 |
||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Special Thing -2/3/95
This one wrote itself quickly and it's far from a virtuoso performance but I cleaned it up for the Rise and Fall record a few years later. Somehow this song has survived for ten years -- to this day, people still want to hear us play it live. "Special Thing" also got used recently in a love scene in a really bad movie, the title of which I conveniently can't remember... Sorry -3/6/95 I wasn't going to use this song here but now I think I like it again -- a bit of angst you can sing along to! So Cold -3/6/95 For some reason the distortion-pedal-damaged vocals are a bit on the sharp side here -- but this is a nice, tight little bit of Beatles-esque perversity. I think this was written in about 30 seconds. Let's Pretend that None of This Happened -3/23/95 Dig that Morrissey-esque title, eh? I always loved this song. Shake Me Awake -4/3/95 Some of the singing sucks but I really like the whole mood of this song. The outro guitar fills sound like bile rising. Mmmm. Time 2 Go -4/10/95 Listen to those shredding vocal chords! I lost my voice a lot in these days. Anyway, this is a pretty inspired song, I think. The solo at the end has a lot of notes in it but is loaded with feeling just the same. Pushover -5/4/95 I have no idea where this came from, but I really like it. I'm sure I could sing it a thousand times better today. Hate Me Now -5/20/95 More anthemic angst! I was trying to bridge together heavy metal and shoegazer pop with a lot of songs from this era. I totally dig this, although the fidelity has gotten muddy over the years, I'm sorry to say. Sadly Yours -5/22/95 A very simple song, written about a 'woe-was-me,' always-complaining type person. I always loved the round-robin chorus. Slow Motion -5/23/95 I love the overall aura of this song but hate certain specific things (namely, some of the lyrics and most of the singing). I've always had the unfortunate habit of writing quickie lyrics and recording throwaway vocal tracks just to get the basic idea of the song down before it disappears. Here is evidence of that. Ugly All Day -5/24/95 Weeee! This is a fun song. Written about the inevitable crumbling of physical beauty -- "when your face turns into I-95, you'll wish you weren't even alive!" Wicked. You can hear how raw my voice was back then -- still learning to sing. King of the Junkyard -6/7/95 "Go go go! We're moving out like drunk tanks..." Whatever that means. I wrote a ton of songs in this time period. It was a great summer and I'd just figured how to write songs, so I did it all the time. There are so many more. Wanna Be 6/16/95 Another choice lyric -- "I'll piss in my hat if I gotta go..." Ok anyway, I always enjoyed this chorus melody/chord progression; maybe one day I'll airlift it out of this song and put it into another. And maybe change those lyrics... 1,000 Miles -7/12/95 On this one I was going for a Pornography-era Cure meets Mike Patton kinda vibe. I love all the vicious backwards guitar parts. Written in the putrid yellow heart of summertime. You're A Star 7/18/05 A song about celebrity couples who choose their mates based on how much the other person will raise their profile. Verse number two is nothing like verse number one -- why should verses always be exactly alike? I didn't know it at the time, but I unwittingly used the Hinduston scale in the guitar solo. Get all your useless trivia right here! Black of the Ocean, Crush of the Motion -8/15/95 We re-recorded this for the first P*S*K album, without changing much from this original version. Some asshole critic called this song a "blatant Gary Numan rip-off." Since I only knew one Gary Numan song at the time ("Cars"), I'm not sure how I could have been ripping him off. Anyway, I was ripping off the Jesus and Mary Chain. Remember, kids -- Critics Are Always Wrong. Cold Floors -8/30/95 Pretty and sad. Total shoegazer music -- more about "vibe" than "song." Drowning -9/8/95 I like how this song sounds just like its title. My Pornography obsession is written all over the place; how many times have I tried to re-write Cure songs? Baby I'm a Winner -9/95 The chorus is a little silly, but I love the main groove, and there are plenty of little hooks all over the place. I'm a huge Gene Loves Jezebel fan, can you tell? Blue Sky, Black Heart -10/12/95 The melancholy of summer ending. This isn't well recorded, but the feeling is totally intact. Mr. Negative -10/16/95 This has always been one of my all-time favorites even though the lyrics are on the silly side. You may notice that it's just the same four chords throughout the entire song, just played a little differently in the various sections. |
|
