I guess I lied when I said I'd post a lot more stuff. I've already used up most of my non-existent Friday night energy, so this edition of the AA will be pithy and lame. Fittingly, it's for songs that either (a) never got finished properly, or (b) were hastily assembled after the fact. Three are "Honey White songs," sort of. The other four are "Low Tide songs," but barely. So, without further ado:Hold Still is a recording I did in about September '05 for a lyric I'd just finished that was nasty and mean and ugly. Funnily enough it was attached to a mellow, slidey song of Bryn's, that he first played for me on July 4 of '04. Honey White took a pass at the tune when we went into the studio for How Far is the Fall a few weeks later, and that take was what I spliced together as a backing track. And yes, horror of horrors, that's me singing. There's also some extra fuzzy bass guitar too.
Tempting Fate is from Feb '07, and a bit more manufactured. The lyric was hard to finish—not as much as "Lightning Rod," but more than (the Mojo Wire 2001 song) "You're On Your Own"—and though I think it was still tinkered with after this recording was made, some of the better lines made it into my Weapon of Young Gods novel. The instruments are me as well, which I guess is why it doesn't feel like a "real" take of it. Drums are my blunt, dumb attempts at sampling, from some bits Billy recorded in July '05 for me and Brian to use in this very way. Least complete of these first three.
Winner Take All is from Nov '08, although the lyric was finished about a year before that, and the tune (a rootsy/rockabilly jam of Bryn's) was recorded in rehearsal by Honey White around Oct '05. And again with the endurance test of Keir-vocals. The lyric is as finished as it's ever gonna be, and that's more than enough for now (kind of like the old quasi-Mojo song "Peak of My Career") considering my glacial output in that department since the last Honey White CD.
One of the things I used to do in between albums for both the Mojo Wire and Honey White is to make tracklists of stuff that I wanted to record for "the next album." These three would be on that list, plus another one I'm trying to finish right now (a Brian tune). Added to the two of Bryn's that Honey White's already played live ("Nightfall" and "Green Hills"), plus another one by Brian that we've also tried in practice ("Happy"), and that list begins to look hearteningly album-like. There's so much stuff HW hasn't even tapped in terms of leftover jams and ambient Brian-isms, after all.
But anyway, enough misty-eyed silliness from me. The Low Tide tracks are all instrumental outtakes from the Weapon of Young Gods soundtrack I released early last year. They're a bit too much on the ambient/easy listening/trippy side for my taste—the only burst of life is on Shatter the Surrounding Splendor, from drums by Billy that I recorded in Jan '04—but would have probably fit well enough on their parent album as interludes. Their titles (the others are Crippling Nostalgia, Fitful Mind Games, and Crushing Psychic Penance) are all taken from chapters that I thought would benefit from their vibes (which is how the ones that made the cut were named as well).
Jesus, only two beers and I'm already hopelessly adrift in another sea of what-ifs. I think I'd better pull together some of those ugly and cynical gonzo blogs of mine into lyrics before the muse totally deserts me in favor of some other pretentious fool. Stay tuned...
