Morgan, Of Course

haha !

morgan came up to portland for new year's eve and we recorded four or five songs over the course of the afternoon.. most of them were songs morgan had written, a few were real loose jams with the banjo and acoustic guitars and such. this is one of those. the whole 'song' was about seven minutes long, so i decided to trim it down a little.. which is a shame, 'cause the whole first three minutes are morgan(guitar) and i(banjo) noodling around, and morgan has all sorts of cool little guitar licks.. but i cut that part out, in favor of the half of the song with singing.. but trust me, the first half was like a solid gold spaghetti factory..

Morgan, Of Course

kierkegaard.

Bisons is Bisons

morgan and matt and i are playing songs, 'cause they came over. and that's pretty much what i do. this is what i did after emily went to work (around 1pm) and i think it turned out pretty well.. whew. i wanted to wrap it up quick and all, but i don't think it suffered too much for it's celerity. ha!


bisons is bisons
a penguins a bird
and when it comes to 'us' babe
'us' is a four letter word
yeah i got your letters, i tried not to read
'cause being 'round you
keeps me high for a week
but i'm gettting older
sometimes all i want to do is sleep

this ain't no intervention
whatever that means
there's already too much sunlight
on the dark sides of the earth

bisons is bisons
or haven't you heard
when it comes to cocaine
that penguins no bird

cocaine is a hell of a drug
bison is a bison
until you turn him into a rug
i'm on the floor
couldn't ask for much more
unless you cutting up another round

Perfect Math System

mercury all day today, king hen practice tonite, not a lot of time for songs.. i did most of this yesterday and last night, going back and forth between a few different instruments.. emily takes a little solo in the middle on the guitar. whew.. tiring stuff, all these crazy songs. i wish i had a drumset and a piano. that'd be nice.

Perfect Math System

i'm looking like i'm in charge
thinking i can see an icy ghost
staring at the star charts
writing out the math in a brand new way
laughing at distance
mapping out a way for us to be
seeing my mistakes on the tv
nothing good is easy
we can build to excess
a palace now: to float between the moons
decadent and epic

Dodging Low Moans

last night after evil alien practice i came home and pretty much finished this one up.. i had the chorus chord progression for awhile, i like the major/minor idea it has.. neat-o. and i had a lot of fun taking the outro chorus solo on guitar.. even after i had the solo recorded, i kept fooling around just for fun. good stuff.


when i get inside i win for life
i dont search carpets for your lies
no soft scratching,
i'm going barefoot
with an optimistic eye upon the ashtray

this is not like life
one long day is not like life
took a break from cars and crumbled
from sandlots to schoolyards
they're screaming the chorus

and after -
i admit a charged fascination
digging boxes & dragging lakes beds
dodging low moans and arrows from the void,
driving south.

Second to First

Second to First

i gotta go to evil alien costume practice right now, but this is a song matt wrote a few days ago.. he came over this morning and we recorded the acoustic guitar and some vocals, then emily got home from work and we sang and played keyboards and guitars and accordions and such. i also made some click clack percussion noises. whoa.

Wolf Buddy

Wolf Buddy

this song is mostly me playing this little descending lick on acoustic guitar, something i wrote while watching tv with emily.. it's Em , D , C , C with a Gflat..

i think it's kinda neat, so i recorded that one day all by itself.. that was the verse.. the solo bits are all ripped off of a king hen song that i'm really into, and i kinda just wanted to solo over those rising changes in this big 9 measure phrase. fun stuff.

i'm real into the idea of crazy old men living in the woods in frontier america becoming part of a wolf pack and running through the woods like a lycanthrope of old europe. bizarre old west witches living in caves, dealing in gold dust. yeah - that's good stuff.

today i worked for the mercury.. cold and wet all morning, but the sun came out this afternoon while i worked downtown. that was nice. i need a coffee grinder.

xmas

we're going over to the kronser's for japanese christmas! moshi moshi! kudasai!

xmas

merry christmas.

special hello's for james in montreal/pennsylvania.. jacob and lance in houston.. andy down in la, morgan in sf.

Super Construction Paper

more weird songs.. more guitar solo wankery. good times, waiting for emily to get home from work. sunday, coffee and puttering around a handful of instruments and a drum machine. and a wah pedal.

this song is about super heroes, and convincing people to become super heroes, and all that. you know.

Super Construction Paper

and it's christmas eve! my family has been known to celebrate christmas eve before..

Cokebottle Moses

just saying, but moses was a cokebottle
i'm rocking white shoes
the ocean is cloying
we can all be replaced

god's washing dirt?
well i slaved for ages:
"i made a thing, it don't float!"

Cokebottle Moses


this song has me playing that odd out of tune chord organ morgan gave me.. it's tough, 'cause it has super slow action, and is really flat, so it's uses are kinda limited. but i liked the lyrics and setup and robots and all that.. maybe i should've used the talkbox on it. ha.

i really like this one movie, cool hand luke. that's good stuff.

Never Look Back

so you say your the youngest
and you made a mistake
now you're building a rocket
and taking to space
gimme that smile
say your goodbyes to earth at last
never look back

i can't explain over coffee,
but mom is not the same
she keeps mumbling death threats
and sneaking away
she gave me her word
(she had her hands behind her back)
she gave me a laugh


i had to just write this one really fast last night, as i don't think i'll have any time today to do any song work.. i gotta go to the mercury all day, (where they might celebrate my birthday!) and then i get to go celebrate wes' masters degree (congratulations wes! it's about time!). it's a big day, with precious little time for songaday. wow.

Now That I Got Her

wes shirley came over yesterday and threw a few lines at me, which i tried to turn around and write into this pop song i'd just started putting together.. thanks wes! hopefully he'll come over again sometime.

sold my last drop of blood
didn't make a cent
somebody somewhere knows what that meant

now that i got her
i want her to leave
i love her, but need to be lonely

i feel like i've been on a roll lately, doing all sorts of good song writing/recording work..

At Christmas

whew.. even after the marathon session of yesterday, we had enough left over to come up with this little ditty.. it's almost entirely matt's work, with emily on the plastinet and i'm playing my brand new ukelele (yeehaw!).. i think it worked out really well - it's all live 'round one mic, very simple and warm and such. it's also got a nice depressing air about it, which makes it one of the better christmas songs already.

At Christmas

it's for colleen, who left matt here in portland while she went back to see her family. poor, poor matt.

Aaron's Birthday

today is my birthday, and matt and emily and i are all hanging out, celebrating and making music.. i gotta get back to it, but i wanted to post this.. for the record - i wrote it today. i woke up this morning, 'round 9:30-10 and got some half and half, made some coffee, and started working on this.. the entire thing happened over the course of 11 hours or something.. which has got to be some kinda record, at least for me. i'm giddy and pround, kinda. also drunk on wine, ha!

Aaron's Birthday

sometimes potatoes have eyes,
like tornadoes and needles
dr. jones likes it clockwise
some folks like to get high
marching along
to the sun on the sea
take a seat at the helm
steer the ship to the end of the world
thanks for getting born
so we can all laugh at what you do.
eyes, eyes.
eyes, eyes.


gotta run.

It's Only A Party

ooh, i really like this one.. i wrote most of it over the weekend, i guess, but today while i was at work emily swept in and put all sorts of cool things on top. she played a keyboard track, sang a few times, plus sang via talkbox and keyboard, and played the 'plastinet' - a sort of melodica thing with buttons, shaped like a clarinet. matt gave it to emily for christmas and she likes it a lot. funnily, it has a little bit of a bum note near the end of the register, which reminds me of the cool chord-organ that morgan gave us, which is about a quarter step flat. ha!


i live a fever, and you said
"It's only a party...
sit in the corner,
or on the sofa."

try and imagine

now i'm ready
to live my life on duty
crush the neck of another cigarette
now i'm ready

like/crush/love disaster
i wonder at the laughter

now i'm off to king hen practice!

The Spaces In Between

don't confuse your friends with who you know
we've been on the road a long time now, we must be close
they can have the stars, we'll take The Spaces In Between
they can have the stars, we'll take the darkness in between


umm... i didn't see Apocalypto yesterday, but i heard it was good and violent. i also didn't see akron/family last night, so you can see how much i give up. oh, i suffer terribly.

nah, i'm kidding. life is beautiful, joshua.

One Smart Decision

whew.. last night was matt and colleen's christmas party, and i got pretty lit up, i tell ya.. it was a pretty great time, what with the white elephant gifts (i got a talking cow!) that being said - today was a slow and painful day for the most part.
however, the upside of all this:

One Smart Decision

i managed to work pretty hard on this new song, and i think it turned out pretty well. blah blah. a little bit of acoustic guitar blip pop, sorta postal service-ish.

The Apple

friday friday friday.. big day today, you know.. matt and colleen's christmas party and such, should be great. i bought a gift, which is pretty good, but emily's got an even better gift, so it should be great.

The Apple
now i'm looking for the king
and when i find him i'm gonna set him on fire
and then i'll start to sing
my chest'll open, bones'll bend to reveal the choir
i've been hiding

Least Favorite Winter

i don't even know her, but i wish that i was over there,
i gotta make her believe
i thought the earth was starting to crowd, didn't think i deserved,
the worst is the loss of her laughter when she looks up and sees all eyes on her.
so i went back to her, and those six months are a blur
worth having and losing
but she had that faraway look as we drove back from the ocean. she is gonna say goobye.
i'm not so stoic, when i get high i start thinking of her
and who did just what to blow it, and why we said goobye, my Least Favorite Winter


no robot voices in this song, sadly. i have a headache, sadly.

Loose Waves Lazy Ocean

last night at King Hen practice Paul let me play his standard gibson les paul.. it was pretty sweet. i can't really consider myself a gearhead or guitar freak or anything like that, but a really nice instrument goes a long way. every now and then i get to play a really nice drumkit and it can be so satisfying.. that being said, i felt like i had to baby it a bit. the stealth guitar i play everyday doesn't get much coddling.

Loose Waves Lazy Ocean


tethered to the box that gets me home
one thousand swallows
namweN .J dlanoD
ranimeS melborP A
look at you:
clothes held up by the wing of an unhappy bird
i'm pushing buttons now, right?


ha! i'm pushing buttons now, right? ha! get it??

i need some more coffee.

We've Seen Enough

jenny soaked the pages
but she could own the alley
she's just held back by her scene

she likes this kid named david
and then it's me she stays with
she could get away with anything

ten thousand years ago
when dates went poorly
luckily we've seen enough

she climbs in and out of windows
she was free to go
but she couldn't get away


oh man.. i saw GUNS N ROSES last night! ha! it was pretty fucking great, all things considered. i got gifted an invitation/ticket as i was leaving work yesterday, and it was for a spot in this skybox (wow!) and everything.. i got there about halfway through Helmet (who i liked as a kid, but they didn't sound so great in an arena) and then saw Sebastian Bach, and then GNR. pretty cool.. it took some time outta my songwriting and recording, but it was worth it. and how.

thanks a lot to Scott, who arranged the whole thing.. and by proxy, the portland mercury.

Leglifts

this song was a headache, pretty much from the beginning.. i'm working without a piano and a drumset, these days, in our little apartment.. so i'm limited by a lot things that i've taken for granted. blah blah.. in any case, this song has at least three new experiments all thrown into it, and i really started to like it again near the end of it's birth.. it's an odd bird. super ripped up guitar sounds, twitchy little percussion bits, swirling keyboard bits, and robots. oh man.

Leglifts

to the slaughter of the gods:

should i stop? (this left unconquered)
stabs and gasps
hooray i'm gonna be famous
instantly and obvious

lets take our hats off to the lost
come back with the latest fashions
we can't scratch back into why,
but we get frail before our time
our bones grown random

we feel our hearts burn through gauze,
with thin lines that bind the things we believe and what they cost
we cant come close enough to say
climb up into nothing and bring back those old fashioned ways

so lets take our hats off to the loss
should i stop, this life unconquered?
stabs and gasps, hooray i'm gonna be famous

to work!

The New Boss-Man

man.. i saw gwen stefani on SNL last night.. it was awful. i was a little surprised, actually.. not that i'm such a big fan of hers, but i was under the impression that No Doubt worked real hard for a long time before they started to succeed, and that wasn't really apparent from her show last night. and she looked funny.

The New Boss-Man
i didn't really need to tell the truth, if it left you black and blue, i wanna live the life of someone else, the whole time leaving clues back to me, i'm sorry. i'm not living on the edge, i'm taking up too much room.

this song has a lyric that references 'before the fall' - a song morgan wrote a few years ago in the Volumes that is just gorgeous... so thanks, morgan.

A New Romance

yesterday was a pretty good day, even if i didn't get much songwriting done. after working all day at the mercury, emily and i went to the friday afternoon Mercury birthday/drinking party, and hung out and talked for awhile, then i went home and got to "work" while emily went to a business meeting for school, and then we went to Erik's ski lodge party.. for two years straight Erik Becker has had an ice sculpture, which still kinda blows my mind. that's classy. then emily went to work at 7 in the morning. wow. i'm a jerk, drinking coffee and thinking about music.

anyhow.

A New Romance
just open your bones,
let the sun explode,
the weight you unload,
all the monsters you know
the man with ten thousand hands is watching

the marks and whats told,
just tantrums to throw
as we wrestle with souls,
with pills to soften the blow
you gotta believe him, the system found a new friend: the entwinings, the bees who eat crow
we all sleep alone, afraid and hiding from our secrets
a wasted day, hope is broken,
it'll all be new tomorrow.

i got a love

i got a love for a pony with wings.
i got a love for a pony that sings.
she's cries the saddest songs while traveling.
her wings cut through the air, her voice is gonna tear your heart away.

we love to fly about and see the country,
we're always looking sharp and making friends.
we often say goodbye, but we often mean to try and come back again.

last night was a Peabody's show at Satyricon.. it was alright, i suppose.. the other bands were attentive. ha! 48 Thrills really kicked ass last night, despite going on last to a handful of people. great songs, great energy.. and Scratch always does fine, and we spent a good bit of time at Ground Kontrol, where they actually serve beer. it was a pretty good night. i should have gone to the Color Lab and said hi to Pat and celebrated the studio opening, but i couldn't rally. i'm sure it was a good time, and the Color Lab looked great, and Pat's a good guy.

ski lodge party at Erik's tonight. yeehaw!

The Warmest Tundra

super collider, really scratching their heads.

lets see here.. this song has me and matt singing sad and hopeful. and it's got references to Ender's Game, which matt and emily and i have all read. ha!

The Warmest Tundra

congratulations to g. tony jacobs, he gave a master thesis speech yesterday on fractional chromatic numbers and graphs and such. linear programming, i guess. and then we celebrated, so that was cool.. celebrated straight into Evil Alien Costume, where tony was cool enough to play the bass and jason played the maxi-korg blah blah blah. i think i beat matt at star wars, also. it was pretty fun.

congratulations, tony!

a very sharp lemon

here's a song:

a very sharp lemon

worried by the burn, thinking of the sea
fog light heat
god needs my machine

it's a very sharp taste
and me, i don't want to play
it's a very sharp place

stalked off in the firs
curtain on the scene.

there's a guy missing out in the mountains/forest, but his family has been rescued.. i guess he left the car looking for help after 7 days stranded in the car. wow. having never been lost in the snow, i can't claim to know much about hypothermia. i have a friend, Matt, who says you go crazy and stupid at the same time and get real hot 'cause your blood goes up to your skin, so you gotta get naked, sometimes. matt's also very concerned that i express well-wishes and sympathies, of course. it is sad.