Southern Gothic?
Haven’t been here in quite some time. Have had an insane couple of months of creativity for some reason. All these acoustic songs keep popping out – and while I’m totally still into Snow White Snow and totally committed to making sure that happens eventually – it seems that we’ll need to get this out of the way first. I’m pretty excited about it. Kind of getting back to more of our acousticy root cellarish roots- although the songs hopefully won’t suck anywhere near as much as those old root cellar songs did. We’ll see.
So – the working title for the record is Southern Gothic. We have certain rules set up for ourselves which makes it kind of fun and interesting for us. First, no instruments that need electricity can be used. Tony is not going to use a drum kit. He said something about mallets and bass drums – I’m not sure exactly what he’s talking about – but it sounds good. I’d like for all of the instruments to “sound like they’ve been sitting unused in Neal Young’s barn for the past 22 years.” Sparse and simple is king. “Barn-like.” Of course, some of this will all get thrown in the garbage when we decide there should be a Moog solo, but- it’s a good starting point.
We’re also committed to making a 9 song album. We have trouble with that, because we always assume this is our last chance, so we try to put everything we like on them. 16 on the last one. 13 on the one before that. But not this time. It’s already a pain in the ass- because there are these four old songs that I REALLY wanted to record. Punching the Ghost. Sit Down City. Pile of Little Arms and Our Ride Down. I think they’d all be really great in an acoustic setting. But- there are too many new ones to allow it. Which I guess is cool. Better not to dip into the old days if we can help it I suppose. But darnit – I wish those songs were on tape somewhere.
Like I said, the working title is Southern Gothic. The songs all revolve around a vague story of a man who’s long time mate drowns in the Ohio River. Why the Ohio River? There are reasons I guess. Not good ones, but… It’s all coming from two different places I think. The first, is there’s this song called Knives in the Kitchen that I have – and it’s got this sort of creepy Southern Gothic vibe.
It’s not like, Southern sounding musically – but it’s got that like, run down plantation weirdly oppressed marry your cousin or your parents were cousins so you’re not quite right in the head vibe. It’s got an impending insanity / secrets in the root cellar vibe. I can just really picture in my head the place where this song takes place. Creepy. Way out in the woods in a dilapidated old white farm house with falling fences and peeling paint. Old farm equipment rusting in toppled barns. You know? So there’s that. And it’s also coming somehow from the semi-recent death of my 90 year old Grandfather, who was totally the salt of the earth kind of guy who had a farm and lived on the Ohio River all his life. So for some reason, I’ve been thinking about that river a lot. It’s always had a weird sort of fascination for me. They’ve always lived on the river- sometimes in West Virginia, sometimes Ohio. In West Virgina -they lived in Pt. Pleasant – where the Mothman hangs out. And the Ohio River just sort of scares the shit out of me. It’s huge (not mississippi huge, but huge). And it’s muddy. And it seems uninterested and unforgiving and it seems perfectly willing to take your life if you’re stupid engouh to let it. And my grandmother told me stories about when the Silver Bridge near their house fell in, and all these people died- that the divers came up from looking for bodies with stories about 7 foot catfish down there that didn’t seem to be clear on whether or not they’d take a bite out of a human or not. And my Grandfather is buried in this cemetery near the river, and very close to the “Back Place” which is a piece huge of land that my way back family used to own and farm – there are old crazy caves there. But they sold it to the power company and now it’s been completely clear cut. And if you look up from my Grandfather’s grave- there is a huge nuclear power plant there on the edge of the river. My uncle just retired after working there for 30 years or so. And I don’t know – it’s just all such a strange scene and so different from my life- but I’m kind of envious of it all. There’s no Mothman in Asheville. I’ve always looked up to my family there because they seem to have figured out things I haven’t figured out yet about living in a way that’s not so complicated. Of course, it’s all an illusion. Their lives are complicated as shit, I’m sure. It’s my perception I’m envious of, not the reality. I really felt that in LA, and honesty – it was an influence on me wanting to get the fuck out of that place. And then I’ve just been thinking a ton about my Grandmother who has been left alone after 60 years or whatever – and thinking about how it’s going to feel being that old and how it would feel to lose your mate after so long together and how much that really just sucks and how life is really a bit of a bastard mother fucker no matter how you look at it. But this has all been swirling around and filling up my thinking time, of which there isn’t much…
So – I’ve projected myself into this old man (the character that I’ll be when I’m old is nothing like my Grandfather. he was totally cool and nice and everyone liked him. I plan to be a crazy eccentric old man who hates everyone and who pulls out the shotgun if you put a toe on my property). but anyway – in writing all these songs, i try to be this old man who has lost his wife (i guess wife- doesn’t matter really) – but he’s lost his long long long time partner, and I was thinking about that examined life socrates quote, ahh shit, let me google it- “An unexamined life is not worth living…” – that’s it. and while I’m not totally sure that’s true- if it is true- then the person who most examines your life is the person who makes it worth living. And for most peeps, that’s your mate.
So if your mate is the only person who examines your life, and for most of us- they’re the only ones who care enough to bother- but if that person disappears and leaves your life completely unexamined – then is life worth living after that? Crazy old man is teetering on a big fat ‘no’ to that. I mean, what happens when that person who listens to all our stupid bullshit and takes it seriously – what happens when they’re gone? I’ll tell you. All your stupid bullshit becomes just plain old stupid bullshit and there’s no way to facade it up anymore- that’s what. And when I project myself into that character- I’m pretty sure that what I’d feel is stuff like unfairness, loneliness, anger, – an anger that devolves in to some sort of violence, and i’d have regrets about all the things I’d done wrong to that person, regrets about all the time wasted, all the things unsaid or unfortunate things that were said and shouldn’t have been (cause I’m a bit of an insensitive asshole and probably pretty hard to live with…) and most of all, I think that i’d retreat into a self-destructive sort of, screw everything sort of phase. I think I’d go out to my weird falling down house way out in the woods. I’d plant weeds and shit in my driveway to make it disappear so that people wouldn’t bother me or try to help me. I’d start drinking heavily and just sit around and contemplate how sucky everything is. And I assume I’d start to go a bit crazy. And I’d start imagining rabid lions, or gargoyles and monsters lurking in the woods. Maybe you can come for a dinner party? We can make Carrie Bradshaw Martini’s and turn on Oprah. And I can put an teeny tiny apple on your head and shoot at it and you will call me Mr. Burroughs.
So, those are the happy thoughts that I believe should be the subject of this record. We’ve been passing the demos back and forth and Heidi recently said, “what about an upbeat happy song?” I’m trying. Cause honestly – my favorite songs are the ones that sound upbeat and happy, but that have lyrics with a black rotting heart.
The big thing now – is to figure out how to record this sucker. We REALLY don’t want to beg for donations again. Really. That was an awesome thing, but it might have been a once in a lifetime. I’d hate to try it again and fail. That would be a brutality we might not recover from. It was hard enough the first time. We’re hoping to sell enough records and tee shirts or whatever to pay for it. This one won’t be that expensive at all. But it’s always surprising how few peeps actually support bands in that way. Ask your friends in bands – they’ll tell you. It’s always, “man, i know i have 60 friends that will buy our record!” and then, “Well, i sold 10 records. all to my mom and sister.” But we’ll figure it out – we always do. We’ve saved all the cash from the very few shows we do, so we’ll start with that. We’ll figure something out for sure. This just reminded me though. Months and months ago they showed that columbia music doc about all those bands back in the day on SCETV and i was watching my interview where i was talking about getting dropped from the record contract and all that. And I thought, jeez- what kind of bullshit am I talking about? What I should have said, and can’t wait to say next time it comes up, is “I think the main reason we got dropped is because we sucked and no one liked us.” God damnit, I wish I’d thought of that sooner. That is so freaking good. Full gravestone material, that. “Angelo Gianni. 1967 – 2010. He sucked and no one liked him.” That is awesome.
I was also thinking about this. Someone wrote about our last record and called it a vanity album. and, i don’t qute get that. i’m trying to figure out what that means. I should also probably try to figure out why it bothers me. Hmm. We all know what being defensive points to. So – if you make a record to please yourself, that’s called a vanity album? But I thought vanity was doing things to make other people think you were cool. Vanity is doing things to make yourself think you’re cool? Really? So to be non-vain, I guess what you should do is make a record with the goal of pleasing everyone else at your own expense? Weird. Two and a Half Men is written to please everyone, right? The writers are just expressing their inner-most thoughts in the hopes of relating in an honest way to their audience. And if they have no audience because of their commitment to their vision, then audience be damned. What am I missing? Would a Vanity License Plate that said, “I suck and no one likes me” be vain? Or is that a whole other category of license plate? What would Carly Simmon say? Isn’t every kind of creative output a vanity project? Get back to me on that. I might have this all wrong. This could be my whole problem. Or one of them anyway.