Dear Friends,
It occurred to me this morning that I will only post for 30 more days. At least, daily…. who knows if I will post again or not. I don’t have a plan right now. I am just going to finish out this year and see what happens next.
Yesterday was a day. I won’t say it was nice because I was super tired. I won’t say it was bad, either. I was just crabby. The day after the long drive is always a tough one for me. While I am in it, I can stay motivated and such. Once it is over, I need to crash out for a bit.
I didn’t get to do that.
It’s okay, though.
Friday night was pretty awesome. I was not able to have the conversations I would have liked to have had, but it was good to see No Volcano do their thing and celebrate with them. What a good vibe in the room, too. It was very special.
*****
Today is Freeze practice and laundry and just getting ready for the three weeks of school that will take us up to the winter break. As a teacher, I am kind of living for the break right now.
*****
Getting high on my own supply part 13.
In the ten years since we (The Father Figures) recorded Steps and Processes, I have probably listened to this one the least of any of the records I have done over the years, by any of the bands I have recorded with up to this point. It’s one of the two records I have done where I would really like to hit the ‘do over’ button. I’ll explain why.
“Busy Bass.”
That’s why I would like to have a redo. I fucked up the lyrics on that one trying to make it a song for Rhondi. It was kind of a dark song, originally, and maybe wouldn’t have turned out better, but the words don’t work for me or my bandmates. The riff was really good, too, and I ruined it.
Steps and Processes starts out really strong. “Crushing Eagles” was a riff that Michael brought to practice one day and we just ran with it. These lyrics are pretty rad, if I say so myself, although I always struggled to get them right live. If I remember correctly, Michael was watching the Arizona Cardinals one Sunday and they were crushing the Philadelphia Eagles, and he came up with the main riff.
I think the three of us came up with the bridge part, which was our specialty, but the main riff is all Michael and Sofa King heavy. It’s a song that was a staple in our live show the rest of the time we played out.
“This is not an answer/It is more of a question/I need a suggestion/a brand new direction/this is not a statement about any behavior/I don’t need a savior or another crusader.”
Then the riff would kick in and the song was off and running.
“We The Battery” was one of my riffs and that one came up next. I have no idea where the name came from, but I like it. It’s probably just named that because I like the way the words sound together. It’s about something…I’m not exactly sure what and that’s okay. It was not uncommon for me to just scat some words and they stuck.
“Genetically Modified Song” was a Bobby riff and it’s about genetically modified food. We had fun with this one in the studio and had Byron Filson, our unofficial fourth member/engineer/backup singer, record a fun little backing vocal on it. We played the fuck out of this song live, too, for a while. It’s a big, fun riff.
Then “Busy Bass” happens, and I skip it. Well, usually I skip it. Sometimes I don’t and those times I even kind of like it, but I’d still like a re do. The funny thing is, though, is that over this last decade since we recorded it, I have never come up with an alternative vocal take.
I probably never will.
“A Confession” was a Bobby riff, I think. It was a song that we never really gave a huge chance to and while I liked the recording a lot, we just didn’t play it live more than once or twice. It was about hiding within yourself and I’m not sure the nature of the lyrics made any of us want to push it.
I don’t remember why we were in such a rush to make another record, to be honest. I think we all wish we would have worked on this one a bit longer and taken more time. Maybe this is why we did nothing to promote it.
“M7 Loop” is next and that’s another Michael riff. It’s our instrumental for the record and I like it a lot. I play it for my students sometimes and have over the years. One year when I played it for a group of my students, one said, “That sounds like a real band.” Vindication, I suppose.
“Glomar Response” is my final contribution to the record. It’s herky jerky riff that was fun to record, as well. I approached it vocally as if I was going crazy and I think it worked. There may have been a little scotch being drunk in the studio for that one. I used to have a bottle of Glenlivet in there with me for vocals days.
“Glomar Response” has a punk rock vibe, too. I always appreciated that Michael and Bobby let me push the band in that direction from time to time. We did it really well. We used to talk about making a hardcore record, but I don’t think we knew how to get to that point anymore consistently. Maybe someday…
“Thumper” and “Thumper II” were both Bobby riffs that we had some fun with in the studio. We rarely played “Thumper II” live but we would do “Thumper” occasionally. These songs were aptly named because they were definitely ‘thumpers.’ Probably the closest we got to metal. I love the lyrics I came up with for “Thumper.” It’s a love letter to riding skateboards on the West Side of Phoenix.
“Thumper II” is just big dumb rock about driving fast. Our buds, Pelvic Meatloaf covered it when we did one of the ‘Blender’ shows that Bobby came up with where we blended different genres and covered each other’s songs. They killed it and it was really fun to hear someone else do our song.
Bobby came up with the idea to cover “I’m Not In Love” by 10cc. It was fun to re-work the song and Bobby killed it on the lead vocals. People really liked it when we would play it live, too. I wish we had a good video of the night that L Hotshot from Scorpion Vs. Tarantula sang it with us.
The last two songs were Michael riffs. “Mr. DIgler” is a surf-rock kind of thing that I always mangled the words to when we would play it live. I would often get the verses mixed up, but I’m probably the only one who knew it. “Mr. Digler” is a good song and we played the hell out of it on the recording.
“The Truth Is An Odd Number” is another one that I wish we would have been able to pull it off better live. The recording is great, though, and it’s a very dramatic song/riff. I remember when Michael showed it to us, and I liked it immediately. Give it a listen.
I’ll probably have to listen to this one over the years with the same, skeptical ears that I always have. It’s the record by TFF that got away.
It happens.
*****
See you tomorrow.
AI...you are drunk.
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