Savage II - Lost on the Idyll Green

What does Idyll Green mean?

It's an unusual name, but I am anything but usual. And to understand it you have to go back to just after the release of our single Savage (see previous post here).

I had been walking around New York feeling a little depressed, even though we had recently hit the highest mark of our success yet, though I should've been at my happiest.

For a moment, I got the feeling the road had disappeared from under me. 

As if I was falling. 

As if I was disappearing in the crowds. 

As if I had forgotten why I came here in the first place and New York ate away the last of me.Those thoughts for me come all the time, and it's a terrible spiral to fall into.

I came to a small square. Not much more than 10 ft by 10 ft. And a bench with a couple. Older than me but sweet. 

They sat close together. She had her arm around her girl. Coffee at their feet. Talking as the cars, and noise, swam around them. 

I walked past moaning my own thoughts in my head. Feeling the weight of my obsessiveness bury into my chest. Bad thoughts breed bad thoughts. But sometimes they give me a poem for my trouble.

I turned the corner around them. And I entered a small patch of sunlight. A brief patch of warmth that rushed across my face.

And noticed, very briefly, the soft movement of flowers. 

A bouquet. Yellow petals surrounded by lush green leaves, and something gentle mixed in their like babies-breath, though I'm not a botanist I make no promises, wrapped together in brown paper and yarn, they danced against each other in her lap.  

And from there my eyes drew up to her face. Small heart shaped. Framed by her dark black bob and bangs. I saw the smudged makeup. The tracks of tears she had been crying early. And in that moment, I heard these words.

Hope you like it.

Savage II - Lost on the Idyll Green

Never has my truth
been so hard
like then
when I saw
between the mirror and window, no difference

I went to the great city
        who hung gold-like pride down their necks
        who lashed strapped studded collars
        who pierced amber flesh with smiles
        who wore diamond eyes of ambition around heavy fingers
        who tried holding everything, and had nothing

I wanted more, over broken bus and city shouts, than the driving song of death

Never has my truth
felt so obscured
like then
when I walked it every day
drank it
ate it
and didn't know the taste

I went to a small park
        the draped vines
        the lush veil
        the soft-set bed of June
        the wide field
        the cradling valley

And heard a heavenly noise, of heavenly things

Never has my truth
been so clear
like then
when a birth right
of an open mind
planted and grew
lost on the Idyll Green

I went to her, as she welcomes everyone
       the grace in her step
       the truth in her turn
       the singing indescribable
       the numbered dew-drops
       the silver and gold like humility she wore
       and knew there was nothing more than everything about her

-rene



check out more including a free song here: youtube.com/c/idyllgreen

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Bar-flys, Broken Strings, and The Best Of 'em

"I've seen'em... all of'em... right here," the boulder of a man never closed his mouth. When he wasn't talking he was breathing, but always a big open hole for words to come out and beer to go in. 

His lips were too thin to be seen under his two day salt and pepper. At once mesmerizing and hard to look at. Three thick busted fingers pushed against the bar with every one of his words, "I didn't even hav'ta leave... I live," his eyes seemed to drift apart like they couldn't decide where to look as he pointed first to the door then to the back wall, "I live, down the street... Just walk here and see the best, best shows, you could imagine... the best. Ya ever play somewhere like this 'ene?"

I didn't know what to tell him... I had, I mean I've played historic places, I've played bigger places, I've played nicer looking places, and smaller, uglier ones too. It was another stop. But you can't break a guys story like that, you just can't. He stands his life on his stories, we all do.

"...never man. This place is pretty great. Should be a good show."

"No, 'ene," I don't know if it was the beer or just the fact that he couldn't pronounce Rene completely, but it was kinda endearing, "this place is the best."

...

I couldn't imagine the best shows being in Minneapolis. Nothing against the city, just never imagined it. 

The stage was much smaller than clubs that hold half the number of people. Maybe it was all our stuff, but it seemed small even before we loaded in. It looked impossibly small when I was standing at the front of house looking at all the amps, guitars, two drums, congas, a giant open triangle, and the lights: 

These giant metal flower shaped lights, towered over our gear, blasting down waves of heat. We'd started the tour with two lines of l.e.d.'s, but high-powered lights mixed with a high-volume band had more than few audience members passing out during our sets; so somewhere along the way we picked up these giant flower shaped meat warmers, and I was sweating buckets every night, but at least they looked great, and the fainting stopped.

The rest of my band was off in the city; I finished an afternoon drink, paid my tab, and left my new friend to go explore the stage. I had seen this club in videos, but everything looks better on television. In person, there was no room to walk. I couldn't believe this was the same stage so many big names had played before. This was the same place the bar-fly came to night after night to see music.

And there amidst a tangle of wires, was my corner of it. My amp. My bass. My Mic. My moment. A slice of time where I would share apart of this. My chance to make a mark. 'How was I going to do anything worth seeing in this small space?' I could already feel this stage was going to affect me, and it didn't feel good.

That's me,  all blurry on the right trying not to fall*

A few feet off the stage from me was an old monitor console that looked like it had been through every single show, all of them manned by this same guy who was just as beat up. 

He was thinner than the bar fly. His long ponytail was white and streaked with black. His blue eyes circled by rings of milky grey. He carried a cigarette behind his ear, ready for his break, and his favorite tool, a roll of black gaff on his belt.

He moved quickly back and forth across the stage with a quick two-note whistle/wheeze every three steps. Without a second thought, he went about plugging in cables, positioning speakers around our gear, taping down loose wires. Never talking, especially to me, except for the occasionally grumble into his walkie-talkie.

The older crews don't really talk to the younger bands. They're some of the toughest critics, having seen too many shows to be fooled by cheap gimmicks and fads, it's not easy to impress the older guys. I can't blame them. It's also one of the biggest compliments to have one of them say they dug your set.

....

When it came time to play, I was on the side of the stage waiting to go on. Warming up my fingers, practicing a few bass runs,  watching the opening act. Maybe it was a little bit of adrenaline, or the drinks, or maybe it was a trick of the lights, but the club started looking a little different to me. This didn't look like the same empty club I saw early today. For one thing, I hadn't noticed how tall the stage was. I had only seen it as narrow and cluttered. Now that the crowd had filled in to just shy of capacity, and they were pushed together, right below stage level, I could see how they saw the show. They were all too low to see the mess of cables and power outlets, they only saw musicians, well us above our shins, the faces, the gear, the lights.

Second, the club dropped a curtain down between acts, adding to the mood. Even though everyone knows what's going on behind the curtain, it does have a Wizard of Oz -ness, making the show feel powerful. Cause when the lights are dark, the crowd goes quiet, and slowly the curtain rises, its about to happen.

And that gets me amped. 

Suddenly I felt this was not just another show, but a moment. A moment for me. And for the kids who have never seen a show before. And the ones who were on dates with would-be lovers, or friends trying to find a good time. And the barfly, and the sound guy, and all the old guards who've seen it a million times before and still come hoping to be delighted and moved with something new and creative. It does still happen. 

All those thoughts were in my head when inch by inch the curtain was raised. And to my right was the worn face looking down at his monitor board, with a new cigarette tucked in behind his ears for after the show, giving me a thumbs up. 

Higher up it went, and there were the bright faced teens, the men and women with arms around each other, all fighting for a better view.

The curtain was almost at the top, and somewhere in the back I knew there was the wobbly-eyed boulder knocking back the last of his drink before turning to the stage to watch. To see this moment. 

I was ready. Everything is silent. The lights flash. Drums. Guitars. Our singer is off, and with a snap at the bottom of my right hand, my string breaks.

 

-rene





img source: http://www.nonesuch.com/sites/g/files/g2000003526/f/styles/photo_detail_large/public/media/images/dan-auerbach-bowery-ballroom-2009-0303.jpg?itok=uu8IQdSf

Warped Wax, Where Did It Go

My love of listening, my growing appreciation of sound composition, started in San Antonio but flourished in Boerne. For that I am grateful to this city, my home. This story is the beginning of finding my home.

 

I don't think it would come as a surprise for me to say, Boerne is not in a cutting-edge city like New York, Chicago, L.A., London, The list goes on... I'm not taking about the people in the city but the lifestyle of the city itself. Boerne's pride is history, tradition, and nostalgia. A time machine, rose-glassed look at the best parts of our past.

You might think it is not the place for someone who wants to be forward-thinking artist. Who wants to be a rejectionist. Who wants to jump off cliffs of creativity without a care to where to land. And while I was younger, in high school, eager to begin my life, I thought like that. But like a lot of my adolescent beliefs I was wrong.

It was on one of these adolescent days, with nothing to do but walk and dream of far distant Americas and the adventures I was sure to have, that I entered into an antique store.

 

I'd been coming to main street for years with my parents, both avid antique lovers, probably one reason why we moved here, but I never paid attention to what was inside.


Usually I waited, moaned, rolled eyes and was difficult. That day I was on my own, shopping for me, and uniquely interested in finding something. Music. But not the music available at Best Buy or Target. Also it's worth a note to say, I was too young to shop online, no credit card, and too young to drive to Austin or any trendier record shops. I was looking for music I hadn't heard before. Tired of the radio, feeling rebellious, I was lured by the charm of rock'n'roll and finding it the cheapest way I could.

To my great teenage delight I found a crate of vinyl hidden under a table, containing a strange array of music I'd never heard or seen before.

These were not perfect by any means, nor collector pieces. They were dirty: covers torn, stained, and ripped, records scratched and dusty. Some in the completely wrong sleeves. Lots of oddballs, Ping-Pong percussion* anyone?

"What do you want for these?" I asked not trying to sound too interested.

The old man at the counter scrunched his nose so much it lifted the glasses an inch as he examined the crate I was pointing at with my sneaker.

 

"What do you want them for?" He laughed to himself, a joke I still hear shopping today: "Do you even know what those are?"

He went on to explain how they were his son's records: mostly from the early seventies, he'd left them at home when he went to college, never picked them up, and they'd sat under this very table for a year or two. He took $10, all I had in my wallet - goodbye lunch tomorrow, for the whole crate.

It took me a while to figure out how to put my father's system together. We had used it when I was younger, but since we moved a few years earlier, the turntable, stereo, and speakers were boxed and stored in different places. Cables and plugs had to be hunted.

Next came a thorough cleaning of every disk, as well as a total examination of every record cover and sleeve.  I was most attracted to The Who and The Beach Boys, a few country records, and a best of Dion and the Belmont's which proved to be phenomenal.

 

I'd like to pause from this story to mention:


This boy and his new found treasure trove worked very hard to get his vinyl sounding great. I'm not one to romanticize the pops and cracks, lack of high and low end, or the eerie warble of warped wax. Those artifacts which some find charming actually bug me because although a part of the experience they are not part of the music. I also do not enjoy people who talk during movies at the theater. But there's an atmosphere and quality in vinyl that's only now being matched. A liveliness, a magic, bred into the medium, which is why it is my favorite format for listening.

  
Early downloads, napster, mp3, CD's, tape cassettes, even the first iPods paled in comparison. And once I heard the difference, it was undeniably better. I couldn't go back. There was a universe of warm, inviting comfort in vinyl. I also didn't care much for the artwork, not that the artwork wasn't beautiful, I was just interested more in the songs within, and soon found out that a quality record inside a torn or distressed sleeve would go for considerably cheaper than any new music.

 

Back to my story.

Finally I had the records cleaned and began listening one by one. Unknowingly I'd planted the seeds of my future, and the toe path of that journey came was in this sleepy city.

 

Boerne, gave me the music education I couldn't get in bigger cities. It was affordable though the selection was erratic, sometimes strange, but always unique. So much great music waiting to be found, and it was all hidden away down the street in dusty bins and slopped shelves, piled on floors and underneath porcelain figurines.

 

Now that I've traveled, now that I've seen shopping center after shopping center with the same stores and restaurants offering the same experiences without any regional individuality, I can appreciate my home so much more.

Small towns and their oddball beauty can only be felt once in a specific time and a specific place. It's precious. I love it. I was lucky enough to be open to new surroundings, even if they were hidden in old packages.

 

 

Where did it go?

My fury of noise                    
       

pitched pain

subtle lulls
 

Tear and tempo                       
       
once so sure

in blood, an bone
 

Crying they found me             
              

when low, very low

life had pushed

I'd looked back                        

only once
but where did it go?

 -rene



*image source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-dsGis1BnHkzN8SCuf-sY_0xDB5Q-WL_-hhKUHkzCk5u1rTl-mDB5tKXccFrgiClBpMBgsK1hrJ-e8tVJ5h5c0H_y0Y4s10dBo_7_Zg2gic-iK8MUi1lJDYy_nlAuoMeGttpOPMwGIB8/s1600/sagle_ping_pong.jpg

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

The Modern Savage, All Songs are Windows

I've got no thought for building
it's always much to dull
each window i look thru wanna tear down to clear blue
I want to get back
How she passed and made me
with her perfume charms
I finally woke up past neckties and hair cuts
I want to get back


This song is about two faces: violence and its mirror, creativity. That is to say, we have the ability to create, and by Law (Cosmic and Newtonian) we have the ability to destroy. Every structure made, including art and song, can eventually be a form for imprisonment. That is why I try to reinvent myself, to escape. To put on war paint, and hide in the fringes. Sometimes I ambush myself, drag me to a dark corner of thinking, and make myself see the fire.

my heart is racing to what we are

It's a scary idea in the human world. Violence is an unwanted appendage of our animal-ness, no longer needed by an evolved humanity. Some look at it with the modern curiosity of a wisdom tooth or appendix, but it still turns up in every newborn. I have no answers or excuses about it. I make no statement on its value in excess, only to say that it is. Lately, when I watch the news it devastates me to see one ugly half of a beautiful balance repeated over and over. And it wrenches at me. I have to remind myself it is only half, and perhaps most importantly I have to turn off the news.

There are varying degrees and definitions of violence, and I wanted to explore writing about its musical sense as an expression of my own work. Savage is a song about writing. Some music builds on the past, and some is born reactionary and battling against it. I feel as a writer, I have to fight against my past work, my laziness. I have a tendency to repeat, so I make an active effort to revolt -make it new. But even trying to change is a pattern I don't want to fall into, which is why I'm always second guessing myself. Any construct is a window of how the maker views the world, and all songs are windows.

*

Fortunately there is a way to overcome the urge of destruction. The other face, creativity. Making something. Committing. Building. For this song, the turning point is Love, a woman, but it can be anything. Nature, Emotion, Etc... The Muses. Something strong enough to wake up our thoughts. Something to make us see the world in a clear way, even momentarily, and suddenly every action is in alignment. This is the attractive part of our instinct, but they are the same. They are natural. Somehow in that alignment we realize all the things we used to hold on to (neckties/haircuts) were the very things strangling our creativity- I would really like to know if anyone else has felt this- and for that moment of inspiration I can commit to a prospective of my world, and from that joy, make something.

The moment, for this song, came to me from the title word, and as soon as I had it, I knew where I wanted the song to go lyrically. Savage is a wonderfully loaded word with so many images conjured, but to me it reflects the uncivilized. What Joseph Campbell described as those things outside the circle of our campfire. The fear created by seeing ourselves as an other. The scariest thing about witnessing horrors and violence on the news...for me, is recognizing that horrible acts are created by people, people like me. It would be more tolerable to see devils, shadows and monsters, but I see people, foolish people, and I can try to distance myself by giving them labels, giving them reasons and excuses, statistics and categories, but we are all only people acting out, the way people do. I realized the connection of the two, and that the very impulse that gave us Bach and Liszt, is twin to the impulse that gave us every horror- I don't need/want to list them.

let's be Savage, gonna sing our song
let's be Savage till the feeling's gone

I don't like to make many stands on current issues in my music. I like pop songs, not lectures. Savage comes from the feeling of participating as a citizen in our times, not as a direction. Which might be contradictory sounding, cause I do sing Let's be Savage, but I meant the phrase to be a guide into the self, not out to others. I have enough trouble working on myself to worry about trying to change others.

If I could make a statement, I would like people to turn against their own ideas before pointing fingers and getting on the various soap-boxes. It would be beautiful to see people turn inward and question where our impulses, both creative/destructive, come from. To find our Self, to peel back the layers of civilization and experience, and rediscover what it means to be a person, is what I meant about being Savage; however, this is the view from my current window.


there is a sound so desperate to exist
it plagues inside every crack and twist
soaks in the brain and turns around
to find itself, solemnly sitting down.
to understand something so unsure
accept you are as raw and impure
live or break at anyones command
it is in you as in the sound

well, is there ever really change? I can't tell
a different face to occupy
a different place to dwell



-rene

Listen to Savage

p.s.: congratulations on The Black Keys and Dan for their recent Grammys


*War dance in the interior of a Konza lodge photo from: http://blogs.spencerart.ku.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/kansas-indians-dog-dance-18221.jpg