Mike's Tavern

So, Reading PA is not the most up to date city in the US. It's a fairly depressed area, and Mike's Tavern sits in what could easily be a rowhome. If it weren't for the GPS in my phone, I'd be lost still. But Mike's Tavern, while a local dive bar, is very serious about their beer, their alcohol and their music. They have good single malt scotch and they have absinthe. They have four beers on tap that you haven't heard of, but which the bartendress will be happy to describe to you in terms of hoppiness and alcohol content. And they have open mic nights and good musicians in. At 7pm the after-work crowd is just finishing up. By 10pm the place is full of weekend couples out for drinks and companionship. Michael Ronstadt was slated to play from 8pm on, and invited me to join him, to premiere some of our songs. In his first set, we did "O Zebra" and "Little Jack Horner." "Little Jack Horner" was so good that the folks in charge asked it the song was on a CD. In the second set we did "Cassandra Blues" and "Falling Angels." I didn't realize we were going to do "Cassandra" and had to scribble the lyrics on a few pieces of paper and read them off, so the song didn't go off as well. "Falling Angels" is a frightfully difficult song and I botched the melody and Michael botched the timing and the whole thing fell flat. Sigh. We will have to review the song before our next outing. But I've seen great musicians get up at empty venues and give it their all -- Michael certainly does. So it was an educational and foundational experience. Looking forward to the next time. We'll nail "Falling Angels" yet. And we'll finish "Irish Queens" one of these days.

Snowmobiles (The Admiration of Z. Mulls)

I’ve been meaning to post about Susan Werner’s new CD HAYSEED, because it’s her best album in a long time, full of her old puckish humor and cockeyed lens on human nature. I could go track by track, explaining what I like about each song, but since this is (ostensibly) a songwriting blog, I am going to go through one song that I think is a marvel of construction, “Snowmobiles.”

Starting from the title, this song works on misdirection, giving you an unlikely metaphor and sticking close to it. It’s a first person narrative (subtitled “The Worries of Patrick Lunquist” – three of the songs have these subtitles and they are the best songs on the CD).

Here’s the first verse:

The summer’s hot and the winter’s cold
That’s when the snowmobiles get sold
That’s what we got up here
Snowmobiles and deer
That’s how it is when you live up North
Winter lasts till July fourth
So we snowmobile till April, maybe longer
And my wife she says the cold it makes us stronger
And we’re strong up here
Strong as six-point beer
Comes to the weather
The weather is what it is

She works entirely in couplets in this song, but sets them apart with musical pauses and mini-interludes, and she varies the meter on each couplet. This allows for variation and gives the impression of thought and careful consideration of each couplet. Using the couplets allows the funny lines to land – line 1 sets up the thought, and the second line can click in with either a rueful or an amusing one. The “snowmobiles and deer” line and the “six point beer” line make you chuckle because of the way they are phrased.

She then starts using repetition between verses -- each verse talks about the weather. The summer is always “hot” but in verse 2 the winter is “cool” not “cold” and in verse 3 it is “warm.” Each verse mentions a particular time of the year – verse 1 is “July 4th,” verse 2 has “Columbus Day” (when the pool finally closes) and verse 3 has “New Year’s Eve” when it rains for the first time rather than snows. Patrick’s wife chimes in several times during the song “My wife says….”. Verse 2 also ends with the resigned line, that the weather “is what it is.”

But verse 3 ends with the sad memory that the weather “was what it was.” And isn’t any longer. Because – obviously – this is a song about global warming, without a single strident line in it. It’s just about how the changing weather happens slowly and creeps up on people, and how it alters lives that have long lived a certain way.

Patrick “lives for” his “Arctic Cat.” It’s part of his life. A life that is melting away.

The bridge (and anyone who knows me knows that I live and die for the bridge of a song) nails the theme, takes it from the storytelling to the central idea:

Or so I thought until a couple years ago
Now anymore we got a lot more rain than snow
I mean it really rains a lot
And then whatever snow we got
It melts away
In just a day
So strange
My wife she says that nothing’s changed

I really love those tiny little lines in the middle – “It melts away/In just a day/So strange” and then Patrick’s wife is the voice of reason, or so she thinks. I love the vernacular phrases "Now anymore" and "whatever snow we got" (And the bridge is usually where Werner pull in the most unusual chords that hit you in private places.)

It’s a song that comes on you slowly, through the chuckles and small observations, the worry and sadness and loss hit you by the end, when there is almost no snow, and everyone stays inside “drinking too much beer and watching too much cable.” And

Missing how it feels
To ride snowmobiles
When the weather
Well it was what it was.

There are many excellent songs in this collection, but this one immediately goes on my pile of favorites. The construction is elaborate and elegantly executed, the tone is pitch perfect and internally consistent, and it achieves a lightness that belies the hours of work that must have gone into it.

HAYSEED is highly recommended and is every bit as good as TIME BETWEEN TRAINS and NEW NON-FICTION.

You can watch her sing "Snowmobiles" at this artist showcase site: http://evanstonspace.com/artists/Susan_Werner

Baby You Can Drive My Karma

So, there was some sort of weird karmic cloud in Philadelphia last night. I got a freakishly good parking space (all the way east on Chestnut, right on Front), and simultaneously got a cancellation text from an old friend who was supposed to join me. Then, while I was at the bar at the Tin Angel, up walks my friend and co-writer AlyCat (@thealycat on Twitter), local bass player and general musical badass – haven’t talked to her in a couple of years as I’ve been in hibernation.

Between seeing Aly, her amiable and fashion-conscious social worker friend, and meeting an animated and engaging independent film producer at the bar, who was there with a friend who runs a charitable series of concerts in Venice, CA (Grassroots Acoustica) -- it was an unexpectedly social evening.

Plus the music was great.

Maia Sharp is just one of the best songwriters around. The lyrics often layer two meanings in one line, or juxtapose two thoughts in one phrase; every song has at least one turn of phrase that makes me thrilled and jealous. She has a gift for melody and her voice is wonderful. Plus she can play the bejesus out of her instruments. (She even pulled out a clarinet last night).

It helped that she was backed up by Linda Taylor (from Who’s Line is That Anyway) on bass, acoustic and everything else. They didn’t need anyone else on stage with them. We stood in the back and whooped and hollered. (The most popular song of the night was probably “Whole Flat World” from her last album, “Echo.”)

But even before Maia stepped on, we were treated to Dante Bucci, a Philadelphia fixture. I hadn’t seen him before. He’s a friend of Aly’s. He plays the “handpan” or “hang drum.” I have never seen this instrument before, but it is capable of an amazing range of sounds. Everyone just stopped what they were doing and tried to figure out if he was hitting anything with his feet.

Look for yourself. Guy has some serious game with this thing:

What a Year it Hasn't Been

Has it really, really been a full year since I last posted?

Why yes, it has. My, how time crawls.

It’s been a low-key year, a museless time. More real-life things had to take a front seat for a while and my urge to write went into hiding. I hit sort of a wall with why it is I wanted to write, or what I wanted to write about, let alone who.

But I think it’s time to start pulling out notebooks again, listening to new music, working with partners and generally getting into mischief.

I’m still working on the songs with Michael Ronstadt and we’ve recorded some demos which still need to be mixed. I’m hoping to work with a guitar player so I can hit some open mics.

And so it goes. I will try to report back from the Maia Sharp gig on Wednesday night.

Welcome back. To me.

The Microphone Awaits

Well, here we go. Saturday night, I’ll be premiering two new songs at Thrive Station’s home concert series. This week Michael Ronstadt will be showcased, presenting his solo work and some collaborations. We’ll be singing (for the first time in public) “Little Jack Horner” and “Falling Angels.” (Both lyrics have been tweaked a bit since they were posted here, I’ll have to put the final versions up soon).

I remember getting on a stage when I was around 10 years old, so that’s when I think I started acting. So I’ve been a performer for a long time, but always in a theatrical context. I have sung in Summer Stock (one year in my youth I played Jesus in GODSPELL and Littlechap in STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF), and done cabarets, but it’s always been about the story and the performance and the energy and the narrative, and I’ve gotten by with hitting most of the notes.

This is the first time I’ll be getting up in a venue as a songwriter and musician and singer, with the performance experience playing the supporting role. As Michael and I have been developing our song project, I’ve wound up as lead vox.

The concert series is held at the home and studio of Rick Denzien and Debra Lee, with whom I’ve written a few songs. I met Michael at another concert, watching him improvise on the cello.

“Little Jack Horner” is a lyric I’ve had for years – it’s a “she done left me” song incorporating as many nursery rhyme phrases as I could fit. “Falling Angels” was inspired by the notion that your guardian angel was probably sick of looking after you and wanted to go out and party, and maybe not come back; it would explain a lot about the state of the world. Michael’s music for “Falling Angels” is particularly wonderful.

Anyone who wants attend from afar, there’s a Pay-per-view option.

Broken Glass

A few years ago, a Scandanavian composer approached me, after reviewing my website, to write English lyrics for a project. He gave me a couple of tracks to work on. The music was catchy but the rhythms were unusual.

I wrote lyrics, but for one reason or another they were too dark (or weren't dark enough) or too strange (or not strange enough) so I wrote new lyrics. Another consultation with his partner and he wanted something different, so I wrote new lyrics again. I wrote, I think, four versions of one track, three versions of another and a few other stray lyrics. Eventually, he and his partner (for reasons unrelated to the lyrics, gave up and couldn't get their project together, and the whole thing fizzled.

Which left me with a handful of lyrics, all in the same exact structure, with no home. C'est la vie. (This happened with a different composer on a lyric called "Falling Angels," which I wrote to match a track -- that lyric was picked up last year by a new composer and has been totally reset. So there's hope).

Goodnight Kiss Music, headed by the fabulous and supportive Janet Fisher, was having their annual song competition, and they had a little prize for lyrics as well, so I entered a few of mine, and "Broken Glass," one of the many rewrites I did for the Scandanavian composer, came in second. It's not on my website proper, and some folks wanted to read it, so here it is. Remember it was written to a specific piece of music and would have to be tweaked (at least) to fit a different one.



BROKEN GLASS
Lyric copyright 2009 Z. Mulls

The looking glass
Stared back and fell to the floor
And you were
Reflected in
Each shard, madonna and whore

Colors always the same
Amber and green and clear
If you remember my name
I'm your volunteer

I will come a-running

And I'm gonna crawl to you
Over BROKEN GLASS
Gonna dig a tunnel through
All this BROKEN GLASS
You're a prisoner of jagged pieces of truth
Hypnotized by your perception of what's absolute
I'll be with you after clearing a path
Through the BROKEN GLASS

Your murky eyes
Are mining your memories
Every night
You're pirouetting
On your silent trapeze

And when the lantern explodes
Shattering more than light
I'll be writing you odes
We can both recite

I can't keep my distance

And I'm gonna crawl to you
Over BROKEN GLASS
Gonna dig a tunnel through
All this BROKEN GLASS
You're a prisoner of jagged pieces of truth
Hypnotized by your perception of what's absolute
I'll be with you after clearing a path
Through the BROKEN GLASS


The blood won't stop flowing
The heart won't stop knowing
The blood won't stop flowing
The heart won't stop knowing


And I'm gonna crawl to you
Over BROKEN GLASS
Gonna dig a tunnel through
All this BROKEN GLASS
You're a prisoner of jagged pieces of truth
Hypnotized by your perception of what's absolute
I'll be with you after clearing a path
Through the BROKEN GLASS

Every Girl You Meet

I pretty much have to write this post backwards, because while there’s a long and winding backstory, there’s a more exciting ending. “Parentheses,” a song I cowrote with Jen Foster, was featured in an instrumental on the online series “Venice,” and is now available on Jen’s website for download. And frankly, I could stop typing right there and that would be blogworthy.

“Venice” is a spinoff-that-isn’t-a-spinoff from the cancelled soap THE GUIDING LIGHT. But even if you’re not a soap fan, the circuitous new-media route “Venice” has taken is an object lesson on how the television business is changing before our eyes.

THE GUIDING LIGHT featured a budding romance between two female characters, Olivia (played by Chrystal Chapell) and Natalia (played by Jessica Leccia). Neither character was identified as gay (as a matter of fact, they were in love with the same man). But the producers decided to bring them together, on a very long arc, so that their relationship grew naturally, over time. They never quite got to being a couple on GL, as it was cancelled two years ago.

However, Olivia and Natalia had a huge fan base (google “Otalia” and you’ll see what I mean). There were a lot of women, gay and otherwise, who watched in amazement as a mainstream soap showed a realistic incipient romance between two women, that wasn’t portrayed as sensationalistic or unhealthy. Fans wanted to know that “Otalia” finally got together.

So actress Crystal Chapell and writer Kim Turissi decided to “put on a show.” They created a web-only series taking place in Venice Beach, CA, with the two actresses from GUIDING LIGHT playing two totally new characters (Gina, an artist, and Ani, a photographer). In this series, both characters are gay, and have a history, but as the series starts they are breaking apart.

“Venice” was done on a shoestring, with actors and technicians donating their services for a while, just to get it done, with the hopes it would become a viable entertainment in time, finding its way to cable or even network. The first season had short (ten minute or so) episodes, filmed in peoples’ homes.

Season 3 is now started; the production values are way up and the storylines are coming into focus, Music plays a big part in “Venice” and the fans follow every artist whose music is featured, including my friend Coles Whalen. The show is supported in part by selling subscriptions to the series – you need to pay for access, but it’s only $10 for the whole season.

But the main musical voice belongs to Jen Foster, whose song “Venice Beach” was chosen to be the theme song. Jen’s music appears often on “Venice” and when she performs, the fans come out to hear her. (Jen deserves – and will eventually get – a blog post of her own. )

So in Episode 2, which was posted tonight, Gina and Ani have a big scene on the beach, where Gina discovers that Ani’s current lover may have hit her. The music underscoring the entire scene is the arrangement for“Parentheses” featuring my lyric and Jen’s music (with some collaborative overlap). The music fit the scene like a glove, and the lyric (which wasn’t used on screen) could be their theme song.

It’s wonderful to watch the song finally see the light of day. Available now at jenfoster.com!