The Insignificant Marine

If it was up to me, I'd be simple...

Winter has a way of putting me in my place. I won't go as far to say I dread it, but I will say that I need to set a goal at the end of it in order to get out of bed sometimes. When I wrote this song, I had no idea how bad it could get. Wrestling with questions of destiny and pondering whether or not you are living up to expectations are concerns best left to the cheerier months.

Springtime and identity crisis? I can take it.

Winter and introspection? That is one slick road to steer.

(coming up next, a trip into my electronic alter ego, W/#, with the 2002 EP, "A W/# Number Situation".)

We Looking Forward

I think I sang this song into a paper towel tube. I wanted an extra layer between me and what i was trying to say. Attempted to confuse with my tube voice and my cranky banjo. Remember from the last record, I wrote, "I've got nothing on my mind"? Well on this one, in fact on this whole EP, you can hear, that times have changed.

This is a hopeful sob story. Looking forward and ahead can wear a man out.

Black cat's, proving that, nothing comes expected

Pull the Plastic Back

Your eyes are closed. Your clothes are damp. Your chest is tight. Then everything changes - the fog has been lifted, the plastic has been pulled back. First thing to do is to sharpen that dull blade or you will never be able to hunt down your next meal. There is a feeling in your lungs - a flutter. It reminds you of excitement or anticipation, you learn to cradle that feeling and love it.

The truer the track, makes easy breathing, la la la life that you have.

This Thick World

I'd like you to meet Dr. Rhythm - a good and reliable "drummer". He is playing on this track and he keeps a tight beat.

Here we have a lament of responsibility, a step into adulthood:

Broken banal, I pick up the bread, I butter the bread

I did not know what I was talking about. In fact I sound a bit drunk, but I know I was not, since recording and drinking have never been an easy mix for me. I don't want to appear down on this one but the song was better served when it was re-recorded on Inventory, my 2005 CD. Listening now this song seems like a demo of a demo - but I will just call it charming and an interesting artifact. There is a bass in the mix by the way, but I can't hear it.

Any thoughts out there from the internet kingdom?

The Way Things Work

I don't mean to be a jerk, it's just the way things work*

Leading off the EP is a song named after the last album. This is another one of those things musicians do: name songs after past works. Self-referential and totally an inside thing, but I love that.

This is a blunt song. Blunt in lyrics* and in performance. Groggy guitar lumbers along lower than is comfortable. I was trying out the cracking voice, the voice on the edge of an outburst. I think Tim Rutili of Califone was an inspiration here - with his croaking vocal delivery. In fact I was lucky enough to be one of 3 people at a criminally ill attended Califone show in Cambridge MA shortly after I put this one out. I gave the man a copy of it and my mind raced with possibilities: Would he discover me? Would he sign me to his label? Would he cover one of my songs? Well as it turned out, he did not get back to me about it.

Anyway, back to the song - no matter how primed and in shape my fingers are, they always hurt after playing this one. I get creased fingertips from sliding up and down the neck.

Looking back, on the year that I've had, you'd think I would learn more...

That is some truth, every single year.

Errors Intact (CDR-EP 2001)

Shortly after the release of The Way Things Work, I started recording Errors Intact. In the one-sheet that I included with this one, I called it an EP that was intended to bridge the gap between The Way Things Work and A Sweet Science (the next CD). I don't know how I was going to bridge a gap when I did not even know what bordered that gap, but that was my line. More to the point though, this EP marked a real shift from everything I did prior. There is palpable tension on this. In performance and in content, I was pushing myself. Searching and sulking, my voice cracked and creaked and the instruments lumbered behind.

The name, Errors Intact, is part of a broader artistic philosophy and obsession. Scratchy marks, bad recordings, shoddy paint jobs, free association, old paper clips. I like to imagine everything I do as written down in the back of an old volume of ornithological prints, on the blank yellowed pages. Errors are the truth.

The whole thing was recorded in an attic apartment, under a reinforced glass skylight. My friend and former band-mate Jason Cammarata mixed it with me in his dining room and did it with simplicity and charm. The packaging was more Kraft brown, but this time it was in a limted edition of 50. 25 were designed and assembled by me and 25 were designed and assembled by the Automatic Expansion Project, now known as {HEXIT}.