Hear that couplet at the end of the song? Bellowing from a depths of a distant fjord? It's from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan. I dropped it randomly into the tune to assist the theme of sexual cannibalism.
Love is never having to say you're sorry (for biting off your soul mate's head).
I wrote this song before I knew I was making an EP. Wampum was still a baby, and so this came out while I was tiptoeing around, trying not to wake the sleeping album. It filled the temporary void of not recording ten songs in a 28-day span, which made me happy.
The idea is simple: female praying mantises, as you may know, eat the heads of their dance partners after being fertilized. It's their version of the post-coital smoke in bed. All i wanted to do was build a story around it. For once, I set out with a plan!
I took care of all the recordings pretty quickly, as usual. Meg sang the harmonies a day later, or maybe later that same day. This is the only Rick-less track on the EP.
"I'm Gonna Bite Your Head Off When I'm Done Making Love To You" represents anger and education. I dedicate this song to those on the path toward enlightenment. May you kick some fucking ass.
I've been an NBA junkie since the 1991 Finals, when Jordan's Bulls won their first championship. Basketball was the second sport I started playing when I was a little kid after soccer, but I was immediately better at hoops. I nearly ruptured my patella tendon when I was eleven going up for a rebound--that's how into it I was.
It's possible that I may like the game even more now. The league is coming off its most-watched, highest-rated season since MJ left the league (starting to see how important he was?). Of course, now we have a potential lockout looming, certain to alienate all those new fans who just got onboard...
Love him or hate him, LeBron James is almost solely responsible for the league's recent rise in popularity. His persona is polarizing, but his game is undeniably amazing. Personally, I'm not a fan of the way he acts, on or off the court. But as a devout fan of the game of basketball, his skill set is unlike anything I've ever seen; even His Airness couldn't bowl through defenders to finish with the softest of touches at the rim.
I didn't mean to write a song about LeBron. I was actually working on a tune about Russell Westbrook, all star point guard of the Oklahoma City Thunder (my favorite team). They were having a bit of trouble closing out the Memphis Grizzlies in the West Semis (which they eventually won in seven games), so I envisioned the song as a pop pep rally in my head. The song didn't materialize the way I planned, but they won the series anyway. As I was plunking away at some chords, the pastel drawing I'd done of LBJ caught my eye, I shifted to a new meter, and within an hour the structure of "LeBron's Lament" was as solid as the exoskeleton of a horseshoe crab.
As with most people who watched and enjoyed this past NBA season, I was rooting against the Miami Heat. I wrote and recorded this song during the second round of the playoffs, when the Heat were barreling through the defending conference champion Boston Celtics. Once they finished off the C's and moved on to the top-seeded Bulls (whom they also destroyed), I was beginning to think that my tune was somehow fueling the rally, giving LeBron clutch performance after clutch performance, almost guiding them to the Finals with no real obstacle. If they had won the title, I would've blamed this song, and cursed its existence. Instead, they blew it! They blew it big time! Now the song lives up to its title, a true lament. LeBron knows better than anybody how important it is to his legacy to become an NBA champion: "I realize I need a ring." I can't believe my good fortune in how this all turned out!
In case you hadn't noticed, every Eastern Phoebes release thus far has included a song about a professional sports figure (Dan Majerle, Dusty Baker, Kevin Durant). I try not to limit myself to basketball (Dusty), but it's so easy to write about the game I love. I plan on continuing this melodic/athletic tradition for all future releases. LeBron will get his ring someday, it's inevitable. Maybe this tune will somehow get stuck in his head and rattle him for a few more seasons. One can only hope.
When the title for this new EP first hit me, my flesh got flushed. I was just about to drift into a stony sleep when the lyrical ping pong paddle backhanded a nugget into my brain. Ace! One bead of sweat on the temple and a dry mouth, I licked my chops and wrote it down (like I could possibly forget it).
This was not the case in naming "Gypsy Paw" the song, an upbeat anthem of surreal pop images. My title-writing formula is straightforward: take a word or phrase (usually from the chorus), weigh its impact on the meaning of the song, see if it's a patch that looks good on the quilt of the bigger picture. Tried and true. I'm sure this is how most folks do it. But this song was stubborn, and refused to fit the mold. Some titles I tried out--and the reason I didn't use them--include:
"How I Died Before I Was Born"...I already have a long song title in "I'm Gonna Bite Your Head Off When I'm Done Making Love To You." I'm not Sufjan, sheesh.
"Yer Jeans"... too similar to "Yer Blues" on The Beatles. Plus, an insignificant, and thus inferior, object in the lyrics
"Providence"...I wanted people to know I was simply referring to the Rhode Island capital (hence the "Constitution Hill" lyric), and not the more religious "God conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny" theology. None of that. I can't control the listeners' understanding of potential metaphors!
"Whatever That Means"...the last lines of the song, and I don't even know what the "That" is, let alone means.
The song isn't about anything in particular. At the same time, it's also not about nothing. It really is a quilt of ideas, geographical shout outs, personal history, insight. A musical pastiche. Once I realized that the song represented a however-jumbled view of my own existence, I knew it had to be called "Gypsy Paw;" certain of uncertainty, unafraid to wander, and undeterred by wonder. I will always be a work-in-progress in a takeout container.
This tune began as the very last bit of music written in our old apartment, and ended as the first song recorded in the new cottage. Rick's guitar tracks were recorded in the bathtub, engineered by a bar of soap. I must make a special note about the drums on this song, for they are real! No drum machine! Frank came over and played on his set while I attempted to mic the kick and snare, no overhead. I spent the day studying drum recording techniques, and am since proud of what I learned.
I was born in '85. My mother was born in '59. Unless I've been misinformed, I did not pass away in '98. If I did, then this current life is much better.
Pomona was the ancient Roman goddess of fruitful abundance.
Before deciding to spend the last few months recording a 5-song EP, I was going to do it in one day. That day was 4/20; "Combat Missile Diploma" was the first song I wrote and tracked. I started the recording late (early), around 2 am, thinking I'd get a jump on my challenge; the whole idea fizzled out by 3 pm, though I at least had the bulk of this song completed (and was happily floating through la la land).
Then we moved. The tune got dusty, buried deep inside one of our many boxes, packed up for the new place. I finally had Rick overdub his single-note guitar part just a few days ago, bringing new life to this stale grapefruit of a song.
This is the only Meg-less song on the EP.
I have no clue really what this song represents lyrically. To me, its very existence symbolizes frustration, mostly because it took such a long journey to become a completed composition. It embodies a sort of negativity I sometimes embrace when I'm recording music: I must emerge with something, and my stubbornness will force this lyric + this theme + this groove to work together. If I get into this mindset a song will work, dammit.
I'm happy to be done with this one, it was a pain in the ass. Are there any parents out there who are TOTALLY PSYCHED when a particular kid of theirs goes away to college (not that they don't love them and all, but whew, what a relief!)? This song is that kid. I am that parent.
It's raw because the Paw always has a wound to lick. There was originally some ambient noise mixed in there, but I cut it because it made the track sound like eelgrass.
Even this writing has zapped my energy. Sometimes the hungry end result of sunset eats the principles of dawn. You'll poop out the basic idea at some point, day or night.
I'd been trying to write a song about Davy Crockett for the past year. I read his autobiography and was inspired by this man who fought bears, walked around, opposed Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act ("I bark at no man's bid"), and fought at The Alamo. A frontiersman, a patriot, one of the few American figures I look up to for their values.
Well, the song never took shape the way I'd envisioned, because I was trying too hard. I wanted a lyrical tribute, complete with clever factual information about the man's life and death. Instead I wrote a song about the decomposition of skin, and how it's returned to the earth after it's done protecting our delicate souls. Once free, our skin can travel anywhere the wind, a cowboy boot, or a gypsy paw can carry it. When Crockett went down in Texas, his spirit returned to Tennessee; his skin became American soil. I was born from the same dirt, ready to roll.
"Old Toronto" is about rebirth and rejuvenation. It is (in my mind) a tribute to Davy Crockett. This was the last song recorded in our loft apartment, where all Eastern Phoebes tunes have been written and captured. It was time to move out and move on.
The bulk of this song was recorded drunk on Easter Sunday. Frank played all the percussion for his EP recording debut. Meg sang her backups right before we moved out. Rick overdubbed his guitar parts once we were settled in the new place. And Davy whispered "always be sure you are right, then go ahead" in the background. Somewhere.
After we finished tracking Wampum, I convinced myself that I would take a break from recording music for awhile, or at least long enough to get Eastern Phoebes in shape for live performances with songs that were already in existence. That record completely enveloped my life, physically, mentally, and socially. I was a digital hermit. I was a stubborn bay scallop--closed to the world. 28 days of talking to myself, doubting myself, blowing off plans. But I got it done in the month I said I would--mission accomplished. It's an effort I'm totally proud of.
So for the next release, whenever that would be, I made several vows:
I will not have a deadline
I will get my bandmates more involved
I will function as a normal person to combat my reclusive recording nature
I didn't write any songs for a month after the album came out. I tried promoting the release in my free time, to the best of my ability without having an actual band with which to play shows. Promotion is an interesting aspect of the 'music industry,' but it's not for me--I'd rather focus on recording more material even if it means no one hears it. It's more self-satisfying to me.
In mid-April, the songwriting bug bit me, so I fittingly recorded a tune called "I'm Gonna Bite Your Head Off When I'm Done Making Love To You" about the cannibalistic sexual adventures of the female praying mantis. Around the same time, Danny Goodwin, the founder of February Records in Connecticut, got in touch with us about possibly teaming up for a future digital release on his label. I took the writing of that song with his label invitation as a sign, and decided to start work on a new EP immediately.
The name Gypsy Paw was born at five in the morning, shortly after Meg and I moved from our loft apartment to a lakefront cottage the next town over. I was watching a red fox roam around our new backyard just before sunrise, recording its tracks in the mud. I realized that I was like the fox, having just roamed myself, but with girlfriend, pup, and a ton of instruments into a new living situation...recording tracks. I felt like a transient, like a bard, a hermit-turned-hermit crab, ready for a new song shell.
In the next three weeks before its free release via Bandcamp (June 30th), I will write short anecdotes about the individual songs found on GypsyPaw, from inspiration to execution. These writings will accompany streaming versions of the songs, to be found on our Soundcloud page as I finish up the mixes.
I stayed true to all of my vows. This EP is a nomadic tribute to our homemade musical tendencies. We'd like to show you what happens when a song moves around.
