166. Everyday John (John Houx)

DAY ONE-HUNDRED AND SIXTY SIX

Today is my birthday. It is also Kathleen Turner, Paula Abdul, and Lou Gehrig’s birthday.

Johnny Houx

This is John Houx.  He is a sick songwriter.  Sick.  (This is my most favorite of his songs.) I first saw him in 2008 when I first started playing out in New York.  He performed with his guitar set high upon his chest and no shoes.  He may still perform like this.   He has been gone for seven months on a long tour across the united states and has just returned with long hair, no sleeves and one pair of pants.  John Houx, for me, has been a quiet symbol of my time here in New York: I’ve probably known about John longer than any other musician I’ve met in New York.  This is probably why I was super nervous to write with him – he’s a kind of symbol of great songwriting and experience for me -  and, as things go, my brain froze.  Unfortunate.  But it was a great afternoon with someone I really like and respect, so I won out in the end.  I also told him that this song we would write would be my birthday song.

It was my inclination, as I had some trouble starting, to write a song about John Houx himself.  I asked him what the first thing he did when he woke up was, and he replied, “I tell myself to write down the dream I just had before I forget it, but I always have to pee and then I end up forgetting it anyway.”  We also discussed the fact that he only has one pair of pants (one pair of “social” pants… the kind of pants you don’t paint in.)

And, as a side, John Houx has committed to include a stained glass, statue or mosaic of a mermaid (tail can be any color and no shells: just boobs) in the house he is going to build for himself.  Can’t wait to visit you.

Well, here it is… a song about John Houx, his pants and… what else? Azerbaijan.

This is the third take. Done!

Everyday John

Nature calls

Waterfalls

Lost so many dreams

Down those swift streams

Everyday John

Which side’s he on?

The waking yawn?

Or fake beyond?

Oh, John

Put your pants on

Go 23

Greens are all your ever gonna see

Hey, John, arise!
You’re 40 days unclean

Hey, John

Where have your pants gone?

At a loss for words

Surrounded by so many screaming girls

But you’re the one for me

Just you, and Houx and a million cups of tea

Oh, John

Where have you pants gone?

Oh John

Azerbaijan

165. The Dust Shall Bow (Jonathan Clark)

DAY ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE

This is,  95% of it, a song by Jonathan Clark. I did very little for the actual writing process other than help a little with the words, help arrange, add back ground vocals, mix and edit.  (That suddenly seems like a lot, but Jon really gets the credit for the meat of this song, though editing was another matter entirely.)  Jonathan was hesitant to take on so much of the work, but I forced him to sing it by himself and play the guitar (which was a last-ditch effort for a slide guitar sound made with a porcelain cup.)  This is basically his first run through, and I had to do a lot of cutting, copying and pasting and sound work to make this take on Jonathan’s vision for the song.

Jonathan has asked to type a little about this song.

Here he is:

I am a music lover and listener.  I am constantly soaking in music and occasionally something seeps out.  Sometimes I want to be lifted up on a finely woven mountain of sound by a good Sufjan Stevens song.   Lately I have been fixated by sparse, simple tunes rolling in the dirt such as those by the White Stripes and the Black Keys.  Listening to those artists eventually led me the artists that inspired those bands, especially Son House.  When you listen to Son House it’s like drinking a big glass of his unfiltered soul complete with sweet, bitter, kindness, suffering, all poured into a dirty glass for your consumption.

I started tossing around this tune a few weeks ago and today Emily helped me bring it to life.  All I can say about the process is that when I walked away after finishing recording I was frustrated that I could not present it the way I really wanted to.  I left for about 20 minutes, feeling really disappointed about the outcome.  When I came back and heard the song I was presented with a little EHP crafted miracle.  She had edited and molded the mess into a coherent song.  She was a little disappointed with quality of the sound, but for me it is exactly what I was looking for – rolling in the dirt.

The Dust Shall Bow

You open up your eyes and you realize

The woman that you love has materialized

Lift up your face in a new place

Don’t know for sure but you’re fallen from grace.

In psalms I read, the Lord has fed

Those who serve him, their souls ain’t dead.

But I don’t mind cause the girl is mine

She lifts me to heaven cause she’s do divine

I know  there’s nothin’ really stoppin’ it

You sneak up from behind and you get right on top of it.

160. As the World Falls Down (David Bowie Cover with Matt Singer)

DAY ONE-HUNDRED AND SIXTY

Hello, Day 161.  How are you?

This is a sort of cheat, but not really… Matt Singer and I did this arrangement of David Bowie’s song from the movie Labyrinth for an amazing show called The Puppet Playlist sometime last fall (read about it!  It’s awesome!).  We re-recorded it today at the request of a friend from The Puppet Playlist peeps.  This is the second take of a live recording.

I used the first half of the cello solo from an instrumental in old song you might know.  Guesses?

As The World Falls Down by David Bowie

There’s such a sad love

Deep in your eyes, a kind of pale jewel

Opened and closed within your eyes

I’ll place the sky within your eyes

There’s such a fooled heart

Beating so fast in search of new dreams

A love that will last within your heart

I’ll place the moon within your heart

As the pain sweeps through

Makes no sense for you

Every thrill he’s caused

Wasn’t too much fun at all

But I’ll be there for you

As the world falls down

I’ll paint you mornings of gold

I’ll spin you Valentine evenings

Though we’re strangers till now

We’re choosing the path between the stars

I’ll leave my love between the stars

There’s such a fooled heart
Beating so fast in search of new dreams
A love that will last within your heart
I’ll place the moon within your heart

There’s such a sad love
Deep in your eyes, a kind of pale jewel
Opened and closed within your eyes
I’ll place the sky within your eyes

There’s such a fooled heart
Beating so fast in search of new dreams
A love that will last within your heart
I’ll place the moon within your heart

As the pain sweeps through
Makes no sense for you
Every thrill he’s caused
Wasn’t too much fun at all
But I’ll be there for you
As the world falls down

As the world falls down

146. Dead Man in a Hotel (Email)

DAY ONE-HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIX

This is an email my mother sent me recently.  Yeah.  I’m singin’ an email.  She will update me on various happenings in my hometown and such.  She used to work for the mayor but has since retired and is now a librarian: a dream she’s had a for a long time, and I think she is very happy.  She has a really funny way of writing her messages to me, and I love getting them.  (I’m now wondering if this is the last email I’ll get since I’m using it for a song… yikes…).

Russ has a manager for the hotel and he noticed that the dead man stopped collecting his mail, so the manager stuck it under the door.  Days went by and the dead guy didn’t get his mail from under the door so Russ and the manager unlocked the apartment door and found it was chained on the inside.  They were very afraid of what was inside so Russ called the police.  What they found inside was the dead guy in a little room among all his hoarded junk.  Russ says he was a packrat.  Anyway, they think he was dead at least seven days.  Russ said the smell wasn’t bad but the mess he is cleaning up is.  They could find no relatives or friends, so the state took over and buried his body. That’s sad.  Russ said he was a “cipher.”  But he loved to collect frogs – all types of frogs– big little stuffed ceramic.  And then he finally croaked…

The guitar part I have STOLEN from a FREAKING awesome song off of Lady Lamb The Beekeeper’s seven-inch record (and slowed by my record player) called Sunday Shoes.  I recorded the intro, cut and looped it to create the base for this song.  Slowing Lady Lambs voice on this recording is awesome, by the way: she sounds like some sweet old gospel singer.

(And someone told me once that, quote: “Fade outs are for people who can’t write endings.”  I will let you ponder on that.)

This is an important experience for me lyrically. Lots of words.  And a story.  Unusual for me.

This American Life has done a story about this very topic… it’s so sad to leave this world and have no family or friends to take care of your final business… the state has to clean you up and bury you.  The people who show up at the graveside are a few city workers.  I’ve tried to find a link to the episode but can’t remember what it’s called.

May you have a beautiful Memorial Day remembering those you’ve loved and lost…

Dead Man in the Hotel

140. The Armory Improvisation #2- Quiet Song (Guy Capecelatro)

DAY ONE-HUNDRED AND FORTY

I struggled with whether or not to post this one.  This a live performance song from Boston with Guy Capecelatro at the Armory show, but next to the recorder that was recording the song was a cell phone… so interference occurred through the entire song.  I realized that if I panned everything to the left you couldn’t hear the interference… which in and of itself is kind of dumb.  Post a song that only plays from the left!?

Well, good luck!  Both Guy and I were improvising our parts melodically and harmonically.  Guy had these lyrics in his book and wrote them out for me to sing in a quiet voice.  The funny thing was (or sad actually) that the Armory in Boston is having trouble with neighbors constantly telling them they are too loud (which is unfortunate because the venue is so awesome), so we decided to do a very quiet improvised song on my set.

I am falling asleep after driving all day back to New York from New England on tour with Pearl and the Beard… looking forward to getting some rest and getting some good work done on some projects (many of them for the 365).

One thing I totally forgot to mention is that a few days ago a blog called All Our Noise mentioned The 365 Project and has made 3 songs from the project available for download… which ones are they?  Well… read the blog and go see for yourself!  Yay!

Quiet Song

129. Brad Pitt Sits Out In The Van (Sam Stolpe, Phillip Bautista, Jonathan Clark)

DAY ONE-HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE

Jonathan, Phillip, and Sam Stolpe

I have not had internet ALL DAY.  I even tried to “borrow” it from an open network, but nothing… NOTHING.  Is it the rain?  So I’ve had a song ready all day and couldn’t post it… So!  Here it is… and it’s a special installment which I will let Sam Stolpe, my friend from DC, (who came to visit today with friend Phillip – they came up to run from Washington Heights to Battery Park…made it to 14th street), put into his own words.  (See below)  He is always very enthusiastic about helping me with a song for the 365, and, over breakfast, he told this story which we made into a reality for him.

Sam: Guitar and vocals.  Jonathan: snare, tambourine, grunting.  Phillip: Omnichord and grunting.  Emily: cello and grunting.

Sam Stolpe: With this song, Emily helped me to fulfill a dream.  Literally.  On the night of November 24, 2005 I was awoken from a remarkable vision: Standing in a children’s park bordered by brilliant trees, my attention was drawn to the most amazing bicycle that I have ever seen.  I was completely captivated by the bicycle and felt compelled to take it.  I went on a fantastic ride… but I soon began thinking of the owner, and the evil thing I had done by taking it without asking.

I turned around to return the bike, and found a group of little people gathered around a dwarf consoling him.  He was the owner of the bicycle, and brightened when he saw me approach.  I apologized for taking his bicycle, to which he replied that my honesty in returning it would be rewarded by his revealing to me this secret: he was a magical dwarf.  He took me to a fantastic recording studio, the focal point of which was a curious machine.  It was like an organ, in that it had the keys of a piano, but with many bewildering dials and knobs, and strange digital screens.  My new dwarven friend explained that the magic of the device would sing forth lyrics as I composed them in my mind and played the keys.

As I played the device the song in my mind came wafting out.  Each key I pressed evoked a single word, sung by the machine in the voice of the magical dwarf.  This is the song that I wrote, and then immediately awoke:

Brad Pitt Sits Out In The Van

Brad Pitt sits out in the van

While Angelina drops the kids off

Brad Pitt sits out in the van

And Jen is calling on her cell phone

110. Untitled: Sam McCormally and Emily Hope Price #3 (Incomplete)

DAY ONE-HUNDRED AND TEN

I couldn't decide what picture to post of Sam... I think this one's a bit funny (if not intimidating - though it's a great shot of his sweet glasses), but it's all I have. Taken in DC on Pearl and the Beard's tour to Austin, TX in March.

Well, this is a bit unprecedented, but I think this will be an interesting addition to the 365.  This is a song Sam McCormally (of day 10 and day 22) and I worked on about two months ago.  Jonathan and I visited DC a while back and Sam and I had a quick second to sit down and work out a skeleton of this song.  We attempted working on it over email, but it kind of came to a screeching halt when lyrics became a problem (as there really aren’t lyrics for this song).  Sam laid down the guitar and his vocals, sent it to me, and I put cello and my vocals on top.  I sent it back to him to do lyrics for it, but… life happens, you know?

BUT, I really wanted to post it, and I’m just not sure when it will ever get completed.  We went back and forth for a while with 3 different versions (the second one being a little over the top on my end of things…).  This version, the last version I offered up to Sam after he sent me his parts, was by far the most simplest and complimentary to the vocal line.  I resisted Sam’s suggestion to leave my vocals word-less at first, but, in listening to it again, maybe he’s right.  In any case, this unfinished song allows insight into the gibberish that occurs when lyrics have yet to be incorporated.  What you’re hearing lyrically here is an improvisation.

That’s it for today.  I will now be getting back to more writing.  I do hope one day this gets finished, but, until then, I offer up this sketched version to you as the one-hundred and tenth song of the 365 Project.

Untitled and Incomplete (Sam McCormally and Emily Hope Price)

71. Paper Moon (Pearl and the Beard)

DAY SEVENTY-ONE

It is now late (again) and Pearl and the Beard have offered their help for the song today… this is a little improv number for you…

I’m sorry these postings have been so brief and nondescript.  Things have been pretty up and down and quite busy.  We head off to Nashville tomorrow, which I’m quite excited for, actually.  I leave for Utah Saturday morning to attend Jonathan’s father’s funeral then return a week later to play two shows on April 2 and 3 in Salt Lake City.  There are some very hard things to do and other, much different things to do in the next little while… I suppose this is part of what life gives us, no?  I don’t know how else to look at it except from far away like you look at a painting in the museum: seeing the whole thing as a spectator; close enough to kind of understand it, but far way enough from it until you’re ready to see how it’s actually put together in its detail and be affected by it wholly.

Writing: This is another example of how a song can be born from virtually nothing by improvising.  I purposely made Jeremy’s guitar out of tune to achieve that old wonky guitar sound, and somewhere in the middle tried to create the sound of a musical saw with my voice as an experiment.

I hope your Monday morning feels less like Monday and more like a Wednesday or Thursday even.

Thank you for visiting and reading…though I have been a bit distracted lately, I’m so glad you’re here.

Paper Moon

67. Murdered In DC (Pearl and the Beard Song Sketch)

DAY SIXTY-SEVEN

We have arrived in DC.  The District of Columbia.  We are playing a show in a venue tonight called The Red and Black.  I’ve had several friends tell me that the area this venue is located in is super sketchy, and a few friends aren’t coming because of the high number of murders that have occurred in the area.  How depressing.  We don’t want anyone to be murdered, but we want people to come to our show.  What a quandary!  Happy show to us!   Yay!

Writing: In the discovery of this murderous news, we did a sketch song!  I almost didn’t use this recording, but I felt, and Jocelyn agreed, that this is a good way of showing you another way a song can be written, especially within a collaboration. We were all sitting around a table in Baltimore yesterday afternoon and someone just started singing this as Jeremy was playing his guitar.  We did this twice: once just goofing around and once again to make sure we got it on tape.

Recording:  Because this is a sketch, it was just recorded using the external mic on my computer.  I hate the external mic, but it’s a really fast way of getting things down, so I can’t complain.  Hey, at least there is a mic, right?

This is actually how Pearl and the Beard writes some songs; not all, but some.  Sometimes we’ll sit around and improvise like this and a song will come out.  We’ll record it and revisit it later and make it a proper song.  We’ll give each other visual cues to change strum patterns or start a different section as we go.  It’s important too that everyone gets a chance to participate.  It’s also important to see it out: we’ll keep going until it either peters out or we all intuitively end it together.  It can be a really fun time (as you can tell).

Jeremy’s School of Park and Dark Rhyme:  Nothing rhymes with park but dark.  Nope, not shark or lark or stark.  This is a constant joke within Pearl and the Beard, and now you’re in on it, too.

You know, on this tour, and on previous tours, I’ve thought to myself: I’m the luckiest person alive.  Jocelyn and Jeremy are the funniest people on earth.  When we were on tour with Ugly Purple Sweater and all packed in their van, we actually had to pull over a few times because we were laughing so hard.  That’s what it’s like driving with them now.  I am the luckiest person alive.  I love these guys.

Murdered in DC

(It’s recording)

Can’t wait to be murdered in DC…

(I don’t remember how it went)

(It doesn’t matter, don’t think about it)

Be stabbed in the face by a big gay hillbilly

Get murdered in the face with a big old machete

Murdered in the face, get stabbed by a guy named Eddie.

Get murdered in the face,

Murder me.

Can’t wait to be murdered in DC!

Can’t wait to be murdered…

In DC.

I’ve never looked so fabulous before!

My mom called today and then she said, “Hooray!

You’re coming, you’re coming, you’re coming to town!”

Then she said, “Oh friend, I got a bag for you,

It’s got rocks in it so put it down.”

So my dad… Go ahead.

So my dad called, oh wait, he didn’t call at all.

He never calls.

Jeremy has no dad/father.

Maybe that’s the guy who will be the very guy

To implicate our martyr.

Can’t wait to be murdered in DC!

Can’t wait to be murdered…

In DC.

The wind was a flash of lightning

Over the town!

Bullets and lightning bolts and rabbits were flying (Pshoo pshoo! Laser sounds)

All around and around and around!

Oh, my hair went flying off!

The blood soaked my dress

And off it came into the street!

We went to the park and indeed it was dark!

So you held my held my hand until you understanded,,,

Can’t wait to be murdered in DC!

Can’t wait to be murdered…

Dixie Chicks never saw it comin’!

Here comes Pearl and the Beard

Comin’ atcha!

In DC.

Love, I’m gone,

I’m gone the way of the dodo.

Yeah, done!

Apple S that.

60. I Miss The Snow (RPM)

DAY SIXTY

This is my new tatoo.

Day sixty and it’s nearly 2!  Yay!  Tardiness!

Anyway… well, Jonathan and I have had a long few days.  I just returned home from driving him to the airport.  While he was still at work today I bought him a ticket to San Diego where his dad is in the hospital in the ICU hooked up to a ventilator.  It’s all very sudden and worrisome.  I hope you understand me being so late in the posting today… Some things take a back seat when  things like this happen.  I have never purchased a plane ticket on the day the flight was to take off: what an exciting purchase… if you can call it “exciting”.  I packed him a bag, he rushed home from work, and we were off.  Luckily, the cheapest ticket to San Diego was leaving from Westchester Airport: a very clean, tiny, tiny, tiny, airport with absolutely no traffic.  So, now, I am home.  With Lacey.  Thinking.  Trying to work.  We have just eaten turkey sandwiches and a black and white cookie.  I concentrate on why the white icing on the cookie is so hard and the black icing is so soft…

This is a song from the RPM Challenge I did with Guy.  I spent a ton of time working on a song-study on rhythm and perfect fifths, and then this whole thing kind of collapsed on us.  I will finished that song today and get it ready to post: on time!  I have the whole weekend alone with Lacey.  I will get her to help me on a song, too.

Pearl and the Beard have a show tomorrow night at Webster Hall and then we leave for tour on Monday!  Jonathan will still be gone…I will keep you updated on life’s progress as I post…

Oh, Life: you are a cruel, yet tempting mistress.

Recording:  I made 2 tracks of cello loops and sent them to Guy and Mike.  Guys lyrics are always so appropriate and haunting.  I like them.  Mike’s piano is perfect… I mixed this one because I initiated it.  I wanted to bring Guy’s voice up front: he has a tiny insecurity about his voice and usually pulls it back, but I love it, and think it’s right where it should be.  Thanks Guy and Mike!

I Miss The Snow

Down here the trees look weird

And the leaves don’t turn to copper and then fall

I put whiskey in my coffee

Just to take the edge off

Because around here the days are sharp enough to cut you

On Sundays I feel so listless

Cause no one here prays the way we did

Though I don’t know your phone number

I still dial to hear them talk the way we do

If I could just hear even a moment

Of you breathing I might somehow be all right

I miss the snow and I miss Melissa

I miss her sister who screams in her sleep