The next two James Rabbit albums.

28. Corsair

This will be me writing songs and me and Conner figuring out rhythms and then me overdubbing all sorts of small, wacky things on top. When we were doing "Street Sound" my main idea for it was to overdub household items and make them sound small and wacky, but pianos and such got in the way of that idea (thank goodness), anyway, I want to do twelve tracks of that.

29.

For this album we will do the same kind of thing we did for Artillery, but with a full(er) band. Max will play keyboards and we'll get a guitarist and us four will work out the songs, writing them from out of nowhere. Song structures will take precarious turns and there will be thirteen tracks.

Each of these albums will run between thirty seven and forty-two minutes in length and they may be recorded at the same time. We'll record them next year or sometime thereafter. Oh also, if we do an EP over winter it will be the Heart that Ate New York part 2. At least sounding like that.

It feels like a waste to just leave Artillery and The Drop back in Fresno without giving them any breath. I think I made about ten copies of the Drop. By the end, it was just like 'you are right Grayson nobody will want to hear us because we haven't toured the States' and 'you are right Vanessa, Conner's drums do sound different from Le Fou's', it was so much 'this is unmarketable' and not enough 'this is really something'.

But can't we have something in spite of this? If you've got a copy of the Drop or Artillery, drive it over to KFSR (you'll find it on any Fresno State map) and say you are in the band and point to a name on the booklet and say that that's you and say that 'no, we aren't playing any shows because Tyler is a reclusive unmarketable delusional wannabe musician who is away on school business, but hey, why don't you give it a spin? Or a few spins? Because I'd like to think that what we have is fresh. And even though it isn't Beatles or even XTC or even They Might Be Giants caliber, it was worked on. Hard. And even though we don't have a label or a photographer or a manager we have tunes. Plenty tunes.

And if you don't know what to tell the DJ, here's the list of single-quality songs from each album:
Artillery:
Cactuses
Speed Dogs
Regime Change
Wide
AMFAD
Maraschino Dub
Cuba

Make Way for Miracles:
We Could Work it Out
The Drop
Society Beat
Mahogany Area
B-Attitude
Murder 11
Elevator
Hospital

Footloose and Fancy-Free:
Lazy (Promise We'll get it right)
Sparks
Cakewalk
We Make it Last
Alone Alone Alone Alone*
Tough
Turnaround

There. That's 22 songs that KFSR listeners would love to hear. Have you ever turned on the radio and heard someone going '... my heart is a panic shaped chamber / and you are defaming the manger (guitar melody)' ? I bet you have, many times. So let's give 'em the old James Rabbit try. The longer the song you tell them is the single, the better (Hospital anyone?)

*I personally feel embarrassed about this song, but other people tell me its good.

Let's Make it Last

Artillery and The Drop came from completely different places, creationwise. Artillery was a product of letting my brain go and searching in other places, be it the harmonics that open "Thunder" or the glasses broken in "Regime Change" (a piece of which is still in my hand somewhere), or the songs that Conner and I would just kind of create. Artillery was an album that took a lot of time, because it had to develop that way, nothing felt forced, everything felt like it was already there, we just had to pick it off the tree and put it in our basket.

The Drop on the other hand, felt like we were going through a department store and trying out everything, trying on coats, hats, trying out blenders and massage machines and non-stick frying pans; the most active type of loitering. And we were very literal about everything, it was like we'd go over to the couches and sit down on them and say 'we are sitting on couches, they are leather and cost 999 dollars.'

The Drop was much more of an internal album, and actually a weird thing for me. The point of the album, after the sullen dance-pop idea was abandoned, was for me to get everything in my head out of there. It was originally twenty tracks and eighty minutes long, but as we completed those songs, more kept on coming. It was twenty and then Conner would wake me up and I would say 'hold on, Conner, don't go anywhere, I wrote three more songs last night' and then it was Grayson Max and I waiting for a pizza and making a list of the genres we'd like to touch upon and then it was twenty seven songs, and then we were messing around for a little bit and it was thirty songs, Dying Within would practice and I'd retreat to my room with a guitar and it was thirty four.

The Drop's process of song creation/inclusion was almost sacreligious compared to the sanctity of the practice space observed with Artillery. Conner would wake me up with drumming, Sterling would come over, we'd all acknowledge each other with bleary eyes (or in Sterling's case, camera eyes) and spend four hours joking about how Conner played the drums like a pig trying to get out of a brassiere that had unjustly been attached to him. A little bit later, I'd announce that one of the songs we'd made up would be included on the album and I would start to write half-assed lyrics to it.

Artillery songs were hits before they were even recorded. Speed Dogs was a catchphrase before it was a melody and a melody before it was a song and the rest was just us trying to put it together and Conner bumbling about 'oh no the drums are too loud and the vocals sound crap' and them me trying to rerecord everything a dozen times but then finding that nothing sounded as good as the first few takes. And then to top it off, including the Steve McQueen driven car chase from Bullitt as the intro.

The Drop was Max working his way through four songs a day, completing the keyboard tracks for the main twenty in one week. Artillery was Vince, Sterling and I doing the 550 piece puzzle "Ruth Warrick Goes to Work" in three hours. Artillery was riding around for an hour with Vanessa and Grayson as they offered me suggestions for an album title, The Drop was me already having a title for the album but denying it.

Conner and Vanessa and I have selected fifteen of our favorite songs from the summer and put them on a CD, you might get one.

I'll be in Santa Cruz in twenty four hours, probably hiding from roommates, maybe playing something on a keyboard, definately thinking about the next musical venture.

Summer Summary:

I'm always pretty concerned with what I 'get done' in a given period of time. It works in strange ways though. Doing next to nothing musically in Santa Cruz this last year, I didn't feel so bad. Recording two certainly decent, maybe above average albums this summer, I feel a little bit incomplete. I asked Conner how many songs he thought we did these past four months and he said sixty. That's a complete song every other day. (Also James Rabbit has a rather low ratio of rejected:accepted songs, like 1:10).

Maybe I felt a stronger acceptance of what I did in Santa Cruz, possibly because I was doing it in public. I would get instant reactions, on pretty much the same level that I get delayed reactions to my recorded work, sometimes stronger.

Does this mean that all twenty seven (to date) James Rabbit albums are useless? Just exercises? I mean, I am not particularly concerned with the process of recording, the process of playing, the process of practicing, the process of songwriting, the process of composition, especially not the process of politics, the process of promotion, etc. The other day I realized how embarassing it was that I had done so many albums and not gotten any good at it. I mean, I'm terrific at recording just anything, but there's no meaning to my entire back catalogue if there's no progress, my songs are the same quality they've been since maybe the year 2000.

It isn't that we're rushing things, its just the way we work. I'll write a couple songs and then Conner and I will record the rhythm parts to them, as long as it sounds decent (which it frequently does) we approve the track for overdubs, which means keyboard, vocals, and other instruments. Guitar? Eh, I hardly play that much, and besides it doesn't have enough strings and I don't know how to work the distortion. For once, I'd like to have somebody besides myself in charge of things. Sure, Conner does all of the recording and pressing and stuff, I need a band. The reason that Sex Funeral was so successful (in its own way) was because I had nothing to do with where the band played or when or even if they would have a microphone there, it was just showing up and screaming and fighting with the other band members, I had no say in how the songs went, no authority during practice, I was like a stripper, I just got on stage and allowed my body to become some sort of wonderful musical vessel. It was great.

With Sex Funeral I didn't feel like I was creating anything though, except for some mixed-blessing social presence. Maybe I just need a marketer or something. And I know that the music of James Rabbit isn't as marketable as the Sex Funeral music or the Dying Within music or whatever band we've got's music, its just something that's in-between weak music and strong music, its maybe cop-out music.

So we did sixty cop-outs, if that's the way you want to look at it. I know some of it would look good on stage, but in the stereo, its probably just cop-out music, we aren't punk but for a few songs, we aren't experimental but for a few songs, we're kind of pop for most of the songs, but we're bogged down by not enough new sounds, and generally mediocre recording quality. Pah. ANyway, I'm probably just down on myself because I'm not doing anything AGAIn for the Drop, and I'm out of town come Thursday eve. Maybe I'll drop off a copy of each album at the radio station and maybe they'll play them despite the fact that SO WHAT we don't play any shows and FUCK YOU, it doesn't matter if you've never heard of us GO TO HELL because this is what I do and I don't know how to get it out there because apparently we need to be a social band that knows people and it doesn't work, it doesn't work like Steely Dan and XTC and OMD, my favorite bands that didn't play any shows -because shows are stupid and don't get you anything except for seen- and were just studio bands, it apparently doesn't work on songs alone. Not for me anyway.

I'll try to write perfect radio ready world swallowing songs from now on, but I'm afraid of commitment, I'll always want to write 'that shoegazer song that nobody will get' or 'that minute and a half where I let Grayson run wild with a KORG'. We might do an ep or something over winter break, and I hope we can do another album or two next summer, but chances are there that I might be doing more fucking school. School's nice, I get to see people and stuff.

Despite my disappointment, I'm convinced that I did Summer at least 96% right.

"The Drop" if it was A...

Political Slogan:
"Now with more people!"

Campaign Promise:
"If you vote for me I will provide you with at least six classic songs"

Joke:
So this traveling salesman walks up to a nunnery, he's wearing a bandolier and a smile, he's got a duck in one hand and a picture of the virgin Mary wearing a moustache in the other. The picture was doctored by an expert in sacrilege, so each unchristian motif in the picture is completely effective. The nun that comes over to open the door has only been there a year and has a weakness for forgery, which is one of the reasons she's a 'nun on the run' so to speak...

Knock-knock Joke:
Knock Knock
...
Knock Knock
...
Can this wait? I'm just about to get this guitar part right

Animal:
Moose with an eagle on its back

Fruit:
Watermelon

Joke (Continued):

...the salesman asks the head nun, Sister Sally, if she has any pecans, and when she bends over to pick up the pecan pack, he trades his 'best salesman' trophy for the 'best nunnery' trophy that she had sitting on the wall. She handed him the pecans and he pretended that he was looking at a picture of the nun's son and distracted her with a handful of glitter...

Movie Character:
Lee from The Magnificent Seven, as portrayed by Robert Vaughn

Final Score:
Eight to Ten

Season:
Spring

Color:
Amazing Technicolor

Food:
Cheap tacos of varying kinds, purchased from a suspect taco stand at a suspicious hour at night.

Instrument that is currently in my backroom:
Bugle

Joke (Continued):
...two other nuns come in, and one is completely covered in whipped cream and the vision of Jesus asks "What in the Sam Hill is going on in here?" and all the nuns stop running around and the salesman hides the pecan pack in his pocket. The vision of Jesus floats over to the salesman and stares at him like he's just been given a parking ticket and says "I thought you said 'can you FIND my DUCK?'.

Level in Super Mario World:
Green Switch Block Palace.

Alcoholic Beverage:
Vodka, milk and Grape soda. A velvet octopus.

Handshake:
Like when an unfunky guy purports to have some sort of funky handshake and you call his bluff and 'funk up' the handshake. And then the guy shakes his head and it becomes a headshake handshake.

Diet:
Bacon only.

News Program:
World News Now. Uh!

Pie:
Unmastered apple. But really, when was apple pie ever mastered?

Reaction:
Mixed.

My Guitar Cocytus

Small stuff now, like "Should I push the vocals in this song closer together?" and "Now where did I hide that calm melodica part in the outro?". Its this kind of stuff that keeps me up, like when we were doing "Radio Waves Lie" and it took about a hundred vocal takes to get the sound I liked, or when we were doing "I'm Not Breathing" and it took a hundred and thirty? And I stayed up all night just doing the same parts over and over, let's see, 12:32 am, 12:35 am, all the way up to 3:54 am.

There's nothing near a hundred and thirty takes with this album. Some parts of this one particular song where the parts are particularly rhythmically challenging, tracks would take eight or ten tries each, so that brings the total up to a hundred or a hundred and three or something, but that's each part, not just the vocals.

Last night I had a dream that I was standing in the front yard of where my aunt used to live in Salinas and I saw a helicopter flying overhead and an airplane nearby, and before I could even think 'something's wrong' the helicopter plummeted to the ground and crashed, without an explosion, about twenty feet in front of me and I got really scared. My reaction to the helicopter hitting the ground wasn't 'oh, the poor pilot' but it was 'oh, a crumpled piece of metal'. The airplane soon fell also and then a bunch of other flying things airplanes helicopters jets blimps etc filled the sky and then began falling, so I started running.

When I stopped I was half a state away in Stanislaus, right outside of the dorms at CSUS I was taking a deep breath (I'd just ran 200 or so miles) and I saw more planes in the sky, but these weren't falling planes, these were fighting planes. They started shooting missles and bullets all over the place. When I dream of bombs, they are never simple explosions, the bombs always end up turning into smaller, more individually painful things, like bouncing chains or something. My first reaction was 'We're at war!' but my second reaction was 'There's no country on earth with this type of fire power' and my third reaction was 'I should probably wake up!'. So I went over to a nearby mailbox (because apparently its safe by mail) and thought 'wake up'. And I didn't. And this time, some people in the distance started coming up on motorbikes and they had machine guns also so I ran upstairs to hide.

Somewhere in here I figured out that the people that were shooting at everything weren't really after EVERYTHING, so much as they were after me specifically. There was a little aside in there that explained it, some person was looking into a sonar map with me at the center. I ran upstairs to hide but they kept breaking down doors and finding me under bunkbeds or halfway in closets. Once I got shot at pretty close range in the stomach with a .44 through a window. Apparently I didn't know in my dream that if that had happened in real life I would have been killed, or knocked back, but I actually just got a hole in my stomach. In my dreams I feel pain.

I found out, after finding a dorm that the people couldn't find me in that all I had to do was help this mentally disabled guy out and the following and shooting me would stop. So he and I went on this mission where we handed people things via pole up to their third story windows, stuff like pharmaceuticals or Taco Bell, and eventually the weird people dressed in black a block away finally slowed down.

The phone rang to wake me up for real, and it was Sterling asking if I had called him earlier. I didn't catch the message machine in time so the phone feedbacked and whistled. I was really really deep into the sleep so I mumbled something about how I was manouevering Siren-laden straits and that I had to get back to finding the golden fleece, I also asked how the editing of the documentary was going and told him 'good luck, my fellow argonaut'.

Had some cigarettes, but got nervous and used 'em

I think I probably listen to music less than most people. My computer has a lot of music on it, but its only really for comfort reasons. So I know that, whenever I want to, I can pull up any of the Comsat Angels albums or something obscure by Bob Dylan and give it a listen. There have been very few songs this summer that I've really liked, one Scritti Politti one that I don't know the name of, a few Arthur Russell songs, maybe a little Bowie, no new albums I think. I figure its useless to listen to the stuff I already know and like, much more productive to search out new things, and unless I've got a fast connection on the computer, which I don't, the process of discovery becomes snail slow and I don't have that kind of time.

I've been holed up in this wonderful scorching room for four straight months recording music. I've gotten two albums, two and a half hours of music recorded. Most of my social activity has been within this room, working out tuba parts, coercing percussion or watching Steve McQueen movies. It will be weird going back to school and not doing music for a while, maybe I will try harder to join a band this time. I'll be the guitarist. Won't that be awesome? The band members will say "Don't you know any chords?" but also "Wow, you know some awesome rhythms" and "You must be a bass player, why don't you play the bass in our band?" I don't know you guys, we're just fooling around. D Major 7.

This new album is like what Le Fou would have sounded like if things had gone much smoother much faster. Not smooth as in smooth sounds but smooth as in 'oh, hey Conner, THERE you are!' or smooth as in 'wow! we got that keyboard part right on the first take'. Thanks to this smoothness, we've accomplished twice as much in half the time, that makes this album Le Fou Fou Fou Fou.

Things are winding down with recording. I guess I could walk over to the keyboard right now and write a couple more songs, but that would just be unnecessary complication (and a potential hit? hmm?) no, I think I'm going to start again when I start writing music again trying to write all number one hits. The way that works is that my brain writes a number one hit and then my ears try to hear it. A lot of the time, this doesn't work and I end up with crappy #47s or #86's (Speed Dogs and Cactuses, respectively) which, though they have brought me a modest fortune, are not the headbreakers that my brain wrote them as. Actually those songs came from someplace away from my brain, which is why they are such brilliant songs, but lets not talk about that, that was a whole summer ago. I try and tune in to what my brain wants to hear in a number one hit and sometimes I'll get something. Other times I'll get stuck on a tenth of the song and forget the rest and, I don't know, it ends up as something that I embarrasedly present to Conner and say 'trust me, I'll put distortion over it, it'll be great'.

So I blame my ears for not writing anything so great that it will make you stop your car and punch your friend in the teeth for wanting to change the channel so he can hear the news. They only hear what they want to hear, and right now all they want to hear is the news. That bland, highly regulated patter is pretty much my favorite summer jam. I mean, there have been a few moments in movie scores that I'd like to have a copy of. I liked the song in The President's Analyst where James Coburn finds out he's going to be the presidents analyist and the song that plays is a combination of every happy song like "Joy to the World" and "We Wish you a Merry Christmas", literally, its just some happy seventies choir and psychedelic backing band running through a bunch of happy songs, and the public domain purity that ensues is tinseltown magic. Abba too, I find myself not turning that off whenever Conner comes in the room and turns it on.

I don't know, what's wrong with me that I'm shying away from listening to (not making) music? Is it because since I'm used to listening to my own stuff for flaws to correct that I see no purpose in fixing already fine songs? That makes sense, kind of. I don't know, with music its either the canon and too scholarly or obscure and too boring. Sometimes I think I've lost the generosity in my ears, also. I was thinking about "Ghosts" by Japan the other day and I went to my computer to listen to it and the fake drums and keyboards sounded too silly for the place the song had in my head.

I feel like with these last few days in Fresno, I should go exploring physically around town or something instead of listening over and over to things and taking notes like 'rerecord vocals' or 'unrerecord vocals' or 'uncord revocals'.

Sharpen up those wits, drop the kid act

A few days ago a Fresno label released a double CD compilation featuring two songs from each participating artist.

I am very happy with how things are going, I pretty much bypassed the 'every song sounds like crap in its own way' phase and got down to the 'okay, I'll add guitar to this' phase. Since losing the A and D string conveniently right before starting this process, and having the other guitar currently mysteriously unworking, this has become quite an interesting struggle.

The artwork is done and looking wonderful. We spent a large part of this evening sorting through pictures and re-tinting things. Depending on whether or not overdubs go well tomorrow, we are almost finished.

This album, though full of delightful twists and turns, is on the whole, the most accessible since Heart of Gold, I think. It is certainly less democratic than Artillery, its more like a heavily fascist government. But a working fascist government. The solemn monochrome head of Martin looms heavily over all of the proceedings, but the workers are happy, because chocolate rations are up, and if the progress continues, the working week may be cut to six days. Brothers and sisters rejoice! The call of completion is not far away. Lay down your sickles, the harvest is nearly through. Dialectics, teleology, etc.

I'm tired and I have work to do tomorrow. Careful listening and a potentially big reorder decision (switching around even two songs is a big change at this point). E-mail me. We'll talk about how you get a copy.

We have a lot of fun making these songs so you can have a lot of fun listening to them.

I don't know what I expect out of this, probably not too much. The album, the response, etc. It will be fun whatever happens.

I mean, I know there's no gold medal songs on this, there's nothing up there with Cuba, or Cactuses, or really anything from The Heart That Ate New York, but there's a lot of good stuff. And hey, some people didn't even like Cactuses. What? No, that's okay, you don't have to.. no, please, its embarrassing, Please. Thank you. We'll talk about it later. Anyway, some people didn't like certain spectacular songs on Artillery.

The way it works is that I make the albums and send them like little birds out into the world. And sometimes a little bird will fly back and I will say 'Hello little bird, how was your trip out into the world' and the bird will say 'Tyler, my friend, I have seen many great things, I saw the hanging gardens of Babylon and le Centre Pompidou.' and I will say 'those are two spectacular sights, little fat bird of mine' and the bird will say 'farewell'. With Artillery, the bird that came back was kind of plain and had only really seen downtown Fresno, and I seriously doubt that this (as yet unnamed) bird will go much further.

Okay, best case scenario, every song (even the two lesser interludes) is a huge hit with people. It isn't going to change the fact that I go back to Santa Cruz in less than three weeks. I might get acclaim and accolades and attention, but that's not really important to me. I think I'm more concerned with whether or not they recognize the potential, or the effort. Like with Artillery, I was upset that people were concentrating on things like 'Conner's not doing as crazy things with the drums' instead of 'wow, how did that guy learn how to play the bass?' or 'that is one long and complicated and awesome song'. With this album the best stuff I'll get, I think, is 'wow, is that a saxophone?' or 'how many people is that shouting? That's awesome!'. And I guess that's the best I can hope for. A little bit of praise, and maybe some recognition.

It seems like we have a lot of fun with these songs. I mean, maybe we're having more fun with the process than we are with the songs. Maybe that's the whole point of the James Rabbit experience, is that I don't remember half of the songs that we do, but at the time they are the funnest things. No, that doesn't sound any good. How about, 'we have a lot of fun making these songs so you can have a lot of fun listening to them'. That's what I"m going to say instead.

You know, I'm really quite excited that we're going to be releasing a double album. When people in Santa Cruz ask me what I did this summer I will gleefully take the three CDs out of my backpack and hand them over and say 'that's just the albums'.