"In the Wake" ep

Submitted by Peter Beyer on Tue, 10/03/2006 - 21:25

BUY NOW
Lyrics

In The Wake (September 13, 2001, Brooklyn, NY)

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

I wrote this two days after being marooned at JFK airport in NYC, we all remember why.

So after that experience (which included long cab rides and long walks and an eventual gathering at a Williamsburg loft where a motley group of shell-shocked friends cooked up a pot of soup of some kind, most likely with lentils, and went through the motions of getting through the day; the hosts were adamant that no pictures be taken; unbelievably, politics were argued; it was a strange day; we were just human beings, like any group of human beings stuck in a war zone I suppose), I returned to quaint little Delaware and wrote the chorus in my head, words and melody, just like that, while standing in the parking garage at work.

Then I drove home, figured it out on guitar, and much to my surprise realized it was in an alternate tuning (G string tuned down one half-step). The next evening I stood at a Wilmington trendy bar (where I ran into the some members of the Sexy Contingent of the Bank that employed me, and they proceeded to ignore me - the Sexy Contingent, that is, not the Bank, though I suppose that could be said as well - which I found startling but not altogether unwelcome, as I felt I was hovering in another reality anyway), and in this detached setting I wrote the rest of the song.

The following Saturday I was back in Brooklyn and recorded this song with Shahzad Ismaily. Sick Avant-Garde Deity Eyvind Kang was there, and he (at Shahzad's insistence) picked up his viola and put his brilliant touch on it. I paid him the only $65 I had in my wallet at the time. Next to the $90 I spent to take possession of my cat, Addie, it was the best bargain of my life.

We mixed the song the next weekend, and there it has stood ever since. If you've ever heard that story about Neil Young writing "Ohio" in the wake of the Kent State shootings, and how it all "happened" so directly and magically, well, that gives you an idea of how the process of writing and recording this song felt to me. It was lightning in a bottle. I'm not equating myself to Neil Young, but that's how it felt.

Nicotine (October 2001, Brooklyn, NY; rough mix)

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Originally written in 1997 just before leaving The Midwest, this song was conceived in a flurry one day with my old roommate Thad sitting outside on the deck.

I said, "Thad! Why hasn't anyone ever used lap steel rather than guitar to create a My Bloody Valentine otherness?"

He answered, "Well, it's time they did."

So I wrote this song instead.

In those days people smoked cigarettes more commonly than today. A large group of friends came over a day or so before my return pilgrimage to the East, and we all played this song together while someone rolled tape. That version is lost, sadly. I really would love to hear it, and to see all those old friends.

Fast forward to 2001, when I was working with Shahzad Ismaily in New York (speaking of missing old friends...); that is what you hear here. Shahzad and I had a great working dynamic, where he would completely transform my songs with his landscape, and I would intuitively go with it, almost in a Radar O'Reilly sense, anticipating his sleight of hand, directing and following at the same time.

This version also features two stalwarts in my musical universe, two genius friends from my past: Kristofer Widholm, recently of Morex Optimo in Brooklyn, a beloved and admired songwriter, provides acoustic guitar; Jason Harrod, folk stylist and ache-inducing beauty machine from Down South, Raleigh-Durham, provides acoustic guitar (that's him in the solo) and backing vocals.

For the record, I do not smoke cigaretttes, but all is fair game in songwriting.

In Magenta Skies (2000 or thereabouts, Dave Crozier's studio, New Jersey; incomplete rough mix)

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

One of four different songs I have written with this title, this version featured a third verse which was planned but not recorded. Probably better that way.

The usual "Sweet Insanity" (a never-realized solo album of mine from the turn of the millennium era) themes factor in here: imaginary girl; lost mother; miraculous and harrowing birth; lost light of dying/dead stars; austere sky; bold, solitary, sky; yellow bird flying invisible above atmosphere ... the usual nonsense of that time. I still write about that bird, though.

Blind in winter (2000, Brooklyn)

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Another song recorded with Shahzad, and the only one we completed for the as-of-yet unreleased Sweet Insanity album. Shahzad and I were really in tune with each other while producing this track.