Echoes

I was just fooling around with some guitar effects, still trying to figure out how to use the equipment I’ve owned for like, seven years or so. I stumbled on some cool echoey sound and played a simple descending progression to see how it would sound recorded. I liked it, so I layered on a few more tracks. It ended up sounding like this:

Pieces,
I see pieces of
All the promises that I used to love
Sometime
Down the line
I’ll be free
I’ll be fine

Echoes,
I hear echoes of
All those useless words that I let go of
Memories
Fantasies
While the fire dies within me

Sound-check

A snippet (a few bars of Chris Cornell’s “Cleaning my gun”) from the sound-check before the March 30th show in my office/man-cave. I hope to tour my entire house by the end of 2012. I specifically told the stuffed animals in attendance (two teddy bears and a praying mantis) “No cell phones!”, but one of the bears managed to grab this footage on his iPhone. I literally kicked the bear out of the room and down the hallway, then confiscated his phone. There was some weird teddy bear porn on there too, but I don’t want to have my YouTube account flagged…

Das lebendige

Tonight’s jam with my imaginary bandmates…

Neutral Milk Hotel – Home

I was surprised to learn recently that Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel released a box set that includes a bunch of previously unreleased tunes (I don’t get out much). I’ve heard my share of bootlegs over the years, but some of the stuff that’s surfaced on YouTube recently is new to me, including studio versions of Oh Sister and Little Birds, as well as a blistering tune called Home. I’m determined to learn all three of these songs, but I can’t figure out the second line of Home (and no one has yet posted the lyrics online, that I can find). “Tender tidings” doesn’t seem correct, but I just can’t parse it out. If anyone clearly understands what Mangum says here, let me know, and I’ll buy you copy of the boxed set. I’m kidding of course. You think I’d drop like, a hundred bucks or whatever the hell it is, on you?!?! Come on now. I can’t afford it myself, and besides, I don’t even have a turn-table. But damn, the thing looks pretty cool and I do want it! Anyway, here are the lyrics to Home, as far as I can tell:

Home – where you can hold your hands together all you please
Won’t erase the tender tidings you endured
You’re just another family member on their knees
Just a social work statistic out the door
They beat against the tender sightings of your soul
With all those pretty little hammers of control
Where they are tonight well you will never know
But I swear that I will find them now
More – it’s more than just a simple question of decay
More than all those fists than beat into your door
It’s more than all the shrinks that told you you’re okay
It’s more than anything that I have waited for
They beat against the tender sightings of your soul
With all those pretty little hammers of control
And if they even can remember I don’t know
But I swear that they’ll remember now
Home – it’s just another word you’ll always push away
Just a memory you wear outside your clothes
And it will burn down into cinders and some day
They will burrow down to their parental holes
They beat against the tender sightings of your soul
With all those pretty little hammers of control
And if they’ve ever paid a price well I don’t know
But I swear that they will pay one now

Beautifuller things

Another day, another ode to the sun (and other stars…)

Beautifuller things by Isaac Dust

Close your eyes
Think of nothing
Shut your mouth
Tell me something
Lift me up
High as the sun
I’ll never come down

Take your time
Don’t you waste it
Hurry up
Almost taste it
Open up
Wide as the sky
And never shut down

Don’t shut me down
Don’t shut me down
I’m tired
I’ll tear my heart out
Yeah I’ll tear my heart out

Unwinding

I do a very idiosyncratic meditation practice of sorts that has evolved over many years — a little song and dance I call “unwinding.” Basically, I just lie on the floor, on my back, and do nothing. I inhibit any and all voluntary movements as I wait for anything that feels involuntary, any movement that feels as if it’s happening of its own accord. For the first several minutes I may only get a few twitches, but eventually, if I tune in enough, a whole series of movements will begin to emerge, and I follow them wherever they go, as long as the sense that it’s all “just happening” is driving the action. After a while, I might be bouncing all over the room, or end up on top of the refrigerator (this has actually happened!).

The sense I get during these movement meditations is that I’m literally unwinding various patterns of tension and inhibition, like the way a twisted rubber band will follow its way back to its slack form in precisely the reverse pattern with which it became twisted. At the end of this unwinding I feel incredibly clear and free, and I’m often showered with insights for hours.

Of course, it’s not always a super-intense experience, as the whole thing is about dropping into what’s actually going on in my body, not about trying to make something cool happen (although admittedly I’ve fallen into that trap many times). For whatever reason, I only do this practice every once in awhile, when I feel particularly compelled, which is usually when I’m particularly wound up. (Inconveniently, this has tended to be at like, three in the morning.) It’s only recently that I’ve explored this on a regular basis. That’s because it’s only recently that I’ve had the time to regularly indulge in such extended periods of purposeless. In so many ways, this “no job” period has been far more glorious than I imagined it would be. I know it won’t, can’t, and probably shouldn’t last forever, but I definitely can see myself getting in the habit of taking these extended “me retreats” more often in the future, should I continue to be so fortunate.

On the surface it might seem a bit self-indulgent to spend so much time navel-gazing, so to speak, but in my experience the benefits of such sustained inner focus usually extend far beyond my little Bob-o-sphere. Disconnection from my deepest intentions leads to disconnected experiences, disconnected actions, disconnected habits, disconnected relationships. Any investment I make in reconnection leads to, well… reconnection. It’s as simple as that. In short, the quality of my experiences–i.e. of my life–has always depended, in large measure anyway, on the quality of attention I’m able to bring to any given situation. Taking the time to truly unwind (as opposed to getting pleasantly distracted from being wound up) has consistently led to increased clarity of attention, refinement of sensitivity, deepening of self-awareness and, ultimately, a greater capacity for open-hearted communion with my fellow humans.

Or I’m just being self-indulgent. Who the fuck knows…

Anyhoo, I’m not sure how I got on that tack when really I just wanted to drop by the ol’ blog to post my recent cover of Roy Orbison’s “Crying”, which has until now been confined to Facebook and Twitter. “The Big O” was one of the first musical voices I heard growing up, as both my parents were huge fans. This song got lodged somewhere deep in my marrow before I knew a thing about heartbreak. When I recorded this the other day I wasn’t thinking about any of the numerous girls who crushed my corazon over the years, but rather of this town in which I’ve felt very much at home for eight years of my life, and to which I must now bid adieu. Sweet, sweet Carrboro, you will be missed…

Crying by Isaac Dust

Breakthrough (Take two)

I tried a little something different with this tune, i.e. laying down some bass, electric guitar and drum tracks first, then doing the acoustic guitar and vocals live over those pre-existing tracks. The synching of the video and audio is slightly off, but what can you do…

I actually recorded a version of this song a few years ago. As I blogged at the time, I had just flown to New Jersey from Mexico to have knee surgery, and I didn’t have access to a guitar. So I wrote and recorded this tune using a keyboard and the GarageBand software on my laptop. This is one of those tunes that just came to me fully formed from out of the blue. I took the photo above moments after that first recording, holding my crutches out in front of me like the prison bars they had become. Having been through four knee injuries and three surgeries, I’m hoping those fuckers don’t come out of the closet again any time soon. Anyway, as with all my creative projects, this song continues to morph as the years unfold. Perhaps next time I’ll just whistle over a beat box…

Breakthrough
I woke to the birds and the best of intentions.
I tried every way I knew to express them.
I get on the train and it’s taking me somewhere
Away from myself…
Away from this cell.

But I can’t get away from you.
I lock all the doors but you still break through.

Where did the time go? How did I get home?
When did I get old? Show me the slideshow.
Somebody told me: “It’s all as it should be.”
So I’ll keep on hiding, just so you can find me.

But I can’t get away from you.
I lock every door but you still break through.

Here’s the “album version” (i.e. mixed and trimmed), with an intro from the ghost of Alan Watts:

Drive all night

I’m still in my Glen Hansard phase, spending way too much time watching/listening to every bit of him I can find on YouTube. A few weeks ago I saw this video of Hansard, Markéta Irglová, and Colm Mac Con Iomaire sitting around a tree in Milano, Italy playing a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Drive all night”. I was never a big Springsteen fan and I’d never heard the song before, but I was just blown away. I immediately downloaded the original version from Bruce’s album “The River”, and was not disappointed. I hadn’t realized the song “Hungry Heart” was also on that record. That song was in heavy rotation at the Frear Park ice rink in Troy, New York back in the early 1980’s, and it’s impossible for me to hear it without vividly recalling the sound of skates scraping the ice, and the sensation of cool air streaming across my face as I whizzed around, zig-zagging between slower skaters, trying to impress some doll-faced girl wrapped up in a pink scarf with matching mittens. There was also hot chocolate in the vending machine and absolutely no chance I’d want to stop skating when it was time to go. It would be nearly thirty years before I’d hear any more of that Springteen album, but it was certainly worth the wait.

Since I can’t get the song out of my head and can’t stop playing it whenever I pick up my guitar, I saw no harm in hitting the RECORD-button last night. Although I haven’t yet received permission from The Boss to post this online, I’m sure he won’t lose sleep over it…

Drive all night
When I lost you honey sometimes I think I lost my guts too
And I wish God would send me a word
send me something I’m afraid to lose
Lying in the heat of the night like prisoners all our lives
I get shivers down my spine and all I wanna do is hold you tight

CHORUS
I swear I’ll drive all night just to buy you some shoes
And to taste your tender charms
And I just wanna sleep tonight again in your arms

Tonight there’s fallen angels and they’re waiting for us down in the street
Tonight there’s calling strangers,
hear them crying in defeat.
Let them go, let them go, let them go,
do their dances of the dead (let’em go right ahead)
You just dry your eyes girl, and c’mon c’mon
c’mon let’s go to bed, baby, baby, baby

CHORUS

There’s machines and there’s fire waiting on the edge of town
They’re out there for hire but baby they can’t hurt us now
Cause you’ve got, you’ve got, you’ve got,
you’ve got my love, you’ve got my love
Through the wind, through the rain, the snow, the wind, the rain
You’ve got, you’ve got my, my love
heart and soul

Copyright © Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)

[The photo above is a tree that I walk past every day on my way to and from work. Anyone familiar with Franklin Street has probably seen it. Reminds me of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”.]

Weary hearts

A song that descended from the Great Unknown on January 2, 2008, while I was living in Mexico. I finally got around to singing it:

Go Beth, go catch your breath
Just slow things down a little bit
One day you’re gonna be okay
Just watch your worries float away
Like whispers on a breeze
Messages on stormy seas
Like memories of a dream
Nothing’s ever what it seems
Rest your weary heart

Wake up, my little sleepy head
You don’t wanna spend all day in bed
Get dressed, take a walk with me
We’ll watch the leaves fall from the trees
Like young hearts into love
A shooting star from high above
A tree onto the ground
And we’ll be there to hear the sound
And rest our weary hearts

[Narration: 1) Henry Miller, reading “Third or Fourth Day of Spring” from his book “Black Spring”; 2) Myself, talking to myself in “el cuarto”, Mexico, 2008.]

<a href="http://isaacdust.bandcamp.com/track/weary-hearts">Weary hearts by Isaac Dust</a>