A Dreamy Recap of My Piano's "Last Stand"

I wanted to make a bad ass music video for my song "The Vulture." In order to match the song's theme of death, I planned on burning my big old piano for the main visual of the video. I was ready to say goodbye to this instrument even though I had spent the better part of my childhood sitting in front of those keys learning to make the sounds I wanted to hear. However, as all the pieces started to come together and the burn seemed imminent, the piano fought back and it's last stand turned out to be anything but a finale.

I could bore you with the details, but I think you better just watch this dreamy video that I put together of the piano's transformation and you can just wish you had been there to witness the magic. To all those that were there, from "Ruth who played here", to Jon who pulled off the unthinkable at the end of the event, and all the musicians and Pig Folkers in between, your energy has been soaked into the piano and I'm happy to have shared my most treasured possession with all of you.

The Vulture: Writing about Songwriting

I was recently asked about how I write songs. I want to answer the question because I think that the story of the songs might help me and therefore might help others.

"The Vulture" started out because I wanted to write a song like I had heard my idols sing. The rockstars I idolized were bad boys who abused themselves with hard lifestyles. Jim Morrison being the key figure.  Robert Plant a close second. These guys have a few songs with lyrics that ask the listener to go somewhere, to leave and to leave with them as the leaders. Nora Jones also sang a song called "Come away with me." Where am I going, I wondered.  If I'm going with someone I idolize,  Do I need to know?

To get inspired I thought about the last conversation a man might have while dying alone.  If a man was alone when he died who would his last conversation be with? I imagined it would be with a vulture who was about to eat him!

What would they talk about? The vulture would try to convince him to just give in so it would be easier to gnaw on his organs. The man would try to bargain with the bird to get one last dying wish.

Nora Jones's song "Come away with me" was a good starting point, but I wanted a darker sound so I used a different Nora song as my starting point for the music. I was also inspired by Jethro Tull's "Locomotive Breath" for the lyric about the steam of a locomotive.

The song evolved on the piano but became a different monster on the keyboard because I could not control the dynamics as fluidly as I could on the piano.  The ending had to have a much different feel than the beginning but I had to get inventive on the keyboard to make that happen. I went back to the original genesis of the chords in Malfunktion on my Triangular Conception album Concrete Windows in order to understand how to get insane on the keyboard.

That lead to this current version which is not flawless, but my getting close to where I would like it to be! I hope you like it. Feedback appreciated as you see it is an evolving beast. 

ATTN: Deficit Declaration

Ascertain the devices of literary magic.

Access the demise of modernity.

The deception of advice is sometimes sickening

because of the prize of prosperity.

A certain set of spices, quite scientific,

always quiets a mind's sensitivity to

the reception of prices. Autonomy is

always free. The crisis of society

is assholes in high rises who spout slick

absolutes. The lie is spared on me.

My inception spliced it's way through thickening

brainwaves and I defied cries of piety.

Atrocities will diminish. Remain hip,

as true experience will distinguish yourself from mediocrity.

Deliver your astonishment with wit.

Devilish grins astound the majority.

Admonish the demons of the crypt.

Astral wonder directs stray ships toward glory.

Decry the anal shit.

Deny the deity.

All will die when 

it arrives daily.

Some will see death isn't it.

Death isn't ugly.

Arrive in doldrums and spit

awful dreams we can't see.

Design the angels.

Don't allow me

to advocate for dumb people who sit

and wait. Advise the wise to build cities

where downtrodden advance

down on the avenue.

Able-bodied and driven souls wilt.

Abandoned and derelict people plead insanity.

Deliver not anguish.

Divide up divinity.

I Felt the Field

When I hear the herd,

the obscene scene scream,

the line blurs between

dead end and dream.

Is the next plane plain,

a different planet or more

of the same. Will colors form

through rain when light

breaks apart. In vain,

I wonder. As I plunder

each dimension,

do I understand anything new,

or do I just stand under

nothing with you.

And if the latter is true,

can I climb those see-through rungs

and ascend to something blue.

Without succumbing to

the dreaded few.

They that become more and more

Without regard for the ocean floor.

Where we've been before.

I'm pretty sure it's a pretty shore.

I'm pretty sure, we'll miss time galore

but fuck it.

Regret is what life is for

because getting over it

makes you feel better than before.

In Between Feedings

Dad keeps the fluorescent light inside the fish-tank turned on all night. It's his nightlight so that his path from the bedroom to the bathroom and the fridge is never dark. His furniture never moves into his way, but I may have left a pair of shoes in the wrong spot or moved a chair on which he could stub his toe closer to the television. The fish-tank nightlight keeps the path illuminated. There was a stretch of at least a year where the only life in the glowing box was a thick layer of algae. Even then he clicked on his nightlight every day just before the sun went down.

Now we have four fish. They are all the same kind of fish and three of them are mirror images of each other. Their brilliant red scales only vary in slight shades and I'm sure this tells them the difference between the strongest male and the weakest. The weakest is easy to identify. The fourth fish is a pale version of the others. In the wild, he'd be dead, but in our manufactured world, he lives disobedient.

Since Dad's currently out of town, I could turn the light off and let them know the night. Let them live like their wild ancestors, at the liberty of the sunshine from the window, the same light we humans once followed. Most days I still wake with the sun and sleep with the moon, just like a farmer. Other days I leave the light bulb burning all night, like the day never really ended. I can extend a day up to four nights sometimes, like maybe I'm aging at a different rate. If so, how far can I extend one life before the sun burns out and forces me to sleep. I'll leave the fish tank light on tonight.

The fish who know only light must have trouble marking the start and end of days, like living at the poles of the Earth when the sun only circles overhead instead of dipping below the horizon. The one predictable event of everyday are the feedings that happen when Dad arrives home from work. This is a fairly consistent marker of the time passing. The feedings come at about twenty-four hour intervals, nearly the same time everyday. To the fish, the feedings come when the lid creaks open.

Now that Dad's on vacation and I'm home to take care of them, meal time has changed. It's not that I'm trying to corrupt with these little creatures' predictable lives; it's just that I've never adjusted well to predictable behavior. When I'm the one who feeds them and I forget to do the job at the proper hour, time must feel like it stretches out for an eternity to make room for more thought in between feedings. They await the creak of the lid at its normal time, but without reference, the normal time just never seems to arrive. Without reference they don't think I've forgotten; they think their benevolent master will be here soon. He will feed their starving bodies. He always does. They just need to keep the faith. When I finally drop in a pinch of food, they zoom around snagging up flakes into their little slit mouths. I know there is a hierarchy among them because they chase each other around when it seems one is getting too much.

The pale fish doesn't eat like the others. He just waits. Most times he doesn't eat. I theorize that maybe as the little flakes dissolve he just drinks them with the water. I imagine this as some sort of civil disobedience to avoid the fight for instant satisfaction and reject the hierarchy. It could be he's just not hungry. Maybe he just doesn't want the day to end every time the lid opens and he exercises free-will to keep time feeling slow.

There's always the chance that I'm oversimplifying the way in which they see the world and they aren't as oblivious as I make them out to be. Maybe they have some sort of internal understanding of time that I don't get. Or maybe they know that when Dad's home he stomps as he walks and shakes their world leaving ripples on the surface. So, more ripples means more consistent lengths of time in between feedings. These are the predictable times for them.

They don't know I'm his son, but they might notice that the boy who walks lightly changes the characteristics of time. Can they be aware of that information and still experience the joy of anticipation? I'd like to think so, that I'm not subjecting them to some kind of starvation torture, that the pale fish isn't just slowly dying from some sort of disorder. For me, it is a balance of not thinking too much about it and being aware of it.

When We Left Yesterday

We fell off the map's edge
when we left yesterday.
Reestablished home on our vessel.
Called it round, but people still find the sea
infinitely deep. Become the world that keeps
making copies of copies of copies like the City,
the world inside a world inside a world. There exist
infinitely more compact versions of the world in this world.
In this world, the new-old country will be
a strange world over worlds inside worlds.
Confusion will be chaos that the kids get.
For a tidal wave is an absurd enemy.
A Book of Truths, The Divine Comedy.
If a faulty exit is a looping Hell,
the instance before the fall
must be Creation itself.

Just a Moment

You've done nothing wrong
If you've done nothing right
Thus far. Men and women
Survive moments of pride;
Ecstasy endures. Know that
Since you've been here,
I matter.