SONG OF THE MONTH

2019

January
Story
Lyrics

“Jam Session”

Let’s start off 2019 with a song about the single most inclusive, least divisive, most inviting, least discriminating, most inspirational, least political, most cool, most hip, and least dorky thing in the universe! A jam session! A bunch of people just playing music without charts, scripts, sheet music, or a plan. Pick up an instrument and go. Where? Nobody knows. That’s the point.

In the late 60’s and early 70’s, the top selling albums included Cream’s “Wheels Of Fire”, Jimi Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland”, The Allman Brother’s “Live At Fillmore East”, and loads of albums by Frank Zappa, The Grateful Dead, and Miles Davis, all of which included (or were entirely made up of) jams. Improvised music that was on, or even topped the charts. Music that’s equivalent to flying off the trapeze without a net. I just checked a recent Billboard Top 200. Ironically the only album I could find that I was sure included some improvisation was a 50th anniversary reissue of Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland!

I know there’s still a lot of good music out there, but somewhere along the way music got a lot safer. I’m not talking about lyrics. Profanity is easy. But nearly everything on the charts is in perfect time (played to a click track), perfectly tuned, and artificially sweetened by pre-programmed beats and samples. I’m guilty too. It’s just too damn tempting to reach for that “perfect” button. But I still have my 70’s pride, and so my guitar playing remains mostly off the cuff, and only my worst singing notes get fixed. In 1973 Danny Rubin and I would do all-night jams, which we called “the 5 AM sessions”. We formed Just Water soon after, hoping we could duplicate the improvised magic of those initial collaborations. Sometimes we got close. In 1965 The Who recorded “My Generation”, which became a hit single even though the last half of the track is an improvised explosion, with no beat and no melody; just pure glorious spontaneous cacophony! In 1959 Miles Davis invited jazz titans John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb into Columbia Studios on 30th St in NYC. After only a brief warm-up, and with Miles’ instructions to just improvise on some melodic sketches, they recorded “Kind Of Blue”, which is still considered the greatest jazz album of all time. And finally go back to the blues and jazz founding fathers and its all based on the formula that “emotion + improvisation = cool”. Yes, I know I’m on an old man’s out-of-control rant. And I know there’s still some great artists that are currently improvising their butts off. But when a kid walks into Guitar Center today, is he likely to put 10,000 hours into that new guitar? Or will he turn on his computer and press the “perfect” button?

The jam session described in this song is an all-nighter that breaks up in the harsh reality of daylight. Neighbors have called the police, who issue parking tickets and harass the musicians as they leave. I’m joined on this track by three young musicians from The Big Strong Arms who are getting their 10,000 hours in (between video games).

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Jam Session – (c) 2019 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC.

Written, produced, recorded, and mixed by Mitchell Dancik at Pie Man Sound, NC, 2018-2019.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, mandolin, theremin, guitars, bass, ethnic synths & drum programming.

Adam Mobarek – Lead guitar solo

Roger Babson – Sax

Jon “Jed” Edwards – Harmony vocals, and lead vocal on the ringtone

It’s just a basement made of thick concrete
There’s lots of parking on the street
The neighbors won’t hear a peep
It’s our jam session

You know that we got nowhere else to go
Where else could we put on this show?
Fall down these rickety stairs
To the jam session

You just come on through the backyard fence
Bring your horn, some beer, some common sense
No, don’t come if you’re planning to pose
Jam session

No. Don’t bring around the neighborhood dope )
Unless you got his antidote
All we need is electricity
For the jam session

We got a trumpet and a few trombones
We got The Raj on saxophone
But don’t you come here blowing your horn
At the jam session

We got some congas and a pedal steel
A rapper and a glockenspiel
Timbales and a Theremin
At our jam session

We’re starting with an appetizer
Some crazy cat on synthesizer
Some cornbread for the colonizers
At the jam session

You know we even let a DJ in
To see what kind of jive he’d spin
But we’d rather have a mandolin
At our jam session

Omar Sharif is strumming on the Oud
Mr. Baptiste blows through a plastic tube
They play a riff in perpetuity
At the jam session

This may not be no Paisley Park
It isn’t purple, but it sure is dark
Less intervention, more confession
At our jam session

You mix the cops with the cocaine freaks
Mix the soul with the Goth and the geeks
The gal with the fiddle’s on fire
At the jam session

We got immigrants and aliens
Some that should be playing stadiums
The producer says “I like this mix”
At the jam session

At 1:00 AM we’re starting to rock
At 7:30 we done run the clock
They’ll start writing tickets on our block
After the jam session

At 7:40, turn the PA down
And put on some of that old Motown
They’ll start busting heads above the ground
After our jam session

How did we go from “Give me your huddled masses?”
To “Stay out, or we’ll kick your asses”
That’s why we’re wailing until the clouds roll past us
At the jam session

April
Story
Lyrics

“Burnette & Phoebe In the Parking Lot”

In 1973 I was on stage at Shakey’s Pizza in Binghampton, New York, with an audience that mostly consisted of kids in strollers and their Moms. Some of my band-mates in Just Water (which had recently formed at Harpur College) came to lend their support by throwing spitballs at me during my rousing rendition of Puff The Magic Dragon. Now, you ask, why would future punk rocker Mitchell Dancik, along with a singer whose name escapes me, be singing folk songs for pizza? It’s because 1973 wasn’t just Led Zeppelin, Bowie, The Who and Pink Floyd. It was also the heyday of folk rock, with James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and a zillion other acoustic guitarists in the top 10. And so every budding guitarist would learn to finger-pick James Taylor’s Fire And Rain as well as bashing out the riff to Smoke On The Water. Even while I was playing CBGB’s throughout the punk era in NYC, I wrote as many folk-inspired songs as rockers. I just kept most of those a secret until I started this Song Of The Month Club.
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When I listened back to this month’s song, I realized that it’s inspiration came from a fellow born-in-Brooklyn New Yorker. In 1973 Harry Chapin’s debut single had been on the charts for 6 months. The song was “Taxi”, the story of a cab driver that picks up an old flame that had left him years earlier for a rich man. Unfortunately Harry died too young in a wreck on the Long Island Expressway in 1981. My song about Burnette & Phoebe is a story song like most of Harry’s, although Harry’s songs were usually very long and came to a resolution, while Burnette & Phoebe leave you hanging.
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Sometime in 1975 or 1976, I found myself in a car with Harry Chapin at the invitation of his drummer. We were going to “hang out” somewhere in Brooklyn or Long Island. Harry had recently hired Howie Fields, a drummer who went to James Madison High School with me in Brooklyn, and who would play with Harry for the rest of his career. I was expecting Harry to be like a college professor; soft-spoken, and philosophical. Instead he was quite loud; bellowing lots of flowery foul language while also bellowing clouds of smoke, as he inhaled and exhaled joint after joint. He was also undeniably charismatic.
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In the early 60’s NYC ruled the folk world. A skinny kid named Bob came from Minnesota and upstaged us all. Then in California, The Byrds put a drum set behind Bob’s Mr. Tambourine Man song, and California put NYC out of the folk business. But for a few years in the 70’s, Harry Chapin gave NYC it’s folk credentials back by selling millions. Harry’s brothers Tom & Steve continue to honor Harry by playing his music all over the world, often with Howie Fields on drums.
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Song Of The Month Credits:
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Burnette & Phoebe In The Parking Lot – (c) 2019 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC.
Written by Mitchell Dancik, 2018
Recorded, mixed, and mastered at Pie Man Sound.
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Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, bass, electric and acoustic pianos, synths, percussion, and drum programming

Do you remember Burnette Bridgadoo?
I know that he remembers you
Depends what lens that he is looking through
After he’s gone and drank a few
For you….

Are just his laughing fool
His trophy; though you made the kill
No blood was spilled when the knife went through
It sure went through…you…too

Do you remember Phoebe What’s-Her-Name?
I know that she remembers you
Depends what see-through dress you were looking through
After she swallowed a handful
For you….

Just loved that ingénue
Some trophy. Why’d you make the kill?
No blood was spilled when the knife went through
It sure went through…you…too

Burnette & Phoebe in the parking lot
They just got thrown out of that store
Depends what rack they went and rifled through
A stolen kiss; there’s been a few…
For you….

Are just collateral
No trophy? Who the hell was killed?
No blood was spilled when the knife went through
Well isn’t that a clue?
It left no residue?
They got you……….too

July
Story
Lyrics

“Ripple In The Pond”

South African musician and activist Johnny Clegg died a few days ago (on July 16, 2019). He never became a household name in the United States, but his international following is impressive and his cultural bravery staggering. I was so lucky to have seen him perform in Cape Town, South Africa at the height of his musical and political powers. It was in the mid 1980’s, when he carefully avoided imprisonment while campaigning to free Nelson Mandela.

I was visiting the very English and very pro-apartheid family of my very anti-apartheid radio-producer friend Dave Bailes. He had left South Africa in protest and after 10 years away was attempting to reconnect with his family in Johannesburg. It was a bizarre situation. A few New York liberals were sitting around the swimming pool sipping gin & tonics with the old colonials, while outside their gated community black South Africans were literally burning. I quickly learned to just shut up and listen. It was obvious that my Brooklyn understanding of racial issues did not prepare me for the far more complicated African experience. I decided to absorb first and judge later. Dave’s brother suggested that I travel down to Cape Town to visit his friend Paul, who was a staunch right wing Dutch Afrikaner. He thought that (a) I’d get an education by being in the den of the lion, and (b) I’d get to see the sights of Cape Town while drinking lots of African booze. I went.

Paul’s beliefs were simple. “The Dutch came to South Africa first, arriving by sea in the south. The black tribes came later, down from the north to see what my Dutch folks were doing. We love our black countrymen, but we need to keep the place white. End of story.” He tolerated my opposite beliefs as Utopian naivety. He did show me around, and aside from our political beliefs we got on well. He showed me the clouds dripping down like a table cloth from Table Mountain, took me to the southernmost tip of Africa, taught me about the cultures of the different local tribes, and it was all accompanied by plenty of barbecued boerewors sausage and booze. Then I saw a poster for an upcoming Johnny Clegg concert at a local theater. Voila! And so I had the brilliant idea that I, the Great Liberator Mitchell Dancik, could change the heart of this wayward Afrikaner by exposing him to the music and soul of Mr. Clegg. Paul said “Sure, I’ll go“

Johnny Clegg defines multiculturalism. Heck, maybe he invented it. He was born Jewish in England. Grew up on a farm in Zimbabwe. Came to South Africa to spend his teenage years with Zulus, learning their culture, language, guitar styles and dance. He lectured as a social anthropologist at universities, morphed into the most spiritual atheist around, and finally became famous in a few closely scrutinized yet somehow tolerated interracial bands. If anyone could pull Paul from right to left, it was Johnny!

So we go to the concert, and low and behold, lots of Paul’s pals are there. And they love the music! By the end of the show the whole crowd – extreme right and extreme left – are all up on their feet singing along to Johnny’s social justice songs and dancing to the Zulu beat. What’s up with that? Paul’s explanation is “We love black culture; the music, the dance; the food; everything – We just don’t want them in charge. If they get power, it’ll be a bloodbath“. It took history and Nelson Mandela to prove Paul wrong. Mandela’s greatest act in assuming power was to declare that “white domination would not be replaced by black domination”. And Mandela kept his word, avoiding the bloodbath that Paul feared. Mandela surprised Clegg in 1999 by joining him onstage unannounced. I recently returned to South Africa, and it’s not yet a paradise. It’s an incredibly beautiful place with a messy democracy like our own. The gates around the white communities have grown taller, while those around the black townships have come down. And I saw a sushi bar in Soweto where there was once only despair.

My song “Ripple In The Pond” is about ordinary people in ordinary places wondering if they’ve made any difference at all. I recorded it a few years ago and it was the song that came to mind when I heard Johnny Clegg had passed. He certainly made a few ripples. We can use a few more like him.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Ripple In The Pond – (c) 2019 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC.

Written by Mitchell Dancik, 2008

Recorded, mixed, and mastered at Dancik Plant South & Pie Man Sound, 2009-2019.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, mandolin, bass, horn arrangement, percussion, and drum programming

He walked the valley
He crossed the line
I drank the Kool-Aid
He spilled the wine
He didn’t say much,
St. James was his bond
Still, I can’t see the ripple in the pond

He was a legend
In his home town
He walked uphill to the schoolhouse
And uphill coming down
He loved the brunette
But he married the blonde
Can you see the ripple in this pond?

Can’t see the ripple,
Can’t feel the ripple,
Can’t hear the ripple in the pond
Can’t make a ripple,

Can’t fake a ripple,
Just faith, there’s a ripple in the pond
I can’t wait for the ripple in the pond

Next in the bloodline
Next of kin
I drank up the current,
When they plugged me in
When they rang the fire bell,
I was first to respond
Still I can’t feel the ripple in the pond

Can’t see the ripple,
Can’t feel the ripple,
Can’t hear the ripple in the pond
Can’t make a ripple,
Can’t fake a ripple,

Just faith, there’s a ripple in the pond

I can’t wait for the ripple in the pond

October
Story
Lyrics

Coming soon…

February
Story
Lyrics

“45” by Just Water

There used to be a cheesy little amusement park just down the street from where I grew up in Brooklyn. Buddies Fairyland Amusement Park seemed pathetic even to 12 year old kids. But it had an arcade room where you could play pinball, electronic baseball and various state-fair-style games for 25 cents a pop. My brother Ken and I attempted to hide out there on the one day we got up the nerve to play hooky from elementary school. But the thing I remember most about Buddies was that they had a recording booth. You’d squeeze in, deposit your quarter, sing your song (you couldn’t fit more than a ukulele in there), and a real 45 RPM record would pop out. It was flimsy and awful sounding, but it could be played on any turntable. I regret that I never tried it, as my musical aspirations were still a few years off. But it was my first glimpse of the record business. Jack White (formerly of the White Stripes) has restored one of those old record machines at his Third Man Records complex, and even got Neil Young to record in it.

This month’s song reunites the CBGBs-era line-up of Just Water. Mitch, Danny, and Tom. Although our drummer is now a machine, original drummer Gus Martin will make posthumous appearances on drums through the magic of cutting & pasting samples. Just Water never had one of those nasty break-up meetings where law suits are threatened, fists fly, the singer goes solo, and everyone swears they’ll never talk to the others again. In fact, none of us can remember a definitive moment when we broke up. So, maybe it just takes us a long time between releases? Like 40 years. Tom Korba was our last hold-out, but he assures us that he’s having fun again, and so we can expect a lot more Just Water this year.

This new Just Water song is about that glorious old hunk of plastic – the 45. Spotify playlists are nothing new. They’re just longer than the playlists we used to make by stacking 45’s on a record changer. If you don’t know what that is, then you are young! God bless you! The 45 had a sound all its own, with a treble tone that sizzled due to the physics of the needle rapidly scraping through the grooves. There’s never been a better acoustic guitar sound than the intro to Pinball Wizard by The Who. But you gotta hear it on the original 45 on a 1960’s turntable. Townshend’s hummingbird-wing strums crackle and zing. Can this sound be duplicated on a CD or via a streaming service? Sure – but it hasn’t happened yet.

The other great thing about 45’s was the “flip side”, also known as the “B side”. The “A” side was what radio stations were supposed to play, but royalties were split evenly between the A & B sides. This allowed other band members to “get a B side” and share in the profits with the main songwriters. Unfortunately, in the 50’s & 60’s, B sides were often credited to DJs and record company executives, who had nothing to do with writing the songs. In the Rolling Stones, Jagger & Richards got all the A sides, but they’d often credited the B sides to Nanker/Phelge, which was a nom de plume for the other Stones to share credit. The B side was also a way to release experimental/crazy/fun songs, without the worry of ruining an album track. Ringo got to sing the Buck Owens song “Act Naturally” on the B side of The Beatles 45 of “Yesterday”. The Who would let Keith Moon sing about wasps, but only on a B side. The Beach Boys relegated “God Only Knows” to the B side of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, but a DJ flipped the 45 over, and God Only Knows became one of their most famous songs. Just Water’s first 45 turned this logic upside down. We put our crazy novelty song King Kong (sung and co-written by the drummer!) on the A side and threw me & my serious song on the B. It was the year that Dino De Laurentis was filming his remake of King Kong and we were sure we’d get our song in the film. There’s been a few remakes since then. We’re still hopeful.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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45 – (c) 2019 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC.

Written by Mitchell Dancik (started in 1978, completed in 2018)

Recorded and produced by Just Water. Mixed by Mitch at Pie Man Sound.

Mitchell Dancik – Lead vocal, acoustic guitar, 12 string electric “Byrds” guitar, congas, drum programming, horn and string synths

Danny Rubin – Lead guitar, vocals, flute synth, synth solo, percussion, drum programming

Tom Korba – Bass

Roger Babson – Sax

The Big Strong Arms Choir – Crowd vocals

We went down to Buddies
To get a record made
We stole a bunch of quarters
From the penny arcade

We squeezed into the sound booth
We pulled the curtains shut
We sang into the speaker
It’s not a hit record, but…

It’s our Forty-Five!
It’s our Forty-Five!
Turn the damn thing up

We took it to a party
The girls said “Hey! What’s that?”
“Is it new record-day music?
Or just that old time crap?”

It’s got no denomination
No special label or creed
It’s just a slice of vinyl
With everything that you need

It’s our 45. Turn it over
It’s our 45. Turn it over

It’s not an L.P.
It’s not an MP-3
It’s not an 8-track
We didn’t use a Click Track
It’s our Forty-Five.
Turn the damn thing up! Up! Up!

We went down to Buddies
To get a record cut
We busted all the meters
It’s not a hit record, but…

It’s not a love song,
It’s not a sing-along,
It’s not a pop song,
It’s not your song,
You should hear the flip side,
It’s even better than the A side,
We didn’t use a click track,
Well OK, maybe we did that
On the Hi-Fi 10 is too low,
And 33 is too slow
It’s our Forty-Five. Turn it over.

What about the 3-minute rule?
This song’s as long as Hey Jude

May
Story
Lyrics

“Cherry Gibson”

In the late 1960’s my oldest brother Harold came home with a cheaper than cheap Valdez acoustic guitar. After a failed attempt at flute he decided to learn the guitar. After a few days listening to the screeches and squeals my brother made with that guitar, I walked into his room, took the guitar and declared “This is mine now”. He was so relieved. And that’s what started this whole crazy business of me wanting to be a rock star.
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The Valdez had a warped neck that could never stay in tune for long. Somehow I soldiered on and learned to play Pinball Wizard and Blackbird on that sorry excuse for an instrument. But what I really needed was an electric guitar! My mother, who was a school secretary, had a great idea; Maybe she could get an electric guitar bargain through her school’s music program? In an unbelievable stroke of luck, Gibson Guitars had an educational discount on their SG model; the same model that my musical hero Pete Townshend played. And so for $225, courtesy of the NY Board Of Education, I bagged a 1967 cherry red Gibson SG with humbucking pickups, a tremolo bar and a hard case with red velvet lining.
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A few years later, in the basement of my dorm-room at Harpur College, I see a kid with a cherry Gibson just like mine. That kid (Danny Rubin) played a lot better than me; so he’s been playing lead guitar with me in Just Water for 47 years (with a 30 year break for making a living). In 1973, as Just Water was starting out, I wrote this song about guitars and other possessions taking over our lives.
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In 1975 I splurged for a sunburst Les Paul model. My Cherry Gibson was put back in its velvet lined case and remained in a closet for 30 years. In 2005 my son Max was taking guitar lessons. The acoustic guitar that he was practicing on had thick strings that were hurting his fingers. His teacher suggested to my wife that an electric guitar would be easier for him to play, and she said “Oh, my husband has one sitting in the closet”. So Max took the Cherry Gibson to his next lesson, and his teacher kept saying “nice guitar, nice guitar”. When my wife picked Max up, his teacher came out to ask my wife about the guitar. My wife said “Oh, it’s just some old thing that’s been collecting dust”. The teacher said “That old thing is worth at least $10,000”.
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Postmortem:
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The Valdez guitar was ceremoniously smashed on stage by me and our drummer at one of the last Just Water gigs. The Cherry Gibson is in a closet, but NOT collecting dust. It’s insured.
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Song Of The Month Credits:
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Cherry Gibson – (c) 2019 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC.
Written by Mitchell Dancik, 1978 (Updated in 2019)
Recorded, mixed, and mastered at Pie Man Sound, 2019.
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Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, bass, orchestration, synths, percussion, and drum programming

I’m your cherry Gibson
I’m your Fender Rhodes
I’m your ‘lectric mistress
I’m your Silvertone

I’m your Who-patch jacket
I’m your tuna bowl
I’m your Chelsea Cobblers
And I am in control

I’m the silver target that you painted in the air
I splash you in the morning, but you don’t;
You don’t care

I’m your cherry Gibson
I’m your Fender Rhodes
I’m your ‘lectric mistress
I am in control

I’m your dangling nose ring
I’m your cruise control
I’m your midlife crisis
I’m digging you a hole

I’m your voting record
I’m your baseball cards
I’m your Cherry Gibson
And I am taking charge

I’m the Harley Roadster that you wrapped around a tree
Even with your Lennon glasses, you don’t;
You don’t see

I’m your old compressor
I’m your Marshall stack
I’m your pawn-shop dealer
And you can’t get it back

August
Story
Lyrics

“East River Holiday”

Do you remember Tommy James & The Shondells? If you’ve never had the good fortune to have heard their literary masterpiece “Hanky Panky”, you’ll soon get the chance, as Hollywood is turning the Tommy James autobiography “Me, The Mob, and The Music” into a movie. This month’s song “East River Holiday” is inspired by his story, particularly his almost deadly (yet profitable) relationship with the mobster owner of Roulette Records, Morris Levy. The song also celebrates the ruthlessly entertaining father of Sharon Osbourne (Ozzy’s wife), Don Arden, who proved that English mobsters were as effective as the American kind.

Tommy James makes no bones about his “uncle” Morris being a crook. But he also admits that without Morris Levy’s pay-offs and threats, his career would have faded away with the chorus “my baby does the Hanky Panky“. He did go on to sell over 100 million records (including hits like Mony Mony, Crimson And Clover, and I Think We’re Alone Now), on which he lived well, but not nearly as well as Morris Levy’s family. He even received some street credibility when punk rockers like Billy Idol and Joan Jett covered his songs.

In 1965 a DJ in Pittsburgh started playing Tommy’s originally discarded recording of Hanky Panky (which was written by Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich who wrote other literary masterpieces like Da Doo Ron Ron and Do Wah Diddy Diddy). It became a surprise local hit, and a bidding war ensued. But then Morris Levy, who was a front for the Genovese crime family, put the word out on the street that “Hanky Panky is mine!”. All other offers were withheld, and Levy’s Roulette Records signed Tommy James; no questions asked. Even though Tommy claims that Levy robbed him of 40 million dollars, he still has affection for him. In Tommy’s own words “If there hadn’t been a Morris Levy, there wouldn’t have been a Tommy James, Every time I want to say something nasty about him, I have to stop myself. He was like the abusive father who slapped you around but still sent you to college. He was brilliant and one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met. But he’d still rather steal five grand from you than make it honestly.” Tommy James wrote his book only after Levy and all of the mobsters surrounding Roulette Records had died. After all, a fellow Roulette artist, Jimmy Rodgers, was left for dead on an L.A. Freeway for opening his mouth. On Valentine’s Day, 1969, the mob boss Vito Genovese died, and Levy’s partner Tom Eboli became his successor. The Genovese family were having their New York turf taken over by the Gambino family, which resulted in the famous 1971 mob wars. Tommy James was sent underground to keep away from the gunfire.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Don Arden, gangster manager of The Small Faces (and later Black Sabbath with Ozzy Osbourne, and Electric Light Orchestra) was creating his own brand of infamy for an intimidation tactic that is often mistakenly credited to Morris Levy. Robert Stigwood (who managed The Bee Gees and Cream) was considering taking over management of The Small Faces. Don Arden and his rather large henchmen hung Stigwood by his feet off of his 4th story balcony until he was no longer interested in The Small Faces. Later that year, when a member of The Small Faces was considering an offer to join the newly formed band Led Zeppelin, Don Arden sent a note to Zep’s guitarist Jimmy Page that read “How would you like to play in a band with broken fingers?”

Don Arden was eventually outfoxed by his daughter Sharon, who took over management of Ozzy Ozbourne’s career (and Ozzy’s entire life).

Morris Levy got to live like a king for decades, mostly off of the publishing royalties that he “acquired” from artists such as Chuck Berry. Levy even got John Lennon to record three songs that Levy owned as payment for Lennon incorporating the Chuck Berry lyric “Here come old flat top” in The Beatles song “Come Together”. In 1990 Levy was convicted of extortion. He died just before reporting to prison. He never got to see himself portrayed (as the character Hesh Rabkin) in The Sopranos.

In 2009 Prince covered Crimson & Clover, and Tommy got his royalties paid in full.

In 2019 Tommy is in pre-production on his feature film and Just Water is half way through production of our first album in 42 years. Maybe if we’d had mobsters for managers we’d have made millions too. Or maybe we’d be sitting on the bottom of the East River on a permanent East River Holiday.

And by the way, my Dad started his career in the NYPD as a prison guard, and Vito Genovese was on his cell block awaiting trial (for which he was acquitted). Dad said all the guards and inmates loved Vito because he told such great stories.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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East River Holiday – (c) 2019 Mitchell Dancik, Just Water, Branded Records LLC.

Written by Mitchell Dancik, 2019

Recorded, mixed, and mastered at Pie Man Sound and each of our homes

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, rhythm & acoustic guitar, harmonica, horn arrangement, percussion, and drum programming

Danny Rubin – Lead guitar, vocals, synthesizers, percussion, and drums

Tom Korba – Bass

Are you really my Uncle Morris?
Is he really my Uncle Don?
Then why am I hanging upside down?
Eleven stories above the ground
“To play the blues, you gotta pay your dues boy”
Isn’t that what they always say?
My mouth is taped shut, but my expenses are paid

On my East River Holiday
On my East River Holiday

I got paid on my first gig at fifteen
I got my record deal at twenty-three
I got a house with a pool, I thought it was mine
Then they explained the rules to me

I learned the banjo from my Auntie Mabel
I sang the gospel with my Grandma May
Nobody told me I would end up on a trip like this

On an East River Holiday
On an East River Holiday

I was walking down the street when they nabbed me
“Kid, we need a song right away!”
I told them “No”, that’s when they got out the duct tape
“We’re packing your bags today”
Ya’ know I’m Number One with a bullet
I’m finally on my way
From the poor house up to the penthouse
Down to an East River Holiday
Down to an East River Holiday

“I really know a hit when I see one”
Said Uncle Morris as he paid off the cops
“Always keep away from narrow ledges
Abandoned buildings, and Brooklyn roof tops”
I said “Uncle, I really must be leaving
I know I’ve outstayed my stay
I think I’ll just take the window
Cancel my East River Holiday”
(“You can’t cancel your Holiday”)

So farewell to my Uncle Morris
Farewell; Uncle Don
When the skin divers come to collect me
Tell them that they’re only one song away
From an East River Holiday
Only one song away!
From an East River Holiday!

Hey boss; He’s got no more songs. Whadyawanmetadowidhim? Take him to the river?

November
Story
Lyrics

Coming soon…

March
Story
Lyrics

“Elevator Man”

In 1979 I was without a band and saving up for a one way ticket to London. I wound up as a walking messenger for the Archer Messenger Service in midtown Manhattan.

In NYC FedEx simply isn’t fast enough. And so an army of the otherwise unemployable are set out onto the streets and subways to deliver stuff as fast as possible. Just as there is a hierarchy among thieves, there is a hierarchy of messengers. And the “walking messengers” are at the bottom of the pile. The next step up are the “bicycle messengers”, who risk their lives and the lives of innocent civilians as they drift in and out of warp speed between the taxis. At the top of the heap are the drivers. These folks are actually vetted and pass drug tests, and even have security clearances due to the nature of the stuff they deliver. I never saw the drivers, because they didn’t have to wait in the “messenger waiting area” with us. The waiting area was a cramped, damp, sweaty room full of characters that you’d never want to meet, and when you realize that you are one of them, you are overcome with shame and anxiety. In the midst of such shame, I’d hear the dispatcher yell “Dancik!” and be given my instructions.

The messenger office was in the heart of New York’s Garment District, an area from 34th to 42nd streets around 6th Ave. In dozens of buildings, thousands of fashion businesses (known as “the rag trade”) would compete for who could steal the most designs and get them to market before anyone noticed. There were tall buildings filled with cramped showrooms, where buyers from stores around the world could go from room to room, floor to floor, shopping for the next season’s styles. That’s where I, your faithful walking messenger, come in. I’d often be dispatched to pick up a rack of clothes at a warehouse or off the back of a truck, and deliver it to a showroom, or vice versa. (See attached picture from 1955. Nothing has changed) In normal life, when someone delivers something, especially something as heavy as a rack of clothes, they get a tip. Not with this crowd. They’d be popping champagne bottles to impress the buyer from Macy’s, but the poor schlub who had the power to pull the threads on their precious new line of dresses was persona non-grata. Tips were rare.

On one particularly hot and humid day, with a particularly heavy rack of coats, I reached my limit. A proud loud-mouth business owner had me pushing this rack of coats all over his showroom, looking for the perfect spot. Here! No wait; There! Move it kid, I got customers! I couldn’t shake a voice in my head – my mother saying “I know you love your music, but you have to have something to fall back on!” Finally the coats were in the right spot. But instead of a very big well earned tip, Mr. Successful Businessman just shoved me back into the elevator. That’s when the F word came out of my mouth. It was an involuntary reflex that felt so good!

So there I was. Sweating. Seething. Triumphant in a defeated sorta way. Just me and the Elevator Man. (Yes kids, in those days elevators had humans in uniforms at the controls) At that moment the chorus of this song popped into my head. I understood the world at last. Me and the Elevator Man were in the same caste, and we were invisible to Mr. Successful Businessman.

By the time I walked back for another assignment, the dispatcher had heard about my incident. I can’t remember if I was fired or high-fived.

Did I say to myself “If I am ever a business owner, I will never treat anyone like they treated me”. Probably not, because at that time I could see no path forward to anything that looked like success. But a few years later, when I had a successful business, I remembered that lesson vividly. And I tip.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Elevator Man – (c) 2019 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC.

Written by Mitchell Dancik (started in 1979, completed in 2018)

Recorded, mixed, and mastered at Pie Man Sound. Elevator noises courtesy of freesound.org

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, mariachi trumpet arrangement, piano, bass, glockenspiel, synths, and drum programming

Elevator Operator – floor announcements (in German)

I know a place on the 27th floor
When I knock there, they open up the door
They’re wearing suit jackets; pretty girls say “Hold sir”
And I say “where to, thank you mam and yes sir”, but…

I’m going home, with the elevator man
I’m going home, with the elevator man
I’m going home, with the elevator man

I get my check on the 27th floor
It could be less, Sir? The janitor gets more.
The man says “Sit tight, work hard and you’ll get there”
And I say “Yes sir, thank you sir, but get where?”

‘Cause I’m going home, with the elevator man

25, I’m, out of the ghetto
26, I’m a working class fellow
27, its pick up and deliver it
28, I’m out of my class and over my limit

I’m going home, with the elevator man

39, it’s “Kid you better hustle it!”
41, it’s fuck this shit, I gotta quit
43, the bastard didn’t give a tip
45, I’m out of my league and over my limit

I know a place on the 27th floor
Comb your hair back, and open up the door
They’re wearing suit jackets; pretty girls say “Hold sir”
And when they ask ya’, tell ‘em that I sent ya’, cause…

I’m going home, with the elevator man

I’m going uptown downtown, with the elevator man
I’m going uptown downtown, with the elevator man
Uptown, downtown, who’s town?, his town,
Penthouse, basement, hit the pavement
Rooftop, back yard, last stop, graveyard
Uptown, downtown, mid-town, cross-town,
Going down, third floor, second floor, locked door

June
Story
Lyrics

“High On The Monkey Bars”

When I moved from New York to North Carolina I noticed there was something missing. The crazies. Instead of being fearful of the truly crazed characters in NYC, I was fearful of people who acted nice. And nearly everyone in North Carolina acts nice. It was truly terrifying at the checkout line of the local grocery store. People would smile and ask how I was doing. What were they after? Were they part of a secret “nice” cult that I had no chance of joining?
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Oh sure, in nice NC we get a few people on the exit ramps with signs asking for money. But they don’t jump on your car, wash your windshield with filthy sewer water and then claw at your window to extort your last dime. I once noticed a blind man collecting donations on Times Square. He started walking slowly across town in the same direction as me. After two blocks he stopped, folded up his cane, put away his dark glasses, counted his money, and took off like a rocket.
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One hot summer day, right in front of our apartment, under the bright lights of lower Broadway, a fidgety man in a winter coat tossed garbage into my son’s baby carriage! And it might have been the same guy who tossed a brick at my pregnant wife a year earlier! So why on earth would I be nostalgic about these raving lunatics? SONGS! You just can’t beat the insanity of NYC to inspire songs.
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One day in the 1970’s, I was sitting in a small park on the lower east side, and I noticed this scruffy kid (who, like me, should have been either at work or at school) on top of the monkey bars. Just sitting up there, like it was his throne. A few days later I saw him again in the same spot. It was starting to snow, but he was unfazed, and apparently not bothered at all by the cold. Just sat up there. I created a story in my head, with him as the star, which became this month’s song “High On The Money Bars”.
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And while we’re reminiscing about people with dark glasses and a cane, I want to mourn the recent passing of a singular New Orleans treasure, Dr. John. Throughout my many years attending the New Orleans Jazz Fest, Dr. John was a constant presence. Sometimes a headliner, sometimes a sideman, but always uniquely New Orleans, and a brilliant piano player, singer, interpreter, and writer. Twenty years ago, when I got on the plane from Charlotte to New Orleans, headed to my very first Jazz Fest, he was sitting in the front row. Dark glasses, cane, and dressed like the voodoo saint that he was. Amidst the business people with jackets and ties he was a regular first class extraterrestrial.
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Song Of The Month Credits:
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High On The Monkey Bars – (c) 2019 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC.
Written by Mitchell Dancik, 1976 (Updated in 2017)
Recorded, mixed, and mastered at Pie Man Sound, 2017-2019.
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Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, lots of keyboards, guitars, bass, orchestration, percussion, and drum programming
Ira Bernstein- Backing vocals

It’s later than football,
But long before baseball
I’m walking myself for a taste of night air
I’m a loner at breakfast
A loner at sundown
I’m not looking for company but this kid’s always there

He never says nothing
But I know he’s seen something
He don’t care what I whistle, I don’t question his place
Maybe it’s family problems
But it looks the kid could solve them
I’ll be minding my own, but what a curious face

He’s high on the monkey bars
He don’t give a damn
He’s more what he is than I am what I am

He’s high on the monkey bars
I’m riding the swing
It’s creaking and squealing
He don’t hear a thing

Now it’s got a bit chilly
And my jacket is thin
I’m just stuck a-wondering what time he goes in?

There’s the same old dog-walkers
The talk-to-themselves talkers
But I don’t take no notice, except in their notice of him

My watch-hands keep turning
Curiosity burning
Is warming my palms from the snow just begun

It figures that he sits still
Like a cat on my door sill
Being snowed on like a statue with his jacket undone

He’s high on the monkey bars
He don’t give a damn
He’s more what he is than I am what I am

He’s high on the monkey bars
I’m riding the swing
It’s creaking and squealing
You know he don’t hear a thing

He’s high on the monkey bars
I’m riding the swing
I’m buttoned up, just looking up, at him like a king

Now the morning is breaking
And I find myself waking
To a slap from the wind and a pain in my toes

The suns up there burning
My consciousness churning
I’m sorting out, swinging out here in the cold

Now I can’t find my money
And these kids think they’re funny
Just laughing and letting snow pile on my hair

They think I’ve been drinking
But I’m just searching and thinking,
Hey, on the monkey bars,
The kid I’ve been watching ain’t there!

I’m an old man this winter
With one hell of a splinter
Stuck in a place where a man meets a swing

I’m froze and I’m aching
I finally finishing waking
To hell with conclusions, I ain’t missed a thing

He’s high on the monkey bars
I don’t give a damn
No more what he was than I am what I am

He’s so high on the monkey bars
I’m riding the swing
It’s creaking, who’s sleeping?
I ain’t missed a thing
I ain’t missed a thing

September
Story
Lyrics

“In The End”

Most musicologists state that “Folk-Rock” officially came into being when Bob Dylan “went electric” at the Newport Folk Festival on July 25, 1965. I think it started a month earlier, with the sound of a guitar. Not any guitar. It was an electric 12 string Rickenbacker 360. It was played by Roger McGuinn of The Byrds on their debut single; an electric version of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man“. Bob Dylan has never had a #1 record (“Like A Rolling Stone” made it to #2), but The Byrds took his tambourine song to #1. The Byrds followed up with another #1 using that same Rickenbacker 12 string guitar; “Turn Turn Turn“. It was another folk song transformed into rock.

So what made that 12 string guitar sound so special? After all, The Beatles used a 12 string Rickenbacker on “You Can’t Do That” and other songs on “A Hard Day’s Night” in 1964. Their guitar sounded fine – but didn’t have the sonic magic that The Byrds had. It was the chance encounter of the right guitar, the right player, and the right engineer. The Byrd’s engineer, Ray Gerhardt, ran Roger McGuinn’s guitar through 2 Teletronix LA-2A compressors, which had the affect of making each guitar note chime and sing. That trick became the defining sound of The Byrds throughout their entire career. Tom Petty openly revered and adopted that sound for his Rickenbacker ten years later.

That leads us to this month’s song, which is played on (nearly) the same guitar. There is a saying that every guitar, no matter its price or provenance, comes with a song (or several) inside. Earlier this year, I simply picked up my 1966 Rickenbacker 12 String, and within a minute, I was singing this month’s song into my iPhone. Did I write it or did I excavate it from the guitar? I’ll leave that question to higher powers, but how I got the guitar is another story. It all started with a dog….

Sometime In 1975, a fellow Brooklynite named Henry Gross, while visiting Beach Boy Dennis Wilson in Los Angeles, discovered that they both had dogs named Shannon. Both dogs were Irish Setters, but Wilson’s had recently died in a car accident. So Henry Gross wrote a song for Wilson’s dog, and in 1976 “Shannon” became a number one hit around the world. At the same time, in a galaxy far far away called 48th street in Manhattan, I was window shopping guitars and found a used 6-string Rickenbacker like the one that John Lennon played. I couldn’t afford the more expensive 12 string models. I could barely afford this one, but I put a $50 deposit on it. The next day I get a phone call: “Hi, this is Henry Gross. I heard you have a deposit on a guitar that I REALLY GOTTA HAVE. Can I give you the $50 for that deposit slip?” My reply was “Sorry bud, but I put the deposit on it because I REALLY GOTTA HAVE IT TOO” Click!”.

A few days later; “Hi! Henry Gross again! I’m the guy with that hit record about the dog. I’m feeling good. How about $100 for your $50 deposit slip!” Now, clearly he had the edge on me in the “let’s compete on success” arena. But that’s not how I saw it. My thought was “Look at this dumb sellout with a dumb #1 pop song on the dumb pop charts trying to bamboozle me! Me, a cool punk (who lives with his parents) and plays in a cool band at CBGBs (for scraps). I’ll show him! No way Henry. That guitar is mine!”

And a few more days later, “Hi! Don’t hang up! Henry here. How about $150? I collect Rickenbackers! Seriously man! I need that deposit slip!“

Now I REALLY wanted to keep my guitar. Of course I didn’t have the remaining $100 that I needed to pay it off, but it’s the principal that counts. “No deal!”

And several days later came the final phone call: “Wait! Please! We both live in Brooklyn. Why don’t you come to my house. I’ll show you my guitar collection. Maybe we can work something out“

So me and fellow Just Water guitarist Danny make it over to Marine Park, Brooklyn (to the same street where The Mets player/manager Joe Torre lived) and knock on Henry’s door. I don’t remember seeing an Irish Setter. But I can’t forget the sight of a whole bunch of Rickenbackers all over his living room.

Like a true guitar fanatic, Henry shared the history of each guitar, always remembering to make a pitch of why that John Lennon model would complete his collection. He pointed out that the reason he had 5 identical 1966 Rickenbacker 12 string models, was that he purchased them from an engineer at a studio owned by Columbia Records. Henry claimed that they were all maintained perfectly for studio use, and that many Columbia acts, including The Byrds, had recorded with them. They each had a distinctive marking drawn inside the cavity of the guitar, to make sure that none of the studio’s guitars left the premises with a musician. After lots of failed haggling, Henry stopped and said “Here’s an offer you can’t refuse. You give me your deposit slip, and you can take one of those Rickenbacker 12 string guitars“. I didn’t refuse.

I never got my #1. Henry did. And I came to discover that his dog-song probably ruined his career. He was actually a pretty cool rocker before “Shannon” and still maintains a lot of his pre-dog fans. We both got the guitar we really wanted. Thanks Henry (and Shannon).

Song Of The Month Credits:

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In The End – (c) 2019 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC.

Written by Mitchell Dancik, 2019

Recorded, mixed, and mastered at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, rhythm guitar using 1966 Rickenbacker 360 and Taylor acoustic 12 string, lead guitar using a Duo-Sonic through a Latvian-made fuzz box, Dano bass, piano, synths, percussion, and drum programming

I just can’t wait for the others
Can’t even wait for my friends
If I stay here I’ll be smothered
I’m under ground
I’m in the dark
I’m crawling out
I’ll see the light in the end

I just can’t handle the fallout
Can’t even handle the perks
I slammed the door on the girl-scout
I’m on the edge
The edge is dull
I’ll sharpen up
I’ll join the fight in the end

I better call in the army
I better call in my friends
Board up before this Tsunami
The water’s calm
I made my pledge
I’ll loosen up
I’ll learn to swim in the end

I just can’t wait for the army
Don’t want to bother my friends
Already blowing my cover
I’m in the air
I’m peeking through
I’m almost there
I’ll see the light in the end
In the end

December
Story
Lyrics

Coming soon…

2018

January
Story
Lyrics

“The Johnnies”

The January 2018 song is the 109th edition of the “Song Of The Month Club”

I’ve always been obsessed with music, musicians and their stories. If a person, instrument, or song had anything to do with creating the music that I consider important, then their story can never be too trivial to tell, or too obscure to celebrate. The problem is that as time marches on, musical heroes are dropping like flies. Every day another story is lost in the ether. Just trying to keep all of The Johnnies from being forgotten can be a full time job.

Johnny Ace, the great R&B singer, accidentally killed himself in 1954, too long ago for most people to know he existed. Johnny Burnette was one of rock-a-billy’s greats, and because he’s been gone since ’64, his only hope is that Led Zeppelin & Aerosmith fans know that he wrote the killer guitar arrangement used on their versions of Train Kept A Rollin’.

It’s unlikely that Johnny Cash or John Lennon will be forgotten, but us 70’s punks will need to keep the legends of Johnny Rotten and Johnny Ramone alive. My friend Binky could be on this list too because he was (a) in one of the the most popular of the obscure CBGBs bands and (b) because his name is really John. He abdicated his right to be a Johnny, but he alone owns the list of The Binkys.

One of my favorite forgotten Johnnies is Johnny Kidd. His 1960 song “Shakin’ All Over” is an important missing link between the rock-a-billy of the 50’s and the just plain rock of the 60’s. It contains 2 classic rock riffs, and if not for two “Who’s”, it may already have been forgotten. The Who & The Guess Who both released popular versions. On my song “The Johnnies” I throw in a variation of the opening guitar lick, which was played on Kidd’s original recording by Scottish guitarist Joe Moretti.

Here are two ridiculously obscure stories about some more cool Johnnies:

Bass players have a hard time being remembered, but perhaps The Who’s John Entwistle will remain in the lower frequencies of our hearts forever. His bass solo on “My Generation” was the first rock record where the bassist took the guitar solo. And, he did win “Bass Player Of The Century” in a few magazines. In June 1974 The Who had a 4 night stand at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Who and their road crew were staying at The Navarro Hotel on Central Park South. So me and a bunch of friends (who went to all 4 shows) got a room there too. One of us said hello to Entwistle in the lobby and mentioned our room number to him, not thinking in a million years that he’d even consider remembering it. But to our amazement, before one of the concerts, there’s a knock on the door and it’s him! There’s about a dozen of us crammed into this room, He walks in, chatting with his very dry British humor and just hangs out for a few minutes. As he’s leaving, a big fat wad of 100-dollar bills falls out of his back pocket (note: maybe they were 20’s then, but they’re 100’s now!). We say “Err John, I think you dropped something”. He turns around, picks up the cash, smiles and says “Oh, it’s my allowance”.

In the early 1980’s, Friday and Saturday night from about 2-6 AM often belonged to The Mudd Club, one of those dance clubs where the bouncer had to check your cool credentials before you could get in. When the place emptied out it was like zombies getting attacked by the early morning sunlight. Everyone either stumbled home to their awful apartments or went for breakfast at Dave’s luncheonette on Canal Street. I walked over one of those metal cellar doors that are on every sidewalk in NYC when my shoes sunk into something. I looked down and there was guitar hero Johnny Thunders passed out with his leather jacket serving as a blanket. One amazing thing about Johnny Thunders is that he actually looked the same passed out as he did onstage. Sad but true is the fact that half of his audience came to his shows so that they wouldn’t miss the show where he bought the big one onstage. His drug use was that legendary. But I hope that history remembers that he and his band The Heartbreakers (yeah, I know, Tom had that name too) were the biggest draw in NYC – bigger than The Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, all of em’. Johnny Thunders was NOT a Jimi Hendrix on guitar. But he could do this one thing better than anyone: You’ve heard a hundred guitar players do it. You bend the g string up 2 notes until it’s playing the same note as the b string. But when Johnny did it, he’d just put his hands ANYWHERE on the guitar neck and squeezed it until it hit a cool note or until it squealed like rock n roll nirvana. Eddie Van Halen could actually play Beethoven’s 9th at 250 bps using that trick, but it NEVER sounded as good as Johnny Thunders doing it.

I almost forget; Entwistle died in 2002 of a cocaine-induced heart attack with a stripper in his bed at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. You can’t make this stuff up. Thunders left us in 1991 in the French Quarter of New Orleans. He was probably murdered by a drug dealer, but no-one ever really knows what goes on in New Orleans. On most days doctors would have thought that the drugs in his system were fatal. Ironically, when he died they said the drugs could not have killed him. The Johnnies have sure had some problems, but they made some glorious noise.

Long live the memories of The Johnnies.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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The Johnnies: A through Z – (c) 2018 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records. Recorded, mixed and mastered at Pie Man Sound, Cary, NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, bass, string & brass arrangement, and drums.

CDs available on CD Baby, spotify, amazon, itunes and other music sites.

Johnny A got murdered
I read it in the Times
He struck a chord; Unleashed the lord
Beneath the church bell chimes

Johnny B is dead to me
Awash in all that stash
And Johnny C plays revelry
For Johnny G, who’s going fast

Johnny R got thinner and thinner
On the pages of Rolling Stone
Watched him go from “Look at me”
To just some skin and bones

Johnny T, the living dead
Went down to New Orleans
Barely made it up the stairs
Jambalaya in his veins

You can turn that amp up to eleven
And turn this joint into one hell of a heaven
You might make it, past twenty-seven
But no matter how extraordinary
They will bury, your obituary
And the obituaries are
The obituaries are
The obituaries are….a bitch

Johnny V got taken
Not once, but a hundred times
Johnny X went missing
Nobody’s looking, nobody pines

Johnny Z fell down in front of CBGBs
Nobody there to see
The first responders got his gold Les Paul
And they sold his amp to me

My name is Johnny D
But you can call me John
By the time you hear my song
It’s likely I’ll be gone

“Hey Johnny”, ringing in my ear
Drowned out; it’s worse than drowned
Typewriters; tapping out taps
Another Johnny, under ground

Johnny L got murdered
I read it in the Times
Plugged in a cord; unleashed the Lord
The last Johnny of his kind

Johnny K was God to me
But the angels must have passed
Listen… Johnny E is playing revelry
For Johnny G, who’s going fast

All the Johnnies; aren’t made to last
All the Johnnies; are going fast

April
Story
Lyrics

“Bad English”

Living in North Carolina you hear and see a lot of birds outside your window. When I was living in the East Village of NYC both the aural and visual information outside my window was so much different. The song Bad English is all about the sights and sounds outside my first floor apartment on 10th Street.

New York City is full of little alleyways that in any other place would lead to a manicured back yard, but in NY lead to a concrete block upon which garbage cans are kept. My apartment building had one of those concrete rat patios, and the garbage was surrounded by a 12 foot fence. Was this to keep the rats in or the junkies out? Who knows. The alleys are often invisible from the street since the entrances are also locked away behind gates. My bedroom window, also covered in gates (of course), faced one of those alleys. Supposedly only the building’s maintenance man could access the alley, but at night I’d often hear the voices. Voices from everywhere; Jamaica, Russia, The Bronx, etc. They were the voices of entrepreneurs from around the globe who communicated in a unique dialect of Bad English. When I’d peek between the bars on my window, it looked like toys and trinkets were being traded. The sellers would be holding onto a teddy bear or a stuffed Sesame Street character and wheeling a broken kid’s stroller without a kid. The buyers would either be seasoned sniveling pharmaceutical connoisseurs or students from New Jersey who prayed their parents wouldn’t find them murdered after copping dope in a 10th street alley. The stuffed toys were a form of brief-case from which an amazing rack of saleable and ingestible goods was revealed. Although the grammar of the sellers was sketchy, their math was perfect. Requests for discounts were rarely granted. I’d hear the incoherent arguments and the failed negotiations, which would blend with the sounds of other blood-curdling arguments through the thin walls and close quarters of downtown Manhattan. Eventually all these sounds became Lou Reed songs, and a few of mine.

In the morning the trading floor would be closed, and the sound of rattling garbage cans meant that all was back to normal in the alleyway. NY normal that is.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Bad English(c) 2018 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records. Recorded, mixed and mastered at Pie Man Sound, Cary, NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, bass, pianos, sampled accordion, synths, drum programming, string arrangement

I see you, walking down the side streets
Working nine to five by night
I hear things cracking and breaking up
Through the wall, your parents must be making up

Nickel in the Teddy Bear, Nickel in the Teddy Bear
Nickel in the Teddy Bear, Nickel in the Teddy Bear

Is that you? Talking in the alley way?
Bad English, but it’s such good math
Your God is moving all my furniture
While My God is busting up your grocery store

Nickel in the Teddy Bear, Nickel in the Teddy Bear

I meet you, lying on the sidewalk
Sharp pencils, and a way with words
You had trouble writing in your future tense
Misspelled in the coroner’s new evidence

Is that you? Talking in the alley way?
Bad English, but it’s such good math
Bad English, but it’s such good math!
Bad English, but it’s such good math!

Take the garbage, next to Mary’s sacrament
Place the garbage, underneath the fresh cement
Talk to Mary; Me I got my own laments
Talk to Abie, it’s he who does control the rent
Bad English, but it’s such good math
Bad English, but it’s such good math

July
Story
Lyrics

“King Of The Scrap Heap”

It’s the 40th anniversary of when my band Just Water had our collective dream come true; Hearing our song on the radio!

Like any good rock n roll story, it started at 2:00 in the morning…

I was watching the classic movie “Singin’ In The Rain” on an old black and white TV with a tin foil antennae. Gene Kelly is walking with his umbrella singing that “doo da’loo doo do da” theme at the start of the title song, and it just hit me. I knew that little musical theme was waiting to be reborn as a punk rock guitar riff. I grabbed my guitar, and in a few minutes I had a new arrangement for Singin’ In The Rain. I scheduled a recording session for the next day with the band, our engineer (Neal Steingart), and our producer (Eric Dufaure), at Fly Studios in Brooklyn.

Our song needed no production. It produced itself. Instinctively each member of the band played the exact right part. After a short rehearsal we recorded 2 or 3 takes, but the first take was the keeper. We overdubbed some hand claps and glasses clinking, and immediately sent the master tape to a record pressing plant in New Jersey. Later that day we did a photo shoot in a shower at our producer’s loft. We posed with raincoats and umbrellas as the water soaked us. In order to get the record pressed immediately we didn’t have time to create a proper record sleeve. So I drew our logo, hand wrote the liner notes, and had the pressing plant print the entire photo contact sheet on the front cover. We were so sure we’d made a hit, that we pressed up 10,000 copies! My brother and manager Ken drove to Jersey to pick up the records and started delivering them to local record stores. At this point it’s barely 3 days since I was watching Gene Kelly sing and dance, and we’ve got a record in the shops!

We’d heard about a local record promoter, Joel Webber, who hung around CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City. He loved our record, and for $50 he agreed to promote it. He told us that he had an “in” with WABC, which at the time was one of the most popular stations in NYC. He thought that WABC was a long-shot, but a chance worth taking. We had no major record company behind us. Our record was on my own “Branded Records” label, which had a phony address (The Woolworth Building!) and no phone#.

On a sunny day in the summer of 1978 my brother Ken drove his Dodge Dart, with lead guitarist Danny Rubin and promoter Joel Webber, to WABC. Joel went in alone, met his DJ friend, and before he got back to the car, our record was playing on the car radio! Everyone in the car went nuts!

Singin’ In The Rain was put on heavy rotation – 7 times a day. First on WABC, and then on other top stations in all the big east coast cities – Philly, Boston, DC, etc. There was only one small problem. We had no distribution! Just a few thousand copies divided up into whatever record stores we could drive to, and the rest being given away for promotion or sitting in boxes in my closet.

I was living at my parents house and somehow the big record companies tracked me down. All of the record execs that called were names I didn’t recognize, because I knew music, but not the music business. Ahmet Ertegun, then president of Atlantic Records, called and said “Kid, you got a shot if you act right now while the record is still on the radio. Let me have it now, and when its a hit, we can talk about money and contracts”. My band had previously agreed that we should only accept a proper album deal. So I turned him down! If only I knew then what I know now about Ahmet Ertegun. He’s a legend and the last of his kind – a music exec that was a music lover even more than a money lover. He’s the man that signed Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin, and I said no! I got the very same call from Joe Smith, the man who had signed The Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix to Warner Brothers, and was now the president of Elektra Records. I gave him the same stupid answer!

So, we were on the radio, and we sold and gave away our 10,000 copies, but we didn’t have a record contract. When we woke up to the reality of the music business, we did what we were supposed to do in the first place. We agreed to sell the single song instead of demanding an album deal. But by that time our song was off the radio (except for Scott Muni on WNEW FM, who kept playing it whenever it rained). We did wind up with a contract at Stiff Records in England, where we got about $2000 and a promise of royalties that never came. In short, we blew it. But hearing it on the radio was a dream come true.

The Aftermath:

(1) We found out that Singin’ In The Rain was the first record without a record company to be played in heavy rotation since “96 Tears” by Question Mark & The Mysterians.

(2) When I lived in London in 1979, I was able to get a full accounting from Stiff Records. They sold 50,000 copies in the UK, and 90,000 copies across the channel in Europe. Still no royalties. Not a dime.

(3) The flip side of Singin’ In The Rain was “Witness To The Crime”, which was included in the Diane Lane movie “My New Gun” in 1992.

(4) Singin’ In The Rain is streamed and downloaded regularly throughout the world, which means it is heard more now than ever before. It’s currently the 3rd most popular Just Water song on the internet, behind “What We Need Is Some Rock” and “The Riff”.

(5) Just Water is currently recording new material. There’s still time!

Which FINALLY leads us to this month’s song, which is about the flip side of having a near-hit-record. In 1980 I was earning minimum wage and day-dreaming about what could have been. As I walked down the streets of NY I noticed how entirely invisible I’d become and that perhaps I was king of the scrap heap. This song is dedicated to all the one-hit wonders.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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King Of The Scrap Heap – (c) 2018 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 1980-2018. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2018 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, piano, bass, orchestration, synths, percussion, sound effects, drums & drum programming.

And you can listen to Singin’ In The Rain here.

I walk the streets and I swat the flies
Imagine winks in a pretty girl’s eyes
I slap one five; she slaps me back
Leaves me a number on an old match pack

“Come up and see me”,
“Yes, I’ll come up and see you soon”
“Be a sport and see what, good friends can do for you”
“Just round the corner,”
“Come, upstairs and have a peek”
“Thank you, but all I’ve got is a quarter for the peeps”

You be the King of the Scrap Heap
You be the King of the Scrap Heap
You be the King of the Scrap…… Heap

Look who’s the king of the scrap heap
Look who’s the king of the scrap heap
Look who’s the king of the scrap heap
Look who’s the king of the scrap… Heap!

Who’ll be the King of the Scrap Heap?

Without my quarter, just myself to blame
I missed the climax in the very next frame
“Don’t get discouraged” says a voice in the dark
Took out my match pack and I lit up a spark

“Do you remember me, ‘cause I remember you
You said there’s nothing that a good friend won’t do good for you”
She said “What’s on your mind, what’s all this money talk?
This is your neighborhood, and I am just the girl next door”

I’ll be the King of the Scrap…… Heap?

Look who’s the king of the scrap heap
Look who’s the king of the scrap heap
(Is that Johnny & Jerry?)
Look who’s the king of the scrap heap
(Is that Mitch & Kenny?)
Look who’s the king of the scrap…. Heap!

October
Story
Lyrics

“Madder By The Inch”

The #MeToo movement has made everyone look back and reassess past behavior. The hard part is trying to remember exactly what we were thinking when social norms were so different. I recently got a little help with my memory, when I came across a song I’d written in 1975 that could have been about some of the men popping up in the news today. I can’t put a name with the face of the guy in the song, but I saw him start an incident with an unwanted pinch, The song is a clear depiction of a privileged kid who can’t keep his hands off of women. The shorter the skirt, the worse he gets, or as the title says, he gets “Madder By The Inch”. The song describes all of his excuses. He blames the women, the doctors, the other kids, and his upbringing.

Back in 1975, when I wrote the song, my band Just Water just started playing in the clubs of New York; not what you’d think of as an ideal environment to promote respect for woman. Yet, even amidst the abundance of creeps in those seedy places, something about the guy in this song stood out and repulsed me enough to write this sarcastic ditty about him. Credit for my repulsion goes to my father, who raised four boys with one golden rule that could not be broken; “Never disrespect your mother”. Even during arguments, we never heard him utter a demeaning word toward our Mom. I guess that lesson was able to survive my years in rock bands.

As I look back at those times, I’m sure that I, and the many musicians, roadies, and club-goers that I hung out with crossed some lines that wouldn’t be condoned by today’s HR departments. However, I can’t recall any events that crossed the line into assault. Yet, now we know that so many assaults did occur, but they were hidden from view and unreported.

I’ll dispense with the serious stuff for now and concentrate on what I know best – the lighter side of sex, drugs, and rock n roll. For example, the tiny phone booth at Max’s Kansas City was notorious for sexual encounters, but of the consensual kind. Sylvain of The New York Dolls describes one such phone booth scene in his hilarious new book. The bathroom at CBGB’s was also known for hookups, which is a sickening thought, since the place was too disgusting to even use as bathroom. One incident I’ll never forget was a form of (for lack of a better term) “consensual riot”. It was 1971. I was a roadie for The Who and they were playing in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was asked to help with security at the backstage gate. It was at a sports arena, where the backstage area was a few concrete loading docks separated from the dressing rooms by a 12 foot high metal fence like you’d have around a schoolyard. Hanging on the fence was an army of woman (15-30 years old), all desperate to get in and ravage their favorite member of The Who. They were all shouting to me; “Let me in, Roger is expecting me!”, “Let me in, I’m with Keith”, “I’m with Pete, but I lost my pass!”, “I’m married to John! Really!”. As I mentioned in my August 2014 Song Of The Month, the singer Roger Daltrey had a thing for 6 foot tall blondes. I was told beforehand not to let ANYONE in (except of course some tall blondes). I didn’t let anyone in. I was scared for my life. This looked like a scene from The Walking Dead, except these women were very much alive and capable of tearing down that fence. They were tall. They were blonde. They were determined. All 150 pounds of yours truly was the only thing between The Fence and The Who. But somehow it held, and poor Roger didn’t meet any of those tall blondes that night. I don’t know what would have happened if the fence came down, but that term “consensual riot” comes to mind.

Postscript: Later that year Roger Daltrey married a 6 foot tall red head, who is the subject of the Jimi Hendrix song “Foxy Lady”. They’re still married. 3 kids. He’s 5′ 6″ (in heels)

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Madder By The Inch – (c) 2018 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC.

Written by Mitchell Dancik 1975. Produced, recorded, and mixed by Mitchell Dancik at Pie Man Sound, NC.

Mitchell Dancik– Vocals, guitars, bass, orchestration, piano, synths & drum programming.

Ira Bernstein – Lead vocal

They say I’m mad, obsessed with touch
I grab too soon, too quick, too much
But I’m no raver on the loose
When a mob’s blood thirsty, I hide the noose

I’m second hand, I’m hand me down
Peter Pan, in a dirty town
Whose second-graders sleep ‘till noon
I’m getting lined up with a doctor soon

Cause I’m as mad as the space above her knees
As mad as the space her neckline frees
If it fits too tight, I have to pinch

I’m madder by the inch
(I just get madder and madder)
I’m madder by the inch!
(I just get madder and madder and madder)
I’m madder by the inch!

They say I’m mad, I’m insecure
Paranoid, they’ll never know for sure
The state of mind I’m living in
Just shines a light on what’s wrong with them

“He’s the only child, from a broken throne
A pony then a car then he was on his own
A spoiled brat, the tales pile-up”
But I’m just like my ma, my pa, and my pup

I guess I’m madder than the sky is blue
Walking on a clothes-line cross the avenue
Trying on your private parts in public view
Splitting up your one-track mind in two
Mad is a gift from me to you

“He’s disrespect, His head’s on wrong
For a kid this nuts, his will’s too strong”
But I’m no crackpot you can approach
To crack this nut, try sowing…
Try sowing yer oats

February
Story
Lyrics

“Looking Good”

When I started writing Looking Good, it was a song about a musician who fakes his success, but gets found out and is backed into a corner. Then it morphed into a sordid tale about a married couple of artistic opportunists. A Jack & Diane story without the little pink houses. Then words like “tower” and “treason” start creeping into the lyrics. Oh no!

Suddenly I realized my mind had been taken over. That guy on the news who tweets had infiltrated so far into my brain that even my songs were being possessed! I started writing lines like “They say it’s treason but I really got my reasons”, “I’m hiding in the tower”, and “I can’t afford it but I went ahead and bought it”. Right then I knew that I was done for. Mr. T had finally got to me.

So what was I supposed to do? Exorcism? Excommunication? Lobotomy? I decided to just face it head on. Go all in. But only for this one song. One sacrificial lamb of a song to save the rest of the flock. I couldn’t rely solely on the personal experiences that are normally the basis of my songs, because I have only one first hand Trump story. Here it is: From 1984 – 1986 I would walk past Trump Tower on my way to a customer on 57th street. The tower had just opened and Donald would very often be standing outside like a well paid doorman, to bask in the attention of the passersby. In the winter he’d be wearing this very long black coat with a big fur collar, and I swear (scout’s honor!) that in 1984 I said he looked like a Russian Cossack. Note that this was way before The Apprentice. At that time he was known mainly in New York, and mostly for scandals involving the abuse of his tenants. But as he lorded over the entrance of his tower it was clear that the public’s love or hate was immaterial. Attention was all that mattered. Some people would give him a wave and a “Hey Donald” to which he would offer an semi-acknowledging grin without any eye contact. So while you may see Donald as a president, I will forever see him as the Russian Doorman of Trump Tower.

So here’s my one and only Trump song. A possible projection of the future. A song in which a lord and his lady make their final stand in a castle tower. The song is not political commentary. It’s just that I’m a native New Yorker. And like all New Yorkers, I believe that cynicism and sick humor trumps politics.

The last line of the chorus is “It’s not looking good for ending well”. I love artistic license. Amen.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Looking Good – (c) 2018 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records. Recorded, mixed and mastered at Pie Man Sound, Cary, NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, drum programming, string & brass arrangement

He can’t afford it but he went ahead and bought it and in front of it he primped and posed. He didn’t need it but he had a little greed and it’s no wonder that it got foreclosed. They say it’s treason but he says he’s got a reason and he tells them all to go to hell. He’s hiding in the tower and they’re giving him an hour.
It’s not looking good for ending well
It’s not looking good for ending well

Was he a traitor, did he love or did he hate her, did she make a catch or was she caught? She didn’t need it but she had a little greed and it’s no wonder that she got hers bought. They say it’s gruesome but he says it’s she who knew someone that pushed him because he never fell. He’s hiding in the tower and they’re giving him an hour.
It’s not looking good for ending well
It’s not looking good for ending well

Looking good in the neighborhood,
Before its starts to smell
Looking good, should we run?
We should;
I don’t do distance well
Looking good in the neighborhood,
Please remember we…

…could not afford it but we went ahead and bought it and in front of it we primped and posed. We didn’t need it but we had a little greed & it’s no wonder that it got foreclosed. They say its treason but I say “we got our reason” and you doubters all can go to hell! We’re hiding in the tower and they’re giving us an hour;
It’s not looking good for ending well
It’s not looking good for ending well

Looking good in the neighborhood,
The crowd begins to yell
Looking good, should we jump?
We should; I don’t do landing well
Looking good in the neighborhood, don’t dismember me

I can’t afford it but I went ahead and bought it and in front of it I thumbed my nose. I didn’t want it, but I still just had to have it. It’s a shame it had to be disclosed. They say its treason but I really got my reason and I’d spell it out if I could spell. I’m hiding in my tower and they’re giving me an hour,
It’s not looking good for ending well!

I’ll grab a shower and I’ll see you in an hour because this ain’t the Tallahatchie Bridge. She left the tower, gave attorneys all her power, and I’ll see what she left in the fridge. They say it’s brazen but it’s just a frat house hazing, and I say flat out “I don’t kiss n’ tell!” It might seem dour, but they’re giving me an hour,
It’s not looking good for ending well
It’s not looking good for ending well

May
Story
Lyrics

“How To Make It”

Have you noticed a bit of “dumbing down” lately? This song is a subconscious-rises-to-a-conscious rant about “the how” versus “the what”. I am a card-carrying lover of “how” to do stuff, but without a good “what” to do, well what’s the point? Which leads us to “why”, which is another song entirely.

Chris Stamey, a fellow music studio nerd and fellow dual-citizen of North Carolina and New York, writes in his new book “A Spy In The House Of Loud” about the good old days when far less songs were released, but far more effort was put into each of them. I grew up with the song (“the what”) always coming first. And then you figured out all “the hows”; How to get the arrangement to support the lyrics. How to get the guitar to wail like a sax. How to make the tape play backwards. And how to get that magical echo sound by throwing the drummer and his drums down the elevator shaft. Today, most of what’s popular is done in just the opposite way. You rev up the computer and start twisting virtual knobs until something cool happens. When someone says “that’s it” you stop, press record (or more likely “cut & paste”), and start constructing a song. Ed Sheeran, a most brilliant practitioner of “the how” (and not too shabby at “the what” either) teaches a master class in how. And he does it while on stage in front of 50,000 people. He plays a little lick on his miniature guitar and presses “on” on his looper, a device that repeatedly plays back what you play between “on” and “off”. He does this multiple times by banging, strumming, slapping, and singing until he’s got an orchestra of guitar, percussion and vocal loops backing him up. I recognize the athletic and aesthetic talents at work here, but its a long way down the road from where songs and the ancient art of songwriting live.

A funny take on the same theme comes from Joe Walsh, the famous guitarist of The Eagles and The James Gang who gets major kudos from me for giving Pete Townshend the 1957 Gretsch guitar that defined the sound of the CSI theme songs; Won’t Get Fooled Again and Baba O’Riley. Walsh was contemplating “going contemporary” for his 2012 album. So he got some new pop music from his kids to listen to, including a Beyonce song. Walsh noticed that Beyonce’s song had five writers and three producers, but only eight words! He immediately gave up on contemporary. He went back to his pre-digital ways and created the album “Analog Man”.

Perhaps the iPhone is to blame for all of this. And its not just the music business. When I first started out in the software business, I used to do multi-day demonstrations of my inventory management programs. Potential customers demanded that I dove deep into hundreds of parameters, screens, and options, and explained every detail of how it worked. By the end of my software career, all I had to do was show the iPhone app. No-one asked to see how, or even if it really worked. As long as it looked sharp and was user friendly, it was golden. Who cares if the inventory is out of whack? Does anyone even remember what “in whack” was?

Maybe I’m the one that’s dumbing down. Maybe music should be written by algorithms, so we don’t even have to press “on”.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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How To Make It (c) 2018 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records. Recorded, mixed and mastered at Pie Man Sound, Cary, NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, bass, real and fake drums, electric piano, string arrangement, percussion, and no loopers.

Everyone knows how to make it
Nobody knows what to make
Everyone knows how to make it
Nobody knows what to make

Everyone knows how to do it
Nobody knows what to do
Everyone knows how to do it
Nobody knows what to do,
Nobody knows what to do

Everyone knows how to cut it
Nobody knows what to cut
Everyone knows how to cut it
Nobody knows what to cut

Everyone knows how to shake it
Nobody knows what to shake
Everyone knows how to shake it
Nobody knows what to shake,
Nobody knows what to make
Nobody knows what to make,

Everyone knows how to start it
Nobody knows when they’re through
Everyone knows how to start it
Nobody knows when they’re through

Everyone knows how to light it
Nobody knows it’s a fuse
Everyone likes a good fire
Nobody knows what to do,
When the flames engulf you

Nobody knows what to do,
Nobody knows what to do

Nobody knows what to make,
Nobody knows what to make

August
Story
Lyrics

“Little Pellets (from Fillmore Gardens to the Fillmore East)“

It was 1966 when me and my friends all turned 13, and in a Jewish neighborhood that meant that nearly every weekend we were at somebody’s Bar Mitzvah party. Your Bar Mitzvah is meant to celebrate your coming of age; the entry into manhood. But for most of us it was the celebration of the end of Hebrew school. The end of having to learn how to sing in an ancient language while your friends were out on the street playing. However, there was one Bar Mitzvah that was truly a coming of age, at least for me. My friend Wesley Steinman’s party seemed like just another cookie-cutter affair, until a curtain opened to reveal a surprise. It was The Jagged Edge, Wes’s brother Artie’s band. But it might as well have been The Beatles. I’d never seen a live rock band before, and they were everything you could hope for. They looked great and sounded great, and I can say without a doubt that their performance sowed the seed that keeps me playing music to this day. The girls were screaming. Yes, actual shrieks. And the guys were frozen. Awestruck. You might not have heard of The Jagged Edge, but they were the real deal, at least in New York. They made real vinyl records. They were in Sixteen magazine. I was smitten, but it would take me two more years to find my path to a guitar.

I, along with Wes and Artie, grew up in a neighborhood of Brooklyn called Fillmore Gardens. It was a few blocks of what they called “garden apartments”, although there weren’t many actual gardens. These were small two story apartments that surrounded a courtyard where the garages were. I was considered a Fillmore Gardens invader, because I lived in what they called “the new houses”, which were built on top of the empty lots where the Fillmore Gardens kids used to set off their firecrackers. It took awhile for the Fillmore kids to forgive and accept me. Artie was our neighborhood rock star. Around 1968, Artie had a Hendrix/Clapton hairdo, and my grandmother would freak out when she saw him walking down the street. She’d growl “Da’ Head And Da’ Hair!”. Around that time Artie became the guitarist for Wilbert Harrison, who had a big hit with (I’m Going To) Kansas City. They played New York’s rock n roll temple, The Fillmore East, and my friends and I were there. We believed there could be no greater journey than to make it from Fillmore Gardens to The Fillmore East. Artie went on to play with many other famous musicians including members of The Rascals and The New York Dolls.

The song Little Pellets came to me in a flash while thinking back about two Fillmore Gardens landmarks: Artie’s Jagged Edge, and a little candy store known as “Sam & Rose’s” where we all hung out. You could buy candy, school supplies, and newspapers. Or you could sit at the counter and have a tuna sandwich for 50 cents, and wash it down with a sickly-sweet Lime Rickey, sure to give you diabetes later in life. Me ‘n Wes were ringleaders in a petty theft ritual. I’m still ashamed to say that we’d steal little things from Sam & Rose’s while waiting for the school bus. I’d steal these 10 cent rat-fink dolls. Worthless little plastic trolls. Wes would steal tubes of Elmer’s glue. He’d put one under the front tire of a bus when it stopped at the corner, and then we’d watch the glue spray in one glorious line clear across the street.

One day my father (a cop) finds all these rat-finks in my drawer and I fess up to the crime. He decides not to arrest me, but he does return the rat-finks to Sam & Rose and tells them he’s too ashamed to tell them who his son is. A few years later my family is in the car about to start a road trip, and my father stops into Sam & Rose’s to get a pack of cigarettes. My Mom asks me to run in and tell my father to pick up something else, and Rose’s eyes light up as she makes the connection between my father and me. She leaned over to me and whispered “Don’t get too close to the rat-finks honey“.

In 1977 the cover of my band Just Water’s first album was photographed at the counter of Sam & Rose’s.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Little Pellets (from Fillmore Gardens to the Fillmore East) (c) 2018 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 2018. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2018 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, bass, piano, orchestration, synths, percussion, drums & drum programming.

Don’t be cruel, don’t be kind
Those little pellets are hard to find
Don’t get clever, pretend you’re blind
Those little pellets are all I left behind

Lou Costello, Frankenstein
Those little pellets are in your mind
Little pellets in the organ grind
Look in the haystack for the needles of the Porcupine

In Fillmore Gardens Sam and Rose’s was the five and dime
A tuna sandwich, fifty cents, but we still robbed them blind
Poor Mr. Jacobs teaching history as the spitballs fly
Those little pellets flying past you they get stuck in your eye
Those little pellets flying past you they get stuck in your eye

Look through the garbage, through the orange rind
Those little pellets, are hard to find
Don’t get cocky, try to save mankind
Those little pellets are all I left behind

Portobello, infused with wine
Those little pellets are so sublime
Little pellets are little crimes
Look in the bank vault beneath the ravages of time

In Fillmore Gardens Brooklyn’s finest was The Jagged Edge
At the Bar Mitzvah, girls were fainting, and I made my pledge
To join a rock band during history as the spitballs fly
Those little pellets flying past you they get stuck in your eye
Those little pellets flying past you they get stuck in your eye

November
Story
Lyrics

“Boys and Girls Together”

Drummers! Can’t live with them! Can’t live without them! When Just Water started, we had a drummer that on paper knew all the cool techniques. Para-diddles, double bass drum rolls, 7/4 timing, etc. And he was sober. Just one small problem. He couldn’t keep a beat. Actually two problems. He was boring as well as beat-deprived. So, we traded him for Gus Martin, a troubled kid from my old neighborhood. We traded boring for drug problems, ego problems, broken down cars, and pet snakes. But Gus Martin could keep a beat, and on a good night he was an incredibly powerful drummer. He was desperate to join the ranks of the drummers he idolized: Keith Moon, John Bonham, and Buddy Rich. But he seemed more interested in being as crazy as they were, without necessarily putting in the 10,000 hours of practice required of true greatness.

For five years Gus Martin annoyed our road crew and managers, frustrated our producers and engineers, spiked his friends, and pretended to be the rock star that perhaps he could have been. He’d often disappear, but somehow showed up at all of our years of gigs at Max’s and CBGBs. Then it all got complicated and we thought we wanted more from Gus than he could deliver. We fired him and got this guy Randy Blitz, who was an absolute monster of a drummer. He did para-diddles and bass drum rolls in his sleep, and yes he could keep a damn good beat. He was so good that the band broke up just a few months later.

I learned a valuable lesson about bands. As the years go by, if you stay together, something magic and telepathic happens between musicians, and if someone leaves, the puzzle can’t be put back together. Gus Martin had his problems, but he was our drummer.

Two months ago an HBO series called The Deuce debuted. It’s about the porn industry in New York in the 70’s. Our song “The Devil Woman” is on the soundtrack of the first season and wound up getting hundreds of streams on Spotify, Apple, etc. It features a great lead vocal by Gus Martin and got me thinking about him, and how much he would have enjoyed this belated recognition.

Gus and I grew up in the same Brooklyn neighborhood. At fifteen, he was in my very first band, “Chappe”, a band of neighborhood nicknames, including Mad Dog (me) on rhythm, Shnit on lead, and Posey on 6-string bass. We had one gig; poolside at the Seaview Beach Club. Gus managed to get a drum set out of his parents, even though his father continually reminded him that he was a worthless reject. I remember two incidents that must have affected Gus greatly. Once we were bowling at Gil Hodges Lanes and caught Gus’s father with another woman at the bar. That incident was part of the inspiration for the Just Water song “Bowling For Love”, although I never told that to Gus. Another night we were going to watch a dollar movie at Brooklyn’s Graham Theater and saw Gus’s father outside in a parked “student driver” car. He was in a compromising position with a young girl that he was giving driving lessons to. Hopefully kids today talk to each other more than we did back then. We never spoke about it. We just let Gus carry that shame alone. That doesn’t excuse him for spiking his friends with horse tranquilizer, but it might help to explain what was eating him.

The words to Boys & Girls Together were written about Gus Martin in 1975. I call him Henry in the song, and the first line is “Get out of the shipwreck Henry”. The song is a variation of the novel “Lord Of The Flies”. It tells the story of a bunch of kids on a cruise ship with their parents, who were executives celebrating a profitable year. The adults party too hard, the ship sinks, and the kids make a fresh start on an island. All except Henry, who they try and coax off of the shipwreck. I tried for years to talk Gus out of the shipwreck that was his life.

When Gus was fired, the shipwreck set sail for even rougher seas. Every couple of years he’d call me with some crazy story about being in LA or Miami with a hot producer, and he’d ask permission to cover my songs, to which I always said yes. I’d hear stories about him on hard drugs or being beaten with bats, and I never knew what was true. In the early 2000’s I heard he had died, but even that news was confusing, as I received two very convincing but very different accounts.

I’m not really up on what goes on in heaven or hell, but Gus Martin has certainly joined all three of his heroes. Who knows; maybe there’s a drum set there and he’ll actually practice. And if he’s listening he should at least feel good that all the Just Water boys consider him our one and only drummer. After all the dust has cleared, I recognize how good his playing was on so many of our songs. But horse tranquilizers? Really?

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Boys & Girls Together – (c) 2018 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC.

Written by Mitchell Dancik 1975 & 2018. Produced, recorded, and mixed by Mitchell Dancik at Pie Man Sound, NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, tuned fog-horns, water effects, bass, mariachi noodling, strings/brass/harp orchestration, piano, synths & drum programming.

Come out of the shipwreck Henry
Dry off your tears
We’ve all been to hell together
But it’s all going uphill from here

Walk tall through the tropical moonlight
Onto a beach. We’ll call it home
Lord knows you can’t help feeling helpless
But I won’t let you feel alone

I know that it’s a time to mourn,
But when the sun comes up I want you to yawn,
And wake up strong

Come out of the shipwreck Henry

With the boys and girls together,
We can settle this thing forever
Get up our nerve and switch up our roles
Pair off in the woods where anything goes
With the boys and girls together,
We can settle this thing forever, here today

Come down off your high horse Mad Dog
That’s what they said to me
We ain’t supposed to let nobody fire us
Excepting by majority

They told me to keep my mouth shut
That everything I said was bad
Because under the white sails, I showed
Henry my Mom with his Dad

I don’t want to climb up the throne,
But someone’s got to stand up tall,
Before he’s full grown

With the boys and girls together,
We can settle this thing forever
Get up our nerve and mix up our clothes
Pair off in the woods where anything goes
With the goths & jocks together,
We can settle this thing forever, here today

Who’ll be the lucky woman?
Who’ll be the lucky man?
To break ground in our Garden of Eden
Start it all over again

Last night we were up on the high seas
Kid’s watching their bosses booze
It’s so stupid, I just have to repeat it
We said it was no pleasure cruise

They say the truth comes to the surface
They say that treasure sinks
I wonder where we should look for a boatload of
Executives, none of whom thinks

There’s a calm on the deep blue sea
That says “what will be will be”;
Sheesh, you’re telling me?

With the boys and girls together,
We can settle this thing forever
Get up our nerve and mix up our clothes
Pair off in the woods where anything goes
With the mods & rocks together,
We can settle this thing forever, here today

Come out of the shipwreck Henry
Dry off your tears

March
Story
Lyrics

“I Could Get To Like This Place”

Twenty five years ago 7 New Yorkers decided to move south to Raleigh, North Carolina. It was me and the entire staff of my software company. Most New Yorkers don’t even realize there is life outside of the 5 boroughs. Living folks yes, but certainly not 24/7 life. We researched “the best places to live in America” and we voted. It was democracy in action. A unanimous decision was made to move the company and our families South. We still loved NY, but we loved the idea of a change even more.

I’ll never forget the moment when I locked the 17 door locks on my NY apartment for the last time. I said to myself “Are you f*ing nuts?! What are you doing?! What the f* is in Raleigh?”. Eight hours later my wife, son and I saw a frog on the front steps of our new house in North Carolina. It was alive! A living thing that was not a cockroach, pigeon, or rat! We squatted down in front of that frog like we’d unearthed the holy grail. We were home! Those 7 New Yorkers never turned back. I’m not sure where the frog went.

And that sets the stage for the hero of this song; Clyde.

Clyde drove vans for Mayflower Movers and was stationed in South Carolina. He’d never been north of the Mason-Dixon line before he agreed to move our office and 3 of our 7 New York families down south. It was something out of a Woody Allen movie; A black Southern Baptist comes to help move an assortment of mixed NY nuts – Jews, Irish, Vietnamese, etc. Clyde was tall and looked way too skinny to be moving furniture. But he was all muscle and he out-hauled his young sidekick who was built like a professional wrestler.

Clyde showed up early one morning outside of our office with a moving van the size of a cruise ship. After we got over the heavy accents and could finally understand each other, I asked him how his trip up north was. He and his sidekick were clearly exhausted as he told me that they looked everywhere in NY for an affordable motel (he preferred Motel 6) and couldn’t find one. He said “We stayed in the truck by the river”. Turns out they stayed near the Brooklyn Bridge in a part of Williamsburg then known as a prime dumping ground for victims of mob hits. Even without sleep they worked non-stop. Clyde managed to keep his sidekick from breaking anything, and he meticulously labeled every item that went into the back of his rig.

After a few days of packing, North and South were clearly getting along fine. I gave Clyde a hundred dollar tip and promised another hundred if everything that went into his truck came back out. As Clyde was leaving I asked him if he ever managed to find a motel and he said “Nah, we liked it by the river”. Just to put this in perspective, a truck sitting by the river in Williamsburg would normally be stripped down to a graffiti-covered carcass in minutes. But here was Clyde, a self-described country boy, with a truck full of TVs, computers, and furniture (and my entire record collection!), and his rig still looked like it was competing in a clean truck competition. Clyde taught me that street smarts were not just a city thing. I never asked him what went down by the East River, but the fact that he not just survived, but thrived, made me recalculate the entire city/country/North/South equation.

We shook hands and Clyde climbed into the cab of his truck. As he waved goodbye, he looked at me with the grin of a cat who’d lived several lives. And he said “I could get to like this place”

P.S. Clyde got the other hundred.

Song Of The Month Credits:

.
I Could Get To Like This Place – (c) 2018 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records. Recorded, mixed and mastered at Pie Man Sound, Cary, NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, bass, organ, synth, drum programming, string & brass arrangement

CDs available on CD Baby, spotify, amazon, itunes and other music sites.

Clyde drove his truck up,
From Carolina South
About to stuff the great big apple in his mouth
Just another day of work,
Some pills and then some weed
But moving Yankees south was something very new indeed
Very new indeed

I asked Clyde how his trip was,
He said it was a trip
“No sir, I don’t quite see how people live in all this shit”
I handed him a hundred,
The deal was handle us with care
There’s another hundred waiting if our shit all gets down there
If our shit all gets down there

When we left you should’ve seen the look,
On old Clyde’s face
“Yes sir, I reckon, I could get to like this place”

His first night in the city,
Clyde couldn’t find a Motel 6
He stayed in his truck near Williamsburg,
And watched the midnight shift
He wandered streets and neighborhoods
That I’d never dare walk through
In the morning, Clyde was smiling,
“Wow, there’s so much here to do!”
There’s so much here to do,
So much here to do

By the time he packed our things,
He was an expert at parallel parking
Backing up that semi with the cabs and limos barking
He squeezed three New York apartments into his mighty rig
When he turned the key and popped the clutch,
He said “I’m gonna miss this gig”
I’m gonna miss this gig

When we left you should’ve seen the look on old Clyde’s face
“Yes sir, I reckon, I could get to like this place”

He had original Ray’s pizza and didn’t bother to say grace
“Anything at any time! I can get used to this place”

He felt freedom in the filth and anonymity in the crowd
“Anything at any time! Yes ma’am I like it fast and loud”

Clyde never did find a motel,
He said he liked it by the river
“This city is just like my job, all pickup and deliver”
The next time I saw Clyde we were unpacking way down South
I handed him a hundred, and he grinned,
With his brand new,
With his brand new New York mouth

You should’ve seen the look on old Clyde’s face
Yes sir, I reckon, I could get to like this place

June
Story
Lyrics

“Part Of A Bigger Thing”

It was the era of the gurus from India. Late sixties, early seventies. It started as an age-old quest for the meaning of life, but The Beatles gave gurus a pop-culture sheen when they trekked over to Rishikesh India to validate (and then invalidate) the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I was too busy steering clear of religion to pay these spiritual healers much attention, until my childhood hero Pete Townshend started talking about his very own guru, Meher Baba. I figured if Meher Baba was guru enough for Pete, then he was worth checking out.

I set out on a Trailways bus down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina where I’d read about the “Meher Spiritual Center“; a spiritual retreat and “religious organization devoted and dedicated to the name and spiritual purposes of Meher Baba”. When I got off the bus, no-one on Myrtle Beach had ever heard of the place. So I just started hitch hiking towards the address that I’d scribbled down. I wound up walking for miles, but low and behold, the woods and dirt roads gave way to what looked like the summer camp I went to in New Jersey.

I expected something like when the Hari Krishna’s used to surround you with tambourines and flowing robes in New York asking for donations. I was ready to defend myself against indoctrination. But, I never could have expected what I actually found.

A few lovely middle-aged women that were right out of an episode of the 1950’s TV show “Father Knows Best” greeted me. I had no reservations, but they said “no problem” and gave me the keys to my cabin. They said I could stay as long as I liked. No questions. No charges. No credit cards. No signatures. It was a private cabin in the woods near a lake, with rustic but comfortable furniture. And for my spiritual health, no TV.

So I’m in this cabin. There’s a fridge, but its empty. What do I do now? I don’t know how to meditate. Better see if I can get some food. So I start walking around the spacious grounds and come to a big cabin that serves as a meeting place. There’s a totally blind artist who paints perfect likenesses of Meher Baba (yes, really!). There’s a bunch of happy people having way too normal conversations. There are books by and about Meher Baba for sale, but no-one’s hawking them. In fact they lend me one called “The Secret Of Sleep”, which has a wonderful analogy comparing sleep to spiritual awakening. It asks, did you ever wake up from a dream and go “wow, that was so real!”. Well if you wake up again and again from what you think is reality (7 times), voila, you’re God! Right then I realized that Pete Townshend had to have read this book before he wrote Tommy for The Who.

So I ask about food and they tell me there’s no dining halls or restaurants, but that I can shop at the local markets and bring it back to my cabin. They say that one of the residents can drive me, but they first explain that he doesn’t speak, because he is honoring Meher Baba’s period of silence. (Meher Baba adhered to an oath of silence from 1925 until his death in 1969). So I get in this guy’s beat-up pickup truck and it’s all smiles but no talk. We go shopping and get back to the “camp”, and then as we are sitting in the truck, for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON I CAN THINK OF, we both start laughing. And laughing. And laughing. And it is uncontrolled fits of hysteria until we are exhausted and finally get out of the truck. And I’m thinking “Man, this is one cool religion!”.

I stayed for a few days. No solicitations. Just laughter. I read a book that says God is a connect-the-dots game, where there’s a dot in every natural being and thing. I didn’t start following Meher Baba, nor any other guru or religion. But I learned to value laughter and people who know the art of just letting you be. Sometime later, my friend Ted got caught up enough with Meher Baba that he traveled to Baba’s old residence (now his shrine) in Meherabab, India. On the way he was in a horrific train-wreck (unfortunately a common event in parts of India). The train went off the tracks, tumbled down a hillside and he claimed he was among the few lucky survivors. Ted was in my kitchen recounting this story. My father was also at the table, but hidden behind his newspaper. Ted says “Without a doubt, I survived because Meher Baba was looking after me”. My father put down his newspaper and said “Without a doubt Baba was trying to kill you and missed”. There’s always two sides to a spiritual argument. I sided with my Dad on this one.

Last year, when I wrote Part Of A Bigger Thing, I thought it was about the downside of being alone. But now that I hear the words against the gospel piano arrangement, I think its about my trip to Myrtle Beach.

I needed the beautiful sound of mythological Sirens to help bring the song to life, and my old college friend Dave Korman told me about his 14 year old daughter who is a burgeoning jazz singer. I enjoyed a few of her high school band videos, and here she is, Amia Korman, our latest Senator.

Song Of The Month Credits:

.
Part Of A Bigger Thing (c) 2018 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records. Recorded, mixed and mastered at Pie Man Sound, Cary, NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Piano, bass, guitars, vocals, drum programming, string & brass arrangement.

Amia Korman – Lots of vocal harmonies

Music available on CD Baby, spotify, amazon, itunes and other music sites.

I am the tenant, in room 7B
The one you never notice, well that’d be me
The one that keeps waiting for that doorbell to ring!
Online they say that she was only a fling
“Come be a part of a bigger thing”

I am invisible, a little piece of code
The one you never notice, you never download
Not part of the program, an uncalled subroutine
Give me the boot, or give me one little ping
Maybe I’m part of a bigger thing?
Maybe I’m part of a bigger thing?”
Maybe I’m part of a bigger thing?”

I’m out on my own, a little grain of sand
I never saw a beach, or a dune, I’ll be damned
How can I live where the pebbles are kings!
Then I hear the preach preaching,
By the edge of the spring;
“Come be a part of a bigger thing
Come be a part of a bigger thing
Come be a part of a bigger thing”

Maybe I’m part of a bigger thing
A full count for my lonely swing
A full house for my soul to bring
Maybe I’m part of bigger thing

I am a note, flying alone
Unique in my timbre, unique in my tone
A little touch of heaven on a vibrating string!
The conductor asks “’ever hear an orchestra swing?”
Maybe we’re part of a bigger thing
Maybe we’re part of a bigger thing
Maybe we’re part of a bigger thing

It’s in the silence that the sirens wail
Black magic woman grabs you by the tail
She shows you your future full of rapper’s bling
A map to the desert is all you need to bring
You’ll be a part of a bigger thing

I am an orphan, laying on the sand
Whistling that note, I just broke up the band
I ain’t got an audience, I ain’t got a clan!
But a voice from the rafters yells “You still have a fan”
But a voice from the rafters yells “You still have a fan”

Maybe I’m part of a bigger plan
Maybe you’re part of a bigger plan
Maybe we’re part of a bigger plan

Maybe we’re part of a bigger
Thing

September
Story
Lyrics

“Days Of The Gilded Manes” by Just Water

No renting of rehearsal halls. No loading of trucks. No broken backs lifting stacks of Hiwatt amplifiers. What a pleasure to “get the band back together” in 2018. All you need is a computer and the internet and you’re back!. This month it’s just me & Danny Rubin raising the Just Water flag, but Tom Korba also has a computer and an internet connection, and is threatening to join us on bass for the next song.

When I wrote this song, I knew it needed to be a Just Water track because it’s about comfortable older gentlemen (term used loosely) looking back at how we got from big hair and crazy dreams to the suburbs.

There was a pivotal moment in 1978 when Just Water (me, Danny, Tom, and Marty who’s no longer with us) had to choose between artistic integrity or a potential fast-track to success. The vote was 2 for integrity, 1 for success at any cost (the drummer!), and 1 abstention (he was OK with either path). So, integrity won, and we broke up a year later! Each of us in our own way has wondered “what if” ever since those days. Here’s how the vote happened:

The Scotti Brothers were the epitome of Los Angeles sun-soaked success. They started their own recording and management companies in 1974. By the time they auditioned us, they were already involved with promoting and/or managing Barbara Streisand, Olivia Newton John, and a bunch of teen-idol types. On the “rock” side of things they were involved with Dylan and Foreigner. Foreigner was at the top of the charts with their songs “Feels Like The First Time” and “Cold As Ice”. The Scotti Brothers had us put on a “showcase” for them, which is basically a private concert, with our complete stage setup and sound system. They flew from LA to NYC with an entourage, all with ready-for-their-cameo tans and flowing gilded manes. They’d heard our single “Singin’ In The Rain” and wanted to sign up a CBGBs band of their own. We were nervous, but we delivered, and their pitch to us went like this: “We can really do something with you, but your songs are too good. We need what sells, and what sells is vomit!” (Yes, that’s EXACTLY what they said!). They went on to say that “When our band Foreigner writes songs, Mick and Lou get out their guitars and shout “let’s write some vomit music”, and then they sell in the millions!”. I still don’t know if the vomit thing was how they thought you communicate with New York punks, or was simply their way of saying “f**k art, let’s make some money”. They asked us if we’d be willing to go out to LA and do it their way. They probably expected us to jump at the offer, but we told them we’d need to discuss it. Then that integrity thing popped up and we voted no. If you measure success in the usual ways, we were stupid and naive.

Actually, I’m quite happy with how things turned out. I think it was early in 1977 when there was a little ad in the Village Voice that advertised a show at CBGB’s, with Just Water as the headliner and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers opening for us. We’d never heard of them. On the day of the gig another band took Tom Petty’s place, because according to Hilly, who owned CBGBs, “Tom Petty’s van broke down on the way up from Florida”. Now most sane people would say “Ha, it sure worked out better for Tom Petty than for Just Water”. And Petty does have 3.8 million more listeners on Spotify than Just Water does! But after reading Tom Petty’s biography, I’m sure that we came out ahead. Instead of enjoying his success, he spent many years alone, unable to get out of bed, and never fully recovered from depression and drugs. I’m thrilled to still be getting out of bed, and still making music. And every stream or download of a Just Water or Senators song feels like going Platinum.

..and the Scotti Brothers continued to go Platinum with more upchuck.

Song Of The Month Credits:

.
Days Of The Gilded Manes – (c) 2018 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC.

Performed by Just Water

Written by Mitchell Dancik. Produced, recorded, and mixed by Mitchell Dancik & Danny Rubin at Pie Man Sound, NC and Danny’s Place, NY.

Mitchell Dancik – Lead Vocals, guitars, bass, orchestration, synths & drums.

Danny Rubin – Lead guitars, backup vocals, bass, orchestration, synths & drums.

Do you remember when this hell-hole suburb
Was a body-flooded plain?
When the muddy farce of take the castle
Was washed away in the rain
And the witch-doctor was a flautist
He doth flutter, flit, and feign
Yes the witch-doctor was a flautist
In the days of the gilded manes

Were you a soldier, did you miss out?
On the crossroad where we switched the trains?
We camped out on the campus
While in the jungle you got deranged
And we howled into the ether
Turn it down, the Deans complain
Yes we howled like male Arethas
In the days of the gilded manes

We’re all in this together
Until the first one stakes his claim
But it always was forever
In the days of the gilded manes

Oh, we’re all in this together
Until the first one makes his name
But it always was forever
In the days of the gilded manes

Was I that guy I see in pictures?
In that pickle that the prosecutor frames?
My brain dragged around in manacles
I never thought that I’d be naming names
Still we knew we’d won the jackpot
On days before crashing planes
Oh, we knew we’d won the jackpot
In the days of the gilded manes

I used to stare up at the Chrysler
I didn’t know from whence it came
But I knew it was my birthright
And that that building bore my name
A good psychiatrist might’ve warned me
Of these certain future pains
A good psychiatrist might’ve cured me
In the days of the gilded manes

In the days of the gilded manes

Did we ever have it together?
Were we just suckers right from the start?
Did we run from the battle to the suburbs?
With an aching in our hearts

Oh, we never had it together
We were suckered, right from the start
We ran from the battle to the suburbs
With a hole inside our hearts

Do you remember when these fake Houdinis
Had us all wrapped up in chains?
And we picked the locks with our Thorens needles
And ran the music through our veins
What ever happened to the flautist?
Have they discovered his remains?
Oh, what ever happened to that flautist?
In the days of the gilded manes

December
Story
Lyrics

“Santiago de Cuba”

The December 2018 song is “Santiago de Cuba” (and it’s the 10th anniversary of the Song Of The Month Club!)

I visited Cuba a few years ago, and in a 2016 song of the month I sang about the most obvious of all Cuban metaphors; how the 1950’s American muscle cars (still running all over Cuba) equate to the suspended aspirations of the whole country. Those cars are now enjoying a whole new life as tourist attractions for the Americans that are finally able to visit. But it turns out that it’s not the old cars that keep me thinking about Cuba. There are three other images that are burned in my brain, which inspired the song Santiago de Cuba;

Image #1. There was a retired elderly baseball player sitting outside a restaurant, who earned his living by signing autographs and speaking to tourists. The hostess explained that he was once a superstar in Cuba. It was an off day for autographs, as he was sitting alone. One of those odd facts about Castro’s communist regime is that baseball was considered an essential part of Cuban culture, and was therefore subsidized by the government. The idea was that all citizens should be able to afford tickets to baseball games. Cheap tickets meant cheap salaries, which is why so many Cuban athletes have come to the United States. During my visit, the average salary for baseball players was less than $100 a month (but it did come with free health and dental care). The retired superstar at the restaurant was a Cuban patriot, which meant he never left, and never made a decent living.

Image #2. My wife and I had a delightful dinner in the remains of a building that had partially collapsed. Even though I’ve lived in several dilapidated buildings in Manhattan’s East Village, this one really scared me. On the stairs you looked down to avoid missing steps and you looked up to see the stars where once there was a roof. As you entered the restaurant there was a model of how the building would look if they ever had the money to repair it. We sat on the top floor, where we could look down at the rubble of several nearby buildings, as if there was a recent war fought in the streets of Havana. There wasn’t. It’s just that everything is broken, and there’s no money to fix it. The restaurant’s kitchen was in the remains of a lower floor, and so the friendly staff happily bounced from one hard-hat zone to another to bring the gringos our food. It was delicious. Aside from pondering the odds of a total collapse during our dinner, it all felt comfortable and familiar, like being at the opening of a new club or art gallery in a bad part of New York that you know will be gentrified once the word gets out.

Image# 3. In a Cuban version of the movie Groundhog Day, everyday you have the same conversation with a different divided family, Who left, who stayed, who’s right, who’s wrong, and when will these families ever be together again? Everyone you meet is from a family with members in the United States and members lost along the way, who can’t agree on where to draw the line between Socialism and Democracy. It’s as if the landing at the Bay Of Pigs was just yesterday.

The song Santiago de Cuba combines these three images into a fictional, but not unfactual, account of a newly wed wife. Her young ball player husband, Santiago, creeps down the uneven stairs of their partially collapsed apartment, and leaves on the dangerous journey to Florida.

Song Of The Month Credits:

.
Santiago de Cuba – (c) 2018 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC.

Written, produced, recorded, and mixed by Mitchell Dancik at Pie Man Sound, NC, 2018.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, Latin percussion, guitars, harmonium, bass, piano, synths & drum programming.

Is that you Santiago?
Whispering in the dark
Is that you Santiago?
Within the wind whistling through the tarp
I know it’s you Santiago
I hear the beating of a heart
That leaps over the stairwell gaps
To where the foreign cars do start

Is that you Santiago?
Slipping past the rule of law
Am I among the ghosts that one day,
You would come back for?
Is that you Santiago?
I hear ideas bursting in your brain
The frog’s symmetric singing
To the claves of the trains

Is that you Santiago?
Looking once more at my bed
Is that you Santiago?
I can scream but I pretend instead
That it is you Santiago,
With what you promise, and what is real
With my childhood under my pillow
And a lifetime left to feel

Is that you Saint James de Cuba?
So much is hanging on your name
Is that you Santiago de Cuba?
Or lips moving in a picture frame
Is that you Santiago?
Or just a breeze blowing through my mind
Tales are told by the ones who leave,
Not by the ones they leave behind

Is that you Santiago?
Breathing hard and soaking wet
Are they with you Santiago?
Am I collecting on our bet?
That it is you Santiago,
That smell on the laundry sack
There’s only red or black cards
They never leave or they never come back

They never leave or they never come back

My mascara runs for miles
Over martyrs and migrants and mules
Is that my Santiago?
At the head of a column of fools?

They never leave or they never come back

2017

January
Story
Lyrics

“Carnegie Curtains”

2016 was a year of profound losses in the world of music and elsewhere. In the midst of so much bad news the world may have missed another colossal loss that befell us at the stroke of midnight on December 30, 2016; The closing of the Carnegie Deli in New York City! It’s the end of a long era of famous Jewish delis in the Theater District of NYC. In 2012 New York lost the Stage Deli. And now that the Carnegie Deli is closed, theater goers will have to eat their cheesecake without a pound of corned beef and pastrami. Carnegie was done in by the bizarre discovery that they had powered their kitchen stoves by siphoning off gas with an illegal tap into the city’s gas lines.

But all is not lost! New York still has its best Jewish deli, the less famous but more authentic Second Avenue Deli, which is naturally on Third Avenue. While Carnegie will now be famous for stealing gas, The Second Avenue Deli has long been famous because of the 1996 murder of its founder, Abe Lebewohl. But it should be famous for its heart as well as its kitchen.

As a struggling musician in the early 1980’s, I lived on the same block as the Second Ave Deli, while it was still located on Second Avenue in the East Village. I couldn’t afford their glorious pastrami sandwiches, but along with other local musicians we could afford to sit at the counter, order hot dogs, and then stuff ourselves on the free pickles and free cabbage “health” salad. I did get some pastrami sandwiches out of Beatles promoter Sid Bernstein, when he briefly managed my band “Just Water”. In fact the only band meetings we ever had with Sid were at the deli!

Every weekend there were long lines outside Second Avenue Deli from noon until 9:00 PM, which I would walk past as I went to and from my apartment. Because so many of the patrons were senior citizens Abe installed benches on the sidewalk for them. The benches were bolted down, since nothing that is not bolted down survives a NYC street. The homeless, which at that time were affectionately called “bums”, discovered those benches and would sleep on them day and night. Since Abe intended the benches for his customers, he made a deal with the homeless. If they kept the benches clear and clean during the day, he’d lay out a free buffet on the benches at closing time. So, if you were at Second Ave and 10th street sometime after midnight, you’d see an army of “bums” hovering over plates full of fried chicken, knishes, hot dogs, and anything that would have gone to waste at the deli. I was often tempted to get in on Abe’s deal!

Every Thanksgiving I noticed that Second Ave Deli vans were delivering platters everywhere in my neighborhood. I discovered that Abe would gather a list of elderly people that were physically unable to leave their apartments, and he’d deliver a free Thanksgiving dinner to them. He never advertised this, nor mentioned this to the press.

Abe was killed while on his way to deposit a day’s cash at a local bank, thinking his was a safe neighborhood. Two thousand people attended his funeral. The case remains unsolved.

This month’s song really has nothing to do with pastrami, except that as I was mourning the demise of the Carnegie, I picked up a 3 string dulcimer and recorded whatever came out. Then I played around and over what I’d improvised, and ended up with this instrumental.

And finally, if you are ever in NYC seeing a Broadway show and need that “fix” that the Carnegie Deli once provided, head south about a mile, and have a bite at Abe’s place. His nephews still run it.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Carnegie Curtains- (c) 2017 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written January 2017. Recorded, mixed and mastered January 2017 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Dulcimer, bass, organ, fuzz guitar, percussion & drum programming.

Big Announcement: There’s an album release concert and party for the album I recently produced for The Big Strong Arms!Celebrate with us at Linda’s Bar on Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC at 9:00 PM on Thursday January 19.

Instrumental – Mostly Dulcimer

April
Story
Lyrics

“Low Cool”

Welcome to the 100th edition of the “Song Of The Month Club”, featuring the music of “Mitchell Dancik & The Senators”

The April 2017 song is “Low Cool“

Wow. How did we get to 100 months of songs?

In 2006 my friend and sound engineer extraordinaire Neal Steingart said to me “Hey, you’re a computer guy, and digital sound is just 1’s and 0’s. What are you waiting for? For $199 you can restart your music career!”

So, for exactly $199, I bought this computer program called “Sonar”, dug up some old Just Water microphones and started learning how to crawl, walk, and run again. Once I got the hang of it I decided to pick up where I left off when my band Just Water broke up in 1978. I still have my old notebooks with the 300 songs I wrote in the 1970’s. “Low Cool” was the song I was about to introduce to Just Water when we broke up.

We often rehearsed in a bedroom of my parents house with all the surfaces covered in blankets. The air conditioner was always set to Low Cool, because the expense of High Cool was strictly forbidden by my parents. I recorded a simple demo of Low Cool in the 70’s, and in 2007 I made it my first serious attempt at a new rock recording. I’ve tinkered with Low Cool for 10 years, and finally finished it this month, as a fitting nod to the first 100.

This all started as an exercise program! I was rusty all over. I figured if I recorded a new song every month it would force me to get in shape. After a couple of years it turned into the Song Of The Month Club. Can’t stop now. I am going for a few hundred more!

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Low Cool – (c) 2017 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 1977. Recorded, mixed and mastered from 2007-2017 at Dancik Plant South and Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, disco synth-bass, organ, piano, fake horns, percussion & drum programming.

The kid I’m talking about wasn’t born
He and his momma never felt any pain
He crept out onto an eiderdown crib
She cleaned his mess up as soon as it came

He never strained for a thing
He never broke any rules
He’s been reading about us
And living his life low cool

The kid I’m talking about ain’t no bother
He and his momma never take to the streets
He can’t take chances with the hot summer crowd
Most of all, you know he can’t stand the heat

He never burned in the sun
He is the family jewel
He’s been living in storage
With the temperature set low cool

His fingers are his only tool
He don’t sweat it
He don’t regret it
He’s been diggin’ it all low cool

The kid I’m talking about wasn’t born
He and his momma never felt any pain
He came to, inside a totaled Mustang
He got a new one the very same day

He never strained for a thing
He never broke any rules
He’s been living in storage
With the temperature set low cool

His fingers are his only tool
He don’t sweat it
He don’t regret it
He’s been diggin’ it all low cool

Set the thermostat down
We’re gonna mess around on low cool

July
Story
Lyrics

“This is What I Got Whadya Got”

Civil rights and french kisses are the strange bedfellows that cohabitate this song. My introduction to civil rights came from my Mom’s housekeeper Ocilla. When I was six, Ocilla came to the house once a week. She was in her sixties and had moved up to Brooklyn from the south. She’d tell me how great this guy Abe Lincoln was, and how he freed her people. She’d softly sing gospel music while she worked. My parents had this ornate set of Chinese vases. These vases were covered with carvings and had a giant dragon ship in the middle. It was the only thing in the house that looked expensive. Each week Ocilla would accidentally chip a piece off of one of the vases while dusting. Then one day we heard a big crash, and the dragon ship would sail no more. I have the last remaining vase. I never dust it. We encountered some tough times and moved to a small apartment. Ocilla retired and headed back south.

When I was 12 my civil rights education continued at Camp Vacamas in New Jersey. The camp was established to give city kids a three week break in the summer. It was considered part of New York and New Jersey’s welfare program, and you could only attend if your parent’s income was below a certain level. The camp was a perfect reflection of the racial makeup of New York City. Every summer would end with a camp competition known as “Color War”, where each team picks a flag color. I know this sounds totally unbelievable in today’s world, but that summer our counselors had the novel idea to have a RACE WAR, and divide the camp into black and white teams! We all had a blast (not literally), and in the alternate universe of Camp Vacamas (which still exists), it was actually a good day for race relations! The race war was a draw, proving that equality can prevail.

Camp Vacamas offered up other forms of education. Bonnie was from Spanish Harlem. All I knew was the song “there is a rose in Spanish Harlem”. Bonnie convinced me that there was a lot more going on in Spanish Harlem than what went on in my neighborhood. And none of it had to do with roses growing out of the pavement. She offered me my first kiss, which I totally messed up. That’s when the french kiss lesson came. I couldn’t believe that a 12 year old could know as much as Bonnie. Her parting gift to me was a snapping turtle that she caught by hand in the lake. She signed my camp log “Linda”, because “going by your real name could be dangerous”. And so, to avoid danger, in the song I don’t refer to her as Bonnie or Linda. Ocilla just sounded better. Three good teachers for a kid from Brooklyn.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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This Is What I Got Whadya Got? – (c) 2017 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 1980-2017. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2017 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, rockabilly guitars, bass, keyboards, horn arrangement, drums & drum programming.

A long time ago there was a little school shack
Me and Ocilla were a’kissin’ out back
I said “my Daddy said we’re all the same”
Ocilla said “no boy, the difference is plain”

This is what I got, whadya got?
This is what I got, whadya got?
This is what I got, whadya got?
This is what I got,
Whadya got?

My friends looked dirty and they talked unkind
Said me and Ocie must be color-blind
But we saw the same shade of purple that night
We saw the difference underneath the moonlight

Ocie please listen, Ocilla don’t cry
Button that button, Dontcha ask why
Ocie come back here, Ocie don’t run
They won’t let us finish what we’ve begun

This is what I got whadya got?

Now I’m walking down a big lonely street
A bad girl stalking starts her meet and greet
She says “Hey songwriter, don’t stereotype me”
Is that you Ocilla, Well I’m a cat up a tree!

This is what I got, whadya got?
This is what I got, whadya got?
This is what I got, whadya got?
This is what I got,
Whadya got?

October
Story
Lyrics

“Every Line of Code”

We seem to be in a maddening spiral of bad news, including natural disasters and the early demise of so many music icons. Although my personal tastes lean more towards Bowie, Petty, and Prince, this month’s song was inspired by the loss of Glen Campbell to Alzheimer’s disease. He’s known mostly for some glitzy country hits like Rhinestone Cowboy, but before that he was one of the most popular session guitarists. He played on classic 1960’s pop records like You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling, Strangers In The Night, and half of the Beach Boy’s Pet Sounds album. When he took a shot at making his own records, he put a young songwriter (Jimmy Webb) on the map with By The Time I Get to Phoenix and Wichita Lineman. But the act that impressed me most was his final act.

The Campbell family decided not to hide Glen’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in 2010. Instead they courageously mounted a 2-year world tour and recording session to accomplish multiple goals: to let Glen Campbell do what he loved for as long as possible, and to raise awareness for a disease that encroaches ever more on our aging society. And they decided to let filmmaker James Keach document the whole thing. The film “Glen Campbell – I’ll Be Me” was released in 2014. In the amazing and candid concert scenes, Campbell is unable to remember his daughter’s name. He has to read it from the teleprompter that was onstage to show him the lyrics to the songs. But what amazed me most (and I assume it amazed some Alzheimer’s researchers as well) was that although he couldn’t remember a word of his songs, he needed no teleprompter to let him know what notes & chords to play on the guitar. In fact, the teleprompter would show “solo” to prompt a guitar solo, but he only needed that one word to get going. The term “muscle memory” just doesn’t explain it convincingly enough for me. You see, most guitarists at the height of their youthful powers can’t play half the solos that Campbell does in an advanced state of Alzheimer’s.

That got me thinking about what sticks most in our minds. What skills, passions, and idiosyncrasies hang on until the bitter end? Those ponderings inspired this song. In my case, I might not remember yesterday’s lunch, but I can tell you anything about the record albums I bought in the 60’s and 70’s. And I can remember the computer code I wrote in programs for over 35 years, including the names of the files, the fields, the parameters and the subroutines. This song of the month thing is my way of ingratiating the keepers of immortality one song at a time. Who knows, maybe my best guitar solos are ahead of me.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Every Line Of Code – (c) 2017 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 2017. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2017 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, piano, guitars, bass, organ, orchestration, horn arrangement, clocks as percussion & drum programming.

I took the garbage out
Seems like yesterday?
Check the calendar
We must’ve lost some days
We must’ve lost some days

I turned the computer on
It wants a password now
Who went and changed this thing?
I don’t need it anyhow
I don’t need it anyhow

I went to the grocery store
I’ve been down this aisle before
The mayo used to be right here
But it ain’t here no more…
I don’t use mayo anymore

I know this wedding hall
I’ve danced in here before
There goes my bride to be
If I can dance across this floor
I don’t use mayo anymore

I remember programs
Every line of code
Is this the logical way out?
Is this the way back home?
Is this the turn for home

Every song, who produced, who wrote
The album covers and the liner notes
Works of art in my head explode
And every line
Every line
Every line of code

I took the garbage out
Or was it yesterday?
Check the calendar
We must’ve lost some days
We must’ve lost some days

February
Story
Lyrics

“My Replacement Parts”

My father opened his eyes and started talking to me as if it was just a normal day. As if he was not going in and out of a drug induced coma after open-heart surgery. My family was taking turns staying with him around the clock at the hospital. On my watch he regained consciousness for about 30 minutes. This song, with a dash of artistic liberty, is the story my father told me that day, which was also the last conversation we ever had.

I don’t remember any “Hi, how are you” small-talk. He started out with “Damn; I was on the battlefield and these medics just kept on coming”. He was describing in vivid and believable terms where he’d been while we all thought he was comatose in his hospital bed. “We were under constant attack and I couldn’t move. Whenever another soldier was shot, the medics made me reach into my body, and tear out my body parts to replace what was missing in the injured soldier. These medics were using my body to fix everyone else, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. They just kept coming and coming for months.”

He wasn’t angry. He was just telling his kid his story. Was it something from his past? Well no, because even though he volunteered for a secret mission in World War Two, the mission was cancelled and he spent the war in the Military Police patrolling Miami Beach. Was it what it feels like on the inside when surgeons and prescription drugs are trying in vain to save you? Maybe.

His words remain vivid in my mind, but it took 20 years until I found the right musical setting to place his story in. I needed to describe what was happening simultaneously on the battlefield and in the hospital. I’m still not sure whether it was the battlefield or the hospital that was real. And I needed the music to be a relentless pulse, just like those medics that kept coming for his replacement parts.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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My Replacement Parts- (c) 2017 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 2008. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2016-2017 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Lots of guitars, bass, piano, organ, synthesizers, orchestration, percussion & drum programming. Sound affects based on clips from freesound.org

They’re coming for my kidneys
They’re coming for my lungs
They’re coming through the minefields
To the carnage at the front
They’re coming with their nurses
They’re tugging at my heart
They’re coming – for my replacement parts

I swap my bone and muscle
With the mangled and Devine
I feel what’s missing from their torso
And I tear it out of mine
She’s coming with the rations
She’s reinterpreting the charts
They’re coming – for my replacement parts
For my replacement parts

Shrapnel, shrapnel, everywhere
Like Disney fireworks in the air
The dream, so real. Life can’t compete
My tiny platelets sound… Retreat!

They’re coming for my birthday
Medics landing in the spring
They’re staying through the winter
Until they’ve eaten everything
They’re practicing malpractice
Rehearsing with my heart
They’re coming. They’re coming;
For my replacement parts
For my replacement parts

They’re coming for my kidneys
They’re coming for my lungs
They’re coming with the lawyers
They’re coming for my tongue
She’s botching my injection
Re-interpreting the charts
They’re coming
For my replacement parts

Take mine… my replacement parts
Take mine… my replacement parts

May
Story
Lyrics

“The Flooring Guy”

For thirty years I was a “flooring guy”. Well, technically speaking I was a software guy, who happened to create systems for the floor covering industry. But I always hung around with flooring people; not the software crowd. For awhile I was a flooring guy by day and punk rocker by night. I always got a mouthful of “What The !**!” from my musician friends when I’d mention that I was going into floor covering. To them, it was the equivalent of becoming a used car salesman. Maybe worse. But this song isn’t about me. It’s about a real flooring guy…

Two flooring installers showed up at my house to put down some vinyl in a small room. In the flooring business, the installers are known as the tight end of the funnel, because there’s too many flooring salespeople and not enough competent installers. One of these guys was a pro, and the other; ..well let’s just say the other was asking for a song to be written about him. He had broken out into a dripping sweat before the work began. He looked like he might have lived upstairs from CBGB’s in the 70’s (at the infamous 50 cent per night Palace Hotel flophouse). Clearly there was a history of drug and alcohol abuse, mixed with lots of bad luck and trouble. But his new job as a flooring guy was some sort of divine salvation. I never saw anyone hustle (and sweat) as much for his boss, who was many years his junior. He’d been to hell and back, but he’d been saved by the floor. He was alright by me.

I imagined that he and I (fellow flooring guys) did have a few things in common. First, we can never walk into a room without noticing the floor: Is it real wood, or vinyl masquerading as wood? Second, we’d both rather be watching a Donnie Yen martial arts movie than watching a grout joint dry.

This song is dedicated to all those flooring guys that are abused daily by customers who complain about visible seams and unmatched dye lots.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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The Flooring Guy – (c) 2017 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 2017. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2017 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, bass, string & woodwind arrangement, percussion & drum programming.

I’ll watch one more Donnie Yen movie before I die
I’m down on my knees
I’m the flooring guy

I measured her bedroom with RFMS
I knocked over the thin-set
I made a big mess.
I got the DT’s and the LVT’s
I got joint pains and grout joints and joints where I drink
I got joints that I puff on when I hear myself think
And as I’m puffing,
I can hear myself think…

I think I’ll watch one more Donnie Yen movie before I die
I’m down on my knees
I’m the flooring guy

This Armstrong, didn’t walk on the moon
But this lady, is gonna walk on it soon
Listen to her scream, she can still see the seam
Immigration is out there;
They’re knocking on my door
And all I did was lay down this damn God-Damn floor!
And I start thinking,
As I’m dragged out the door….

God I got one more Donnie Yen movie before I die
I’m down on my knees
I’m the flooring guy

I got tack strip and strip joints and bevel on my brain
I got mills and bills and pills and distribution to blame
Then I speak up;
When the judge calls my name;

Judge I got one more Donnie Yen movie before I die
I’m down on my knees
I’m the flooring guy
I’m the flooring guy
I’m the flooring guy

August
Story
Lyrics

“Can’t Connect”

In 2007, when I started work on this song, I was wondering if there was a connection between increasing smart phone use and decreasing birth rates. Remember when you’d see couples on dates staring into each other’s eyes instead of their phones? Recently I traveled throughout Japan where I’d bear witness to the decline in human connections. In the United States people are noisy and in-your-face even when self-absorbed. But Japan, where politeness and respect for personal space rules (and birth rates are alarmingly low), is the perfect petri dish for observing oncoming human isolation.

Everywhere in Japan you notice people (especially young people) wearing masks. I assumed they were only worn to guard against air pollution, but I had a guide that explained why so many people wore the masks, based on a recent study. The initial reason was due to a Japanese stigma against taking sick days off from work. Instead of staying home (a sign of disloyalty to your employer), you’d come to the office sick, but wearing a mask to keep your coworkers safe. Other people starting wearing masks to avoid catching what those other workers with masks were bringing into the office. Some wore masks when the winds blew pollution over from the Chinese factories just across the water. But the most alarming finding of the survey was the large number of young woman and men who said they wore masks “to avoid personal interaction”. They claimed it was far easier to be ignored and to ignore others when you wore a mask. These people had scratched marriage off of their list of future endeavors. It was now hip and cool to be single – forever.

Perhaps Mother Nature is saying” OK there’s enough of y’all out there on Earth”. But as a songwriter, this represents a disturbing limitation of subject matter. Touching through phones, kissing through masks, and no-one to argue with at home? What kind of songs are those? Anyway, this song is my desperate primer for the smart-phone generation on where you can and can not make a real human physical connection.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Can’t Connect – (c) 2017 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 2007-2017. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2017 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, bass, electric keyboards, simulated sax, horn arrangement, drums & drum programming.

You can do it in a phone booth
But you can’t do it on the phone
You can’t do it in a chat room
You can’t chat her up alone

You can’t do it on a lap top
But you can do it on a lap
You can’t do it on a flat screen
But you can do it in your flat

Can’t Connect Can’t Connect

You can’t do it with Emoji
If she’s not of blood and flesh
You can’t navigate your mouse there
Kid you gotta hit refresh,

Can’t Connect Can’t Connect

You can’t do it with a joy stick
Playing Grand Theft ‘til you’re blind
You can’t do with an android
You gotta do it with mankind

You can’t do it over IM
But it’s good with MP3
You can do it using Pay-Pal
But its better when it’s free

Can’t Connect Can’t Connect

You can’t do it on a desktop
But you can do it on your desk
You can’t do it on your Gameboy
It’s not a game, boy get some rest!

Can’t Connect Can’t Connect

You can’t do it over land lines
You can’t use a satellite
It’s good to look at YouTube
But just to whet the appetite

She won’t materialize in the hallway
Between the bedroom and the bath
You need to get out in the fresh air
Where the cows are making calves

You can’t do it on the network
But you can do it in a net
Can’t do it on the Cat 5
At least is hasn’t happened yet

Can’t Connect Can’t Connect

November
Story
Lyrics

“Words Matter”

How does an incident at a nail salon keep a song off of TV? I’ll get to that soon.

First let me take care of some business! My new CD “The Mayor Of Brighton Beach” came out yesterday and is available on amazon, iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and other music sites. It’s full of songs about immigrants, sons of immigrants, ghosts, pirates, time machines and New York cabs.

This month Paul Cufflin, an extraordinary musician and songwriter, has single-handedly taken the place of The Senators, playing guitar, bass, and drums. Paul, who releases music as the one-man band Elijah Honey, was born in the same hospital in London as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, but took a longer and more winding road to success. The Senators and Elijah Honey have followed astoundingly similar career paths, with each of us sidelining our dreams as other careers gave us the stability to reconnect full time with music. Paul’s dreams (and wife) led him from England to San Pedro de Alcantara in Spain, where from his home studio he has created songs for hundreds of movies, advertisements and TV shows including Sons of Anarchy, Big Bang Theory, True Blood, Aquarius and The Voice. A few months ago Paul, knowing what a huge Who fan I am, sent me a Who-like backing track and asked if I could contribute words and melodies. I reached for some lyrics I had written a few years back, crafted a vocal melody, and Paul sent it off to the producers of a major cable network. The producers loved the track but said it couldn’t be used because Trump voters would be offended. Which leads us back to the nail salon:

A few years back (before the last US presidential campaigns) my wife was complaining to me about some airhead that worked in a nail salon she visited. My wife was discussing France with the salon owner, and this guy kept butting in and dissing France; a place he’d never been to. My wife, who was educated in French schools, has relatives there, and has traveled all over France, nearly whacked the guy, but the salon owner finally told him to keep his mouth shut. This was the inspiration for my song “Words Matter”. It’s about big mouthed know-nothings, or as they say in Texas “all hat, no cattle”. Now, in 2017, it appears that any reference to creeps like this guy is automatically deemed a political statement. What about classic songs of the past like Dylan’s “Idiot Wind”, Jagger’s “Sympathy For The Devil”, and Sinatra’s “Something Stupid”? Are they off the air too?

Paul and I were disappointed that the track wouldn’t be on TV. Then, soon after our rejection, a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction event occurred. Kim Jung Un referred to Trump as a “mad dog” and compared his speeches to “a dog barking”. The first line of Words Matter is “Mad dogs bark louder”, which means no one will ever believe that the song is really about a blowhard in a nail salon! Maybe politics is in my blood. Time for a transfusion.

And for those of us bemoaning the good old days before the world went digital, let me give a nod to the gloriously inexpensive digital technology that allows Paul and I to collaborate as if we were in the same room, even though we were separated by the Atlantic ocean throughout the production of Words Matter.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Words Matter – (c) 2017 Paul Cufflin & Mitchell Dancik. Recorded, mixed and mastered in San Pedro de Alcántara, Spain at Paul’s studio, and in Cary North Carolina at Pie Man Sound.

Paul Cufflin (aka Elijah Honey) – Guitar, bass, and drums.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals and guitar.

Mad dogs – Bark louder.
Pigs land – On pork platters

Trash piles – Waste splatters.
Holy shhhh…. Words matter.

Take faith – But just a smatter
Hey pulpit man, don’tcha know…
Words Matter! Words Matter!

Keep your mouth shut
Makes You Smarter
Keep your mouth shut
Makes you smarter

Rumors fly – Chit chatters
Bombshells drop – Dishes shatter

Cock-a-roach – People scatter
Make a toast – Spin the platter

Life or death – Fake the latter
Eulogize – With the words that matter

More rap – Less natter

Keep your mouth shut
Makes You Smarter
Keep your mouth shut
Makes you smarter

Out in the fields – Dumb batter
Play by play – Just pitter patter

Brain drains – Bodies fatter
Eat books – Words matter

Take faith – But just a smatter
Hey pulpit man, don’tcha know ya know
The words do matter
Words Matter
Mad dogs bark louder

March
Story
Lyrics

“Three Pillows”

In 2016, while producing the debut album of The Big Strong Arms, I got to know two very talented horn players. Sax player Roger Babson and trumpeter Mark Powell (who both play on this tune) got me hooked on how jazz could be legitimately incorporated into nearly any other form of music. So, with the world upset over America losing its core values, let’s not forget jazz, a core value that no-one can defile (except maybe Kenny G).

My initial tolerance of jazz was sparked through rock n roll by famed concert promoter Bill Graham, who ran the Fillmore’s East & West. He was devoted to exposing kids to music they wouldn’t normally listen to. In 1969 I saw The Woody Herman Orchestra open for Led Zeppelin, and then in 1970 Miles Davis opened for Laura Nyro. But my true love of jazz came from the totally improbable fact that for two hours my father and The Who were in the same building.

My parents were simply baffled that my brother Ken and I would go to every Who show, sneaking out at night with the devotion and energy they wished would go towards school and jobs. In June 1970, when The Who were to play their rock opera “Tommy” at the Metropolitan Opera House, my parents broke down and said “Enough is enough! Get us tickets so we can see what you boys are up to!” And so, while Ken and I were right up front, my parents were in 10th row center orchestra looking perhaps a bit out of place, but were probably mistaken for record company execs. When The Who left the stage, the crowd was going bonkers! But above the roars of “Aarghhh, Yeaaaah, and Moorrrr”, I could hear the distinct cry of a lone “Bravo!”. I turned around. Yep. It was Dad.

My parents review of the concert is etched in my memory:

Dad: “I just watched the drummer. He was exactly like Gene Krupa!”

Mom: “I have no idea what they were singing, but I got caught up in how powerful it was”

That got me to ask my father about the music he listened to as a kid. He admitted that he too would sneak out at night – to see The Jimmie Lunceford Band up in Harlem. Damn, I never knew he was that cool! And if you haven’t heard Jimmie Lunceford, click on this clip from 1935. At a minute and a half into the clip they play their classic “Rhythm Is Our Business”. That started me listening to jazz of every era, and now every year you can find me and my brothers at Jazz Fest in New Orleans. Which leads us to “Three Pillows”, a jazz-based song about sleep aids, with trumpets from Mark Powell who coincidentally runs Dream Essentials, a business devoted solely to sleeping soundly.

And I almost forgot. That concert by The Who at the Met ended with Pete Townshend throwing his guitar to my friend Binky Philips who was seated next to me. Just for the record, Binky would have been torn to shreds by raging fans if it were not for his trusted but jealous friends who saw that Pete aimed the guitar at him. We surrounded him until he was safe. My son Max got to see that guitar, on loan from Binky, at The Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Three Pillows – (c) 2017 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 2016. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2017 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Roger Babson – Saxophone

Mark Powell – Trumpet

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, archtop guitar, electric guitars, bass, piano, orchestration, percussion & drum programming. Rooster courtesy of freesound.org

Three pillows are killing me
My head’s on the ceiling
My back’s in a squeeze
My neck’s so distorted that,
My dreams are aborted
Three pillows are killing me

Three pillows are killing me
To prop up my breathing
They won’t let me breath
My neck’s so inverted that my
Dreams are perverted
Three pillows are killing me

One pillow (I get to sleep)
Two pillows (Nobody sleeps)
Three pillows (Now you’re counting sheep)
Three pillows are killing me.
Killing me.

Sound asleep ain’t the sound that it seems
Tick tock between the silence and the screams
My scull’s relocated
It feels decapitated
Three pillows are killing me

June
Story
Lyrics

“Decommission”

Lately a bunch of famous musicians have been in the courts accused of plagiarism. The case by Joe Satriani against Coldplay was a slam dunk. Coldplay’s song “Via La Vida” took a lengthy part of its chorus directly from Joe Satriani’s “If I Could Fly“. Same melody, same chords; case closed. However, some other cases were not as clear cut, and they disturbed songwriters like me, because they could fundamentally redefine what a song is.

Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page was sued by a dead guy, whose heirs claimed that the intro of Stairway To Heaven had been ripped off from the song Taurus by the band Spirit. Jimmy Page seemed fair game, since he’d been successfully sued before, for ripping off Willie Dixon for the Zep hit “Whole Lotta Love”. But this was different; the law suit did not involve either the melody or lyrics of the song. Copyright law states that a violation occurs if a song is “substantially similar” to a previously copyrighted song, which leaves lots of room for lawyers to litigate. There’s a thing called the 7 note limit, which means that at least 8 notes in a row must be the same for a melody to be considered stolen. But the rules are really just guidelines subject to dispute. What upset me about the Stairway To Heaven case was that the supposedly stolen intro was actually a variation on a chord progression used in several pieces of music dating back to the classical era. Although it’s a very recognizable intro, I’d argue that it is a part of the arrangement, and not part of the core composition. At least not enough to say that the copyright to Stairway To Heaven needed to be shared. The jury agreed with me.

In the 1960’s there were lots of “borrowed” musical bits and pieces, but at the time they were called “influences”, not “rip-offs”. When Keith Richards wrote what is arguably the most famous guitar riff of all time – the riff to “Satisfaction”, he admitted that it was just a place holder for a horn section. In soul music, the horns often played those exact notes. The Stones never got around to replacing Keith’s fuzz guitar riff with real horns, and the rest is history. When Neil Young “borrowed” the Satisfaction riff in his song Mr. Soul, no-one sued.

The plagiarism suit that irks me the most has been settled, unsettled, and resettled in the English courts for years. It took Mathew Fisher, the organ player in the band Procol Harum, more than 30 years to decide to sue his band-mates. He wanted partial credit for the song “A Whiter Shade Of Pale“, which has the most radio plays of any song ever in England. What kills me about this suit (which he eventually won!) was that (a) he admittedly did not write any of the lyrics or melody of the song; (b) he only contributed the organ part which is clearly part of the arrangement – NOT the composition, and (c) he stole the organ part completely from Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Air On A G String“. That’s right; he’s now considered a co-author for stealing Bach’s music when Bach ain’t around to complain.

And this leads me to this month’s song, for which I am not taking any chances. I am giving Miles Davis partial songwriting credit even though he had nothing to do with the melody or lyrics of the song. Why? (1) Because Miles is one tough *#!@&!. Even though he died in 1991, you don’t mess with Miles. (2) I based the 3 chord pattern to my song on the two chord pattern that opens the song “So What“, which is the most famous song on Mile’s most famous album “Kind Of Blue”. And just to add insult to injury, Miles didn’t really write those intro chords! They were written by the famous jazz arranger Gil Evans. So why doesn’t Gil Evans get credit? Like I said, you don’t mess with Miles!

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Decommission – (c) 2017 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 2017 by Mitchell Dancik and includes variations on a theme from “So What” written by Miles Davis. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2017 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, piano, organ, guitars, bass, percussion, drums & drum programming.

We’re gonna decommission
The human condition
We gonna de-can-do it all night long

We gonna decommission
Your whole damn tradition
Put the “dis” in disenfranchise
Y’all can join

We don’t need to use our guns
We just use our Taser tongues
Dead and gone,
Hey what’s the big commotion?

We’re gonna decommission
The human condition
We gonna de-un-screw it,
What took so long?

We’re gonna decommission
The special edition
We gonna de-don’t-do-it,
And rite the wrong

We don’t read, we have that right
But you can train us to recite
Down with dope, and Newton’s law of motion

We don’t read, we have that right
But you can train us to recite
Putrid prose, bereft of all emotion

We don’t leave, we missed that train
Feels so good to be contained
Raise a glass,
Knock back this little potion

We gonna decommission
Programmers and musicians
Let’s unplug the bastards and stuff the song

September
Story
Lyrics

“Needs & Knows”

I was walking in Times Square this summer. It was like being pushed along in a migrating herd of Wildebeests. People everywhere, right up against each other, but somehow moving along. Within that sea of humanity my wife and I were separated, but within eye-shot of each other. Somehow we both independently spotted this one guy winding through the crowd as only an expert NY native can. His t-shirt read “In Memory Of When I Cared”. It was like finding the Dead Sea Scrolls. It seemed to explain everything. The meaning of life in 2017 spelled out across his chest.

As far as I can tell, based on Internet ramblings, “In Memory Of When I Cared” was the title of a poem by MandaBear written about a year ago. It must have resonated with a lot more folks than my family, because the t-shirts are now all over amazon.

Of course that line found its way into this month’s song, which is very much related to that walk around Time Square.

When I moved south from New York City, Rudolf Giuliani was the mayor, and one of the accomplishments he was praised for was the cleanup of Times Square. In 2017 I’ve been thinking about which version of Times Square I like better; The pre-Giuliani version where (a) the X-rated theaters were out in the open, (b) you could eat a cheap slice of NY Pizza, and (c) musicians could revel in an entire block full of guitar shops on 48th street, OR; The new version of Times Square where (a) the X-rated theaters have been replaced by naked cowboys, naked painted art-posers, and unwashed Disney characters, (b) the pizza isn’t NY Pizza, and (c) the guitar shops are closed and awaiting demolition. I kinda miss the old version.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Needs & Knows – (c) 2017 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 2017. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2017 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, bass, organ, sampled cello & drum programming.

Actual sounds of Times Square courtesy of Freesound.org

Who needs?
Who needs?
Anything

Who needs?
Who needs?
Everything

Who needs anything… from me?
Who needs anything… not me?

Who knows?
Who knows?
Anything

Who knows?
Who knows?
Everything

Who knows anything, about me?
Who knows anything, who me?

Who needs? Who knows?
Who needs? Who knows?

Who cares?
Anymore
Who cares about anything?

I’m bed-haired, I’m Times-Squared,
In memory of when I cared
Who cares?
Who needs to know who cares who needs?

December
Story
Lyrics

“Cat O’Nine”

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (known as Brighton Beach, Brooklyn) I was nearly killed by my grandfather. At least that’s what my grandmother thought as she screamed “Max, you’ll kill him!”. I was 8 years old and loved to watch wrestling on TV with my grandfather. When it was over, it was already past my immigrant-enforced bedtime. But I heard the eerie theme of the Twilight Zone come on and declared that I had to stay up to watch it. Under immigrant enforcement rules, you don’t declare. You shut up and listen. That gets us to the Cat O’Nine.

The cat o’nine is a whip with 9 tails, usually made of rope. It originated in the British Royal Navy around the 1600’s and was used to flog sailers. It’s also known as the cat or the captain’s daughter. In Eastern Europe, where my grandfather was from, the cat o’nine was called a lokshen strap because the 9 tails looked like lokshen (noodles).

I was often threatened with “I’m taking out the lokshen strap!”, but I’d never actually seen one. But on this night, as Rod Serling’s voice announced The Twilight Zone, my grandfather quickly took off his belt. I ran to a corner behind a couch as my grandmother tried to intervene in my imminent demise. Even while shivering in fear with my hands over my face, I could see that the feared cat o’nine was actually the same skinny worn out size 48 belt that my grandfather always wore, and was hardly an instrument of death. I survived.

Many years later my brother and I confronted a different form of corporal punishment. Our father’s use of the silent treatment was as effective as a cat o’nine. When we were teenagers we’d go from Brooklyn to The Fillmore East in Manhattan to see all the great bands of the 1960’s. One night we were supposed to be home after an 8:00 PM show by the band Procol Harum, but we decided to stay for the 11:30 PM show, which ended around 2:00 AM, followed by subways and buses home, and an early breakfast at our local diner. Of course our mother dreamt of our death on the streets of the lower east side. She woke up our ex-cop Dad at 5:00 AM to go and retrieve our bodies. At the diner, we were at a table by a window when in mid-swallow my brother’s face froze and turned green. Dad was in his pajamas staring us down from the parking lot. He left us there. The silent treatment was on. Ouch.

The Cat O’Nine song mixes up both of these stories. It also fondly remembers how our Dad must have thought there was some hope for us, because he put up with our rock n roll lifestyle for many years.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Cat O’Nine – (c) 2017 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records. Recorded, mixed and mastered at Pie Man Sound, Cary, NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, banjo, bass, piano, synths and drums.

My pa went crazy
He came home from three jobs
His off-spring hadn’t sprung the coup
We were laying around like slobs

My pa went crazy
We were sprawled out on the couch
Caught us watching Superman
He got the Cat O’Nine out: Ouch!

Just one crack of, the Cat O’Nine
And I’m bleeding from behind
Just one crack of, the Cat O’Nine
Suddenly all my tastes have refined

I hear Liberace, watch Rin Tin Tin
I sip chocolate milk, and it showers my sin
Since my pa went crazy, I’ve been staying in
Since my pa went crazy, I’ve been staying in
I’ve been staying in

My pa went crazy
At five in the AM
Caught us at the all-night diner
Hail Mary, Lord, Amen

Our Mom made him get out of bed
She screamed “they might be dead!”
He dragged our asses back to face
The Cat O’Nine instead

Just one crack of, the Cat O’Nine
And I’m bleeding from behind
Just one crack of, the Cat O’Nine
Suddenly all my manners refined

I catch Topo Gigio, & Gunga Din
I sip Ovaltine, and watch 45’s spin
Since my pa went crazy, I’ve been staying in
Since my pa went crazy, I’ve been staying in
I’ve been staying in

My pa went crazy
He took one look at us
He shook his head from side to side
Love and disgust

Disgust at his two worthless sods
Punk Rock was no career
Excepting for that Cat O’Nine,
’77 was a real good year

My pa went crazy
Again at half past nine
The Fake News had just ended
And the Twilight Zone came on

2016

January
Story
Lyrics

“One of Us Must Go to Jail”

On April 22, 1978 Bob Marley, who was (and always will be) reggae’s biggest star, came out of self-imposed exile in England to headline the One Love Peace Concert in Kingston Jamaica. Marley was sought out by Jamaica’s feuding political parties as a last hope for ending violent political unrest. During his concert in front of 32,000, he coaxed the leaders of the two warring parties (Michael Manley, the Prime Minister and head of the People’s National Party, and Edward Seaga, leader of the opposing Jamaican Labor Party) to come up on stage and to join hands in a pledge of love and unity. To put this in perspective, it is equivalent to the Democratic and Republican parties both asking Neil Young to host a group hug between Donald Trump and Barack Obama at Madison Square Garden.

Today, to listen to reggae (other than a few of Bob’s songs), you need to tune into one of a few specialty radio stations. Back in the 1970’s music was far less categorized and segregated. Every punk rock musician knew reggae music. The Police started their career with their reggae song Roxanne. The Clash incorporated not just reggae’s rhythms, but much of its politics. Early in their career, when deciding on their ideal producer, The Clash chose Lee “Scratch” Perry, a Jamaican original whose hypnotic sound has never been successfully copied. Even my old band Just Water had a reggae song in our set when we last played CBGBs. The 70’s were a golden age for Reggae with incredible Jamaican artists like Culture, The Upsetters, and Tapper Zukie who are now sadly marginalized.

In New York City, the Reggae Lounge was a music club with an odd and mostly peaceful mix of Rasta immigrants and middle class white kids, bonding over music and ganja. It was 1977 at the Reggae Lounge when I had some sort of “incident” with a Rasta. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but it was during a late night dance floor conversation about imperialism and my potential gruesome demise. It turned out that peace and love prevailed. The next day I wrote the song “One Of Us Must Go To Jail”.

I had not thought about this song for nearly 40 years. But a month ago I found myself and 6000 other passengers on a cruise ship that docked in Falmouth, Jamaica. I left the ship to take a walk around town and quickly saw that the town was just a make believe Hollywood set. A fake tourist camp sealed off from the actual people and country of Jamaica. However, if you dared to walk past the police check point you could enter the real town of Falmouth, where immediately the reality of Jamaica sets in. You are surrounded by locals who compete with each other to sell you “anything you want”. The further from the ship I walked, the more I remembered why I wrote this song. In 1979 that Rasta at The Reggae Lounge was angry enough without having to imagine mega-cruise ships in his front yard. I remember now what I was thinking. That it was only the random happenstance of where I was born that dictated which one of us would be going to jail if all hell broke loose on that dance floor. That night reggae music helped broker the peace again. We miss you Bob Marley.

Many thanks to Booker T. Jones, as I “borrowed” 4 notes of the organ line from his song “Time Is Tight”. He won’t mind, because he “borrowed” it from Max Steiner’s “Theme From A Summer Place”. Who knows where Max borrowed it from?

Song Of The Month Credits:

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One Of Us Must Go To Jail (c) 2016 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 1977 & 2016. Recorded, mixed, and mastered January 2016 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, ukulele, bass, organ, percussion, drum programming & brass arrangement.

Mister I point at you
I am on your tail
You have a deep suntan
I am oh so pale
I’m gonna play a little reggae for you; Then:
One of us must go to jail

I want to play in tune
But there are other things
I want to smash your car
You want to break my strings
I’m gonna play a little reggae for you; Then:
One of us must go to jail

…..Hey Hey Big Mister!
…..I want your first born then her sister
…..No no, I have no need to kiss her
…..No no no!
I want to play a little reggae for her; Then:
One of us must go to jail
I want to play a little reggae for her; Then:
One of us must go to jail

What will we do?
Who will pay the bail?
Who will answer the phone?
Who will bite the nail?

Where will we hide?
Who’ll be the first to crack?
I will wager a quarter, no one rescues your daughter,
From the railroad track!

I’m gonna play a little reggae for her; Then:
One of us must go to jail
I’m gonna walk back down these railroad tracks
Gonna’ free her from the rail

I’m gonna walk along these railroad tracks;
One of us must go to jail

Let’s see who goes to jail

April
Story
Lyrics

“Gavin and the 88 Buttons”

This month’s song is a collaboration I recorded with Tominator, the New York-based rave-master, electronic musician and DJ. We wanted to add some human analog touches on top of a purely electronic foundation. Tominator created the beats and a soundscape upon which I sprinkled the guitar and chord progressions.

Tominator (aka TN Steel) started DJ’ing in the 1990’s after the rave scene came over from England. In those days he spun real records on real turntables and did all the transitions by hand. These days you just press “go” on an iPad. He shared the scene with Frankie Bones, DJ Onionz, and Moby (who went onto mainstream success). I asked him a few questions about the origins of his music:

1) When and where did you and the rave scene get started?

Raves started out in Manchester England in the late 80s. They were originally called acid house parties, based on dance music coming out of Chicago. The acid sound was used to describe the Roland tb-303 bass lines or squelches being made by underground black artists from Chicago. Those house records were huge in England and fueled the underground party scene that was eventually called raves. They made their way to the US in 1990, first in LA and eventually to the big cities on both coasts. Most of these early parties were thrown by people who came back from the UK after experiencing these raves, or by English kids who traveled to the US as students and decided to stay. 1992 was when everything blew up all across the country. I would travel up and down I-95 from Washington DC to Maine, supporting one rave crew after another. It was a fun time.

2) What were the tools you had back then – the equipment to DJ?

It was basically 2 Technics SL-1200 turntables with pitch control and a cheap 4 channel mixer with a cross-fader. We would borrow a sound system from anyone we know with a loud PA.

3) Were the raves really held at secret places back then?

Yes. Raves were always in a non-club setting. The ones in Brooklyn were in raw spaces; a tunnel underneath the Belt Parkway, a brickyard, or in abandoned warehouses. When raves got really organized, we would rent warehouse spaces from landlords. The early raves in Brooklyn were all funded by the mob. They had the connections and they got protection from the police so that the raves wouldn’t get shut down.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Gavin & The 88 Buttons – Written by Tominator & Mitchell Dancik, (c) 2016 Branded Records LLC. Recorded, mixed, and mastered 2008 – 2016 at Dancik Plant South & Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Tominator – Beats and synths using Reason software by Propellerhead

Mitchell Dancik – non-synthetic instruments (guitars, claves, chimes & random drum hits)

Instrumental

July
Story
Lyrics

“Got it All”

Everyone has a moment when they think everything is going perfect, and then the hammer falls, the balloon bursts, and the long crawl up from the bottom starts again. Got It All is about such a moment. It was inspired by a Big Strong Arms song that features a duet between a man and a woman just coming together. Got It All is about the other end of that spectrum. It’s sung by Karin Bennett, who also sang on that Big Strong Arms duet, and my old friend Ira Bernstein who created a big “got it all” moment for me at a crucial stage of my life. Ira inadvertently helped me launch two careers.

My band Just Water, which in the early 70’s featured Ira on vocals, had just finished our first demo recordings. Unbeknownst to the rest of the band, Ira was dissatisfied with his vocals and was unsure if he could be the singer he envisioned. At the time we were both staying and rehearsing at my parents house in Brooklyn. One morning I find a “Dear John” letter from Ira in my mailbox, informing me that he’d left the band and went to Miami to make a new start. He said he couldn’t tell me face to face, because he knew I would have talked him out of leaving. I was crushed. I had just visited with Pete Townshend at the Pierre Hotel in NYC and told him how Ira was “my Roger Daltrey”. We discussed how important it was for a songwriter to have a singer that champions and inhabits their songs.

A few days after Ira quits, I get a phone call from my friend and fellow would-be rock star Binky Philips. He says “Hey, Max’s Kansas City is reopening in a month as a rock club. You wanna open for my band The Planets?”. Sh*t!!

So I just lost my singer, but I’ve got an opportunity that would be insane to pass up. Just Water booked Neal Steingart’s Fly Studios and auditioned every singer in Brooklyn. After about 60 auditions I thought we found one. Then the band took a vote, and they chose me. I spent so much time teaching all these guys to sing my songs, I actually learned them myself.

So my first gig as a lead singer is at the reopening of Max’s Kansas City. They say that public speaking is more frightening than death. But I learned a lesson that night that has changed my life. If you just grin and bear the first five minutes on any stage, you are home free. Without that lesson I couldn’t have been as successful in my next career as a software developer. I was constantly having to speak to, sell to, and educate rooms full of people. My trick was to mumble over a few cool PowerPoint slides until the first five minutes of pain were over.

So thank you Ira, for affecting my two careers, and for returning for another round.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Got It All – (c) 2016 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 2015. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2016 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Ira Bernstein – Vocals on the left side of the door, and whistling

Karin Bennett – Vocals on the right side of the door

Mitchell Dancik – Guitar, synthetic pedal steel, harmonium, percussion, background vocals, and drum programming

I got it all, I got nothing
I thought I heard something
Whispered about me behind the door

“He’s got it all, he’s got nothing
Should we tell him something?
What if his ear’s pressed to the door?”

I got it all, my heart’s pumping
And that’s all I need it for
And that’s all I need it for

I got it all, I got nothing
Your ghost showed me something
That I’m forever frightful for

“He’s got it all, he’s got nothing
Do we dare to tell him something?
What if his ear’s pressed to the door?”

I got it all, my heart’s pumping
And that’s all I need it for
And that’s all I need it for

October
Story
Lyrics

“On the Sushi Plate”

Every four years I put out a song in honor of the presidential elections with a lower-case “p”. Last time around, in 2012, the song was “When The Circus Comes To Town“. This year, the candidates are all well represented on my sushi plate. I apologize to the raw fish, as I would only ever equate them to politicians metaphorically.

The characters in the song are mostly referred to by their Japanese names: Toro (King Tuna), Hamachi (Yellowtail), Uni (Sea Urchin), Ika (Squid), Unagi (Eel), Spider (Soft Shell Crab), Ebi (Shrimp), Aji (Horse Mackerel), Fugu (Poisonous Pufferfish), Kanaboko (phony pressed crabby stuff), and Nama-tako (octopus). Good luck with the menu.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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On The Sushi Plate – (c) 2016 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 2016. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2016 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, arpenoid, ukulele, bass, piano, organ, orchestration, percussion, and drum programming

The Big Strong Arms and Karin Bennett – Chorus of Pirates

Mark Powell – Trumpets

Roger Babson – Saxophones

Jon “Jed” Edwards – Disgusted patron

Toro, he sits on his throne (tuna)
Hamachi pale and alone (yellowtail)
Uni’s got egg on his face (sea urchin)
His texture, such a disgrace

It’s all there
War and peace, love and hate
Choose your cutlery
Stab your fate
It’s all there
On the sushi plate

Ika creeps through your mind (squid)
Unagi slithers and winds (eel)

Spider, his cover is blown (soft shell crab)
Ebi, that sweet little clone (shrimp)

It’s all there
War and peace, love and hate
Choose your cutlery
Stab your fate
It’s all there
On the sushi plate
On the sushi plate

Oh Lord, Horse Mackerel,
She can’t get a date
And if you screw Fugu (poison pufferfish)
It’s already too late

Kana-boko really is a fake (fake pressed fish/crab)
Nama-tako truly lies in wait (raw octopus)

It’s all there
War and peace, fresh as bait
From the hands of destiny
To the mouth of fate
Staring right at you
On the sushi plate
On the sushi plate

February
Story
Lyrics

“Ravi’s Ready”

I was sitting in a movie theater that specialized in the odd combination of art house cinema and Bollywood imports. The neighborhood is known for its highly educated immigrant population – mostly Indian and Pakistani engineers, doctors, and scientists. Instead of the usual Coke & Popcorn commercials, they showed home made ads created by the local businesses. I looked up at the screen and there was Ravi, He was smiling in front of his office, and the ad read “Ravi Reddy – Your Local Dentist”. In that split second, I had the song. Not the melody or the lyrics, but the most important part – the concept; the spark; the title.

A million immigrant stories ran through my head and became Ravi. When I grew up in New York, everyone I knew was some sort of Ravi. My grandfather left Austria on foot when he was 15 and arrived in New York at 19. He refused to tell anyone what happened during those 4 years. One day his long lost cousin appeared and told us that my grandfather wrestled across Europe and scraped up enough money to sail to Ellis Island and leave his past behind. When we asked him about it, he just blew a few smoke rings with his cigar. Many of my Vietnamese friends and relatives sailed here on far less seaworthy boats, but those stories are way too intense for a Song Of The Month club.

My Ravi doesn’t become a dentist or an engineer or any other stereotype. He gets waylaid in Queens at a grocery store, where The Ramones probably bought their Twinkies.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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Ravi’s Ready (c) 2016 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 2013. Recorded, mixed, and mastered 2015-2016 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

This month The Senators are:

Mitchell Dancik – Singing the part of The Narrator, plus guitars, electric sitar, bass, organ, piano, castanets, drum programming & harp/strings arrangement.

Karin Bennett – Singing the part of Ravi’s Mom.

Jon “Jed” Edwards – Singing the part of Ravi’s Uncle

Mike Nordin – Soprano Saxophone & Sax Synth

The Pie Man Confetti Choir (Adam Mobarek, Cameron Bumgarner, Jon “Jed” Edwards, and Max Dancik) singing the part of The Mob

Ravi’s ready, he graduated
He’s no longer, that kid who was berated
Into English, he has translated
His resume, for that job, so long he’s waited

Ravi’s ready
Going steady
Throw confetti, he wants to heal the world

Ravi’s ready
Ravi’s ready

Ravi’s ready, he’s at the pier
His entire village came out to wave and cheer
He’s an engineer, and his mother is a doc
His father’s a scientist, temporarily splitting rocks

Ravi’s ready
Going steady
Throw confetti, he wants to save the whole wide world

Ravi’s ready to stake his claim
Nobody’s gonna mispronounce his name
Ravi’s ready

Ravi’s ready, he has arrived
In a place, where the wimpy won’t survive
He could’ve chose Sydney, Vancouver or Bombay
But it had to be Queens, New York City, USA

His uncle picked him up and took him to his grocery store
Where he bagged groceries and swept Twinkies off the floor
He met Vegans, Vulcans, and veterans of war
He met Jamaicans, they shared a spliff and he wanted more

Ravi’s ready
Going steady
Now that he’s fed he, wants to feed the whole wide world

Ravi’s ready, but he got off course
He joined a posse, outside of the labor force
His uncle pleaded “what about your girl back home?”
“What about your Mom, your reputation, and your student loan”?

Ravi’s ready
Going steady
Have you read he…

… graduated
He is no longer, that kid who was berated
The NSA, has all his calls translated
Into Farsi, Urdu, Hebrew, now he’s celebrated

Ravi’s ready
Throw confetti
Now that he’s dead, we want to tell the whole wide world

Ravi’s ready
Ravi’s ready

May
Story
Lyrics

“The Kid That He Made”

I wrote this song in 1974 about how the pursuit of music can mess up your personal life and leave you alone on a stack of demo tapes and half finished lyrics.

Then Prince dies, while living alone in a room atop his Paisley Park studio, next to a vault of half finished recordings.

On December 10th 1980 I tried to convince all my friends to see this guy named Prince at a midnight show at The Ritz. After being severely ridiculed (his first album covers made him look like a disco leftover), only one forever-thankful friend humored me and went. At the time my friends and I were mainly into the great British punk bands like The Clash, The Jam, The Slits, and The Buzzcocks. To me, Prince somehow fit into that sound.

Prince’s first hit “I Wanna Be Your Lover” (1979) was more Jackson Five than punk, but it didn’t stop The Clash from nicking the chords and feel of I Wanna Be Your Lover for one of their biggest hits just a few months later – “Train In Vain (Stand By Me)”. It was Prince’s third album (Dirty Mind) that really did me in. It had the same sparse dry and crystal clear sound that the punk band Gang Of Four coincidentally came up with at the same time across the Atlantic. But, except for a few guest spots, every instrument and vocal was performed by Prince. Others have done the one-man-band trick before (like Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Pete Townshend, and Todd Rundgren), but no-one but Prince had ever grooved and rocked with themselves as fluidly as a live band. What Michael Jackson did with the finest producers, arrangers, and musicians on earth, Prince did by himself.

Prince got on stage after midnight on 12/10/1980 to a crowd that wouldn’t have filled 10 rows if there were seats at The Ritz. He had his “Dirty Mind” band and they played as if it were Madison Square Garden. After their set, to the squeals of the loyal few, Prince came back for an encore. But now, instead of it being like Madison Square, it felt like we were all invited into that lonely apartment he’d build one day atop his studio. It was just him and an acoustic guitar and he played and sang whatever he felt at the moment. Then he went over to the piano and it was jazz, or was it funk, or was it a ballad? And finally he picks up a saxophone, the perfect send-off for New Yorkers to exit into the wee hours of a cold December night.

Three months later Prince returned to The Ritz. By that time the buzz had circulated, and it was a sellout. But there was no intimate solo encore. That is until 36 years later in February 2016, when Prince started his solo “Piano & A Microphone” tour, which was hopefully recorded and sits among the pile of unfinished works in Paisley Park. RIP Prince.

Song Of The Month Credits:

Ira Bernstein – Chorus vocals and door knocking

Mitchell Dancik – Verse vocals, guitars, percussion, synths, piano, & orchestration

Took a trip on a Friday night
The door won’t turn and it feels just right
Soft words from out in the hall
I guess I won’t have to say goodbye at all
Because I know that the kid that he made wasn’t made to beg at the door

Oh so systematic, is the way we’ve turned away from home
Even so my climb’s fanatically overcast with being thrown
I don’t want to end up like my heroes, all alone

Took a trip on a Saturday night
I’d have sold anything to get on that flight
Brooklyn to Boston, a wing to a prayer
Not too far, but its all in the air
And I know that the kid that he made wasn’t made anyway but strong

Oh so systematic, in the way we’ve turned away from home
Even so my climb’s fanatically overcooked and undergrown
I don’t want to end up like my heroes, all alone

Took a trip on a Sunday at dawn
There’s only one thing that will keep me warm
Some eyes are worth three hundred miles
I won’t have to be ashamed of my style
And I know that the kid that he made didn’t deserve to beg at her door

Oh so systematic, in the way we’ve turned away from home
Even so my climb’s fanatically overcast with being thrown
I don’t want to end up like my heroes, all alone
I don’t want to show up at the front door all alone

August
Story
Lyrics

“It Should Be Taught”

On December 6, 1969, I got to see three bands at The Fillmore East in NYC for $3.50. The opening act was Fat Mattress (the short-lived band led by Jimi Hendrix’s bass player Noel Redding, who was frustrated that Hendrix would not record his songs. Hendrix was smart). Next up was Grand Funk Railroad, who did not go down well that night, but were soon to be playing stadiums around the world based on their hit song “I’m Your Caption”. The headliner was Jethro Tull, who at the time were near the top of the late 60’s English blues-rock invasion. They are still widely known today, but mainly for the progressive (overblown?) rock they purveyed in the 1970’s, such as “Aqualung“.

A month before that concert, I was sitting in Mr. Jacobson’s history class in James Madison High School (the alma mater of many Brooklyn eccentrics such as Mad Magazine publisher William Gaines, Bernie Sanders, Judge Judy, DJ Cousin Brucie, and Carol King). Mr. Jacobson could write as fast as he could speak, and would cover the blackboard with every fact you needed to know to ace his class. In-between chalk marks, he’d squeeze in anecdotal musings that only a true lover of all things historic could care about. Mr. Jacobson wrote on the blackboard: Jethro Tull – invents seed drill in 1733 – changes the world, to which I made the ingenious comment: “No, Jethro Tull is alive and well, and is playing The Fillmore East next month”.

Rather than a visit to the principal’s office, my wisecrack led to a remarkable turn of events in which Mr. Jacobson asked for proof of Jethro Tull’s survival. On December 6th, my brother Ken and I met Mr. Jacobson on a subway platform and took him to The Fillmore East. He deadpanned the entire time, as if this was a historical expedition and not a rock concert. After witnessing Jethro Tull’s fanatical flutist & front-man Ian Anderson (who actually looked like he could have invented the seed drill) Mr. Jacobson’s final comment was “Ah yes, Jethro Tull is indeed alive, and I’ll need to update my lesson book”.

Years later my brother saw Mr. Jacobson on another subway stop. He fondly remembered witnessing the immortality of Jethro Tull, but sadly reported that his history class at James Madison High School had devolved into a spitball arena in which he covered the board with lessons that no-one listened to.

Song Of The Month Credits:

.
It Should Be Taught – (c) 2016 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 2015. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2016 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals (real and synthesized), guitars, bass, orchestration, percussion, drum programming

She’s got her own way of thinking
That her own way of thinking’s what you thought
She’s got her own way of thinking
That her own way of thinking’s what you thought

She’s got the whole place conceding
That her own way of thinking should be taught
It should be taught

She’s got her own way of selling
That you wanted to be buying what you bought
She’s got her own way of selling
That you wanted to be buying what you bought

She’s got her own way of teaching
That her own brand of preaching should be taught
It should be taught

If your eyes aren’t seeing what your head is believing,
What the ……….!
If your eyes aren’t seeing what your head is believing,
What the ……….!
If your legs aren’t fleeing where her ballet shoes are leading,
What the ……….!

What Mr. Klein did for The Beatles might be just the thing you need
Only a devil with a conscience can cure you of this greed;
It should be taught
It should be taught

It should be taught (You’re gonna learn it!)

November
Story
Lyrics

“Mr. Wigs”

For awhile I was living a secret dual life a la Batman and Bruce Wayne. Mild mannered software guy by day and rock musician by night. One day, in a small mid-west town, the president of a struggling ceramic tile factory put his faith in me to computerize his business. That evening he took me to the best restaurant in town. I nursed a Coke, kept my cool and never let on about my secret life in music. He proceeded to drink expensive scotch, tell a bit of his secret life story, drink some more, tell more, and drink much more. Eventually he broke down sobbing like a baby.

He grew up in Denmark and had made a pact with his best friend that they would both be multi-millionaires by the age of 30. Every year they’d check in with each other and compare progress and net worth. His best friend happened to be one of the grandchildren of Ole Kirk Christiansen, the inventor of Lego toys, and went on to be an innovative billionaire CEO of the Lego empire. My poor sobbing host was president of a near bankrupt tile company and could no longer bare to compare fortunes with Mr. Lego. This story confirmed my suspicion that it really could be lonely at the top, which leads us to Mr Wigs.

While staring at my father’s porcelain dog “Jiggs”, this song appeared. It was about a success-obsessed dog who left anyone that cared for him in his wake. Just like any would-be rock star. (In my band, not a single member had a relationship that outlasted the band) It could also be about some scotch-infused ladder-climbing business person. I changed the dog’s name from Mr Jiggs to Mr Wigs, and he became the sadistic and lonely owner of a wig empire. All these years later, the lyrics seem to speak to another lonely-at-the-top tower dweller. “Mr Wigs wears a gold toupee” “Mr Wigs has his own brand name” and “Making truth of lies, why are we hypnotized by Mr. Wigs?”. Scary.

Song Of The Month Credits:

.
Mr Wigs – (c) 2016 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written a long time ago. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2016 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Ira Bernstein – Vocals

Mitchell Dancik – Guitars, electric sitar, bass, piano, organ, orchestration, percussion, drums and drum programming

Mr. Wigs wears a gold toupee
O’er the ebbing tides of the head once gray
Mr. Wigs had a gold watch made
“To my dearest friend” with your name engraved;
“Love Mr. Wigs”

Mr. Wigs working through the night
He lets you dine alone in the candle light
“Mr. Wigs” on your heart it’s carved
I’d break bread with you, but I know you’re starved for Mr. Wigs

Mr. Wigs has taken over you,
For the time that’s left when his work is through
Mr. Wigs will let you burn in the sand
His mirage so real, you can touch his hand
You’ll feel Mr. Wigs
You’ll sleep where he lives
Oh but heaven forbid, you fall in love – with – Mr. Wigs

Mr. Wigs, with all the plans he’s made,
Wouldn’t walk with you in his own parade
Mr. Wigs, with his big red eyes
Making truth of lies;
Why are we hypnotized by Mr. Wigs?

Mr. Wigs, though he pays our fare
Keeps our jar locked tight until we lose our hair
Mr. Wigs knows I’d love you more
Leave your heart in the wings of love’s concert tour with Mr. Wigs

Mr. Wigs has got his own brand name
Gives his friends a peg to move around his game
Mr. Wigs has got a fit for all
Are you round or fat, receded or bald?
Mrs. Wigs?
Mrs. Wigs?

You’ll feel Mr. Wigs
You’ll sleep where he lives
Oh but heaven forbid;
You fall in love – with – Mr. Wigs

Mr. Wigs worked his first half day
I told him you would leave, he didn’t know you’d stay
But Mr. Wigs only came half way
He fell and crawled for the love he had left for the grave of Mr. Wigs

Mr. Wigs died alone in the rain
Your face just a splash on his window pane
But Mr. Wigs will find our tears do land
Where the moon shone off of something gold in his hand:
“Love Mr. Wigs”

March
Story
Lyrics

“Cars of Havana”

Three weeks ago my wife and I visited Cuba on what is known as a “people to people exchange”. We wanted to see Cuba before it becomes overrun with American tourists, which will undoubtedly alter its culture. We traveled in a small group led by Carol Steele. Carol was a first-call percussionist in New York in the 1980’s, who fell in love with the rhythms and people of Cuba. She played on everyone’s records from Diana Ross to Eric Clapton, and was once part of the group Tears For Fears. She still plays incredible congas, bongos and claves. These days Carol splits her time between California and Havana, and we got to meet her Cuban friends and see her perform with several top Cuban bands during our visit.

With the re-opening of relations with Cuba you’ll see hundreds of reports that will focus on the age-old Cuban-American political arguments. I focused on the music, the culture, and the people. We had open conversations with Cubans of all walks of life. The thing that hit me immediately was that Cuba was not at all like other communist countries I’d visited. Music and culture are everywhere, front and center in people’s lives. A little known aspect of the Castro revolution is that Cubans are given subsidized access to cultural events, as well as having music, dance, and art as an integral part of government funded education. These are communists that can dance! They can’t afford to fix a broken window, but they can sing away the blues, which they must be doing, because most people you meet are warm, open, and optimistic. Cubans want the embargo lifted, but they are not clamoring for the American way of life. They want something in-between. Cubans are a jumble of paradoxes; Very poor yet very educated. Short on cash but with long healthy lives. Good teeth without enough vegetables to chew on. Beautiful ocean but don’t dare drink the water. Everyone gets their own home for free, but no-one can afford to maintain it. One of the local musicians told me he was an electrical engineer with a graduate degree, but there was no need for those skills – yet.

I tried to buy a Tres (a Cuban guitar-like instrument) but was told they have no concept of music stores, and it would have to be made to order with a few months notice. I settled for some claves. I wanted to record the song “Cars Of Havana” using some Cuban rhythms, but I soon realized that would be an insult to their special rhythmic subtlety. It truly takes years to feel their special timing, and I am just beginning to tune in. Carol Steele pointed out that if you listen closely to Cuban percussionists, you’ll hear the Bo Diddley beat, which is actually a 3-2 pattern from Africa that is played by Cubans on the claves. Bo Diddley heard it in a New Orleans song, strummed it on guitar, and built his entire career around it. I sneak a bar of it into this song.

Those incredible still-running American-made, Cuban-maintained 1950’s muscle cars are the perfect metaphor for music or people aging gracefully; with respect for the old days, while racing and sputtering into the future. The car horns and cat whistles sprinkled throughout the song are all actual sounds of Havana, its cars, and its cab drivers.

Song Of The Month Credits:

.
Cars Of Havana (c) 2016 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written, recorded, mixed, and mastered March 2016 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC, with additional sounds recorded in Havana.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, horn arrangement, bass, claves, guiro, drums, and drum programming

Thuy Dancik – field recordings of the actual Cars Of Havana (recorded from the back of a 1955 Buick Special convertible) and of the Cuban band “Grupo Sorpresa Trinitaria” with Mitch sitting in on marimbula.

I may look like the Cars of Havana
Rust covered by lacquered blue
But I feel like Ferraris in Sassuolo
Racing down the hillside brand new

I may look like the faux walls of Modena
An edict that old walls survive
But I beckon you to cross this old threshold
To a renovated remodeled dive

I may look like the Cars of Havana
Just before the cruise ships arrive
Sitting on my old Marimbula
Playing a big Fender P-bass in my mind

I may trip over lovers on the Malecon
With an edict that these sea walls survive
But I beckon you to cross over my threshold
To a reconstructed resurrected dive

Cars of Havana
Cross 2 wires and we come alive

June
Story
Lyrics

“Don’t Thank Us Thank the Machines”

It was 1973 and I was surrounded by musical gear, ready to take over the world with my band Just Water. We had a bunch of Hiwatt amps, electric guitars, fuzz boxes, and a gadget called an Echoplex that used a miniature tape recorder to create echo affects for our vocals. I wondered if the gear was becoming more important than the musicians, and wrote the line “Don’t thank us, thank the machines”. Just Water rehearsed the song, and maybe even played it at an early gig. But by the time we made our first record the song was long forgotten. Earlier this year I came across it in an old notebook. I was amazed at how the lyrics had predicted the mechanized and artificial state of much of today’s music.

And in another galaxy far far away…It was 1979 and a struggling musician named Chuck Surack stopped touring with his band and built a mobile recording studio in his Volkswagon van. He called his studio Sweetwater Sound. He started selling gear to other musicians and studios, and went on to create the largest single-location music empire in the world. You might think it would be in New York, Nashville, or Los Angeles. But no, it’s right there in Chuck’s home town of Fort Wayne, Indiana! Chuck is now the undisputed king of gear. Sweetwater is a combination of a recording complex, a music school, a convention center, and the amazon.com of all things musical. I just got back from their annual “Gearfest“, which is the only music business trade show open to the public for free.

Every new piece of musical software and machinery represents amazing technological progress. But today’s gear can create a song by itself, using recycled musical bits no different than Dr. Frankenstein creating his monster from used body parts. If you ever wondered why so many of today’s songs sound the same, it’s because so many of the parts are the same. The same cadre of musical scraps known as samples, loops, and presets can be found in every studio – professional and home. Why hire musicians to play, when samples work tirelessly for free and are always synced exactly to the beat and pitch? Why write a song, when you can stitch together pre-recorded loops and call it your own? I, like most musicians, have a love/hate relationship with the gear and technology. On one hand, I can’t get enough of it. On the other hand it drives me crazy when it’s used as a substitute and not a supplement to creativity.

Don’t Thank Us, Thank The Machines is recorded with the exact same guitars and amps that I played in 1973, but the drums are based on samples recorded by studio drummer extraordinaire Kenny Aronoff. We also cheated a little on the backup vocals by using software that automatically harmonizes with the lead vocal. I updated the lyrics to reflect today’s technology, as most of it could not be imagined in 1973. Every day I thank the machines. But everyday I am also more in awe of the records that were made by great musicians in a great room with a great engineer, and nothing but talent between the microphone and the tape recorder.

Song Of The Month Credits:

.
Don’t Thank Us, Thank The Machines – (c) 2016 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 1973. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2016 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Ira Bernstein – Vocals

Mitchell Dancik – Theremin, Moog synthesizer, guitars, bass. piano, organ, drum programming, percussion, background vocals, and some synthetic stuff.

No machines were abused during the making of this song.

Don’t thank us
Thank the machines
We’re not the music makers
Thank all the buttons and screens
Don’t thank us
Thank the machines
We’re just the lighthouse keepers
Can you help tune our strings?

Camouflaged in our electronics
Electronics camouflaged by us
Maybe you’ll see us in those rock star comics
Don’t cram in the picture with us
Don’t cram in the picture with us

Tubes are rolling down the line
They’ll be around for every scream
Don’t thank us
Thank the machines
Machines will mock the magic, and separate the sea

Don’t thank us
Thank the machines
Auto tune and auto focus and auto anything
Don’t thank us
Thank the machines
We’re just the lighthouse keepers
We’re not the keys or the screens

We got our heads in a VU meter
We Google for a chorus or verse
Maybe someday y’all can sample my samples
Ya’ gotta pay me, because I stole it first
Pay me, cause I stole it first

Tubes are rolling down the line
They’ll be around for every scream
Don’t thank us
Thank the machines

September
Story
Lyrics

“That’s The Clue”

Every Tuesday night I would walk through an unmarked door in one of New York’s “music buildings”, which were semi-dilapidated, unsuited to modern businesses, but perfect to divide up into rehearsal spaces and B-grade recording studios. I’d ride the freight elevator up to the studio where David Bailes produced various radio shows in the early 1980’s. Bob Costas would be in a tiny vocal booth recording his half hour baseball talk show. I’d hope Bob would finish fast, because from the moment he left until Dave called it quits, I’d have the greatest gift a musician could get; free recording studio time!

I wish I could remember the small talk that we’d have with Bob Costas. At the time we couldn’t imagine that he’d one day be announcing the Olympics. I’d listen to his show over the control room monitors while Dave adjusted the sound, removing vocal pops and smoothing the “S”s. Bob and I were both huge fans of Willie Mays and I believe that’s the only subject I ever spoke to him about.

While I was working with Jayne Bliss in “Band Apart”, Dave was our recording engineer and live sound man. Dave confided in us how he was from South Africa but ran off from his parents and siblings in protest of the racist Apartheid policies. He traveled across Africa as a free-lance engineer, recording indigenous musicians. During his travels he became even more disillusioned about the state of mankind, as each country was more repressive than the last. Musicians were treated like servants while gun-toting African record producers would take 100% of their royalties. He couldn’t stand the thought of African countries that treated their citizens even worse than South Africa treated non-whites, and he decided to just disappear.

Dave wound up working on fishing boats in the state of Maine in the USA. If you’ve seen the show “Deadliest Catch”, you know what he went through. He decided that being disappeared was overrated, and he landed in New York to produce radio shows, including Bob Costas and the Dan Neer Show on WNEW FM.

By this time it had been years since Dave’s family in South Africa had heard from him. Jayne and I helped convince Dave to contact his parents, and we joined him on his family reunion trip to Johannesburg SA. We arrived at a pivotal moment in South African history. Nelson Mandela was still in prison but the country was preparing for his controversial yet inevitable release. In the USA I had watched the coverage of the Anti-Apartheid movement, but the reality of South Africa was so much more complex and culturally-rich than the view from overseas. Dave managed to patch up his strained relations with his family. We tried to avoid talking politics as we sat around the pool in the gated seclusion of their Jo’Burg home. Just a few miles up the road Soweto was burning.

Earlier this month I returned to South Africa; this time as a tourist in a country that (while still having problems) is now a model for multiculturalism. I visited the prison where Nelson Mandela wrote much of what is now the South African constitution. And I had lunch in Soweto.

“That’s The Clue” is about an adventure in South America, but it might as well take place in South Africa. Both places are full of machetes and mosquitoes. Both places are full of endless political debate that can inspire a thousand songs. Dave Bailes is still producing radio shows, but he’s no longer ashamed to say he’s from South Africa.

Song Of The Month Credits:

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That’s The Clue – (c) 2016 Mitchell Dancik, Branded Records LLC. Written 1976 & 2016. Recorded, mixed and mastered 2016 at Pie Man Sound, Cary NC.

Mitchell Dancik – Vocals, guitars, bass, synthesized pan flute, electric piano, percussion, drum programming

Ira Bernstein – Co-lead & background vocals

There’s a fortune in the Andes
But they want more proof
You can’t see their faces
Until they’re through the roof
You can’t squeeze the truth out
Of stones that’ll turn blue
But when I fell into your eyes
Now that’s the clue

I take the air in the verses
To get the chorus too
I can’t see your face, love
But I can feel it’s you
Don’t ask where I’ve come from
The rumors will do
When you fell into my eyes
Now that’s the clue

That’s the clue. That’s the clue.
That’s the clue. That’s the clue.

There’s a comet in the forecast
But I turn to you
A glimpse of a million
The glow of a few
O’er the tracks of Orion
Pack a small crew
Mix two blue and two brown eyes
Now that’s the clue

That’s the clue. That’s the clue.
That’s the clue. That’s the clue.

There’s a clearing in the jungle
Where they play the loot
A crash in my landing
When she yanks the chute
Only one way to get here
Machetes cut through
The mosquitos protect her
Now that’s the clue

That’s the clue. That’s the clue.
That’s the clue. That’s the clue.

What has 2 blue eyes and 2 brown eyes and goes through the roof?
What has machetes and mosquitos and she pulls your chute?
What rides a comet through a jungle, do you need more proof?
What has a fortune in the Andes, C’mon now tell the truth!

December
Story
Lyrics

“The Switch”

In the autumn of 1979 I returned from a string of record company rejections in London. I crashed at a girlfriend’s apartment, and with no money, no band, and no job, I had a lot of time to experience what is now known as the “golden age of public-access TV in New York“. The Federal Trade Commission had some new mandates to support freedom of expression, which along with NY perversity/creativity resulted in a most entertaining lowpoint in TV history.

From 1978 into the early 80’s nearly anyone could get on a new public-access TV station, totally free from censors and advertising. You could watch Coca Crystal smoke pot with all her guests on her talk show “If I Can’t Dance You Can Keep Your Revolution”. You can still catch the Blondie episode on Youtube. There was The Robin Byrd Show, that looked like The Johnny Carson Show, except that the host and the guests were nude. And my personal favorite show is so obscure, I can’t even find it on Google. It was an Irish guy in his seedy NY apartment with a camera (on all day), who did absolutely nothing except sit around and occasionally play Irish jigs on his fiddle.

An then there was baseball! For a short while you could find every major league baseball game on public access stations, including reruns throughout the night. My one challenge of autumn 1979 was to see if I could watch 24 hours straight of baseball. I succeeded, and then wrote this song about the insanity of TV addiction.

Some folks around the good ‘ole USA are wary of New Yorkers. It might have something to do with public-access TV.

Song Of The Month Credits:

Mitchell Dancik – Guitars, bass, vocals, drums & brass programming, and vibey toy gizmo

Children screaming out with fright
Watch me screeching through the light
Something splatters in the street
Push my foot and grit my teeth
(Push his foot and grit his teeth)

Oh no, I hope I don’t miss the show
Only an hour to go

Neighbors think I’m always high
Watch me racing down the drive
Kill my boss, he made me work late
Cut my fingers on the garden gate
(Cut his fingers on the garden gate)

Oh no, I hope I don’t miss the show
Only a minute to go
Oh no, I hope I don’t miss the show
Only a minute to go

1 door. 2 steps. 3 keys. On set
Not on. 4 switch. Fix my sandwich
1 door. 2 steps. 3 keys. On set
Not on. 4 switch. FLING my sandwich!
(Fling his sandwich!)

Baby’s screaming out with fright
Buildings burning every night
(it must be The Bronx)
Fix the color, get it right
Just relax and watch the damn fight!
(Just relax and watch the damn fight!)

Oh no, I hope I don’t miss the show
Only one second to go

1 door. 2 steps. 3 keys. On set
Not on, 4 switch, Fix my sandwich
1 tap. 2 knocks. 3 strikes. On set
Not on. 4 switch. FLING my sandwich!
(Fling his sandwich!)

2015

January
Story
Lyrics

“Fall Tall”

On Friday afternoon, November 22, 1963, I was in class when the school principal announced over the loudspeakers that President Kennedy was assassinated. I clearly remember that all the girls in the class started to cry. They were still crying as we left the school. The 1960’s were officially off and running.There has not been a president since JFK, who’s death could have caused such a spontaneous outpouring of grief from pre-voting age kids.

I still can’t figure out exactly what JFK’s secret sauce was. But if you look back at the presidential debate that he had with Richard Nixon in 1960 through a kid’s eyes, it’s like The Force versus Darth Vader. JFK’s death took the wind out of our collective sails, and it took The Beatles to bring optimism back. Yet somehow Richard Tricky-Dick Darth Nixon made it to president in the elections of 1968. Go figure? As I was writing this song, which is about just how misguided we can be when assessing our own actions, I realized that Nixon was my co-writer!

Nixon’s line “you won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore” said it all. In his mind, he was always right and the press was always wrong. And when he said “I’m no crook”, he was right and the evidence (including his own taped Watergate admission) was wrong. If you are a songwriter looking for “misguided” or “self-deception”, look no further than Tricky Dick

I
Won’t
Be
Around no more

And you
Won’t
Have Tricky Dick to
kick around no more

Congratulations,
you kept pride before the fall
Exaggeration, such a comfort to us all
Fall tall

We
Won’t
Be
Around no more

And they
Won’t
Have Tricky Dick to
kick around no more

Congratulations,
you kept pride before the fall
Exaggeration,
such a comfort to us all
Fall tall

April
Story
Lyrics

“Hit The Third Rail”

In 2013 the “CBGB” movie was released. It wasn’t a documentary. It was a Hollywood style production about the punk rock bar called CBGB’s. Alan Rickman, a brilliant actor, played CBGB’s owner Hilly Krystal. The only problem was that…. well, there were lots of problems. But I decided not to rant and rave about this movie. Until now that is.

Throughout the 1970’s I played in the band Just Water, who from 1975-1978 were regulars at CBGB. In the movie, Hilly Krystal is depicted as a hero of punk rock; someone who nurtured the music and the artists. The Hilly Krystal I remember was a surly bar owner whose affiliation with punk rock was a total accident. In fact, Hilly seemed very much like the club owners that I’d played for prior to coming to CBGB; hard to pin down, especially when it was time to get paid, and completely arbitrary when it came to how much one should be paid. Hilly claimed that he kept the bar earnings, but gave the bands the gate (what was paid at the front door). But if the bar did poorly, the gate disappeared. It was not unusual for my band and roadies to leave CBGB with barely enough for breakfast. Hilly’s original intention was to bring country and bluegrass music to the lower east side of New York (The Bowery). The happy twist of fate was that some very creative musicians (Patty Smith, Television, etc.) convinced Hilly that it was better to let them play punk rock than to have the place sitting empty.

My brother/manager Ken had the thankless job of getting Hilly to book our gigs. Hilly would say “not now, see me Tuesday afternoon”, and then on Tuesday afternoon it would be “I’m busy, come back Thursday” and on and on until he blessed you with a slot. As for nurturing, Hilly once mumbled that my song “This Kid” was promising. I am sure he must have been more nurturing to others like The Ramones, who put him on the map and sold more drinks at the bar.

I will give Hilly the credit he deserves for keeping the place open to unknown artists and allowing it to blossom on its own terms. He wasn’t the conductor of the train that ran through his bar, but he was astute enough to hop aboard and ride it to the end of the tracks. I was disappointed when, of all the bands to come through CBGB, he chose to manage The Dead Boys. He admitted to not liking punk rock, yet The Dead Boys were the me-too essence of punk. They were a louder, less creative, and more drug infused version of the Sex Pistols with an Iggy Pop wannabe as a singer. Hilly and my old neighbor Genya Ravan got a few good songs out of The Dead Boys, but it seemed like a pure money play from a man that preferred blue grass.

I withheld from writing about Hilly because who wants to rain on someone’s parade when they are gone and can’t defend themselves? But the movie just seemed so false, and history deserves to have the whole story told, warts and all. The members of my band were not the only people who felt a little short-changed by Hilly. It turns out that he died with millions, and his family is fighting over the spoils.

So, in closing, if I could say anything to Hilly it would be “I am still pissed off that my brother had to beg for every gig, and I am not a fan of your accounting, but I do thank you for allowing history to be created on your watch, and for letting my band be part of it.”

Oh, and one more thing: Hilly said he burnt the tapes to his “Live At CBGB’s Vol 2” album, after bands like Talking Heads and Blondie withheld permission to release the recordings. They had been subsequently signed to major record deals, and no longer needed to be on a CBGB record. That album included a Just Water track. Hilly, didn’t you save a copy somewhere??

This month’s song was written during the CBGB’s era, and is about how self destructive some people (like The Dead Boys) would become to achieve success.

I’m running cross the tracks
Without permission
Now whad’ya think of that?
It’s my decision
I’m running cross the tracks
Between the stations
Now how’ya gonna deal with that?
I take the local for you

I’m riding on the edge
Without collision
Now how do I pay you back?
That’s your decision
I’m riding on the cliffs
In rainy weather
Now why do I kiss your lips?
A token’s pleasure with you

Hit the third rail,
that’s where the money’s at
Hit the third rail,
that’s where the money’s at
I don’t want the aches and the pains,
and the slap on my back
Hit the third rail,
that’s where the money is at

I’m juggling hand grenades
It’s pure defiance
To blow instead of fade
Like fed up giants
I’m drifting on a mine
Through target practice
Driftwood is hard to find
You’re not the drifting kind

You’ve got me wrapped in barbed wire
You and your girlfriends and your father
I’d cut myself and run
But it wouldn’t make sense
I’d just get caught in your electric fence
I’d just get caught in your electric fence
I’d just get caught in your electric fence

July
Story
Lyrics

“Street Cred”

These days everyone is talking about the 50th anniversary of Bob Dylan “going electric” at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. That event undoubtedly influenced countless artists. Perhaps the music we listen to today would be quite different if Dylan had only played his acoustic guitar instead of his Fender Stratocaster that fateful night. The song “Street Cred” is about an apartment on 10th street off Second Avenue in Manhattan, that in its own way sent little ripples throughout the music world. Maybe not as strong as a Dylan tsunami, but these little ripples made it to shore too.

It was 1979 or 1980 when I was chatting with Brigit at The Mudd Club, an after-hours club downtown. A few days later my parents were sitting across from me at a Chinese restaurant saying stuff like “We told you that you needed something to fall back on”. My band had broken up and I was crashing at friend’s apartments and the last thing I wanted to hear was my parents reminding me that medical school was a better option than CBGB’s. Suddenly I remembered that, in the haze of a night at The Mudd Club, Brigit had mentioned that her roommate had left in the middle of the night for Khartoum or Timbuktu without paying the rent. In the middle of a bite of Chow Fun and in the middle of a parental sentence I simply got up, walked to the nearest pay phone, used my last dime, and called Brigit. “Have you rented your ex-roommate’s room yet??” Her reply was “$125 a month and no funny business!” And that’s how I got to live at Brigit’s famous 10th street apartment.

If it wasn’t for Brigit’s generosity, lots of musicians, managers, photographers and their wayward entourages would not have had a place to sleep when they were down on their luck or too far from home to afford the cab or subway. Brigit single-handedly moved the “in-crowd” from punk and disco to the great Rock-a-billy revival of the late 70’s and early 80’s. Two thirds of the Stray Cats crashed at the apartment. I remember having breakfast with Brian Setzer one morning. I remember Neneh Cherry being there at the time she met up with The Slits. You see, Brigit actually had a job, and could manage to stay in an apartment without being evicted – something that almost no-one else on the music scene could do. Brigit was a den mother, a psychiatrist, and ran a homeless shelter for over-privileged kids temporarily separated from their cash. One day Leee Black Childers (yes there’s 3 e’s in Leee) came to our door homeless and stayed for a while. Leee, who had once been David Bowie’s publicist, had managed the Heartbreakers and photographed my band Just Water and a hundred more bands, turned to the 10th street apartment in his time of need. Everyone that passed through got to listen all day and night to obscure but essential Rock-a-billy when Brigit was happy, and to George Jones when she was sad. Everyone that walked in that door said “what is this crap?”, but fell in love with it by the time they walked out. There were 3 main Rock-a-billy acts in New York at the time, and they all made pilgrimages to 10th Street. I got to rehearse with Buzz & The Flyers in my 6×10 bedroom. And when Levi & The Rockats came from England with their extended families, Brigit’s Bed & Breakfast was sold out.

10th street gave me instant Street Cred, but not a lot of sleep. Brigit worked at a sports bar at night where she could extract tips at will. Then the party on 10th street went from 2 until 7 AM, at which time I needed to leave for work. Somehow I learned to sleep while Sleepy LaBeef’s “Tore Up” slowly morphed into George Jone’s “If The Drinking Don’t Kill Me”. 10th street was my salvation. I may have given up my Street Cred at Brigit’s door when I left to program computers, but I am here to tell the tale.

It happened on a Sunday
I woke up someplace strange
My body in a stranglehold
My head was rearranged

The next thing I remember
I was staring at Chow Fun
My parents took me to Chinatown
But I was in Kingdom Come

Oh dread
Street Cred

I got up from the table
I made an urgent pay-phone call
“Remember me from Sunday?”
She didn’t remember Sunday at all

But her roommate had absconded
In the night, headed for Khartoum
In New York, timing’s everything
She rented me her room

Oh dread
Street Cred

I called her on a Thursday
I moved in on Friday night
My father helped me haul my records
He couldn’t believe the sight

There was tin foil on the tele
A cockroach on the sink
People sleeping everywhere
And an odd and pungent stink

I got used to the squalor
It felt normal to be
Running from the landlord
The Queen of 10th Street and me

Then I sprouted some epiphanies
Like sleeping through the night
Working in the day time
And exposing skin to light

Oh dread
Street Cred

So I saved up all my money
I bought a place and went high-tech
I took my parents for Chinese food
And I picked up the check

Well it happened again this Sunday
I awoke in a strange bed
With a wife and kid and a comforter
But without my old street cred

October
Story
Lyrics

“Kitty Hawk”

It’s the morning of December 17, 1903. Imagine if Orville Wright, when asked by brother Wilbur if he was coming to Kitty Hawk, replied with “No, I’m hung over and met this great gal in Raleigh. Let’s forget about this flying machine stuff”.

This song is about those little moments that decide the course of history and/or one’s life. One of those moments happened to me in the early 1980’s, which is still paying dividends in 2015.

I was trying to get my new band PT-109 off the ground, but all of us had day jobs. Dragging drums and amplifiers to studios and rehearsal halls at night was getting harder each year. I was secretly teaching myself about computers. I kept it a secret because no self-respecting rock n roller was allowed to admit to academic interests. My geriatric boss allowed me to program his computers, because at minimum wage it was quite a good deal. My drummer (Steve Korf, formerly of the seminal NYC band The Planets) had become the book keeper at a cosmetics distributor. One day Steve told me I should talk to his boss Fred about creating a computer program for him. I was actually quite intrigued by accounting, which of course was complete heresy to the religion of rock. I quite admired all those debits and credits swimming around like amoebas in hypnotic patterns that all had to add up to zero. Cool.

So off I went to talk to Fred about entrusting his cosmetics empire (he was the guy who created Mary Kay’s original line) to a moonlighting musician. We hit it off. Fred asked me what my computer consulting rate was. I made up a number that I almost choked on, and Fred’s response was “I’ll add 50% to that number. Am I your favorite customer now?”

“Sure Fred, you’re my favorite customer, but I’ll need to come in on weekends, since I’m already working full time for a geriatric cheapskate”

Fred was not impressed with my loyalty to my full time employer, and stated that “I am not ruining any of my weekends with a computer guy. I expect you to be in my office when I’m there!”. Remember that at this point in my life I had no experience with savvy business people who actually knew anything about organization. I was used to Hilly Kristal, the owner of CBGBs, tripping over dog crap and mumbling about how the bar did poorly and there was nothing left to pay the bands. My response was to turn down Fred’s incredible offer, because I just couldn’t leave my full time job.

As I was leaving Fred’s office, I heard a loud knocking sound. I turned around and Fred was knocking on his desk, as if knocking on a door, and he said:

“Opportunity is knocking. You may never hear this sound again!”

I got in the elevator. Somewhere between floors 35 and 1, I reassessed the fragile balance between loyalty and opportunity, stagnation and progress, and I came to my senses.

From the corner phone booth right outside Fred’s building I called back and said “I’ll start this week”.

I’ve been juggling debits and credits as well as sharps and flats ever since.

It happened on a Sunday
I woke up someplace strange
My body in a stranglehold
My head was rearranged

The next thing I remember
I was staring at Chow Fun
My parents took me to Chinatown
But I was in Kingdom Come

February
Story
Lyrics

“God Help Me”

Once upon a time in NYC, either backstage at CBGB’s or at the Max’s Kansas City bar, I heard a band talking about donating blood for money. Actually it was pretty common to hear about musicians scraping together a few extra dollars by donating blood and other bodily fluids. But this was a whole band that would go to the clinic together. Evidently one of the members had fallen hopelessly in love with the nurse. In 1976 that story was the basis of my song “God Help Me”, which was written from both perspectives; the nurse hoping to be saved from her strange and attentive customers, and the love-sick band member hoping to be saved from his desperate condition.

A few years later I found myself writing software for a company that was owned by a strange sad looking recluse. The company had invented a computerized bartering scheme where, for example, a dentist could trade with a Broadway theater – a root canal for some front row seats. A cigar-chomping entrepreneur ran the place for the owner. It looked like a mini stock exchange, except the traders looked like they spent more time at CBGB’s than in accounting classes. Because the trades were international, there was a night shift. The night traders were even scarier than the day traders. I was usually there from about 8 until midnight. Occasionally a door in the back of the office would be ajar, and I’d see the owner staring into space like Howard Hughes, sitting in a luxuriously decorated living room. One night he decided to pour out his life story to me; a story that could only happen in NYC, and I wound up adding him to this song.

I’ll call him “Harvey” to protect the guilty. Harvey wanted desperately to prove to his parents that he wasn’t worthless, but they disapproved of everything that he did. He couldn’t hold a steady job and had a tiny apartment off Times Square when Times Square was considered a bad (and inexpensive) neighborhood. He noticed that all the newsstands sold a magazine called “Screw”. It was a mimeographed pornographic newspaper that looked like you could get sick just touching it. Anyone who lived in NYC would have seen this rag, because it hung in front of every newsstand in the city. Harvey bought a copy and wondered if the publisher made any money with it. He decided he could copy the idea and make a few dollars. He placed a tiny ad in the NY Post paying $10 an hour for nude models. He was inundated with applications, and with less than a $1000 investment he started “Filth Magazine” (name changed to protect myself from Harvey). He turned his one-room apartment into a seedy photo studio, bought his own mimeograph machine, and became a one-man publishing company. “Filth” looked identical to his competitor’s rag. He delivered it personally to all those newsstands and charged a few cents less. Harvey actually started to sob as he told me the rest of the story.

Within months he was taking in $25,000 a week in cash. That comes to 1.3 million a year. He was stuffing cash into mattresses and couches. He was buying businesses for friends and taking a piece. He was setting up schemes to hide and invest cash, and he wasn’t paying taxes. But he couldn’t tell his family and get the approval that he so desperately longed for. After five years he was drowning in cash – both from the still ratty rag and from various other businesses, and he had an emotional breakdown. He simply closed shop and walked away from the pornography trade. He funded a legitimate business that his parents could be proud of. He let someone else run it while he sobbed in the back room, exorcising his demons to any software guy that would listen.

Harvey retired to Boca Raton, Florida, and today he looks pretty good (and rich) on his facebook page. I am not sure if the blood donors made it to Florida.

I got a silver dollar
And a two dollar bill
From a fake grandfather
Who left it in his will
(He’s heading down to the streets,
God help me)

I got a gold capped smile
That let’s you know I’ve been
In so many corners
I couldn’t always win
I’ve been to my knees
(He’s heading down to the streets
God help me)

This mirage in my mirror has inspired me
To be a man of passion
Who gets his kicks for free
I’m heading down to the streets – God help me!
I’m heading down to the streets – God help me!
I’m heading down to the streets – God help me!

There is a nurse named Franny
Who sees four at a time
She don’t tak insurance
Still, we’re sick all the time
Sick as can be
I’m heading down to the streets
God help me!

She don’t take appointments
I circle round Times Square
I am ashamed to tell her
How much I wish that she would care only for me
I’m heading down to the streets,
God help me!

I was too busy in the alley to be looking for love
I came home too late for a slap and a hug
They’re ain’t no stars in my above
My life’s just beginning
But my hand’s on the plug

I got a silver dollar
And a two dollar bill
From a fake grandfather
Who left it in his will
He left it for me

I’m giving blood with Franny
She always finds a vein
There’s someone else who loves her
I hate to hear her say his name
I’m heading down to the streets…

May
Story
Lyrics

“Any Questions?”

Back in 2008 a friend of mine told me about his parents both being in the same nursing home. They had to be placed in separate rooms because they couldn’t remember each other and were getting into violent arguments. It’s hard to process information like that, and so I turned it into this song. I changed the main character to be a sad future vision of myself, still reading old copies of Rolling Stone magazine while trying to remember the glory days. This song sat on the shelf for years, but when I heard about B.B. King passing away last week, I dusted it off.

I’ve tried to see B.B.King play whenever he came to town. I saw him when he was 80. I saw him at 85. Incredibly he was still on tour this year at 89. But the first time I saw him was when he was 43 and he opened for Led Zeppelin in Central Park at the Wollman Rink on July 29, 1969. Led Zeppelin had released their first album earlier that year; an album based mostly on blues riffs that may not have been possible if B.B. King had never existed. Yet, many in the crowd were oblivious to this irony. When B.B. first came on, the crowd was dismissive. But by the end of his set the crowd was totally with him, and they may have subliminally caught the underlying connection to what Zep was about to unleash. I must admit that after seeing B.B.,who was perhaps the most professional and perfect blues front-man ever, Robert Plant (Zep’s singer) seemed like a joke to me. As much as I loved Zep’s music, at one point my two brothers and I were laughing at Plant’s histrionics. We were there mainly to hear Led Zeppelin’s guitarist Jimmy Page play blues guitar based on the old masters like B.B.

In 2006 B.B. would sit down for most of his set, but his voice and playing were still in tact. In 2011, at 85, he’d forget where he was in mid-song. He would talk instead of sing when he got tired, which was after every song. It was sad to see, but also inspiring that he was determined to just keep going. He always said he had no real home but the stage and the road.

This month’s song has music based on a blues riff, and lyrics about doing what you do until you just can’t do it no more. It seems like a good song to dedicate to Mr. King.

I went walking down the hall today
I forgot what I was about to say
I went to see her,
She said “Who are you?”
I guess you got some of that amnesia too

I found myself at home alone
With a copy of Rolling Stone
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the sun
Any questions?
This interview’s done

Any questions?
This interview’s done

August
Story
Lyrics

“Banking Hours”

In 1978 I took my only suit, a brown corduroy stunner, out of a dusty closet at my parent’s house. Rock n roll had finally dashed all hope from my soul. Chasing dreams was no longer affordable. I was finally face to face with the unthinkable. The unbearable. An unfair and possibly impossible possibility; I needed a job!

I hid my suit and a horrible matching tie in a Walbaums paper bag and sulked my way back uptown to my apartment in Washington Heights at the top of Manhattan island. I had answered the only two job postings I could find that did not involve fast food and had absolutely no requirements listed. The next morning I awoke at the absurd hour of 7:00 AM in order to make it to my first job interview of my sort-of-adult life.

The brown suit and tie were stifling as I traveled on the NYC subway, down through Harlem, on the way to the mid-town law offices of Dunnfour, Hopeless, Stodgy, and Crass Esq. I was greeted by the office manager, an impeccably dressed and made up woman who seemed to hate everything and everyone. She was obviously able to see through my brown suit disguise and I was amazed that she even took the time to explain what job I was applying for. She led me into a small room with no windows. Only mahogany floor-to-ceiling book shelves. It seems that I was applying to be some sort of law librarian. As she explained that I would spend eight hours a day locked in this cage, replacing pages of old laws with new laws, I had the only anxiety attack of my life. I stopped her mid sentence, feeling that my brown suit was actually strangling me, and said “Lady, there is no way in hell that I am working in this room!!” With that, I tore off my tie, ran for my life, and emerged on a steaming hot NYC street in a full blown state of “What the f* do I do now!?!”

As I wandered through the city during the banking hours I found I had a secret power to spot other “brown suitors” – people that didn’t quite belong, but by the misfortune of necessity found themselves amidst normal society for the first time, wondering how it all worked. But, believe it or not, I only had to put that brown suit on one more time. The next day I applied for a job that truly had no requirements, and I was deemed qualified. I got this song too.

And I learned not to wear corduroy in NYC in the summer.

I met you on a Monday morning

Dancing on the bus

I felt your eyes behind like headlights

I knew that I could trust

You struggled in-between two lawyers

Suing for a seat

Looking through the shoes and sneakers

I noticed your bare feet

(chorus)

I see you in the banking hours

I follow you downtown

I see you in-between the taxis

I’m lost and then I’m found

I see you in the banking hours

(bridge)

My silver dollar

My silver dollar .. .. .. I’d invest it in you

I meet you in the subway dungeons

I stare and then you wink

But we have got a sale to make, what would

The business partners think

You turn up in the awkward moments

You chill me with your craft

My friends get up and close the windows

Thinking you’re a draft

(chorus)

(bridge)

I watched you leaving for the runway

Through my revolving door

I saw a ghost walk in behind you

And press the number for my floor

As the elevator rises

My gaze is fixed below

We’re stuck between the floors forever

Press 13, here we go

I count you in the banking hours

We watch the numbers grow

I feel you in the cars colliding

The pain is all we know

You touched me in the banking hours

November
Story
Lyrics

“Stegosaurus”

My grandparents lived on Brighton 6th Street in Brooklyn NY, just a short walk to Brighton Beach; a walk that my grandparents made every non-rainy day from May through September. My grandfather would start his day at the Democratic Club on the famous boardwalk that overlooked the beach. There was a sign “Young Democrats”, but no-one in the place was under 75. And as far as I could see there was nothing political going on. My grandfather would announce that the card game was about to start, and everyone in the joint would leave, schlepping their folding chairs off to the beach to play pinochle.

In the 1950s and 60s the term “personal space” was not yet invented. On Brighton Beach, families of 12 shared a 3×3 blanket. Every square inch of the beach was fair game, and on a hot Saturday you could not see the sand; only wall to wall bodies. Today, this would look like a refugee camp on a UN watch list. Back then it was the American Dream.

Nearly every weekend I was dragged off to join my grandparents on the beach in a repeating ritual just like the movie Groundhog Day. When I was within a mile of the beach, and over the cacophony of the swarms of sunbathers, I’d hear my grandmother announce to my grandfather “MAX THEY’RE HERE!!” We’d squeeze through the crowd to where my grandfather was winning yet another card game, and be greeted with salmon croquettes and sliced salted cucumbers. Over a period of 30 years I never saw my grandmother run out of salmon croquettes or cucumbers.

One day I brought along my pet plastic Stegosaurus “Steggie” and buried him in the sand next to our blanket. Suddenly the skies opened up and and the entire beach-full-o-bodies ran for cover under the boardwalk, dragging all of their blankets and bags. Within a minute the beach transformed from a city to an abandoned stretch of wet sand. Then it occurred to me that Steggie was somewhere out there under all that sand! But, not to worry! My parents gave me and my brother 5 minutes to try to find Steggie. By some miracle that I still can not explain, we found him in the very first place we started to dig.

When the lyrics to this song popped out, I undoubtedly had Steggie on my brain. But the song is really a metaphor for being able to discover your roots anywhere that you start to dig. This song has roots in every genre that ever got to me – blues, jazz, rock, and even the giant symphonic chords of Gustav Mahler.

This month please welcome Jon “Jed” Edwards to the Song Of The Month. Jed is the lead singer of the Big Strong Arms, whose debut album I am currently producing. Look for it in 2016!

It happened on a Sunday
I woke up someplace strange
My body in a stranglehold
My head was rearranged

The next thing I remember
I was staring at Chow Fun
My parents took me to Chinatown
But I was in Kingdom Come

March
Story
Lyrics

“The Stoop”

When I grew up in Brooklyn NY, I never thought of my family or any of my friend’s families as being poor. Yet, the notion of paying to join the local “Little League”, in order to play baseball in a nice clean uniform was out of the question. Sometimes we waited for the little league kids to leave the field, and then we played our own rag-tag game. But mostly we played street versions of baseball, like stoop-ball, stick-ball, and punch-ball. These games were unique to a few big cities.

In New York City, before air conditioning, everything happened on the stoop; those three or four steps in front of the entrance to row-houses and apartments. The Rolling Stones immortalized the act of hanging out on the stoop in their video for Waiting On A Friend, where Mick & Keith join some real neighborhood people (as well as reggae start Peter Tosh) on a stoop around the corner from my NY apartment. They played a short set on that same street at the St Marks Bar & Grill right after they shot the video. Everyone that lived in my neighborhood (The East Village) claims they were at that bar that night, but hardly anyone was. By the time a crowd started gathering, the Stones made their exit for a posh hotel without a stoop.

Stoop-ball was the most convenient version of street baseball, because you could play with as little as two people – or even by yourself. All you needed was a stoop and a pink rubber “pensy pinky” ball. You threw the ball against the edge of a step and tried to have it bounce as far as possible without being caught. A home run was usually when the ball went over the building on the other side of the street. A broken window was usually a triple, and the end of the game.

If you had enough players you could round up a punch-pall game using that same pensy pinky ball. Punch ball used most of the same rules as baseball, except that the batter uses his left hand to pitch to himself, and his right fist as the bat. Hits were measured based on how far the manholes and sewer drains were, and which ones you could hit to. We’d play in the middle of the street. The only thing that could stop a game was a mean driver, or my grandmother who would walk right through the bottom of the ninth with bases loaded, usually to return a half-eaten chicken to the butcher.

I missed a lot of good stoop ball games in order to practice the finger picking I use in this song.

We used to sit on the stoop
Punch a pink ball
Measure in sewers
And steps to the wall
Sharing an egg-cream
Split greasy fries
Everybody plays
Nobody dies
On the stoop

Let’s get our organizers out
Our calendars synced
Write a note on our hands
In indelible ink

We’ll meet in the gutter
Split greasy fries
Everybody plays
Nobody dies…
Nobody dies…on the stoop

June
Story
Lyrics

“Agua (is not Just Water)”

Self indulgence, hyperbole, and pomposity are the DNA of some of rock n’ roll’s classic songs. Even the titles give it away. Think of Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen), In Held Twas In I (Procol Harum), the dreaded Ina-Gadda-Da-Vida (Iron Butterfly), and nearly every song by the group “Yes”, including the four 20-minute tranquilizers on Tales From Topographic Oceans. These songs have collectively registered over 20 million YouTube views. That’s about 570 years worth of listening/viewing time!

This month’s song “Agua” joins the ranks of a special sub-set of rock’s hall of hedonism; the “psychedelic mostly-instrumental piece that tries to elevate a band from the gutter to the great halls of serious composition”. Every musician is capable of a track like this. Even punk bands like The Clash went down this path (their 3-record set, Sandinista). Given enough time, even The Ramones would eventually have put out a symphony.

I started working on “Agua” in 2007 but only recently had the nerve to finish it up and admit to my own sweet tooth for songs like this. Subliminal inspiration came from The Small Faces (Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake), Miles Davis’s Sketches Of Spain, The Who’s Sparks, and anything overcooked by Gustav Mahler.

Agua
Is Not Just Water

September
Story
Lyrics

“Spiked Again”

When I was living in England I’d always hear variations on the saying “Never discuss politics and religion in good company”. However, as a former New Yorker, how can I simply ignore the fact that Donald Trump is running for president? I’m not sure that discussing The Donald actually counts as a dissertation on either politics or religion, but here goes.

Last week I was in a New York taxi and the driver said he’d asked every passenger about Trump, and they all laughed and thought Trump was a joke. So what is it that New Yorkers know, that the rest of the country does not?

Trump was everywhere as I grew up. His father Fred Trump built affordable housing in Brooklyn and Queens, including the mega-apartment blocks “Lefrak City” and “Trump Village”. The joke was that Fred built for the middle class so that his son could care only for the rich. Donald’s big run-in with the middle class came when he purchased buildings in Manhattan that could only turn a profit if he could get the rent-controlled tenants out, and replace them with wealthy buyers. Stories were in the papers everyday about Trump not fixing the elevators so that elderly renters would give up and move out. Law suits flew. Money prevailed. Then there were endless stories of rudeness, corruption, and greed:

– Trump telling Larry King he had bad breath on the air (yes, for real)

– Trump Tower tenants complaining that Trump installed the cheapest cabinets, appliances, floors, etc., unless you were Michael Jackson or Johnny Carson

– Trump bragging about his net worth while the accountants had him 1 billion in the red, and the bankers were too embarrassed to admit how much they loaned him.

Which brings me to the song “Spiked Again”, which was written in 2008 after watching the infamous interview of Sarah Palin, in which she could not think of a single newspaper or magazine that she had read. Like most viewers, I was stunned that someone in her position could not rattle off a few sources of information. But I was more amazed that parts of the media declared that the act of reading was now a left-wing conspiracy. This song sat on the shelf until Donald reminded me about it. It’s not about him or Sarah, but it is about sore losers; people that just can’t seem to admit to any mistakes – ever.

Don’t get me wrong, we New Yorkers love New York’s bigger-than-life personalities. But we have a certain “code of honor”. Now, if a mob boss ran for president, we might go for it. It’s bigger than life, they have a romantic code of honor, and they don’t brag about their conquests – they just get on with it. This time it’s a Trump. Maybe next time it’ll be a Gotti for president.

It happened on a Sunday
I woke up someplace strange
My body in a stranglehold
My head was rearranged

The next thing I remember
I was staring at Chow Fun
My parents took me to Chinatown
But I was in Kingdom Come

December
Story
Lyrics

“Riverboat South”

It was Christmas season 1974 when poverty drove my band Just Water to the desperate measures needed to get our career started. It seemed to work for Bob Dylan & The Band, so Just Water rented a house in upstate New York and rehearsed in the basement.

Our singer, Ira, was the only one of us responsible enough to hold down a job. He worked the night shift at a metal works factory, which inspired my song Drastic Change (“I work after midnight at the steel cutting blade. I count the fingers I’ve lost with the money I’ve made“) We weren’t having any luck getting gigs and Ira’s salary wasn’t enough to pay the rent. So we called the local unemployment office to see if they could find the rest of the band some work. They sent a social worker to our house who quickly concluded that we were “the worst welfare case in the county – a bunch of adults under one roof with zero income”. We refused the welfare checks, but took a few food stamps and started to work with a government employment agent to get “seasonal jobs”.

The band was sent to Grand Way Stores to work on the checkout lines as Christmas shopping “baggers”. No one noticed the rock stars in their midst, but they did notice how poorly their presents were being wrapped. We did not need to wait for the customer complaints to get us fired, because our drummer was thought to be stealing a TV from the stock room. We were back on the street as quick as you could say “Competent Workers Needed on Aisle Three!”

Back we went to the employment agent, who quickly had us working as night-shift guards at some sort of factory that looked to us to be abandoned. We were each supposed to take a station and walk around looking for intruders. But the only intruder turned out to be our drummer, and we were unemployed again by morning!

Our last chance at making the rent money was working on the Erie Lackawanna Train Wreck Squad. We were called to salvage a postal train that had ran off the tracks. It was half under the Susquehanna River and half embedded in the mud and snow of the riverbank. Ironically, half of the train cars were filled with Gibson guitars being shipped from the factory in Michigan to the music stores in NYC. Of course you are now thinking that our drummer would surely try to steal those guitars. He must have seen the armed guards, because instead of getting us fired for grand larceny, he went for the lesser charge of sleeping on the job. We were salvaging a freight car filled with Christmas presents and pills, all mixed together like some cruel holiday eggnog. The hundreds of chronically under-employed train wreck workers formed a human chain to move everything from train to trucks. At the end of the human chain the supervisor found our illustrious drummer asleep atop a pile of pills and presents. End of job.

With no money for rent, it was the last straw for our singer Ira. The next morning he commanded the band to load the truck with all our amps and instruments and to keep driving until we found a paying gig. We stopped at a roadside club at just the right time – their house band just cancelled. We got the gig, played all week, payed the rent, got an agent, and moved up from plain poverty to band poverty. We didn’t fire the drummer until 1978.

This month’s song was written when I was 19. Ira and I sang it back then, and we revisit it now. It’s one of two Just Water songs about riverboats. The other one (Down In the Riverboat) made it onto our first album. I still don’t know how a kid from Brooklyn who had never seen a riverboat came to write songs about ’em.

It happened on a Sunday
I woke up someplace strange
My body in a stranglehold
My head was rearranged

The next thing I remember
I was staring at Chow Fun
My parents took me to Chinatown
But I was in Kingdom Come

2014

January
Story
Lyrics

“She Has Fun Electric”

History is written by the victors, which is why the media generally defines “punk rock” as the sound of The Ramones, The Clash, Blondie, Talking Heads, and The Sex Pistols. But when punk music was actually igniting, there was one band, which mainstream media has ignored, that was clearly at the top of the punk food chain. The Heartbreakers. Not Tom Petty’s band (although there’s still an argument over who stole the name from who). It was Johnny Thunders’ Heartbreakers. They drew the biggest crowds, caused the most excitement and trouble, and were the essence of what punk meant. And they descended from The New York Dolls, arguably the first NYC punk band. The Dolls self destructed before the term punk was coined, but The Heartbreakers surely carried the punk torch. The Dolls and The Heartbreakers shared a secret weapon. Their drummer was Jerry Nolan.

I first saw Jerry Nolan when he played in the band Shaker with my friend Artie Steinman. Jerry was also playing drums that night for the headliner, The New York Dolls. Jerry often played a simple jungle beat. It’s a beat that can be heard on records from every decade of music, from the big bands on. In the rock era that beat got heavier and heavier, but Jerry played it with just enough of that 1940’s swing. The Ramones certainly heard Jerry play it, and it became a staple of their sound. Then Jerry started the Heartbreakers, went to England, and had a profound influence on the English punk bands. The first Clash album is full of Jerry’s jungle beat.. Every punk band on both sides of the Atlantic used a variation of it from then on. My band Just Water used it for our version of Singin’ In The Rain.

Forty years later, I find myself writing a punkish tune called “She Has Fun Electric”, and I know it needs Jerry’s beat. Normally I’d start programming it on a computer, but I figured, “Why not get Jerry to play it?”. Jerry died in 1992, but that’s no problem for a good computer. Voila; I found a Heartbreakers song that starts with 4 bars of nothing but Jerry’s jungle beat! I sliced it up so I could loop it to make a whole song. The only problem was that computers like things to line up, with each bar in perfect symmetrical time to the next bar. But Jerry’s bars were not only different from each other (some slower/longer and others faster/shorter), but every one of the 4 beats in each bar was slightly off in time from the next. But that was Jerry’s magic. His intuitive copy-proof formula. And that’s why there is nothing that swings or rocks better than a real human drummer.

No-one was gonna stop me from playing with Jerry Nolan. I managed to keep just enough of Jerry’s perfect imperfections to construct the main part of the song. Jerry, thanks for the gig. R.I.P.

The lyrics of this song were written in the classic style of the blues men who perfected the art of using words like “chicken” and “lemon” to mean anything but food. Long live the metaphor & human drummers.

She
She has
She has fun
She has fun electric

She don’t laugh if she’s not happy
She will snap if you’re not snappy
She won’t have it any other way

She don’t laugh if she still wants it
Better get yourself right on it
You won’t live to waste another day

She has fun electric
She has fun electric

She don’t laugh unless your wired
Tangled, wrangled. ’till expired
She won’t have you any other way

She won’t put up with the gridlock
You my boy are in for a shock
You won’t live to glow another day

She has fun electric
She has fun electric

April
Story
Lyrics

“Years After The Funeral”

It’s time for me to rant and rave about this insidious musical parasite called “Auto-Tune” that has invaded most of the music produced today. No-one except music producers knew much about Auto-Tune until Cher turned the knob up a little too high on the song “Believe” in 1998. Then loads of rappers got a hold of it, and the most popular CD of 2013, Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories”, features those robotic voices that define the Auto-Tune sound.

This month’s song “Years After The Funeral” was originally written as a testament to the power of memory, and how much those we lose are still an active part of our lives. During the recording sessions, the song started to mourn for the time when music was all about feel, and not about robotic precision.

The inspiration for the song was a time in the early 1970’s when my friend Wes Steinman brought me to the summer camp that his parents owned. Not in summer. It was on a cold spring weekend to help get the camp ready. Every day I would spend an hour convincing Wes to play me his latest songs on an old out-of-tune upright piano in one of the camp mess halls. Those songs still inspire me, and his death in his twenties denied the world from hearing them on the radio. Part of the magic was how Wes’s great songwriting and impassioned performance was enhanced, not marred, by the stuck keys and bum notes on that piano. Today, a young songwriter is more likely to be playing a concert-tuned electric keyboard and singing into an Auto-Tuned mixer (which corrects his/her pitch in real-time while automatically adding a 3-part auto-tuned harmony!).

So, when I recorded this month’s song I made sure that none of the main instruments were in tune. In fact, the featured instrument is a guitar played through a “whammy” pedal, where I modulate the pitch with my right foot. The sound slides between chords and is never quite in tune on any one chord. I used an electronic recreation of Wes’s piano, where the notes are near-enough, but not quite in tune. And finally I used a Farfisa organ, which was popular in the 60’s. It’s sound is based on a tremolo effect where the organ rapidly goes in and out of tune. Then I sang over the whole mess. Although I try to sing “on key”, being on key in this song means blending with instruments that were purposely off-key. Yet, just like those days at camp, I think the struggle with pitch adds something magical that can’t be had any other way.

Now let me fess up. I’ve used Auto-Tune myself. Sometimes to fix a background vocal that I am too lazy to redo. Sometimes to fix one note in an otherwise acceptable take. And I am not upset with the technology itself, nor with the robot voices that are most associated with Auto-Tune. What upsets me is that today’s top producers readily admit that “nearly every pop release has an “auto-tune budget”, where every vocal is subtly tuned. You don’t hear the robots. You hear near-perfect pitch on every note. What the Auto-Tune program is doing is removing some of the most unique aspects of a singer’s performance; How they slide up to or down from a note. And auto-tune and masks a singer’s tendency to naturally go flat or sharp. If you ever said “why do all the pop songs sound the same today?”, the answer is that most of them are auto-tuned and artificially beat-enhanced into perfect synchronization by something called “quantization” (a rant and rave for another day!).

When music is about perfection, there is no Jimi Hendrix, no genre called blues (which is all about getting in-between the notes), no Jack White (one of the few brave artists today who doesn’t give a hoot about pitch), no Joe Strummer, no Dylan, and….so sorry for the long rant! I just needed to get that out of my system.

Years after the funeral
You’re still going strong
Leg up on a legacy
The nuns will sing along

Years after the funeral
Hot fires and dry trees
It’s gonna be a scorcher today
Digging in a grave-deep freeze

And it’s years
And it’s yours
And it’s years
And it’s Yours

Years after the funeral
Still warm to the touch
Years after the eulogy
Still stirring up dust

Years after the limo ride
The carpet’s full of ash
It’s gonna be a scorcher today
Let’s fire up the past

And it’s years
And it’s yours
And it’s years
And it’s Yours

Years after the funeral
We live another day
Long talks on the shortwave
While the Ouija waves away

Years after the funeral
Your impression’s in the bed
I’m gonna play a scorcher tonight
But I can’t upstage the dead

No I can’t… upstage… the dead

July
Story
Lyrics

“Kold In Krakow”

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the term “serious music” was used by jazz musicians to define their music as being of greater artistic value than pop or rock music. Classical musicians have used “serious music” to differentiate Beethoven from Beatles. Dare I say that this month’s song drifts into the territory of serious music, although without any malice towards the more debased, primitive, and frivolous forms of music, which I dearly love.

In 1967 the most famous of the then-current serious musicians was Leonard Bernstein, director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Although I was already a young rock n roll convert, I had seen West Side Story, which features Leonard Bernstein’s most famous “serious” music. So, when Leonard Bernstein created an hour long prime time TV special called “Inside Pop – the Rock Revolution”, I needed to hear what he had to say. Would he ridicule the music I loved? No, and much to the chagrin of his colleagues, he complimented the musicality of many rock artists, and was more familiar with underground groups like Canned Heat and the Mothers Of Invention than most teenagers of that era. Click the link to see the show.

Bernstein pointed out the clever key and tempo changes of The Beatles, and the incorporation of Indian scales into The Rolling Stone’s Paint It Black. Because he was willing to dive deep into “my music”, I started listening to his, including the symphonies by Gustav Mahler and Aaron Copland that he had conducted. I listened to his lectures for young people, and I remember him saying that rock musicians had to come up with 3 good melodies in a 3 minute song (for the verse, chorus, and bridge), while many symphonic composers struggled to come up with 3 good melodies in an hour long symphony!

Kold In Krakow is serious on two fronts. It contains the type of key, meter, and tempo changes that Lenny thinks are cool, plus it was inspired by the most serious subject I can think of – a trip the the Auschwitz concentration camp near Krakow, Poland. Auschwitz is Krakow’s macabre tourist attraction. While I was there in 2008, I found myself coping with its history by thinking of the music that played in the heads of the perpetrators, victims, and visitors throughout the decades. Kold In Krakow is more a piece than a song, as there was simply no place for words. It takes a progression of jazz chords through a progression of musical eras. Like sampling iPods throughout history, with a touch of classical, jazz, polka, and rock.
Guess who they left behind?

(Instrumental)

October
Story
Lyrics

“The Truth Is Lying”

A rented tour bus pulls up to a recording studio on 30th street in New York City sometime in 1978. My brother (and manager) Ken leads a group of Rastafarians onto the bus for a five hour journey to a gig in upstate NY. The group is fronted by Max Romeo, a reggae star on par with Bob Marley in Jamaica, but just a cult figure in the USA. Max and the band immediately light up an endless supply of paper chalices. Chalices are a form of water pipe used to smoke ganja in Jamaica, but the paper variety are simply joints the size of snow cones. The bus floats upstate.

A few weeks earlier my producer Eric Dufaure had invited me and my band-mate Danny Rubin to play on a Max Romeo session. Danny played the lead guitar, and my assignment was to play the synthesizer parts on a reggae version of the Kraftwerk electronic masterpiece “Showroom Dummies”. I was in awe of Max, as I was a huge fan of his 1976 album “War ina Babylon”, which is considered one of the first classic “roots rock reggae” records. It was produced by Lee “Scratch” Perry who also produced The Clash’s “Complete Control”, forever linking punk and reggae. The recording session was an unforgettable experience, both musically and culturally. Max and his band consumed ganja like programmers consume coffee. But Eric Dufaure miraculously kept them all on their feet and on task. Some great tracks were recorded, and the rastas got a kick out of having two NYC punk rockers playing alongside.

Arguably the most important factor that distinguished English punk rock from what was happening in New York was its Jamaican connection. It was not just the obvious reggae beat of English hits such as Roxanne by the Police. It was the political mantra of Armageddon and Revolution that took a direct flight from Kingston to Thatcher’s England every evening. The NYC punks like The Ramones were singing hymns of the white middle class like “I Wanna Be Sedated”. But the English punks were all spit and politics, singing “Anarchy In The UK” and “White Riot”. Although my song “The Truth Is Lying” has no reggae beats, it was written in 1979 under the twin influences of Jamaica and the UK.

So, the bus makes it upstate. Max Romeo plays a great show opening for Gil Scott Heron and they head back to NYC in the middle of the night. By the time they passed through the Lincoln tunnel at 7:00 AM, no-one in the band had yet slept, the chalices were still burning, and if the windows were open, all of Manhattan would have got a contact high.

My band Just Water played one show with Max Romeo, at “My Father’s Place” on Long Island. After that, we all wandered off down the road to obscurity. Check out Max’s War ina Babylon album.

Don’t wake up in a sweat,
with your feelings showing
(showing, showing, everything is showing)
Don’t get out of your bed,
until the tumor stops growing
(growing, growing, everything is growing)

Everyone wants to know
how you’re feeling today,
Were you really spying?
(spying, spying, everyone is spying)
All I want is to know, if the angels could win,
Would the devil stop trying?

(chorus)
The Truth is Lying, Lying
The Truth is Lying, Lying
The Truth is Lying, Lying
The Truth is Lying

Take a bath and embalm
when your boils are bursting
(bursting, burstting, everyone’s a bursting)
Take a salve to the sea
and see who’ll be first in
(first in, first in, everybody first in)

Everybody play war, everybody play dead,
Nobody plays cancer
(cancer, cancer, nobody plays cancer)
Go and fetch me the facts,
fork me the news,
Spoon me the answer

(chorus)

(bridge)
I swear, I promise, I vow, I hear
I know, I reckon, I read, I fear
I swear, I promise, I vow, I hear
I know, I reckon, I read, I fear

I spy, I tattle, I tell, I snitch,
I cringe, I tumble, I swell, I twitch
I swear, I promise, I vow, I hear
I know, I reckon, I read, I fear

Better button your belts
when the bombers go bowling
(bowling, bowling, everyone goes bowling)
Gotta glitter your ghouls
when the garbage gets glowing
(glowing, glowing, everybody’s glowing)

Everyone wants to know
’bout the price of da’ gas,
And da price a da’ red meat
We’ll be adding up the grocery bill,
while the crabs grab hold of your flat feet

(chorus)

February
Story
Lyrics

“Senior Prom”

There’s an old expression that goes something like this: “If everyone in the world put their problems in a basket and could reach in and take their pick, everyone would take back their own.” This song is based on the same theme, except the basket is full of relationships. Just in time for Valentine’s Day.

A few years ago, when my son and his gang were getting ready to go to their senior prom, I got this image stuck in my head. An image of a different kind of senior prom. It’s truly for seniors, as it’s just past those pearly gates. There’s quite a party going on, and you get to pick your date. So you reach into that basket and choose that same old partner all over again.

Trains all headed north
Steam is flying high
Holidays in Kingdom Come
Meet me at the senior prom

I’m up for the dance
I’m down with the plan
I’ll go list the farm
Meet me at the senior prom

Dishes are all washed
Trash is at the curb
There’s nothing in this world we haven’t done
Meet me at the senior prom

I’m dressed and you’re packed
You’ve Googled the map
The GPS is on
Meet me at the senior prom

Everyone graduates, most of us fail
We’ll march to the snare and the tom
They’re serving that Vietnamese soup that we love
Meet me at the senior prom

They’re serving that Vietnamese soup that we love
Meet me at the senior prom

Some may arrive in a limo
Some surf on the fumes of a bomb
Take the Mercedes, or jump in a cab
Meet me at the senior prom

Sell the Mercedes, and hop in a cab
Meet me at the senior prom

May
Story
Lyrics

“When I Get My Laundromat”

Prince once described the music business as waiting at the bus stop with a hundred equally talented people, and there’s only one seat left on the bus. The trick is to be at the bus stop every day, and maybe you’ll be standing in front of the door as it opens. I was at that bus stop for quite a few years. I met a lot of good musicians at the bus stop. I even got on the bus once, but I just couldn’t keep my seat. I wonder what happened to all those talented people?

In late 1978, my brother Ken and I could be seen in the rear-view mirror of the Magic Bus. As it sped away, we wondered what on earth we were gonna do with our lives? We had violated our parents cardinal rule of “having something to fall back on”. What were our options? The Navy? We could see the world, but they’d never have us! Homelessness? We were certainly qualified for that. As I wandered around the Lower East Side hoping for a miracle, I found myself at the local laundromat, and for a moment it was the answer to my prayers. How elegant. You get a few washers and dryers and the people come. All night. Like an endless line of zombies with quarters. You don’t even need to be there. Just come in the next morning and collect. I wrote this song during the spin cycle.

I never did get my laundromat. I did manage to coax a few quarters out of this newfangled thing called a computer.

You might ask “what happened to the bus drivers?”. I’ll tell you; They thought CDs were gonna last forever and they gave away their industry to a couple of computer guys. But that’s another song for another month!

I’ll get five hundred dollars
for my 68 Les Paul
I’ll get three for the Strat,
And I’ll pay off the rehearsal hall
I’ll sell my rare rock records,
And with a little luck
I’ll sell my colored vinyl pressings to another schmuck

All I want is a few machines
I’ll sponsor little leaguers teams
Young and old with sheets to fold
Rinse my life in hot or cold

(chorus)
When I get my Laundromat
Its gonna be alright
When I get my Laundromat
I’m gonna sleep at night
When I get my Laundromat
I’ll mix colored with white
I’m gonna sleep at night

I’ll get a thousand dollars
for my Hiwatt amp
I’d send for my royalty check,
But it ain’t worth the stamp
Auction off my copyrights,
We might get fifty bucks
I’ll trade the van for a
matching laundry truck

I just want to take a nap
While people come to clean their crap
No tuning up, no eardrums blown
I’ll just take your quarters home

(chorus)

August
Story
Lyrics

“The New Yorker”

In November of 1971, three New Yorkers took a break from school for a road trip down south. Ira, Posey, and I jumped in a Volkswagen Bug and drove 650 miles to Charlotte, North Carolina.

We pulled up to the back of the Charlotte Coliseum Arena and started banging on the closed metal garage door of the truck entrance. After a few minutes of banging, the huge garage door started to open. Then from out of the shadows, a disheveled figure emerged. He took one look at us and screamed: “It’s the Jews! It’s the three Jews!”

The disheveled figure was John “Bumper” East; Keith Moon’s roadie.
We had come to take up an offer that no teenager could pass up.

A few months prior, while backpacking in England, we had weaseled our way into becoming roadies for The Who. (That’s a story big enough for another dozen Songs Of The Month) We worked a short tour in England, and became lovingly referred to as The Three Jews. Then The Who went to America while we finished backpacking around Europe. But Bumper and the other roadies invited us to catch up with them on the American tour whenever we got home.

So here we were in Charlotte, hoping they’d remember the invitation. They did. The roadies kept their word and we were back on the job. Well, not quite, because unlike England, there were union rules to follow. We were gonna work, but not get paid. We didn’t care. We were on tour with the Who!

That night in Charlotte I was assigned to the backstage entrance. I had specific instructions to keep the fans from busting through the fence, “except for any six-foot blondes for The Who’s singer, Roger Daltrey”. Roger’s request turned out easier than it sounded, because in Charlotte, North Carolina, all the girls were blonde, and with their Dolly Parton hairdos, they all hit the six foot mark!

From Charlotte we went on to Tuscaloosa, Alabama and then Atlanta, Georgia. I had never been down south before. Most of my impressions of the south were based upon watching the movie Easy Rider, where Dennis Hopper gets shot for being a hippie riding a motorcycle through Louisiana. Being a New Yorker seemed perfectly normal to me, but down south in 1971 the term New Yorker meant depraved blasphemous communist hippie long-haired freak Yankee aggressor. Looking back, I guess the term was pretty accurate! Ironically, a few years later, all the New Yorkers had short hair, and the entire south looked like an extension of the Allman Brothers band. It was the first time that I felt like I was the outsider; the strange person with the strange accent. I could relate more to the Who’s roadies – who came from across an ocean – than to my fellow countrymen.

By 1977, when I wrote “The New Yorker”, I had several other incidents with my band Just Water in small towns, where New Yorkers were looked at with equal amounts of fascination and suspicion. This song is the story of small town Betsy, who’s fascinated by The New Yorker, and her boyfriend Johnny who murders him. All told with New York cynicism. Today, this New Yorker lives in North Carolina, not too far from where Pete Townshend smashed his guitar on November 20, 1971. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I can’t believe that it took me 68 Songs Of The Month to finally tell a Who roadie story. It’s the time of my life that people ask me about the most. So, if you promise to keep listening, I promise to reveal all the sordid details in the months and years to come, including some unpublished Keith Moon stories!

Apologies to Ely, who I somehow left out of this story when first published!, but he was there too!

In the wide open spaces,
near a hillbilly town
The rustling of the dead leaves
was the only sound around
Big Johnny looked up under
Little Betsy’s gown
He gazed a little further and was
amazed at what he found
It was the eyes and the nose
of that famous city walker
Big Johnny just knew,
though he’d seen but a few
It was The New Yorker
Oh Oh Oh, The New Yorker!
The New Yorker!

With a guitar on his shoulder and the garbage that he strew
The way he put his thumb up at the truckers passing through
His token leather jacket and his
brand new city shoes
With his cussing and his wheezing
even Little Betsy knew
This was the style of no local
country stalker
There were chills up her thighs
as she looked in the eyes
Of The New Yorker!
The New Yorker!

(chorus)
There’s no strength in his shoulders,
though he holds a ton of lies
There’s no gun in his holster,
but he’ll get you right between the eyes!

Talk went through the county,
with some un-admitted fear
Johnny could feel Betsy getting
cold as he came near
Betsy had good reasons,
but she said they were too dear
So Johnny went out riding,
the poor kid could barely steer
Then he said to himself “who else but me could ever have caught her?”
His thoughts weren’t clear,
but a face reappeared;
The New Yorker!
The New Yorker!

When Johnny stopped the engine,
there was a big stick in his hand
The sweat dripped on the dead leaves
as he envisioned what he planned
All he could think was “Betsy,
with a New York City man!”
All he could hear was rustling in
the woods to which he ran
Then he stood by two lovers,
in a knot with one another
He raised up his stick,
screaming “God forgive”!
“But damn The New Yorker”
Damn The New Yorker!
Damn The New Yorker!

In the wide open spaces
on a highway going west
Where the constant urge for going
is forever put to the test
Where the tales of passing strangers
that are passed along in jest
Get gathered up by tumbleweeds
and seldom ever rest
There’s a man with his thumb up,
singing “I’m no city walker”
And a girl in the trees
with her pants to her knees;
Must be The New Yorker
Must be The New Yorker

November
Story
Lyrics

“Start A Picture Gallery”

Every month my challenge is to match the story with the song. Usually serendipity strikes, and it all fits together. But a few months back, due to popular demand, I promised to tell more Keith Moon stories, and there are simply no songs to match the spirit of Keith Moon unless he’s playing drums on them. Hopefully by the end of this rant, I’ll have made some convoluted connection between the story and the song….

For those of you that are unfamiliar with Mr. Moon, he was, like a black hole; a singularity of the universe. He was universally considered the “greatest rock drummer”, even though he never played a steady beat in his life. When asked if he thought he was the world’s best drummer his reply was “I am the best Keith Moon style drummer in the world”. The Who have trudged on since his death in 1978, but they never would have been The Who without him. If you aren’t a Who fanatic like me, I totally understand. After all, the drummer follows the vocals, the bass player plays lead, the lead player plays rhythm but his hands don’t actually touch the guitar because they are always swinging in the air. It’s a glorious mess. Speaking of serendipity, Keith was best mates with another drummer you’ve heard of: Ringo Starr. One day Keith was visiting Ringo, and saw that Ringo’s 10 year old son Zak was learning the drums on a tiny Beatles-style drum kit. A few days later a truck pulls up at Ringo’s house and delivers a full replica of Keith Moon’s gigantic drum kit, double bass drums and all, to young Zak Starkey. 20 years later Zak became The Who’s drummer, and has played with them ever since. Which brings us to Keith Moon’s impetuous generosity and today’s tale.

When I was a roadie for The Who in the early 1970’s I never crossed paths with Keith. He’d miraculously appear when the lights went up, and disappeared as quickly when the lights went down. But when I returned to my normal role of fan, I had 4 encounters with him. This one was classic Moon:

It was June 1974 and The Who were playing 4 nights in New York at Madison Square Garden. I was staying with a bunch of friends at Hotel Navarro, where The Who were also staying. Keith didn’t know me by name, but he’d seen me with the road crew and in the front row enough times to know I wasn’t dangerous. I’m sitting in the hotel lobby and Keith asks me “where can I buy a camera?” I knew the area pretty well, so I said “follow me”. Just walking down the street with Keith was a trip, because he loved to dress like a landed English country gentleman, with the perfect hat, scarf and cane. So we walk into this busy camera shop, and Keith starts tapping his cane and saying “here, here, can I get everyone’s attention!” in his best fake upper class British accent. “G’day madame, g’day gents! Everybody! Today the cameras are on me!”. He leans on the counter and invites everyone to pick out a camera. Most people thought he was mad, but this is New York. A bunch of people stepped right up and picked out a camera. Keith said “And I’ll have one of those for me-self”, paid for everyone’s camera in cash, and off we went!

My friends asked me “why didn’t you get a camera?” I guess I considered myself his accomplice. In all my years around The Who, I never asked them for anything other than directions to the next gig.

And so here’s the flimsy connection between the story and the song: “Camera / Picture”

I wrote this song when I was 19, and in the song I am an artist thinking that in the end I’ll just be a boring old man with his pictures strewn all over the floor. Damn; How did I know?

The story begins with
a picture on the wall
The story continues
and the picture falls
The old story teller leans
over his younger days
He sings his tales
just the same as he prays

He could be living in Wyeth scenes,
And not be Warhol for you
Can’t you see I’m giving myself away
Can’t you see I’m giving myself away

(chorus)
Standing over me,
someplace where I can’t be
Singing songs that scream
“why don’t you see?”
When I can’t even tear
my eyes off you
Doing harmonies,
with pictures in your sleep
Waking up, with a song of agony
And I can’t even tear
my eyes off you
Say it again and again,
I’ll listen every time
Sing it again all your life,
and I’ll listen with all that is mine
I’ll get myself a wife,
and start myself a family
Get curtains by the walls
and start a picture gallery
Let the dust that settled
there settle here
Oh I can hardly tear
my eyes from you
From you

The story continues
with a picture on the floor
Neo post minimal, pre WW IV
The old story teller knows
what the movement defines
Shadows and light through
the auction house wines
I’m sure its hidden there somewhere
I’m sure the image is you
Can’t you see I’m giving them all away
Can’t you see I’m giving them all away

(chorus)

The story won’t end,
but the image fades in time
An Alzheimer’s faith,
mixed with turpentine
And old story tellers,
with their pictures on the floor
Sick of the ploy,
paint just one more
Can’t you hear me
whisper myself away
Drowning my song
in too many words

March
Story
Lyrics

“Wayward Boys (Revisited)”

In Webster’s dictionary, the definition of “punk” is “a young inexperienced person” or “a petty gangster, hoodlum or ruffian”. I doubt that Webster’s intended to include a “downtown” vs “uptown” definition of punk, but…

In New York City, circa 1977, music was pretty well divided along racial lines with white punk-rockers downtown, and black punk-poets inventing a new genre called rap uptown. Simultaneously, somewhere in mid-town was disco, which was also at its height in 1977 via the movie Saturday Night Fever.

Punk rock was an extremely middle-class phenomenon. It came from the streets – but the streets were mostly manicured and filled with kids with enough free time to analyse Dylan lyrics, play Beatles records backwards, and afford electric guitars. Rap was truly “of the streets, by the streets, and for the streets”.

When I wrote this month’s song Wayward Boys back in the 1970’s, I was a middle-class white kid trying to “write street”. Just like Joey Ramone and Lou Reed, I knew that at any moment someone could publish our Bar Mitzvah pictures and blow our street credibility away! I needn’t have worried. The critics, the promoters, the audience, and the record company execs were all in on the scam. We’d protect each other’s invented coolness, suppress our upbringing, and pretend we were born on the wild streets of rock n roll. It wasn’t that punk was dishonest. It was honest acting. If Mick Jagger could go from the bourgeois London School Of Economics to become a blues singer, certainly a bunch of New Yorkers could try and act tough.

In all my years at CBGBs, the only fight I can remember is when self-proclaimed tough guy Handsome Dick Manitoba of The Dictators duked it out onstage with Jayne County, a blonde with flashing light bulbs in her hair, and lost! OK, so Jayne was really Wayne, but he/she was wearing heels and Handsome Dick barely sullied her make-up.

And so Wayward Boys was my tough guy song. But my honest-at-all-costs upbringing wouldn’t let me get away with a dishonest song. So I constructed Wayward Boys in two parts – the punk verses, and the “Hey, its really just us sweet kids trying to be punks” chorus.

I originally sang Wayward Boys on the Just Water album “The Riff”, recorded in 1977. In 2013 Ira Bernstein asked me to revisit Wayward Boys; to slow it down, and give him a chance to sing it and concentrate on the lyrics. Ira gave me the new tempo and feel, and I decided “why not do it as if a Mexican mariachi band had invaded a steel mill?” Here goes:

They say if you sneer too much, your mouth is gonna freeze that way
They say if you’re poor and you don’t have a ball, that you can’t play
They say if your Dad’s a bum, you’re gonna follow his path
They say if you’re drinking young, its gonna be your epitaph

Well I sneer, I’m poor, I’m drunk,
but I’m still gonna play
Who the hell are they to say
“They say”?

They said if I cut class too much,
my brain was gonna get too soft
They said if I begged for change,
my hands eventually would fall off
They said if my Mom was gone,
that I would grow up impaired
They said if my Dad beat me,
that I would always be living scared

Well I’ve cut, I’ve begged,
I’m beaten, but I still got my head
Who the hell are they?
You say “They said”?

(chorus)
My name is Billy and I’m a wayward boy
Her name is Mary and she’s a wayward girl
We get the love that’s left at the bottom of the world

It’s silly how mushy a drunk can get,
over a stolen string of pearls
Nothin’ out there’s too much
for a wayward girl!

We’re the wayward boys,
and you just can’t shut us out
We crawl out of your garbage cans,
and in the summer we start to shout
You might see us on your after-lunch stroll, and you’ll step back off of the curb
If we’re hungry, we might suss you out, you’ll hear truth in every word
In the winter you might think we’re gone, ’cause we’re too busy keeping warm
But green eyes for your overcoat will outlast the first spring storm
We’re real, we’re free, we’re here,
and we’re planning to stay

We’re the wayward boys
(“I’m a wayward boy”)
We’re the wayward boys
(“I’m a wayward boy”)

(chorus)

We’re the wayward boys

June
Story
Lyrics

“Mal De France”

What have the French ever done to me to make me take pot shots at ’em in a song?

I never met a French musician, producer, engineer, or meal that I didn’t like. In 1984, when I was in Band Apart, the French let me play in Paris and Rennes when I couldn’t get a gig in my own home town.

The south of France has taken in our favorite English (and Irish) rock stars when they couldn’t stand to pay the Queen’s taxes. In 1979 that very same Queen wouldn’t stamp my passport. She said I was looking to take a job away from one of England’s punk rockers. She was just as mean to the French punk rockers, because me and a mob of day-glow colored French kids were deported together for the crime of carrying guitars. I decided to go with them to Paris. After sleeping with my Les Paul under a bridge I decided I had enough day glow. But I always appreciated those French kids. Because I know that if that bridge was in New York, I wouldn’t have that Les Paul today.

In 2007 I had a family holiday in France. After countless charming towns, unlimited castles, and all my art posters coming to life, my then-teenage son summed it up; “I’m sick of France”. My poor francophile wife had to put up with us being “Mal De France” for the rest of the trip. Too much civilized living can just get to you sometimes.

And right now wife (with mother and sisters & niece) are in France again!
Guess who they left behind?

Too many roses
Too many grapes
Too little ugly
No overweight
I don’t feel right in
these tight red pants
I got a bad case of…
Mal De France
Mal De France
Mal De France

Too many euros
In Gay Paris
No soda refills
There’s nothing free
No femme fatale in a
film noir trance
Le docteur said it’s…
Mal De France
Mal De France
Mal De France

I’m a Y chromosoma
trapped in Aix-en-Provence
An Oklahoma coma sipping
Champagne like a ponce
Poured a slow gin fizz
in my Kir Royale
It must be…
France De Mal
France De Mal
France De Mal

There’s a babe with a
baguette bagging saucission
I’m a gringo with a gallon
on an ice cream cone
Je suis, oh forget it,
Je n’parle, Je n’dance
I got a bad case of…
Mal De France
Mal De France
Mal De France

Too many olives
Too nice a view
Too many bonjours
Not enough adieu
Too many ducks with
their liver on my lance
Got a bad case of…
Mal De France
Mal De France
Mal De France

I’m though with au jus,
Its time for au revoir
I got a bad case of…
Faux De Pas
Faux De Pas
Mal De France

Mal De France
Moi aussi
Mal De France
C’est La Vie…
Mal De France
Moi aussi
Mal De France
C’est La Vie…

September
Story
Lyrics

“Mason Jar”

On a pitch black rainy night we were winding through the mountains of upstate New York, passing the desolate towns in whose bars I would be playing six years later.

I was about thirteen, on a rare family outing, when my father starting swerving around the two lane road trying to avoid the dented cars on a real life bumper car course. My parents had an agreement to never disagree in front of their kids. But in this case there was no time for discussion, and their instinctive differences were revealed. The car accident in front of us was horrific. My Mom’s instinct was to protect us from this scene, and she urged my father to keep driving. My father, just retired from the New York Police Department, had the instinct to help no matter what, and we stopped on the gravelly shoulder next to a steep embankment.

There was a car just ahead. I’ll never know if (a) the smoke all around the car was from fire or from the fog, or (b) if the legs hanging out of the open car door were those of a victim or of a good samaritan trying to help. That image has never left me. Then, from out of the smoke or fog, a man came running and told my father “keep moving, help is on the way”. He also pointed to another person sitting on the side of the road and said “He’s the lucky one. His car is at the bottom of the embankment”.

Six years later, on the side of another upstate New York road, my band Just Water rehearsed in the basement of our rented house. The original home owner preserved his own fruit and vegetables, and stored them in hundreds of mason jars in a special room next to where we played. We thought the jars were filled with human remains – mostly brains and intestines, and we were scared to death to be down in the basement alone.

In 1977 those two stories came together for this song. The mason jar seemed the perfect metaphor for people trying to shield you from reality, and the song was written from the perspective of that unknown man who I saw in the middle of the road and rain. What was on his mind that night?

I’ve been kicking up sand these days
From riding on the shoulder
Looking for a turn that I missed
Somebody must have rolled her
I’ve been kicking up sand these days
Riding on the shoulder
An old model just asked me why
I’m racing with the fold for?

(chorus)
Give me a reason,
don’t show me your lucky star
They tried to preserve me,
they put me in a mason jar
I’m one in a million,
but they don’t care who you are
Just give me that old jug of whisky,
don’t give me no bar
You might-as-well put me in the mason jar

I’ve been kicking up sand these days
Imagining our daughters
Open up old magazines
From shores beyond the waters

I’ve been seeing in the dark these nights
A film that’s always showing
I can’t remember how it begins
But the action scenes are slowing

I’ve been kicking up sand these days
From riding on the shoulder
Watching out at the passers by
That’s what I would’ve told her

(chorus)

December
Story
Lyrics

“The Raid On Ben Maksik’s”

This is the true story of how Brooklyn’s most famous night club was shut down by the police. This story has never been published, because only my family knows the truth about what happened on that rockin’ night in 1967.

I was 14 years old and fast asleep in my home in Brooklyn, NY. Somebody’s shaking me and whispering “get up!”. It’s Penny, one of my sister’s best friends. Why was Penny creeping around my house in the middle of the night? She leads me downstairs to our basement, and I am shocked by what I see. It’s Terry, my 15 year old sister, lying on the concrete floor unconscious. The scene was lit exactly like those black and white horror movies, with a foggy mist enveloping the limp body of my sister. My heart stopped, because it looked like she was a goner. Then I heard some moaning sounds, and although this was still a horror show, at least she was alive!

In the 1950’s and 1960’s the grandest club in Brooklyn was Ben Maksik’s Town and Country. It had room for 3000, mob affiliations, and top acts like Judy Garland and Jerry Lewis. Ben Maksik’s was past its prime in 1967, when it was temporarily renamed “Action City” and started putting on rock n roll shows. The Young Rascals played Ben Maksik’s. The Doors were advertised as “coming to Ben Maksik’s”, but I don’t think they ever showed. And one night Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels came to town.They were riding high on the success of their hit records “Devil With A Blue Dress On” and “Sock It To Me Baby”. Terry, Penny, and the third Musketeer Sara, who were all under-aged, were determined to get into Ben Maksik’s to see Mitch Ryder that night. Ben Maksik’s was at the south end of Flatbush Avenue, just walking distance from our house.

Back in the basement, while my sister gurgles and moans, Penny and Sara tell me what happened. They were all decked out in their killer 1960’s miniskirts, thick black eyeliner, and Goldie Hawn hairdos. Since they would not be able to legally drink at the club, they had decided to split a bottle of vodka on the way. My sister must have got the best of the bottle, because while Mitch Ryder was crooning “Fee Fee Fi Fi Fo Fo Fun”, she was swooning her way to the floor. Before things got any worse, Penny and Sara dragged my sister out of there and down Avenue U to my house. They used Terry’s keys, quietly slipped into our basement, put their heads together, and hatched this brilliant plan. Penny and Sara would tell my parents that someone at Ben Maksik’s slipped drugs into Terry’s drink. The problem was how to get Terry to corroborate the story? That’s where I came in. They wanted me to stay up all night waiting for Terry to gain consciousness, and then get her to memorize the story! No problem!

Penny and Sara leave, and I start to pray that the vodka wears off before my parents get up, so I can tell Terry to go along with the “I was drugged” story. I decided to go back upstairs for something, and as I am about to open the basement door, I can feel that someone else is holding the door handle from the other side. The door opens and the horror show continues. It’s my Dad; recently retired officer of the NY Police Department, in his pajamas, and he says “What on earth are you doing down here?” I reply with what sounded to me like a perfectly reasonable response: “I’m just playing with my chemistry set”. To which he said “AT 1 IN THE MORNING!”. He shoves me aside, stomps down the stairs, and what does he see? His only daughter, his baby girl; a gurgling mumbling mess, a face full of running mascara, motionless on the concrete floor. He frantically tries to wake her, picks her up and whisks her upstairs where my Mom is waiting to hear what those noises in the basement were. At this point I start doing my sworn duty, and inform my parents that dear sis was drugged at Ben Maksik’s. I look at my parents, and the looks on their faces could not be more different. I could see those text balloons from comic books floating above their heads. My Dad’s text balloon said “Who did this to her!!!”. My Mom’s said “Hmmm I wonder what she and her friends were really doing?”. Then Dad says “I’m calling Captain Ike at the police station” and Mom says “Don’t be silly. She probably got drunk with her friends”. Mom gets my sister in a cold shower. Dad calls Ike.

Cops, like soldiers, always take care of their own. My Dad may have retired, but when he called his old precinct captain, the response was simple and swift. “If you’re sure they drugged your daughter, we’ll take care of it”. Within minutes the word was out, and a swarm of police descended on Ben Maksik’s. Everyone was rounded up and searched, and anyone that had any kind of drug was arrested. It didn’t make headlines, but a small article did appear in the papers saying “last night there was a raid on Ben Maksik’s…..”

Meanwhile, my sister still has no idea about the fabricated story. Luckily the vodka is stronger than the cold shower, and she’s still unable to speak. My Dad feels satisfied that he has avenged the evil drug lords of Ben Maksik’s. My suspicious Mom tucks Terry into bed. I pretend to go to sleep, but my job is still not done. I need to get to Terry when she wakes, before my parents do.

Success! Terry comes out of the fog, and I get her to memorize the story: “You were drugged! You were drugged! You were drugged!”

Failure! Morning comes and by breakfast, after hearing Terry repeat the drug story, and after looking into my Mom’s all-knowing eyes, my Dad realizes that his entire precinct of cops had needlessly got out of their warm beds in the middle of the night to arrest a bunch of innocent kids.

When the cops cleared the bar and the dance floor that night, it was the end of an era. That was the last night anyone played Ben Maksik’s. The famous Brooklyn landmark never reopened. For years, the mob had tried to muscle in on the place, but it took Terry, Penny, and Sara to shut down Ben Maksik’s for good!

Fee Fee Fi Fi Fo Fo Fun. Good Golly Miss Molly!

Somebody’s lying in the basement
Cold and damp and pale
There’s gonna be a raid on Ben Maksik’s
Somebody’s going to jail

School girls are knocking back vodka
Smuggling it in by the pail
There’s gonna be a raid on Ben Maksik’s
Somebody’s going to jail

Brother’s in the basement
with his chemistry set
Shhh! Try to keep it low
The girls are weeping,
the doors are creaking
Something’s getting ready to blow!

It all happened right here on Flatbush (Ave)
You could see the Rascals and The Doors
There’s gonna be a raid on Ben Maksik’s
Nobody’s gonna play there anymore

Ben’s was the greatest club in Brooklyn
Judy Garland sang there for the mob
But the mob didn’t shut down Ben Maksik’s
Three schoolgirls and a bottle did the job

Cops are pouring through the stage door
The girls are spinning their tale
There’s gonna be a raid on Ben Maksik’s
Somebody’s going to jail

Put her in an ice cold shower
Make sure she knows the story
when she wakes
Last night there was a raid on Ben Maksik’s
For cops, cops do whatever it takes

For cops, cops do whatever it takes
For cops, cops do whatever it takes
For cops, cops do whatever it takes

It all happened right there on Flatbush
You could see Mitch Ryder and The Doors
Then there was a raid on Ben Maksik’s
And nobody played there no more
No more
No more

2013

January
Story
Lyrics

“The Fink Brothers Ride Again”

In the 1930’s there was an obscure band of petty thieves known as The Fink Brothers. They controlled a few Jewish blocks of New York City, but left the remaining streets to their more seasoned and better armed Italian brothers. Everyone in the neighborhood must have been brothers because all their names ended with the “Y” sound. The Italians had Vinny, Frankie, and Joey, but the Jews also had loads of “Y”s. There was Sidney, Abbey, Jerry, Solly, Yudy, and plenty of Harrys. And there was my father, Seymour, whose name didn’t quite fit, so they shortened it to Sy.

Sydney Fink was the youngest of the three Finks. His two brothers were shot and killed during the Great Depression, leaving Syd to continue the family trade alone. Syd’s career was at odds with his friend Sy, my father, who was an NYPD cop. But they remained friends based on the mantra “as long as I don’t catch you, we’re OK”. Syd often came round our house, and provided ample entertainment to my brothers, sister and I, especially when he’d slip up and admit to some sordid details about his life; but never when my father was listening. There was a long period when we didn’t see Syd, because my father lent him 50 bucks to help him “get straight” and he missed the pay-back date by about 10 years. During that time he ran a racket in the garment center that had something to do with switching and stealing clothing racks. Ironically my brother Ken and I were “walking messengers” in the garment center during the same time, and often had to deliver clothes racks from one clothing showroom to another. We never ran into Syd “at work”, but we probably would have cheered him on! My father finally caught up with Syd, got the 50 bucks, and all was forgiven.

This song is about a half-century of friendship between three people that started with nothing, and who could never imagine a song being written about them. I’ve mixed up some of the names (poetic license) but the song recounts the completely (well 99%) true story of Syd the con man, Sy the cop, and Yudi the makeshift inventor. The part of the story that files under “truth is stranger than fiction” is that Yudi, completely self-taught, wound up inventing a special glue that was used on the Apollo space capsules that went to the moon.

Note: There’s lots going on in this mix so I encourage listening under a good pair of headphones.
Also note: This may be the first song ever to feature a verse about Kasha Varnishkes!

Solly was a tailor
Seymour was a cop
Yoodie cooked up crazy glue that stuck to astronauts

But during the depression
When the tenements were hot
The Fink Brothers ran the streets, the rackets, and the block

The Fink brothers ride again
The Fink brothers ride again

The oldest Fink was deadly
The middle Fink was sick
The youngest Fink was Sydney, who endeared you with his schtick

While the sweat was dripping
And the tenements ablaze
The Fink Brothers quenched your thirst in those prohibition days

Syd’s stealing shmatas in the garment center
Hiding beneath the skirts of a Yenta Talabenta
Pinching fake bags from a Chinese importer
Squeezing three dimes out of a dirty quarter

Tailors stuck to needles
Cops looked the other way
No kid in the neighborhood would rat a Fink away

While the ice was melting
And the tenements were hot
Mr. Fink was watching as the three Fink boys were shot

The Fink Brothers ride again!
The Fink Brothers ride again!

They wore the stars and stripes
They fought for Uncle Sam
Except for Uncle Sid who wore his stripes in the can

When Syd got out of prison
The cop lent him some dough
“Syd you better pay me back or watch your back, my foe”

Years later Syd was stealing from a Macy’s close-out rack
But Sy the cop was on him and he tapped him on the back

“Give me back my 50 bucks, and I might let you go”
“Or you’ll be eating kasha varnishkes on death row”

Eating kasha varnishkes, on death row
Eating kasha varnishkes, on death row

In 1969 Syd came to dinner at my house
Seymour, Syd, and Solly all together on my couch
They watched a man walk on the moon
They couldn’t believe their eyes
Because, if not for Yoodie’s crazy glue
They couldn’t get that thing to fly

If not for Yoodie’s crazy glue
They would’ve fell out of the skies

Syd, the last survivor of the Fink Brothers, was last seen wheezing down Broadway past 35th street, pushing a stolen rack of furs. His emphysema was slowing him down as the cops rounded the corner in pursuit. But when 13 overweight agents of the NYPD pulled their pistols, no-one but the homeless were to be found. The New York Post blamed the cops, saying they couldn’t even run down a choking old man with a rack of furs. But me and my siblings knew different. Maybe there was some physics behind it. Some space/time continuum crap. But, science or no science, we knew Syd had got away with his last con… and that the Fink Brothers would ride again!

April
Story
Lyrics

“Crashing On The Way To My Father’s Place”

When the line “crashing on the way to my father’s place” came to me, I intended to write a song about not being able to live up to your parents expectations. But then I remembered that my band “Just Water” was once in an actual car crash on the way to my father’s place; not my parents house, but the rock club “My Father’s Place” in Roslyn, NY. We never made it to the stage that night, but it turned out to be our highest paying gig ever.

We were rear-ended on the highway and, in a rare moment of clarity, our drummer Gus Martin (aka Marty Guskind) took charge yelling “everybody out, and lay on the ground!” Aside from a little whiplash, we were all fine, but we went along with Gus, who taught us that “cash in” rhymes with “crashing”. The guy who’s car hit us started screaming “Oh no, you guys aren’t gonna pull that sh*t on me!”. So there we were on the ground when the cops and the ambulance show up. Off we go to the hospital, and as if some higher power wanted to go along with our phony claims of injury, our bass player Tom Korba goes into shock. His shock was not brought on by the accident, but by the convincing charade that only a drummer could orchestrate. The police and hospital write up the report and send us on our way, and we missed our gig at My Father’s Place.

When I got home to my parent’s house that night, the incident set off a morality play between my father and mother. Dad said “Those insurance companies have been scamming me my whole life, and its time to get ’em back!” Mom said “It’s just plain wrong to file a claim when the boys are not really injured!” Dad prevailed and gave us the name of a lawyer that he’d heard about at his job at the phone company. We called the lawyer and the band entered a parallel universe that I never really thought existed; the world of organized insurance fraud. A world filled with phony doctors, where every citizen is in a neck brace. When I told the doctor that I had only bumped my head lightly on the windshield, he said “No son, you hit your chin so hard that your mouth, your neck, and your head suffered severe impact”.

In the end, the attorney (who I think starred in “Goodfellas”) got us about 2 grand each. It was far more than My Father’s Place, Max’s Kansas City, or CBGB’s had ever paid us. Mom was right, but Dad was happy.

There’s only one way to win this race
Crashing on the way to My Father’s Place
Get the right lawyer, put on the neck brace
Crashing on the way to My Father’s Place
Crashing on the way to My Father’s Place

There’s only one way to win this race
Crashing on the way to My Father’s Place
Get on that stretcher, put on the neck brace
Crashing on the way to My Father’s Place
Crashing on the way to My Father’s Place

There’s only one way to rig this race
Crashing on the way to My Father’s Place
C’mon let’s go on an ambulance chase
Cash in on the way to My Father’s Place
Cash in on the way to My Father’s Place

Ooooh
“You can’t break the rules”
“You can’t break the rules”
“You can’t break the rules”
“What do they take us for; fools?”

Oooh
Do what you been told
Lay out on the road
Watch the wreck getting towed
Gonna get what we’re owed

(and the doctor says:)
This wasn’t just a case
Of hitting heads on the dash
Let’s all think of something,
More severe than whiplash
You must’ve all flown,
Through the window in the rear
I’ll put the band in traction,
It’ll make your career

(and I say:)
Doc, I’m feeling guilty,
Because I’m feeling fine
“Son, your head’s been shaken,
Your jaw’s been re-aligned”
I don’t remember flying,
Through the window in the rear
But I’ll put the band in traction,
If It’ll make our career

July
Story
Lyrics

“Guitar Lessons at Sixty”

In 1983 Hector Zazou was a cause celebre of music critics and critical listeners, based on his culture-bridging album “Noir et Blanc”. Zazou was born in Algeria, but lived, composed, and produced music primarily in France. He recorded for the Belgium record label Crammed Discs, which I was briefly associated with through my work with Jayne Bliss and her “Band Apart”. Zazou came for a visit to New York, and Jayne and I rediscovered Manhattan island through his bizarre and inquisitive eyes.

Zazou asked Jayne and I to accompany him to his “favorite spot in NYC”. Somewhere at the end of 14th street, in the old meat-packing district just short of the Hudson river, was a nondescript unmarked door on an unmarked building. Zazou bangs on the door. A huge bouncer appears, asks some questions, and motions us inside. Then Zazou, grinning as only a Parisian who outwits a New Yorker can, leads us down an endless stairway into a huge damp space, where the faux-erotic paintings of Hieronymus Bosch came to life.

Jayne and I considered ourselves streetwise experienced New Yorkers, but we had never seen anything like the scene that unfolded in this dank tomb below 14th street. It was not a sex club, although people, some naked, were certainly in an uninhibited state. It was not a porn store, because nothing was for sale. It was not a disco, because there was no dance floor and no glittering ball. I still have no label or category to describe the place, but my most apt description is “Fetish Fair”. People of all sizes, shapes, and ages were performing their own private performance art – but very much in public. Think of a trade show where every booth is a mini-stage, upon which a fetish unfolds. Clothing went from none to complete Edwardian costumes. Fetishes went from run of the mill (assuming the words fetish and run-of-the-mill can be used together) to completely and frighteningly original, and as elaborate as a Broadway show. And there were a slew of large conservatively attired bouncers whose job was to keep people from touching each other, or at least not touching the “performers””.

And there was Zazou, with a Cheshire Cat smile. I was fairly sure that his attraction to the place was purely to drag innocents like Jayne and I to the show, and to savor our reactions. But, he was part of the French avant-garde, so who knows?

And yes, there is a connection, however strained, between this story and “Guitar Lessons At Sixty”. The song is about how everything that seemed to have promise to the kids of the 1960’s self-destructed along the way, with one exception – The Music. The drugs, once thought of as “mind expanding” led to crack-houses in the Bronx. The Summer Of Love drifted away, and Zazou led us to the Island Of Doctor Moreau that it drifted to. Searching for spiritual enlightenment led those that could afford it to the gurus of India, with John Lennon famously abandoning Maharishi Mahesh Yogi when the spiritual master tried to grope actress Mia Farrow.

This song was released on my 60th birthday, and this birthday song is an unapologetic love song to all things “guitar”. The guitar is the one instrument of good will that survived the 60’s. It carries on, incorruptible by time or trends, still delivering the goods; a lonely promise kept!

Guitar lessons at sixty
An energy renewed
Guitar lessons at sixty
Refined but yet still crude

Guitar lessons at sixty
An axe you can defend
Guitar lessons at sixty
Will the sixties never end?
Guitar lessons at sixty

The sexual revolution
Ended in a bar on 14th street
There the bleeding started
Where they used to hang and cut the meat

Transcendental meditation
Ended with a shot of espresso
Then the critical thinking ended
Now its whatever,
Que pasa, whatever,
Pull the lever, bro
Pull the lever, bro!

Guitar lessons at sixty
An energy that’s clean
Guitar lessons in Dixie
My southern soul machine

Guitar lessons at sixty
An axe you can defend
A blast I can take with me
Will the sixties ever end?
Guitar lessons at sixty

Christians playing lightly metal
Buddhists banging drums
Baptists moshing in the choir
Hare Krishna hums
The atheist holds out his cup
Hindus sing for free
With Muslims on accordions
And the Jews in harmony
Pull the lever bro!

Someone’s gonna teach me Stairway To Heaven
Someone’s gonna teach me to shred
Someone’s gonna shout for Smoke On the Water
One more time before I’m dead

Cameron’s gonna teach me Stairway To Heaven
Adam’s gonna teach me to shred
Pieman’s gonna scream for Smoke On the Water
One more time before I’m dead

Someone better teach me Stairway To Heaven
Someone better teach me to shred
Someone better shout for Smoke On the Water
One more time before I’m dead

Guitar lessons at sixty
It’s never too late to start
Strap one on forever
It’ll never break your heart

October
Story
Lyrics

“Black Pigeons Of Lyon”

In 1963 a little-known New York concert promoter who fought in The Battle Of The Bulge had a hunch that a little-known English band, with almost no radio play in America, could fill the esteemed Carnegie Hall. He called the band’s manager Brian Epstein in England, who was reluctant, but agreed to bring his band over for $6500 as long as the promoter could wait until February 1964. The band was The Beatles, and the promoter was Sid Bernstein.

Sid Bernstein died on August 21 of this year at the age of 95. He had brought The Beatles to America and promoted their two biggest shows, both at Shea Stadium. He promoted countless acts from Tony Bennet to The Young Rascals to Jimi Hendrix. And Sid Bernstein also managed my band Just Water in 1978.

In 1978 Sid was past his prime, and Just Water was months away from breaking up. But who could resist the magic of working with a guy that had a track record that read like a who’s who of 20th century music: Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Rolling Stones, and on and on. I remember visiting him in his modest offices, where he sat behind a giant worn wooden desk. It looked much more like how you’d imagine Woody Allen’s office to look; A mess of old papers, a few old pictures, a bad view, and a secretary who was a senior citizen stuck in a hallway.

I can’t remember signing a contract, but I am pretty sure it was for 10 – 15%, far less than some of the sharks that were swimming around the NY scene. I got the sense that Sid was no longer doing it for the money. It was just what he did, and he wanted to remain relevant.

I can only remember two band meetings with Sid, and both took place at a famous Jewish deli (The Second Avenue Deli) at 10th street in NYC. Sid could not go too long without a good pastrami sandwich and potato salad. His extremely large size was proof of that. But once all that food was in front of him, boy could he tell some stories. Every band was “my boys”. When he saw us he said “Hello my boys”. When he talked about the Beatles, it was always “my boys this” and “my boys that”. If I could go back in time, I would have stopped being such a self-absorbed rock-star-wannabe, and I would have asked Sid to tell me all the stories I didn’t think to ask about. Sid was something that few managers of that era were. He was a gentleman.

The Black Pigeons Of Lyon wasn’t written specifically for Sid, but it could have been. The Black Pigeons could be an air-force squadron, or a biker gang, or a rock band. The song is about a time, place, thing, or experience that encompasses your life and defines you, …like it or not. For Sid it was bringing The Beatles to America. For me it was playing in the CBGBs era in NYC.

And there really are black pigeons in Lyon. I saw them.

I try to look left; I try to look right
But I stare straight ahead at a non-descript site
I shake and I squirm and I ache and I moan
But these eyes have seen the black pigeons of Lyon

I scrawl with a pencil, but nothing makes sense
I come from the future, so I write in past tense
I may not live to write another swan song
Ah, but I have fed, the black pigeons of Lyon

It feels like there’s thunder, under my chair
It feels like we’re airborne, and I can see us down there
I bet there’s a catch to get this landing gear down
But I once flew with the black pigeons of Lyon

Lyon. Black Pigeons
Lyon. Black Pigeons

I lean against the dresser, I scrape along the floor
I fall amongst the letters that are piled outside the door
I may crawl and I stumble through the rooms of my home
But I once crawled amongst the black pigeons of Lyon

I try to preserve things, just as they were
I try not to make too many waves under her
You may not have seen it, the thousand ways that I’ve grown
But I can show you my pictures with the black pigeons of Lyon

I can’t look up, and I won’t look down
But I can lay still and listen to my head full of sound
I shake and I squirm; I try to whisper this poem
Did you hear the one about the black pigeons of Lyon?

I know you’ve stopped listening, but I continue to tell
My tales to the ether are my mademoiselle
‘Twas in a castle with a moat on the side of the Rhone
Where I once dined on the black pigeons of Lyon

I was congratulated, when I fled with the flock
Then I was re-educated, in the breaking of rock
I was hailed like a Caesar then shot like Capone
Ah, but I survived the black pigeons of Lyon

I’m hiding my diary in this refugee camp
My words they are burning, but I’m so cold and damp
I may not live to write another swan song
Ah, but it was I who wrote “The Black Pigeons Of Lyon”

That was me.
Lyon. Black Pigeons
Lyon. Black Pigeons

February
Story
Lyrics

“Who’s Neal?”

My first recording session was in 1974 in Brooklyn, New York. My band “Just Water” arrived and found the engineer, Neal Steingart, synchronizing two Teac 4-track tape recorders in order to do 8-track recording (which was quite a good number of tracks at the time). The only catch was that Teac tape machines were not meant to be synchronized. I would soon find out that when it came to machines (any machines) Neal never followed the instructions. He created new ones. In this case Neal took 2 reels of tape and interwove them together onto one reel. Then when he hit “Play”, two strands of tape would unwind, each going to one of the two tape machines. In order to keep the tapes in sync, Neal had a pencil dangling between the strands of tape, which he claimed “balanced the tension between the machines”.

That pencil dangled perilously all day long. But, we recorded 5 songs, including a 16 minute opus, and the tape never went out of sync. Well, there was one song where the tape of the drums lost sync with the rest of the tracks, but we all thought it sounded cool. When Neal built his own professional studio, Fly Studios, Just Water were regular clients. Neal recorded our album “The Riff”, most of our “Downtown And Brooklyn” collection, and did live sound for us at CBGBs and for our live radio broadcast on WNEW-FM in 1978. In 2011 Neal mixed a Song Of The Month.

We lost Neal to cancer last month. He left behind a treasure trove of music that he recorded for others, gadgets that he created to create better music, and a great collection of characters who are his family and friends. My last visit with Neal was this past September, and it turned into a Just Water reunion with Danny, Ira, and me on guitars, Neal keeping the beat, and his wife Carol snapping the photos.

The song “Who’s Neal?” is not a eulogy. It was written, recorded, and given to Neal a few years ago. Neal was a pun-aholic, and “Who’s Neal” pokes fun at the fact that engineers are hidden from the spotlight and rarely get the credit they deserve. In fact, the song could have been called “Who’s The Engineer?” and applied to every unsung hero of the studio.

Neal was not one for asking for credit, and originally I thought of him only as a great engineer. Years later, after working with a few “Producers”, I realized that Neal was actually a producer as well as an engineer. The mark of a great producer is being able to smile and say “that sucked, but the next take will be great” without upsetting an artist’s sensitivities. Neal told you what sucked better than anyone. When we re-released the Just Water recordings we credited Neal as a “producer”.

Note: According to Neal, “Who’s Neal” may be the first song ever to include the word “Gobo”.

Who’s Neal?
Who’s Neal?

He’s a digital brain with an analog heart
He’s making gadgets from Canal Street parts

He synchronizes souls with a Teac and his pencils
He’s your song on a stick with sound credentials

Who’s Neal?
Who’s Neal?

He’s the voice of authority in your ear
He’s calming the calamity, its what you wanna hear

It’s a little bit flat, it’s a little bit slow
It’s just a little party, behind his gobo

Who’s Neal?
Who’s Neal?

May
Story
Lyrics

“Going Faster”

In 1973 I took a Trailways bus from my school in Binghamton, New York to Oberlin, Ohio to visit the renown Oberlin Conservatory Of Music. Oberlin was renown for more than their musical prowess. Every hippy east of the Mississippi river knew that Oberlin had not just co-ed dorms, but also co-ed rooms and even co-ed showers! 40 years later this seems impossible; a sign of how much more conservative we’ve become. I crashed in one of those co-ed dorms (in an era, when any long-haired student you met would invite an equally shabby visiting student to crash with them), and the co-ed showers were certainly a surprise.

They had a saying that “Oberlin has more Steinway pianos than the Steinway factory”, and I had the crazy notion of playing them all. And play them all I did – by methodically going from piano room to piano room until I’d done the rounds. Their web site says they have 231 Steinways, but I didn’t count.

I wasn’t trained in any of the proper ways to play piano, but I could play a decent version of the Overture to Tommy, my friend Wes Steinman’s song “Old Tiger”, and a few of my own songs including “Going Faster”. In college there was always a piano to bang around on, and then in the first two years in Just Water I had a Fender Rhodes electric piano. But it was too heavy to lug into CBGBs, and so until recently I was without a keyboard. When I purchased a Yamaha piano/synthesizer a few years ago, I dusted off my old piano songs and started the arduous task of relearning them from scribbles on paper (as I had no sheet music).

When I came across “Going Faster”, I could remember how the music was supposed to go, and I could remember Ira singing it in 1973. But I had no memory of what it was about. I wrote it when I was 19. So I read the lyrics as if for the first time, and it made me realize that as we age we start to underestimate what teenagers are cable of understanding. I am as guilty as the next (old) guy. Sometimes we underestimate a teenager’s compassion as well as their capability for evil (one of the Boston bombers was only 19). I’ve written a few relationship songs in my time, but perhaps none as mature as “Going Faster”. Somehow at 19 I understood that in every relationship one person wants to go faster and the other wants to go slower. That knowledge probably saved my life, because I only “settled down” when I met someone that was cruising at about the same speed and direction that I was.

Listen to the crazy solo piano bridge, which is what a 19 year old says about relationships when he’s out of words.

What’s there in going faster?
I spill my coffee when I want just to go slow
When I heard about what hurt you last year
I looked so hard,
I thought it didn’t look like anything showed

Then there’s a day when they tell you,
That everything you’ve ever known
It’s in your eyes,
Sparkling just the same as the nighttime

But what’s all this, songs about crying?
And what’s all this, songs of the cold?
And what’s all this singing about silence?
Who’s leaving who to care for these,
And who has got the number to keep you warm?
All the sad songs keep us strong

And what’s to be said for believing?
In singing, is there hiding what we need to say?
And what’s to be had for your sake?
Is the music soft and coming from too far away?

Old friends coming over Sundays,
Know the songs too well
To let you get away with playing the same old chords

But what’s all this,
Songs about old times?
Days that used to be but never are
And what about the smile of the blues man?
Who’s leaving you to care for this?
And pray he’s got a number to keep you sane!

What’s there in going faster?
I spill my coffee when I want just to go slow
When I heard about what hurt you last year
I looked so hard,
I thought it didn’t look like anything showed

What’s there in going faster?

August
Story
Lyrics

“Da Revolution Come”

There is a point in each of our lives when we start observing our nuclear family in a whole new light. What once seemed so natural and normal suddenly seems so weird. Dinner with the parents becomes an interrogation room, and you’re on the wrong side of the one-way glass. When I first started writing this song, way back in the 1970’s, I was wondering how my brilliant, lucid and articulated thoughts could possibly be so misunderstood and unappreciated by my tribal elders. And why were the elders so hell-bent on MY career, when I was so happy just laying around?

Da Revolution Come is about that exact moment when it all just snaps. Maybe it will be a revelation, a spiritual awakening, or just an a-ha moment of “now I get it”. Or maybe its a revolution, a tragedy or a violent act. In the case of this song, it is just a family dinner. Conversations in the interrogation room. Grampa looking down your girlfriend’s dress. Your cousins have you cursing your own DNA. And something’s gotta give. But I leave “what gives” to be murky enough for you to draw your own conclusions, based on your own family, and their own unique interrogation techniques.

I’ve wrestled with this song for more than 30 years, but I knew it was time to record it, because lo and behold, I am now the interrogator, and my son is now the interrogated. Maybe my younger self can teach my older self a lesson, and I can make Da Next Revolution a peaceful one.

We were invited graciously
And greeted at the door
Father took our coats away
And felt my 44

We gathered round the TV set
Everyone shook hands
I knew they were afraid of me
Because I had no plans

Where to? Why not?
Who with? Now What?
So young, So nice
What girl? Look Twice

Here’s your brothers Chip and Rock,
And here’s your sister Bess
Go kiss your Grandma, don’t spill that,
You’re making such a mess

You wore a dress so beautiful
Not many buttons done
I saw the Grand-dad tip his drink
When you bent down the front
My father said “You look good boy”
But what about the gun?
My cousins told the ethnic jokes
I said it was for fun

How much, Why not?
Who with, Now what?
So young, So nice
What girl, Look twice

There’s your uncle, talk to him
He’ll do your tax this year
And let him meet, oh what’s her name?
She’s really such a dear

You’ve got a picture in your pocket,
Did you forget its there?

The dinner started peacefully
All the food so good
Then Mother started melting down
No-one understood

The family ate rapidly
And lined up for the John
Father took my 44
Da Revolution Come
Da Revolution Come
Da Revolution Come

November
Story
Lyrics

“Davenport”

In 1982 I learned the real power of Television. I was on a short tour of Belgium and France as the guitarist in Jayne Bliss’s “Band Apart”. We called our version of the band “Band Apart Mach II”, since all of the original members (other than Jayne) had been replaced by me and a tape recorder. The tape recorder, which sat on a stool at center stage, had great stage presence. But only the Europeans seemed to appreciate it, since we couldn’t get a gig in New York!

The first day of the tour we were greeted by Marc Hollander and Hanna Gorjaczkowska, the owner and manager of the wonderfully unique Belgium record label Crammed Discs. Band Apart had recorded their album for Crammed Discs, and we were in Europe to support it. Marc & Hanna immediately whisked us away to the main Belgium TV station to appear on the Belgium version of England’s “Top Of The Pops” (something like the Ed Sullivan show was in the USA). This was a total surprise to us. Especially when they told us that the song we needed to mime was a Band Apart song that we had not rehearsed, and that in fact I had never even heard! Business is business, so even though we had all new material, they needed us to play something from the Band Apart album, to help increase sales. Jayne frantically tried to remember the lyrics. We had 30 minutes to rehearse. I had to make my fingers appear to be playing the blazing guitar solo that Jayne’s former French sidekick had played.

All sorts of half crazed Belgium TV producers, camera operators, and stage hands were running around mumbling “damn Americans don’t even know their own song!” in three different languages (French, Flemish, and German). Then with 5 minutes left we hear “Assez!” “Genoeg!” “Genug!”, which is “Enough already, its time to go on!” The make-up people appear out of nowhere, and our two jet-lagged pasty-white-yet-sooty New York faces were turned into angelic glowing sun-tanned Grecian sculptures. This is a live broadcast, in prime time, and everywhere we look are faces that emanate the terror of a ship going down. Without time to think, we are on the air. The record is playing, so we just need to sync up to it and perform like we mean it.

In the middle of the performance, I notice that along with the cameras surrounding us, there are a bunch of TV monitors showing what is being broadcast. In a fraction of an instant I could see that Jayne Bliss was an absolute star. The camera loved her. There was no fear on her face. Just a zen-like charisma that sucked you right into the frame. Jayne was always special to me, to my wife, and to everyone in her orbit. But this was something magic. This was Patti Smith if she had graduated from FIT, or Blondie if she had studied with the Dalai Lama.

Three minutes later there were smiles and cheers in three languages, plus English, which they all suddenly learned, now that they weren’t cursing at us. It was a great success. But before we could look for any backstage o’er d’oeuvres, we were driven off to get ready for our first gig, at 8:00 PM that evening.

Jayne, The Tape Recorder, and I set up our equipment at the club, did our sound check, and then waited to go on. What we did not know was that the live TV show we just did was watched by nearly everyone in Belgium during dinner time, and it seemed that everyone who saw us showed up that night.

The club had three floors. The stage was on the third floor, but TV screens on the other two floors showed our live performances. Jayne and I thought we were in some fantasy time warp, because the place went crazy for us (and remember, center stage was a tape recorder!). When we finished our set, we walked downstairs to get something to eat, and there was a standing ovation on each floor as we walked down. What we were playing was a bit off-the-wall, but Europeans are so open to musical experimentation. (Remember that in the US, jazz great Charlie Parker went nearly homeless, while in Europe his rent was paid by the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter.) That night the power of TV amazed me; How it brought out the magic in Jayne, and how it brought out a crowd to see a band that no-one knew before dinner.

And so, you might ask, what does any of this have to do with the song “Davenport”? Well for one, Jayne was from Davenport, or maybe Marshalltown, but definitely somewhere in Iowa. The song is about the countless kids that escaped small towns to reinvent themselves in New York. Jayne became the artist Larry River’s assistant in the 70’s and 80’s, where she socialized with the pop-art world of Warhol’s factory, and created her art-punk band-apart. Jayne ditched the music world in the 90’s, and has reinvented herself several times since then. She remains as charismatic as ever.

I come from Davenport, Iowa
My parents run a country store
Down the road from the endless empty sky
And the silent fields that filled my eye

I come from Davenport, Iowa
They said I had the gift to draw
Still lives, of corn and straw
But I just couldn’t draw cornfields no more

I took a ride on a Trailway’s bus
“Why’d you want to get away from us?”
My mother wrote on a note she sent
Inside a box with some money for rent

I’ll wait; for anyone but me
I’ll wait; for anyone but me

I rolled into New York late,
Someone smiled, and I took the bait
I woke up without my coat and hat
But I knew I wasn’t turning back

I got a job with Andy Warhol
I got close with Jasper and Sol
And Roy and Claes and Edie and Lou
I might have silk screened a Mao for you

I might have silk screened a Mao for you

I drew myself in a new costume
I had a table in Max’s back room
In the haze of the drugs and the black & grey gloom
I could still see the color of my fields in bloom

As I waited for my big break
Lines would cross and hearts would ache
And everywhere that kids are splashing paint
Some dreams are true and some dreams ain’t

I’ll wait; for anyone but me
I’ll wait; for anyone but me

So I got back on that Trailway’s bus
“Why’d you want to get away from us?”
My mother said as I waltzed through her door
She knew I wasn’t even me no more

I come from Davenport, Iowa
I could’ve run this country store
Down the road from the silent fields
But once you’ve seen, you can’t un-see what’s real

I come from Davenport, but I live here
In-between, but away from fear
Of the wicked world that waits for thee
I got away, and away got me

I got away, and away got me

March
Story
Lyrics

“Fishing With Hand Grenades”

On April 30th, 1975 my wife lost a shoe while leaping onto a boat off the coast of Phu Quoc Island. One day we plan to find that shoe. (She likes shoes). It was the day that Saigon fell and ended the Vietnam war. On that day I was most likely strumming my guitar, worried more about getting a gig than saving mine or any other country. My wife’s Dad, Captain Nguyen steered a U.S. Navy ship with military precision to a new world, with his family and hundreds of other refugees on board. I was trying to figure out how to get from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Somehow, years later, our paths collided and now we’re one big happy family.. the war hero and the war protester, and a cast of thousands… of people, places, and legends.

Through the years I have heard many of Captain Nguyen’s war stories. They have been blended in my mind with stories told to me by returning American soldiers, and with the nightly war reports by Walter Cronkite. Captain Nguyen commanded ships into enemy territory above the 17th parallel, ran clandestine missions on rivers, and when the ship’s mess hall was indisposed, he went fishing with hand grenades.

The song “Fishing With Hand Grenades” is my impression of what life on the water was like for my father-in-law, the Captain. To bring the song to life I needed instruments that are part of Vietnamese culture. I was able to find “samples” of a guzheng, a dan tranh, and other Asian instruments, which I then loaded into my computer so that I could play them on a keyboard. The song is a series of clashes. North versus South, East versus West, Communism versus Capitalism. Imagine a river where one side is life, the other death, and on one side you hear the traditional music of Asia, and on the other side tradition is drowned out by the sound of Jimi Hendrix and The Doors being blasted by American troops.

To help bring this musical landscape to life, we have a new Senator!
Adam Mobarek, of the band “The Big Strong Arms”, plays lead guitar.
Last year, I recorded Adam’s previous band, which had my favorite band name of all time;
“Rob Mann And The Sellouts Without Rob Mann”
Adam takes the loud side of the river, and I cover the traditional side.

The moon, the sea, the eerie calm
North of the Seventeen
The sound of a spoon in a coconut
Scraping up a yellow bean

Waiting on the water, waiting on the wind
Waiting on the hands to change
The sound of a knife on a swamp tree root
Carving out a mother’s name

Tonight we’re fishing with hand grenades
Because the kitchen’s been indisposed
Tonight we’re fishing with hand grenades
On a latitude undisclosed

There’s a man in black pajamas
He’s getting awful near
There’s a blackout on the radio
But the signals are crystal clear

Tonight we’re fishing with hand grenades
Because the kitchen’s already closed
Tonight we’re fishing with hand grenades
On a latitude undisclosed

Tonight I can’t tell the stern from the bow
What’s up from what’s down below
It looked like a friend on a fishing junk
But he just lit the night aglow

I was thinking I should call in air support
But they might just bomb me too
I got a half a bottle of Hennessy
It’s gonna have to get me through

It’s gonna have to get me through

I was thinking I should call in air support
From the stoned, the proud, the few
I still got a half a bottle of Hennessy
It’s gonna have to get me through

We’re going fishing with hand grenades
We’re going fishing with hand grenades

June
Story
Lyrics

“You’re So Bad”

Sometime during the blur of the 1970’s I found myself in the back of a long white limousine with Roger Daltrey, The Who’s then-golden-maned lead singer. I had absolutely no business being there, as we darted about Manhattan stopping at various publicity events where he was promoting an album or movie. Roger knew me from sitting in the first row at so many concerts, and from my brief stint as a Who roadie, and so my unnecessary presence was politely tolerated. I was only there because my old friend Lisa Seckler was in charge of Roger’s publicity tour and invited me along. Lisa had graduated from “Who fan” to “Who employee”. For the past 40 years she has fought the good fight to survive in the much-less-glamorous-than-you-think world of rock n roll. She went on to run an office for other members of The Who, and just last year she was managing shows for some glorious leftovers of the 60’s, The Zombies and The Strawbs.

A few months ago, in answer to one of my songs of the month, Lisa told me I needed to write a song about fallen idols. Jimmy Cliff wrote a good one called “The Harder They Come”, and I decided I would have a go at it too. Lisa and I have seen (from both sides of the fence) our share of idols devolving from greatness, to prima-donnahood, to trashiness, to uselessness, to downright embarrassing. However, in Lisa’s case, when her idols fall, so does her paycheck, making it even tougher to take.

I won’t say who “You’re So Bad” is about, because pathetic badness is epidemic is some quarters. It will be easy for you to insert your own villain into the song.

PS. Can you find the hidden clues?

Oooh,
You’re so bad
To the bottom of the river,
From the best that I ever had

Oooh,
You’re so bad
To the bottom of the pond,
From the top of the Lily pad

Bottom of the river
But you once were the deep blue sea

Bottom of the river
But you won’t hang your anchor round me

And it’s so sad
It’s so sad
It’s so sad
It’s so sad
How you got so bad

Oooh,
Was it a curse?
How it got so bad
And then it went from bad to worse

Bottom of the river
But you once were the deep blue sea

I broke out of your orbit
I defied your gravity

And it’s so sad
It’s so sad
It’s so sad
It’s so sad
It really got bad

I still fly your flag
But it’s getting to be a drag
You’re like a dirty old hag
You just nag, nag, nag
And if you don’t get off this rag
Poppa’s gonna get a brand new bag
Because you’re so bad!

September
Story
Lyrics

“Don’t Count On What You Know Will Be There”

I was 12 years old and I was sleeping over at my friend Wes Steinman’s house. We were both terrorized by Wes’s older brother Artie who would appear out of nowhere and dent our sculls with “noogies”. But despite our head injuries, we both idolized Artie because he was the lead guitarist of The Jagged Edge. Artie had his picture in “Sixteen” magazine, and he made real records that you could buy in real record stores. After having had enough noogies, Wes and I decided to peruse the neighborhood in the middle of the night.

Across the street there lived a sweet little old lady, who looked exactly like Muriel from the “Courage the Cowardly Dog” show. In her front yard there stood a bird bath with a plaster squirrel statue. Wes and I had the brilliant idea to take the plaster squirrel and hide it behind the old lady’s house. With any luck, maybe we’d see her searching for her lost squirrel the next day. We didn’t see her, so we figured we’d put it back the next night. But when we looked under the bushes behind her house, it was gone. Now, in Brooklyn New York, this would not be considered the crime of the century. But I know that if I ever get to those pearly gates, the gatekeeper is gonna say “what about that plaster squirrel?”

The song “Don’t Count On What You Know Will be There” is masquerading as a parable about noticing all those little things in life. But really, its my confession of utter guilt to that sweet little old lady.

They stole the plaster squirrel from my birdbath
I didn’t notice that something was wrong
I kissed your pillow, then I went for the paper
I didn’t notice that you were gone

Don’t count on what you know will be there
Don’t shock yourself and scream
It was a dream
The wind where once was man
What you know never ends
It never really began

They fixed the notched up love seat in the gazebo
I’ll never count how many no more
I knew I’d meet you again at the Frigidaire
Now I know nothing, but nothings for sure

Don’t count on what you know will be there
Don’t fool yourself and cry
Wondering why
Alone, where once were plans
What you know doesn’t count
It’s what you count in your hands

They lost my high school gym shorts at the Laundromat
Now I’ve got nothing to wear at the beach
Before you split, you put my socks in the wrong drawer
Those small things have so much to teach

Don’t count on what you know will be there

December
Story
Lyrics

“If I Had It”

For a short but magical time, between 1968 & 1971, you could see any musical act that mattered at a refurbished movie theater on 2nd Avenue at 6th street in New York City. It was The Fillmore East, operated by the now legendary rock promoter Bill Graham. For example, just in the months of May & June 1969, for as little as $3.50 a ticket (front rows were $5.50) you could have seen Jeff Beck, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Band, Sly & The Family Stone, Joe Cocker, Chuck Berry, Chicago, The Byrds, Albert King, Frank Zappa’s Mothers Of Invention, Procol Harum, and The Grateful Dead. I attended 11 shows in those 2 months, and for years The Fillmore East was like my spiritual home.

In 1969 there was no Ticketmaster. Instead of sitting by your computer to see who can log in the fastest, if you really loved a band, you camped out all night so you were first on line when the box office opened. To Bill Graham only three things mattered:

(1) Fans came first, and he meant it. If you were first on line when the Fillmore East box office opened, you got first pick of ANY seat in the house. No good seats were held back for the house, for poseurs and dignitaries, nor for the band’s entourages. Whenever I was near the front of the line for The Who, I always picked seat AA-113, which was exactly in front of Pete Townshend’s mic stand. Pete once lectured the front row for not being in our “assigned seats”.

(2) Music (even rock music) was sacred. Bill Graham made sure the Fillmore East was clean, had comfortable seats, had health food instead of junk food in the vending machines, and the best sound system possible. He also tried to expose kids to music they might not be aware of. In May 1969, The Woody Herman Orchestra played big band jazz as the opening act for Led Zeppelin.

(3) Bill was in charge. Period. Rock stars feared him.

In the winter of 1969 I was on one of those all-night ticket lines. The line started as a few crazy fans in front of The Fillmore East, but by dawn the line stretched around the block. In the middle of the night a van pulls up and starts serving hot coffee to everyone on line because “Bill Graham was concerned about the temperature”. Imagine a concert promoter thinking like that today?

While waiting all night on the ticket line, you got to know a lot of people pretty darn well, including the local homeless men. In those days the term “homeless” wasn’t used. They were known as “bums”, which was shorthand for “Bowery Bums”. In fact CBGB’s, the venue that eventually eclipsed the Fillmore East in fame but not cleanliness, was actually in the storefront of The Palace Hotel, a famous shelter for “Bowery Bums”. One night a so-called bum joined us on the ticket line. He wrote the lyrics to this month’s song, “If I Had It”. He would say to one of us “Ask me for a thousand dollars”. We’d respond; “OK, Can you spare a thousand dollars?” and he’d say:

“If I had it, you could get it. ‘Cause I’d love to see you with it. But there is no doubt about it. You’ll just have to live without it!”

He had everyone on that line ask him to spare a thousand dollars. He repeated his little piece of Bowery wisdom all night long. For months I could hear it in my sleep.

Although it took me until this year, I knew one day I’d set his lyrics to music. Here it is, just in time for the holidays.

2012

January
Story
Lyrics

“Door Number Two”

I was in a small row boat with my wife, when I was suddenly jettisoned into the sea.
It wasn’t any ordinary sea.
I was bobbing in a bubbling ocean of yellow goo.
When I woke up, I said to my wife “Hey, why’d you do that? Were you having second thoughts?”
I got no answer (she was asleep), but I got this song.

The premise of the song is simple.
If marriage is a game show, do we ever regret what door we chose?

In fact, the premise is SO simple, that after I wrote the song I thought that lots of artists had probably written the same song (except for the yellow goo part).
So I googled around and was surprised that no-one had a song that used “Door Number Two” as I had, as a metaphor for second thoughts.
I did find plenty of doors….

Jimmy Buffet and Steve Goodman loved the gal behind Door Number Three.
Ty Tabor chose Door Number Four.
There were even some artists that made it up to Door Number Eleven.
Only Walter Brecker (of Steely Dan) had a song called “Door Number Two”, which ironically was released only a few months after I wrote my version.
But I am glad to report there are no similarities whatsoever (which is a relief, since his lawyers are probably better than mine).

The decks been cut and the weighted dice been thrown
The trailers all paid up and the kids are grown
When you look in the mirror, is it me or is it you?
Do you ever wonder what’s behind door number two?

Picture albums, in neat little rows
Wedding photos with that guy that you chose
The courts are filled with what we might’ve gone through

Do you ever wonder what’s behind door number two?

(chorus)

Door Number One
Door Number Two
The life you live
The life you lose

Door Number Three
Door Number Four
The blood you spill
The blood you pour

So many nightmares creep around this old head
So many nights hanging round this old bed
I woke up screaming and I grabbed a hold of you
I dreamt I caught a glimpse of what’s behind door number two

The sky is filled with dancing funnel clouds
Why are we wearing his and hers white shrouds?
Why’d you drown me in that yellow goo?
Were you trying to find out what’s behind door number two?

(chorus)

April
Story
Lyrics

“This Leak Has Sprung A Boat”

It was just after midnight in downtown Manhattan when play-wright and chess master Candido Tirado took my then-12 year old son through a strange dark doorway to a world not many people get to see. Amidst mountains of old books and older coffee cups sat the chess players; studying and honing their skills through the night; preparing for another day of street competition in Washington Square Park. Candido showed my son some street-chess tricks, and the next day my son used one of them to checkmate me in three moves.

Ten years have passed since that night, and this month Candido’s latest play “Fish Men” opened at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. Fish Men (a chess term for weak players) reveals the current state of humanity via a potpourri of chess hustlers. Coincidentally, Willy Loman is back on Broadway in yet another revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death Of A Salesman”. While Arthur Miller depicts the affects of the American Dream imploding, Candido Tirado takes it much further. He explores characters that somehow maintain an inner spark, despite living totally outside the American Dream. And all this gets us to this month’s song, and explains the title “This Leak Has Sprung A Boat”. The song was inspired by Candido’s writing, and particularly his play about “The Cat”. The characters in The Cat include a real man, a blow up doll, a cat, and perhaps of most importance, the grimy windows through which New Yorkers peer into their neighbor’s lives. This song is a glimpse through one of those windows.

He dons his hat
Bids farewell the cat
He wants to walk you home
But he can’t walk it alone

Beat on
This heart has built a moat
Sail on
This leak has sprung a boat

He drapes his coat
He folds up a note
He wants to take you home
But he can’t take it alone

Beat on
This heart has built a moat
Sail on
This leak has sprung a boat

July
Story
Lyrics

“Waiting For Something To Happen”

In the summer of 1979 I was living in a one room flat (which the English call a “bedsit”) in Shepherd’s Bush, London; a Jamaican part of town that was ground zero for the reggae imports that had become the rage of the English music scene. Jamaican “Ska” music was also breaking out all over, with bands like The Specials. I didn’t have dreadlocks, but I was still trying to get a record deal. My band Just Water had been briefly signed to Stiff Records, but my manager and producer didn’t hit it off too well with Stiff’s management. However, my visit to Stiff Records was cordial enough. They asked me to write a few tunes for another Stiff act, Rachel Sweet, which I did, but she was dropped before anything was recorded. For a few months all I did was wait. Wait for the double-decker bus to take me to another record company. Wait in the lobby to see another A & R guy. Play them some tapes (remember reel to reel?) and wait for another rejection. Play my songs in an underground walkway at Hyde Park and wait until I received enough change to make it through another day of waiting. At least once a week I’d be waiting in the same record company lobby as the group Madness, and we shared our rejection stories. When I returned home to the states, I was happy to hear that their waiting finally paid off. They became the next big English Ska band.

By now you probably know that this month’s song is about waiting. Well, it’s actually more about drugs. The song is a three-way metaphor for waiting for the drugs to kick in, waiting for your life to unfold, and waiting in those record company lobbies. I was one of the lucky ones in the 1970’s music scene. Somehow the music always trumped the temptation of drugs. My anti-drug education didn’t come from Nancy Reagan promoting “Just Say No!”. It came from seeing Johnny Thunders and Dee Dee Ramone slobbering on the sidewalks of lower Manhattan, and a thousand Sid Vicious wannabees falling over on the streets of London. The musical life is all about waiting to go on stage and waiting for the big break. Drugs insidiously find their way into the boredom of the wait. This song is about that struggle. The main character, sung by Ira, is standing at the crossroads and deciding which way to go. I went with the music, with a slight 30 year detour into the “normal” business world, which turned out to be far less ruthless than the music business.

For those “gear heads” in the audience, I tried to be period-authentic and used the equipment that I would have used in 1979, including a 1970’s Les Paul with early Dimarzio pickups installed by Steve Blucher. I also took my 1960’s Sears Silvertone amp out of mothballs. It was originally designed for bass and sold for $129, but it’s incredible distortion was better suited for guitar. The amp literally caught fire when I turned it on (after being turned off since 1980). But, after cleaning up the dust, it miraculously came back to life! My nostalgic side says “I just love those tubes”. My practical side says “I’ll stick with computer-amp simulation, and not burn my house down”.

I don’t do drugs
Drugs don’t do me
I lay around and hesitate
I tell myself to just stay cool

I can’t let go,
I can’t sit still
Long enough to meditate
I got my arms around the rules

(chorus)
I’m just sitting here waiting for something to happen
I’m just sitting here thinking what else I can’t do
I’m just sitting here waiting for something to happen
Waiting here sitting while everything happens to you

I don’t pick fights,
I don’t fight back
I walk across the street a lot
With my bottle of mercurochrome

It’s just a bash and then its past
Two kicks and a swollen eye
My other cheek is ground to the bone

(chorus)

Give me a pill,
Give me a drink,
Give me a thrill, before I think
Give me a fist,
Give me a poke,
Give me a damn,
Give me the dope!

Please don’t tell Mom,
Please don’t tell Dad
It’s their anniversary
Fifty years, just waiting for fifty to come

Just leave me here,
I’ll be alright
But you should call me in a hour
To see if this stuff can take me out of Wimbledon

(chorus)

October
Story
Lyrics

“When The Circus Comes To Town”

I didn’t have a political song prepared for the 2012 political season, but this song sounds like it could pass for one. I wrote it two years ago about my memories of the town of Berlin, New Hampshire, circa 1977, and it is filled with senators, judges, rock musicians, and other clowns. I had small town politics in mind, but I think it applies to the “big tent” as well.

In the 1970’s Berlin NH was a paper mill town. As my band Just Water’s truck approached, we could smell the sulfur fumes pouring out of smokestacks from miles away. And it would only get worse. I’m still in touch with the writer Pete Hisey, who helped organize our trips to Berlin, and he will perform the mandatory “fact checks” on my recollection, as this is a political season.

Between 1975 – 1978 I was rarely outside of Brooklyn and Manhattan where Just Water played and recorded, except for a few road trips. The weekends we played Berlin were like journeys to another dimension. Unlike playing at CBGBs and Max’s, where you did two sets of 40 minutes, in Berlin we played for hours, doing every song we knew, including covers, which we rarely did in NYC. Berlin seemed to adopt us as their very own “New York band”. In NYC everyone on a bar stool was a critic. In Berlin everyone on a bar stool was there to drink.

Yak, the guy who promoted our Berlin shows, was also the leader of the local biker gang The Road Kings. We all got rides on their motorcycles, and nothing seemed too outlandish until a nearby rival gang, The Vigilantes, showed up. There was lots of tension between the gangs, and Yak was in the middle of a crisis trying to step down from his position as gang leader. But bikers never let aggression get in the way of a party, and Just Water were the guests of honor at a party for The Vigilantes. Illegal substances that could incapacitate, maim, and blow things up were served up and passed around like caviar at Donald Trumps house. I distinctly remember thinking I was inside Fellini’s Satyricon while I watched someone shoot holes in the ceiling. Even our thrill-seeking drummer, Gus Martin, was over his head on this adventure. In the end no-one was hurt, but anyone who thought the world was a nice place would never see things quite the same way again. I also have this memory of half the town crashing at someone’s house, or maybe in their field. But have no fear, yours truly, ever the responsible band member, remained above the din, and slept with a wet towel around my head to keep the sulfur fumes from destroying my voice!

In 1978 I wrote a song for Yak called “The Club”. He always said “its not a gang, its a club!” Sadly, I never got to see him again. And I know that the best Berlin stories are the ones I didn’t get to hear. Yak, here’s another song for you.

The Trucks roll in, the freaks roll out
There’s a midnight mass for the un-devout
The paper mill’s closed, workers put the pulp down
When the circus comes to town

Ex-X-husbands, Ex-X-wives,
Ex-X-partners, juggling lives
Abandoned daughters at the lost & found
When the circus comes to town

Vice presidents, CEOs
Paste on their faces and paint their toes
Everybody puts their pencils down
When the circus comes to town

As civilization drops down a peg
The sulfur stinks like rotten eggs
The band tunes up
Inhibitions drown
When the circus comes to town

When the circus comes to town
All the square heads make their rounds
When your face falls in the dirt
Say old chap, do your feelings hurt?
Say old chap, do your feelings hurt?

All these patriots, that hate a new face
Won’t let a dark horse get in the race
To build their brand, they burn your barn
“This is Captain Crunch!
I’m gonna take the farm!”

A senator’s throwing up his funnel cake
The flame thrower shouted that his passport’s fake
The county judge leaps from the Ferris wheel
They had pictures of his mother with the dancing seal

The bearded lady’s in the center ring
She’s tugging on something, gonna meet her king
It’s gonna be tough to keep that fried Twinkie down
When the circus comes to town

When the circus comes to town
We stuff a cad under a crown
With your kids dragged though the dirt,
Say old chap, do your feelings hurt?
Say old chap, do your feelings hurt?

A lonely kid out on the town
Picks up a lonely circus clown
She loosens her belt-a-notch,
For young Sir Lancelot
When the circus comes to town

The drummer swings, on a chandelier
The singer’s sensitive, don’t go near
They say he’s a genius, but he’s laying on the ground,
When the circus comes to town

February
Story
Lyrics

“Your Side of the River”

In New York City there is no “wrong side of the tracks”, because any street can be a great divide, between rich and poor, ethnic groups, good and bad Chinese food, etc.

But according to some Manhattanites, there is a wrong side of both of the rivers; The Hudson and the East River.

Every night the clubs, bars, and dance floors of Manhattan are flooded by what are known as the “bridge and tunnel people”.

I was one of them. One of the dreaded invaders from Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and heaven forbid, from Staten Island, or Oh No, Not New Jersey.

It was simply unconscionable to mix the blood of the uncool into the rarefied platelets of the chosen people.

Not chosen due to their class, status, upbringing, race, or creed.

Chosen simply because they were able to scratch their way to having an apartment on the sacred island.

And then I scratched and clawed, and alas, I was one of them!

I became the proud inhabitant of a 5th floor Manhattan walk-up railroad flat on Positively 4th Street, in which each stair and each wall tilted in another direction.

And thus I was set free to abandon my roots, abandon my soul, and to look down upon the Bridge & Tunnel People!

And that gets us to this song, which follows a tradition of love songs to NYC.

My favorite NYC song is “New York City Your’e A Woman” by Al Kooper, a song that understands that any love of NYC remains unrequited. Looking back, I have great affection for both sides of the river; the heartlessly brilliant insanity of Manhattan that can recognize the star in Joey Ramone, and the joy of going back to my ancestral home across the Brooklyn Bridge, where you can play softball with guys named Posey, Panzi, Gutty, and Rabbi.

Your side of the river
My side of the bed
Your side of the river
Stuck inside my head

Your side of the river
Can’t get there from here
My ghost starts to shiver
On a windy pier

Your side of the river
Like a fairy tale
Seduced by the skyline
Swallowed by the whale

Put the arc of her body
To the arc of a song
Her bend in the river
Won’t play along

Your silent partner
Is spilling out his guts
Opens up your letters
And still you trust

Your liquidator
Dividing up the spoils
The river winds
The snake it coils
And the water drowns
Your home… towns
Your home… towns

My eyes start to flicker
My twang starts to fade
Look back, I’m in front of the motorcade

Your side of the river
Now I can’t get back
I can’t part these waters
There’s a fog over the map

No sign of familiar
No sign of a friend
I aim straight down the middle
Then your river bends

Your silent partner
Is spilling out his guts
Opens up your letters
And still you trust

Your liquidator
Dividing up the spoils
The river winds
The snake it coils
And the water drowns
Your home towns

(chorus)

May
Story
Lyrics

“Medley Of The Sacred and Profane (The Orchard-Kiss n a Hug)”

In 2010, I traveled through Israel and Jordan. In Israel I learned that the Jewish book “The Talmud” consists of a gathering of oral discourses spanning hundreds of years, followed by a running commentary that tries to explain the oral discourses, as well as all things biblical. What I found fascinating was the notion of a religion having an open argument about itself, and then publishing the arguments as a core part of the religion; ….and then continuing to argue about the arguments.

In particular I was grabbed by a story about four rabbis visiting “the orchard” (pardes or paradise) 2000 years ago. It seems that no rabbi, scholar, poet, or pagan agrees on what actually happened in the orchard, and what, if anything, it all meant. Even our Israeli guide was arguing with himself just trying to explain it to our group of four (who by the way represented 3 different religions). Of course this story leads us to this month’s song, “The Orchard”, which in no way tries to explain anything that a rabbi can’t explain. It’s man’s endless obsession with pontification that interests me.

After writing “The Orchard”, I remembered another song that I’d written in 1977 (“Kiss N A Hug”) which was about the very same thing – endless pontification. Except that instead of rabbis, the characters were regulars at a bar, knocking back pints while they tried to explain the women (or lack thereof) in their respective orchards. Hence, this medley of the sacred and profane was concocted. All arguments as to the meaning of any of this are welcome, and in another 2000 years they may just become part of The Talmud.

Four men go into the orchard
Three men walk into a bar
Two men jump out of an airplane
And that’s just the story so far

Four take a bite of the apple
Three to explain and connive
Two going mad with the cider
One makes it back out alive

Four write it down on the parchment
Three chisel into a stone
Two go to war to interpret
One with the truth lies alone

Three chiselers quibbling on a stone

I don’t get drunk on brandy
I don’t get drunk on wine
I don’t go in for them fancy cordials
Just gimme a beer and I’m fine

We don’t make love under moonlight
It’s a miracle that we survive
But If I knew that you were betting against me
I’d get back in the ring and take a dive

I’d even give up my mug for a kiss n a hug, right now
(give up my mug for a kiss n a hug)
I’d even give up my mug for a kiss n a hug, right now
(give up my mug for a kiss n a hug)

We don’t vacation in Paris
I don’t even know where in hell France is
You and I are just a pint full of bitter
With a shot of American fizz

I don’t own nothing expensive
I got you and this red guitar
Every stool in this bar seats a fortune,
a failure, and a star

I’ve been swindled, I’ve been kept on ice
Stuffed with my vices,
Waiting to be sacrificed
Waiting to be sacrificed
Waiting to be sacrificed

I don’t get drunk on brandy
I don’t get drunk on wine
I won’t sip anything that’s sparkling
That’s meant for celebration time

We won’t go home in a Caddie
They won’t even let me drive
But if I knew that you were betting against me
I’d get back in the ring, I’d take a dive!

(chorus)

Four men go into the orchard
Three men walk into a bar
Two men jump out of an airplane
And that’s just the story so far

August
Story
Lyrics

“Watching the Wood Chipper Chip”

The year my family moved from New York City to Cary, North Carolina, we were greeted by a hurricane. With crazy weather being the new normal, this year it was time to cut down some dying trees in my yard before another hurricane comes through and drops them on our house. Being from New York City, I lack the skills required to wrestle with Mother Nature, and I also lack a chain saw, which I’ve only ever seen used in horror flicks. So here comes Tom The Woodsman and his crew of acrobatic tree cutters who lasso trees like cowboys, swing from the highest branches and put on quite a show. The highlight of their destructive act is yet another horror-flick prop; a giant wood chipper.

I grabbed a front row seat by my kitchen window, and I just happened to have a Ukulele nearby. As I watched the trees swinging on ropes and then slowly mangled and eaten by the wood chipper, this song came out, nearly exactly as you will hear it on this recording. Basically it’s a Ukulele improvisation with three movements; the peaceful backyard, the invasion of the wood chipper, and the return to normal. It’s my first truly “Carolinian” song; an instrumental that I would classify as “musical impressionism”, a term that is often used to describe some French composers like Claude Debussy . I am using the term more literally, for music that uses instruments to evoke the sound of natural places and events. In classical music, you have “The Planets” by Gustav Holst and “Flight Of The Bumblebee” by Rimsky-Korsakov. In rock music you have Jimi Hendrix emulating the sounds of the Vietnam war in “Machine Gun”. It was time for a wood chipper to get in on the act.

(Instrumental)

November
Story
Lyrics

“Work’s Not In It”

The October 2012 song included the line “It’s gonna be hard to keep that fried Twinkie down”. This month, we suddenly find ourselves in a world without Twinkies. So, as Hostess continues the tug of war between unions and management I thought I’d dig out a politically incorrect chestnut from 2009 that addresses the subject head on.

This song is a slacker anthem. The main character is a composite of 100% real people that worked alongside my brother at the phone company (once known as Ma Bell, AT&T, NY Tel, Don’t Tel, etc). This composite slacker happens to be in the union, but equally entertaining songs can be written about Tel-Co managers, and one day I’ll write one of those songs to balance the scales.

Our slacker hero is the guy that sat next to my brother, who while slurring “I can’t help you” to a customer, slumped over with a dangling cigarette, lit his trash can on fire, and with his head about to ignite, continued to mumble to the customer. Our slacker is the guy on disability for years with back problems, who was only dismissed after being filmed playing basketball with a wicked lay-up. He is the worker of largess who starts the day with 5 full junk-food breakfasts, which occupies him until lunch without having to answer the phone. Our slacker embodies the lonely and desperate sound of a phone call bouncing from one sleeping coworker to the next; – a lonely digital hunter carrying a plea for help, that after being ignored by 42 customer service reps finally lands on the caring phone extension of my brother, who single-handedly saves New York City and the entire grid from collapse!

And Happy Thanksgiving, to union and management, to slackers and over-achievers, where-ever you are in the world.

I got a job
At the public utility
With heath care, sick leave,
va-ca, and long term disability

I’m in the union
When they strike I picket
Check my job description
Work’s not in it

When do you come in?
I come in late
What if the phone rings?
You get it,
I’m on a break

Who does your email?
I’m disconnected
Check my inbox sweetheart
Work’s not in it

I got back pain
And Carpal Tunnel
Check my stress level, blood pressure,
Weight, Lord I got trouble

I’m leaving early
I’m headed for the clinic
Check my laptop & cubicle
Work’s not in it

Check my job description,
Work’s not in it
Check my D.N.A.,
Work’s not in it

March
Story
Lyrics

“Things I Can Do With A Shrunken Head”

In March 2012 I had just got back from Papua New Guinea.

(I always wanted to say that!)

Whenever you visit a country for the first time, you always bring back the expected souvenirs. A stuffed Koala from Australia, a tiny Eiffel Tower from France, a case of Tequila from Mexico. So when I got to thinking about what Papua New Guinea was gonna be like, my assumption was naturally that every shop would be awash in shrunken heads. Remember that cannibalism is still a recent custom on Papua (or as the locals say, “PNG”).

Before I even set foot on PNG I was thinking of all the possible reasons to justify the purchase of my very own shrunken head. And then I cheated. I started writing this song before I even left for this trip-of-a-lifetime. I am glad that I did, because if I had waited, the song would have never got writ. Because I swear there’s not a single shrunken head left on PNG! There’s lots of friendly folks, with fine plump heads, and the entire population (other than the mining people that own the place) is paid to wave at tourists. So instead of getting eaten alive, I was greeted alive. Not only were the little heads sold out, but I couldn’t even find a t-shirt or a magnet. I came home empty-handed, …and finished the song.

I dedicate this song to the late great John Entwistle, whose prowess on the bass often overshadowed his outstanding songwriting. This song shares the three attributes that were central to the best of Entwistle’s songs: (1) the macabre, (2) humor, (3) major chords in illogical sequences.

We were trapped within the harbor
With an undiscovered tribe
With an endless trove of trinkets
And a bloodlust for the bribe

I fired up my spreadsheet
I typed a list in red:
Things I can do with a shrunken head

I can put it on the mantle
I can put it on the porch
I can light its hair on fire
At the end of my torch

It sat it across the table
Staring at me while I read
Things I can do with a shrunken head

I can cook it a hot breakfast
I can send it off to war
I could sick it on my neighbors
But what the devil for?

I could tell it all my secrets
But I should talk to you instead!
Things I can do with a shrunken head

There are things you can do with a shrunken head
You can make it run for office
With the other walking dead
There are lots of things that you can do,
With a shrunken head

I’m alone with the witch-doctor
He’s head-hunting for my goat
I could give the doc my Visa
But I should get back on the boat?

Should I take the little geezer?
Or a photograph instead?
Things I can do with a shrunken head

June
Story
Lyrics

“You Euphoria”

I met my friend Bob Schaap the way most people do – riding home from the airport in the back of his Lincoln Town Car. He was wearing that classic Limo Guy outfit, with the black jacket over a white turtleneck shirt. So naturally I thought he was, well, “the limo guy”. During that first ride home from the airport I found out he was interested in music. During the second ride home I found out he had a 32-track studio in his house. During the third ride home I found out he was the rhythm guitar player for The Vampires, a really cool interracial band that played in Europe in the 1960’s. The moral of the story is that you never really know who you are talking to to, until you listen for awhile. This song was recorded using Bob’s microphones.

The song “You Euphoria” is about not knowing who’s at your door when you wake up from a deep sleep hearing noises in your home. Is it your spouse fumbling around in the dark? Is it the grim reaper? Is it your teenage kid returning from an all night diner, or a Jehovah’s Witness with insomnia, or maybe the limo guy? This music is what some folks call “Alternative Blues”, which is just another way of saying “music that was ripped off from those old blues guys that had no lawyers, with just enough of a twist to call your own”. In this particular case, I was listening to “Down Home Girl”, recorded in 1964 by the Rolling Stones, who were listening to Alvin Robinson, who got the song from writers Jerry Leiber and Arthur Butler, who borrowed the music from an un-credited genius we’ll never know.

In honor of the great engineers of the early 1960’s, the first verse and chorus is mixed in glorious mono.

Is that You?
Euphoria
Honey, is that you?
Euphoria

Are you the drop at end of my IV drip?
The close of the sermon,
That heartfelt… quip

Euphoria

Are you the funnel cloud,
That tore off my roof?
The deed to the dirty,
The living proof…

Euphoria

You woke me up,
You better have a good plan
Are you the Dalai Lama
Or the garbage man
Euphoria
Are you the path to the righteous with that wicked smile
The shadow in the valley, or my lost sun dial?

Euphoria

Is that you?
Is that you?
Euphoria

Are you clearing my cupboard,
Or just clearing the air?
If it’s the end of science,
Then I’m staying here!
With you… Euphoria

If you’re here for a purpose,
Then I’ll give it a whirl,
Are you the great fore-closer
Or just the cleaning girl?

Am I leaking oil, in the tunnel of light?
Is my manhood waning,
At the end of a bite, from you

Euphoria

Are you the final answer, to the final “Why?”
The Big Kahuna or just the limo guy?

Are you a dark cloud waiting, for a storm
A lost soul waiting, to be born, as You, Euphoria
Is this your final answer, to the question “Why?”
Are you the Big Kahuna or just the limo guy?

September
Story
Lyrics

“Jimmy’s Home (A James Dean & Nick Ray Movie)”

Around the same time in the 1960’s that I discovered Rock n Roll, I discovered the film “Rebel Without A Cause”. The film was originally released (and was a box office hit) in 1955, and it played continuously throughout the 60’s on local TV stations like Channel 9 and Channel 11 in New York City. Some say that the world’s image of “the American teenager” comes from that film. It was the film that made the actor James Dean an icon, and its director Nick Ray a cult hero.

Imagine my amazement when I found out in 1973 that by some miracle Nick Ray was teaching my cinema class at Harpur College in the sleepy, snowy town of Binghampton NY. Nick Ray, via his friendship with actor Dennis Hopper, was offered a teaching position at Harpur College (now S.U.N.Y at Binghamton) in 1971, and by the time I showed up, he and a group of his students were already knee-deep in the production of his last film “We Can’t Go Home Again”. He and his students had also set up a living/working commune (hey, 1971 -1973 was still the 60’s) without approval from the university. His mostly experimental film “We Can’t Go Home Again” was never finished, even though Nick and his students worked on it until his death in 1979. I saw plenty of screenings of the film in Binghampton, all of which were totally original, but totally boring, mostly consisting of 16 miniature films played simultaneously over a 4×4 grid on the screen.

Nick Ray’s cinema class affected me profoundly. I was already pretty sure my higher education was going to be wasted on rock n roll when Mr. Ray’s all consuming pontification on the importance of art spurred me on. In his class I decided to write a song for each of his films. I started with his first film “They Live By Night”, and that song appeared on the first Just Water album. I wrote another for his film on prescription drug addiction “Bigger Than Life” (which I’ve yet to record), and then in 1975 I decided to capture my Nick Ray experience within a cinematic song, “Jimmy’s Home”. The song is an alternate history of James Dean’s life, as told by Nick Ray in his class. According to Ray, James Dean was the ultimate “real deal”, in that his devotion was completely to the art of acting, while his physical presence had everything Hollywood needed to market him and eventually kill him. Ray lectured about the ills of Hollywood and what James Dean could have been. He also told us in great detail what really happened to the never-made Rolling Stones movie of the teens-gone-wild novel “Only Lovers Left Alive”. In the mid sixties, after the fortune made by the two “feel-good” Beatles movies (Hard Day’s Night and Help), it was decided that it was time for a “feel-bad” Stones movie. Nick Ray was chosen as the director (based on his work on Rebel Without A Cause). He got as far as the screen tests of all of the band members. When he reported to the Stone’s management that Stones founder/guitarist Brian Jones was the natural star, and the only truly screen-ready Stone, the project was canned. By that time, the Jagger/Richards takeover of the Stones was underway, and the last thing they wanted was to give Brian the spotlight. Ray said that Jagger was magic on stage singing, but a total dud speaking, while Brian Jones had a devilish magic on screen that fit the revolutionary story in the proposed film. This character assessment fit right in with Ray’s attraction to artists that valued the art form over all else. Jagger, great as he is, was always as much about the show and the money, where Brian, who ironically was drowned by the money, was a musical purist from the start.

Nick Ray ended his career at Harpur college with a headline that read something like this: “Hollywood director Nicholas Ray arrested for Public Drunkenness and Indecent Exposure”. On a rainy night he was picked up by the state police while dancing down the medium of Vestal Parkway in Binghamton, wearing a raincoat, and only a rain coat. It may actually have been a final scene for his final film, but the Harpur faculty was not amused and that was the last I saw of Nick Ray.

Somewhere out of town, a boy is,
Sparring with a make believe brother
Somewhere in the lights,
a man who cooks stars,
is cooking up another

It takes a deal with the devil, to put the,
crossroads onto anyone’s street
It puts a farmer on a roller coaster
Makes a fad out of his funny drawl
Mr. Blacksmith, meet Mr. Plumber

He’ll feed you temptation
Ah hah, and that will make you crawl

Jimmy’s home
His mother’s on the phone
People say its nerves, you see she lives all alone
Jimmy’s home. Always running up the drive
Left his car alive
In the very last scene did you see him really cry?

Jimmy’s home
He crawled out of the foam
Kids’ll draw his name,
You see it isn’t etched in stone
Jimmy’s home. Always running up the drive
Left his keys inside
In the very last scene did the screen door slam behind?

Jimmy’s home,
He’s in-between,
The sky, the road, the heart, and the silver screen
Tear him apart,
There’s a piece for us all
And still they’ll be some of him trembling against the wall

Did you hear what happened to Jimmy’s scene?
Mr. Ray do you know what happened to Jimmy’s scene?

Somewhere out of town, a kid thinks,
Crops will come in sooner or later
Somewhere near the lights, a kid is,
Buying fifty of his first fan paper

It takes globalization, to make a,
Meatball out of anything round
It puts ugly by a full length mirror
Puts good looking on the glowing grid
Turns a tractor into a racer

Steals your tradition,
Ah hah, and that’ll make you skid

Jimmy’s home,
He’s in-between,
The sky, the road, the heart, and the silver screen
Tear him apart, there’s a piece for us all
And still they’ll be some of him trembling against the wall

Did you hear what happened to Jimmy’s scene?
Mr. Ray do you know what happened to Jimmy’s scene?

December
Story
Lyrics

“Old and New”

Two people look into a closet. One sees the treasured memories of a lifetime. The other sees only clutter, dust, and junk.

One remembers the gifts that were once under the Christmas tree. The other remembers the mountain of wrapping paper and the plot to hide the useless gifts until such time as they could be inconspicuously disposed of.

Which person are you?
And what can one do about this karmic dilemma?

Perhaps write a sing and post it onto the Internet?

The Internet; where old and new co-mingle in a heartwarming digital truce.
The Internet; that self-expanding closet where your junk and clutter is cataloged and searchable.
The Internet; a tree under which the gifts keep piling up forever.
Here’s one more for the pile.

I like old sentences
In old books
Old eyes
Giving old looks
I like old recipes
Old cooks
I prefer the old criminals
They were sensitive crooks

I like new linens
And new bananas
And just tuned, well groomed
New pianas
New guitar strings
On a brand new morn
With the old band singing
That grand old song

I take new planes
To ancient places
Put new creams
On ancient faces
I redraw
What time erases
And if it gets too old
I still won’t replace it,
Would you?

I like old love
In old positions
Old codgers
With old traditions
I’ve got Rhetorical sentences
In my premonitions
Old apparitions
In my post-future visions of you

(chorus)
I don’t believe in obsolescence
What ever happened to convalescence?
Will you throw me away when I can’t finish a sentence?
Even the reaper has got some repentance

I don’t believe in deterioration
What ever happened to kindness and patience?
Who’s next in line for eradication?
They’re dropping like flies on my classic rock station

I’d like a new leg
Without this old ache
I’d like a new chin
But don’t make it look fake
I want a new ceremony
To bless this old ring
A new way of saying that same old thing

I like old
I like Keith Richards
Old ruins
And Evans-Pritchard
I like green screens
They still work fine
I like old, but I got a big problem with time

(chorus)

2011

January
Story
Lyrics

“This Privileged Life”

There’s this thing about getting older. You visit people in hospitals more, and you start thinking about when its gonna be your turn. I was at a hospital visiting my uncle and I noticed that the guy in the next bed had a non-stop marathon of Andy Griffith reruns flickering on the TV. I observed how different patients took to their plights, and thought about what I’d be feeling.

The song is made up of three end-of-life scenes. I could have called it “One Two Three, Gone”, but that would be too morbid, and actually its a happy song. So happy that I borrowed Bo Diddley’s beat. The 3 scenes are:

Stuck in a non-private room, and your body is just not working like it used to
On the operating table, and wow, all that stuff about floating on the ceiling with the white light is true
Wait a minute; the white light is turning into an entry way to a decked out ballroom, and everybody who’s anybody is there.

Well, if we’re lucky, Bo Diddley will be in the big house band.

If you are interested in hearing more of Bo’s beat, you can try any of his records from the 50’s on. The Stones did a few of his songs like “Mona”. Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away”. The Who’s “Magic Bus”, U2’s “Desire”, and a few George Thorogood songs.

I got a window without a view
I can’t see worth a damn,
What’s a window gonna do?
But I can feel that you’re not my wife
This privileged life

I got an iPod without a sound
I can’t hear worth a damn,
That’s an apple going down
They took my pop and they took my pipe
This privileged life

This privileged life

I can see from the ceiling that you’re working on me
I’ll bet my 401K that this party ain’t free
He asked for a scalpel, not a butcher knife!
This privileged life

I’m a real good floater and the light is white
For a non-believer this is quite a sight
The doctor sweats and the credit card swipes
This privileged life

Could that be Jesus at the end of the hall?
“No, it’s Dizzy Gillespie and I’m going to the ball”

Say, hey, is that Willie playing under the lights?
“No, its Miles Davis and I’m itching for a fight”

This privileged life

Hey Bo Diddly, whadya say?
Are we gonna come back someday
Come back when your riff is rife
To this privileged life

Look back, we’re fading away
It’s the very last act in a very long play
At least we got to hang with Barney Fife
In this privileged life

At least we got to hang with Barney Fife

April
Story
Lyrics

“Who Says the Cop Can’t Bop?”

Whenever you read about the guitar players that the 60’s rockers like Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck idolized when they were kids, its usually the Rockabilly cats like Scotty Moore (who played with Elvis), Cliff Gallup (who played with Gene Vincent & The Blue Caps), Eddie Cochran, and other electric guitar pioneers of the 1950’s. All of these guitarists played Rockabilly, a genre that has been relegated to a tiny shelf between Rock-n-Roll and Country. Rockabilly is the concatenation of “Rock” and “Hillbilly”, which remains an accurate description of the music.

In the early 1980’s, New York City had already created, nurtured, and moved on from punk rock, and just as Carter begot Reagan, New York begot a Rockabilly craze. There were two extraordinary Rockabilly bands (The Rockats and Buzz & The Flyers) that were like time capsules back to the 50’s. Everything from their hair (full of Murray’s Grease), clothes (the real deal from thrift-shops in New Jersey), instruments, and sound was era-perfect. There was also a band that understood that Rockabilly could get out of Manhattan by adding just a pinch of modernity. That band was The Stray Cats. Their guitarist Brian Setzer single-handedly saved the genre, as well as saving the Gretsch Guitar company, which had gone out of business but was lured back by the demand of all those kids that saw Brian playing his Gretsch 6120.

I once had breakfast with Brian Setzer at the flat I shared with Bridget, New York’s #1 rockabilly fan. I was heading off to work and he was one of the hundreds of local musicians that came and went at all hours at our flat on 10th street. Bridget deserves a lot of credit for turning on so many punk musicians to the sublime beauty of George Jones heartbreak music, as well as all things Rockabilly. Through Bridget I met Buzz Wayne. He was disbanding Buzz & The Flyers and asked me if I was interested in doing something in Europe with him. I decided to program computers and he went to Europe. Thirty years later I’m recording the Rockabilly songs that I originally wrote to show Buzz, and Buzz Wayne is now Dig Wayne, who pops up on CSI and other crime dramas.

“Who Says The Cop Can’t Bop?” is a play on all meanings of the word “cop”, but mainly focuses on the verb “to cop”. (…and I am referring to copping music, not drugs!)

This song was originally written in 1980, and rewritten in winter of 2011.

I was born a thief in Brooklyn,
I steal what ain’t bolted down
I nicked a seat on a southbound train,
Just to see what’s up downtown

Who says the cop can’t bop?
Who says the cop can’t bop?

I got off down in Nashville,
Where I pinched some apple pie
I borrowed old Hank’s steel guitar,
And asked that country sky…

Who says the cop can’t bop?
Who says the cop can’t bop?
Who says the cop can’t bop?
Who says?

I took blues from Chicago,
And from motor City, soul
I got hungry down in Kansas City,
So I stole some jelly roll

Who says the cop can’t bop?
Who says the cop can’t bop?

I swung that swing in Texas,
But I left LA alone
I robbed from England what they robbed from us
And faced the law back home

Who says the cop can’t bop?

I’ve rode every highway,
In hot Bentleys and hot Fords
But when I came back from around the world,
I still only knew 3 chords

Who says the cop can’t bop?
Who says the cop can’t bop?
So when that copper came for me,
For grand larceny of sound,
He didn’t shoot, or pat me down,
We passed the beat around

July
Story
Lyrics

“Bodies Breaking Down”

What are the chances of finding a sax player in your own basement, especially one who plays like Cannonball Adderley? Well that’s exactly what happened with this song. Down in my basement, sprawled out amidst the Warhammer armies, the Rock Band game accessories, the magic cards, the PS3 controllers, and a lone bottle of Amstel Light was a real live sax player! Roger Babson plays sax and sings in Rob Mann & The Sellouts, who coincidentally were also found this past New Years Eve at a gig in the very same basement. This month, Roger’s a Senator.

I never believe those stories about people who write songs in their sleep. Keith Richards supposedly played the riff to “Satisfaction” into a cassette player in the middle of the night, and discovered it when he woke up. Paul McCartney dreamt up the tune to “Yesterday”, and I guess Yanni only writes while asleep. But one night a few weeks back I scrawled “bodies breaking down” on an envelope, and woke up to this song (I swear!). A few days later I realized that it was the night of June 3, 2011, after I saw B.B. King perform in Durham, NC. He was 85 and his body was finally unable to keep up with his desire to perform the blues as he did for the last 60 years. Still, each note he did manage to play could only come from B.B. King. It was sad to see him struggle, but exhilarating to see and hear his determination. Despite arthritis, memory lapses, and a dozen other ailments, he’s off on a world tour! I, and every other guitarist, owe so much to B.B, the least of which is this song.

Bodies breaking down,
Bodies breaking down
Bodies breaking down,
Don’t crown the mound,
Bodies breaking down

Bodies breaking down,
Bodies breaking down
Bodies breaking down,
You better stand your ground,
Your body’s breaking down

October
Story
Lyrics

“Mr. Mixmaster”

Mr. Mixmaster is an episode of CSI, created years before acronyms had their own TV shows. The song was originally written by a jobless and nearly homeless version of myself (“between careers”). It was 1979 and the term “Mixmaster” had already been around since 1930 when the Sunbeam company released their famous food blender. But with a “Mr.” in front of it, it was about my favorite engineer Neal Steingart, who has manned the sound boards and enhanced my music for nearly 40 years.

The song just happened – words and music pouring out all at the same time. A one act play that desperately needs David Caruso to solve the mystery.

Here’s the opening scene:

A music producer has been murdered, and is lying on the studio control room floor. There’s a musician (me) in a state of confusion running around the studio trying to find Mr. Mixmaster. I am speaking gibberish, but the gibberish contains clues about both the producer and the missing engineer.

After years of reflection, I have a theory that my band-mates in Just Water will probably agree with. But its only a theory, so don’t go calling the police.

The producer just might be Eric Dufoure ( http://www.justwatermusic.com/jw/people/everyoneElse.htm ), who worked with Just Water, and nearly bankrupted us by putting us in a “proper Manhattan studio”.

Eric was the heir to a French oil tycoon, and a cousin of Island Records mogul Chris Blackwell. I don’t recall threatening his life (except one time when he stole my bass guitar), but the band finally revolted against Eric’s studio & production choices, and we returned to Neal Steingart’s Fly Studio in Brooklyn. Instantly the magic came back, and Neal made it all affordable. Our biggest record (Singin’ In The Rain) was the result, and Eric Dufoure was listed as the producer, even though all he did was watch.

So who killed the producer? Was it the musician, the engineer, or the girlfriend?

Can anybody get me Mr. Mixmaster?
Can anybody get him on the phone?
Can anybody get me Mr. Mixmaster?
Can anybody get his office or home?

Can anybody get me Mr. Mixmaster?
Can anybody get him home?
Can anybody get me Mr. Mixmaster
Can anybody dial tone?

Can anybody get me Mrs. Mixmaster?
Can anybody get his Vassar girl?
Did anybody cut him?
Type “A”, or Type “O”?
I’m gonna make him make my malted whirl

Did anybody see his birth certificate?
Did anybody see his green card?
Can anybody prove he signed this signature?
Did anybody touch him?,
Think hard, think hard

Can anybody get me Mrs. Mixmaster?
Can anybody make these faders twirl?
Did anybody cut him?
Type “A”, or Type “O”?
Come on, we’re gonna make this malted whirl!

February
Story
Lyrics

“Fallout Shelter”

This song was written by a rock fan (that’s me, Mitch) about the demise of rock fans.

It was December of 1973, and along with a pack of insane friends, I had just returned from a road trip watching The Who play several shows on what they called their Fallout Shelter tour.

The era of seeing rock acts in small theaters was over. Rock was now big business, with everyone playing to 10-20 thousand fans a night, and soon to be playing football stadiums. Rock fans had morphed from music lovers listening in rapt attention, into a horde of ticket scalping wildebeests.

The Who were presenting their new rock opera Quadrophenia, a serious piece that could have used that old rapt attention. They had a miserable time on stage, but it was all blood-sport by that time for the mostly drunk stage-rushing crowds screaming “Smash It Pete”!.

I’ll never forget the scene in the lobby of Montreal’s Bonaventure Hotel. Fans were everywhere (including yours truly and my clan of not so wildebeests). On one side there’s Pete Townshend trying to autograph his way through the place, but he soon realized that “F*** Off!” was a better way to get through. On the other side is the Canadian version of the CIA showing Keith Moon what they had hidden under their black raincoats. Evidently Mr. Moon had flippantly announced that he would swing on the Grand Foyer chandelier, but the chandelier in question was a gift from The Queen, and a swing upon Her Majesty’s light fixture was considered an act of treason.

In the song “Fallout Shelter”, Ira Bernstein sings the parts of the ticket-scalping barkers and the needy fans. I sing the part of the annoyed rock star.

I originally wrote the song in December 1973. I reworked it in 2010, and added a final scene, where years later the fan passes the rock star on the street and mockingly sings his lines back to him.

(Scene 1: The Barkers)

Get your tickets while they’re hot!
Get those tempers queued up good and hot
Come with your sticks and your bats
Get those tickets while they’re hot!

Get your rightful places back!
Let those ass-kickin’ days fly back
Put your heels in their laps
Get those first row places back!

(Scene 2: The Annoyed Rock Star)

Aren’t you the ones from the Fallout Shelter?
Aren’t you the ones who come back every night?
Aren’t you the ones from The Bonaventure?
There’s just some people I can’t get out of my sight

(Scene 2: The Fans)

All we seek is some recognition
Sign on the poster that goes up on the wall
All we seek is evaluation
Aren’t you “The One”?

(Scene 3: The Barkers)

Get those handshakes while you can!
Disquise yourself as any thing or man
Smash a door if you can
Get those handshakes while you can

(repeat scene 2)

(Scene 4: The fan sees the rock star 35 years on)

Aren’t you the ones from the Fallout Shelter?
Aren’t you the ones who come back every night?
Aren’t you the ones from The Bonaventure?
There’s just some people I can’t get out of my sight

Aren’t you “The One”?

May
Story
Lyrics

“Walk in the Woods”

This may actually be a jazz song (my first). What is Jazz? Is there a definition? I figure that if it has a bit of a swing beat, uses only seventh and ninth chords, and most of it is improvised, then its probably jazz.

The inspiration for this song came from a recent trip I took to Eastern Europe. I was amazed at how the ghosts of World War II still linger there, popping up in day to day conversations, in the city streets and the country fields.

While travelling between Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Prague and Vienna I heard about a morbid yet official branch of the German army called the Einsatzgruppen, whose sole purpose from 1939-1945 was to murder civilians in the wake of other German army divisions. Victims included Jews, Gypsies, and anyone involved in resistance. Their ranks included reservists called up from German civilian life, and their modus operandi was to march people into the woods and simply shoot them. As I gazed over these European forests, there was little physical evidence of these atrocities, but something hung in the air, in the eyes, and a thought popped into my head. A simple walk in the woods would never seem the same again. I thought about Chief Dan George, to whom a walk in the woods in the Clint Eastwood movie “The Outlaw Josey Wales” meant an elegant way to go when your useful days are over. In Eastern Europe the woods may always evoke the opposite of elegance. They say that Jazz and suffering have long been soul-mates.

Walk In The Woods

Let’s walk in the woods
Let’s walk in the woods
Let’s walk in the woods
We’re never walking back

August
Story
Lyrics

“Abide by Law”

Abide By Law is my follow up to the 1969 song “Wooden Ships”, which was written by members of Jefferson Airplane and Crosby, Stills, & Nash, and recorded by both bands. Only in 1969 did it seem believable that an armada of floating hippies would take care of the remnants of a post-apocalypse world. I must admit that I was right there with them, ready to set sail. But looking back, things turned out just a little different…

You served with me,
Breaking down that door
Who would’ve thought that,
We’d abide by law?

I was in awe
Our troops would endure

Tear down the wall
Tears and asbestos fall

We’d go back for more
The rafts still line the shore
Our crusade just short a war

Whose place was this?
Beds were on the floor
Who could imagine,
That we’d abide by law?

You and I swore
The substance was pure

Look behind that wall
Your tears and asbestos fall

We’d go back for more
The rafts still line the shore
Our crusade just short one war

We were in awe,
Now we abide by law

November
Story
Lyrics

“Why Can’t It Last?”

It was nearly Thanksgiving when this song was issued, a time when we are all about to hear a bunch of those same family stories again. Our best stories are about incidents that can’t be planned, can’t be repeated, but are endlessly retold. This song title and chorus is a ridiculous unanswerable gigantic rhetorical question, and the verses are tiny little moments that live in our minds forever.

We once had a future
We will have a past
But why can’t it last?

Our eyes were entangled
From across the aisle
The clock, it was stopping
On a would-be permanent smile

The corks were popping
The band was on
The best was saved for last
When all the guests had gone

We once had a future
We’ll soon have a past
But why can’t it last?

I went to my cult leader
I had questions, I had cash
But he died that evening
In a cataclysmic clash

He was doing eighty
Thinking about what I asked
He was about to say “eternity”
But even he couldn’t make it last

I went to the producer
To get back my self-control
He locked me on a treadmill
He auto-tuned my soul

The conductor had his tux on
The band began to click
He got the room to get that buzz on
But even he couldn’t make it stick

I went to the bureau
I asked to see the chief
He said pick up this megaphone
And kindly state your beef

“I was doing eighty,
When this cop came up to me”
He said “I gotta quota boy”
I can’t let you get off free

We built a fortress
Steel and glass a mile high
Surrounded it with oceans
And smothered it with sky

It doesn’t matter how slow we go
It doesn’t matter how fast
My love’s an alchemist
Even she couldn’t break the cast

We once had a future
We will have a past
But why can’t it last?

March
Story
Lyrics

“In the Care of Dr. Nice”

There are many types of “nice” in this world. There’s the New York Nice, the Southern Nice, the English Nice, and maybe somewhere the just plain Nice. I didn’t set out to write a song about hiding in the basement from all of those nice folks, but sometimes the words get written before you have time to think. I quite enjoy it when the words come quickly, because I get to try to figure it out like any other listener.

The only clue I can offer is that up until the time I was 7 years old, my family had a basement. I would completely shut the world out down there, and drive my mother nuts when I wouldn’t answer her “Mitchell!!!” calls. There were these seats that doubled as chests all around the basement. I would search through all the stuff that was hidden there, especially this 4-volume set of World War II photos, which had some horrific images that got burned into my brain. A half a century later, I got another basement, and its great down here.

This song was written in the autumn of 2010. The doctor is in.

It’s dark in the basement
There’s light in the hall
I hear double talking
Two ears to the wall

A murderous language
In a soothing voice
A polite set of options
With no other choice

Purgatory is a fool’s paradise
It starts when you bed down,
In the care of Dr. Nice

In the care of Dr Nice
In the care of Dr Nice

A beautiful smile
On treacherous stairs
Beware of your balance
Descend if you dare

Mom throws a party
Friends throw the rice
A life’s prescription,
In the care of Dr. Nice

You say it one time
But you interpret it twice
It starts with a fever,
In the care of Dr. Nice

In the basement,
Where everything’s right
The pipes are weeping
And morning is night

The doctor’s in, the doctor’s in!

They feed you with friction
Kill you with kind
If they’re facing you brother
Better check from behind

Ooh ooh ooh ooh……

If they say it one time
Interpret it twice
It starts with a compliment,
In the care of Dr. Nice

In the care of Dr Nice
In the care of Dr Nice

It starts with simplicity
It ends with duplicity
Her name was Felicity
When I discovered electricity
I’m leaving her vicinity
This life will be the death of me
I appeal to your humanity
My S.O.S. in an MP3

In the basement,
where everything’s right
The pipes are weeping
And morning is ….. night

June
Story
Lyrics

“Motel of Your Heart”

This song features the return of Neal Steingart to the mixing desk. Neal mixed nearly every recording of my band Just Water, as well as doing our live sound whenever we played CBGBs or Max’s.

Motel Of Your Heart was written in 1981 at a pretty bleak moment in my life. It’s about the intersection of two lonely people, and the settings are all based on the view from the road that I remember from playing all over upstate New York in the 1970s. The image I had in my head when I wrote this song was a variation of the crazy theory that each atom is really a little universe, and the atoms in that universe are even littler universes, and so on ad infinitum. Except in this case, the universes are motels, and the atoms are hearts.

Like a neon sign flashing,
On a sharp winding turn
Like a dot on a map,
Of a road that got burned

Like a ghost in this motel,
Just passing through
My fantasy desk-clerk,
You’ve still got a room

I start up your meter with an overnight yawn
We can measure love’s mileage from sundown until dawn
Your body is playing that “welcome home” tune
But your soul is unpacking in a far-away room

(chorus)
I know a place where the sign still says “Vacant”
Twenty-eight rooms where your memories park
Where headlights are winking,
But no cars are stopping
The motel of your heart

Your side of the pillow is warm and depressed
The collage I am part of still watches you dress
As I try to untangle your hopes from your teens
How permanent the feel of impermanence seems

(chorus)

The latch on your luggage is losing its bite
From opening and closing in the same place each night
Don’t follow the ghoul with eight cylinders burning
There’s a wreck on the highway where you could be turning

I know a place…

September
Story
Lyrics

“Bees”

Rock N Roll has always maintained good relations with the insect world. One of the first great rock bands was Buddy Holly’s Crickets. John, Paul, George, and Ringo admitted to coming up with “The Beatles” as a Trans-Atlantic reply to The Crickets. They added an “a” to beetles and the rest is history. Through the years there’s been rock-a-billy songs about human flies, hippy songs about butterflies, early goth about Boris The Spider, and let’s not forget my old Just Water song “Ants”… So it was time for a song about bees. Well actually its about something else. But my son told me if I sang songs about “the human condition” I would be branded an uncool “emo act” and banned from many an iPod. So I disguised the humans as bees, and maybe I’ll get away with it. I also felt it was time to break out the old synthesizers. I recently heard the album “Ba Da Bi Ng” by Richard Termini (available at www.cdbaby.com/cd/richardtermini). The album is filled with very cool synth sounds. In fact, Termini is the guy that did all the synths on Cindi Lauper’s classic debut album. I also found out that we grew up 4 blocks from each other around Fillmore Gardens in Brooklyn. We didn’t cross paths, but we were both playing in NYC throughout the 1970’s. He hung onto his synths. I left my ARP 2600 synth in the basement at 808 Broadway, NYC, and some lucky soul has got it now.

Bees in a hive
Trying to survive
Trying to get a little extra honey on the side
Bees in a hive
Trying to survive
Bees in a hive
Trying to survive
Trying to get a little extra honey on the side

We’re sheep in a flock
Punching on a clock
Dying to get a little extra dough before they dock

We’re fish in a school
Drowning under rules
Fish in a school
Drowning under rules
Pray to pull the plug on the piranhas in the pool

We’re bulls in a herd
Grazing to The Word
Walking through the valley in the shadow of the birds
Bulls in a herd
Grazing to The Word
Bulls in a herd
Grazing to The Word
Trying get a little extra honey, dough, and birds

December
Story
Lyrics

“I Gave”

‘Twas the day before Christmas when this warm-hearted innocent Senator became unhinged. In an instant, I was transformed into a selfish mean-spirited Scrooge. It was a Christmas season just like any other in North Carolina. Swarms of Boy Scouts descending upon defenseless neighborhoods in their own version of the “big surge”.

Year after year after year I was caught at the door. Face to face with a face full of braces and an arm full of sand. Sand bags that is….

They call them luminarias.

But to me and any other displaced New Yorker, it was a horrible bag of sand decorated with horrible candles. So there I am with this kid, and there’s a parental SUV doing surveillance at the end of my front yard. So year after year, I pony up the cash, sign his little Boy Scout scam sheet, and drop another load of sand and candles in the garage. What are you supposed to do with this stuff anyway?

Then it happened.

The garage was filled.
There he was again at the door;
The braces, the sand. the candles, the scam sheet,

…and I snapped.

“No!” Slam. Done!

The song “I Gave” is about all of those folks that are selling you something that you never asked for. Are we givers or getters, and where’s the line? For me, all of the great questions of the universe come down to one thing:

Luminarias.

PS. I bought extra cookies from the Girl Scouts

Go away with your cookies
I won’t undo these locks
I don’t open up for nothing
Except an amazon box

You can take those luminarias
Burn down your own house
I gave at the office
Now I’m staying on the couch

I gave (to the Polish Red Cross)
I gave (at the local corn toss)
I gave, and the more I got, the more I gave
The more I gave
More I, more I, gave

When God said nothing
Man still wrote it down
Then 2, 4, 6, 7 horseman
Rode into my town

They wanted to collect
They wanted me to ride
I got this dead bolt bolted
I’m staying inside

I gave (does music count?)
I gave (I don’t recall the amount, but)
I gave and the more I gave the more I got
The more I gave, more I gave
The more I gave, more I gave

I gave
At The Policeman’s Ball
I gave
At the union hall
I gave
And Peter paid Paul
I gave!

I watched that fella’
Give a sermon on the mount
I made a direct deposit
in his off shore bank account

Then my house was surrounded
Zombies begging in my yard
I got this lay-away plan
It hit my credit hard

I gave (as good as I got)
I gave (I heard it rattle in their pot)
I gave and the more I gave,
I thought I gave,
I thought I gave

I gave (to the Polish Red Cross)
I gave (at the local corn toss)
I gave, and the more I got, the more, I gave,
More, I gave,
More, I gave

2010

January
Story
Lyrics

“Sky LA (and the 20 Minute Window)”

Last year was a tough one for a lot of folks, so The Senators are starting out with an upbeat little ditty about the end of the world.

Well, it might be about the end of the world, or it might be about a baby napping.

It’s all about perspective.

We got 20 minutes before the whole world goes
We got 20 minutes before the whole world goes

Sky

Sky LA

April
Story
Lyrics

“Maybe Not”

I have never been of a fan of the “everybody is a winner” child-rearing strategy.

Count me out of classes where every kid gets an A, and sports where every kid gets a trophy.

The song Maybe Not is about an encounter with such a kid, years after the winning streak ended.

There wouldn’t be any good rock n roll if it weren’t for all those glorious losers who write opuses like “Teenage Lobotomy”, smash guitars, and fall on their heads out of coconut trees.

All that you want
All that you need
All that you got

All that you are
All that you could
All that you’re not

Maybe in time,
You can unwind,
yourself from this trap
With all of your hair
(and) All of your teeth
(and) All of your crap

All that you saved
All that you prayed
All that for what?

All that you were
All that you would
All that’s forgot

Maybe some day
You’ll be repaid,
for all that you’ve done
But maybe you’re screwed
You’re not quite the dude
Maybe someone else won

Maybe hold up your plate
For a new serving of fate
So your life can re-run

But the kitchen is full
You’ve lost all your pull
Maybe you’re not the one

The kitchen is full
You’ve lost all your pull
Maybe you’re not the one

July
Story
Lyrics

“Gonna Miss This World”

The first line of Gonna Miss This World is “There’s a blind nude rider on a pink roller skate rolling backwards with a boa on Broadway”, and for me, its an image that defines New York City. Yes, I really did see it, and no, its not a fluke; its just a moment in NYC. By the time I start sending my Songs Of The Month from the great beyond, I will have spent half my life above and half below the Mason Dixon Line. On my first day as an invading resident of “The South” the subject of the civil war came up, and the southern gentleman I was conversing with referred to it as “That Recent Unpleasantness”. At the time he seemed far stranger than the blind nude bike rider on Broadway. Now, I appreciate strangeness at any latitude or longitude. This song highlights a few moments that got stuck in my mind as I wandered between north and south.

There’s a blind nude rider,
on a pink roller skate,
Rolling backwards with a boa on Broadway

Past a drunk punk rocker,
on a subway grate,
With his face suckin’ on a can of hairspray

Then I’m hurled on the pavement
And I’m hurled into space
And they empty my apartment
And they spray me full of mace

But I’m rescued by the blind naked roller-skating ace
And I live to see morning with my morning girl

I’m gonna miss this world

I woke up sweating from my New York dream
In the middle of a Civil reenactment

I was somewhere south of the Hudson’s mighty mouth
I was wondering where the black clothes that I packed went?

Then I’m shackled to a suburb
Five, four, and a door
And they empty out my wallet
And they frisk me down for more

But I’m saved by a fire-breathing preacher with a cure
And I live to say “morning” to my morning girl

I’m gonna miss this world

There’s a blind nude rider, on a pink roller skate,
I’m gonna miss this world

There’s a fire-breathing preacher on a subway grate
I’m gonna miss this world

There’s the Chrysler building and the Empire State,
I’m gonna miss this world

There’s a house in the suburbs with my black clothes in a crate
I’m gonna miss this world

There’s a room in the basement with my ………… and my cape

October
Story
Lyrics

“You Can Sell Me Anything”

Danny and I wrote this song together on June 2nd, 1975 in Brooklyn NY, around the time of our band Just Water’s first single (King Kong).

We recorded it on my cheapo 2-track tape recorder in 1975, but by 2010 the tape and the memories of how the song went were long gone.

This summer I came across an old notebook that jogged my memory. When I read the lyrics my first comment was “What were we thinking?!?”

Your guess is as good as mine, but it sounds to me like a rant against the hustlers in the music business. And we knew plenty of those hustlers.

You can sell me anything
Everything has a price
Something I can count on
How about a little pair-o-dice

You can sell me anything
Quote me any price
Last week you sold solid gold
And I bought up paradise

I’m the man you’re looking for
The man to sell it to
If you’re selling rockets
Then I’ll ride away with you
I’ll ride away with you
I’ll ride away with you

You can sell me anything
Everything has a price
Something I can count on
How about a little pair-o-dice

You can sell me anything
Pork bellies and rice
Last week you sold solid gold
And I bought the same thing twice

I’m the man you’re looking for
The man to sell it to
If you’re picking pockets
Then I’ll ply my trade with you
I’ll ply away with you
I’ll ply away with you

If you push salvation
I will buy your prayers in lieu
Of pills I bought just yesterday
To get me up there too

You can sell me anything
Everything has a price

February
Story
Lyrics

“Oatmeal Lady”

Oatmeal Lady is one white man’s attempt to add to the long tradition of blues food songs.

Willie Dixon sung of chicken, pork, and beans, and nearly every blues-man squeezed some lemon. I thought it was time for some breakfast food to get into the act.

I’m in love with the Oatmeal Lady
She keeps me trim and fit
I’m in love with the Oatmeal Lady
She keeps me trim and fit

She feeds me bowls and bowls of it

He’s in love with the Oatmeal Lady
Breakfast time can get so crazy
Instant love with the Oatmeal Lady, Yeah

May
Story
Lyrics

“Boy with the Bird in His Hair”

This song is based on the painting “Hammerhead” by Paul Jansen. Paul was the quintessential New York “starving artist”. He was also a close friend of mine, and helped my old band Just Water with photos, cover designs, and advise on what not to wear when negotiating a record contract. Sadly Paul passed away in 2008 shortly after receiving a prestigious grant from artist Jackson Pollack’s wife.

Paul was known best for the covers he drew for Jimi Hendrix’s posthumous albums “War Heroes” and “Loose Ends”, and for being the resident mural painter at Electric Ladyland Studios. Paul was an “artist’s artist”, as he labored sometimes for years on intricately painted canvases, bucking the trends to work fast and sell more.

Hammerhead depicts a boy with (you guessed it) birds in his hair, seemingly oblivious to the world burning around them.

View Paul’s work here.

View the Hammerhead painting target=_blank>here.

They’re headed out to find a pair
The boy with the bird in his hair

Christmas came one Fourth of July
A starless night, an orange sky
The skyline watched with a silent stare
A cab was shared with a polar bear

The “No Trespass!” sign was trodden on
Borders that had been had gone

They’re headed out to find a pair
The boy with the bird in his hair

It looks like heaven is on the floor
They don’t need windows anymore
The boy someday may have painted this
The bird’s not prone to reminisce

The “VACANCY” sign was trodden on
Long term guests have been and gone

They’re headed out to find a pair
The boy with the bird in his hair

August
Story
Lyrics

“Bars I Didn’t Play”

Sometimes it’s better to not get everthing you wish for…

That’s me in Cabo San Luc
with the New York tan
This one’s my wife of twenty years
That one’s me when I was with the band

Somehow I made it through
And I’m standing here today
I owe it all to the
Bars I didn’t play

I used to turn it up
To ten and blast away
To get my point across to
Bubbas and Billy Rays

But I can still hear whispers
I can hear the ocean’s spray
I owe these ears to the
Bars I didn’t play

I don’t get those royalty checks
But I kept the wolves at bay
I’m still earning interest from the
Bars I didn’t play

I’m staying home tonight
And It feels OK
I owe it all, to the
Bars I didn’t play

November
Story
Lyrics

“Go Geronimo”

Meet Dan, a New Yorker that always seems to be in the best bars and restaurants even though he never has a job. Meet his new girlfriend, a hippie archaeologist that specializes in unearthing bygone civilizations, whom Dan mockingly calls “Geronimo”. I dunno’ how this story popped into my brain, but it is bound to be true.

He pops a Perkadan
She sniffs her herbal contraband
How about a drink with Dan?
He dreams of a night at the Plaza
She dreams he’s the Maharaja man
In search of a plan
Out the bar they both ran

They grabbed a cab about a week ago
She paid the fare,
He drank the red Bordeaux
She bought the chateau
He mixes up with the people
She’s hooked on Machu Picchu ruins
While she’s digging in dunes
He’s watching cartoons

He left in a change of clothes
Where he went, nobody knows
She searched the dressing room
For his coat
He left her a note….

“My dear Geronimo
This sitting bull is on the go
Geronimo!
I’m tarred and feathered in style
While you raid Herod’s pile, go
But I need you to know
I still love you so”

He left in a change of skin
Where to look?
She don’t know where to begin
She sifted through the Parthenon,
For his shoes
Then he appeared in the news

Where are you gonna hunt game now?
You’re eating crow with your cow
When’s your Daddy coming home?

Who’s a cinch for infanticide?
He’s grinding his gears in drive
Now your Daddy’s coming home
Now your Daddy’s coming home
Now your Daddy’s comin’ home

(The Creedmoor Bernstein Pediatric Choir
sings a verse their way)

No go, Geronimo
Another New York taxi getting towed
He’s wanted in Ohio
She’s third in Cinc De Mayo clues
In his search for the truth
He adds a little Vermouth

He’s wanted in Ohio
She’ll pen his auto-bio, “Blues”
In our search for the truth
Consult a little girl sleuth

Go – Geronimo – Go

March
Story
Lyrics

“Something That You Don’t Own”

Something That You Don’t Own is a chain gang song, built around a “call and response” chant, under a hot sun. It’s about powerlessness. The main riff is played on a baritone guitar, which gives it that low-down dirge-like quality.

Is there a river?
(that you don’t own)
That flows to a sea
(that you don’t own)
A trickle of water
(that you don’t own)
That’s coming to me (that you don’t own)

I’m friction for fire
I’m pressure for stone
I’m burning in tires
Throw me a bone
Something that you don’t own
Something that you don’t own
Something that you don’t own

Is there an orchid?
That hides on a tree
A finger of honey
From a renegade bee

I’m friction for fire
I’m pressure for stone
I’m solder for wires
To light up your throne

Something that you don’t own
Something that you don’t own

Is there a flashlight?
That signals at night
To a river of orchids
On an unchartered flight
(that you don’t own)

That you don’t own

What don’t you own?

June
Story
Lyrics

“This Place (is Unbelievable)”

“This Place (Is Unbelievable)” is a variation on a “3 guys walk into a bar” joke. This time the bar is in heaven, and the 3 guys are The Optimist (played by yours truly), the Pessimist (played by Ira Bernstein) and the Hopeless Romantic (played by yours truly because I ran out of Senators).

This place is unbelievable
Got the white down pillows on the floor
This place is unbelievable
I know why the big guy won the war

If this place is unbelievable
Then why’s everybody so upset?
If its so damn unbelievable
Then why’s everybody bored to death?

Let go – My dear
No hands – No fear
Gonna float on down,
Meet on the pier

Hold on – My love
There’s a riot goin’ up above
Rewind – Revive
No one ever swam these straights alive

This place is unbelievable
Got the harps piped into every room
This place is unbelievable
Do you know why they sent me here so soon?

If this place is unbelievable
Then why’s everybody so upset?
If its so damn unbelievable
Then why’s everybody bored to death?

This place is unbelievable
I got a date with an angel in the light
This place is just incredible
What you pray for in the morning comes at night
What you pray for in the morning comes at night

September
Story
Lyrics

“Man On The Train (A Subway Symphony)”

I beg your indulgence on this one, as Man On A Train is 11 minutes, and it takes about 5 of those minutes before it erupts into a rock n’ roll song. The NYC subway is a complete and total environment, with its own atmosphere. I thought it deserved (as they say in the classical world) the “serious musical treatment”, and so here are 5 movements with allegros, andantes, and recurring themes, but all coated with the grime and sounds of the subway.

The music and lyrics tell a true story of an incident I witnessed on the way home from a Mets game in the 1970s. I was sitting between a high school wrestling team and a ragged couple whose life was incomprehensible to the kids that tried to have a laugh at the expense of the man on the train.

1st Movement – Train’s Coming
2nd Movement – The Ninth Inning
3rd Movement – The Platform
4th Movement – The Man On The Train
5th Movement – Train’s Leaving

The curtains come up
On a subway way car scene
Big kids from New Jersey
From the wrestling team

Going back to the suburbs
From the Dodgers and the Mets
There’s blood on the railings
From the Sharks and The Jets

They were well fed and drinking
They were swinging on a pole
Near a man with suitcase
Just out on parole

He was mumbling, he was sweating
They were moving too close
He was trying hard to hold back
His head full of ghosts

Their muscles all were bulging
They were feeling no pain
They looked up and they stared
At the man on the train

He looked scrawny, he looked ragged
He was wiry and tan
With a toothless bag lady
Holding onto his hand

Man on the train

They said “Hey bag lady”
And the rest isn’t clear
All those wrestling trophies
Didn’t mean nothing here

There wasn’t time to swallow
Jagermeister in a jar
When they noticed that his tattoos
Were covered up in scars

In the middle of their sentence
In the blink of their eyes
In a fraction of an instant
In the lull before surprise

He let go of his jacket
His face went infrared
She pleaded with him, “Stop it!”
“We don’t want nobody dead!”

They outweighed him by a thousand
They outnumbered him by four
They were champions in high school
They were sprawled out on the floor

Man on the train

The curtains come up
On a subway car scene
Big kids from New Jersey
Barely eighteen

Some will get home early
Some will get home late
And tell the story over a cold dinner plate

He could be the messiah
Coming back to earth again
Or an urban legend rider
The “Man On The Train”

December
Story
Lyrics

“Happy Holidays”

I don’t think this song qualifies as a traditional “Christmas song”, but as always, you are the judge and jury.

I wrote this song while spending Christmas alone in 1973. I was at the “band house”. It was my band Just Water’s version of “Big Pink”. An old house on a river bank in Binghampton, New York. I had a Fender Rhodes piano in the concrete basement where we rehearsed. The basement was a scary place to be alone, as we discovered a secret closet filled with jars and jars of preserves. Just what was “preserved” we couldn’t figure out. Perhaps they were rare specimens of strawberries, but it looked much more like brains to us. We were musicians, not scientists. I have a faint memory of us opening a jar one night, but whatever transpired, we never went near that closet again.

The other guys in the band went home to spend the holidays with their families, leaving me alone with the drummer’s boa constrictor, and all those jars. I survived on egg salad sandwiches for a week. I sat down at the piano and wrote this song. I always look back at those times as the “good old days”, until I read the lyrics to these songs! I was 20 years old, the rent hadn’t been paid in months, we still hadn’t played our first paying gig, my parents were saying horrible things like “maybe you need something to fall back on”, and I was wondering if it was already time to pack it all in!

Special thanks go to Ira, who when he returned to the house with the band, found me awash in egg shells and depressing lyrics, and took charge. He got us to load the gear in our Ford truck and drove to a club that once turned us down. We got our first gig and paid the back rent. Ira sang this song in 1973, and sings it again today.

… and by the way, Happy Holidays

Future’s blinding
The school kids have all skipped away
I’m feeling round for the shade of those happy holidays

Future’s blinding
School kids have all slipped away
I’m feeling round for the shade of those happy holidays

Today I thought for a moment
That Mary’s child was real
But tomorrow’s Christmas eve,
and I’ll check up on how I feel
I know music has got the power,
To keep us all real close
But with the band apart on Christmas day
This gig is turning into a joke

Bad blood,
I wouldn’t push too far
I love these people,
I know just who they are
My sound doesn’t carry much more
Than the sad sound bites that get sung to the floor

Moving bedrooms, north to south
Its getting me either worries or laughs
Grins smeared clumsily around their mouths
You’d think that everyone had walked your path

Mixed up, broke down, running back home
Yet it still feels the same inside
You’d swear I had some fatal disease
They see all but what I try not to hide
They see all but what I try not to hide

So some music got lost,
And I’ve got nothing to say
But God damn its Christmas day

We all lost our money,
Did we learn how to write?
God damn its opening night

So you said this would happen
We’d be helpless away
But I’m not through,
I’m just off for the day

We just can’t throw another season away
Always know that its coming,
But never feel it today
Oh what an asshole time to pray,
What the hell else does the kid have to say?

I’m going home,
Where I’m free of all expenses
I’m going home,
To lay around and hide,
I got my fat quilt there,
And my feather pillow too
And a “How-To” book,
“How To Know When You’re Through”

Future’s blinding
School kids have all skipped away
I’m feeling round for the shade of those,
Happy Holidays

2009

January
Story
Lyrics

“Afraid to Ask”

Afraid to Ask came about by hanging around too many 18 year-olds playing post apocalyptic video games.

It’s getting sticky
Like melted glass
How did my whisky
Escape the flask

I’m getting woozy
A white hot flash
I draw the curtains
I’m afraid to ask

(chorus)
Afraid to ask. Afraid to ask.

There’s Tanzania
Outside my door
I’m on the ceiling
Staring at the floor

I read about this
But I couldn’t grasp
There’s my professor
But I’m afraid to ask

(chorus)

Now that the east side
Is on the west
I’m afraid,
What’s gonna happen next?

The Mekong River
Came through my door
I’m getting flashbacks
I’ve been drowned before
I read about this
But I couldn’t grasp
There goes the seargent
But I’m afraid to ask

When horizontal
And vertical are the same
And straight is crooked
And went is came
Who’s in charge here?
Who picks up the trash
There goes my maker
I’m afraid to ask…

(chorus)

It’s getting icy
Like frozen glass
TV’s still working
Still spewing trash

When did we argue?
Why did it last?
I can’t feel nothing
And I’m afraid to ask

April
Story
Lyrics

“Doctor Boy”

Doctor Boy is based on a true story. The song was written in 1980, which was after my band Just Water broke up, but while I could still weasle my way into the New York City nightclubs for free. My initials are not MD for nothing. My mother always said “you better be a doctor boy”. And one night in some seedy punk rock club I found myself saying “you better be a doctor boy” under my breath to some fresh-faced med student who was moving in on the girl I came in with. In my mind I was saying “you better be a doctor after I get through with you!!” But my imagination has always been tougher than my fists. He got the girl and I got the song.

She’s fogging up my glances
I’m falling down her stares
We came here as a couple
Now we leave in separate pairs

She’s in-between the sandwich
I’m underneath the plate
Here comes the anesthesia
She’s gonna operate

Her buttons will open,
If the issue is pressed
There’s a real heart bleeding,
Beneath the ketchup dress

You better be a doctor boy
You better be a doctor Boy

Her body’s not your Binky toy
You better be a doctor boy
Doctor Boy. Doctor Boy.
You better be a doctor boy

She’s tearing up the dance floor
I’m tearing up my seat
She’s flying on her broomstick
Sweeps me off my feet

Her love will unravel,
When the stitches are cut
She’ll take you upstairs,
And go down on your luck

You better be a doctor boy
You better be a doctor boy
Her cadaver is not a tinker toy
You better be a doctor boy
Doctor Boy. Doctor Boy.
You better be a doctor boy

July
Story
Lyrics

“Poetry is Easy”

Poetry Is Easy is dedicated to my friend of 35 years and a fellow member of Just Water, Tom Korba. Tom introduced me to a form of Japanese poetry called “Haiku” when he sent me a copy of his book “Haiku Therapy”. This song may be a little dark compared to Tom’s sunnier approach to life, but it follows some of the simple 3-line structures of Haiku. The song features a modern version of the Mellotron, the first keyboard instrument to use tape loops (now known as samples) to reproduce orchestral instruments. If there was something about The Moody Blues that made you sick, it was probably the Mellotron.

Poetry is easy
Straight talk is hard
Poetry is easy
Straight talk is hard
Poetry is easy,
Straight talk is hard
Jokers are simple, pick another card

Astronomy is easy,
History is hard
Astronomy is easy,
History is hard
Calculus is easy,
subtraction is hard
She’s really got your number,
Stop gazing at the stars

Performance is easy,
Watching is hard
Performance is easy,
Watching is hard
Performance is easy,
Watching is hard
Poetry is simple, turn over the card

Poetry is easy, poetry is easy

October
Story
Lyrics

“Summon Up Ghosts”

Summon Up Ghosts was inspired by a conversation I had in June 2009 with Ren Ferguson, the “Master Guitar Builder” for Gibson Guitar’s hand made acoustic division in Boseman, Montana. I was in South Bend, Indiana at a great music store (palace really) called Sweetwater, and had just purchased a Gibson SJ-200, a guitar I had ogled since 1969. One of Sweetwater’s many once-road-worn-musicians-now-salespeople saw me with the guitar and said “Hey, do you want to meet the guy that built that guitar? He’s in the store!”. Now what were the odds of that happening? I told Ren that the thing that impressed me most was that a guitar he built in 2009 sounded exactly as I had remembered Gibson SJ-200s sounding since 1969. Ren’s reply was that “absolutely nothing leaves the shop unless you can hear the ghost of Gibson”. After writing this song I realized that the entire business of creating music (not just musical instruments) was about summoning up ghosts.

Some folks are just a hunk of wood
They wouldn’t save you even if they could
When I think there is no hope
I dream of whom I miss the most
This guitar I use to summon up ghosts

Some guitars are just a hunk of notes
They wouldn’t spit up a song if it were stuck in their throats
But some guitars are flesh and blood
With beating hearts and thunder’s thud
This guitar I use to summon up ghosts

Summon up ghosts,
Summon up,
Summon up

Some folks are here, then “adios”
Their axes hanging on a rusty post
When the wind is still but the curtains sway
With a silhouette, I begin to play
This guitar I use to summon up ghosts

Summon up,
Summon up

February
Story
Lyrics

“The Mayor of Brighton Beach”

The Mayor Of Brighton Beach is the true story of my grandfather, whose 15 minutes of fame came when he saved a bunch of old drowning ladies who were caught in the undertow off Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, NY. I use some of the old Yiddish terms that my grandfather spoke (he was from Austria), and so below I’ve compiled a dictionary of terms to help you enjoy the song:

Alta Cockers = “old farts”
Garcia y Vega = “cheap cigar that makes you think you’re smoking a Cuban cigar”
Pinochle = “card game brought over to the US by German immigrants”
Schnapps = “a German brandy” but normally refers to any cheap 80 proof drink
Luction Strap = “a type of belt that immigrant grandfathers use to beat the crap of you”
Frank = “New York Hot Dog”
Nathan’s = “The place for the best New York Franks”

Brighton Beach was the most crowded beach in the world in its hey day. From May to September you could find my grandfather on the beach blowing smoke rings in the shadow of the Parachute Jump ride of the old Steeplechase Amusement Park. His friends said that he wrestled for money back in Austria. He never confirmed or denied it, but he sure hated it when you told him that the wrestling on TV was fake.

The Alta Cockers are drowning
The lifeguard’s out of reach
But the undertow is no problem
For the Mayor of Brighton Beach

Fifty years before Schwarzenegger
The Schwartz’s came around
From Austria and Poland
And other genteel towns

They settled on the east side
Round the corner from Hester Street
Then he headed south on the D train
To be the Mayor of Brighton Beach

(chorus)
The Alta Cockers are drowning…

With his partner Garcia y Vega
And the sand around his feet
Pinochle and a thermos
(He was) The Mayor of Brighton Beach

If the bread is stale, you toast it!
With a skull cap he would preach
Even roast pork can be kosher!
When you’re the Mayor of Brighton Beach

(chorus)
When FDR came calling
Out came ‘witzs, and Cohens and ‘steins
With one hand on a Nathan’s frank
The other on a voting machine

But with his campaign slogan,
Of “What will be will be”
They didn’t even need an election
For the Mayor of Brighton Beach

(chorus)

The shofar blows
The ring is in hock
Accountants grew up on this block

Who will remember?
Who will deny?
Who’ll walk across Brooklyn for a seeded rye?

An hours prayer
Over a minute steak
The schnapps is real
But the wrestling is fake

A luction strap
If you stay out late
While the opera plays
And the landlord waits

The boardwalk is etched with the mayor’s face
There’s a smoke ring blowing past the Steeplechase

The Alter Cockers are drowning
The lifeguard’s out of reach

May
Story
Lyrics

“Jolly Roger Day”

Jolly Roger Day is based on an untrue story.

Sometimes a song is born whole, which means it lands on earth just the way it is. This conveniently allows the songwriter to take no responsibility for the song (unless it starts to sell). Jolly Roger Day showed up at my doorstep, with a note attached that said “a pirate walks into his immigration hearing, and all hell breaks loose”.

When I walked into the court house
And they threw the book away
I knew I dug this country
It’s here I want to stay

When she came into the court house
And she blew the judge away
I knew I dug this country
It’s here that I will stay

And here is where I’ll stay

When they took over the court house
And they set the place ablaze
I knew I dug this country
And that I was here to stay

I ducked out of the court house
I leapt up on the stage
I hoisted up my green card
It’s a Jolly Roger day

Well they called for immigration
And they called for C.I.A.
They know I love this country
They can’t take this card away

It’s a Jolly Roger day

When I looked back at the court house
Through the flames a flag did wave
I really dig this country
I’ll be buried here some day

I’m gonna be buried here some day

August
Story
Lyrics

“Walking To Verrazano”

Walking To Verrazano is a true story about two thirteen year old kids running away from home. Their plan was to walk to Florida from their Brooklyn New York homes, and then maybe hop across to a few Caribbean islands. The instigator was me, and the accomplice was my best friend Wesley Steinman. Neither of us were unhappy at home, nor mad at anyone. We just figured there must be something better out there somewhere. The lyrics are based on the conversations we had while walking down the highway for 14 hours in the summer of 1966.

This song is dedicated to the memory of Wesley Steinman, and to my Uncle Herb who, along with Aunt Bev and my parents, came to pick up the two runaway boys at the end of the Verrazano Bridge.

Well, we nearly made it to New Jersey.
Maybe we should have kept walking?

The sun was sparkling
Over a new horizon
South of Brooklyn
On a distant island

Walkin’ down Belt Parkway
With our piggy bank pennies
With a tuna fish sandwich
And a map to Denny’s

Just like Kerouac Jack
And Vasco De Gamo
We were walkin’ to Verrazano

Just like Magello
And Marco Polo
We were walkin’ to Verrazano

We’d sneak in gas stations
And shower in toilets
Then you missed your dog
We called home and spoiled it

Back to the parents
And chicken parmesano
We should’ve kept walking
To Verrazano

We were in deep once
Now we’re back to shallow
Spooking with Cropsey
Through Sleepy Hollow

I’ll learn the guitar
You take piano
We were walkin’
to Verrazano

We could’ve lived the big life
Yo’ Capitano
We went to the feast
But we couldn’t swallow

The time was timeless
The road was calling
The doors were open
The walls were falling

The sex was sexless
The music mono
That’s why we’re walkin
To Verrazano

Now the bills are piled up
In a decked out condo
We should’ve kept walkin’
To Verrazano

We had our chance once
Mano a mano
We were walkin’
To Verrazano

November
Story
Lyrics

“One Trick Pony Of The Blues”

One Trick Pony Of The Blues – Every songwriter has their hurricane Katrina song. I resisted that subject until after last year’s trip to Jazz Fest in New Orleans, which was already several years after the catastrophic storm. I go to Jazz Fest every year with two of my brothers and before Katrina there were a treasure-chest full of old “one lick wonder” blues guys playing in every bar. Granted these were the “B” or “C” team players that may never make it to a Jazz Fest stage, but we loved to listen to these blues players as much as the big name acts. Where did they go? And will we ever see their likes again? In this song I try to put myself in their shoes; something impossible to do but worth the try. I also pay homage to a homeless man (then called a Bowery Bum) from the south who used to hang out with the teenagers that slept out all night for tickets at the Fillmore East in New York City in 1969. There would often be a guitar passed around, and this so called “bum” would lecture us that “you ain’t pickin’, you’s frailin'”. Forty years later in New Orleans, I finally heard someone explain the difference between pickin’ and frailin’, and I regretted that we never passed the guitar to “the bum”.

Dedicated to that “bum” we spent nights with on the line for tickets at the Fillmore East, who would come up to you and say “Ask me for a thousand dollars”. We’d say “Can you spare 1000 dollars?” and he’d say:

“If I had it, you could get it, ’cause I’d luvvvv to see you with it. But there is no doubt about it, that you jest have ta’ live without it!”

I’m in the graveyard,
Shufflin’ on a swing
I named my daughter after Riley B King
Harmonica’s gone, Down the wishing well
Guitar strings snapped,
When I was hung, I fell

Hand me a switchblade,
But don’t make me sing
Take the finger,
If you’re taking the ring

I’m out on Bourbon Street,
with a match and a fuse
I’m illuminating like a …
One Trick Pony Of the Blues

I’m on the tombstone,
But the name isn’t mine
I’m not from Mississippi,
And I’ve never been blind
I ain’t pickin’,
I’m just frailin’ for dimes
I’m faking at homeless,
I’m failing at crime

Turn off the jukebox, It’s just another King Take my whole hand, If you’re taking the ring It’s late on Bourbon Street, The crowd is not amused I’m ventrilo-quating like a … One Trick Pony Of the Blues It’s dawn on Bourbon Street, My soul won’t transfuse I’m blood-letting like a … One Trick Pony Of the Blues

March
Story
Lyrics

“Guitar Collection”

Guitar Collection is an ode to guitar pickers and the woman that give them shelter. When I played in NYC from 1974 – 1979 I don’t think any of those bands would have survived without somebody’s girlfriend forking up the rent.

Where’s the mob
When you need protection?
She’s going it alone
With our mutual affection
It’s worse than death
It’s total rejection
She locked me outside with my guitar collection

She paid my way
With illegal tender
I thought we were partners
What did I do to offend her?
I’m a bum, but…
I coulda’ been a contender
Now I’m out in the street with Gibson and Fender

(Q) What’s a guitar picker without a lady?
(A) Homeless baby

She was the judge and jury
I was her objection
I was layin’ on the couch
With the rhythm section
We were headed nowhere
Then she changed direction
She locked me outside with my guitar collection

Gibson: Fender:
Rickenbacker: Steinberger:
Danelectro: Gretsch:

June
Story
Lyrics

“It’s What We Dub (It’s What I Do – Remix)”

It’s What We Dub” is a remix of the song “It’s What I Do”, which I wrote for Ira Bernstein to sing.

The original version of the song was recorded in 2008 and will appear on a collection I intend to release soon, entitled “It’s What We Do”.

This song is based on the old adage “You don’t have to be dumb to be stupid”, and is an ode to teenage political incorrectness.

I don’t recycle,
I love fossil fuel
Nuclear winter,
Hey, that would be cool
I’m playing Warcraft
until my brain is goo
It’s what I do

Take the rain forest
And shove it up your bum
I’m global warming us to Kingdom Come
I’m in my iPod shagging Suzie Q
It’s what I do

“Why do you do it?”
What’s it to you?
“Why do you do it?”
It’s what I do

I’m not green,
I’m black and blue
I’m not vegan,
I eat kangaroo
I’m in the basement
Smoking Winnie The Pooh
It’s what I do

I got 800s on my SAT
I got a scholarship to M.I.T.
I know how to integrate with S.A.P.
I drive to Whole Foods in my S.U.V.
“I betcha just thought he was some stupid dude”
This don’t have a freakin’ thing,
to do with any of you!
It’s what I do

It’s what I do!

September
Story
Lyrics

“Time Machine on 17”

Time Machine On 17 is an ode to 17th Street in New York City, where my old band Just Water played from 1975-1978.

I wrote this song in 2008 in the hope that it could be a new Just Water track.

I am happy to say that my band-mates from the 1970’s, Danny Rubin and Ira Bernstein, have joined me on this song.

It’s 4 stops on a time machine in New York City – Max’s Kansas City, CBGBs, The Fillmore East, and 52nd Street.

It was only after I wrote it that I realized that not only was the club Max’s Kansas City on 17th street, but that I had started 2 different careers and met my wife within a block of 17th street.

So far, our Just Water reunion is only a virtual one, as we recorded our tracks separately in our own home towns, and sent them to each other via the internet.

(1st Stop 2008, 17th street, where Max’s Kansas City once was)

Won’t you share your time machine tonight?
Go past 17th street on your right

Scoring in the lady’s loo
Drink a drink named after you
Won’t you share your time machine tonight?

(2nd Stop 1976, CBGBs)

Don’t beam me back, I’ll take the subway home
I’ll walk south to Bowery and Ramone

Smell the dog and shoot the pool
Leather jackets on a stool
Catatonic, calculating, cool

(3rd Stop 1968, The Fillmore East)

Next stop on your time machine tonight
Downtown past Gem Spa on your right

Vampires in dawn’s early light
Run to Ratners for a bite
Next stop on the time machine tonight

(Last Stop 1953, “The Street”)

Last stop in the time machine tonight
Last stop in the cab with me tonight

We’ll know this trip is through
When we hit Jazz on 52
The meter ran for 50 years tonight
Time machine on 17 tonight

Time machine on 17

December
Story
Lyrics

“Pirate Suite (Attack Of The Love Pirates/Foreclosed)”

This past year I must’ve got pirates on the brain.

With skinny pirates taking over supertankers and fat wall street pirates stealing Granny’s life savings, a song was bound to come out of it.

This one is actually a couple of pirate songs strung together, making for a 10 minute holiday carol.

The main character of both songs is in that often invisible 5% that gets foreclosed.

He’s the poor paranoid b*st*rd that lives down your block, who knew “they” were after him his whole life.

Part I – “Attack Of The Love Pirates”

Don’t you hear them in the bushes?
They’re jangling my back door keys
Hear them hiding in the ventilation
Crawling up there on their hands and knees

I spot them on the off ramp
Running down the road with my returns
They get off at my exit
They watch the crackers crash and burn

They’re sailing up the driveway
Love pirates on a raging sea
They’re dredging up my fountain
Gonna take my pennies from me

I hear footsteps in the stairwell
Smell them grilling pigeons on my roof
What’s that tearing through the insulation?
When I’m gone, you’ll have your proof!

I see brokers on my cornflakes
No, it isn’t the affects of dope
Between the patties of a #7
They’re scuba diving in my Coke

They’re sailing up the driveway
Love Pirates sing Ahoy Laddie
Walk the plank atop my hardwoods
Gonna take my treasures from me

She’s marching with her mother
Looking colder than a banker’s heart
She’s got the neighbors bearing pitchforks
Gonna tear my whole place apart

It’s not the medical marijuana
That’s making me loose track of time
Can’t find my peaches and I can’t find Elvis
It’s all dying on the vine

They’re sailing up the driveway
Love pirates sing “Ahoy Laddie”
They’re dredging up my fountain
Gonna take my pennies from me

They’re taking down the tree-house
They pile in their big black cars
They live underneath the man-hole covers
I’m not just seeing stars

Part II – “Foreclosed”

Raise the skull and crossbones
There she blows
Take the John Deere mower
and the speakers made by Bose
Depreciate the assets
Appreciate the view
Remember that the next dismemberment may be for you
Raise the skull and crossbones
Swab the deck,