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"A What Owl ?!" "Gostayplay" - Song by Song - reflections by John > > > > >
Airtime A "don't give up/ never say die" song. It uses what I understand to be typical gospel chord changes - like C to F. The chorus lyric was inspired by the buddhist saying "when it's cold, open your shirt to the cold". In other words - lean into the sharp points. Not the first time for me to write on this theme. Similar sentiments are found on the album ONE AMONG's "Oh"...in which we are encouraged to "run at the boogie man". Sometimes there is no way around - only through. Use the force. Three cheers for Buddha. KATZ !
Moving Fast Probably the oldest song in the collection. Although it's a good bit different than it was. This song dates back to my Drama Tiki (1992-1998) days. One of my favorites to play live with the band. Drama Tiki's recorded version is much slower. Totally different feel. The 2002 model is more up-tempo/ poly rhythmic. It was written in 1995. It's about time. It's about gaps in our realities. There's a little hero worship in it too. "Like my guitar hero's fingers movin' pretty fast". That's funny to me because most of my guitar heroes don't really play fast. Sometimes they do. That's cool too. I'm not a big fan of air guitar. Although I have played a bit. They're not very expensive. Everyone should have an air guitar. Very light weight. Relatively easy to maintain. I really like all of the layering we did at the end of this track - with guitars & contrapuntal vocals. The idea was to hit the half time & then build into a nice little explosion.
Nick (Song for Nick Drake) The quoted lines (in the lyrics) are titles of Nick Drake songs. Nick's sister had said that he was "born with a skin too few". He died at the age of 26 from an overdose of prescribed antidepressant drugs. Its unknown whether it was intentional or accidental. By his bed lay the book "The Myth of Sisyphus" (you pushed the rock to top of hill). He had an elaborate, original and beautiful style of picking. It's said that he would sometimes go for drives until the car ran out of gas. Time has been good to his music. Nick's work is more appreciated now than it was in his lifetime. Sadly, he felt he had failed to reach his audience. I just wanted to tip my hat to Nick & thank him for all the songs he did leave behind - which will never die. I don't think his music would touch me so if he were born with a suit of armor.
Shybreeze Another older tune. From the Tiki days. Performed live but never recorded. Again, slower then & faster now. Although it's still gaining speed. I was curious to try writing something that started with "Oh to be..." & see what would come out. It seems like a lot of poems start with something like that. It's about time, seasons, & destiny. It's about waiting for the dam to break, the gates to open, the kettle to boil. It's about being shy / having a type B as opposed to a type A personality. It's about the cat waiting for the mouse. It's about the whisper of inspiration. It's about ambition & getting it on. I often equate the creative experience with sexual experiences. There are a lot of parallels.
Ocean of You Lift your skirt. You can read it figuratively or metaphorically. Written for Nancy. She moved to California. I was sitting in Texas, thinking about her out there...over there... way over there....by the ocean. Dreamt that we were wading in the ocean together. It's a love song. I like the little outro - with the harmonicas & the E-bows. The best harmonica stuff happens when you play like your talking. Really, like your saying something in your head & thinking about what you're saying - not what you're playing. I always thought that was what made John Coltrane & Elvin Jones such great players. I don't think either of them thought "I'm playing the horn" or "I'm playing the drums". More like "I am thunder" or "I am the ocean". In any case, I was dreaming.
Surely It'll Shine Through Sometimes you just get fed up with negativity. But it's also about sympathy, empathy, compassion, communication....how intertwined we all are. I played around with segueing into "It's A Small World After All" but couldn't quite make the leap.
Two Can Play Too At one time there was some wordplay in the lyric involving Toucans (the birds). The slide whistles were inspired by some cool arrangements (with whistles) on David Byrne's album "Uh Oh". As for the little whooper - the little plastic "wooo" thing - i call it the "red whooper" - well - i just had to get that in somewhere. Loved the arrangement that Kenny & Brian came up with for the bass & drums. It threw me off the first time I heard them play along. Two can play too. Again, it's about physical communication & the creative process at once. It's about playing - alone & together. Ok, it's about birds.
Center to Hold When I lived in Pittsboro, NC. I had a little pad surrounded by trees. One day they came in their electric cats & tore all the trees out. It's about being uprooted, letting go, casting your eye elsewhere, Change. Balance in the midst of imbalance. Celebrating imbalance. The munchkins on the chorus were A) provided by Willy Wonka or B) created in the studio - as the trick goes - by slowing down the tape - singing onto the tape - playing it back at normal speed. A good one to play on the porch. That's it - slap them knees !
Hot Owl A play on words. A cross between "It's hot out", "eat your heart out" & "night owl". I am a bit of a night owl. I've had my heart eaten out. It was written not long after I'd moved into my pad in Brooklyn. Looking out my window I saw a whole lot of bricks & on Grattan Street, a wall of tin with graffiti on it. A lot of the horns on the record were based on melodies that I would hum or scat & then transfer to or double up on the horns. But on this one Kenny (co-producer) said - to Alan (trombone) & Jeff (trumpet) - "Ok boys, like you're in New Orleans....&........rollin !" So the horns just kinda swim in & out of the vocal. One thing that changed in my writing when I moved to New York was that I started writing some vocals really low. I began singing in a lower register because I was self conscious about writing & rehearsing with people all around me - neighbors above, people outside on the street below. Same thing with "Two Can Play Too". But it does sound better to say "Hot Owl Baaaby" in a low voice as opposed to say...Mickey Mouse voice. When I was in college I had a teacher by the name of Thad. He taught sculpture. He had a big mustache & was very spirited. Come to think of it, he had a low voice. Anyway, he used to always walk around the room as we worked saying "Gotta love it". Cut to - "ya gotta love it when the sharks eat your hot owl - baby".
Accord inspired by Bolin Creek in Chapel Hill, NC. I used to run on the rocks along the creek there. It was a physical & mental exercise. It was a meditation with consequences. I found it was easy to leap from rock to rock without falling if I moved quickly & thought little. As soon as you think about what you're doing .... that you might fall ..... "where will the next rock be ?" ....... "where shall I put my foot ?" - you fall. It's also - again - if times are rough, things are gettin' rocky - go double time & run at it. run at the boogie man. Oh yes - there are Toucan birds in this one too. Sometimes, while in love, we loose track of time - which is almost always a good thing. Carry time away. In the "Dhamapada", the buddha says "Be quick to do good". There are two definitions for the word Bay in the dictionary. Either one will work. There's more than one definition for the word Babe as well. Babe Ruth is a candy bar and also a famous baseball player.
Gostayplay My father pointed out the similarities between this song's lyrics & a passage from "The Record of Rinzai" - another buddhist text. I'm not sure which came first. Either I'd seen the words or what I wrote just happened to key up with this preexisting text. The words found each other. It's one of them chicken & egg things. Don't stew too long. Go if you go. Stay if you stay. But either way, always - play. My friend Ruy (with the heavily existential name - if you spell it out - and make it a question) is a writer. We used to sit at Henry's Bistro in Chapel Hill. Ruy talked about the acid coursing through his veins & about the castle. The castle that was so hard to reach. My hunch was that - at least from time to time - he actually enjoyed his pain. You hold the castle. Get out of your way. Makes me think of that image in Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends" where the guy's head falls off & rolls away. After searching in vain for his head & at a bit of a loss, he sits down on what must be a rock to rest for a minute. Turns out he's sitting on his head. It's right there. Your sitting on it ! Get out of your way. From the Record of Rinzai: "Turn round and look into yourselves. An old master said: 'Yajnadatta thought he had lost his head. When he ceased from his frantic looking for it, he had nothing further to seek'".
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International
Songwriting Competition 2005 "THE songwriting competition to take note of." Robbie Woliver, New York Times
WHAT IS THE ISC? What is the Performance category?
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Independent
Music Awards 2006 "The IMAs recognizes excellence in Music, Music Promotion, Packaging and Merch Design. The program's year-long marketing campaigns, partnerships and distribution alliances put IMA Winners & Finalists in front of millions of music fans and industry decision makers around the world. Our goal continues to be to highlight the best music and graphic designs produced by and for indie artists. Once this is accomplished, the mission is to gain wider recognition for these musicians and designers among audiences who can help spread the word about these artists within the industry and with communities of fans. The Independent Music Awards draws entries from artists throughout the world who create, record and market music without the benefit of access to major media channels, a restriction that places special demands and challenges on these fine artists' abilities. Among the program benefits IMA Winners receive is access to tools that can help them market, manage, promote and build their careers. Benefits: http://musiciansatlas.com/pages/awards.asp. It's not just artists who benefit from this increased exposure, it's fans who are constantly searching for new sounds & new ideas." Amen! Judges: http://www.musiciansatlas.com/pages/judges.asp
- Todd Mack, Off the Beat-n-Track
"Gostayplay is Dyer's best work yet. It has this amazingly personal "jukebox of memories" feeling that rolls out a carefree carpet of familiarity. Somehow it incorporates everything that is good about life fondly remembered - friends, faces, music, nights at summer carnivals...cozy sunlit Sunday afternoons in the den. It's the kind of album you can hear best out of the corner of your eye - look away and the elusive beauty of suggestion floats right by." - Charles Jones, Synergen
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Available now @ www.cdbaby.com/dyer3
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