From Big Notebook for Easy Piano and Remember Cassettes, Vol. 1
In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a college town full of aspiring musicians and recording industry majors, it always seems like a good idea: a local, independently-owned coffee shop that caters to local hipsters, giving them a place to study, socialize, or just hang out and look cool. To make the place even cooler, have live music. Sounds like money in the bank, right? Then why have so many sprung up in Murfreesboro, only to close their doors after a short time, while simple beer holes like the Boro and Gentleman Jim’s can stay in business forever? I don’t think there is an answer.
But one such place was called Java, and it was open in the early to mid-nineties. There, the Features would play their first show. Seth Timbs and the Mad Hatters would play their first few shows there as well. Seth Timbs was employed there around that time. In fact, one night, apparently while he was working, his friends Matt Mahaffey and Richard Williams met there and the three of them discussed starting an independent label based in Murfreesboro to showcase the local talent, especially Matt’s new band Self and Seth’s new band, Fl. Oz. Without deliberation, Seth suggested that it be called Spongebath Records, and a local legend was born. So the story goes, at least.
“Liquorish Vampires” was written about Seth’s experiences working there, with people coming in at all hours of the night and the strange hours they would keep to study.
Beyond that, I don’t really know what this song is actually about. Being schooled in lyrics by R.E.M., I too easily accept the lyrics as lines completely independent of each other that only work together to create a feeling in its listener (I know, I know, then why am I of all people writing a blog about interpreting the lyrics of others?). With this song and “Daddy Scruff,” I simply enjoy them and interpret them based on the feelings they convey rather than their intended themes. Sorry to cop out on you like that.
The live mp3 is the last one that surfaced from the 2005 radio performance.
Download Live mp3
Monday, November 12, 2007
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Downscope, the Boat Captain
From In the New Old-Fashioned Way
In an epic tale reminiscent of Colonel Kurtz, Emperor Palpatine, or George W. Bush, a military leader, drunk with power and sure that his twisted and insane vision is the only way to achieve true world peace (and in this case, probably more than a little bit bitter that he’s “the last sea dog to sail under water”), runs his submarine aground, causing a fire (“with oil from the engine and bits of propeller”) that burns away the ocean, leaving the sea bottom “as dry as the desert/ and the last pools of water were baked by the sun.”
Live, this song is among the shortest songs in the Fluid Ounces catalog, finishing up at two and a half minutes. In the New Old-Fashioned Way would not have been complete without this song, but the only place where it could work was sort of separate from the rest. So it was tacked on the end. In order to become the kind of epic closer the CD needed, an additional two-minute instrumental was added to give the dramatic ending a haunting coda, featuring Brian Rogers’ quirky guitar and Seth on accordion with Sam Baker playing with the dial on a short-wave radio. The sounds you hear as the frequencies shift were just what happened to be broadcast as Sam was doing so, including the “I tell you something, I’ve never felt so much love in my life,” which he serendipitously stumbled upon.
The live mp3 presented here is from the In the New Old-Fashioned Way CD release party from 1999 and features a wonderfully quiet first chorus to contrast the epic second chorus (whereas they’re both equally epic on the studio version).
Download Live mp3
In an epic tale reminiscent of Colonel Kurtz, Emperor Palpatine, or George W. Bush, a military leader, drunk with power and sure that his twisted and insane vision is the only way to achieve true world peace (and in this case, probably more than a little bit bitter that he’s “the last sea dog to sail under water”), runs his submarine aground, causing a fire (“with oil from the engine and bits of propeller”) that burns away the ocean, leaving the sea bottom “as dry as the desert/ and the last pools of water were baked by the sun.”
Live, this song is among the shortest songs in the Fluid Ounces catalog, finishing up at two and a half minutes. In the New Old-Fashioned Way would not have been complete without this song, but the only place where it could work was sort of separate from the rest. So it was tacked on the end. In order to become the kind of epic closer the CD needed, an additional two-minute instrumental was added to give the dramatic ending a haunting coda, featuring Brian Rogers’ quirky guitar and Seth on accordion with Sam Baker playing with the dial on a short-wave radio. The sounds you hear as the frequencies shift were just what happened to be broadcast as Sam was doing so, including the “I tell you something, I’ve never felt so much love in my life,” which he serendipitously stumbled upon.
The live mp3 presented here is from the In the New Old-Fashioned Way CD release party from 1999 and features a wonderfully quiet first chorus to contrast the epic second chorus (whereas they’re both equally epic on the studio version).
Download Live mp3
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Encyclopedia Brown
From Foreign Legion
When you’re a kid with an older brother, it’s almost assured that the music that he likes is the music that you like. In the late eighties and very early nineties, my brother was into monster ballads a la “November Rain,” and “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” and so was I. I was always the one listening to music: I always had a record player and a tape deck while he usually didn’t. Even though we didn’t own copies of these songs that he liked so much, it was still our favorite. When I actually started listening to rock radio in 1993 and started to begin to form my own opinions, my older brother steered me in the direction of R.E.M., U2, and Smashing Pumpkins. These bands would be my favorites throughout most of high school, and the opinions of bands I’d later encounter were all ultimately based on how they compared with these three acts. By the time I went to college, my musical tastes had shifted dramatically. Although I still loved the bands that then formed the center of my listening (though U2 was faltering, driving their last nail in the coffin when they released Pop), I had branched out into the Beatles, Sonic Youth, Self, and many others that my brother didn’t get into, no matter how much I played them for him.
When I went to my first Fluid Ounces show in January of 2000, I was fairly new to the scene of hearing live music in local bars, but it was starting to feel like old hat. I was loving it immediately, and when they played “Encyclopedia Brown,” a song about a book character whom my brother had read about when he was in middle school, early in the set, I thought he might enjoy hearing this band. I saw them again when they played their next show the following month, and this time I had my brother in tow. I was worried that he would be uncomfortable in the setting of a smoky dive-like bar like the Boro. His love for the music over-shadowed the setting, and I then had someone to attend shows with me, which I’d never had before. And what’s more, I finally recommended a band to him that he liked! Through this, I’d introduce him to other bands he’d like, such as the Features and De Novo Dahl, but Fluid Ounces’ prominent place in his listening repertoire was a crowning achievement in giving back to him what he’d given to me when I was younger (and thus saving my impressionable mind from liking Aerosmith and Meat Loaf).
Like my brother, Seth Timbs was a fan of the Encyclopedia Brown book series when he was younger, and this song pays homage to the prepubescent detective by crossing the mystery of a teacher’s stolen grade book with that of a young temptress who charms our hero as a ruse so that she can commit her terrible crime. Hit by a BB gun, our hero is hurt and realizes that he has been out-smarted by this middle-school femme fatale. Ultimately, he manages to solve the case and recover the grade book from a secret place, making the neighborhood safe for middle America once again.
The live version presented here, with a solo every bit as magnificent as the one on the recording, is from February 2, 2002, at Seth Timbs’ last Tennessee show before he shipped of to L.A.
Download Live mp3
And for those of us who teach nowadays, we have police officers posted in our schools to drag grade book thieves downtown to juvi if they don’t come quietly or fess up to their crime in a timely fashion.
When you’re a kid with an older brother, it’s almost assured that the music that he likes is the music that you like. In the late eighties and very early nineties, my brother was into monster ballads a la “November Rain,” and “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” and so was I. I was always the one listening to music: I always had a record player and a tape deck while he usually didn’t. Even though we didn’t own copies of these songs that he liked so much, it was still our favorite. When I actually started listening to rock radio in 1993 and started to begin to form my own opinions, my older brother steered me in the direction of R.E.M., U2, and Smashing Pumpkins. These bands would be my favorites throughout most of high school, and the opinions of bands I’d later encounter were all ultimately based on how they compared with these three acts. By the time I went to college, my musical tastes had shifted dramatically. Although I still loved the bands that then formed the center of my listening (though U2 was faltering, driving their last nail in the coffin when they released Pop), I had branched out into the Beatles, Sonic Youth, Self, and many others that my brother didn’t get into, no matter how much I played them for him.
When I went to my first Fluid Ounces show in January of 2000, I was fairly new to the scene of hearing live music in local bars, but it was starting to feel like old hat. I was loving it immediately, and when they played “Encyclopedia Brown,” a song about a book character whom my brother had read about when he was in middle school, early in the set, I thought he might enjoy hearing this band. I saw them again when they played their next show the following month, and this time I had my brother in tow. I was worried that he would be uncomfortable in the setting of a smoky dive-like bar like the Boro. His love for the music over-shadowed the setting, and I then had someone to attend shows with me, which I’d never had before. And what’s more, I finally recommended a band to him that he liked! Through this, I’d introduce him to other bands he’d like, such as the Features and De Novo Dahl, but Fluid Ounces’ prominent place in his listening repertoire was a crowning achievement in giving back to him what he’d given to me when I was younger (and thus saving my impressionable mind from liking Aerosmith and Meat Loaf).
Like my brother, Seth Timbs was a fan of the Encyclopedia Brown book series when he was younger, and this song pays homage to the prepubescent detective by crossing the mystery of a teacher’s stolen grade book with that of a young temptress who charms our hero as a ruse so that she can commit her terrible crime. Hit by a BB gun, our hero is hurt and realizes that he has been out-smarted by this middle-school femme fatale. Ultimately, he manages to solve the case and recover the grade book from a secret place, making the neighborhood safe for middle America once again.
The live version presented here, with a solo every bit as magnificent as the one on the recording, is from February 2, 2002, at Seth Timbs’ last Tennessee show before he shipped of to L.A.
Download Live mp3
And for those of us who teach nowadays, we have police officers posted in our schools to drag grade book thieves downtown to juvi if they don’t come quietly or fess up to their crime in a timely fashion.
Monday, November 5, 2007
What the Hell?
From Awkward Middle Phase: Seth Timbs' Home Demos, Volume One
Many songs have proven that Seth Timbs is a romantic at heart, but this song stands out to me as it is the only Fluid Ounces song that takes that romanticism to the level of being—get ready for it—conservative. Normally we find Fluid Ounces songs to feature a moral ambiguity to them, but here is a song taking the moral high road.
This is one of many Fluid Ounces songs in which we are shown scenes from a party for college-aged people. This “army of Katies and Heathers” is wowed by any cute boy who can play a few guitar chords (a little bit wrong) as they,
cling to the wall like Helen Keller,
wondering which lucky boy’s gonna be their
Anne Bancroft
And teach them all that they know.
(in a delicious double reference to both The Miracle Worker and The Graduate, though the second may have been unintentional). The song laments their laissez-faire attitude toward new-found college freedom in a sexually-charged world they may not be ready for. It even takes a step further in mentioning their haste to dismiss church as a time for luring boys (“Sunday go to meet in dresses/ open button for playfulness”). The closing lines best sum up the whole song as a girl asks a frat boy/douche bag,
“Play me a song that makes a girl into a lady
I know the image won’t portray me well
It’s nice to think it’s true
There’s nothing to lose
So what the hell?”
The song was written as Seth Timbs was pulling double duty in both Fluid Ounces and Spike and Mallets, and I always thought this one sounded more like a Spike and Mallets song. I don’t know what factor made it a Fluid Ounces song. It was played during Sam Baker’s second stint with the band and retired when Seth left for Los Angeles. The live video is from the porch of the Red Rose Coffee House on August 24, 2001, and it features one of the most hilarious examples of classic Fluid Ounces stage banter afterward as Seth discusses on of his first trips to Japan.
Many songs have proven that Seth Timbs is a romantic at heart, but this song stands out to me as it is the only Fluid Ounces song that takes that romanticism to the level of being—get ready for it—conservative. Normally we find Fluid Ounces songs to feature a moral ambiguity to them, but here is a song taking the moral high road.
This is one of many Fluid Ounces songs in which we are shown scenes from a party for college-aged people. This “army of Katies and Heathers” is wowed by any cute boy who can play a few guitar chords (a little bit wrong) as they,
cling to the wall like Helen Keller,
wondering which lucky boy’s gonna be their
Anne Bancroft
And teach them all that they know.
(in a delicious double reference to both The Miracle Worker and The Graduate, though the second may have been unintentional). The song laments their laissez-faire attitude toward new-found college freedom in a sexually-charged world they may not be ready for. It even takes a step further in mentioning their haste to dismiss church as a time for luring boys (“Sunday go to meet in dresses/ open button for playfulness”). The closing lines best sum up the whole song as a girl asks a frat boy/douche bag,
“Play me a song that makes a girl into a lady
I know the image won’t portray me well
It’s nice to think it’s true
There’s nothing to lose
So what the hell?”
The song was written as Seth Timbs was pulling double duty in both Fluid Ounces and Spike and Mallets, and I always thought this one sounded more like a Spike and Mallets song. I don’t know what factor made it a Fluid Ounces song. It was played during Sam Baker’s second stint with the band and retired when Seth left for Los Angeles. The live video is from the porch of the Red Rose Coffee House on August 24, 2001, and it features one of the most hilarious examples of classic Fluid Ounces stage banter afterward as Seth discusses on of his first trips to Japan.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Burning Daylight
Unreleased Track
Situated at the Eastern edge of the Central Time Zone, Middle Tennessee, for all of its richness with autumn colors, becomes a dark place to live after switching to Standard Time from Daylight Savings Time, with dusk occurring around 5 o’clock at first and 4:30 by the time we get to the shortest day of the year on December 21st. Although “Burning Daylight” does not specifically reference either of these events, its delicate sound always conjures images of the yellow, orange and gold of both the warm October sunlight and changing autumn leaves as they quietly whisk us away to a quiet place where two lovers can spend a day alone together, away from all that distracts them, where they can simply enjoy each other and do absolutely nothing else. And in those perfect and unending moments, where nothing is happening except the passing of time, the sparse percussion reminds us of the sound of color-changing forests as the “ooh la la”s mimic the birds just before they migrate to warmer climates. The words themselves are a romantic invitation to a lover to leave and come away with the speaker that echoes the more recent “Come On Out,” and the sheer beauty of the sound makes it hard to believe that anyone could resist, especially since the music alone draws so many of us in so quickly and thoroughly.
Download mp3
Situated at the Eastern edge of the Central Time Zone, Middle Tennessee, for all of its richness with autumn colors, becomes a dark place to live after switching to Standard Time from Daylight Savings Time, with dusk occurring around 5 o’clock at first and 4:30 by the time we get to the shortest day of the year on December 21st. Although “Burning Daylight” does not specifically reference either of these events, its delicate sound always conjures images of the yellow, orange and gold of both the warm October sunlight and changing autumn leaves as they quietly whisk us away to a quiet place where two lovers can spend a day alone together, away from all that distracts them, where they can simply enjoy each other and do absolutely nothing else. And in those perfect and unending moments, where nothing is happening except the passing of time, the sparse percussion reminds us of the sound of color-changing forests as the “ooh la la”s mimic the birds just before they migrate to warmer climates. The words themselves are a romantic invitation to a lover to leave and come away with the speaker that echoes the more recent “Come On Out,” and the sheer beauty of the sound makes it hard to believe that anyone could resist, especially since the music alone draws so many of us in so quickly and thoroughly.
Download mp3
Thursday, November 1, 2007
To Cure the Lonely
From the yet-to-be-released Instant Nostalgia
When Fluid Ounces began performing live again in 2004 with what is probably its final line-up, they mostly played songs that showcased the fantastic The Whole Shebang. They played two songs that had been played a couple of months before at the record release party, “Come On Out” and “Millionaire Meets Millionaire,” both of which made it onto the yet-to-be-released Instant Nostalgia. The third song that made its true debut during this time was “To Cure the Lonely.”
Seth Timbs had just moved back to Tennessee in the wake of his first marriage, and the songs that he wrote during the time that followed were often a dramatic return to songs of heartbreak and despair. “Private Hell” and “Oh, Tatiana” are two of the bigger “hits” to come out of that time. This downbeat waltz asks as its central question, “If truth is stranger than fiction, then why can’t we all have someone with us to cure the lonely affliction?” I went through my own divorce in 2005, and I found a soothing sense of familiarity in hearing these songs during that time, that someone else had gone through something similar and had felt the way that I was feeling.
Seth had played this song with Brian Pitts on the radio on Steve Cross’s show that summer before, and when I downloaded the song, it quickly became the most-played song in my iTunes collection. The full-band version from Instant Nostalgia is very good as well, but I haven’t had quite the love for the song since the wake of my divorce, and therefore haven’t listened to it as much. The live version is currently sitting at #2 in my total number of plays, and it has still been played over 80 times on my iPod. I'm presenting the live acoustic version here.
Download Live mp3
When Fluid Ounces began performing live again in 2004 with what is probably its final line-up, they mostly played songs that showcased the fantastic The Whole Shebang. They played two songs that had been played a couple of months before at the record release party, “Come On Out” and “Millionaire Meets Millionaire,” both of which made it onto the yet-to-be-released Instant Nostalgia. The third song that made its true debut during this time was “To Cure the Lonely.”
Seth Timbs had just moved back to Tennessee in the wake of his first marriage, and the songs that he wrote during the time that followed were often a dramatic return to songs of heartbreak and despair. “Private Hell” and “Oh, Tatiana” are two of the bigger “hits” to come out of that time. This downbeat waltz asks as its central question, “If truth is stranger than fiction, then why can’t we all have someone with us to cure the lonely affliction?” I went through my own divorce in 2005, and I found a soothing sense of familiarity in hearing these songs during that time, that someone else had gone through something similar and had felt the way that I was feeling.
Seth had played this song with Brian Pitts on the radio on Steve Cross’s show that summer before, and when I downloaded the song, it quickly became the most-played song in my iTunes collection. The full-band version from Instant Nostalgia is very good as well, but I haven’t had quite the love for the song since the wake of my divorce, and therefore haven’t listened to it as much. The live version is currently sitting at #2 in my total number of plays, and it has still been played over 80 times on my iPod. I'm presenting the live acoustic version here.
Download Live mp3
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