We're Going To Be a Band That Plays Shows Again Soon!

Arbi: hey z
Z: Hey Arbi.
Arbi: how come i dont get free rob g spam anymore
Z: Because we've been on hiatus.
Z: Because stupid James likes Obama.
Z: And stupid me had to go to stupid Sacramento.
Z: And stupid Gary and Bert are just.... um, Jews.
Arbi: o
Arbi: bummer
Z: Indeed.
Z: But we will be starting up again soon.
Z: We had our first practice in a long ass time last Sunday.
Z: And I think Gary has booked us at this place in the valley and is going to book a Brewco show.
Z: So, if you're in town you should come and get belligerently drunk.
Arbi: nice
Arbi: i feel pretty confident about my ability to do that
Z: I believe in you.

I feel fully confident that this man will do us proud.

Soooooo, we are going to start playing shows again soon, so be prepared.

DO Stop

Maybe it took a couple of things of wine to realize this, but Don't Stop is a pretty emo song and pretty terrible therapeutic advice. So, kids and friends, DO stop looking back until you can't recognize the details of your past. Then you'll be looking at everything through the soft lens of selective memory and will remember everything as fuzzy and happy.

Holden Caulfield thought about it way too early.

Don't be like Holden Caulfield.

" About all I know is, I sorta miss everybody I told about. Even Stradlater and Ackley, for instance. I think I even miss that goddam Maurice. Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."
-The Catcher in the Rye

Can't Quit (Don't Stop)

So, this is yet another song that I sent to James and everyone to listen to and with everyone's input, we were able to piece it together pretty damn well. We had a 40-fueled practice and put this song together. Be prepared to hear the difference between what's below and what we'll rock your faces off with at one of our next shows.

This is "(Can't Quit) Don't Stop."

You know it as "Don't Stop."

Mind you, this is a scratch track for me to mess around with harmonies and some stuff. Also, remember this is recorded with Audacity, which is open source and more importantly, has a significantly smaller memory footprint than ProTools. I can get about two mono tracks open in ProTools before I run out of memory. Plus, Audacity takes about 2 seconds to load as opposed to about 20 for ProTools.

So, I feel that Audacity's pros outweigh its cons or namely, it's one huge HUGE con for what I'm trying to do is that the tracks don't sync automatically. There is latency and unless you record an extremely short clip it's not going to sync, so you have to line it up manually and, if there are precision tools, I haven't bothered to find them. Plus, I like the slight temporal difference for the vocals... it's just on this song, for the guitar part, it's sparse and short and you can hear how off sync that part is.

(Can't Quit) Don't Stop

Take a moment and listen
To the sound of it all
Try to picture my thoughts now
Can't quit! Don't stop! Don't stop!

She's a silly sad girl
And that's her everslow clock
I'm addicted to her
Can't quit! Don't stop! Don't stop!

Don't stop looking back
At the tracks
Sealed in wax
Don't stop looking back
At the tracts that somehow you forgot to write

Ever murdered for profit?
Compromised for a buck?
It ain't bad so get off it
Can't quit! Don't stop! Don't stop!

She's a really rich lady
Not that I give a fuck
She could take up collections
Can't quit! Don't stop! Don't stop!

Dirty Daniel

So, now James is back and I'm gone. Soon... soon all of Free Rob G will be back in LA and ready to rock.

Well, the title of the song may seem a little autobiographical, but it's really not (though I'm sure I could find some connection to myself). The lines in the song were either going to be "Mighty Majnoon" (from the Iranian tale of lovers Layla and Majnoon, best known in the west as the story that Eric Clapton reminded Pattie Boyd of in order to seduce her away from George Harrison) or "Dirty Dreamcoat" (I mistook the biblical Joseph for the biblical Daniel). This may make more sense with the lyrics first.

Dirty Daniel

Every time I think about it, then I begin to doubt it
She sits on her oily throne, which begins to creak and "Mine," she croaks
And rarely did she grin so gaily, until the day when sons Israeli
Climbed up on Jacob's ladder and fell before heaven, but it didn't hurt

Them no
Head gold
Feet stone

Heart? No

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who'd been asked to leave that place of sand
Won't she? Won't she?

And if your boss men count to three
And you wonder just if history
Could be discreet. Accept deceit.

Mighty Majnoon\Dirty Dreamcoat\Dirty Daniel sits in his room, telling me stories of doom
Of salt and sand and marching bands, and the virus that has gripped his land
Split the desert, walk on through, this charade is enough for you
And please don't make me applaud, my praise is mine, it's kept for..

God no
Don't roll
That stone
Just yet

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who'd been asked to leave that place of sand
Won't she? Won't she?

And if your boss men count to three
And you wonder just if history
Could be discreet. Accept deceit.

Now this song is very referential and I tried to make it deliberately so. Going back to what I said in an earlier post, this definitely falls more on the scale towards the obscure. However, I enjoy it when I read something or hear something or see something that compels me to further research the topic. Regardless of the validity of that which is compelling the research it is at least serving a productive purpose by encouraging people to look into the topic further, which I think, at least in the way I see the world, is a good thing. Sorry if that sentence was convoluted, because I'm saying it while thinking of a a web film I saw today in the vein of "Loose Change" (9/11 conspiracy theories stuff) and while this does rehash a lot of the same things, it at least was captivating and interesting in a Da Vinci Code sort of way. And, furthermore, it did, in fact make me look up the events and the people that they were referring to. Some of my impromptu research made me agree with the movie... some of it (a lot of it) made me disagree... however, I liked the fact that it was referential, simply because it stimulated my interest and made me discover something I might not have discovered otherwise. OK, tangent's done. (If you want to see the movie, it's here... http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/)

The main theme of the song is the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar that the prophet Daniel (who's being kept in Babylon as a Jewish advisor to the king) not only interprets for him, but also recalls (the king had forgotten it upon waking, but knew it was important). The basic gist of the dream is that there's a big statue and the head is gold, the chest and arms silver, the torso and thighs copper, the legs iron, the feet iron and clay. And they represent all the kingdoms of the world. Then all of a sudden there's a stone and it rolls down and smashes the statue, then it grows larger until it encompasses the whole world. The stone is God. God is a stone.

So, that's the song. And here are two other facts:

1. The title of the text file I have the chords written in is percybysshe.txt
2. Originally all I had were the first two lines and here's what was at the bottom of the text file (the (were?) was added later):
   
   These are (were?) terrible lyrics and I am ashamed of them. I blame drugs.

Keeping with the list aspect, here are things I like about the song:

1. 1) The words.
2. The little "Them no/Head gold/Feet stone/Heart? No" 7th chord and vocal pattern.
   
3. The part at the end where I am reading from the Book of Daniel in reverse.

Here's what I don't like:

1. The rhythm
2. Everything else

So, Gary and James and Bert need to get in there and funky or rock or cha cha or riff it up brother and make it work.