Sleep-Deprived EP (1999)
this is all that remains of my aborted full-length follow-up to LIVE AT THE NAKED GIRAFFE THEATER — aborted because whatever it might have turned into was forgotten once MERRY FUCKIN’ CHRISTMAS started to seep out of my brain.
the title track is probably the nicest and most accessible thing i’d written in quite a while (the lyrics were written, anyway, while the music was improvised as usual). the lyrics were uncharacteristically autobiographical, in that my sleep was out of whack at the time, my silly behaviour often led people to mistakenly believe that i was high, and that’s what i was singing about.
i recorded it the same night i attempted to salvage an early version of jesse topliffe’s song “wade” and ended up adding some of my own stylistic touches that weren’t quite in line with what the song needed, though that didn’t stop me from being in love with it and thinking i had created something brilliant (more on that some other time). i also added some acoustic guitar to another song of his. i was feeling inspired, and the title track here was kind of the culmination of it all. i especially like the instrumental interlude where the two electric guitars harmonize with one another. even though there are a few ugly notes, it almost sounds “pretty”, which was a rarity for me at the time.
i hate was recorded a week or so later when i had a cold, but i managed to squeeze out a suitable vocal anyway. it’s got sort of a bitter bluesy thing going for it. i was in a funny mood one day in computer science class, partially because of my mother guilt-tripping me over stupid shit when i would talk to her on the phone, and this was what came out. a nice little love song, even more directly personal than the last. i never even talked to that french exchange student i started out singing about, though i always thought she was painfully beautiful. i was told she had an affinity for theft, so perhaps it’s best she and i never connected.
i’m not sure what kind of full-length album this would have developed into had i stuck with it…i didn’t really have any concept at the time. but the fact that YOU’RE A NATION was being recorded at the same time as these tracks is kind of scary.
TRACKS:
sleep-deprived
i hate
LISTEN:
