Live from the Studio!: #20 Bandcamp Friday Eve

It’s a night of originals at the studio tonight. Tips and Requests always appreciated and honored:

Venmo: @holliswebb
Cash App: $HollisWebb

Sing Along - Momma

Mommas are wonderful, wonder-inducing, magic.  Most of the time when I am being a good dad, I am told I am being a great dad.  Mommas move through the world mothering and not being told this on a regular basis.  It’s like we’re watching a magician performing card tricks, but the magic is real—so we give mediocre applause because there’s no ‘trick’ being performed.

Like a lot of my tunes, this song is light on words. (Lindsey asked “Is that it?” the first time I played it for her).  In a lot of ways I haven’t grown past the age of being 14 years old and thinking that Nirvana was the most genius songwriting I had ever heard.  I’d like to think I’m painting broad strokes with few words in this song.  The second verse I think is the most vague:

Fingerprints are on the window, rain is gathering at the door.

I have an image in my mind about living in the house on Thorain and Robert’s little greasy hands marking up the windows and the glass back door.  When it rained sometimes rain would collect right at the threshold.  It’s amazing the while house didn’t smell like mold.

She takes the towel that the dog used, lying crumpled on the floor.

I have a distinct memory of Lindsey drying the wet dog off from being outside with the same towel we were using to dry the floor next to the back door.

Trash is strewn across the bedroom, doors are hanging by a pull

I remember Robert crawling around and turning over trash cans—or maybe that was the dog.  I can’t remember.  The old house we lived in had these ancient doors that felt like that were going to fall off at any given moment.  I think that was the worst part of having a baby in that kind of house.  So much danger—so much to baby proof.

I noticed a little while ago I like to use a little triplet thing in songwriting.  It’s just like “A Werewolf’s Been There” has this grandiose little triplet thing for the chorus and makes “Momma” reminiscent of that tune or that same emotional little bit of songwriting.  There are many songs written for mothers and in some ways I think I’ve copped from them—maybe as the song is trying to capture the “magic” of being a momma.  I certainly wanted to have a magical guitar solo to elevate the song at that particular moment.

I like the recording I eventually got, but this is challenging tune to pull off live.  It is (I think) the only song I have written in “F.”  Why I chose that I can’t remember.  It was probably for the big C voicing at the end of the verse.

Sing Along - Even Breathing

The recent ruling by the Supreme Court has put me in the mind of how vulnerable pregnant women are.  It’s not something I’ll ever fully be able to appreciate, but having been a witness to the process from start to finish, I have observed a few things about breathing and sleep that couldn’t escape the melody in my mind for this song.

Did you know if you are a person who is pregnant, and you sleep the wrong way in bed, you can wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air?

I didn’t know this either until I watched it happen.  It will make you scared enough to go the emergency room the next morning to make sure everything is “ok” (indeed, a doctor will recommend you come in immediately if you have breathing problems).  There were tears in the examination room as I sat quietly listening to the nurse (also pregnant and extraordinarily kind and reassuring) explain to both Lindsey and I that this was a thing.

There is some nerve in the back and can get “pinched” if the weight of your pregnant body lies squarely and relaxed on it when you sleep.  Although I am a person lucky enough not to ever have to give birth, I still can see how the weight of a growing body can put pressure on your respiratory system when lying on your back.

There are unattractive and weird body pillows you can buy (we bought one) that helps pregnant ladies sleep comfortably and not be in danger of random night-time suffocation.  I’m still in shock we were able to sell it later on.  I’ve learned that there is no bed-making technique good enough to overcome the strange, ineffable feeling you get when you see a body pillow on a freshly made bed.

We discuss quality of sleep often in our house.  While Lindsey is a self-proclaimed light-sleeper and had difficulty early on in our relationship sleeping next to me, I learned this was completely understandable as I made a recording to actually hear what kind of sound I was making.  After listening to the recording and observing the visible waves in the sound recording the next morning there was no doubt that I had a snoring issue.  Lindsey went half on a sleeping machine for me as she simply could not sleep through my loud (but rhythmic) snoring.  She would get out of bed when I had started to (loudly) drift asleep.  I was blissfully unaware of the scale and aggressiveness of the noise my body was making while I was unconscious.

When the baby came, breathing became an activity I never knew I would think about so much.  The moment he arrived I expected screaming (if you can scream you can breathe)—but there was no screaming or crying for what seemed like an eternity (it was probably only like 30 seconds).  When he started screaming it was like he had officially been “born.”  I wept in the delivery room and simultaneously told him that he did a great job and how good he looked.  This is sort of an unfair thing for a mom—as her work isn’t done when the baby arrives (look it up).  When the baby slept quietly at night (rarely) I almost couldn’t take the stress of wondering if he was breathing and whether he would keep breathing.  But he did!  And he still is.  But let me go check just in case.

Sing Along - The Woods Boots

This was the first song I wrote after I released Rescue.  It’s always a weird thought about what that next song will sound like especially after it has been many years making a record.

“The Woods Boots” is about Lindsey taking a pregnancy test at the Woods Boots in Colorado City, TX the weekend we were in Robert Lee, Texas for Tyler Wallace’s wedding.  I was given the honor of playing the pre-wedding music out in a canyon on the Wallace ranch where Tyler and Allison got married.  I decided my “look” wouldn’t be complete without a cowboy hat—an accessory I somehow evaded for my 36 years as a Texan.  I figured rightly so that there would be some sort of badass western wear or cowboy hat store somewhere close by.  I looked it up and Woods Boots had some notoriety in the area.

We decided to go eat lunch first at a place called Lucy’s.  It was a typical sort of west Texas cafe/restaurant sort of place.  I had a chicken fried steak which was OK.  I forget what Lindsey had.  She thought the food was great.  This was suspiciously out of character for her as she generally does not like any food we get when we eat out.  I didn’t think much of it because Lucy’s did have a sort of west Texas charm.  The empty streets of Colorado City made the cafe feel like the town center even though this was probably just the rhythm of a normal day in Colorado City.

After a sufficient amount of chicken fried steak, a sort of mediocre side salad, and a disappointing Pepsi, we headed to Woods Boots.

Like most western wear and boot stores, Woods Boots is a large building sitting atop a large parking lot in need of repair after many hot, dry summers.  We walked in and felt like the outsiders we were.  I asked to try on a few cowboy hats I thought I liked, but shockingly, there were very few hats which would fit my (apparently) large head.  I guess I learned two things that day.

I found a hat— not really the material or color I wanted—but it was a hat that fit and I sort of liked that it was a stye I would not have picked for myself.  Apparently the rule is that you should wear straw in summer and wool in winter.  This wedding was in spring but in Texas everything feels like summer.  It was a Stetson and came in a fancy Stetson hat box which I still have.  It blew off my head one time while we were on the Wallace family property which was embarrassing, but I looked like a real folk/roots musician in the few photos that were taken of me so I call it a win.

And my cowboy hat did look good.  It’s a dark green color and looks like a hat someone would wear to a wedding.

I found myself to be somewhat distracted at the reception after the ceremony.  Had I not been so enveloped in pondering what my life would look like once I had a plane on the runway I might have really partied at Tyler’s wedding.  I kept thinking about the thing that was going on with my partner and our little (growing) organization.  So after I played and did my service to Tyler and Alison I stayed the requisite time and left—which is a sad thing to do at Tyler Wallace’s wedding.  I was too distracted by the thought of being a dad to really be able to enjoy the reception.  I did make Lindsey be the designated driver on the weirdly long journey back to the hotel in Colorado City.  I kept saying “I’m going to be a good dad” both for Lindsey’s benefit and my own.

Download or stream “The Woods Boots Woods” from Bandcamp.

UPDATE: SOLD! I'm Selling my Guitar! Reverend Manta Ray HB

I am selling one of my guitars and wanted to tell you a little about it.

I’m selling a Reverend Manta Ray.  This Reverend Manta Ray is from 2007 and is a semi-hollow body guitar with a single “comma” hole.  It has two humbucking pickups, pin locking tuners, stop tail and tune-o-matic bridge, with an awesome and classic tobacco burst finish.  This guitar is a 24 and 3/4” scale, 22 frets, and has a super fast neck in my hands.

The controls on the guitar are a 3-way pickup selector, master volume, master tone, and Reverend’s own Bass Contour Control.  Dialing it back rolls off the bass sounds on both pickups and while some say that it can make the pickups sound more like single coils, to my ears and under my fingers what it sounds like is a total re-voicing of the pickup.  It makes this guitar both versatile and able to sound really great through any kind of amp or recording scenario.

The body is made of mahogany (I think) and has a maple top.  This guitar is HEAVY weighing in at a bit over 9lbs.

This guitar is a wonderful strummer, but is ideal for blues, jazz, and rock sounds.

I would say this guitar is in “Very Good” condition.  I am the second owner and have enjoyed playing it.  The frets are in great condition.  Not really any noticeable wear.  It has some scratches located on the lower bottom right hand side on the back of the body probably due to a belt buckle.  The scratches don’t go through the finish, but they are pretty concentrated in that one spot on the back side.  The rest of the guitars is SUPER clean.  Guitar comes with the original Reverend hardshell case.

I’ve got this guitar listed on Reverb and the link is available wherever this is streaming, but if you know me and I know you, LET’S MAKE A DEAL!  No need to bring big business into this mess.

Thank you for watching and enjoy the Reverend Manta Ray.

It Worked

I’ve had this little “Learn to Solder” kit for nearly a decade and finally busted it out to get some practice before I go to town on my “Hate-caster.” I cannot believe it worked. The underside of this thing looks UGLY. I ripped off one of the tiny little copper pieces when I was trying to fix a resistor connection that wasn’t flat on the board. Unbelievable. This thing must have been made for dummies. I’m just glad I started on this and not the guitar’s switch.

Band Practice

Getting a guitar and learning how to play was an experience and skill that has stayed with me and served me throughout my entire life.  Joining my first band and learning how to rehearse, write a song, work together as a team, and create a musical performance collaboratively was the best and most important activity I did as a teenager.  I still carry the lessons I learned to this day and still battle the same bad habits (as a group) that I did in my first band and all the friends, groups, and professionals I have payed with until now.

Fast forward more than 20 years and here I am still putting these lessons into place and battling the same bad habits.  For your consideration, here are the top 5 things you should be doing to make your band practices great and productive:

1. Have goals - I mean, really specific, actionable, SMALL goals.
   
   I’m talking:
   
   “Learn three songs as a band.”
   
   “Be able to beautifully start and end those three songs as a band.”
   
   “Film a video of the band playing a song.”
   
   “Make a studio recording of a song performed live or using studio multi-tracking techniques as a band.”
   
   “Practice repertoire all the way through to simulate a live show as a band.”
   
   “Showing the ringer(s) how to play the songs as a band.”
   
   “Vamp on problem portion of songs to ensure accuracy of musical performance as a band.”
   
   The point is to be always be playing music in a group setting and agreeing to and executing some sort of song structure from beginning to end. Recording or filming the performance of the songs will provide critical feedback about the good and bad aspects of your playing in the group. Do that if you can every practice at least at the end of the rehearsal to capture your best shot of playing the tunes.
   
   The biggest downfall of any rehearsal is your time being spent as an unfocused affair, mostly concerned with talking or needless and unproductive jamming or “noodling.” Stay on track with what you want to do and execute.
   

2. Have a plan for practice informed by your goal(s) - and stick to it. Everyone should be on the same page about the goals and the plan. Stick to the plan, take a (quick) break after every hour of rehearsal and get right back into it. If you have multiple items on your to-do list, you should try to organize the least enjoyable agenda item and beat it in practice until you are sick of it or have mastered it to the point of it being unrecognizable.

3. Pack lightly - In most cases. If you’re reading this you need to pack smaller unless (as above) you are simulating a live performance. Only bring what is critical in service of the song. There is no need to bring a “rig” for every rehearsal. There is definitely not a need to bring the entire rig for a first rehearsal.
   
   Smaller amps, smaller pedal boards, one guitar/pedalboard/keyboard, and smaller and fewer drums is what is required for intimate home or practice space rehearsals.
   

4. Prepare heavy (individually) - Decide what you will do ahead of time, get everyone on board with it, and then do whatever you can to prepare as if you are walking in to a professional recording session. Listen to the recordings provided—multiple times. Play through the recordings. Get your sound tight for every song ahead of time and make your equipment or settings a non-issue.
   

5. Wear hearing protection - I haven’t had a hearing test in a while but I know it was probably damaged significantly during all those concerts and Sunday afternoon practices I attended as a younger person not thinking anything of the resource that your hearing is as a musician. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Don’t be stupid. Spend $40 and get badass hearing protection that will lower the db going to your ear and still preserve the sound in a way that is useful and enjoyable.
   Your hearing is your best instrument as a musician and best music player as a consumer. Be thankful and protect it.

Playing in a group as a musician is one of the most rewarding, instructive, and fun things to do as a musician.  Take the time on a person level to learn the songs and show up as the best version of yourself as a performer.  Lead when practices get offtrack.  You are there at the rehearsal to do a job and make art.  Don’t forget that.

Also, it’s fun to get things done.  Listening back or watching your recordings is a great motivator when you can hear progress rehearsal to rehearsal.

Tonight (02/26/2021) on Facebook live I’ll be chatting with Art Martinez of Art Martinez and the Sofa Kings about how he rehearses his band.  “Like” the Hollis Webb and the Sleuth facebook page to get a notification when we go live at 7PM.  https://www.facebook.com/holliswebb

How to enjoy a live band in San Antonio

After officially releasing RESCUE last month and playing a couple of shows to promote the record, I’ve been extraordinarily grateful to all you folks who have given me your evenings and your ears to come hear the band play.  It has been fun to get better and better each time we perform and share that progress with those of you who are coming along this ride with us.  We received a lot of positive feedback from our friends and family who came out to see the release show and it made me think about all of the local band shows I’ve seen here in San Antonio and other places.

That said, I was thinking of a few things I would recommend when you decide to go out and hear some kick-ass live music in Alamo City.  The following list is not exclusive and I’m certain those of you with far more experience and years in this town could certainly add to it:

1. Leverage the local music calendars on a regular basis to find something cool to go to.  The Current and Do210 both have exhaustive calendars curated both by the editors of the respective platforms and user-submitted events.

   OR…OR…OR…

   And I know this will sound crazy—but those annoying Facebook invites you receive from your well-meaning songwriter and music friends are also a good way to find a good venue you’ve never been and support a developing artist.

2. Take a fucking Uber.  Or a Lyft.  Or a cab.  Or a chauffeured dual-horse chariot, just please don’t drive if you are going to be drinking or “recreating.” I don’t know when surge pricing is, but if you call an Uber at 3AM on a Saturday in the middle of a torrential downpour, yes, you may pay a little extra. This is still a much better scenario than driving while you are impaired, injuring or killing yourself, a passenger, another person, or getting arrested and a DWI ruining your life.

3. Grab your crew! Everything is better when we’re together. Teamwork makes the dream work, etc. Get a friend or friends and venture out (split the cost of the Uber).

4. Eat somewhere great. Be thankful you live in San Antonio. Find a food truck. Don’t count calories. Order the queso. Are you rock and roll, or rock and small?

5. Bring money to tip your bartenders and buy the band’s merch. Make a hard-working bartender’s night and take home a cool souvenir from your night out. Your kids or future robot overlords will loving looking at your record or rock t-shirt collection. You’re also (seriously) helping a musician or band make rent and be able to continue producing music.

6. Know thyself.  Maintain. “Take a fucking Uber” could be rolled into this, but ultimately this is about knowing yourself, your situation, what you are putting in your body, and then keeping yourself together and having a nice time. Enough said: Know thyself. Maintain.

7. Be excellent to each other. If you are at a local show you are participating in a community. The band, the audience, the people who work in the venue: you will see these people again, I promise you. It’s remarkable what a small world we live in. Don’t ruin some other person’s night by being violent, racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, too drunk, or just being a plain jerk. We’re here to have fun and none of that stuff is fun.

8. Be careful going home (TAKE A FUCKING UBER) Be sure to pay your tab at the bar, grab some merch, creep on the band and tell them how much they mean to you, and TAKE A FUCKING UBER.

Come out and enjoy a live show with us at The Mix this weekend September 15th at 10PM. My good friends Union Specific will be opening the show for us. Hope to see you there!

Get the new album RESCUE on vinyl, CD, or digital download from Bandcamp.

The Morning After: RESCUE Album Release Party, Ventura, 08/25/2018

It’s not really “The Morning After,” but yesterday doesn’t count because we were all dead from too much rock’n’roll.

The setlist:
A Werewolf's Been There
Lucy, Tell me a Secret
The Balcony Song
Bear-filled Woods
Getaway (Snitches get Stitches)
Grayscale
Come Back Home
Fake Pearls
Adeline
All of the Nice Things
Over and Over Again
I Get So Scared
The Laboratory
The Label On Your Sleeve
Slip Away (cover from Perfume Genius)

Personnel:
Hollis Webb - Vocals, guitar
Clint Buck - Bass, vocals
Luke Holland - vocals, guitar
Alyssa Long - vocals
Mark Henne - Drums

This past Saturday The Sleuth and I took the stage at Ventura here in San Antonio and played the new album RESCUE from top to bottom–and then some.  Though we have only played a few shows, it will be hard to match the enthusiasm, energy, and love from the massive crowd turnout we had at Ventura.  It was packed!  I spoke to many of you after the show and I was delighted that for a lot of you this was the first local show you had intentionally attended in a long time–and you had a blast!

This show is the culmination of many years and many friends helping along the way.  I'd like to give a shout-out first and foremost to Michael Carrillo at Ventura for hosting us and making us sound so good on stage. Mikey cares about this and always wants to get it right--SO THANK YOU.

One of the challenges of recording a record at home and then finding a band after the fact to perform it is capturing the emotion, energy, and clarity from a recorded platform and then transferring it to a live band performing the same song on stage.  It doesn’t sound the same–and I think that’s good.  I think we all know deep down somewhere that this is one of the joys of seeing live music: you never know what you’re going to get.

Performing the tunes with the exact same personnel as on the record (with the exception of an understandably absent Andrew McGregor) was another aspect of the show that made the release so special.  That performance may be the only time one would hear Mark Henne on drums along with the rest of the group on the record (Mark’s not dying or anything, he just lives in Austin and plays in 400 bands for a living, so when we get him it’s a special occasion).

So in the end, I was sandwiched between big groups of friends: my friends in the band playing my songs, and my friends in the audience, listening and dancing and opening up their hearts to my weird little living-room recorded music.  It’s a big, beautiful feeling I wish I could give to someone I love.

That afternoon I also stopped by the studio of KSYM 90.1, San Antonio College’s student run radio station and sat down with Hot Mustard and DJ Pyramid to talk about the release party and the record.  This was another, more embarrassing, dream of mine that I wouldn’t normally share unless I was somehow invited to do it: I love college radio.  I would follow college radio into battle.  When this civilization ends and the next group comes in after us tasked with picking up the pieces of our forgotten and broken society, I hope that the first sound they hear when they roll the dial on their field transistor radios somewhere, somehow, will be the sound of a nervous college kid saying “Okay y’all, I just ventured out into the post-apocalyptic wasteland and traded a possum pelt for a copy of Death Rides a Pale Cow on cassette–so that’s what we’ll be listening to for the next 43 rock blocs.”

College radio was an oasis for me growing up.  In Lubbock, TX we had a rock station,  pop station, several tejano and religious stations, and then one little scrappy college radio station: KTXT 88.1.  They played music I couldn’t hear anywhere else and somehow the only music that ever really excited me (right before I started playing guitar).  To be invited to speak about my dumb little record on a college radio station was sweet–even though I forgot to scream into the studio mic begging you college kids to like me.  Thank you again to Mustard, Pyramid, and KSYM for having me in!

The new record RESCUE is available now on vinyl, CD, and digital download.  You can listen to the record and purchase it from Bandcamp here:

Sing Along: The Laboratory

I spent my first couple of years here in San Antonio in a studio apartment near Castle Hills (though from the sound of the passenger jets screaming overhead, it might as well have been on the runway of the San Antonio International Airport).  It was “cozy.”  I had just moved here and I was still getting on my feet with a new job and finding my way around the city.  My guitars, amps, my electric piano, stereo, records, and my recording equipment crowded out the small space and that is where they remained.  Occasionally I found an open mic to play, but I found my endurance with staying out until 2AM to be lacking.  I met really kind singer-songwriters trying to figure out their path as well and some of them even helped me out with playing my first shows here in the city.  My best friend Clint Buck found a job here eventually and we started playing music again together as Buck Webb (Buck Webb, Greatest Band in Town, Bum, bum).

But most nights I would sit in the apartment playing guitar or recording music by myself.  I had a group of songs I was doing countless demo takes—an exercise I now view as a waste of time.  It seems like month after month would pass and I wasn’t getting any closer to making the recording I set out to make even before I moved here.  Finding a rehearsal space was a problem.  Finding a drummer to play on the record was a problem.  Working in a small apartment with the planes screaming overhead was a problem.

And it began to wear on me.

I ate poorly, I drank too much, and I didn’t get enough sleep.  Some of it was fun though—and there are those late nights playing and recording fueled by a focus and solipsism that only the loneliness and quiet of 3AM in a studio apartment in San Antonio can provide.  But the rewards for this activity are few and not significant in the long term.

One day my favorite podcast featured celebrity-enabler Dr. Drew Pinsky on relationships:

“Go have a relationship.  Have a good one, have a bad one, have a weird or temporary one—just go have one.  You don’t change or grow as person on your own very much.  Relationships change us, and that is good.”

And so I got a haircut, trimmed my beard, put on some clean clothes, ventured out of the apartment, and had a relationship with a woman—and she inspired me—not in the sense that I was writing narrative songs about my love for her, but rather she became my inspiration for wanting to be a better friend, boyfriend, son, brother, bandmate, musician, and person.  The Laboratory is a song about the planning and isolation of pining for someone or the aching of wanting a dream.  It is also the song on the record which features the title:

Science can’t explain the beating of my heart
when I see your face.
It can’t duplicate the rush of motion in my gait
when I see you again.
‘Cause I got this disease, it makes me weak in my knees—
Won’t you come rescue me.

Listen to “The Laboratory” here:

Sing Along: I Get So Scared

"I Get So Scared" is special for a couple of reasons.  It is the oldest song on the new record and was the one song I felt needed to be brought back and re-recorded and dusted off a little bit.  I wrote it while living in Austin and playing with my friend Nick Welp.  We called ourselves The Tease and the Terror.

Like a lot of young musicians we were broke and couldn't afford a legitimate practice space long term, so we got an outdoor storage unit to use as a rehearsal space.  Then we got kicked out of that storage unit because we were right next to an extended stay hotel and the guests nor the management appreciated the melodious sounds emanating off the concrete and steel.  Then we moved to a different storage unit where the management was much more chill and we set up shop.  This was one of my first adventures in home recording (or storage unit recording--same thing).  You can see the old iMac in the corner of the photo.  This picture is of the only "gig" we ever had.  In a storage shed.  For two people.

I've always liked "I Get So Scared" and the guitar sounds and harmonies were fun to develop on the new version.  Listen to I Get So Scared available on RESCUE now:

BASS Along: Over and Over Again

Today we are doing something special with our “Sing Along” series where we discuss how the songs from RESCUE came into being.  Today we BASS ALONG!  Clint Buck, greatest man in town and bass player for The Sleuth talks about the song “Over and Over Again.”

Lubbock, 2009

Hollis first played Over and Over again for me back in 2009, not long after we had started playing together while in law school out in Lubbock. That night, we were playing at a house party/open mic/jam session with several of our friends, which was exactly the sort of activity we all needed to blow off steam and have some fun. I brought my sousaphone out for a couple tunes!

The bass line came together pretty quickly. While Hollis played the verse chords—well, over and over again—I played around moving up and down the neck. Eventually, this line fell into place:

*Hollis's note--  I said to Clint: "Play something like the intro to "In the Meantime" by Spacehog."

For the chorus, I started (like I usually do when I’m learning one of Hollis’ songs) by tracking Hollis’ chords and playing the tonic generally in line with his strumming pattern. The second time through the pattern, I wanted the bass line to have more of a “wheels off” feel to intimate a grown sense of anxiety before falling back into the verse riff. After experimenting with a few different variations, this is what I settled on:

It was simple enough, but it sounded exactly how I wanted it to underneath Hollis’ guitar and singing. It’s a fun song to play, and I always think about the early days of performing with Hollis when I do.

Listen to "Over and Over Again" from RESCUE here:

Sing Along: All of the Nice Things

“All of the Nice Things” is the oldest song on RESCUE.  It was written in 2007 and is a companion song to “The Most Awful Things” from DANGER.  Why bring an old song back to a new record?

WHY NOT?

I try to listen to songs the way most people would listen to them (mainly focusing on the lyrics).  I believe this is one of the more “lyrically coherent” tunes I’ve written.  There are also some sweet moments in the song which lends itself a little more to the themes of redemption on RESCUE.

This tune deserves the whole lyric treatment for this post:

Beer and Queso and late-night TV
Scrabble and UNO and Monopoly
I just can't figure out what's wrong with me
It's hard to sleep at night
I'm a boxer without a fight
And the color of my shiner isn't as bright

All of the nice things aren't as nice without you

Scary movies
A comfy chair
Inappropriate clothing
An inappropriate stare

All of the nice things aren't nice without you

Penguins and puppies and small orphaned squirrels
swimming and porno and dancing with girls
I can't even get hungover anymore
Well it's hard to keep my eyes dry
I'm a cold war without a spy
and I'm a Loudon Wainwright “One Man Kind of Guy”

Listen to “All of the Nice Things” here:

Sing Along: Adeline or "Love is the Most Complicated Thing There Is"

"Adeline" was written after I moved to San Antonio in 2012 but was a song that went through a couple of iterations (none of which were performed live).  It’s hard to describe what the song is about because it doesn’t really mean anything other than being set of lyrics that were appropriate for the song.  It’s a “love” song in a loose sense because it is more of a “want” song.

I struggled with keeping these lyrics because they aren’t extraordinarily interesting but they do create a picture or feeling and I think they served the song.  “Adeline” is not based on anyone or even a story or narrative.  It’s a just a song that evolved over time--a boring, but quite common story in songwriting.

To hear what could have gone on the album, I give you “Adeline 1.0” or “Love is the Most Complicated Thing There Is.”

Hearing the song now, I have to say I’m fully aware that love is NOT the most complicated thing there is.  There many things which are way more complicated—like space, or insurance.

And to compare, this is what the song turned into:  “Adeline” on RESCUE available now!

Sing Along: Fake Pearls

“Fake Pearls” is a song about jewelry.  This is another one of those songs that started out as a chorus:

So open up your heart and sing with me
All you missing pieces and broken jewelry.
This world will never yield, it’s too damn tough.
But I cut and I shine like a diamond in the rough.

Pretend you are a string of cheap, fake pearls:  Where did you come from?  What are you made of?  What do you see?  What things do you experience?  Are you jealous of better, more expensive jewelry?

The arrangement and strings are courtesy of Andrew “The Mighty” McGregor.  Andy also created an alternative mix which I released along with a demo version on limited 7".  The 7''s are gone but you can still download it here!

Listen to Fake Pearls:

Sing Along: Come Back Home

We're starting side two, y'all!!!

I don’t remember specifically when “Come Back Home” came about but it was roughly around the time I was living in Arlington (2006-2008).  I heard a news story about a guy who had boarded a plane knowing he had the measles and was contagious.  At some point he was on house arrest and it gave me an idea for a song about the way desperate people will do desperate things to get where they want to go.

The only thing I regret about this song was throwing shade at Southwest Airlines.  I have never had a bad flight with them and they should be considered more than just a discount airline.  The only other thing I feel disingenuous in this song is the reference to the dirt bike.  I have never driven a dirt bike and only once have I rode as a passenger on a motorcycle—a lamentable thing indeed because I feel like I would have loved being a “dirt bike” kind of guy.

Listen to Come Back Home here:

Sing Along: Grayscale

I don’t know how to tell you this, but I suppose I will just say it:

“Grayscale” was inspired by an episode of Batman: The Animated Series.

There is an episode that particularly stuck out to me from my childhood entitled “Perchance to Dream.”  Bruce Wayne wakes up after blacking out during some sort of criminal bust and finds his life to be completely different.  His parents are still alive, Alfred is oblivious, and he is married to Selena Kyle.  It turns out he is in some sort of dream created by Mad Hatter.  One of the giveaways that he is living a dream is that fact that everything is in black and white because one cannot see color in dreams.  This is actually not true—it is well documented that people can “see” color in dreams, but for the purpose of this song I ran with it.

Grayscale is a song about color and the black and white digital representation called grayscale.  I had been playing around with a galloping rhythm and singing an anthemic melody and it turned into the chorus section.  The verse sections became lyrically about other senses besides sight--a rule I developed to help me finish the song when what originally inspired me to move was a chorus section.  Organs are kind of the star of this song.  I recorded the organ sounds on the record from a little Hammer beginner organ my grandparents bought when they gave their piano to my parents.  The thing weighs a thousand pounds and I’m glad it’s all over this record.  It now lives with good old Clint Buck and I’m proud to report he is using it to terrorize his neighbors.

The Organ Circa 2015-2016 during recording of RESCUE

Thank you for listening to “Grayscale.”

Sing Along: Getaway (Snitches Get Stitches)

“Getaway (Snitches Get Stitches)” is about loyalty, sacrifice, complacency, and also a bank robbery.  This is actually a song I wrote thinking I would play it with my friends Gunter Voelker of the band Jack Hotel and Tyler Wallace of Union Specific as a type of writing and recording over e-mail type of thing.  We never ended up making it happen, but I got a song that seemed fun and interesting enough for the record.

I wrote this song thinking about the movie Dog Day Afternoon.  The movie is based on a bizarre true story, but what stuck with me about the tale was this idea that the main character was doing this dangerous, crazy thing for another person (to pay for his boyfriend’s sex change).  So I wrote this song about a guy who goes down in a bank robbery and his accomplice/getaway driver gets away.  He’s not going to snitch because he’s confident that he’ll be able to escape and meet up with his partner.  I also verbed a word.  You are all welcome and encouraged to say that you “shawshanked” your way out of something.

I’d never tell, that just ain’t me;
I’d rather be in prison with integrity
I’ll figure out a bold escape;
I’ll shawshank out and jump the gate.

Listen to the entirety of Getaway (Snitches Get Stitches) from the new album RESCUE here and please follow the links and consider picking up a copy of the record.  The official album release is Aug. 25th at Ventura, 1011 Ave B, San Antonio, TX.

Sing Along: Bear-filled Woods

Bear-filled Woods is a song based on the joke:

Q: How fast do you have to be to outrun a bear in the woods?
A: Just faster than you.

This song is about a terrible person luring another terrible person out into the woods to attract bears and see who can survive.  If I’m not mistaken, I think that may have been the plot of the last Alien movie as well.

I Insisted we go camping.
And that you wear your best perfume
And leave out all the picnic food
And I would wear my running shoes.

Cause when you start complaining
and acting kind of rude
I think I’ll take my chances
and run into those bear-filled woods.

This is another song written in Lubbock.  There’s a great and inspiring “turn” I feel from the audience once they get what the song is doing lyrically but when I perform it solo/acoustic I sound like a little mosquito on stage.  This song deserves to get wild and heavy.

The tone of this song is darker than the joke and I don’t know how to be “dark” other than using a fake Heart Shaped Box style riff for the chorus.

The organ gets fun and banshee-like in the chorus to add to a feeling of chaos/surprise:

This song is a builder so many may not hear the acoustic guitars in the very last run through of the chorus that are giving a little bit of beef to the song to make it exciting:

And then we end with a classic “cha-cha-cha” at the end.  There’s few things more difficult than figuring out how to end a song, so if you can borrow another method from others, I say do it.  Screw the end of the song—it’s the end!

Hear Bear-filled Woods from the new album RESCUE in it’s entirety here:

Sing Along: The Balcony Song

I wrote the first lines of this song right after I graduated from college.  I didn’t quite know what to do with it:

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel it’s a
freight train drinking whiskey from a funnel

It sounded pretty unoriginal, but at the time “pretty unoriginal” was still original to me so I kept it stashed away in my special little notebook full of ideas and didn’t think about it for many years afterward.  This type of song isn’t really my style and drinking lots of whiskey is a stupid subject—especially a metaphorical freight train doing it.  It doesn’t even really make a lot of sense.

I resurrected this segment of a song for the 2011 Blue Light Live Singer/Songwriter Competition.  The Blue Light Live is a special place to me and countless other musicians and lovers of live music in Lubbock.  The Singer/Songwriter competition drew so many players not just from Lubbock, but from all over west Texas.  The song has been a favorite of mine to play ever since then and is inspired by Lubbock, West Texas, and all of the amazing musicians playing music out there.

When it came down to record it for Rescue, I liked it as more of a light rock tune.  I borrowed a 12-string guitar from the music store down the road to add a little color to the arpeggiated riff:

I call it the Balcony Song because I wanted a record of singing and playing it on the day I had fully written the tune and lyrics.  I recorded it on the balcony of an apartment I hated, hence the title of the video.  The name of the song “The Balcony Song” somehow to me sounds better than “Freight Train” or “I Can See the Light.”  Yuck.  It sounds like a declaration screamed from a balcony--perhaps as if someone is screaming at a balcony from below while having their belongings thrown out a multi-story window--something like that

Please enjoy “The Balcony Song” in it’s entirety on my new album, RESCUE.

Also, if you would like to watch the original video from the day I finished the song for the Blue Light Live Sing/Songwriter Competition, here it is!