dressing to undress

more of an afterthought than a stopgap thing, this is the beginning of what BRAND NEW SHINY LIE was initially supposed to become. while the sound quality isn’t quite as pristine as i would have liked it to be, i think the songs make up for it. this is one of my more consistent twenty-minute bursts, give or take fifteen seconds, though i don’t care much for we are the happy rabbits anymore. i think some of my better drumming is here, imperfect as it is, particularly on lugubrious, baby and the jazzy bit at the end of we are the happy rabbits. i finally figured out how to cross-stick properly while recording the drums for puppet shoot puppet. that was a happy day. the strangest thing about this cd is that there isn’t a single bad word uttered throughout. even the relatively tame OH YOU THIS has at least one f-bomb waiting to pounce on unsuspecting listeners. not so here. the word “whore” pops up in the first song, but that’s about as nasty as things get.

this was almost entirely recorded before NUDGE YOU ALIVE was underway, but released after. there’s a perfectly good explanation for it, though. the original plan was to kick off a guitar-based cd with feel-good film of the summer, and a piano-based cd with puppet shoot puppet. then i realized i’d botched a whole mess of songs at the recording stage (half of the songs on NUDGE YOU ALIVE and almost all of the songs here), capturing them at significantly lower-than-optimal quality.

then i decided to throw everything together on a double cd that would become BRAND NEW SHINY LIE.

then i decided that these songs didn’t fit in with the properly-recorded ones, and thought i’d keep them separate.

then i considered remixing them in an attempt to improve the sound quality, months after NUDGE YOU ALIVE was finished.

then i decided i didn’t feel like it and just threw them on a cd as they were.

so this is kind of a glimpse of what BRAND NEW SHINY LIE was originally intended to be, before i messed up and starting excreting music from every pore. make sense? of course it does. i tried re-recording puppet shoot puppet a month or two later at the optimal recording level, but the sonically-flawed version maintained its edge like an erect penis injected with cocaine. in hindsight, the remake has some interesting elements and in some ways may be superior…so i gave it a home on OUT-TAKES, MISFITS & OTHER THINGS. my new mandolin makes its debut appearance on i traded my face for a used ratchet set, which was conceived as a full-bodied piece with bass and drums, but i couldn’t seem to get the bass in tune with the mandolin, so i decided to add “stomp-claps” in lieu of a rhythm section. i probably looked pretty ridiculous stomping my right foot and clapping repeatedly, but it was fun to do, and i liked the way it sounded. the result is still perhaps my favourite song i’ve written on the mandolin. tell me something must be one of the catchiest things i’ve ever written on any instrument, which is funny, because the lyrics are pretty damn busy and there aren’t any hooks that repeat themselves. i like those float-y slide guitars during the cough-and-you’ll-miss-it bridge section. lugubrious, baby is the closest thing to a ballad here, and was originally envisioned as something with sort of a salsa rhythm, but when i got behind the drums i wasn’t really feeling that anymore, so i gave it more of a jazzy lilt.

shortly after finishing work on OH YOU THIS, i picked up a new snare drum and ride cymbal (a pearl maple snare and a zildjian sweet ride, respectively), making for a pretty different sound here. now there was more crack than thwack, and i didn’t have to worry about the ride cymbal over-ring that occasionally reared its ugly head on the old sabian ride (although i have to admit i always liked the bell on that thing). i also continued to put that new effects processor to good use, most notably near the end of lugubrious, baby where my voice gets good and flanged. i ended up double-tracking my voice on two songs for a bit of a different sound, which wasn’t something i had ever really done much of before.

for this cd, i decided to avoid sequencing the songs in chronological order for the first time in well over three years (not counting a few compilations). it was kind of weird not just throwing the songs on cd in the order they were recorded, and actually giving some thought to what might work best as a track list for a change. i think feel-good film of the summer works well as an ending even if it was originally intended to be a beginning. it doesn’t do much during its short running time, but i like the lyrics and the electric/acoustic guitar drone that comes in halfway through. and as it turns out, i kind of like the way these songs sound today. maybe the higher frequencies aren’t quite as sharp as they could be, but that can sometimes be a good thing.

TRACKS:

puppet shoot puppet
i traded my face for a used ratchet set
tell me something
lugubrious, baby
we are the happy rabbits
feel-good film of the summer

STUFF TO LISTEN TO:

I Traded My Face for a Used Ratchet Set

Feel-Good Film of the Summer

LYRICS:

PUPPET SHOOT PUPPET

can you hiss in tune, marionette?
have you fogotten every word i’ve said?
my shock value wore off months ago

if i hand you the reins
will you kill us all?
we’re all gonna die
out with a whimper
last words mumbled
garbled ashtray speak
no time
take all the time you need

i’ve tried i’ve tried i’ve tried
with all i am
with all i have
you twirl & coil around me
like psychopathic tinsel

the emotional equivalent of indigestion
i’ll eat your sentence fragments
chew a blade of grass

nothing in the fridge
nothing on the idiot box
(your lips are so lips are so lips are so thick)
humid as a cyst
masticated subculture
(puppet shoot puppet shoot puppet shoot puppet shoot aaah…)
ushering in a fresh batch of synthetic ideals
(it’s the nondescript media whore of the week)

I TRADED MY FACE FOR A USED RATCHET SET

all the people you love most
aren’t beautiful by any stretch
talk about things that no one cares about
talk about salmonella
a worn-out windshield wiper blade
blow it all out of your system

write about your boring life
write about your brother’s girlfriend
she shouldn’t be that gorgeous
it hurts to look at her
just write what you know

you’ve got a way with words
see the world with cherubic eyes
slow-motion sex on a stupid couch
your stupid couch is eating my confidence

it’s as if the string were wire
& it crushed your windpipe
in one fluid motion

TELL ME SOMETHING

tell me something you’ve never told anyone
the steady hum of indifference masking every word
it’s not like i’ve never seen your face contort
sometimes it’s even kind of entertaining

once in a while you might stumble upon
a semblance of something approaching neglect
& those are the moments we well-dressed extroverts live for

all the unborn womanizing malcontents
meet for coffee once or twice a week
exchanging phone numbers & pick-up lines
eating apple fritters devoid of anything vaguely fruit-like

if i cut a hole in your chest
i can almost understand you
it’s probably not even worth the effort

LUGUBRIOUS, BABY

you’re selling yourself for a pack of smokes
indignant to the end
if i were cocaine, i’d send you flowers
anything dry, dead or wilted

you cover it with glossy lipstick
you cover it with tight-fitting clothes
you cover it with cinnamon
i see it anyway

he taped a ruler to his head & tried to fly
you always liked his eccentricities
oxycontin up his nose
bloody cotton in his ears
“you’re for me”
“i’m for you”

they stretched him out on an ironing board
& stapled his lips together
why doesn’t he call you?
it’s obvious he cares

you still curl up in the closet
on nights when you can’t sleep
hugging cardboard boxes

WE ARE THE HAPPY RABBITS

you want everything you don’t have
you deserve everything you get
puncture the skin
thumbtack draws blood
force your eyes closed
force your mouth shut

spew your bile
no high quite compares
vision & caving in on itself & blurred

your friend
my neighbour
the full spectrum of available colour
why don’t we sell you to be someone’s servant?
you know you always wanted to be someone’s slave

the thrill of living vicariously
a sanitized version of what you might be
if not for the taste of plastic cement
& the constant treat of intervention

FEEL-GOOD FILM OF THE SUMMER

walked in on art trying to imitate life
kind of like walking in on a sibling attempting suicide
inhibitions will murder the transfer
& conspire to drain away any immediacy

made a collage out of cigarette butts
& the thought of creating something worth preserving
you’re the scab i pick at on friday nights
it all adds up to nothing anyway

you really don’t have a clue
it’s all about you