WELCOME FRIENDS
Hi, we are Bodies of Water, a musical group from Northeast Los Angeles. Welcome to the internet!
This is us circa 2024.
IMPORTANT: This is our same website, but we have a new URL. For countless years we could be found at bodiesofwater.net, but then Meredith lost her credit card and so we had to cancel it and change all of our payment info on websites and stuff. I updated the card with GoDaddy, but it turns out there was some box I didn’t check and so we lost the domain. Now it belongs to an Indonesian cyber-mahjong company (I’m not joking, click the link and see for yourself).
I CAN’T STRESS THIS ENOUGH: don’t play cyber-mahjong with these people just because you think that they are affiliated with us. You can’t trust them. Honestly, you probably shouldn’t play cyber-mahjong at all, but if you do, choose a different site and don’t support these vultures.
Also…..turns out that the credit card was just in a different purse all along, which is a real kick in the nuts. All of our record jackets and everything say bodiesofwater.net on them, so I’m tempted to just fly to Indonesia and make them an offer to buy it back. And maybe play a little mahjong while I’m at it! Ha ha ha just kidding I’m still pretty mad about this stupid URL thing.
Would you like to see some videos of us playing earlier this year? You are in luck, our friends Mustafa and Tim filmed the show at Church of the Resurrection. Here are a couple of these videos:
HERE is a playlist of all these. If we had our druthers, there would be no ads prior to the videos BUT youtube doesn’t let you turn off ads on your videos unless you have 2000 subscribers (we don’t). This is a relatively new polices of theirs that I hate. If, like me, you also resent being forced to watch ads, then I guess subscribe to us on youtube. If we all work together, eventually we can end this nightmare. I was tempted to focus our channel on subjects that people enjoy, like magnet fishing or nerf gun reviews, just to get more subscribers so we can turn off these ads. Then as soon as we get 2000, we pull the old switcheroo and go back to posting only Bodies of Water videos. Although I guess the magnet fishing fans would just unsubscribe once we go back to the music stuff. And then we’d be back where we started PLUS a few magnet fishing fans that also like our group. This sliver of the venn diagram is probably pretty small though, so I doubt it would make much difference. Oh well, we gave it a shot.
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Our sixth (!) full-length record, "The Journey Is Our Home," is now out in public, and you can hear it on the internet (or buy an LP from us on bandcamp). Thanks for listening to all this stuff as we make it and send it out into the world. Below, I'll tell you the story of how and why we made everything, but first, here are links so you can listen: Spotify - Apple Music - Soundcloud - Bandcamp
OKAY, let me tell you about this record.
“The Journey Is Our Home” is an album of songs for people to sing in church. The story is this: I (David) and Meredith and Anna and Kyle all started playing music at a church in our neighborhood (Church of the Resurrection). We all mainly play folk songs and hymns. Some people like to hear more modern songs, but I don't play them. Why? Because if Josh Groban made a rap album, people who like rapping wouldn’t like it, and people who like Josh Groban also wouldn’t like it. You know what I mean?
Ed. note: I would definitely listen to Josh Groban’s rap album, but I am a wealthy eccentric who can no longer relate to the tastes and preferences of the common man, so…I don’t know, take it with a grain of salt or something.
Eventually I was, in lieu of playing modern stuff, encouraged to write some songs for everyone there to sing, so that’s what I did, and these are recordings of those songs.
Of course I should remind you, we’ve been making gospel music for years (this is our sixth album, eighth if you count the Music Go Music stuff, which isn’t gospel…very worldly actually), BUT lots of those gospel songs from our past are abstract, violent show-stoppers that nobody but us would ever want to sing. Or listen to.
Ed. note: When you make violent, apocalyptic religious music, there’s something for everyone to hate. Religious people don’t want to listen to songs about angels killing people or animals full of demons. And of course everyone else doesn’t want to listen to religious music. Is this the least popular genre of music in the world? YES!!! Nothing else even comes close.
Anyhow, it worked, kind of; most of these songs (but not all) are sung in a real church by real people and the Spirit moves through and among all of us. It’s easy to forget that lots of music is still functional. And not just in that it’s used to sell phones or hot dogs or whatever (although that’s fine, I don’t mind a good hot dog sale song), but that people make it to serve a purpose in their community. And that could be all kinds of things, but in this case it’s to help everyone draw near to God and each other.
So if the songs exist for the people to sing together, then why make a record? So that you can hear it. And because we like making records. Also, this year I got this app that shows all the info about who listens to your music on spotify, et al. I saw all kinds of interesting things. For one, there are certain far-flung cities where lots of people inexplicably listen to our music; Lagos, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, Warsaw, places we haven’t been to and don’t understand. To think that even a few people in Lagos are listening to our stuff is both humbling AND makes me feel like it’s better to just put stuff out and trust that it will find the people who need to hear it. This philosophy also just kind of accords with the reality of my life; I don’t have enough time to spend too much of it on anything (did you know Meredith and I have 3 young kids?) ESPECIALLY not fine-tuning a bunch of music. So if I tried to make a record that was all perfect and ship-shape, it would never get done. And then what would our fans in Istanbul and Warsaw do? Jump off a bridge probably. Well I don’t want their blood on my hands.
Another note: all these songs are in flux. They’ve already evolved beyond the way they sound on this record. But don’t worry about it; why would you want them to be the same anyhow? Relax. Also, as we were going we added things that we thought would spice up the recordings: stuff we could or would never do in real life. For example, the guitar and saxophone on that first song play the exact same thing, can you hear it? That was difficult to play, BUT even if I could play it with ease (I didn’t play it with ease, I had to work at this), why force everyone in the church to stand there and listen to this shredding? 10% of the people would be like “Yeah so sick” and the rest would be checking their phones and/or leaving.
So we’re just putting the record out and not worrying about how people sing them in real life. They’re basically folk songs that change over time and the recordings are a snapshot. And if you show up at the church expecting it all to sound like this record, get ready to be relieved or disappointed (depending on how much you like the record) because it won’t. But you will meet some nice people and there’s free coffee.
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NOTES ON NEW SONGS: White Light
Do you remember Chase Roden? He took the photo of us that's on the cover of our first album, among other things. Years ago he was in the midst of taking finals and his stepmom Lisa (RIP) prayed over him (read it in a Texas accent) "Lord, we just ask you to surround Chase with white light during hammer time..." and that was the genesis of this song. I wrote it a long time ago, actually, and we just never recorded it until now. So if you are a long-time listener (thank you so much for your continued support), you may notice that it's reminiscent of the old days. Well that's why; it was (mostly) written in the old days.
Also, this is the first one we've sent out from this record where I (David) step into the spotlight and sing alone. I think I might have something wrong with my vocal chords; I lose my voice like twice a week, usually if I'm talking to anybody in a public place and have to speak loud. I can still sing fine, but my voice is raspier than it used to be, especially if I sing high. Maybe it is the ravages of time, or maybe I have a medical problem. My friend Bryan Garza just got polyps cut off of his vocal chords, I've thought about going to see his polyp guy. Or maybe I just quit complaining and embrace it and stop talking to people in crowded rooms. Honestly, if I never went into another crowded room the rest of my life, I wouldn't miss it. I never hang out in bustling taverns anymore, and it's great. Now I sit alone in the dark listening to Einstürzende Neubauten while my children huddle outside my locked door, begging for food. Every day we become more like the person we were always meant to be!
OKAY - finally the big reveal - links to this song:
Spotify - Soundcloud - Youtube
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NOTES ON NEW SONGS: Born To Be Loved By You
This is a more "energetic" one. There are even children singing along with us (Meredith's and my kids...unpaid). Kyle told me a few days ago that I can say they're my employees to save money on taxes, but the advice came too late; I already filed for 2023. So that's pretty sad, but we're hanging in there.
HOW TO LISTEN:
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NOTES ON NEW SONGS: The Journey Is Our Home
Another hot new track for you, hopefully you are still interested in getting apprised of these as they get chucked out into the world. This is how people do it now, one song at a time for a while and then, an album. In this case the whole album will come out April 23rd.
In the meantime...this song is "The Journey Is Our Home," the title track of the record. I didn't think of this phrase, it was the name of a hymnal they had at the Mennonite church we went to years ago. I just stole it for this song. This is another one that I (David) wrote for everyone to sing at our church, and they do sing it, semi-often. We sang it yesterday, as a matter of fact. And now you can sing it too, or not. Whatever.
Lyrics:
Guide us in the way we ought to walk
Keep us as a shepherd keeps their flock
Watch us at our waking and in sleep
Deep is surely calling out to deep
Searching is our song
Traveling is our psalm
The journey is our home
We do not go alone
Steer us from within
Moving is our hymn
The journey is our home
We do not go alone
Let Your light move through, and over us
Speak to us in blessed quietness
Even stillness can be motion too
When we find our soul’s rest in You
Learn by how we go
Doing is to know
Being is to do
When we are in You
Pressing on ahead
Live where we are led
Working as we go
No way is too slow
Shine Your light, Oh Dayspring, on the way
You who know the number of our days
Let it forever be said of us
You are on the path, ahead of us
Love as we are loved
Know as we are known
Help us on our way
The journey is our home
Ease is in the walk
Lightness is our load
Peaceful thru the storm
The journey is our home
No explanation is necessary, all this is all pretty straightforward. With all these songs I wrote to sing in the church, I tried to keep things simple so that everyone could understand them right away. I'm not naturally inclined to write like that, but I (hopefully?) have mostly figured it out. You have to do it, you know? It doesn't work if everyone is standing around kinda singing and kinda just being like WTF. I wasn't able to do that every time; some of these songs ended up NOT being very clear and simple, but they're still on the record because I know you guys can handle it.
ALSO, none of these ideas sprouted from my head like Athena, I'm just compiling wise words that I've gleaned here and there. I have no original thoughts! But I'm one of the top gleaners in the biz. Bring me the absolute best gleaner in your local area, and I'll glean circles around them, guaranteed.
Notes on the music:
That's Meredith, me, and Anna deSocio singing. And what instruments are you hearing? Drums, bass, electric piano, autoharp, electric guitar. There's scads of autoharp on this album. Anyhow, I like this one, we kind of sound like the Lennon Sisters, if they loved the Lord and were also possibly on drugs.
Oh, I almost forgot, here's how to hear the song:
Spotify - Soundcloud - Youtube
That’s a Dexcom G6 on my son’s arm, he has Type 1 Diabetes.
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NOTES ON NEW SONGS: All Creation’s An Echo
Another song from the new record, “The Journey Is Our Home.” YES, the hits just keep on coming! Has anyone in the history of our neighborhood ever created so many hit songs??? I guess maybe Billie Eilish. Her childhood home is a few blocks from us. Also...Jackson Browne grew up nearby. So yeah, we're actually one of the least successful groups in our immediate area. But I think we've got the most hits of anyone on our street, and that's like 12 houses, so....not too shabby.
This one is called "All Creation's An Echo." The story with this is that we (David & Meredith & Anna & sometimes Kyle) do music at a church in our neighborhood. Most people in the church like singing old songs, but some like the new stuff. I pretty much just sing the oldies (hymns & gospel songs) BUT as a compromise, I wrote some songs for everyone to sing, and since I did this recently, they are technically modern church songs. And this was one of those. And a bunch of people from the church came over to sing with us, and that's who the "Choir of the Resurrection" is (the church is called "Church of the Resurrection"). If I'm being honest, it doesn't really sound like this recording when we sing it in church...for one thing there are no horns or bongos (why did bongos get a bad reputation? Is it because of coffeehouse beat poetry? I really don't know. This should be a footnote, not a parentheses). It's a pretty small church, so what are the odds there would even be multiple horn players among the congregants? Not to mention a bongist. Whatever..everyone's singing out to God, which is all that matters.
We'll send out another song next week. Poco a poco, estamos lanzando el disco.
ALSO, we shot a music video, but that still has to be edited and all that. So we all have that to look forward to.
ALSO, we have another idea for a video that takes place in an airbnb by the beach. If you have a house like this and want to let us use it for a day to film our video, let me know. You can be in the video, as one of the ladies. We're going to make daiquiris and stuff, it will be so fun.
OKAY, here's how to listen to this one: Spotify - Soudcloud - Youtube
That’s me (David).
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NOTES ON NEW SONGS: Tear This Building Down
- The original "Tear This Building Down" is an old folk song, I mainly know the version that the Reverend Gary Davis sings, which is about Samson. Our version isn't a sequel to that or anything, just a new song with the same title. We regularly name our songs after other, older songs; "Mary, Don't You Weep," "If I Were A Bell," "Light of Love," etc. It's been a great way to make our discography confusing and un-google-able! Why do we keep doing this.
- Lyrics:
Birds are falling from the air, there is darkness everywhere
Saw a woman lying there, Eagle feather in her hair
And the voices everywhere, they were rising through the air
Singing "Tear this building down, Tear it to the ground"
We will travel through the land
, through the grass and over sand
With a sword in our hand
I will use it well
Tear this building down, Tear it to the ground
When I hear the trumpet sound, I will get up from the ground
There are no houses where I’m bound
Tear this building down, Tear it to the ground
- Semi-related: Remember this passage from 2 Esdras 11:7-13 about eagle feathers?
And I beheld, and, lo, the eagle rose upon her talons, and spake to her feathers, saying,
"Watch not all at once: sleep every one in his own place, and watch by course: But let the heads be preserved for the last."
And I beheld, and, lo, the voice went not out of her heads, but from the midst of her body.
And I numbered her contrary feathers, and, behold, there were eight of them. And I looked, and, behold, on the right side there arose one feather, and reigned over all the earth;
And so it was, that when it reigned, the end of it came, and the place thereof appeared no more: so the next following stood up. and reigned, and had a great time.
Haha it says that the reigning feather "had a great time." No further comment.
- I don't remember all the details, but I think that Noah and I just recorded ourselves jamming and then I grabbed a couple minutes from the middle of the jam and everyone filled it out with the other stuff. Boring. Just jamming in the garage like losers. The twist is that we're not losers, we're highly respected members of our community.
Listen here: Spotify - Soundcloud - Youtube
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NOTES ON NEW SONGS: Footprints
- Do you know that poem "Footprints in the Sand?" It starts off "One night I dreamed a dream..." and then talks about God carrying the poet across the beach when times are tough. Terrible theology. If you always longed for someone to rewrite this poem, change the meaning, sing it, and then bookend the singing with a bunch of saxophone playing, then today is your lucky day!
- Our old friend Brian Walsh is playing the saxophone on this recording. He just cut loose and did his thing and then I went back later with the guitar and doubled what he played. Very difficult! It's easy to forget about how the shape and layout of an instrument directs your hands towards playing certain melodies, until you try something like this. It felt like writing left-handed or something (I'm right-handed FYI). Or maybe this is how I found out that I'm just not a very good guitar player. Anyhow, I figured it out eventually, so hooray for me.
- Meredith, Anna De Socio, and Noah Smith also played and sang on this one. If you see them around, tell them good job. I bet they already suspect they did a good job, but it can't hurt to affirm them. BUT, don't be too effusive in your praise, or they may become arrogant and/or succumb to audience capture, which I guess would mean constantly trying to alter and sing classic religious poems, add sax to them, etc. I'd rather not do this again because A) we already did it, and B) It was hard to do (mainly the guitar stuff) and I'd rather just take it easy for a while.
Okay, thanks again, I hope you're doing good.
Use any of these links below to listen, and THANK YOU for your support.
Spotify - Soundcloud - Youtube
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Other News:
I (David) talked to Chris Laurence of the “No Heroes” podcast the other day. We got into lots of stuff; the southern US, Times Line, trash, and church music. Give it a listen! I’m not a great podcast guest, but I’m trying to improve at this. What are my shortcomings?
1. No preparation
2. Inconsistent audio quality
3. Half-baked theories
4. No hot takes (strangely enough, this is compatible with #3. I don’t know how I do it, but I do)
5. Lack of outrage. I am never outraged! Terrible trait for someone on a podcast.
6. I say “like” too much
7. No breaking into song. This is the unstated desire of everyone who interviews a songwriter, and I never deliver
Chris is a pretty good podcast host. I like him.
For those who have been wondering, we’re still working on a record. I’m mixing it, and almost finished. We’ll probably put a song or two on the internet soon, but pressing vinyl takes a long time, so we’re months and months away from being able to actually have a record for you that you can hold in your greasy little hands. Thanks for being patient! I stopped working on the record ENTIRELY most of last year because I was working on our attic. We built a staircase and put a bathroom and two bedrooms up there. A big project! It’s still not done, but we have moved into it and now I’m only working on the bathroom when I’ve got the time. You know what I didn’t realize? That ventilation was going to be a problem in a built-out attic with those sloped ceilings. It gets all hot and damp at the apex of the ceiling, and then water drips down the ceiling onto the floor and/or bed. How do I fix this? Dehumidifier? I’m trying that, but it seems like a dumb solution. I’m supposed to just run a dehumidifier every time the weather gets warm? If you have experience with any of this, give me some advice.
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Our album "Twist Again" came out ten years ago. We'd been touring, recording, doing music stuff full-time for 4 or 5 years right up until the record came out, at which point we essentially stopped working on music for quite a while. This was a little ironic, because that record has been listened to a lot more than anything else we've ever made (which isn't saying a whole lot, but may be interesting to you if you're the type who wonders about whether your preferences are shared by the rest of humankind). It was a fun record to make, and I feel fine about it. Here's the story:
The band was me (David), Meredith, Kyle Gladden, and Jessie Conklin when it started, and that's who built the group and made the first two albums. But even though we toured in our very own 1991 Toyota Dolphin Class C motorhome (which was a novel and luxurious experience for us at that time), Kyle and Jessie became disillusioned with life as traveling musicians, and they decided to quit and do other things (teach, actually, both of them, which is a useful job). Right at that time, Meredith and I got busy with our other band, Music Go Music. It was sort of a natural-disco group. We'd sworn that we'd never play live BUT we briefly became a well-regarded group in England, and so we had a big-time label and managers and all that stuff. And they wanted us to make a proper go of it and paid us to go play all over England. So we broke our promise to ourselves and toured around with that band. We had a tour manager and a sound guy and stayed in hotels (which was a novel and luxurious experience for us at that time). We were moving up in the world AND, for the first time in years, were making some money. And for like five minutes that group was heralded and busy, but that didn't last long. The label (Mercury) seemed to think that we'd be successful in a top-40 type of way, which we were skeptical about from the very beginning (and we were right) BUT when people want to invest in your art, it's usually better to keep your head down and be quiet until you cash the check (a principle that we never were able to consistently live by, although in this case we did it until the advance came through).
Above: Music Go Music with Shetland Ponies
Some of those songs became liked by various people in the world of dance or electronic music and there were all these remixes of the songs and that kind of thing. I even saw a video of some DJ playing our stuff at a big rave on a Thai beach, which was surreal. And people cheered when the beat dropped, but I bet they were like 95% drunk tourists, so this isn't as special as you may think. If the locals cheer, then you're onto something. If the drunk tourists are the only ones cheering, you might be trash. Footnote: one of the guys who was in BoW when we made the "Spear in the City" record, Sam Suppipat, left America to go live in Thailand with his dad on their mushroom farm, but he quickly became disillusioned with life in rural Thailand and moved back to the USA. The straw that broke the camel's back was that he kept seeing people in their village beating their dogs. That's hard to be around. Now he lives in Henderson, Nevada, and I heard from his brother that he’s pretty happy there (I haven’t spoken to him since the move).
So anyhow, after the Music Go Music experiment wound down, we got busy with Bodies of Water, and asked old friends Laura Steenberge and Noah Smith to make a record with us. Laura played the stand up, acoustic bass, and Noah played drums. Some of the songs have bass guitar instead, which I played. Also, Alice Lin and Steve Cvar played some drums, so it was kind of a mishmash.
Above: David, Laura, and Noah in the living room.
Here are some facts:
1. We used the Music Go Music money to buy recording equipment so that we could record ourselves at home. And we did, in the living room of our house in Highland Park. The bedroom was where we put the recording stuff, and then the drum kit and piano and all the instruments were in the living room. It has wood floors and high ceilings covered in that acoustic popcorn, so stuff sounds nice in that room (especially a drum kit). And we set up and played in there. I've got to scrape that popcorn off the ceiling though. It's still there, ten years later. Also, chunks of the plaster have been falling out of the ceiling and onto the floor, which is pretty jarring. They hit the floor and shatter in a cloud of asbestos. No joke, this is ongoing in my house.
3. People who played on the record: David Dominique (trombone), Joe Tepperman, (trombone), Heather Lockie (viola), Andrew Duncan (trumpet), Cat Lamb (also viola), Julie Carpenter (violin), Alice Lin (drums), Steve Cvar (drums), Brian Walsh (sax & bass clarinet), Amy Deaderick (horn), and Katie Faraudo (horn). Lots of brass, now that you mention it.
4. TECHNICAL INFORMATION SKIP THIS IF YOU DON'T LIKE TECHNICAL INFORMATION. The organ we used was a Baldwin "Interlude with Fun Machine." You can hear this organ mostly on "One Hand Loves the Other." We sold it to a neighborhood guy after the record came out, it was just too big to keep. Matt Kivel let us borrow his marimba (also heard most on "One Hand..."). Noah let me use his nylon string guitar, which he FOUND in a dumpster while riding his bike to work downtown. One man's trash is blah blah blah. I borrowed it from him and then kept it for like two years before I gave it back, which I actually feel terrible about. This dumpster-guitar is front and center on "Lights Out Forever," which is one of my favorites. Fun fact: that song was a one-take Suzy. Since it's only two instruments, we decided to do that one the old-fashioned way, no comps or edits or anything, just sit down and play it together (sit down figuratively; Laura was standing up), and it came out great. I'm reaching back through time to pat us on the back for that one. Guitars: Stratocaster and Jazzmaster. Note: I am from Fullerton, CA and grew up pretty close to where Leo Fender lived and worked, so I have a soft spot for his inventions. Guitar amps: Champ and Bandmaster. Bass: I don't know what kind of bass Laura played, I don't know anything about those stand up basses. Vocal Chain: U87 - API 312 - LA2A. Drums: Tama star-something (I could walk out the garage and check, but it's too cold and I don't feel like it. If you need to know, email me). On the songs that have a bass guitar (such as perennial favorite 'Open Rhythms') it's an old Rickenbacker 4003. What color? Autumn-glo.
Above: David & Noah recording. That’s the “Autumn-Glo” bass.
5. What are the most popular songs on this record? Thanks to the "Spotify for Artists" app, this is an easy one to answer. "Open Rhythms" is many times more popular than any other song we've ever made, which is funny because it's all laid back and chilled-out, which is pretty much the opposite of what our people had come to expect from us by that point. Second place is "Like A Stranger." Why? I don't really know. The horns came out sounding nice, and Alice's drumming was great. Very locked in. It's kind of a "Love Shack" style duet, too, which people like (or at least they like to sing duets; I love the b-52s, but man I'm tired of hearing people karaoke that one). Honorable mention? "Rise Up, Careful," "One Hand Loves the Other," and "Mary, Don't You Weep."
6. What's the least popular song on the album? I can answer that too, I have the data. It's "You Knew Me So Well." Is it because it's the last song on the album, or only because it's a terrible song? We'll never know. Runners up: "New Age Nightmare" and "In Yr Thrall." Feel free to send me an email letting me know which of our songs you hate the most, I'd love to know! I actually would.
7. There exists a 12" (Aficionado Records 002 look it up) featuring a "Balearic" remix of "Open Rhythms" by Mudd. His name is Paul Murphy but he goes by Mudd. I'd never heard of Balearic music until our music became Balearic. That's how a lot of things go, though; you don't become casually and gradually acquainted with some idea, you just immediately get dropped into some manifestation of it and that's that. So now we're forever linked to this sub-genre of EDM, which is fine with me.
That's all the "making of" information I can think of right now. So we finished the record in 2010, or so. And then put it out in 2011. And a couple months before the album came out, Meredith and I had a little baby. We'd never had one before, so we didn't understand how they worked. We'd been asked to go on tour with that band Wild Flag, and assumed that we could just go on the tour and bring a little baby with us. But then the baby was actually born and was colic-crazed and awake and screaming all the time (truly one of the worst babies in U.S. history) and we realized what fools we'd been. And so we bailed on that tour, which was a real slap in the face because I'd been a big fan of the group Sleater-Kinney (two-thirds of whom were in Wild Flag) in my formative years. Also, Carrie B (who played guitar in SK), used do a music column for NPR I think, and when Music Go Music came out, she wrote some pretty nice stuff about the group, which was very gratifying and I felt like we owed her one.
Above: A video from Punk Rock Prom Night.
Anyhow back to Sleater-Kinney. As teens, Eugene Ong and I took the train up to Berkeley to go to see Sleater-Kinney at a show called "Punk Rock Prom Night" at Gilman Street. His sister lived in San Francisco, and the plan was to take BART across the bay to her place afterwards and sleep there. But after the show (which ended very late AND which we enjoyed, BUT there were like 9 bands on the bill, which is tiring) it was too late and the trains weren't running and she was at work (she worked nights in a hospital). So we decided to just sleep on the street, which seemed like an appropriate thing for a couple of teen posers to go do. And of course there were always lots of people sleeping in public in Berkeley, but this, counter-intuitively, made things more difficult because all the good spots were already taken. We tried some benches, under a bench, in a planter, in a doorway, but nothing really clicked for us. We ended up going to a 24 hour doughnut shop and spent like 5 hours nursing our doughnuts. There was this dude that had a bunch of missing teeth that hung out with us at our booth. Years before, he'd been in Hawaii, standing on a cliff at the ocean's edge in the middle of the night, and he slipped off it onto the rocks below, and smashed out all his teeth, and this was before regular people had cell phones so he couldn't just call for help from the rocks. He had to claw his way back up the cliff in the dark and stagger to the highway with all his teeth busted out to flag down a car (speaking of "wild flags," oof). Anyhow, he made it out alive, but his teeth were still in the ocean somewhere. Sadly, we talked to him for hours, and this was apparently the only interesting thing that had ever happened to him. Or maybe that's just a tough story to follow and so everything else felt boring. When you have a story that interesting in your pocket, you've got to be careful when you decide to tell it. Do you save it for last, so you can leave on a high note? Or tell it early in the conversation to make sure that the teens in the shop don't leave before they get to hear it? It’s tough; once you hook somebody with a story like that, you've got to follow it up with another banger, or it's a huge anti-climax. Very deflating. But he just hadn't (yet) had the life experiences to deliver a solid second story. I hope and pray that the Lord has given him some better material in the years since then. I should note that, like the toothless man, a lot of our problems in this situation could have been avoided if we'd had smart phones, but we didn't. I'm pretty sure that in the days before cell phones, people were tougher and more resourceful. How could they fail to be? But they also were always getting lost and/or showing up late to stuff and/or dying while trying to claw their way back up a cliff, so I guess it's a wash.
Above: Not super relevant, but I googled “human teeth in the ocean” and here’s what comes up. It’s a sheepshead fish. The guy on the right caught this one. Very fun hat.
I should add that we didn't dress up for Punk Rock Prom Night. Some people had ripped up tuxes and gowns and stuff. And they wrote all over them with sharpies, that kind of thing. Everyone who dressed up did some version of the same Punk Rock Prom outfit. My semi-educated opinion is that the most punk rock thing you could do is go to the mall and rent a nice tux from Gingiss, or get a beautiful gown from Camille La Vie and just wear that. Look really clean and nice. Get your makeup done, fresh haircut, you get the idea. Nobody ever seems to have that level of refractory awareness of their own scene though, so Punk Rock Prom Night ended up being a very conformist event. Everyone already knows that the punk uniform eats itself, but nobody agrees on what comes next. How tight does the spiral become? This is something I'll have to write more about later, when I have a little more leisure time (Yes, I consider this leisure. You may be surprised to discover that I don't make any money writing this garbage). I love to imagine a sort of evolved Punk Rock Prom Night at a ballroom in the Sheraton where everyone looks polished and clean in their tuxes and gowns (no rips & tears, sharpies, white-out, studs, etc) and the chaperones are retired punks, like Jello Biafra and Exene, wearing classic punk outfits. Could this dream ever come true?
I never adopted punk style even though I liked that music. At the time I just wore t-shirts and pants (I would include a photo here to prove this, but I have literally no photos of myself from the t-shirt and pants era. I just avoided photos back then. I’m sure there are some shots of me floating around, but I don’t have them). Not long after, I entered a phase where every sartorial decision I made was about saving money. I mainly wore clothes that I got from friends who were about to throw them out. My belt broke so I used an extension cord. My backpack broke, so I put all my school stuff in paper Trader Joe's bags (I was in school). I didn’t look roguish or anything, just indigent. Meredith and I were married not long after this (yes, we were super young and people were alarmed), and here's a fun fact: multiple times, we were given free food in restaurants, and even handed cash by well-meaning folks who (I guess) assumed (due to our mismatched, threadbare clothes and a down-but-not-out demeanor) that we were going through some real hard times, even though, in reality, times were only low to medium-low hardness for us. I know this kind of thing happens to everyone from time to time, you get extra fries on your tray when the order arrives, or the cashier tells you not to worry about it when you point out that you got an extra $3 back in change, but it wasn't like that for us. I'll give you an example: We were at the Goodwill in Glendale (Colorado Blvd) when our son was a baby, and we saw this antique toy high chair from the '30s or '40s. It was painted with flowers and very charming, and even though it was obviously made for a doll, it was big enough for a baby to sit in. We had a high chair at home, but we were thinking that maybe he'd want to play with this chair and put toys in it. There was a guy there with a chihuahua who was also looking at this chair, but when he saw us looking at it, he was like "Oh you have a baby, you should get it! I only wanted to put my dog in it." And we were like, "No, it's fine, we already have a high chair at home, you should get it for your dog..." and he, obviously not buying this, just backed away, saying "No, it's fine, it's fine. Get it for your baby." And we weren't going to chase this guy down and explain how we didn't need it as our primary high chair, so we just let him leave. And then ten minutes later this old lady comes up to us and says "My son is the guy with the chihuahua. He's outside in the car, and he wanted me to come back in and give this to you so you could get a burger" and she handed us a ten dollar bill. Very generous! So we thanked her, and then left and bought burgers.
Above: This is what Meredith and I looked like back when we were getting money from strangers. Meredith is scraping glue off a floor in this photo Also, I forgot to mention that we did pretty well with strangers whenever I had open wounds and/or was limping (almost always from a basketball or construction-related injury). That’s why I included this picture of me with the scraped up knee. I don’t remember how I scraped my knee (I want to say “bike?”). Anyhow, this should give you a more concrete picture of how pitiful we apparently were at that time.
Below: Me (David) in the present day. Definitely not punk.
So that’s the story. Hope you continue to enjoy the album! Thanks for your support.
- DM
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A moderately illuminating recent interview with David here.
An excerpt:
”Our biggest struggle has always been that our music is not well-liked by the general public. We underestimated how much of a disadvantage this would be! Nevertheless, we’ve tricked a lot of people into listening. We have about 500 fans now. At this rate, we’ll have over a thousand fans by the time we start dying. Right now, the group is Alice, Kyle, Meredith, and me. Alice will probably die first because she’s had pleurisy off and on for years. I don’t know if it will come back, but I’m sure it’s basically destroyed her lungs. Listen to her sing! You can hear the damage. I’d guess the next to die will be me. I have unhealthy habits, I start off every day with coffee and NSAIDs on an empty stomach and usually won’t eat until later in the afternoon. I wound up in the hospital with gastritis a while ago! Very painful. ALSO, I don’t trust doctors AT ALL, so I may die from some super-treatable disease that I ignore. When I had typhus (I’ve written a lot about surviving typhus, and I can’t possibly get into that again – please look it up), I told the doctor “Listen, I think it’s typhus” and he told me “I’ve been a doctor for 30 years, I’ve never had a patient with typhus, you don’t have typhus” but IT WAS TYPHUS.
And right after that, I started seeing signs in my neighborhood saying “PEOPLE IN YOUR AREA HAVE BEEN INFECTED WITH MURINE TYPHUS” and I laughed and laughed because I was the people. Next to die? I don’t know, probably Meredith. She’s got super strong arms from throwing pottery day in and day out but she doesn’t exercise. Stress is her only means of getting her heart rate up, and that can’t be good. So I guess that leaves Kyle. He’ll dance on all our graves. But he’ll cry while he dances because all his friends will be dead. Actually, he’s got other friends besides us, so he’ll just be dancing.”
Highly recommended.
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“Is This What It’s Like” is our newest record and is now “out.”
There are a few ways to listen:
Spotify
Apple Music
Soundcloud
IF you want to buy a copy on vinyl, you can do it on Bandcamp. Warning: we’ll ship these to Europe, but it’s pretty expensive. If you’re in the USA, it’s cheap, there’s nothing to worry about.
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The video for “Women in Love” stars: Kate Shelton, Thom Shelton, Bernadette Metcalf, and Meredith Metcalf.
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More New Music! Listen to “I Knew Your Brother” on spotify, apple music, or soundcloud.
There’s also a music video, and a nice piece on the song in Under the Radar.
This one is also from “Is This What It’s Like” (see below), which will be out on February 12.
A few notes on this one:
I Knew Your Brother
I knew your brother so well
And your mother, none could tell
How we’d got to be such friends
Yes, I knew her ’til the end
And your father, he too
Came around there, and I knew
All about him, by and by
And I knew his violent side
And you, oh you
Were the one I hardly knew
Though we’d steal away to get stoned
Still I always felt alone
Near the rocks, where you broke your knee
Was a burning maple tree
And the fledgling minivets
Were all leaping from the nest
Driving in that final day
It all seemed so out of place
In the planter by the shed
I saw your tie-neck blouse in shreds
You came running across the sand
With a brick held in each hand
The cabana was in flames
You were screaming out my name
If you haven't listened to the song yet, you probably ought to before continuing on. Are you listening? Know what you're hearing? Drums, piano, bass, and guitar. And singing. I played the piano live FYI - the mastering guy didn't believe it, he thought it was some midi thing. But it's a person! And that's why I'm telling you, because I'm assuming you'll be surprised to learn this, too. I'm only an OK piano player, but I can play some arpeggios! It's the only thing I've ever been good at.
So, about this song...at some time, you've probably met the family of someone who you don't know as well as you'd ordinarily know someone whose family you were about to meet. And you learn about this person by seeing a sort of primordial version of them with their parents, brothers, sisters. And you see the ways genes can scramble and coalesce in different people. The same tenderness or anger is there, but moves through each of them in their own way. And you have the distance to see connections between them that they can't; the unique way that this unhappy family is unhappy, LOL.
This has happened to me (getting dropped into some misfiring domestic tableau), although I don't think it's ever culminated in violence. But violence is obviously only a symptom, not the disease. And what is the disease? The will to power! The innate need to alter those you love because they're a part of you, and because, just by existing, they hold some wavy funhouse mirror up to you, making you look at your own ugliness. The desperation this creates will boil over, eventually. What's the fix for this? I don't know. Relax? Hold things with an open hand? The usual stuff. You know what they say..."Reconciliation means to accept the radical otherness." The problem is that your family is not radically other, only slightly not you.
Back to the story. How was this person running across the sand carrying bricks so soon after breaking their knee? It's just one of those continuity errors in our songs that all the fans delight in. If you break your knee, it will be months before you run anywhere. At least that's what I read online. Actually, I just went back and reread the lyrics and realized that the broken knee is just pointing out where the rocks were, the break itself could have happened at any time. It could have been 20 years prior to the discovery of the burning tree! There's no issue here.
What's my favorite part of the song? When they see the blouse in the planter. Also, the way the hi hat sounds.
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“Is This What It’s Like” is the new album coming out on February 12.
“Every Little Bird” is the first song from it, and you can hear it on spotify, apple, soundcloud, etc.
Every Little Bird
Every cloud began as mist that rose from ocean waves
Every little bird crawled out from a broken egg
Every redwood tree came from a seed among the ferns
And every kind of snake that crawls the earth was born a worm
Every chardonnay started out as pinot gris
And every waterbed was once a corduroy settee
Every leather mask came from a steer out on the range
And all my love for you, it started out as something strange
You know the story of the Ship of Theseus? First they replaced the mast, then the hull, then the deck, etc, etc, and eventually nothing of the original ship remained, which made the crew wonder if it was still the Ship of Theseus. And if not, when did it become something else? Well, the crew realized that people are the same way. They aren't the same bunch of cells they were ten or twenty years ago.
So what's the through-line? Memories? Even when we remember something, we're remembering the last time we recalled the memory of the thing, rather than the thing itself (don't scoff, this is true, look it up!). And loving someone is the same as this; the way we love is always an echo of how we loved before. And the object of our love is changed by our love for it. So, just as our love is in flux, so is its object. And these grow with one another and because of one another. And, just as mist rises up into clouds, and worms grow to become snakes, love's change is inexorable and essential. Unchanging love is not actually love! And all of us know this instinctively, but it feels good to inflict this message on the world.
.
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I was invited to compile a top 10 list for 'Dusted,' and HERE IT IS.
It's a list of 10 photos.
They posted it a while ago, but I've been trying to look less at feeds and devices (with mixed results), so I didn't know this list was out in public until today. Hope you are all doing well!
The photo above is by Ted Pushinsky.
DARK WATER
The cast and crew:
Man - Ron Strand
Woman - Meredith
Cop - Colin Boyd
iPad Man - David
DP - Mustafa Zeno
AN IMPORTANT NOTE:
I didn't fully appreciate of the breadth or depth of anti-vaping sentiment in the music industry until we started working on making and publicizing this video. One website after another refused to partner with us as soon as they realized that our work was vape-friendly. Nevertheless, we persisted, and are happy to share this project with you!
Please REPOST this video AND our story, and help shine a light on the horrible discrimination that vapers face every single day. They need your support!
Next time you come across a member of the vaping community, touch them on the shoulder or on the back of their neck (vapers crave physical contact...draw them into your space) and tell them that you support the way they've decided to live their life. Speak slowly. Be calm and direct; abuse has made them skittish. The only way to re-integrate these folks into society is through REACHING OUT. Change begins with you!!!!!
BREAKING INTERNATIONAL NEWS / PERMANENT SPRAYING:
Our record 'Spear in the City' has wormed its way to the far corners of the earth. We are always grateful when others listen to, and reflect on, our work. Below I've excerpted some of these writings from around the globe. The name of each country is a link to the full piece. (Translation assistance provide by "Google Translate").
Russia: "It does not often happen that the group has existed for many years, has a good reputation in a very narrow circle of connoisseurs, being practically unknown to everyone else, and at the same time it feels great!"
Japan: "Country, mix American gospelish pop with American."
Belgium: "The strong markers of the beginning, the permanent spraying are no longer of course, but the voices in unison and the melodic sense never faulted are still there."
Austria: "One can feel with every tone a certain naturalness which is difficult to locate and describe, but is always perceptible."
England: "It's probably best not to try and second guess this band to be honest."
Here we are playing last Saturday- photo by Maximilian Ho
Thank you to everyone who came out to the Hi Hat on Saturday! It was so nice to see all of you. Andrew Duncan took this photo.
UPDATE:
The diagnosis is official; I had typhus! Thanks again for all of the well wishes during my convalescence. I don't know why no one told me until a couple days ago that I'd tested positive for this (I got sick back in June), they're supposed to report that kind of thing to the CDC, et al, right away. Maybe there is no similar obligation to tell the diseased person what had been afflicting them. Nevertheless, the mystery is solved.
NEW MUSIC:
MORE NEWS
I am no longer sick, and feeling back to normal. Thanks everyone for checking on me and helping out while I was sick. As of now, still no one knows what the problem was. The infectious disease doctor who was heading everything up went on a five week vacation the day I got out of the hospital. I don't know where he is vacationing. The people in his office have struggled in their efforts to find out about any of my tests, some of which take a week or two to yield any results. I'll let everyone know as soon as I learn anything. On Instagram I promised to send a Macaroni Grille gift card to whoever successfully diagnosed the problem, and I'm standing by that promise. All this to say, there's still time to send in your guess. If there are no positive results, and my malady remains a "fever of unknown origin," I'm going to Macaroni Grille by myself, and savoring the solitude (and, ideally, some macaroni).
NEWS
My recent illness and absence from the public sphere EXPLAINED...
Not too long ago I was washing dishes, and saw through the kitchen window that there was something out in back slinking along under a grapevine. I jogged out there and saw that it was a possum (Opossum? Different ideas about how to write this). It was creeping along the fence pretty casually (they don’t move very fast anyhow) until it saw me and stopped. I got as close as I could so that I could zoom in on my phone without the video getting too shaky. I filmed it staring at me for a few seconds, then waited for a while to see what it would do. It didn’t do anything. In pictures the face of a possum looks extremely long and pointed, much more evil than in person. I think the fur has a softening effect. Also, it’s eyes seem larger in person, less beady than they come across in pictures. Maybe if an animal is staring into your eyes it makes their eyes seem larger? I figured I’d leave it alone, and it ran into some bushes when I got up. This was on May 2 (check my instagram, I posted a video).
Only two days later I was working out in the back and figured it was time to put in those fence posts, so I went around checking the holes and emptying out any extra dirt that had fallen in. A lot of stuff seemed to have fallen into one of the holes, so I dug down into it and brought up a spadeful of dirt. When I tossed the dirt onto the ground, guess what was in it? Give up? A possum head. It was mostly skeletonized, with bugs crawling all over it. I dug the rest of the body up out of the hole, which didn’t look anything like a body. Just bones and connections with some hair and dirt hanging on to everything.
Those holes were about 3 feet deep, so the possum must have fallen into one and not been able to get out. I buried what was left of it and then we put in those fenceposts. I kept working back there most days for the next 3 or 4 weeks, until I got sick.
Now it’s June 21st, and I’m in Glendale Adventist Hospital after having had a fever for 2 weeks. The infectious disease doctor thinks I have typhus, and in lieu of a positive test result (which won’t be possible for a few more days), has decided to treat me for it.
Typhus is passed from infected rats, squirrels and possums to humans by fleas. You get it from the feces of the infected flea, so if there’s some tiny diseased flea turds on your skin near a flea bite, and you scratch the bite, you could scratch the turds into the open wound and get typhus. Also, you can inhale dried up diseased flea turds if they’re in the dust. How would I have contracted this? I don’t know. I was reading today about how fleas will leave a dying animal to look for a new host. (This was an article on typhus written for workers that do dead animal pickup. God bless those guys, what a job. I wonder if any of them like it? Also, I wonder if any of them are women? Maybe they have a trade convention where amateur journalists can find out more. Something tells me these guys would love to be interviewed.) At any rate, there were most likely lots of ex-possum fleas hanging around in the yard for a considerable part of the time I was working back there.
Wasn’t this encounter with the possum too long before the onset of my fever to be the cause? Maybe, the incubation time for typhus is 6-14 days. My symptoms started on June 8th, so I would have had to been infected 3 weeks after finding the dead possum. Can fleas live for 3 weeks crawling around in the dirt? I hope not, but I don’t know. They might have just crapped all over for a few days and then died, and when all that dust got kicked up, pregnant with flea turds, I inhaled some of it. Also, these could be different possums, and this could just point to a possum problem. The literature I’ve looked at shows that in Southern California, typhus has hung on mainly because of the fleas that move between possums and cats. Texas, and Southern California (and sometimes Florida, of course) are the only places in America where you’ll get typhus. Also there’s another potential culprit.
I was tucking my kids into bed on Jun 1st (I think), and as I was laying on my son’s bed looking out of his bedroom door into the kitchen I saw a rat just walking past the doorway. I ran out, and it had disappeared into the wall, and then the attic, where I heard it later scratching all around. The next night it walked under my chair while I was sitting in the kitchen. I leapt out of my seat when I saw it, and it frantically skittered in place until it could get traction on the kitchen floor, then took off out the back door. I bought some rat traps, and two days later one of them smashed a rat up in the attic. The bait? Cheese. Classic. Around this time I woke up one morning with what I think were some flea bites on the back of my neck.
I don’t feel like I live in squalor. I’d never seen or had a rat on our property, or a possum, until last month. We have 3 dogs, though, and for some reason they kept getting fleas on them, even after giving them the drug Advantix. I take a holistic view of all this. Rather than pointing the finger at any one cause, it’s most helpful to imagine a vibrant tapestry of disease, woven from fleas, possums, and rats, living and dead, and their turds. And their blood. And I guess some dogs too.
So what happened to me? First the fever, then exhaustion, joint pain, headaches, and terrible night sweats (Every night I’d need 1 or 2 changes of clothes to cycle through, and I slept on three or four towels so I could peel them off as they got drenched). When the fever would heat up and get bad, I would become really disoriented. It was hard to follow what people were talking about, hard to write out text messages. The worst part was that if my eyes closed, I’d start seeing all this crazy stuff; lines and patterns, labels overlaid on everything. I knew it wasn’t there, and would start getting very stressed out about it and have to open my eyes to get it to stop. This was hard at night because even with my eyes open I’d start seeing this stuff if it was too dark in the room for my eyes to focus on anything. I’d have to shine my phone up at the ceiling fan and look at it to try and get my brain to calm down.
As I type this, I feel okay. I’m tired and feel slightly dumb, but about a billion times better than I did last week, when I literally would sit for hours looking out the window because my brain couldn’t handle anything else. I am much improved! And nobody knows why. Probably because thousands of people have been praying for me.
One of the many small tragedies worth mentioning here is that I don’t get to tell anyone that I got “typhoid fever.” It’s a different disease than typhus. Typhus is fine (I supposedly have Murine Typhus, to be specific), but it’s not one of the real heavyweight diseases that you never hear about anymore; consumption, cholera, dysentery. The diseases of great literature. Those are conversation starters. When someone at the party overhears that you have typhus, they may make a mental note, but they don’t turn around 180 degrees and stare at you. To be fair, I know some people don’t want to be stared at this way. The thing is, being turned around and stared at could be interesting, if only for this reason: moments after someone turns around to stare at you, you can tell if they’re the type of person you’d like to talk to. You can tell just by looking at them, and how they move, and how they stare. Since they’re the ones who inititated an unconventional encounter by turning around that way (not innately a negative thing), you have full license to just walk away if you don’t like the looks of them. It’s a kind of ultra-fast platonic speed dating. Granted there are a lot of variables at play here, most notably that you need to have recently recovered from a bout of cholera, dysentery, or typhoid fever, and that this person needs to be impressed enough by that to abandon social mores and act like a child in your presence. Once that point is reached, however, the process is very fast, and you are in total control.
- DM