around<br>
These days, they fade to another; I want you around<br>
So I’d like to say<br>
That I’m better off,<br>
I’m happier this way…</p>
<p>But my life is totally empty without you around<br>
Well my life is totally boring without you</p>
<p>Well I fell, but you fell much farther, I was envious<br>
Around here, everyone loves you, cuz you are insane<br>
So we started a band,<br>
owe it all to our fans,<br>
went somewhere near the top…</p>
<p>My life is totally empty without you around<br>
Yeah my life is totally boring without you</p>
<p><strong>The Good Life</strong></p>
<p><strong><strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[Em]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[Em]</strong><br><strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[Em]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong></strong></p>
<p><strong>This holy circus camp<br>
Aladdin and his lamp<br>
A feverish daydreams and suerte loca<br>
My face in magazines<br>
The lesbian James Dean<br>
I got all I ever wanted</strong></p>
<p><strong>So I don’t mind saying<br>
This is how the good life’s supposed to be<br>
The good life for you, for me<br>
Well I don’t mind saying<br>
This is how the good life’s supposed to be<br>
The good life for you, for me</strong></p>
<p><strong>Down miles of empty road<br>
With acolytes in tow<br>
You could be Persephone<br>
And pitching through the glass<br>
A drunken trapeze act<br>
Well you got all you ever wanted</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>So I don’t mind saying<br>
This is how the good life’s supposed to be<br>
The good life for you, for me<br>
Well I don’t mind saying<br>
This is how the good life’s supposed to be<br>
The good life for you, for me<br></strong></p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/61929
2010-10-05T20:00:00-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:15-05:00
What you’re missing-Original demo. Original words.
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/waroriginallineup_01.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/waroriginallineup_01.jpg?w=450&h=537" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="537" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Camper Van Beethoven Original Line-up. Jonathan Segel left the band in 1988 but rejoined when the band reformed.</strong></p>
<p>No real 300 songs post today. I’m working on a rather involved one at the moment. To tide you over. One of the most controversial of the cracker songs. I mean controversial cause some people loved it and some people hate it. It was the album closer and so it was supposed to be fairly silly.<br>
actually the whole thing is kind of a rip off of the band War.</p>
<p>Which at first seems like a weird connection except that War was a multi-racial multi-ethnic Southern Californian band (with an english lead singer and a dutch harmonica player) that was enormously popular in The Inland Empire where me and Johnny grew up. You can hear the War influence better on this demo.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/01-what-youre-missing-demo.mp3">01 what you’re missing demo</a></p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/61924
2010-10-04T20:00:00-04:00
2020-09-11T01:35:29-04:00
#60 I’m So Glad She Ain’t Never Coming Back- How an unfinished jam became a song. Other unfinished unreleased outtakes.
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/greebriar-door.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/greebriar-door.jpg?w=350&h=450" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="450" width="350" /></a></p>
<p><strong>The Cracker Demi Song Vault.</strong></p>
<p>So continuing where I left off with post 59.</p>
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<p>I had a few more thoughts on the demi-songs that populated the early CVB records. I said after we went to virgin most of these went away. Part of this was a function of being on a major label instead of on our own imprint. But not in the way you imagine. Typical major label contracts pay you songwriting royalties on only 10 songs no matter how many you put on the record. (it gets pro-rated). So we were much less inclined to put a bunch of smaller demi-songs onto the albums. Now we preferred to hold them for an oddities collection or for B-sides. And there is some minor record label pressure to not put really weird stuff on your albums. Although considering how challenging things like “The humid press of day” ”opening theme” and “light from a cake” are, we never got much hassle from virgin.</p>
<p>So basically these demi-songs went away until we put out <em>CVB Is Dead Long Live CVB. </em>At least for Camper Van Beethoven.</p>
<p>But then there is the matter that we became much more expert at turning weird ideas into actual songs. Certainly with CVB and also with Cracker. Be My Love, Guarded By Moneys, Eyes of Mary are all pretty strange demos that got turned into some real songs. But perhaps the best Cracker example of this is the song “I’m so glad she ain’t never coming back”</p>
<p>I returned from dinner to find Miguel Urbiztondo (Drums) David Immergluck (Guitar) and Johnny Hickman, sitting on the floor in the studio jamming. Miguel had some tablas and David and Johnny were playing acoustic guitars.</p>
<p>Always be recording.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/immy-mig-groove.mp3">i</a><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/immy-mig-groove.mp3">mmy mig jh groove</a></p>
<p>I flipped open my ibook and just recorded their groove straight into the computer.</p>
<p>later I edited it into a little structure and sang some words to it. We also did a few minor overdubs. et voila</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/07-im-so-glad-she-aint-never-coming-back.mp3">07 I’m So Glad She Ain’t Never Coming Back</a></p>
<p>But many remain unfinished demi-songs or whatever you call them. They have not disappeared. we generally try to use them at some point or another, work them into another song. But they are still out there. Here are a few</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/02-dont-hear-a-hit-boys-drum-machine.mp3">02 don’t hear a hit boys (drum machine)</a></p>
<p>This is from around 2001. It’s basically Johnny Hickman, John Morand and myself Jamming to a drum machine loop. probably started when the click track ended and one of the saved or demo drum machine loops came in. There may have been some pre-mediation. That is we may have set up to record that piano part or bass part. We kept it because we kept thinking it was gonna turn into a song. But after 10 years i doubt it.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/08-live-at-bombay.mp3">Infidel sorcerers of the air</a></p>
<p>This was a melody i was working on around the time I was doing greenland demos. It’s Miguel on drums, probably david immergluck on guitar, and maybe matt trowbridge on keys. It sort of devolve into this space jam. Really it could have been a monks of doom song.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/01-pillow-pt-1.mp3">classy dames and able gents</a></p>
<p>This is a little collaboration that Lauren Hoffman, Alan Weatherhead (slide, pedal steel keyboards) and myself whipped up one night. Lauren pretty much improvised the words. Again the intention was to turn this into a more structured song, but I’ve always wondered if it would have the same feeling if it got turned into a real song.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/peppermint-mind.mp3">peppermint mind</a></p>
<p>I had a little bit of this carbon leaf (I produced one of their albums) song in my sampler. I looped it and started jamming on it with various synths and exotic instruments. I think it was supposed to be something for the New Roman Times record. For various reasons I put it aside and never did anything with it.</p>
<p>Finally the last three song were untitled so i whimsically made a cryptic reference to an organization. First one to figure it out the name of the organization and what they do (did) gets a CVB or Cracker Souvenir.</p>
<p>Finally I stumbled across this one song, that i had completely forgotten about. It’s so weird or good depending on how you look at it, i’m gonna use it as a B-side for my solo album that comes out Feb 1st.</p>
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<p><strong>[G(sus4)]</strong> Saw my baby at the autumn dance<br>
Dancing with her new boy friend<br>
Saw my baby in her new beau’s car<br>
She’s the<strong>[D]</strong> pride of any<strong>[G]</strong> man</p>
<p>CHORUS:<br><strong>[G]</strong> Now I don’t mind and I don’t cry<br>
‘Cause I’m<strong>[C]</strong> living on the mountain top<strong>[G]</strong><br>
The wind might blow through the cracks at night<br>
And I<strong>[D]</strong> know she ain’t ever coming back<br>
I don’t mind and I don’t cry<br>
I’m living in a log pine shack<br>
My shotgun keeps me warm at night<br>
And I know she ain’t ever coming back</p>
<p>Saw my baby at the autumn dance<br>
She was dancing with a big ring on<br>
Saw my baby in her new beau’s car<br>
She’s the pride of any man</p>
<p>Saw my baby at the bridal shack<br>
She was looking for a wedding dress<br>
Saw my baby at the dry goods store<br>
I’m so glad she ain’t ever coming back</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS</p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/61920
2010-10-04T13:15:07-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:15-05:00
#59 Stairway to Heavan (sic)- In Praise of Half Baked Ideas and Unfinished things. The importance of not being earnest.
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<p><strong>“C amper Van Beethoven” II and III. I think the C fell off the paste up board and was incorrectly lined up again. Camper Van Beethoven placed the Star of David on the album for no other reason than to confuse people. The symbol has such heavy meaning while this record was purposely devoid of any coherent meaning, messages or interpreta</strong><strong>tion.</strong> <strong>On Subsequent pressings the star was removed after we were hammered by Rough Trade about the symbol. They were worried that the obliqueness of our songs and the record would eventually lead to terrible mis-interpretations of our intent. Some sort of radical zionist or anti-semitic interpretation of one our songs. who knows.</strong></p>
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<p>Part of the charm of camper van beethovens earliest records that they sometimes contained half baked ideas, studio experiments and things that were really only partially finished.</p>
<p>Some might disagree. But when I look back on these records I think that it was cool we had the self confidence to not take things so seriously. Most young artists tweeze their records to death. Over polish and over arrange each song. They remove every little imperfection. They constantly fret how each song will be perceived. We did none of this. As noted above we put one of the most <em>meaningful</em> symbols of the 20th century on the cover of II and III for no apparent meaning.</p>
<p>In 1985 and 1986 underground rock music was a very serious business to most of our friends and peers. Lyrics were serious. The music was serious. Everything was very important and burdened with meaning. We were very aware of this.</p>
<p>I noted this in earlier posts that Camper Van Beethoven was purposely messing with that notion right from the start. From the choice of the band name, to the non-sensical “Take the skinheads bowling”. We felt it our mission to be seriously unearnest.</p>
<p>But part the way through the second album and especially on the third album we started doing this in a different way. We started including weird sonic experiments and including them in the record. Half finished songs. We included these also. They weren’t bullshit filler, but neither were they 100% serious endeavors. Some were accidents.Like putting the tape on the reel upside down. so the wrong tracks played and were backwards.</p>
<p>We came to believe that if we tried too hard to arrange these accidents and turn them into a real song we would ruin the original flawed yet briefly beautiful idea.</p>
<p>Others were songs we felt just weren’t enough of an idea to be a real song of proper length and scope. So instead of struggling to make them a second rate “song” with lyrics and a standard verse chorus verse chourus bridge chorus outro structure, we let them be as they were.</p>
<p>We WERE earnest about some things. We had the earnest belief that we were creating a sort of demi-song, an overlooked and under appreciated form of music.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/04-turtlehead.mp3">04 Turtlehead</a></p>
<p>The first entry is a Chris Molla penned ditty. A “small idea” I remember him terming it. A small spinning tension. Release in the repeated abrupt stops. An explosive atonal bridge. Then release in the repeated abrupt stops. No words. The title ? I have no idea.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/12-circles.mp3">12 Circles</a></p>
<p>Circles was created by listening to the song the song Oh No backwards. We learned the structure and kind of played along with it. In the A and C sections. We added a few incidental melodies with guitar and keyboard but nothing that could be considered a focal point an actual melodic theme that ties the song together. The only part of the song that makes an effort at being a real song is the B section where we let the words to chorus play backwards.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/13-were-all-wasted-and-were-wasting-all-your-time.mp3">13 We’re All Wasted and We’re Wasting All Your Time</a></p>
<p>This was also done at about the same time as circles. This is jonathan and victor singing along to Take The Skinheads Bowling backwards. I thin anthony guess or chris molla is also drumming along with it. It’s got a sort of reggae rock steady feel. weird. But again. Its just a thrown away chorus. Perfectly joyful and mischievous.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/13-dustpan.mp3">13 Dustpan</a></p>
<p>This hard driving collection of guitar chords changes and arpeggios would have been used by most bands for the basis for a song with lyrics. Even CVB in a more traditional mood would have tied it all together with an instrumental melody line. Neither of these happened. It was left this way.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/17-cattle-reversed.mp3">17 Cattle (reversed)</a></p>
<p>Another song that contains what would normally be a good set of riffs, an A and B section that should have made a good basis for a psychedelic blues song that an early led zeppelin or fleetwood mac might have played. There should have been some robert plant hobbit rock lyrics over the top of this. but no we were content with the “response” lines of the guitars. The fact the “call” vocal lines are missing qualify this as a demi- song. Arguing against that is the strange interlocked guitar parts in the B section. They are of two different lengths so they phase against each other. This is more interesting and makes this part of the song a more full fledged instrumental. The title of this song came from a randomly drawn celtic rune. (kind of like tarot cards) we went through a period of naming songs in this manner. Abundance (tarot card) The fool (tarot card).</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/16-zztop-goes-to-egypt.mp3">16 Zztop Goes to Egypt</a></p>
<p>This song really doesn’t belong in this category. The only reason i put it in this category is that it doesn’t have two traditional elements of a fully fledged CVB song. A repeated consistent melody or lyrics. The main feature of the song is jonathans multiple tracks of modal violin noodlings. The song slowly builds in intensity. After the crescendo it pedals and slowly decays. That is the arc of the song. Building tension a climax and decay. It is however the most successful of our melody less psychedelic demi-songs. People always shout out for it at shows.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/03-five-sticks.mp3">03 Five Sticks</a></p>
<p>This is pretty much ambiguity song backwards. Or parts of it. It was the result of putting the reel of tape on the machine upside down. We made a stereo mix of it and then figured out how to play along with it. It has a strange beauty. Like an ancient text in a lost language. Untranslatable. I assume we called it 5 sticks to continue the reference to Led Zeppelin’s fourth effort. The Led Zeppelin album features a track called 4 sticks. get it? I mentioned in an earlier post we always considered this album our 4th album. The second album was both the second and third album hence the curious title II and III. It was recorded in two different sessions.</p>
<p>Also while on the subject. We toyed with using symbols as the album title. Just like Led Zeppelin. However we did not. What we did do was give the album a title that no one could find. Unless you were looking very closely. The album does have a title. The title is “Soviet Spies Swim Upstream Disguised as Trout” It’s right there in the liner notes. And on etched in the inner groove of the first run of vinyl. We titled it this way because we had an obsessive fan that would write us nearly everyday. In one of the letters she (?) said she dreamed the next Camper Van Beethoven album was titled “Soviet Spies Swim Upstream Disguised as Trout”. et voila.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/07-surprise-truck.mp3">07 Surprise Truck</a></p>
<p>This was simply a damn good riff that didn’t want to have a B section or anything other musical variatiion attached to it. Relentless with just some off the cuff bullshit lyrics about “the surprise truck”. (the “surprise truck” was the apparently the literal translation of hezbollahs code term for their then novel suicide bomb trucks).</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/08-stairway-to-heaven-sic.mp3">08 Stairway To Heaven (sic)</a></p>
<p>So Led Zeppelin’s 4th and untitled obliquely titled record contained Stairway to Heaven. Well we decided we needed a track of approximately the same name. Of course we changed the spelling and added “sic” (Spelling incorrect). Largely because we had all just read Hammer of the Gods and we’re pretty sure Peter Grant or some english thug who worked for Led Zep would show up and break our legs. This track is the most accidental. It starts with a live recording of CVB playing an after hours illegal show in The Icehouse in Fayetteville Arkansas. It was a very early very slow version of the song processional. Someone is playing a weird toy piano or something. It then goes into a Mao Reminisces about his Days in Southern China. With extra instruments dubbed in forward. Most notably a distorted slide and a dumbek. But the great accident is when the previous song on the real comes in. It’s Folly for two. It’s backwards cause we were always flipping the tape upside down to do these manipulations. We didn’t intend for that last bit to be on the recording but it did.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/09-pope-festival.mp3">09 Pope Festival</a></p>
<p>Another interesting case is this song. It doesn’t really count as a demi-song. but there is something cool about the unfinished non-words and dense repetitive arrangement. Later when it went onto Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart album, it got “produced” it has a better arrangement and structure but becomes quite inconsequential. It was also retitled “The Fool”.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/12-the-fool.mp3">12 The Fool</a></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/10-interlude.mp3">10 Interlude</a></p>
<p>And then all those demi-songs disappear once we start making our albums for Virgin Records. With one notable exception the track “Interlude” from Key Lime Pie. This is simply Garth Hudson – yes that Garth Hudson from the Band- warming up on his pump organ as the microphones and such are being placed and adjusted.</p>
<p>Later when the band reforms these demi songs these sonic experiments come back into play. Camper Van Beethoven is Dead Long Live Camper Van Beethoven is largely made out of these pieces of music. Tom Flower’s 1500 valves being the most notable piece. The drums are from a reel of drumbeats that Chris pedersen sent to us. The strings are a chopped up bit of Dixie Babylon strings. Jonathan and victor played along to this loop. I’d just watched a show on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park">Bletchley Park</a>. This was Britain’s brilliant codebreaking enterprise in WWII. Thomas Flowers was the unsung hero. He built one of the first working computers if not the very first. It used 1500 valves or tubes. We made up the song in a few hours. Jonathan tagged on a very discouraging message to him from PJ Harvey, rejecting his suggestion she sing on his solo album.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/03-tom-flowers-1500-valves.mp3">03 Tom Flower’s 1500 Valves</a></p>
<p>finally I hate this part of Texas and Come out to show them are similar type songs from New Roman Times. But we already went into great detail about both of these.</p>
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<p><strong>Tom Flowers 1500 valves</strong></p>
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<pre>Contains recording of a phone message where PJ Harvey rejects music from a tape sent to her by Jonathan Segel.
Further info from David Lowery:
"Thomas Flowers was the British postal service engineer who with Alan Turing built the first (years before the americans) electronic computer (Colossus?), allegedly powered by 1500 valves. I watched a BBC documentary on Bletchley Park some years ago, and i believe these are more or less the historical facts, of course its all a little foggy to me now.
<strong>Bletchley Park</strong> (sic?): the site of english and allied efforts to break german ciphers in W.W.II.
<strong>Cipher Girls</strong>: the corps of young women who were hired to work by hand all the possible permutations once a code was partially broken.
<strong>Monty</strong>: Montgomery.
<strong>Ultra</strong>: the Cipher Girls slang for decoded german communications
<strong>Valve</strong>: English term for Vacuum tube.
<strong>Tunnyfish</strong>: nickname for the german u-boat cipher, apparently the most
difficult to break."</pre>
<p><strong>[INTRO:]</strong><br><strong>[A]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[BREAK:]</strong><br><strong>[A]</strong>-<strong>[Bm]</strong>-<strong>[E]</strong>-<strong>[C#m]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[Bm]</strong>-<strong>[Esus4]</strong>-<strong>[E]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[A]</strong> Bletchley Park - <strong>[Bm]</strong> what a lark<br><strong>[E]</strong> Cipher girls, they’re <strong>[C#m]</strong> dressed in curls<br>
They <strong>[D]</strong> gave to Monty <strong>[Bm]</strong> the very best of their <strong>[E]</strong> Ultra</p>
<p>And Thomas Flower in his hour,<br>
It’s 1500 valves were powered<br>
And tunnyfish, is permanently broken</p>
<p><strong>[BREAK]</strong> (unintelligible echoey voices)</p>
<p><strong>[BREAK]</strong> (voice of PJ Harvey):<br><strong>[A]</strong> “Hi Jonathan, this is Polly, <strong>[Bm]</strong> er, got your call, and thanks very much for <strong>[E]</strong> sending that CD and demo tape that Ann? showed my Mum?. Erm, I listened to the <strong>[C#m]</strong> tape and, er, I don’t <strong>[D]</strong> feel that it’s the right kind of #thing for me to <strong>[Bm]</strong> be doing, it’s just not, I don’t feel the <strong>[Esus4]</strong> mood is right for me, so I, <strong>[E]</strong> I’m sure you’ll understand. Erm, it was real good to <strong>[A]</strong> see you the other day. Errm, I-I <strong>[Bm]</strong> hope it all goes well for you, and er, <strong>[A]</strong> keep in touch, get your card? off?, and maybe you’ll find that <strong>[Bm]</strong> recording in Majorca/New Yorker? should last <strong>[A]</strong> through, kind of help proof? some different? songs?. <strong>[Bm]</strong> So, er, yeah, really good to see you Jonathan. <strong>[A]</strong> Take care. Bye.”</p>
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<td><img src="//www.the-van.co.uk/img/bit.gif" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="10" width="15" /></td>
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</tbody></table><br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/camper-van-beethoven/">Camper Van Beethoven</a> Tagged: <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/cattlereversed/">cattle(reversed)</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/circles/">circles.</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/dustpan/">dustpan</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/five-sticks/">five sticks</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/interlude/">interlude</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/pope-festival/">pope festival</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/stairway-to-heavan-sic/">stairway to heavan (sic)</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/surprise-truck/">surprise truck</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/the-fool/">the fool</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/tom-flowers-1500-valves/">tom flowers 1500 valves</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/turtlehead/">turtlehead</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/were-all-wasted-and-were-wasting-all-your-time/">we're all wasted and we're wasting all your time</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/zz-top-goes-to-egypt/">zz top goes to egypt</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2095/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2095/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2095&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/61915
2010-10-02T20:00:00-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:15-05:00
#58 big dirty yellow outtakes. Richmond Oregon Hill addendum.
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/oregon-hill.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/oregon-hill.jpg?w=380&h=500" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="500" width="380" /></a></p>
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<p>A final addendum on the Cracker Big Dirty Yellow period in Oregon Hill. nov 1989 – feb 1993.</p>
<p>We named our house and the demo tape of 20 songs we delivered to virgin Big Dirty Yellow.</p>
<p>There were a few good out takes from that period that never made it onto later records. Yes some were on the fan club CD “Bob’s Car” but that was a limited edition CD. Here they are:</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/02-china-demo.mp3">02 China (Demo)</a></p>
<p>Mary my girlfriend and then wife, originally lived near the corner of china and pine street. That’s the “china” i’m singing about. Everything else is fairly silly and nonsensical. Note Johnnys beautiful high falsettos. I think we may have vari-speeded them. That is slowed the tape down so he could sing them lower. Them put the tape back up to speed for the mix.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/08-father-winter-demo.mp3">08 Father Winter (Demo)</a></p>
<p>One of Johnny’s bakersfield influence Country rock tunes. The mics are really far away on every track so you can hear the “sound” of that house. You can also hear traffic and birds if you listen carefully.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/02-china-demo.mp3"></a><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/07-steves-hornpipe.mp3">07 Steve’s Hornpipe</a></p>
<p>Like i said many of the people in oregon hill came out of the mountains of western Virginia and West Virginia. One of our neighbors was from somewhere out that way. He could play this really spooky minor key mountain fiddle. He was quite good. He and his friend Josh who played accordion worked up this track with us.</p>
<p>Mountain music? truthfully the melody was greek inspired. At the time Mary was working at this Greek Restaurant (Stellas when it was on harrison where edo squid is now). Johnny and I would hit the bar there about closing time. This melody sort of came out of listening to all this traditional greek music. We just gave it a more mountain arrangement. We were in Oregon Hill after all.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/03-hans-lament-demo.mp3">03 Hans’ Lament (Demo)</a></p>
<p>Another simple instrumental that came out of those demos. It was called Hans’ lament because Johnny’s son Hans was probably only 3 or 4 then. Every time Johnny picked up the mandolin Hans’ wanted to take it from him. So if Johnny attempted to play an entire song it would usually end up with Hans crying.</p>
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<p><strong>China</strong></p>
<p><strong><br>
Ah Miss<strong>[G]</strong> Mary won’t you<strong>[C]</strong> please<strong>[G]</strong> come home from<strong>[D(7)]</strong> China.<br>
Bring a<strong>[G]</strong> bottle of whisky and a<strong>[C]</strong> tin cup<strong>[G]</strong> for your<strong>[D(7)]</strong> teeth.<br><strong>[Em]</strong> Don’t you sneak<strong>[D]</strong> into the<strong>[G]</strong> back door<strong>[C]</strong> wearing some<strong>[D(7)]</strong> disguise.<br><strong>[Em]</strong> Knock on the<strong>[D]</strong> front door in<strong>[G]</strong> view of the<strong>[C]</strong> Temperance<strong>[D(7)]</strong> Guild.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Ah Miss Mary won’t you please come home cause I miss ya.<br>
Your old spinster sister don’t always give good advice.<br>
Look at her she’s in love with that drunken bandy-legged sheriff.<br>
He’ll unzip her pantsuit, but never leave his fat wife</strong></p>
<p><strong>CHORUS:<br>
Ah Miss<strong>[Em]</strong> Mary won’t you<strong>[B]</strong> please come home from<strong>[C]</strong> China.<br><strong>[A]</strong> Come home from<strong>[G]</strong> China.<br><strong>[D]</strong> Come home from<strong>[C]</strong> China<strong>[Am6]</strong>.</strong></p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS</p>
<p>Now that fake old beatnik poet the volunteer fireman.<br>
He don’t care if you come, he don’t care like I do.<br>
He’s in love with his dog and all his volunteer fireman.<br>
And he is afraid to let the end of his versus rhyme.</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS x2</p>
<p><strong><strong>[Em]</strong></strong></p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/61829
2010-09-30T19:30:26-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:15-05:00
#57 Can I Take My Gun Up To Heaven. Hollywood Cemetery. Richmond And Oregon Hill Part 3
<p><strong><br></strong></p>
<p><strong>Church Hill is on the opposite side of downtown from The Fan and Oregon Hill. But firmly on the East West Axis. Indeed this is the original city center. The city shifted first west than stretched north and south. Leaving the old city center Church Hill isolated from the main life of the City.</strong></p>
<p><strong><br></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/08-can-i-take-my-gun-to-heaven_.mp3">08 Can I Take My Gun To Heaven_</a></p>
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<p>Although Oregon Hill is now considered a neighborhood of Richmond it wasn’t always that way. It had a distinct identity separate from the city. When established during the Reconstruction (the rebuilding and re-industrialization ) of the South after the Civil War it was far west of the City. The neighborhood was established primarily for the workers at the Tredgar Ironworks and the Albemarle Paper company.</p>
<p>The houses in the neighborhood have a distinct look. The rumor I always heard was that they were intended to be only temporary housing for the workers. Hence their simple construction.Very narrow two story houses. A steep staircase at the middle of the house that went up at a 60% angle to conserve space. constructed of wood when most of the rest of the building in the city were brick. The adjoining row houses although separate houses and not “condos” often share continuous floor joists and communal walls. The whole neighborhood has the feel of something you would find in New Orleans or more tellingly some of the old West Virginian Mining towns.</p>
<p>Indeed one rumor or story I have heard over and over again from many Richmonders is that the workers were all recruited from a single village in the mountains of West Virginia because they supported the Union in the Civil War. The reconstruction authorities wanted Yankee loyalists in the factories to foil potential saboteurs. Indeed West Virginia broke away from Virginia and was made a separate state because by and large the folks in the mountain counties of Virginia supported the Union. For various reasons this seems believable to me, but I’ve yet to find any real reliable source that supports this story that the inhabitants of Oregon hill were imported from Appalachia in mass.</p>
<p>Still like all the big cities within a few hundred miles of the Appalachian mountains, Richmond attracted many many West Virginians. They came many in successive waves. Certainly during the reconstruction and industrialization of the southern cities after the civil war. But also during other periods of boom and bust. So the idea that the Oregon Hillbillies- as they are often called- came from west virginia or Appalachia is plausible for many reasons. When I lived there you could hear the neighborhoods distinct accent. It was different than the rest of the city. You could hear the mountain cadence in there speech. Older people used curious mountain phrases and words like ‘ye ought to ‘ or ‘thar’ and the river pronounced not with the pretentious Richmond/Tidewater accent pronunciation: Ruhvuh. it was pronounced River. Like the rest of us.</p>
<p>It was also 100% white neighborhood. Very poor, very working class. Insular and wary of outsiders. Although the wonderful and elegantly decaying houses were magnets for artists hipster and musicians. The students from VCU were also busy colonizing the neighborhood. Blocks of houses were abandoned and condemned. This didn’t stop people from living in them.</p>
<p>If Corry Arnold’s theory of the inverse relation between housing prices and the vitality of a music scene ever needed a case study, it would be oregon hill 1981- 2000. These are the earliest and latest dates by which my (admittedly) small pool of Oregon Hill residents agree there was some music scene based in Oregon Hill. Even if your band practiced on Broad street or Fulton hill, the fact most band members lived in Oregon Hill made oregon hill the center of the scene.</p>
<p>The Fan district another neighborhood of brick homes and with a distinct upper middle class and historic pedigree attracted many students. But the Gestapo-like Fan District Association did not permit any bands to practice (or live music establishments) in it’s domain. Or even near it’s domain. Church Hill the oldest and most historic part of the city was another promising area where artists and students lived, but it was too ghetto to rehearse there. Your gear would get stolen.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/2068196-unique_neighbourhoods-richmond.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/2068196-unique_neighbourhoods-richmond.jpg?w=450&h=337" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="337" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>In recent years oregon hill has begun to emulate the fan district. Exhibit A. the flag at the main entrance to the neighborhood. This is in marked contrast to the old bumper sticker you would sometimes see around the neighborhood. <em>Oregon Hill: That better be a tan!</em></strong></p>
<p>So Oregon Hill by default was the hub of the music scene however brief and small. Despite the fact it was an alien in a host body that did not 100% accept it’s presence. Yet it thrived in it’s own way.</p>
<p>It produced only a handful of bands that went onto wider recognition. But I have to say. owning a studio I have empirical quantitative evidence that the Richmond music scene in this period was much more vital than the current period. With the exception of Lamb of God most of the Richmond bands that have had any lasting commercial or cultural impact emerged in that brief period.</p>
<p>Again leaning on Corry’s observations, this was the period when the the city had abundant cheap real estate (mostly in oregon hill and along broad street), but was sufficiently safe (in that area) to support a start-up band ecosystem.</p>
<p>One thing that helped Oregon Hill remain inexpensive while The Fan rapidly gentrified was that it was not considered a “historic” neighborhood for a long time. It is still often dismissed by the local historical societies. Especially the University VCU which coveted the neighborhood for expansion. I suspect this has something to do with Richmonds economic axis being pivoted 90 degrees after the civil war. Oregon Hill was definitely tied into the industries that were part of the “new” North-South trade. It didn’t even exist when there was a East-West trade.</p>
<p>In contrast Church hill and the Fan (with it’s monuments to the confederate war heros) still dream of Richmond’s Antebellum past. These neighborhoods and others further west are where you find the connected families that make up the old money power structures. The lawyers and politicians that broker the deals of the city and state. I have a friend who identifies this social strata as the “skimming” class. His point they aren’t actually adding anything to the GDP of Richmond or the US. They are just simply taking their cut. Much as generations of virginian <em>rentiers</em> that came before them.</p>
<p>Conversely the troublesome carpetbaggers with their US Army, Fort Lee, Defense Supply Depot, railroads, industrial facilities, fancy credit card companies, pharmaceuticals, and bio tech firms all live and work along the north south axis. The poor ones live in places like Oregon Hill, Lakeside or trailer parks along rte 1 south. The prosperous ones live in the gated communities and sparkling suburbs of Chesterfield county. Brandermill. Colonial Heights. As opposed to the “skimmer” class these people are generally involved in thevalue added part of the economy. But I digress.</p>
<p>My point is that Oregon Hill did not represent old Richmond. The old southern aristocracy. It also didn’t represent the old southern poor. It was simply a white working class factory neighborhood remarkably similar to those found in cities like Portland ME, Providence RI, Pittsburgh Philadelphia or Baltimore. Yes it had a southern flavor. But it was it’s working class white trash sensibility that had the greatest influence on Cracker. That’s what Can I Take My Gun Up To Heaven is about.</p>
<p>Yes it gently mocks and praises the inhabitants of this neighborhood at the same time. And how could we not?</p>
<p>The first weekend we had our studio set up we heard a ruckus that was so loud we could hear it while wearing headphones listening to loud guitars. Two different factions in the neighborhood had decided to fight. Well not exactly fight but sort of pretend to fight. Each side had a leader. One guy had a shovel. Another guy had a chain. They were naked to the waist like ancient Celts or Comanches. They were standing in the middle of laurel street daring the other to “come on” . To throw down. To throw the first blow. A crowd of at least a hundred people had gathered to watch.</p>
<p>“I’ll Rock and Roll you Motherfucker!!”</p>
<p>A cheer from most of the crowd.</p>
<p>“Yea and i’ll beat your ass, C’mon C’mon!!”</p>
<p>A cheer from most of the crowd again. Which really doesn’t make sense if you think about it.</p>
<p>Amazingly a single fat white city policeman walked into the crowd and dispersed it. In LA or NYC 25 squad cars and the SWAT team would have responded.</p>
<p>Then of course there was The Prison. Actually I think it was called the Virginia State Penitentiary. I guess I should have mentioned that earlier. Neighborhoods that contain a prison are quite unique. And this was not the city jail i’m talking about. I mean the Prison with death row prisoners. They electrocuted people in that prison. I was at a party in oregon hill one night when the lights dimmed. It was the night they electrocuted a prisoner. It was probably just a co-incidence. There were death row protesters across from the prison sometimes. Sometimes there would be Oregon Hillbilly counter-protestors. One time I saw a guy standing at the corner of belvidere and spring with a sign that simply said “fry him”. People driving home to south side were honking and waving at him. Like he had a sign saying “Go Redskins”.</p>
<p>Anyway sometime during this time we lived in Oregon Hill, they closed the prison and tore it down. Suddenly our whole neighborhood was filled with rats. They brazenly walked around my kitchen. I could scream and stomp and they would hold their ground. They would have had to smoke and feign boredom to seem more disinterested in me. These were some hardened city rats. They’d done time.</p>
<p>There was also dirt woman. He was a sort of local celebrity. A redneck drag queen. Worthy of a John Waters movie. Every year he would wrestle Dave Brockie from GWAR (in costume) for charity. He walked up to Mary once and took a bite of her Ice Cream cone. She gave it to him. ”You eat the rest”.</p>
<p>There was dog man. That’s just what Johnny called him. Cause he was like a dog. He’d sit on his non functioning car in front of his house. Drinking beer and barking or shouting at whoever drove by. Not in an unfriendly way. It was a shout but the important thing was it usually made no sense.</p>
<p>“Hey man it’s going on!”</p>
<p>“That’s what I say!! yep that’s what I say! “</p>
<p>Some nights when buzzed just enough I sensed a profound truth in his seeming inanities. But it was always just out of reach.</p>
<p>We didn’t hang out with the locals. The students, musicians and artists that had moved into the neighborhood were our friends and peers. Most were from northern virginia. They played or listened to punk rock, hardcore metal alternative and indie rock. Some played some quite fey indie-pop. So it wasn’t like we were in some Southern Rock immersion zone.</p>
<p>And a lot of the young oregon hillbillies were picking up on rap, and listened to the more bonehead metal bands. But yeah on any given day you would hear southern rock emanating from someones car or the local bars. Especially the locals only place on the corner of Pine st and china street. That place was rough. (somebody remind me of the name The Chuck Wagon?). Johnny and I loved our dive bars, but even though we were accepted by the locals we only went in there once. We were immediately challenged to a fight so we left.</p>
<p>One night I was driving Mary’s car up Pine street and a guy comes running out of that bar at full speed chased by an angry mob. I didn’t have time to even react and touch the brakes. I hit the guy going about 20 miles an hour, he went up and over the hood of the car. Landed on his feet and kept on running. I stopped to see if he was okay, but one of the locals started shouting at me.</p>
<p>“get outta here or you’ll get what he’s gonna get”</p>
<p>My dream was that one day I’d drive by this bar and hear this song blasting from the jukebox.</p>
<p>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p>Finally there is an cemetary at the edge of Oregon Hill. It’s called Hollywood Cemetery. It is fairly famous because it has several US presidents and CSA president Jeff Davis buried there. It also has a giant stone pyramid that marks the burial place of 17,000 (?)confederate soldiers. Many people assume that the song Hollywood Cemetery is referring to Hollywood California. It is not. It refers to this graveyard. In oregon hill it’s presence is overwhelming. The whole neighborhood should be filled with ghosts. The protagonist sings the song from texas. His lost love is like a ghost that haunts him. He wishes she would stay buried and gone.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/04-hollywood-cemetary.mp3">04 Hollywood Cemetary</a></p>
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<p><strong>Can I Take My Gun Up to Heaven.<br>
[D]</strong></p>
<p>Can I take my <strong>[G]</strong> gun up to <strong>[C]</strong> heaven? <strong>[G]</strong> <strong>[C]</strong> <strong>[Cmaj7]</strong> <strong>[D]</strong><br>
You know she’s <strong>[G]</strong> always been by my <strong>[C]</strong> side <strong>[G]</strong> <strong>[C]</strong> <strong>[Cmaj7]</strong> <strong>[D]</strong><br>
Can I take my <strong>[G]</strong> gun up to <strong>[C]</strong> heaven? <strong>[G]</strong> <strong>[C]</strong> <strong>[Cmaj7]</strong> <strong>[D]</strong><br>
I’ll check it with St. <strong>[G]</strong> Peter at the gate <strong>[C]</strong> <strong>[G(sus4)]</strong></p>
<p>And if I had a <strong>[D]</strong> woman that was <strong>[C]</strong> faithful <strong>[Am]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong><br>
Or even <strong>[D]</strong> kind some of the time <strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[Am]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong><br>
I’d drag her on <strong>[D]</strong> up to the gates of heaven <strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[Am]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong><br>
Or follow her right <strong>[D]</strong> down to the gates of <strong>[C]</strong> hell <strong>[Am]</strong> <strong>[D]</strong></p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS</p>
<p><strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[Am]</strong><br><strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[Am]</strong><br><strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[Am]</strong><br><strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[Am]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[C]</strong> When I come home from a long day <strong>[G]</strong> a-working at the prison<br><strong>[A]</strong> I find my woman she’s not a-<strong>[D]</strong>-round <strong>[C]</strong><br>
She’s down at Dahlie’s corner <strong>[G]</strong> a-playing cards and drinking<br><strong>[A]</strong> Or sitting on the cars singing Dixie with the <strong>[D]</strong> boys <strong>[C]</strong> <strong>[D]</strong></p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS</p>
<p>Can I take my gun up to heaven?<br>
Can I take my gun up to heaven?<br>
Can I take my gun up to heaven?<br>
Can I take my gun up to heaven?</p>
<p><strong>[C]</strong> Can I take my gun up to <strong>[G]</strong> heaven?</p>
<p><strong>Hollywood Cemetery</strong></p>
<p><strong><br><strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[B]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[G(sus4)]</strong><br><strong>[Em]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[G7]</strong>-<strong>[B]</strong>-<strong>[Em]</strong>-<strong>[C(7)]</strong><br><strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[B]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[G(sus4)]</strong></strong></p>
<p><strong><strong>[G]</strong> I left my baby, <strong>[B]</strong> I left her <strong>[C]</strong> down in Hollywood <strong>[G(sus4)]</strong> Cemetary<br>
Weren’t a cloud in the <strong>[B]</strong> sky, but how I <strong>[C]</strong> wish it was <strong>[G(sus4)]</strong> raining</strong></p>
<p><strong><strong>[Em]</strong> Well I know it was <strong>[C]</strong> wrong to feel love like a <strong>[G]</strong> burden <strong>[G7]</strong><br><strong>[B]</strong> But if we all were <strong>[Em]</strong> angels <strong>[C(7)]</strong> Heaven would be earth<br><strong>[G]</strong> So I left my baby, <strong>[B]</strong> I left her <strong>[C]</strong> down in Hollywood <strong>[G(sus4)]</strong> Cemetary.</strong></p>
<p><strong>[BREAK:]</strong><br><strong>[Em]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[G7]</strong>-<strong>[B]</strong>-<strong>[Em]</strong>-<strong>[C(7)]</strong><br><strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[B]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[G(sus4)]</strong></p>
<p>She got her petees? and coffee, while the band plays a funeral dirge<br>
In New Orleans Mardi Gras, but I’m sick as a dog, here in Texas</p>
<p>When the one that you love’s in the arms of another man<br>
You’ve got to rise above it, and let her go<br>
Leave your baby down, leave her down at Hollywood Cemetary</p>
<p><strong><strong>[REPEAT BREAK]</strong><br><strong>[G(sus4)]</strong></strong></p>
<br>Filed under: <a href="http://300songs.com/category/cracker/">Cracker</a> Tagged: <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/can-i-take-my-gun-up-to-heaven/">can i take my gun up to heaven?</a>, <a href="http://300songs.com/tag/hollywood-cemetary/">hollywood cemetary</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2069/"><img src="//feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/davidclowery.wordpress.com/2069/" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a> <img src="//stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=300songs.com&blog=14696341&post=2069&subd=davidclowery&ref=&feed=1" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/178557
2010-09-29T08:58:44-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:18-05:00
#56 Kerosene Hat-Cracker. Richmond and Oregon Hill Continued.
<p> </p>
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<p>In #47 part 2 I mentioned the move Johnny Hickman and I made from California to Richmond Va. The 64 plymouth threw a rod in Arkansas stranding us in the middle of rice paddies in the middle of the night. That’s where i’m gonna pick up.</p>
<p>We were being eaten alive by mosquitos in the rice paddies while we were waiting for a tow. Johnny started smashing the mosquitos with a magazine on the headboard of the car. Finally aftter 2 hours a tow trucke arrived and took us to a local Uhaul facility. We had to wait several hours for the place to open up. We’d now been up all night. We rented a truck and a tow dolly and towed the station wagon all the way to Richmond. When we pulled the station wagon off the dolly in Richmond i noticed all these brownish red smudges all over the headboard of the car. I stared at them for a while trying to figure it out. Those hadn’t been there before.</p>
<p>Johnny leaned in the passenger window to see what I was looking at.</p>
<p>“It’s our blood”</p>
<p>I guess I gave him a confused look.</p>
<p>“from the mosquitos”</p>
<p>There were hundreds of these smudges. “We’ve already played a price in blood” I thought. I knew this was funny and overdramitic still I didn’t say it out loud. I couldn’t decide if this was an inauspicious or auspicious start for the band.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Big Dirty Yellow Demos were recorded on a machine like this.</strong></p>
<p>Big dirty yellow is what we named the house at 239 S. Laurel street in Oregon Hill. Because it was well Big, Yellow and Dirty. This is also what we called the demo tape of 20 songs we turned in to Virgin Records. The house had a few distinct pluses. The first was the neighbors took an immediate liking to us, cause Johnny (always the goodwill amabassador) did an impromptu duet of Streets of Bakersfield with the neighbor lady to the right. This drew a small crowd. When Johnny flipped the last chorus to Streets of Oregon Hill the small crowd broke into pandemonium. They had to play it 2 more times before the crowd dispersed. Meanwhile I had managed to unload half the truck by myself. It was a small price to pay for the goodwill of the neighbors. We never had to lock our doors, and no one EVER complained about the noise we made recording the demos.</p>
<p>It also didn’t hurt that the neighbors on the left were a deaf family. Well not entirely. The oldest daughter could hear. She would play the pop radio station quite loud. On weekends we noticed that the radio would often blast all night. This was because the one hearing member of the family, the daughter, had gone away to the grandmothers for the weekend.</p>
<p>It was not always easy to gain the locals trust. Oregon Hill had been it’s own little city within a city for 140 years. A white some would say white trash ghetto in the heart of the city. And the neighborhood was beginning to be not exactly gentrified but filling up with artists, hipsters and especially musicians. They were drawn there by the ridiculously low rents and charm of the funky houses. Members of GWAR, The Alternatives, The Fugs, Michael Hurley, House of Freaks, Flat Duo Jets and Cowboy Junkies could be seen wandering around the neighborhood. The old locals which dominated our block were hostile to these newcomers. But never us. It was fortunate that Cracker was such a country rock roots oriented ensemble.</p>
<p>Big Dirty Yellow had three bedrooms and was 300 dollars a month. It was the classic Oregon Hill row house. Narrow like a shotgun shack. Each room lead into the next room till you got to the kitchen on the back of the house. It had no heat or air-conditioning. There was a hole in the floor between the kitchen and living room. You could crawl down into the basement through it. We tacked a large piece of plywood over the hole. I found an industrial strength restaurant kitchen fan at a junk store. I installed this in the uppermost window of my bedroom recording room. It basically sucked the cool air out of the basement into the upstairs of the house. Except for the hottest days it was adequate. In the winter Johnny and I each had a kerosene heater. We would actually carry these around the house with us. not lit of course. But if we had people over we would drop both of them in the living room and kitchen. If we took a bath or shower we would bring our kerosene heater with us. To this day the smell of kerosene reminds me of the poverty and the wistful hope we had for our music.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Site of the old East Coast Gas Station in Gunsmoke. Cary and Meadow Richmond VA.</strong></p>
<p>In some ways this is part of the inspiration for the song Kerosene Hat. The kerosene hat was the wool hunting cap with earflaps that I would have to wear when I walked to the gas station in the middle of the night to get more kerosene. This was sometimes a scary proposition because if it was too late and the local texaco by VCU was closed, we had to walk to the East Coast station up in the neighborhood known as “Gunsmoke”. Cary and Meadow st. This is still a sketchy area today. It was really quite dangerous in 1990.</p>
<p>The second part of the inspiration for this song was the simple fact that Johnny Hickman and I were older than many of our peers in the alternative and indie rock scene at that time. Also we were one of the few bands that was playing what would later be called Americana. So this is exactly what i’m talking about when I sing:</p>
<p><em>How can I fly with these old doggy wings</em></p>
<p><em>While a magpie sings some shiny song.</em></p>
<p>Finally the main body of the song is populated by characters that are similar to the broken down houses and people who populated the neighborhood at that time. I’ll go into this more in the next post “Can I Take My Gun Up To Heaven”.</p>
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<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/04-kerosene-hat.mp3">04 Kerosene Hat</a></p>
<p><strong>[INTRO & BREAK:]</strong><br><strong>[Em]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[D(bass F#)]</strong><br><strong>[Em]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[D(bass F#)]</strong><br><strong>[Em]</strong>-<strong>[D]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong>-<strong>[A]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[Em]</strong> How can I fly with these <strong>[C]</strong> old doggy wings<br>
While a <strong>[G]</strong> magpie sings some <strong>[D(bass F#)]</strong> shiny song?<br><strong>[Em]</strong> Old corn face row of teeth, she says <strong>[C]</strong> sweetly to me<br>
In the <strong>[G]</strong> elevator <strong>[D(bass F#)]</strong></p>
<p>CHORUS:<br><strong>[Em]</strong> Everything <strong>[D]</strong> seems like a <strong>[C]</strong> dream<br>
and <strong>[A]</strong> life’s a scream.<br><strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong></p>
<p>Here come old Kerosene Hat<br>
With his ear flaps waxed, a courting’ his girl<br>
Come clattering in here on your old cloven skates<br>
With that devilish spoon</p>
<p>CHORUS:<br>
Everything seems like a dream<br>
And life’s a scream<br>
When you’re submarine</p>
<p><strong>[BREAK]</strong></p>
<p>So don’t you bother me death with your leathery ways<br>
and your old chaise lounge (old chaise lounge)<br>
Wickerman’s fence of leathery tyres<br>
And the cook’s gone bad, started several fires</p>
<p>CHORUS:<br>
Everything seems like a dream<br>
When your submarine</p>
<p>Head like a stream she says softly to me<br>
from the rattling chair<br>
Bring me a steak and my old pair of crows,<br>
my medicine lamp</p>
<p>CHORUS:<br>
Everything seems like a dream<br>
So life’s a scream<br>
(life’s a scream)</p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/178558
2010-09-28T11:47:36-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:18-05:00
#55 James River- Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven. Richmond Virginia.
<p> </p>
<p><strong>The James River in Downtown Richmond.</strong></p>
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<p>The James River is the major waterway through the center part of the state of Virginia. The river is quite deep until it hits the “fall line” at Richmond. Indeed this is why Richmond was built at this spot. It is the farthest you navigate up the James in an ocean going vessel. After that there are a series of falls and rapids. In the early 1800′s the <a href="http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_River_and_Kanawha_Canal">James River and Kanawha Canal</a> was built to bypass these rapids and bring trade from the mountains of Western Virginia down the James River to Richmond. As a footnote it was surveyed and designed by George Washington. But that’s another story. This canal helped bolster the city’s commercial activity turning it into a relatively prosperous and large city.</p>
<p>Although Richmond is very far inland few people realize that there is actually a Port of Richmond which accepts container ships -albeit the smallest container ships. The port is tucked away along the south eastern side of the city, in an area dominated by large (and mostly abandoned) industrial sites. Few people who live in Richmond even know where it is. I’m not sure how financially viable it is. I suspect that the fact the Defense Supply Facility is nearby has something to do with it’s continuing function</p>
<p>But these days the James is a relatively unimportant waterway. And it figures little into the commercial life of the City. The city literally turned it’s back on the river for many years. The banks were dominated by railroad right aways,sidings industrial facilities and power plants. Until recently there was no easy access to the river from downtown. It was only in the last 15 years a riverwalk was built along the river in downtown. There were parks along the river but you still have to cross railroad right aways to reach them. And thenyou were often in close proximity to railroad hobo camps (south bank) or the rough but not unfriendly denizens of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Hill">Oregon Hill</a>.* It is a beautiful river nonetheless. There are spectacular rapids for rafting and this is in the core of an urban city. Quite strange really. Deer, foxes, bald eagles and even bears are often seen wandering along the forested banks of the city’s river. But to me there is a certain sadness or nostalgia to river. It feels at times a relic of the past. Like the antebellum mansions and the Civil War battlefields and monuments. And a hint of even darker things. Belle Island in the center of the river was a POW camp for Union troops throughout the Civil War. By american standards a gulag of unimaginable horror. 30,000 prisoners on this island. 1 in 25 perished. A prominent Baltimore surgeon who treated some of the released captives from the Belle Isle prison had this description of the prisoners:</p>
<p><em>“in a semi-state of nudity…laboring under such diseases as chronic diarrhoea, phthisis pulmonalis, scurvy, frost bites, general debility, caused by starvation, neglect and exposure. Many of them had partially lost their reason, forgetting even the date of their capture, and everything connected with their antecedent history. They resemble, in many respect, patients laboring under cretinism. They were filthy in the extreme, covered in vermin…nearly all were extremely emaciated; so much so that they had to be cared for even like infants.”</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> </em>Talk about Southern Gothic! Cormac McCarthy in his imagination could not do much better. But it is less the horrors along the river that captured my imagination. It was the sense the river was part of the lost past. Once important it is now but a shadow of itself. It is irrelevant to the life of the city. Just as the city was once the capitol of the Confederacy it is now a second tier urban center. It is somewhat irrelevant to the greater life of the nation.That is both sad and sweet.</p>
<p>The river was the heart of a system that sent the products of the colonies and antebellum south mostly tobacco back to England and Europe. An export oriented agricultural / natural resource economy. Trade that went East to West with Richmond an important trans shipment point. But as the North began it’s rapid industrialization, and railroads proliferated trade shifted North to South. The Civil War only accelerated this trend. Indeed one of the minor frictions between the norther and southern states was over tariffs. High tariffs protected developing industries in the north. Richmond was also industrializing and was becoming more tied to the northeast than the south. Hence many Virginians reticence to join the cause of the Confederacy. As Corry Arnold (Rock Prosopography 101) recently explained to me:</p>
<p><em>Thus the geography of Richmond is infused with a logic that no longer applies to the way the city works, as it is oriented towards the river when that is not actually the economic engine of the city (rivers are pretty, fortunately, so its not a terrible thing, but I’m not researching quality of life). In effect, the economics of Richmond were literally rotated on its axis, as the James River initially facilitated East-West transportation, but was of no value when commerce in the the region moved to a North-South axis (eg Atlanta and Florida to Baltimore).</em></p>
<p><em>(This post on richmond is largely based on research that Corry sent to me)</em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-style:normal;">I wasn’t aware of this when I began to write about the James River. But one – even an recently transplanted westerner- could sense that the James River represented the old romantic past of Richmond. It’s sorry state also represented something else that I came to associate with Richmond. “Elegant decay” and “opulent poverty”. Two evocative phrases my ex-wife Mary uses to describe Richmond. </span></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><em><span style="font-style:normal;">The first time I ever spent any real time in the City was my 29th birthday sept 10th 1989. Camper Van Beethoven was on tour with the 10,000 maniacs. We played a show at the Mosque theater (now called the landmark theater) just west of downtown in the middle of the VCU campus. Natalie Merchant had some friends that lived nearby. Later Natalie asked me if I wanted to go to a party at her friends house in this funny little neighborhood to the south of the VCU campus. This neighborhood is called Oregon Hill. It is a former factory neighborhood built along the banks of the James for the workers at the Tredgar Iron works. The neighborhood is very distinct. It even has it’s own accent despite the fact it’s a 4 by 10 block area. Tiny two story row houses with porches. It looked like some neighborhood in New Orleans. The residents were out on their porches this fine late summer evening. Some polite with nods or “good evenings” others drunk with catcalls and wolf whistles. Cicadas buzzed in the trees and I thought to myself? ”where the hell am I”. I’ll explain this neighborhood more in a later post (Can I take my Gun Up to Heaven).</span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-style:normal;">It was at this party where i met my future ex-wife. (I’ve always wanted to use that expression). It is the neighborhood that Mary and I lived in for many years. And more importantly this is the neighborhood that Johnny and I set ourselves up as we sought to finish writing the first Cracker Albums. </span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-style:normal;">So the song started as a Camper Van Beethoven Song. With me trying to evoke what I would term the “Old-fashioned seediness” and “antiquated decadence” of Richmond. There were a surprising number of junkies, drug fiends and decadents in the music scene when I first began courting Mary. So that was what first struck me. That’s what the Camper Van Beethoven version and early Cracker demo reflects. Later I would come to appreciate the “Elegant Decay” and “Opulent Poverty” of Richmond VA. Thus the later more gentle more evocative version of the song on Gentlemans Blues.</span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-style:normal;">Finally I hope my description of Richmond comes across as honest but still affectionate. In many ways my musical career is deeply infused with the life of three places the Inland Empire, Santa Cruz and Richmond VA. </span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-style:normal;"><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/james-river-live.mp3">james river (live) Camper Van Beethoven Italy March 1990</a></span></em></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/05-james-river-demo.mp3">05 James River (Demo) Cracker Sept 1990</a></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/04-james-river.mp3">04 James River-Cracker Gentleman’s Blues</a><br><a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=WZRDYJLXS7RTC"><img src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-but04.gif" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="Please make some donations" /></a></p>
<p><strong>James River (later version)</strong></p>
<p><strong><strong>[INTRO & BREAK:]</strong><br><strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[Ddim]</strong>-<strong>[F]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong><br><strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[Ddim]</strong>-<strong>[F]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong><br><strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[Ddim]</strong>-<strong>[F]</strong>-<strong>[C]</strong><br><strong>[G]</strong></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[Dm]</strong>You come across <strong>[Ddim]</strong> the <strong>[F]</strong> James River <strong>[C]</strong><br><strong>[Dm]</strong> A-for a <strong>[Ddim]</strong> needle, and a <strong>[F]</strong> spoon <strong>[C]</strong><br><strong>[Dm]</strong> But would you <strong>[Ddim]</strong> come across the <strong>[F]</strong> James River <strong>[C]</strong><br>
To be my woman again <strong>[G]</strong><br>
To be my woman again</p>
<p><strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong></p>
<p>You come across the old lee bridge<br>
A-For a dollar fifty in change<br>
But would you come across the James River<br>
for this heart of gold?<br>
For this heart of gold?</p>
<p><strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[BREAK]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong></p>
<p>You go to work for Ms. Kitty<br>
For a decent rate of pay<br>
But would you come across the James River<br>
To be my woman again?<br>
To be my woman again?</p>
<p><strong>[BREAK]</strong></p>
<p><strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong></p>
<p>You keep a pistol in your left boot<br>
A brush and comb in your purse<br>
But would you come across the James River<br>
To be my woman again?<br>
To be my woman again?</p>
<p><strong><strong>[ENDING:]</strong><br><strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[Dm]</strong>-<strong>[G]</strong>-<strong>[Dm]</strong></strong></p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/178559
2010-09-24T12:01:43-04:00
2017-01-13T18:56:18-05:00
# 52 Yalla Yalla Yall. Gallows Humor Addendum. Cracker Live in Iraq.
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_1781.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_1781.jpg?w=450&h=337" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="337" width="450" /></a><br><a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=WZRDYJLXS7RTC"><img src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-but04.gif" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="Please make some donations" /></a></p>
<p>Frank Funaro (drummer Cracker and CVB) reminded me of some of the excellent Gallows Humour while we were in Iraq. Here is Frank’s comment:</p>
<p><em>Oh, and lest we forget… When we were riding around in Iraq in armored vehicles, we all had headsets and microphones on so we could hear each other above the ungodly din these vehicles produce. The 82nd Airborne guys that were in the vehicle that David, Greg and myself were in would pepper us with questions about the band and touring, and music, etc, constantly chattering into our earpieces over the radio. This was to (as we later found out) keep our minds off the fact that at any given moment, it was entirely possible that we would get hit with a roadside bomb. Ok, that was part of their their job, can’t have any civilians gettin’ all panicky in the back of a sealed, 14 ton MRAP. But, here’s the strange thing. Every now and then, apropos of nothing, they would yell BOOM! over the radio. Talk about your professional-grade, industrial strength gallows humor…</em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-style:normal;">And since we are on the topic again. Here are a couple more pieces of gallows humour I overheard in Iraq. The first are normal military variety. The last is of a <a href="http://http://300songs.com/2010/09/21/49-where-the-hell-is-bill-more-smart-ass-comments-deer-skulls/">Deer Skull</a> variety be forewarned.</span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-style:normal;"><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_1908.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/img_1908.jpg?w=450&h=337" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="337" width="450" /></a></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-style:normal;"><strong>BTW I am 6 foot tall. Foxx on the far right is really that tall. </strong></span></em></p>
<p><em> </em>First while we were traveling through baghdad by MRAP with soldiers from the 82nd airborne Frank and I must have telegraphed to them that we were okay with the gallows humor. None of the other band guys got this treatment. Once we were faced with two unattended disabled vehicles along the side of a road. The soldiers paused the convoy for a while and got on their comms. I’m not sure how this works but they were talking to Iraqi security or American forces to find out what the deal was with these vehicles. They didn’t want to proceed even though it was unlikely they were bombs. It wasn’t a long pause and eventually someone gave them enough assurances that these vehicles were okay and we proceeded past them. But before we did the soldiers began wagering on which of the two vehicles would explode. Like anyone would be alive to collect on this bet.</p>
<p>“my money is on the mini pickup”</p>
<p>“thats bullshit why would you use a pickup truck there’s no trunk, no place to hide enough explosives”</p>
<p>“it’s good enough for an Iranian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge">shaped charge</a> and stealthier”</p>
<p>The part about the shape charge may have been explained later within the safe confines of <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/saddam-iap.htm">BIAP</a> on the way out of the country. No matter how jaded these guys were I don’t think even they wanted to imagine a high velocity ball of molten metal ricocheting around inside a MRAP severing limbs.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/klingon_homeless.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/klingon_homeless.jpg?w=450" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" /></a></p>
<p><strong>I Forget Are klingons Sunnis or Shias?</strong></p>
<p>At another camp I asked one of the Soldiers what he thought of the Sons of Iraq or Sunni Awakening Councils. These were former insurgents who had now switched sides to the US. And they were now on the US payroll. We passed by their checkpoints occasionally.</p>
<p>” What do you mean what do i think? you mean how do i feel about the fact these guys were shooting at me last tour of duty*?”</p>
<p>“yeah something like that”</p>
<p>“well, this is Iraq: The next generation. They’re the Klingons” This was delivered with a disinterested shrug. A sort of “it’s not my fucking job to care” gesture.</p>
<p>Finally at one of the Army airfields in Kuwait right before we went into Iraq I overheard this very fucked up conversation. Basically two young soldiers on there way into Iraq were sitting around talking about what terrible things should happen to US army Major and Psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan. He is the guy who had shot up Fort Hood about 10 days earlier. We were all waiting around next to these pallets that we had piled our gear and duffles on. It was dusty and pretty warm. We were waiting for someone to do some kind of roll call. We would have rather been inside the airconditioned tent that served as the passenger terminal. An older NCO was listening to these two young soldiers. Whether it was the heat or the dust or he was genuinely sick of hearing these kids talk. He stood up and walked over to them.</p>
<p>“You two. Shut the fuck up.”</p>
<p>They looked at him stunned.</p>
<p>“Sorry sir-”</p>
<p>“There are probably a lot of guys here that are a lot closer to that shooting and those events than you are. I’m sure they don’t want want to hear your bullshit… besides there is a distinct positive to this event”</p>
<p>“sir?”</p>
<p>“The US Army now has a Psychiatrist with actual combat experience”.</p>
<p>JEEZ. remember i’m just repeating the story. This is less than two weeks after the shooting. So in the US Army Tragedy + 10 days = Comedy. The deer skull has been….<br><a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=WZRDYJLXS7RTC"><img src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-but04.gif" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="Please make some donations" /></a></p>
<p> </p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/178560
2010-09-20T11:45:06-04:00
2017-02-01T18:08:29-05:00
#48 Friends – 3 Guys Walk Into A Bar In Canoga Park. Why being backstage at a low grade music festival is like being in Iraq.
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<p><strong>Patterson Hood, Johnny Hickman and I Perform Friends.</strong></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.nodepression.com/video/cracker-with-patterson-hood">alternate link</a></strong></p>
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<p>In february of 1998 Cracker was mixing our Gentleman’s Blues album. Don Smith our producer engineer had just acquired a mini estate in Agoura Hills CA. It had a smallish mansion and enough land that it cost a small fortune to water and landscape. It also had some kind of combo 6 car garage guest house at the bottom of the driveway. Don had set up a studio in the garage/guest house so he didn’t have to drive all the way to hollywood to mix his records. He got to be near his family and at the same time stay up all night mixing albums. I didn’t understand that so much then. Now I do.</p>
<p>“Costalot”</p>
<p>That was Don Smith’s playful nickname for the place.</p>
<p>Costalot was little bit of a shock for Cracker cause we were used to being right in the middle of Hollywood or Manhattan when we were mixing a record. We weren’t used to being in a gated community in the far western San Fernando Valley. We weren’t used to being in the nuevo riche suburbs with the faux mission style shopping malls, upscale restaurants and wine bars. As detailed in a previous post Johnny and I back then enjoyed our dive bars, our funky old man bars, and the general seediness of Hollywood and Downtown LA.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So one night, must have been a weeknight and late, like 1:00 am, Johnny Hickman, myself and the Austrian assistant engineer decided that we need to go find a seedy bar and get a drink. First it’s difficult to even find anything open in Agoura Hills at this hour so we head south on the 101 back into the valley. By my recollection we probably ended up in Canoga Park. We finally found a place that seemed to be a sports bar that may or may not have had a country music subtheme. Certainly some pop country was on the juke box when we walked in. And the the only other customers in the place three vaguely jock looking dudes at the bar turned and blatantly stared at us in that particular way that california rednecks stare at you.</p>
<p>To be fair:</p>
<p>1)The Austrian assistant engineer Martin Pradler was wearing tight leather pants.</p>
<p>2)I was commuting out to my cabin near pioneertown on the weekends so I was probably dressed in high desert thrift store hippy cowboy threads.</p>
<p>3)And well Johnny has always been the metrosexual of the group.</p>
<p>We ordered the usual, bourbon on the rocks and a beer. Martin may have ordered schnapps which also probably didn’t help. But the three locals went back to talking amongst themselves. So we lost ourselves in conversation discussing the various songs on the new album and relative merits of the mixes.</p>
<p>After a while i noticed that one of the locals was standing right next to me. He wasn’t the biggest of the three and he didn’t seem overtly hostile, yet somehow i knew something was up. His two friends were watching intently.</p>
<p>“Hey man” I said. I think I kind of tipped my beer towards him in a friendly gesture.</p>
<p>“Can I ask you a question?” he said as he peered around me to get a better look at martin in his leather euro-jeans.</p>
<p>“sure”</p>
<p>“Are you guys.. are you guys queer?”</p>
<p>I couldn’t believe the softball the guy had tossed my way. And before I could stop myself or consider the consequences I shot back in the most friendly manner, smiling ear to ear.</p>
<p>“No, but what did you have in mind?”</p>
<p>His two friends just about fell out of their chairs laughing. So did the bartender.</p>
<p>Johnny had initially alerted me to the guys presence when he suddenly acquired a guarded serious look and slyly palmed a glass ashtray. (you definitely want Johnny around if there’s gonna be a bar fight). Johnny now visibly relaxed and joined in laughing. The Austrian was the only one not laughing. He was convinced there was still going to be an altercation. No. When everyone laughs at you it’s over with and the guy knew it. He slunk back to his friends. His friends had completely joined our side. They kept yelling at him “yeah what DID you have in mind?”</p>
<p>I did not write the song <em>Friends</em>. Johnny Hickman did. And I’m pretty sure he was not referring to this incident specifically when he wrote these lines:</p>
<p><em>If a fight breaks out and you’re the cause of it</em></p>
<p><em>In some redneck bar where you been talking shit</em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-style:normal;">However it very well could have been about this fateful night in Canoga Park. </span></em></p>
<p>+++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong> “it vas Terrrrrrrrefying” even his hair was frightened.</strong></p>
<p>But it’s not just me that has this survival threatening smart-ass gene. Virtually everyone in the band and crew has at one time or another done something like this. On reflection there are about a million of these incidents I could describe. It’s something about being in a band, being in close quarters driving around busting each others balls constantly that keeps us in this heightened state of smart-assdom. We are all always ready to pounce on the smallest opening. There is intense competition to be the first one to the punch. That’s why it’s funny when people attempt to heckle or make smart ass comments from the audience. They have no idea how practiced we are…</p>
<p>And now that I think about it not just our band. The poor austrian Martin Pradler was also involved in a milder but similar incident with the Counting Crows. That same year I hired Martin Pradler to help with the “This Desert Life” album. Dan Vickery Counting Crows guitarist had taken to purposely referring to Martin as German. This was driving Martin Crazy.</p>
<p>“I’m not German I’m Austrian”</p>
<p>“But it was once all the same country”</p>
<p>“no”</p>
<p>“Yes in World War II”</p>
<p>“No-No” Martin was getting visibly flustered ” We were invaded just like most of the european countries”</p>
<p>At this point Adam Duritz couldn’t stand it anymore and kind of runs out of the room in feigned terror waving his hands above his head.</p>
<p>” IT VAS TERREEEFYING, ZEY RODE IN ON BICYCLES!”</p>
<p>This was not only funny in a ball busting way but made a very valid historical point. Austria was annexed by germany in 1938 when German troops-many on bicycles-rode into the country and were greeted with flowers and enthusiastic crowds. Ouch.</p>
<p>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</p>
<p>This trash talking and ball breaking is an important part of the band’s camaraderie. In fact the old adage is that when people stop making fun of you, you need to worry about getting kicked out of the band. So it is also important to acknowledge and repeat to others when you have been the victim of a particularly brilliant bit of ball busting. It means you belong.</p>
<p>For instance. I must dutifully report that Thursday morning I was in Las Cruces New Mexico with Bugs my childhood friend and former cracker guitar tech. We were driving back from breakfast with our concert promoter when she pointed out a bunch of buzzards circling in the distance. Bugs happily chimed in:</p>
<p>“Oh that’s just David’s career”.</p>
<p>Again all the crew guys and band members are quick this way. Relentless training and repetition. During the recording of Gentlemen’s Blues Bugs had gotten so good at these one liners that we started calling him Shecky Salcido after the comedian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shecky_Greene">Shecky Greene.</a></p>
<p>We were all in a thrift store in Woodstock NY when a parked car (with a dog in it) rolled down the hill and bumped into another parked car. An older gentleman came into the thrift store and asked</p>
<p>“does anyone in here own a blue toyota sedan with a dog inside”</p>
<p>Bugs quickly fired back “That’s no dog! that’s my wife!”</p>
<p>We were pleasantly surprised that when we went to Iraq the soldiers who transported us around Baghdad engaged in a very similar kind of trash talking and ball breaking. Within our MRAP convoy there were external and internal comms. The external traffic to things like helicopters or to destination bases was highly formal and proper. The internal comms were a profanity laden free association roast of virtually everyone and everything within view of the gunners and drivers. Iraqi women in traditional abayas became “Ninjas” and were treated with mock reverence as a lethal threat.<br>
“Number 2 you got 3 ninjas at your 2 o’clock. Prepare for some wild monkey style”</p>
<p>Iraqi policemen got some of the funniest treatments. This centered on the very specific style the high ranking Iraqi policemen adopted. Very large bushy moustache and 70′s style leather jacket. Like they’d been watching reruns of The Mod Squad. This was summed up best by one of the gunners in our convoy.</p>
<p>“We are training the Iraqi Army and the Paramilitaries. Apparently the Ensenada Police Department is training the City Police”</p>
<p>The ball breaking included us in the band as well. Sal with his thick NYC accent was for some reason a particularly inviting target. Sal also made the mistake of not buckling his 6 point harness properly when we were put in the MRAP rollover simulator. When they flipped us upside down Sal landed on his head with an audible thump. This prompted the operator to ask over the intercom “Is everyone good?”</p>
<p>“I’m not good” came Sals response over the intercom.</p>
<p>This was hilarious to the soldiers in our convoy. We could hear them laughing through the intercom system.<em> If i fall and hit my head it’s tragedy, if you fall and hit your head it’s comedy.</em> For the rest of our time in Baghdad every so ofthen someone would randomly and anonymously pop on the internal comms with an “I’m not good.” Complete with thick NY accent. This was later translated into latin “Salus Non Sum”, and when we made our official <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge_coin">coin</a> for the cracker tour we included Salus Non Sum as our motto.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The ball breaking did not stop when we returned to the states. St Patricks day we were playing in Myrtle Beach SC. A typical city street festival thing. We got word that 5 or 6 of the guys from the 82nd airborne that had escorted us around Baghdad would be coming to the show. I realized that they had only been back home in the states for a couple of weeks. I figured there would be some hard drinking that night so i put them in the VIP tent NOT backstage. I just wanted to play it safe. One of the soldiers was underage. Frank took him backstage where Drivin’ n Cryin’ invited him on their bus. This was not lost on the other soldiers. Eventually their highest ranking <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-commissioned_officer">NCO</a> started bugging me to get take them all backstage. Fair enough I could tell at this point they were all pretty well behaved and didn’t need to worry about them. So I led them all backstage. At this point their sergeant looks around and says to me:</p>
<p>“This is backstage? Tents? Porta-potties? Generators? Steam trays? I can get this shit in Iraq”.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><br></strong></p>
<p><strong><br></strong></p>
<p> </p>
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<p>Friends.</p>
<p>I’d <strong>[C]</strong> never sleep with <strong>[G]</strong> your ex-girl-<strong>[C]</strong>-friend<br>
Even if she starts to flirt with me <strong>[G]</strong> again<br>
Al-<strong>[F]</strong>-low me to a-<strong>[G]</strong>-pologise for my <strong>[C]</strong> slightly <strong>[Bb]</strong> wicked <strong>[F]</strong> thoughts<br>
But <strong>[C]</strong> that’s the kind of <strong>[G7]</strong> friend that you’ve <strong>[C]</strong> got</p>
<p>If a fight breaks out and you’re the cause of it<br>
In some redneck bar where you’ve been talking shit<br>
I would not forsake you later in that parking lot<br>
‘Cause that’s the kind of friend that you’ve got</p>
<p>CHORUS:<br>
Through the <strong>[F]</strong> laughter and the tears<br>
We go <strong>[C]</strong> stumbling through these years<br>
A bit disfunctional <strong>[Bb]</strong> some might <strong>[G]</strong> say<br>
But I’ve <strong>[F]</strong> got the dirt on you<br>
Hey I got <strong>[C]</strong> plenty <strong>[Bb]</strong> on you<strong>[F]</strong> too<br>
So I <strong>[C]</strong> pray we stay to-<strong>[G]</strong>-gether all our <strong>[C]</strong> days</p>
<p>When you’re on a date and you finally bring that girl home<br>
you put a little captain beefheart on the stereo and disconnect the phone<br>
I’ll show up drunk and ravin’, and then i’ll pass out on the spot<br>
‘Cause that’s the kind of friend that you’ve got</p>
<p>REPEAT CHORUS<br><strong>[Bb]</strong> <strong>[F]</strong><br>
Dear Lord I <strong>[C]</strong> pray we stay to-<strong>[G]</strong>-gether all our <strong>[F]</strong> days<br><strong>[C]</strong></p>
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Cracker
tag:www.crackersoul.com,2005:Post/74182
2010-08-31T11:13:47-04:00
2022-11-11T17:06:52-05:00
#41 Sidi Ifni -Cracker. Paul Bowles, Moroccan Space Rock and Old English Queens.
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/la_suerte_loca.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/la_suerte_loca.jpg?w=450&h=257" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="257" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Hotel Suerte Loca in Sidi Ifni</strong></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/08-sidi-ifni.mp3">08 Sidi Ifni</a></strong></p>
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<p>So the last i left off the band had broken up in Sweden and we had made our way back to the UK to fly home.</p>
<p>I however had always planned to stay behind in England. My girlfriend Mary (later my first wife) had planned to meet up with me in the UK and then we were gonna spend a little time time traveling around europe. But i had two weeks to kill till she got there. the first thing i did was go and visit my cousin John in london. We methodically explored quite a number of pubs in the the grimy yet colorful area of south london where he lived. John worked nights and i learned to ride the night buses around london. A helpful skill i relied upon many times since. I’ve never understood why one of the biggest cities in the world has a subway system that doesn’t run all night. Also the London tube map has a way of distorting your perception of the spatial relationship between different neighborhoods and boroughs of London. You get a much better sense from the buses. But i digress.</p>
<p>I then headed down to the Isle of Thanet. This is the very tip of land where the south eastern thames estuary meets the english channel. This is where my mother’s people live. At least for the last few generations. I have a large batch of cousins, uncles and aunts in this area. in particular my grandfather lived in a little seaside town of Westgate-On-Sea. We then explored the various pubs of this part of the UK.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/sidi-ifni-on-map.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/sidi-ifni-on-map.jpg?w=450&h=402" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="402" width="450" /></a></p>
<p>By the time mary arrived in London i was ready to get out to of the UK. I had settled on a pretty wacky idea. A trip to Morocco. I was unwittingly taking part in a long rock tradition of visiting this cultural crossroads. Mary didn’t seem totally thrilled by the idea of visiting a predominantly muslim country, only because she had in mind more of a laying on the beach vacation, not a covering up her head, arms and legs vacation. On top of that she had spent time in Mogadishu not cause she was in the 10th mountain division but because her mother and stepfather were very ambiguously associated with the state department, always ending up in interesting places like the Mogadishu, Peshawar and Manilla. Read into that what you will.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/david-morocco-2.jpeg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/david-morocco-2.jpeg?w=450&h=325" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="325" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>On the balcony at Hotel Suerte Loca</strong></p>
<p>But go we did. Ending up in the very unique city of <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidi_Ifni">Sidi Ifni</a></em>. (To arbabic speakers: I’m aware it’s redundant to say City when Sidi is already in the name. But we notoriously monolingual americans won’t be able to find it on a map if i just say Ifni.) We went to Sidi Ifni largely because of the strange description the Lonely Planet guide to morocco. Since revised, it used to say something that began this way:</p>
<p><em>“If Lethargy and Decay can be described as charming…</em></p>
<p>Hence this line in Sidi Ifni.</p>
<p><em>we drank wine, slept off hangovers</em></p>
<p><em>lethargy decay and forgotten loves</em></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/ship-building-porthole-windows.jpeg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/ship-building-porthole-windows.jpeg?w=450&h=325" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="325" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>“Through the porthole see an epiphany I will never leave this place alive”</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong><strong>Inspiration for that line was this apartment building designed to resemble a Ship. Sidi Ifni Morocco. </strong></p>
<p>The second reason we went to Sidi Ifni was because of it’s hybrid culture and lack of pestering “guides”. Sidi Ifni was part of Spain from 1860 to 1969. It is a strange updated remix of Spanish and Moorish. Remember Spain already contains a healthy dose of Moorish culture. The architecture of the town is this spanish/arbabic/ art decco mix. It is striking. Also when we were there, the legal status of many of the mansions in the spanish quarter left them abandoned and boarded up. That whole quarter which near the hotel suerte loca was largely vacant. There was also a Spanish Consolate, in this quarter. It was unlocked the two times we went to visit it, but no one was there. Totally eery. Another interesting feature was the grand promenade and staircase that ran down to the beach. Although the city made an effort to maintain it, it seemed to be always on the verge of crumbling and being overgrown by shrubs and vines. Finally as the spanish had land routes in and out of the city, the center of the city was a runway. At the time Mary and I were there the locals used it as a giant pedestrian thruway. Whether it was unusable or simply used so rarely it seemed abandoned was never clear. The whole town had the feel of Macondo the fictional town in 100 years of Solitude. Indeed the french couple that was staying at Hotel Suerte Loca brought it up conversation</p>
<p>“Is Gabriel Garcia Marquez translated into English?”</p>
<p>“You mean this city reminds you of Macondo?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><br></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/steps-sidi-ifni.jpg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/steps-sidi-ifni.jpg?w=450&h=337" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="337" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>“Vines and Shrubs grew between the steps from the Spanish town to the African sea” </strong></p>
<p>Another character at the Hotel Suerte Loca was an gay englishman of indeterminate age . Everyday he’d sit out on the balcony at 5pm to listen to the BBC worldwide service. We’d often join him with a bottle of the local sulfite heavy headache inducing wine. He had been in Morocco for some time. He had been a composer of some kind. This strangely mimicked the writer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bowles">Paul Bowles</a> history. He makes appearances in both Dr Bernice and Sidi Ifni.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/12-dr-bernice.mp3">12 Dr. Bernice</a></p>
<p><em>Dr Bernice:</em></p>
<p><em>“The Soundtrack is played by some aged british queen on BBC radio one”</em></p>
<p><em>Sidi Ifni:</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<div id="_mcePaste">“We’d awake to the BBC</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">An old English queen, on the balcony”</div>
<p>There was an air of sadness to this man. Or perhaps i projected my sadness from the demise of CVB onto him. Alone at the very edge of civilization. And this time i really mean the edge of civilization. This isolated coastal enclave hemmed in by the trailing edge of the Atlas mountains. Only accessible by dirt road through the mountains via Tiznit or Guelmin. The climate along the coast was like San Diego or Ensenada, but just south of us the Atlantic Ocean meets the sand of the Sahara. It was as if we were at the end of long skinny peninsula between two seas. Or with some poetic license between the Sea and the moon.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/david-cig-morocco.jpeg"><img src="//davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/david-cig-morocco-e1283285348867.jpeg?w=450&h=621" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="621" width="450" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Between the sea and the moon. Doing my best sheltering sky pose.</strong></p>
<p>Finally the Hotel Suerte Loca. This lovely and friendly place was our home. The family that ran it had two adult sons who took an interest in the fact i was a musician. They took me out and introduced me to other musicians. They also had considerable knowledge of the western rock music and introduced me to many Moroccan and Magreb (western arab world) artists. Most of these artists played traditional or arabic and berber pop music, but a couple of the cassettes i brought home were moroccan “space rock” bands. Indeed many young moroccans would proudly tell you the influence that their music had on various icons of 60′s and 70′s rock music. The music to the song Sidi Ifni also references the sound of these moroccan space rock band. This was a conscious choice to do this rather than reference the traditional music of Morocco.</p>
<p>The phrase “Suerte Loca” means wild luck. Or crazy luck. I loved that this hotel was named this. So i also dropped this phrase into the song The Good Life.</p>
<p><a href="http://davidclowery.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/01-the-good-life.mp3">01 The Good Life</a></p>
<p> </p>
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<p><strong>Sidi Ifni</strong></p>
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<strong><br>
[INTRO:]</strong><br><strong>[Em]</strong> <strong>[Bm]</strong> <strong>[A]</strong> <strong>[Em]</strong><br><strong>[Em]</strong> <strong>[Bm]</strong> <strong>[A]</strong> <strong>[Em]</strong><br><strong>[D]</strong> <strong>[C]</strong> <strong>[Em]</strong><br><strong>[D]</strong> <strong>[C]</strong> <strong>[Em]</strong>We walked <strong>[Em]</strong> down a long prome-<strong>[Bm]</strong>-nade<br>
Down a winding <strong>[A]</strong> stair, wide as boule-<strong>[Em]</strong>-vards<br>
Vines and shrubs grew between the <strong>[Bm]</strong> steps<br>
From the Spanish <strong>[A]</strong> town to the African <strong>[Em]</strong> sea
<p>We drank <strong>[D]</strong> wine and toasted to the <strong>[C]</strong> day<br>
When she was the <strong>[Em]</strong> Queen, before the long decay<br>
We drank <strong>[D]</strong> wine, slept off hango-<strong>[C]</strong>-vers,<br>
Lethargy, de-<strong>[Em]</strong>-cay, and forgotten loves</p>
<p><strong>[BREAK:]</strong><br><strong>[Em]</strong></p>
<p>We’d awake to the BBC<br>
An old English queen, on the balcony<br>
Wander round abandoned consulates<br>
An old broken chair on the marble stair</p>
<p>And from the roof see Canary seas<br>
The discarded runway of Sidi Ifni<br>
We drank wine lying on our backs<br>
On the warm tarmac, in a bowl of stars</p>
<p>Well I went down, mostly on my own<br>
‘Til I was alone in that shipwrecked house<br>
Through the porthole sea, an epiphany<br>
I would never leave this place alive</p>
<p>I drink gin with the old ex-pats<br>
We are broken things from a broken past<br>
And it comes near, but just out of grasp<br>
The alchemist words that would bring her back</p>
<p><strong>[ENDING:]</strong><br><strong>[Em]</strong></p>
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