Info

SocietyFringePodcast's podcast

Through this podcast SFP is creating an extended universe through the use of guitar based pop songs. The tale is both episodic and serial. As of the COVID lock down the SFPeeniverse consisted of 7 Broadway style musicals. This is ambitious stuff. The conceit is that an '84 Chevy El Camino acts as a TARDIS catalyst connecting the characters to unlimited story telling opportunities.
RSS Feed Subscribe in Apple Podcasts
SocietyFringePodcast's podcast
2022
January


2021
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2020
December
November
August
July
June
May
April
March
February


2019
December
November
October
September
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2018
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2017
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2016
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April


Categories

All Episodes
Archives
Categories
Now displaying: 2019
Dec 30, 2019

What a shame
Dirty shame
All the same
Dirty shame yeah
It's a goddamn fucking dirty shame
Lordy me
Glory be
Mercy me
Glory be yeah
It's a goddamn fucking dirty shame
JOE!
Holy shit
It's a goddamn fucking dirty shame
Oh looky here

Dec 23, 2019

No man can catch her eyes
She don't think much of guys
With their macho bullshit talking trash
To her it just ain't funny, man
She's made her way to Beta 9
She heard New Earth's a damn good time
She's seen it
Yet she's coming back again
-----
Them love machines are fine for some
When you're all filled up with Martian rum
With their whizzing gears sometimes
Why they seem just like a person
But they don't talk and they don't laugh
Unless the program tells them to
It really ain't spontaneous
But most the folk just don't care
-----
No man can catch her eye
Nor r-600s with custum thighs
But loves where you can get it
Take that plunge and don't regret it
Her eye is roving still
Forever, man, it will
Every day's an oppurtunity
That's all she wants to see
She leaves New Earth alone
Might as well go back home
At least her home is home
Home is home

Dec 18, 2019

05  "Everyone Slumbers"

10  Oh here's the main riff.

15  ...Ol' Lutzy dancing out in the crowd.

20  I am about to press the play button.

25  Here's my solo.

30  There's always the thunderstorm at SoWeBo.

35  I get profoundly depressed.

Dec 16, 2019

I want an open road I want to drive away
But nobody got a second chance
Giving up too fast I want to play my hand
But nobody got a second chance
I Will crawl to you
I will die for you
But I warn you
I cry too
I want an open road where the wind it sings out loud
A tune that's meant to drown another's pain
I need an open road I got to fly away
'Cause the pressure's enough to drive a man insane
What'd you say to me
Oh why can't I see
What's so goddamn wrong with me
Oh why can't I see
Break it down
I want an open heart so I can say just what I feel
But it's hard to start when you got to sonic boom
I want an open book I got to write my story true
So the end won't eber no never come too soon

Dec 11, 2019

05  I totally doubted him so hard.

10  We go in the backstage of the Shamu area.

15  I don't have a bunch of old cars sitting around.

20  I only eat meat that I kill myself.

25  Make someone look like total shit and not tell them.

30  The bands really do kind of suck.

35  That was fire, man.

40  Use your blinkers. Be courteous. 

45  Don't live in the desert.

50  I seen one space movie my whole life.

Dec 9, 2019

My lifelong quest is to be a badass
But it's made a mess of my whole damn life
Oh to be to be a badass
Or to be a chump
That is lifeI've been around
I've seen the worst
That folk can do
And do to you
Such a shame
Here in this rat's nest
That is this life
That is this life
It's time to go
To get to gettin'
It's a bit more fun
When you just don't care
Everything conspires with nothing
All the time everywhere
I can’t recall the sound of laughter
If when it’s free for all to hear
I can’t recall I just can’t remember
So I have to ask you
What’s it like to fear
And when it’s done and when it’s over
Then I will laugh and I will cry
Because then I won’t have to wonder
Or ask the question
What’s it like to die?
My lifelong quest is to be a badass
But It’s made a mess of my goddamned life
Oh to be to be a badass
Or to be a chump
That is life
Don’t be a chump
Take my advice.

Dec 4, 2019

I messed up the publish date of this the first time arund. The good news is that it's even better now!

Dave of Society Fringe Productions and Dennis of Sun Rider 9 Productions

05  Might be for the number one seed.

10  It'll look pretty damn good.

15  Went fishin' down by the bay bridge.

20  Somebody said they did see them on there.

25  At some point Warner took over.

30  What's the dog's name?

35  That turtle's trying to sit on that fucking fish!

40  Baltimore Colts Fight Song

45  The hardest part is organizing for the sound people.

50  The Catonsville version for Chopped.

Dec 2, 2019

I'm thinking of a thing from long ago
I don't know what it is
And I'm looking at my life just like it's something
That I can not give
I don't give a shit
For anything at all
Oh no
Oh no
I made a record before I could even buy a beer
By the time I was 22 I'd played more shows than I could hear
Sang in smoke filled rooms
And drank for free all night
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
I seen 'em come and go I seen 'em rise and fall
I've made a billion fliers and made a million calls
I went from the mailing list to emails to evites
But it ain't no different if you're signing through the night
Alright
I been around this whole damn world
It's bigger than the sky is wide
But one thing everywhere is when everything seems just right
Play the night away
And sing everyday
Every day
I'm thinking of a thing from long ago
I don't know what it is
And I'm looking at my life just like it's something
That I can not give
I don't give a shit
For anything at all
I'm just day to day

Nov 27, 2019

D&D

05  Ding dong ding dong.

10  Doesn't Joe Gallagher have a Santa Claus suit?

15  Maloney's is right at the bottom of the hill.

20  That's possible to do.

25  Making more enemies than friends.

30  It's a 2016 film.

35  But Disney Plus is coming out.

40  It's just never been on the podcast.

45  I'm going to need help booking bands.

50  I got to go back and listen to them.

 

Nov 25, 2019

I drove my truck right on down to the water
Right up to the Chesapeake Bay
Stared out at my destiny fading
Spun out on that slick Maryland clay
Everyone spends their time a-yelling
Listening a thing of the past
Harass me with verbal gymnastics
And stupider opinions than that
So hold on for me
I'm driving and driving and driving again
Hold on for me
I'm driving and driving and driving again
What are the terms of a failure
Then again who really cares
Strip every word of its meaning
Stretch out and bathe in the glare
So hold on for me
I'm driving and driving and driving again
Hold on for me
I'm driving and driving and driving again

Nov 18, 2019

I woke up at noon

With my alarm clock

Packed my bags

Searching for some truth

I ain't found nothing

What a drag

Headed south to find Graceland's healing kind

In redneck heaven the Stars and Bars fly high on a

Hazy day in June

I feel romantic

Like Jesse James

I shot some good ol' boy

'Cause he was fucking with me

Didn't ask his name

Headed south to find Graceland's healing kind

In redneck heaven the Stars and Bars glimmer like fire

Flying Texas bound

Love that Dixie ground

I'm a punk rock outlaw

Glory bound

I was killed last night

Flashed low rider lights

By an "esse" Mexican

Over reefer bales

At twelve oh two

chorus

 

Nov 13, 2019

Check it out, y'all. Go research Graham Hancock and "lost civilization." Kaboom!

Nov 11, 2019

Instrumental with spoken words coming from one of Brian's whacked out books.

Nov 6, 2019

Stoner martial artists.

Oct 30, 2019

Taking a change up here, or curve ball, or any appropriate baseball metaphor.

Oct 28, 2019

Dave - guitars and vocals

Brian - bass, engineering, mixing

Andy - drums and percussion

Written by Brian Lutz

Oct 23, 2019

Bird Essay 10 October 2019\


I wrote a verse in this specifically for Brian. He shares way more on our podcast than I'm comfortable with so I'll share this about my buddy and coproducer Brian Lutz. He's been going through a country song of a stretch in his life. These words are specifically for him: "Inside your crumbled world know you're not alone / Outside the insular lonely people roam / dreamers and malcontents and rebels scared to win."


Nothing ever works out according to plan. That's what ol' Lennon was saying in "Beautiful Boy:" "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."


Initially this song grew out of a piano jam we did in Forgotten Sons in the 80s. C major. That's a dead give away. It was always in the Big Opera and then when we set about digitizing that motherfucker it wasn't. I tend to fall into the dark side of my personality and sometimes write overtly positive songs. Maybe as a self pep talk? Maybe I'm trying to talk my way into a good mood. Ugh. I don't know. I'm in the cavernous abyss right now that's for sure.


THIS version of this song, you see, uh. Who cares. Whatever, right? Fuck. I had a lot of fun tossing around the word "ennui." I like how it sounds. I like that it's French. The Gauls and the Goths were epic awesomeness, am I right? Yo check out my keyboard wizardry on this'n. The Hammond B3 at the end, I couldn't do the right and left hand parts at the same time! Hah!


I really really like C-major. It's jaunty. It's the opposite of Nigel Tufnel's the saddest of all keys. Here's some examples of the vibe of C major. "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "The Ballad Of Curtis Lowe." You know what else is in C-major? "Imagine." "The Card Cheat" off of LONDON CALLING is C major. Shit, yo. I'm spinning muh goddamn wheels! Tell you what, friends, the gears are most definitely engaged. C and F. Love them. LOVE EM!


I have existential angst at the moment. I have it to the point where I feel as if I don't deserve it. As if I haven't EARNED mine own angst! I'll tell you what, folks. I had the opportunity to work with a bunch of men and women from the post Gen X generations. Here's the reality, fellow middle age dorks and dorkettes. We fucked everything up good for today's young-ins. We've poisoned the land. We've destroyed the ecosystem. We've modified the earth so that we are no longer a part of it. I say it constantly, right? Team Thanos every day and twice on Sunday.


Our party was way more intense than that of the Baby Boomers. They were naive little sissy-pants jag-offs. We knew full well that the heart that beats in the center of the party is dark. It has consequences (*PLUG* check out the song "Consequence" from TRAVELOGUE IV!). We were fucking and getting fucked up in college. Today's youths are assuming mountains of debt. A good trend I've seen is that the next ones ain't to keen on breeding. I love that. There are far too many human beings on Earth.


I'll tell you why there's the greatest wealth disparity in the US since the 1920s. It all started with my homeboy Ronald Reagan saying "more government can't solve the problem. Government IS the problem." He was right. Governmental bureaucracy was bloated and self sustaining. It was an AI. Scaling back was the right thing to do. But now we need another course correction. The 1950s was a pretty good era economically. We ruled the world through normal traditional war ways and through culture. This was when it crystalized for me. It was the stimulus package passed by our gubmint in 2017. All the tax cuts for rich folk and for mega businesses are forever whereas the ones for working stiffs are temporary. It pains me to say this but the Democrats are the more fiscally responsible party. How the fuck did that happen? They try to at least pay for a portion of what their abdicating. Not the Republicans. Dammit. I was 100% down with the GOP's obsession with fiscal responsibility during 44's presidency. And then they passed that stupid fucking tax cut and exploded the deficit. There's ANOTHER way we're fucking the next generations. There you go, guys. Have fun cleaning up our shitstorm!


We fucking suck.

Oct 21, 2019

For fear of everything the ancient pilgrim moaned

Alive forever brings whatever else was loaned

There is a specialty that no one does dare speak

Here in the aftermath of creaking banshee shrieks

Inside your crumbled world know you're not alone 

Outside the insular lonely people roam

Dreamers and malcontents and rebels scared to win

If even everywhere there's that humming din

Like a bird with everything insaide

Plummets shivering shores collide

If it ain't true than we're forever blue

If it is I must oblige

I feel so bad you see 'cause I can't get wat I want

With the assumption that our languages just taunt

Here on peripheral like lightening in the sea

And forged in question marks a language I can't speak

Hell, man, it's everywhere a humming tired ennui

Of shit that's happenstance we're chosen randomly

Directions all a joke salvation is a lie

Flyin' like a bird, you see, says "say hey bye bye."

Like a bird that soars across the sky

Keep on flying 'til we die

A new born curse

A worn out universe

Love and life fall from my eyes yeah

Oct 16, 2019

Embryonic Tonic Essay 10 October 2019


We all know about the opioid epidemic in the US. Everybody knows somebody. It's at the point now where the children of friends are dying. The Sackler family should be in prison. Rich people never pay for their crimes. Everything is set up so that the rich and powerful stay that way. The only difference between now and how it's always been is the perceivable air of transparency afforded to the free world at this particular point in time. That's why the USA is so goddamn radical. The ruled having a say in how they are ruled is a break from the tradition of subjugation.


The willingness of the masses to believe anything they're told if they are told often enough boggles my mind. Even though incremental progress is made in terms of compassion winning out over greed, the greedy know how to manipulate enough people so that they stay in power. This nation is a Petri dish for the idea of an idea as government. We all know this. The extent to which people are ingrained in their corner infuriates me. Intolerance is stronger than ever. Intolerance is a uniquely personal sin at the same time as being a form of governance. Look, man, along the way I bothered to find out how the government in America works. I also have tried to have at least a basic understanding of how the governments of other nations operate. It drives me fucking crazy that a basic knowledge of civics isn't required in order to vote. Yeah, I know, that's the hole point of the American idea.


A way around having the same say in how your life is administered as somebody who is willfully ignorant is by lying to dummies. Sociopathologically everyone knows this. We live in times now in which Lincoln's plea to rely on "the better angels of our nature" is being obliterated by bad faith actors. I have a feeling in my gut that freedom is wasted on Americans. In a way we deserve what we get. The only catch is that I'm an American and I want more. You know what I want? Consistency. That's it. All I want is consistency. Wait, that ain't true. I crave honesty. I loath belligerence.


The standing of the United States in the world mirrors that of our individual citizens. We as a nation are isolated. We as individual people are isolated. People thought I was joking when I sang "Peace and Love, Motherfuckers" but I was most certainly not. This song is about addiction. If there's an over riding addiction nowadays it's an addiction to outrage. Basically you must explain to me why you are right. A more intellectually honest approach is for me to figure out why I'm wrong about you. Accepting blame is anathema. God fucking dammit. I get in these moods, you see. The clouds gather and the walls become a ceiling. Spelunking feels like relief from the claustrophobia. And here we are. I haven't been scooting around my beloved trails for far too long. I am adrift.


I don't want to explain this song. I want you to love it. I want one other person to see THE NEVERENDING OPERA. I mean "see" in a metaphysical way. Really, though, I'm proud of this song. The flute you hear is a little gimmick toy I got in the Philippines - or maybe somewhere else. I don't rightly recall. Brian is proud of this one. He did a fantastic job mixing. I like how Ochster switches up double time and half time and what not. It lends depth to the proceedings, like cinematic smoke billowing through a miniature set to create epic awesomeness. Epic awesomeness. Is that too much to crave?

Oct 14, 2019

Embrionic sludge suck it down tonight

Down the delusion make you feel alright

Just don't wanna know just don't want to see

Just don't want to care just don't want to be

Listen, man, I dig everything is wrong

Such a stupid thought put it in a song

It's a pennt ante world that don't amount to shit

Ain't got the guts to die so numb yourself to it

Here's to you again

Pain will never end

Time to say "goodbye and hello nanobytes"

Let them pull the load you have earned that right

With everything you done and everything you know

Give yourself to it you deserve it tho

You won't come back again

Won't feel anything

Let that tonic breath let it fill your soul

Let it make that real let it gain control

Here's to nowhere friends

Never ever ends

 

Oct 9, 2019

Tin Foil Girl Essay 23 September 2019


This song was originally written in the mid 80s, or the origins of it at least. I vaguely remember the Replacements LET IT BE changing my life. One thing I shared with my Minneapolis heroes was alcoholism. The line from the original writing that sticks out to me 35 years later is "drink up to the times/drink up to yourself/live your life that's what you gotta do/but how can you live with nothing to give/I'll be unknown before I'm through." I'll leave that there.


I came up with the character of Tin Foil Girl in my basement at some point. A writer writes, right? I finished up the lyrics a few years back in anticipation of recording it with Brian and Andy. My entire life I always wondered what it would be like if someone ran for president of the USA who didn't give a shit about anything. I imagined a soulless creature who said and did anything because this individual didn't actually care about the nation and the inherent promise of a Republic built on ideals. Well fuck me if that didn't happen before mine very eyes. It's what "Tin Foul Girl" does in the song. Having it actually happen was as jarring an incident as 9/11. If anything this guy's hatred of compassion has made the GOP into a bunch of sychophantic pussies. I have to hand it to Trump for remaking one of the two (TWO) American political parties into his own image. It functions as Nixon's southern strategy blooming in full. Guys like Lindsey Graham and Mitt Romney are caught up in an inversion of Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rains Gonna Fall" namely the line "you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone."


Shit. I guess this is now a political essay. I remember Robert Mueller's hearing. He had a look on his face that said "for fuck sake, Democrats, it's all here spelled out for you - high crimes and misdemeanors - do your fucking job." This Trump guy's a destructive whirlwind. The political stuff can be reversed. This is why I hate this motherfucker. He provides cover for bigotry plain and simple. This nation's bonkers. Presidentialy the pendulum swings wildly. The Obama Reaction was going to happen.


Look. I'm a sociopath. I generally don't care about the human race. Our biggest accomplishment has been to poison the earth. Yay. I do, however, believe that, even though collectively we may deserve annihilation, individually we deserve dignity. The world is a grim place. 99.9% of human existence has been overt suffering and death. It's how nature works. It's benign. I understand why people fearfully flock to religion. It's a comforting message to know that one day your suffering will end. That's also one of my main beefs with monotheism. Everything's about "suffering" with these motherfuckers. There's so much we need to figure out. Having to deal with a majority of a genus and species that believes in Santa Claus is counterproductive. This is how Trump got elected. Facts mean nothing. Truth is now a construct, apparently. Porky the drummer can't understand Trump supporters because they have an endless appetite for eating shit, getting ripped off, and dying young. It's exactly the same with monotheism. It brings individual existential comfort and is devoid of reason and an affront to reality. That's why hysterical liberals and never trumpers call it a cult, because it is.


Blind acceptance is mostly how civilization has functioned since settled societies emerged. This country was the first that attempted to be NOT built on blind acceptance. There was always a chance that a demagogue would ascend and feed into the worst impulses of the populace. Trump is the anti-Lincoln. Whereas Lincoln pled for a reliance on "the better angels of our nature" this motherfucker is burning it down and lining his pockets in the process. Actually, I'm into a lot of what he does. I like how he blatantly tells the working man that he's going to take their money, healthcare, and clean air. It's brilliant. When his supporters say "he doesn't lie" they're referring to how he's honest about how he doesn't like people of color. He's honest about the crimes he commits to line his pockets. He's honest about the things that american voters have long suspected of politicians in general. They are relieved that FINALLY a politician has told them that he only cares about their vote. He hates the same people and that's good enough.


It's breathtaking, isn't it? The most startling thing is that people act surprised that an amoral charlatan won the election. He never pretended to be anything else.

Oct 7, 2019

She hates her clothes and so she walks around with nothing on

She's all butt naked at the mall she gets arrested, son

Spends the night in jail

Only thing she wears

Is just the ti foil on her head

The shrink think's she's crazy so he tries to fill her head with drugs

He don't believe the foil transmissions from her kitchen rug

Wall to wall by the sink

Don't make no sense

Just another reason she's insane

She tells the shrink exactly just what he does want to hear

Her plans have gotten bigger and she sees her time is near

Hit's a temporal note

A subsonic wave

And now the doctors are her slaves

Tin Foil Girl she knows exactly how to make some money fast

Makes the doctors clone a formula that makes the highs just last

Sells it to the numb' Cause they hate their lives

Just enough to start her own damn bank

When she multiplies the algorythm it's now on its own

Keeps on making shit be new it knows the sequence of the clone

Tin Foil gets her cut

Parties like it's life

And then becomes the president

She gives a speech up on the mall in downtown Washington

Just tin foil on her head and nothing else got no clothes on

Cut's her promo well

Hits the buller points

The pundits duly play their parts

Because she's turned us into marks

And only did it for a lark

We need a second Noah's Ark

 

Oct 2, 2019

Titular (SGnB) Essay 23 September 2019


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

Sep 30, 2019

Yeah

Well if it's true

Then she'll force it out of her mind

Congratulations

Fucking up for the umpteenth time

They say it's wrong

Spaceships guns and boobies ain't got no home

But it's a song

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

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

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

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

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

Well had she known

She never would have entered but then she did anyway

Infatuation

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

But then that's us

Just a bunch of followers just glad to be alive

It's in the rulebook

Right after the chapter that says how to shuck and jive

Gimme a one shot dagger

Destined to blow my mind

No in between

Either the top or the bottom line

Singing on down the line

Spaceships

Guns

And boobies

Sep 25, 2019

She Fought For What Essay 14 September 2019


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


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


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

1 2 3 4 Next »