Big Red, Histroy The Way We Want It

big red history the way we want it

"How'd she feel about you doing that?"

"She knew what I was about... Hell that's the thing about border towns man, everyone knows you before they meet you besides... it was party... but that's not even... I mean the next day... the next day got crazy."

Our table's crammed with food and wrappers, mostly burgers and the five of us lounging back in chairs bolted to the floor. Good days. My brothers, my cousin, and Dan. All family. We'd already finished half our second record in three days.

Of course we were prepared, and that didn't hurt. We had our songs arranged and rehearsed before we ever got to Akron. After Abe gave the arrangements a once over, we'd track the music as a group, following Jaime's drum lead through each take, mostly two or three passes, then overdubs, vocals, and the whole song done in an afternoon. One song, soon to be one half of the two title tracks, Big Red, had us struggling and ready for a lunch break: An Everly's style rocker called Everything She Needs.

And while Dante's on a story about his party days in Laredo, I'm now taking down a basket of Cajun fries.

I checked out around the time the food came; I've heard this one before, plus I can't stop thinking of the problem with this song.

It started in the morning.

A big, beautiful golden bear of an alarm clock named Bella came ringing her collar into the den. I was hiding under a pile of blankets and pillows, when she managed to sniff my face out from all of it. I tried to ignore her and get back to a dream:

Back in Texas, warm sunlight, a lake like heaven, where I'm kissing her or the sky itself, and everything is weightless, lifting, the sun, the water, the two of us. The music of her voice clear as the lake and the day itself.

but it's Bella and her big drooping lips, and the cold Ohio morning pulling me back. I guess the alarm was set just for me because Bella didn't bother to wake anyone else up...

Bella's next hunt was for a cloth toy behind the couch and she took it over to the sliding glass door looking out to the backyard.

The slate-grey sky brushed at the horizon with strands of soft red, the light was fighting to get out. It was another cold day. I got a chill that ran deep under my skin. I think the sun rises differently in Ohio, or I see it that way. And though this is where I wanted to be, I was still dreaming about home.

I rolled over to my suitcase, stuffed in a corner of the room marked by the pile of clothes spilling onto the carpet, hunted down my jacket, I needed it even inside the house, stepped over my brothers and snuck out of the den with Bella in lead.

Dan's house was held in a perfect unbroken suspension of morning. Guitars on nearly every wall waiting to be plucked, waiting to break from their stillness. Guitars are never good at resting.

Bella went off to the kitchen in search of her breakfast and left me in the empty room.

I can't tell you how crazy it is to be so close to an amazing studio and having to wait for everyone else to wake up in order to get to work. If it was up to me, I'd have run yesterday's session all through the night, and we'd already be into another song. It helps to keep my head in one state.

And now that I was up and alone in the house, I had a feeling calling me over to the tracking room, that's where I've got to be. I turned on the lights. Walking quietly past the Hammond organ, past the drums. My hands and mind wanted to shake off the cold and distance with a little music and looked through a rack of guitars like I was in a music store.

I found a '64 Texan still in it's bed case ready for me. Dan and his engineer Bob had so much cool gear you wouldn't believe it. Large barely begins to describe it... and the Paul McCartney '64 Texan was only one tiny, amazing part.

I closed my eyes. The smell of the guitar, the wood, so pristine, almost transported straight out of the sixties. For a brief moment I remember my dream, it hadn't been that long but almost completely slipped my mind already. And a song I had written a while back came into my mind...

My girls got everything she needs,

big cars, house, his money and tv's,

he tries to buy her all life's big luxuries/

My girls got everything she needs

so her love just won't come to me

I tried my best, but Love's no security/

My girl’s as lonely as can be
but she ain’t got the heart to be free
She’s in his house

I wonder if she thinkin' about me...

"Is that what we're doing next?"

"Hey," Dan caught me by surprise, "morning..." a slight pulse of embarrassment ran through my veins as I put the Texan back in its case.

He was carrying his daughter and a cup of coffee, still in full family mode, they weren't even dressed for the day. She threw her head down against his shoulder to hide her face, "This one sounds good... when the dudes are ready, we'll hit it."

"You tell me man, I'm ready to go."

She pointed down at the guitar and whispered to Dan.

"Rene, Why don't you play us another..."

---

The table's laughing... I hit the bottom of the fry basket as Dante finishes his story...

The sounds of the restaurant digesting, the mouths, the talking, the eating, and I leave the table for a refill.

Whenever I hit a songwriting problem, I like to get out into the public, back into the world, and let my mind ramble... something like this.

Everyone else, and the real problems of life are so much more important than a song, but a song can be all the difference when you have a problem... It can lift you up, or throw you deeper... Any song at the right moment. How tragic it would be to hear the wrong one? Or do we only get what we need?

I know it's strange to think so much, but my mind has to do these flips, I can't turn it off, and it won't stop,

I make music for other people, maybe even these people, I wonder how many of them even listen to rock n' roll? How many have sat down with headphones, to a full album? How many hear what the writer is telling them?

The line for the coke machine is four deep, and I wished I had noticed that before I got here. That's one danger of a busy mind, always missing the obvious. But I've got a good way to pass the time, a game I invented when I was in high school: trying to guess what music strangers listen to.

There's a young couple, 30's, at a high table. He's in jeans, work boots and a trucker hat. Hands cut and dirty. Textbook blue collar. Her hair's stripped blond and black, skirt tight, not a lot of make up but she didn't forget her blood red lipstick. I would have'em as Springsteen fans but they've been ignoring the classic rock playing. They're straight modern country, Rascal Flatts, Miranda Lambert.

The guy in front of me at the coke machine, in his 40's, dress shirt and fuzzy vest, bald, well off and been rocking out to every thing from the eighties. I don't know why but he's putting off a Phil Collins vibe.

A curly headed kid, taps his foot against the metal legs of his chair, red chucks, and his unlaced strings flapping out of time.

He hits the heel so hard one shoe falls to the floor. He's a real mid-west rocker, even if he doesn't know it yet. A future Uncle Doug.

And that's when I hear it for the first time. Chuck Berry's Almost Grown starts playing overhead. And it comes to me.

---

The tape machine rolls back. It starts with drum clicks, Take 7 begins to play.

Dan flipped knobs like a mad man, several strings of jumper cables around his neck, his chair squeaked, as he swung around the mixing room.

His mind had been in another zone for the last half-hour of vocal takes. Quickly he moved his empty mug off the console and adjusted more knobs.

"It's just not sitting right," Dan said to no one in particular.

"Damn..." I wanted to say it, but I kept it back. It kills me when he we hit problems like this. I need more details, specifics: is it too much, not enough, too sharp, flat, what does he mean? But he's so focused I don't want to disturb Dan's process.

Finally his chair spun around towards us. "The vocals are good," he said while checking his phone, "I like it... I just don't know if it needs something else, or not, or what... but we're not there yet."

I can't help but take these things personally. Not because I think I'm great, but because I want what's best for the band. I want to nail my vocals. I want a definitive yes. I think I'd even take a definitive no, more than just a "not there yet."

The microphone hung in the tracking room like it had just beaten me, not eager to go through that again. "Should I go for it again?" I asked half not wanting an answer.

Jaime and Abe were sitting behind me, "meh," seems they weren't into that idea either.

Dan scratched his beard and finished up a text, "let's get lunch. I think I know a spot. You dudes want burgers?"

His idea got a much better response.

---

The table's quiet again.

"I think I know what we need to do," I said to Dante putting down my soda. "It's all about the rhythm, it's just off to me. Maybe the guitar, maybe if it had some more substance ya know? Just put some movement in it. Listen to what he's doing here." I pointed to the speaker, but Dante's looking away, the other side of the table, restaurant, maybe nowhere.

"Maybe," Dante's lips barely move, "I don't know." And the song finishes.

"We ready to hit it again?"

---

It didn't long for the guitar to find its place, and after a few takes, the song found a whole new position.

Bella ran through the playback room. Her tail hit against the legs of everyone on the couch as she got chased away by Dan's daughter.

Were listened to the playback, the speakers are loud enough for the sound to push into your chest. I can tell Dan's really into it. Like he's been hit by a jolt of adrenaline and every movement is sharp and inspired.

"This is sounding a lot better. This," I said getting closer to the center of the sound, where the stereo speaker's direction meet together in a beautiful sweet spot above Dan's chair, "is where we need to be. I can feel this."

Dan nodded his head, but he's lost in some thought far away.

The track reached to me, to some deep place of understanding and I haven't said it yet, but I start to get a feeling to cut all the vocals completely.

This song needs to be an instrumental.

Abe's standing next to me, studying quietly, his face is serious and I can't help but wonder if he's knowing it too.

Feeling the movement.

The song's better this way. And I'm over the pain of my failed vocal take, cause the song's feeling right. It's everything fifties. Chuck Berry, Everly's, sugar, burgers and car hops. And the taste of Big Red comes into my mind. The atomic red soda of my hometown. The fuel of my youth. And being a kid running at my grandparent's ranch, and summer, and the lake, and a lot of beautiful things, and I don't think my words could cover that. It's all a big landscape. A wordless vision.

I want to be in those moments. That dream. The sun. The lake. Home. Family. Me. And the curly haired kid I saw at the soda fountain. From his Ohio. And my Texas. Tastes that make a memory. The nostalgia. It's not always real. It's never as perfect. Colored in half-truth. Sweetening away any contradictions. But that's what all this was, Rock and Roll... History the way we want to remember it.

-rené

Got To Get Back Home, The Good Path

-got to get back home to you, little darling. Of all I've done it'd be my biggest sin, if I never could make it back home again.- I'm fallen and weak in this hot desert heat. My skin holds my own blood boiling. I'm blistered and red, but a promise I said, keeps pushing me on through my toiling.

Some get into rock for fame. Some for money. Some for attention. Yes it can have all that, though it is so rare, you might have better odds with the lotto. It seems attainable. A personal El Dorado. A hint, a fragment of a clue to a direction. Always a step ahead. Always out of reach. Until it isn't, and that's what makes the dream so enticing.


Hacienda has been my Quest. Travelling. Hunting. Exploring my world, myself, and the people around me. Battling obstacles, pitfalls, clichés and naysayers. Always jumping to the next thing. I don't know if it will ever end. Or what the end would look like. It is just something I do. If you are familiar it is a lot like Pellinore and the Questing Beast. What good would it be to reach the end? What if Pizarro found El Dorado? Would he sit at home with his treasure, and wait? Would he ever be satisfied? The spirit, for more. The drive to discover, and conquer is human. Some stay in, and some go out.- I don't think of Conquistadors as idols, their history is a disturbing one, and the result of Desire taken beyond the bounds of decency and compassion.- I have a searching spirit. I'm looking, and have been looking for a long time.

Got To Get Back Home is the end of a search. The hero(ine) went out. Found adventure. Lost their self. Corrupted by the search. Now desiring only to start over. To get home. This was me projecting myself into a story. I am not the character, but the character is me. I am not ready to stop. I have more to give. More to offer. I have had moments where I have lost my direction. Where I lost my purpose. Where I was in danger of losing myself. I think I have held on fairly well considering these are treacherous waters.

One of the most interesting arrangements we have done is on Got To Get Back Home. Abe was playing accordion. I did two bass lines with harmonizing melodies. The sound is barren and lit like a desert. I love the jarring and the odd. I love the unexpected. I love when songs exist because they should, not because it's what is expected. This song is unexpected. Don't be afraid to not be serious. Don't be afraid to have humor, it is equalizer of our sanity.

When I imagined getting lost, I thought of where I would go. Going back to where course was lost. To where I would've last known myself. I think it's a pretty classic storyline. To leave home. And the sense of yourself behind. Romanticizing the past. The people left behind, when you are away.

I got into music. Into writing because I had something to say. Growing up with a musical background, gave me a platform to say it. My journey is to keep writing until the words leave me. Right now I'm trying to maintain pace with how fast the songs come.

It is easy to get distracted by other objectives. Temptations thrown in front of our eyes. These are only distractions. Keep the words. Keep the music. That is the good path.

some stranded Sunday

the last day of loss

I thought like melted ice

I thought, like beginning

making a still spark

that was our start

the back seat of a civic

watching the world turn

I thought like turning

I thought, of smiling

cause Sunfall is only our back turning

 so much happening here

I won't understand



-rene


*Image source: http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/the-conquistador-betty-bohrer.jpg

Prisoner, The Hand Of The Bold

Scars scratch the truth
helping you through everyday
on walls that surround you
can't confine you to any place
Let your mind drift far, far away

There are a lot of traps and mental prisons in writing. Rules and limitations from society, genre, friends, band mates, producers,  and even ourselves. Each one boxes in the writer a little more. The creativity becomes a little more restricted. The possibilities less. The outcome more solid. This can be great. It is necessary to wrangle imagination in, or songs become unmanageable.

Prisoner is about living inside the cell. Understanding the condition. Moving beyond without violent resistance. But with creative resistance.

There are no worse punishments than ones given to ourselves.

No greater depths of hell than in our mind.

And freedom is only granted from within.

Wanting success can be one of the toughest cells in a creative prison. On one hand the writer -usually- wants the audience to like the work. But writing what you think people want often produces the worst ideas. Writing for money does even more damage to the spirit. The other hand, writing for completely for the self, can give some of the most creative ideas a chance to live. It is the hand of the bold and the dangerous. It is the abstract. The mysterious. But that can leave piece indigestible. Flighty and over intellectualized. And worse yet, writing for an audience of One, leaves the writer with an audience of One.

I wish we had more time to work on this song. But that is the consequence of working fast. Our albums were all recorded in under the span of two weeks. This pressure can provide great conditions for spontaneous creativity. The pressure drives the mind. The imagination. Reaching new places. It's tough. It's exciting. It's not for the feint of spirit. But it does have draw backs. Sometimes the songs are just beginning to cook, but we are on to the next piece. I wouldn't say I have regrets or disappointments- I love all our songs and I have pride about the work we have done on each one. I feel lucky to not have a song that I am embarrassed about releasing. But sometimes I wish I could work on it more. I am really happy with the new arrangement we are using for Prisoner live. I wish I could record that. Maybe a live record would be good for us...

Songs suffer from trying to do too much. Trying to cover too much ground. Trying to express every side at once. That's when rules help. But which one's to listen to? Which one's to fight?  It's hard to take outside criticism because it feels like a personal attack. It feels like the idea wasn't given a good shot. You can fight for every inch an idea, but I think songs will suffer more. I've learned the problem is not the prison. Just how we feel inside of it.

Gone are the old friends
whose time they won't spend anyway
here are your new friends
who you can depend, won't go away
Let your mind drift far, far away

The truth is, there is no right answer. Only what things we can live with. There are some limitations we shouldn't tolerate. Some walls must be broken. Some amount of personal identity must be asserted. It is up to the artist to decide what is tolerable. Knowing that: resistance to others only further alienates the project.

There are times I have felt trapped. Stuck. Like everything is moving on a schedule. Like I'm unable to move for myself. It is not a good feeling. It's also not easy to break out of it. The worse part is you want to blame others, but it's only the self. It's only the mind confining itself. This song is to remind myself: let your mind drift far, far away.

falling, together.

never knowing a part from the self,

the water, and the rain

we are bound

racing to end, heavens of earth and black tar

they will take us, but at least we can go together

-rene

image source: http://www.commarts.uws.edu.au/gmjau/v4_2010_1/images/prisoner_lg.gif

Mamas Cooking, See The Flow.

Mama's cooking on the big piano
Been cooking on the big piano
Come back home and that's where I found her
She's knows I should be sleeping but to stop she'd need a better reason
Mama's cooking on the big piano
Ny mama she's a lovely teaser, way she's banging I'd love to please her

Live vs Record. Everything changes. Writing for either takes a different approaches. Mama's Cooking was originally written for Loud Is The Night. There is a version recorded from that session, different from the one on Big Red and Barbacoa.

It was a mistake to leave it off the first record. If I could go back that might be one change I would make. Live, this song was already a staple of our show, often working as the closer on the set. Getting bigger and louder the more we played. Becoming a sweat soaked rampage capable of blowing down the garage rock door. It didn't start that way.

It was written as an acoustic song. I wanted to be sort of a weird White Album earthy drone. When I was first working it out, we weren't playing a lot of shows so I was more focused on sounds. But as time between writing the song and recording increased, and more shows were played, the sound evolved.

Three in the morning and the neighbor's calling
Ain't no peace when we start balling
Dogs all bay and the dead start waking, she's got soul that can't be faking
Three in the morning and the neighbor's calling
Better stop before the cops come over, but me and my baby gonna play it all night

There are some bands with live shows sounding exactly like their records. Some completely different. Sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. Great records can sound like they were recorded live. I've only rarely been a fan of live records though.

I've always liked treating them as different but maybe that's changing. I love the sound of a band planning together, but not listening to uncontrolled jams. As a musician I love to jam, but as a record listener I don't have the patience for it. It's not that I think songs need to be short. I just like the song to be thoughtful in it's progression.

The wildness of experimentation easily wears thin on me. My patience can be extended for a live show. The experience, the energy, the visuals all permit the song to travel, to breath, and to live beyond the length and precision of the record. I can watch that journey. It is a story. To see the faces...Is it fluid? Is it a fight? Are they worried about where to go? Are they happy when they got there? It's all over their bodies.

When you are that involved in music, you can't hide frustration, joy, or terror. It just broadcasts. Seeing that keeps the jam interesting for me. On record everything seems purposeful. It's too easy to say -I meant to do that. Making it less of a trip.

The second version of Mama's Cooking was done all live in one room including vocals. Probably not too different from an early Little Richard, or Elvis track. The first version we did featured Dan on Background vocals singing harmony with me, how cool is that... I love hearing the double kick stomp to kick it off. The bass line is furious. I always play it hard, like I'm attacking the strings. I know I've had strong performance when my right hand bleeds a little bit, usually from the index.

In a live show, I look for moments where we can reach out beyond the song. To interact with the audience. To say- this is happening only tonight. That type of playing and arranging can sound flat on record, without a good audience to interact with. So it becomes about building flow. It's hard to say if what you are recording will work at all. There is not that initial reaction from the audience. Just like the faces of the musicians give away how they feel about a song, so does the face of the crowd.

Keys are flying, and the walls are shaking
ain't gonna stop till the whole place breaking
doors are banging and the phone keeps ringing
Keys are flying and walls are shaking
Me and my baby go for bacon fat, don't you know we're always down for that

 Recently we've been narrowing our sound. For the first time we have a sound that is cohesive. More focused. We are going to keep the sound of playing together in the studio. Drums and bass have to be locked in. No other way about it.

The best way for me to lock in with kick is to track my bass while watching the drummer. I keep my eye on the movements. Watch the energy. See the flow. It's not anticipation, but co-operation.That is enough to give a track life. I don't know if we will record another song all live with vocals. But never say never, right?

Mama's Cooking sounds live, because it is. It also makes it stand alone a bit. It's also the only song written from Loud Is The Night onto a later album. Anyway you cut it, it is one of my proudest songs. It is rock and roll thru and thru.

The old star-eaten sky

sends no safety

means no harm.

Night waits,

wanting to be used.

His eagerness

persists in the air

like breathing late-Saturday

atmosphere. Not to offend

the next, once her edge drops a bit.

-The night'll go where you go.

-rene

Younger Days, Surfaced Trapped

In my younger days
I just don't know now
what I might learn later
that's what they say anyhow
I got tired of walking
before the race even begun
I'd be moving up the ladder
but I fell off the bottom rung


I have started cleaning a pool recently, skimming the surface from leaves, little clusters of Oak pollen, and a variety of bugs that find themselves surface trapped... I can never tell if they want to be there or not but I remove them anyway. I have found a lot of metaphors can be drawn from this. The task gives me a lot of time to think about nothing.  One that comes to mind with Younger Days is the persistence of trying to perfect the imperfect, this is sometimes called art.

Constantly, vigilantly, removing mistakes however impossible it is for any thing to be completely perfected, or if you managed to get the pool clean, it only lasts until the next breeze shakes the trees again. And one, of numerous, imperfections that appear in all creative writing is the cliche.

We all know to avoid cliches, but sometimes it is hard to tell what is cliche, what is derivative, and what is re-imagined. It is no secret artists use other works as inspiration, sometimes drawing directly from those sources. In literature this is called Allusion when done well, and Plagiarism/Stealing when not, the difference occurs when the source and the new material created appears as new and exciting. If the artists takes from general convention and uses common source material, we can further degrade it by calling the work cliche. Though it is interesting that what was once new and inspired can become cliche through cultural overuse. Even to the point that the distinction becomes less about the work itself and more about what seems trendy. Some of the biggest cliches we have are overused because they are so understandable. They say exactly what we mean and the metaphor works well so it is repeated naturally. Granted they aren't very creative to use, but they can be effective. There are too many examples in pop music to even begin to cite.

Anyway, for the most part it was drilled into my head to scan my writing for cliches and try to think of new or different ways of saying what I wanted to say. By the way I don't think my writing is free from cliches. One way I try to do this is by trying to write cliches in new contexts. Younger Days was written like this. I was thinking of the line from Willie Dixon:

                           In my younger days, I wish I knew then what I know now.

But that whole subject is cliche. There are so many songs that use every part of that phrase so I didn't want to simply write another song about that. I am also certain Willie Dixon, or whomever wrote the line, got the idea from somewhere else. It is a common enough phrase. Plus I am not that old so there is no need for me to worry about the past so much. What I liked was the idea of writing from now. These are my younger days.


Thought of just working
get myself a job
maybe I'd get myself together
a little more than what I got
I tried standing
couldn't even get up on my feet
some say I'm fit for losing
but I, I just really like my seat

I hadn't written the song with that beat, Jaime had evolved it through playing as a group. It is a really fun song to groove to. A machine of rhythm. Every part dances with each other. It might be hard to hear but the piano is the heart of the beat. I like the progression deviating from I/IV/V at the end of each phrase. I don't think Dixon did it like that. And the bass tone is awesome thumpy on record. Sounds like a razor live. One of the songs that really pushed my experimenting with bass fuzz.

So back to the pool and writing. It's not so important to have the pool perfectly clean, or my writing impeccable, but only clean enough to enjoy a swim without dirt interfering with the experience. No one wants to swim in a cluttered unkempt pool, but a leaf or two won't stop anyone either. At some point I need to put down the skimmer and jump in, let things happen. There is always something to pick apart. Always a phrase to revise. It's hard to listen back and not think, if I had only changed this...I would love to clean up that bit. I'd rather enjoy the result, imperfections and all.

Maybe someone out there has perfect diction, perfect phrasing, and never has to worry, but I haven't seen it yet. Everyone has mistakes, cliches, and other solecisms fluttering in, either on the surface or hidden underneath, making it easier to be less self-conscious about my own writing.

It is no use,

mama the days are ending faster

than I can keep with.

I have no one to blame

kind as she is

taking flowers from the hillside,

giving ground in tangles of auburn roots.

she almost kills me

with understanding

-rene

As You Like It, A Tame Snake

If I could, then it was so
but still you only tell me no
I tried and lost it seems
I can't keep changing with your evil schemes

I've had a weird relationship with the works of William Shakespeare. I haven't always been into his plays, though that has been changing. I know civilization falls to him, but it's not always easy for an average student to see why, though it could just be me. Like most of the people I went to school with, I was introduced to Shakespeare in middle school and the first play being Romeo and Juliet, - I was aware of him before that, and knew all the general quotes but had yet to officially study his works - I even acted out a scene from Act V, Scene III...in faith, I will... after Romeo slays Paris, and finds Juliet lying dead, not an easy scene for an eighth grader. For extra credit I went to a Shakespeare Festival. Beyond that semester I tried to avoid the stuff until it was forced back at me in University.

There's nothing to contest
I fulfill every request
and still you fight it
ain't it as you like it?
First Hello, but soon Goodbye
you laugh until you cry
how well you hide it,
ain't it as you like it?

Again I felt Shakespeare's language is too foreign to modern American English. Footnotes! Nothing is more trying for a young reader then all the footnotes: explaining old jokes, antiquated language, historical context impossible to know. So much lost in translation. It is hard to see the power of the words, the meaning, the feeling, the understanding. Now that I am older, my eyes have gotten wider. It was a few years ago, when I was getting ready for our second LP I revisited As You Like It. 

*

I found this beautiful artwork on Google from an Artist Allyson Haller

check out her blog to I was really taken by this image.

The story and characters are interesting enough, but the themes were what spoke loudest to me. Love, wit, inspiration, music, all come back over and over. Like the whole thing is a meditation Shakespeare leads us down. I also loved the constant double-talk. Verbal acrobatic of yes and no, love and loss- almost every line is filled with contradiction and a strange looping reasoning that is very rock and roll to me. The more I read from it the easier it was to be inspired. So I made a character, much like the one's in As You Like It, brutalized by love. Played by false strings. A tame snake.

Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity. Wilt
thou love such a woman? What, to make thee an
instrument and play false strains upon thee! not to
be endured! Well, go your way to her, for I see
love hath made thee a tame snake... Act IV Scene III

I remember I was coming back from a doctors appointment and driving in the car when the story hit me. By the end of the 45min drive I had pretty much all the verses and most of the chorus written out in my head. When I got home I rushed to my notepad and put them all down with minor alterations. Sometimes it works out that way.

From that As You Like It, the song, took shape. I went into my familiar T.Rex/Elvis/Everly territory, the perfect way to write rocknroll in my humble opinion, and hammered out rather quickly the melody to go with it.

The song, upon reflection, is in the wrong key, and if I were to play it again live I would probably lower it down a bit. The mix of the song needed to have the background vox a little higher too. Life is not perfect though. And these are very minor complaints, nuisances really. Sometimes it is impossible to listen uncritically to myself. I think it is a beautiful artifact of that recording session. Maybe sums up the album completely? Anyways great job all around.

here is a live version I found on YouTube, complete with my fretless bass!

Actually sounding really good. I loved that machine.

A traitor to your own word
You keep my pride unnerved
I'll still abide it,
Ain't it as you like it?


Once I had the words I took As You Like It to my acoustic, which most of my songs are written on, and later transferred again to the band with the help of the other dudes. The story of a person whipped up by love is so central to rock and roll that the idea just unfolds itself. My favorite part being the Beatles style backgrounds on the chorus, dancing around the lead, wrapping around the melody so nicely. When in doubt always go back to The Beatles for music or Shakespeare for words.

I know my buddy Ben would have a few thoughts about this...I think we actually had a conversation on the very subject in San Diego... I feel Shakespeare's works are something best to grow into. If they're forced, the plays can be very taxing, but if someone wants to go there, pursues them out of their own volition, they will find a beautifully rich and rewarding trip. A travel I recommend making, and one I frequent more and more often.

I can appreciate them more now, being older, possibly smarter, and more willing to work than when I was a teenager. As glad as I am now that I was introduced to him, it has helped me so much as a writer, I really wish my education focused on reading works that would have inspired me to want to read more. Current books, of which there are many, many great selections, instead of classics from another time, another country, another people.

The lines that really jumped at me. The words that grabbed my heart and forced me to read into my own life.  They were all far more understandable. It felt like they were written to me, for me. I didn't need a map to navigate the meanings, laugh at the jokes, and feel connected. If I hadn't fallen in love with the American Short Story which I did outside of my recommended readings and sometimes at the cost of my grades, I would never have gotten into poetry, novels, plays, writing, all sorts of literature the way I had.

So why not focus on modern American fiction? Speak American Poetry? See American plays? Or in the case of Texas- Mexican: that culture should be a lot more relevant to me than Shakespeare's, no? -or insert your own culture and interests here. I am speaking only as a young Texan, not that I think everyone needs to read like me- Again just a lot of questions, but think how inspiring it would be for a child to hear words that speak of current ideas, current politics, things that are affecting their lives, their families lives? Maybe it would be more potent, more dangerous... maybe they would be inspired to write their own plays, stories, poems, songs? But then again I keep pulling from the classics all the time... 

...as I stood by her body, lips painted and shut. eyes closed. hair a brittle grey like dried grass. I knew nobody was different. we all walked off the past. stood on stacks of old bones. and just keep passing on the torch until someone figures out what to do with it...


-rene

Hound Dog, Sometimes a Lover

I think more about it now than I ever did when we met,
but I still won't call it regret
She named him Hound Dog, from the way he mopes,
his jaws on the floor, sniffin at the door, 
waiting for a feeling that's comin on the breeze as it blows

At the time the song was written, I had been dating my now-wife for four or five years. She owned/s a Basset Hound named Lucy who would howl every time I pulled into the driveway.  Lucy lived in her backyard and the only thing that kept her away from my car was an old wooden fence, I don't know how it lasted this long, that just about snapped in half every time she jumped against it. I never seen anyone so emotionally dependent and torn up by love than Lucy. She howled with sadness when we left on our dates, and howled with joy when I would bring her home. She lives every second like it would be her last, and isn't afraid to express how she feels about it. She is a dear soul, with a capacity for loyalty that we can all learn from. Her actions moved me. Her love made the story.

Had I known, when we started this, just where we'd land, how far we'd miss
well I still might be where I am, poor Hound Dog,
It's just the way it rolls...
He knew she was coming, he heard the engine running, and saw me bring her back
but it only hurts him more when she goes

One of my best sources on inspiration is a game where I try to imagine different scenarios happening to real people I know, and figuring out how I would feel about it. Like dreams, false stories of true people. Which make them real enough to me that I could believe it. If I lost a love...If I never found love...If I died... I get a lot of inspiration by playing this what if game. This one was about a love triangle. What if someone had the uncontrolled love of Lucy, but it was unrequited? What would they go through, how much it would hurt? That is the story of Hound Dog.

I want to say a little something about the music. Abe did a beautiful job on the chord arrangements. This is one of my favorite songs of ours. Has a total Burt Bacharach vibe, that I am mad about. The solo at the end, come on he nailed that. The bass line is also a blast to play. The whole thing is just a melody I can sing to. There have been a few moments where I listen back and say, did we just make that?...and Hound Dog is definitely one of them.

*

what the world needs now, more songwriters like Burt

The best stories have a hint of truth, or so I believe, because the true parts are what make it relatable. What I love about this song is how well it applies to other parts of my life. The girl character, the object of desire, doesn't need to be a person, it can be anything I want. Anything I am loving. Sometimes I am the other lover, sometimes I'm the Dog.

Lately I haven't been wanting for much. Just the usual: health, security, greater success for the band, immortality etc... all the things that seem to wax and wane their favors with me. Some days they seem so close I feel I am right there with them, some days leave me feeling like I am behind the gate. Wishing. Hoping they will come to me. It all seems so foolish from a distance. But when you really desire something you can't have, it is overwhelming, it is blinding, it is instinctual.

I think I've gotten better. I know desire=suffering, but it is almost impossible to not feel it. To not want. I can't eradicate the feeling. The best I can do, the best I can hope for... I'll always be human I'll always have my instincts to possess... is having awareness of my desires, and hopefully that can pull me off of the fence. Wake me up. Move me back to being happy with my moments.   

I thought about calling you

had my fingers against the numbers.

They knew where to go,

I didn't have to look.

Yesterday was filled by countless words

I needed to give. Countless thoughts

about where we could go, and so many adjectives,

but I gave it a day and a night.

As the call belled in my receiver,

I found it had all escaped me.

-rene

*house is not a home