From Big Notebook for Easy Piano and Remember Cassettes, Vol. 1
To the casual listener, the same one who can’t get past comparing Seth Timbs to Osama Ben Folds, the five Fluid Ounces records might sound somewhat alike. For those of us who have spent some time with these records, each one begins to stand out and seem so much different from the rest. As bouncy and happy-sounding as Big Notebook is, it’s like there’s a dark cloud looming over all the songs that only settles in for the darker-sounding tunes.
“Poor Man” is the last song on the record beyond its secret track, but it is the true ending as it talks of leaving one place for another place as the dark cloud looming over the whole record clears as we approach a place where things are, “happy ever after,” and, more importantly, it is the start of what would become the toe-tapping sound that was made into an art form for In the New Old-Fashioned Way, the types of songs that have become the bread and butter of the band’s catalog. Musically, this song is the same chord progression as “Have Fun” in the key of D instead of E-flat, and it swings in a very similar fashion to “Drought.” It features Ben Morton wailing away on bass through the verses, Seth Timbs beautifully accenting the words, “Everything is stereo,” with a beautiful piano run up the keyboard, and Brian Rogers giving us a solo that jumps out from the arrangement that could not work anywhere else or any other way than exactly as we hear it there.
As it breaks loose, it pulls several wonderful pieces of imagery with it: “burning all the files and the videos,” destroying things as almost a creative force; empires rising and falling; contrasting monotone and stereo as well as black-and-white with color; and one last autumnal reference on the record when Seth sings, “Now the summer air is turning cold.” The lead-in to the solo carries my favorite image to the song,
“All jaded hearts won’t find their peace,
While my true love presides as queen
Over lands where a peasant can’t afford to sleep
So a poor man I will…”
The song ends with a cacophony of shouting snippets of lines from throughout the song before one little piano coda and a single person clapping.
The video is from October 10, 1997, from Main Street.
Showing posts with label Big Notebook for Easy Piano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Notebook for Easy Piano. Show all posts
Monday, May 5, 2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
Killjoy
From Big Notebook for Easy Piano and Remember Cassettes, Vol. 1
This song immediately lets you know that you’re in for a strange ride from its opening percussion. This is nowhere that Fluid Ounces had ever been before or would visit again, with sparse piano and guitar skronk closing out their first record with this unique piece.
I like to think of a “kill joy” as anything, but most often a person, who, you guessed it, somehow manages to ruin a good time for me, not necessarily because of they complain or ruin things for everyone, but just because they get on my nerves specifically because of some personality quirk.
It’s always funny to me that Amazon.com lists this CD as having 24 tracks, making potential buyers think they’re getting something of a double album. Instead, tracks 13-22 as well track 24 are each six seconds of silence, with “Killjoy” being track 23. Apparently this was a random way of making it a “secret track” at the end of the record that was conceived by Richard Dortch. It works though because this track needed to be completely separate from the rest of Big Notebook.
Seth says in the video of this song from October, 1997, that they play this song differently every time they play it. I have no idea to the truth of that statement, but it is markedly different from the recorded versions and is the only live recording I’ve ever encountered.
Notice how excited they are that their CD is released on Spongebath Records. My how things change.
This song immediately lets you know that you’re in for a strange ride from its opening percussion. This is nowhere that Fluid Ounces had ever been before or would visit again, with sparse piano and guitar skronk closing out their first record with this unique piece.
I like to think of a “kill joy” as anything, but most often a person, who, you guessed it, somehow manages to ruin a good time for me, not necessarily because of they complain or ruin things for everyone, but just because they get on my nerves specifically because of some personality quirk.
It’s always funny to me that Amazon.com lists this CD as having 24 tracks, making potential buyers think they’re getting something of a double album. Instead, tracks 13-22 as well track 24 are each six seconds of silence, with “Killjoy” being track 23. Apparently this was a random way of making it a “secret track” at the end of the record that was conceived by Richard Dortch. It works though because this track needed to be completely separate from the rest of Big Notebook.
Seth says in the video of this song from October, 1997, that they play this song differently every time they play it. I have no idea to the truth of that statement, but it is markedly different from the recorded versions and is the only live recording I’ve ever encountered.
Notice how excited they are that their CD is released on Spongebath Records. My how things change.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Shamrock
From Big Notebook for Easy Piano
If I’m ever out anywhere, and I see a piano just sitting somewhere, it’s my secret wish that I could just sit down at that piano in the middle of the mall or at someone’s party and slam out “Shamrock,” if only the opening lick. It is the perfect plunge into Big Notebook, and it received quite a bit of attention from reviewers for sounding so upbeat, yet being about a small plant about to be run over by a lawnmower. It is perhaps the most accessible of this type of song, serving as the template for all the others on Big Notebook as well as setting the tone for the rest of the record. I would have liked to see it pushed as a radio single in ’97, especially in contrast to that year’s piano-pop radio hit, “Brick,” which won mainstream acclaim for Osama Ben Folds, despite its monotone yet hipster-friendly feelings of being depressed.
Here we hear Fluid Ounces at their sonic best, running through very fast verses to get to choruses that are actually slower, yet somehow more epic in production—thanks in part to all four Ounces plus Matt Mahaffey grinding out the guitars on the chorus standing in a circle and creating a large wall of sound behind Seth Timbs’ vocals. It is always fun to hear its insane tempo jumps, which are even more pronounced in live performances. The beginning of each verse sounds like the thunderous start of a race, as Ben, Brian, Seth and Sam are standing behind gates with their respective rock instruments, waiting for the starting gun of the last beat of the chorus to take off running in a blur of one of the best melds of rock and jazz ever produced.
The video presented here is from October 10, 1997, started off with yet another instance in which Seth Timbs introduces the band and does not give his own real name.
If I’m ever out anywhere, and I see a piano just sitting somewhere, it’s my secret wish that I could just sit down at that piano in the middle of the mall or at someone’s party and slam out “Shamrock,” if only the opening lick. It is the perfect plunge into Big Notebook, and it received quite a bit of attention from reviewers for sounding so upbeat, yet being about a small plant about to be run over by a lawnmower. It is perhaps the most accessible of this type of song, serving as the template for all the others on Big Notebook as well as setting the tone for the rest of the record. I would have liked to see it pushed as a radio single in ’97, especially in contrast to that year’s piano-pop radio hit, “Brick,” which won mainstream acclaim for Osama Ben Folds, despite its monotone yet hipster-friendly feelings of being depressed.
Here we hear Fluid Ounces at their sonic best, running through very fast verses to get to choruses that are actually slower, yet somehow more epic in production—thanks in part to all four Ounces plus Matt Mahaffey grinding out the guitars on the chorus standing in a circle and creating a large wall of sound behind Seth Timbs’ vocals. It is always fun to hear its insane tempo jumps, which are even more pronounced in live performances. The beginning of each verse sounds like the thunderous start of a race, as Ben, Brian, Seth and Sam are standing behind gates with their respective rock instruments, waiting for the starting gun of the last beat of the chorus to take off running in a blur of one of the best melds of rock and jazz ever produced.
The video presented here is from October 10, 1997, started off with yet another instance in which Seth Timbs introduces the band and does not give his own real name.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Kept Alive by Science
From Big Notebook for Easy Piano and Remember Cassettes, Vol. 1
“Unfortunately, he was kept alive by science and the drugs of men,” the song opens.
Unfortunately?
Unfortunately.
How sad of a life can one person live that it should be said it’s unfortunate that he was kept alive? Or is it unfortunate that science is keeping him alive instead of giving him a natural death? Either way, strictly in terms of mood, Big Notebook hits bottom with this eulogy of sorts, finally bringing the most down-tempo music to the darkest of subjects: the end of life. It always makes me think of gray autumn skies with bare trees just after all the leaves have fallen.
The song keeps the “he” in this story a mystery, but I always imagine it being a father figure of some sorts to our speaker as he prepares for the person’s final exit. The song’s somber tone leads to desperation, making it easy to picture the speaker trying to hold back tears, regardless the reason those tears are there. This is one song I like to keep mired in ambiguity, like most of them on Big Notebook, as it then can lend itself to whatever I'm feeling. A bad day at work? It makes me feel better somehow. There's just something in the way he sings, "Unfortunately," that makes me feel.
People argued that “Daddy Scruff” was the song on Big Notebook to establish the band as something more than a simple piano pop band when I suggested the CD would have been better without that song. I would now submit that this song is both the better song and the one to really show the listener the depth of the band.
“Unfortunately, he was kept alive by science and the drugs of men,” the song opens.
Unfortunately?
Unfortunately.
How sad of a life can one person live that it should be said it’s unfortunate that he was kept alive? Or is it unfortunate that science is keeping him alive instead of giving him a natural death? Either way, strictly in terms of mood, Big Notebook hits bottom with this eulogy of sorts, finally bringing the most down-tempo music to the darkest of subjects: the end of life. It always makes me think of gray autumn skies with bare trees just after all the leaves have fallen.
The song keeps the “he” in this story a mystery, but I always imagine it being a father figure of some sorts to our speaker as he prepares for the person’s final exit. The song’s somber tone leads to desperation, making it easy to picture the speaker trying to hold back tears, regardless the reason those tears are there. This is one song I like to keep mired in ambiguity, like most of them on Big Notebook, as it then can lend itself to whatever I'm feeling. A bad day at work? It makes me feel better somehow. There's just something in the way he sings, "Unfortunately," that makes me feel.
People argued that “Daddy Scruff” was the song on Big Notebook to establish the band as something more than a simple piano pop band when I suggested the CD would have been better without that song. I would now submit that this song is both the better song and the one to really show the listener the depth of the band.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Record Stack
From Big Notebook for Easy Piano and Soaking in the Center of the Universe, Vol. 2
So the story goes that the band in its shortest official line-up (Seth Timbs, Doug Payne, Trev Wooten, and Elliott Currie—Jason Dietz had just left, and this line-up played two shows before Sam Baker resumed the drum duties) went to New York City in spring of 2000 to play in a showcase for the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and could only play two songs. The people initially took no note of the little piano band from Nashville, treating them with the curt uppitiness of big-city folk seeing another in a long of line of country bumpkins playing for their “big break” in the big, scary city. The story goes that the band played “Make It Through” first, and then a band member, presumably Doug, turned to Seth and insisted they play “Record Stack.” The people there had never heard the song before, and although Seth was tired of it from playing it at every show since he was in Ella Minopy, he conceded. The crowd went crazy, and the band was treated very well after that. So the story goes, at least.
This is easily the single most memorable song in the entire Fluid Ounces canon. It leaps out from among the throngs, whether sitting in the middle of the record on which it was released or in the middle or at the end of a Fluid Ounces live set. There are other Fluid Ounces songs that infuse an Eastern-European groove, but none that execute it so accessibly. And more than that—it’s just so catchy! For these reasons, it has always been a crowd pleaser, and it has been a standard in the set for every line-up of Fluid Ounces and almost every show before 2006.
As Seth once said, he compacted a long, mostly bad relationship into a one-night stand and subsequent “month in sin,” to describe this song that uses rhyme as its strongest component in its lyrical tango. The chief image defining the song is when he sings, “I had her in the sack / But just that once.” Attaching anything that rhymes with “sack,” we are given the song’s title; the line, “she smoked the last in the pack;” and the high-point of the song, when Seth sings, “So I got my records back / I smashed my Marshall stack,” followed by a loud thunder of discordant piano and guitar. The chorus is the unforgettable singing-borderlined-on-shouting of “La da da da da da,” which is perhaps what makes this song both so catchy, so easily (probably too easily) accessible, and so memorable. (Using the same chords, the Features would later modify this chorus into their classic, “Thursday.”) You can hear Seth scratch his throat numerous times during the recording, giving it a remarkable intensity that is a counterpoint to the Robin Wilson comparisons that his voice would get, especially after the release of the second record.
The song goes into its final chorus after a brief pause on the recording, which Seth would turn into a moment to add something surprising to each live show—a random saying (“this song has been brought to you by chicken tenders”) or, more often than not, a snippet from a random song—from random Irish drinking songs to Self’s “Better Than Aliens” to whatever strikes Seth’s fancy when the song is performed.
By the summer of 2005, as the song was at least nine or ten years old, Seth and Brian Rogers were tired of playing “the hit,” tired of it getting yelled out by show-goers and tired of practicing it, and so it gradually fell on the back-burner, not having been performed, to my recollection, since December 9, 2005. My official prediction is that this song might get played one additional time before the band calls it quits for good.
I understand why the band is tired of it. I’m tired of it too. I’ll admit it was the first song to leap out at me when I first heard Big Notebook on the first night I ever listened to the band, and I was elated a few weeks later when I heard them live for the first time and they played it (if the recording wasn’t such low quality, I’d post that cut of it because Justin’s drumming on it is sooo tight with the band!). But as the Doug Payne era went on, I began to feel like Fluid Ounces was becoming a shadow of its former self, re-treading In the New Old-Fashioned Way songs a little too much, and this song was among those I became tired of. It was performed once with horns, at The Whole Shebang release party, which is the mp3 I’m providing here for download in all its epic glory. With the final line-up, I accepted this song as a necessary evil in each set. Now that it’s been gone so long, I find myself wishing they would rock it out one more time for a random encore some night. Here’s to hoping, I guess.
Download Live mp3
Here's a video where it is paired with "Ambiance," which I never would have put with this song and am happy to discover this new cohesive live moment.
So the story goes that the band in its shortest official line-up (Seth Timbs, Doug Payne, Trev Wooten, and Elliott Currie—Jason Dietz had just left, and this line-up played two shows before Sam Baker resumed the drum duties) went to New York City in spring of 2000 to play in a showcase for the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and could only play two songs. The people initially took no note of the little piano band from Nashville, treating them with the curt uppitiness of big-city folk seeing another in a long of line of country bumpkins playing for their “big break” in the big, scary city. The story goes that the band played “Make It Through” first, and then a band member, presumably Doug, turned to Seth and insisted they play “Record Stack.” The people there had never heard the song before, and although Seth was tired of it from playing it at every show since he was in Ella Minopy, he conceded. The crowd went crazy, and the band was treated very well after that. So the story goes, at least.
This is easily the single most memorable song in the entire Fluid Ounces canon. It leaps out from among the throngs, whether sitting in the middle of the record on which it was released or in the middle or at the end of a Fluid Ounces live set. There are other Fluid Ounces songs that infuse an Eastern-European groove, but none that execute it so accessibly. And more than that—it’s just so catchy! For these reasons, it has always been a crowd pleaser, and it has been a standard in the set for every line-up of Fluid Ounces and almost every show before 2006.
As Seth once said, he compacted a long, mostly bad relationship into a one-night stand and subsequent “month in sin,” to describe this song that uses rhyme as its strongest component in its lyrical tango. The chief image defining the song is when he sings, “I had her in the sack / But just that once.” Attaching anything that rhymes with “sack,” we are given the song’s title; the line, “she smoked the last in the pack;” and the high-point of the song, when Seth sings, “So I got my records back / I smashed my Marshall stack,” followed by a loud thunder of discordant piano and guitar. The chorus is the unforgettable singing-borderlined-on-shouting of “La da da da da da,” which is perhaps what makes this song both so catchy, so easily (probably too easily) accessible, and so memorable. (Using the same chords, the Features would later modify this chorus into their classic, “Thursday.”) You can hear Seth scratch his throat numerous times during the recording, giving it a remarkable intensity that is a counterpoint to the Robin Wilson comparisons that his voice would get, especially after the release of the second record.
The song goes into its final chorus after a brief pause on the recording, which Seth would turn into a moment to add something surprising to each live show—a random saying (“this song has been brought to you by chicken tenders”) or, more often than not, a snippet from a random song—from random Irish drinking songs to Self’s “Better Than Aliens” to whatever strikes Seth’s fancy when the song is performed.
By the summer of 2005, as the song was at least nine or ten years old, Seth and Brian Rogers were tired of playing “the hit,” tired of it getting yelled out by show-goers and tired of practicing it, and so it gradually fell on the back-burner, not having been performed, to my recollection, since December 9, 2005. My official prediction is that this song might get played one additional time before the band calls it quits for good.
I understand why the band is tired of it. I’m tired of it too. I’ll admit it was the first song to leap out at me when I first heard Big Notebook on the first night I ever listened to the band, and I was elated a few weeks later when I heard them live for the first time and they played it (if the recording wasn’t such low quality, I’d post that cut of it because Justin’s drumming on it is sooo tight with the band!). But as the Doug Payne era went on, I began to feel like Fluid Ounces was becoming a shadow of its former self, re-treading In the New Old-Fashioned Way songs a little too much, and this song was among those I became tired of. It was performed once with horns, at The Whole Shebang release party, which is the mp3 I’m providing here for download in all its epic glory. With the final line-up, I accepted this song as a necessary evil in each set. Now that it’s been gone so long, I find myself wishing they would rock it out one more time for a random encore some night. Here’s to hoping, I guess.
Download Live mp3
Here's a video where it is paired with "Ambiance," which I never would have put with this song and am happy to discover this new cohesive live moment.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Birdbrained
From Big Notebook for Easy Piano and Remember Cassettes, Vol. 1
More ambiguously religious than other songs on Big Notebook, “Birdbrained” reflects the theme of coming of age and coming to terms with one’s religious upbringing in the form of discussing Darwinism and evolution. Paradoxically, this song discusses both the evolution and devolution of mankind, as our speaker refers to his youth as swimming in, “Edens of amoebas on a planet same as this one / With the spineless and the miserable,” only to stand up on dry land in the form of a bird and, “join the upright and the uptight and the miserable.” The song then paints a bleak portrait of living in a disillusioned state, both in religious terms, in which the speaker is “gnarled like Nicodemus,” and in need of some counsel, asking for it outright, and in a broader sense, stating in the bridge that, “the world’s a worm and the beak at best.” The speaker then describes his wings molting off, implying a further evolution into something else, coupling this image with a “sense of dread,” and “waddl[ing] in disgrace, back towards my nesting place / Join the spineless and the timeless and the cynical.”
This intense moment of Big Notebook is easily one of the darkest on the record, with the only glimmer of hope hooking on the end of two refrains and stating, “The world is old and still naïve, the way I try to be,” which is both a reference back to Evolution and to a person aging and coming to terms with his coming of age.
More ambiguously religious than other songs on Big Notebook, “Birdbrained” reflects the theme of coming of age and coming to terms with one’s religious upbringing in the form of discussing Darwinism and evolution. Paradoxically, this song discusses both the evolution and devolution of mankind, as our speaker refers to his youth as swimming in, “Edens of amoebas on a planet same as this one / With the spineless and the miserable,” only to stand up on dry land in the form of a bird and, “join the upright and the uptight and the miserable.” The song then paints a bleak portrait of living in a disillusioned state, both in religious terms, in which the speaker is “gnarled like Nicodemus,” and in need of some counsel, asking for it outright, and in a broader sense, stating in the bridge that, “the world’s a worm and the beak at best.” The speaker then describes his wings molting off, implying a further evolution into something else, coupling this image with a “sense of dread,” and “waddl[ing] in disgrace, back towards my nesting place / Join the spineless and the timeless and the cynical.”
This intense moment of Big Notebook is easily one of the darkest on the record, with the only glimmer of hope hooking on the end of two refrains and stating, “The world is old and still naïve, the way I try to be,” which is both a reference back to Evolution and to a person aging and coming to terms with his coming of age.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Big Empty
From Big Notebook for Easy Piano and Soaking in the Center of the Universe, Vol. 1
This song begins in utter silence, with just Seth Timbs alone in the studio asking, “Is it rolling?” (Those words are not on the Soaking in the Center of the Universe version.) A single acoustic guitar then begins to lead us into a very mysterious place as whirling guitars and sustained, reverberated piano notes join it, and we hear Seth’s quietly strained words leave lots of space to breathe and think within the microcosm of this song. (It reminds me of Self’s “Placing the Blame,” only Matt Mahaffey says the word “man” at the end of a few lines, making me always think that extraneous word would work at the end of every line or every other line here.) “I’ve got bigger fish to die for,” rings out from among all the descriptions, beginning to align the many images filling the great big empty that is this relationship coming to a bitter end.
I think what makes this one jump out as a bona fide epic is when they change things up for the amazing bridge, when quietly moving along turns into shifty rhythmic piano moves as Seth begins,
“I packed my bags for a lengthy stay in a tropical place
I couldn’t keep myself contained
So, it’s official we’re ignoring monumental consequences
We just can’t erase
I love you more when you’re away
And when you’re gone I walk the floors’
I’ve got duties to ignore”
The fast delivery is juxtaposed against the space of the rest of the song, with breaking free of the “big empty” of this relationship and setting us up for “Poor Man,” the next track on the record. But the seamless transition into the end of the second half of the song shows our narrator is not quite finished with toils he’s experiencing with this relationship.
Brian Rogers has alluded to this song being a live favorite early on, describing it as both an “epic” and a “hit” (which probably explains its inclusion on the Spongebath compilation). It never emerged again on any of the line-ups I’ve ever seen, as much as I’d love to see this one performed some day.
This song begins in utter silence, with just Seth Timbs alone in the studio asking, “Is it rolling?” (Those words are not on the Soaking in the Center of the Universe version.) A single acoustic guitar then begins to lead us into a very mysterious place as whirling guitars and sustained, reverberated piano notes join it, and we hear Seth’s quietly strained words leave lots of space to breathe and think within the microcosm of this song. (It reminds me of Self’s “Placing the Blame,” only Matt Mahaffey says the word “man” at the end of a few lines, making me always think that extraneous word would work at the end of every line or every other line here.) “I’ve got bigger fish to die for,” rings out from among all the descriptions, beginning to align the many images filling the great big empty that is this relationship coming to a bitter end.
I think what makes this one jump out as a bona fide epic is when they change things up for the amazing bridge, when quietly moving along turns into shifty rhythmic piano moves as Seth begins,
“I packed my bags for a lengthy stay in a tropical place
I couldn’t keep myself contained
So, it’s official we’re ignoring monumental consequences
We just can’t erase
I love you more when you’re away
And when you’re gone I walk the floors’
I’ve got duties to ignore”
The fast delivery is juxtaposed against the space of the rest of the song, with breaking free of the “big empty” of this relationship and setting us up for “Poor Man,” the next track on the record. But the seamless transition into the end of the second half of the song shows our narrator is not quite finished with toils he’s experiencing with this relationship.
Brian Rogers has alluded to this song being a live favorite early on, describing it as both an “epic” and a “hit” (which probably explains its inclusion on the Spongebath compilation). It never emerged again on any of the line-ups I’ve ever seen, as much as I’d love to see this one performed some day.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Liquorish Vampires
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
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
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Daddy Scruff
From Big Notebook for Easy Piano
I am typing this entry behind considerable shielding as I am preparing for slings and arrows to be launched in my general direction for what I’m about to say.
“Daddy Scruff” should have been left off of Big Notebook for Easy Piano. As a stand-alone song, perhaps released on Soaking in the Center of the Universe, I might have liked it better. But as it stands, we get just under six plodding minutes of vague lyrics near the middle of the record that nearly ruin everything that comes before it and after it in the track listing. “Shamrock” and “Tricky Fingers” launch the record and set its tone: fun-sounding songs about darker subject matter. “Birdbrained” cools things off a bit as we have a more intense number that is decidedly less upbeat as the previous two songs, and then we get an even more downbeat number with “Liquorish Vampires.” The momentum of the record and the tone established in the first two songs is teetering as we’ve just had two numbers in a row that have deviated from what they’ve done. Then comes “Daddy Scruff,” sticking out like a sore thumb from the rest. When “Record Stack” begins five minutes and forty-six seconds later, it seems off kilter as it returns to the original sound and tone set by the first two songs on the record and allows us to finally start listening to a cohesive record. I put lots of thought into how the tracks could be readjusted to not kill the momentum of the record, but in the end, the removal of “Daddy Scruff” is all I can come up with to give Big Notebook a chance to compete with In the New-Old Fashioned Way and Instant Nostalgia as my favorite Fluid Ounces record.
I am typing this entry behind considerable shielding as I am preparing for slings and arrows to be launched in my general direction for what I’m about to say.
“Daddy Scruff” should have been left off of Big Notebook for Easy Piano. As a stand-alone song, perhaps released on Soaking in the Center of the Universe, I might have liked it better. But as it stands, we get just under six plodding minutes of vague lyrics near the middle of the record that nearly ruin everything that comes before it and after it in the track listing. “Shamrock” and “Tricky Fingers” launch the record and set its tone: fun-sounding songs about darker subject matter. “Birdbrained” cools things off a bit as we have a more intense number that is decidedly less upbeat as the previous two songs, and then we get an even more downbeat number with “Liquorish Vampires.” The momentum of the record and the tone established in the first two songs is teetering as we’ve just had two numbers in a row that have deviated from what they’ve done. Then comes “Daddy Scruff,” sticking out like a sore thumb from the rest. When “Record Stack” begins five minutes and forty-six seconds later, it seems off kilter as it returns to the original sound and tone set by the first two songs on the record and allows us to finally start listening to a cohesive record. I put lots of thought into how the tracks could be readjusted to not kill the momentum of the record, but in the end, the removal of “Daddy Scruff” is all I can come up with to give Big Notebook a chance to compete with In the New-Old Fashioned Way and Instant Nostalgia as my favorite Fluid Ounces record.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Spill Your Brains
From Big Notebook for Easy Piano
I was a bit disappointed when I found out that this song was about Alanis Morissette. Seth Timbs was obviously singing about someone he didn’t like, but finding out that it was her took a lot of the fun out of it, especially compared to Self’s “Moronic,” which did a much better job of putting that hack in her place. But, to be sure, this is a much better song than “Moronic.” In fact, it has been my favorite song off of Big Notebook since about the second time I heard the record. Finding out that it was about Alanis took a song that seemed so big and fun and placed an expiration date on it, putting it into a small little cubby hole reserved for “Peaches,” “Today,” and a slew of other songs dated specifically to the mid-90s.
I can’t put my finger on exactly why this song is such a favorite of mine, but I know a lot of people who really like it. I guess it’s because there’s a certain familiarity, and maybe even a little flirtiness (“you’re made of Estee Lauder,” “and getting prettier by the moment’s notice”) with the subject that made the relationship seem more complex than just someone who got played waaaaay too much on the radio.
It remains one of the few Fluid Ounces songs which I’ve never heard performed live in any capacity, recorded or otherwise, so there’s no download for this one.
I was a bit disappointed when I found out that this song was about Alanis Morissette. Seth Timbs was obviously singing about someone he didn’t like, but finding out that it was her took a lot of the fun out of it, especially compared to Self’s “Moronic,” which did a much better job of putting that hack in her place. But, to be sure, this is a much better song than “Moronic.” In fact, it has been my favorite song off of Big Notebook since about the second time I heard the record. Finding out that it was about Alanis took a song that seemed so big and fun and placed an expiration date on it, putting it into a small little cubby hole reserved for “Peaches,” “Today,” and a slew of other songs dated specifically to the mid-90s.
I can’t put my finger on exactly why this song is such a favorite of mine, but I know a lot of people who really like it. I guess it’s because there’s a certain familiarity, and maybe even a little flirtiness (“you’re made of Estee Lauder,” “and getting prettier by the moment’s notice”) with the subject that made the relationship seem more complex than just someone who got played waaaaay too much on the radio.
It remains one of the few Fluid Ounces songs which I’ve never heard performed live in any capacity, recorded or otherwise, so there’s no download for this one.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Role Call
From Big Notebook for Easy Piano
“Everyone’s a theologian,” a college professor once told me, “some are just better than others.” If understanding God is indeed learning to ask the right questions, perhaps asking, “What are we going to do if there is (or isn’t) a God?” is a better question than simply asking, “Is there a God?” “Role Call” is the culmination of all the religious imagery that buzzes around on Big Notebook and its only b-side, “Sick,” and it asks the former, perhaps more important question.
Throughout all his writings, Seth Timbs so fluently uses a familiarity with the vocabulary of Christian religion that I’ve always wondered exactly what kind of background he has with it, sometimes hearing hints of high church and other times noticing references more reminiscent of country churches and gospel music. He explored the topic of religion extensively when he was younger and playing with The Mad Hatters and before, as if struggling to come to terms with what he had been raised to believe, culminating in the hilarious, “Religious Interpretations,” with its chorus,
“Jesus lives in me
But I don’t know where he’s hiding
No, I don’t know where he’s hiding
Jesus lives in me
But I think he’s playing racquetball today.”
Older and wiser, Seth more seriously (but not too seriously) tackles the subject throughout Big Notebook, with “Role Call” at the center. Its title itself is a play on “roll,” as in a list of people belonging to a certain group, whereas “role” is a part played by an actor—the Greek word from which we derived the word hypocrite. With its countless metaphors, the song refers to dying and reaching the afterlife, being somewhat uneasy of what the outcome might be when it comes time to settle up accounts with “the boss upstairs.” And so he says, “I wish I wasn’t me” (another reference to being an actor and the title “role”), wishes he was lost in the mountains of paperwork (likening the inner workings of heaven to an elaborate bureaucracy), or would happily accept the “combo plate” at the expensive feast for all the honored saints in the afterlife.
There is no clear resolution to the plight in this song, but the chorus seems to come the closest to the heart of the matter,
“Where the Angels fear to tread,
Where it goes straight to your head,
And you’re left for dead,
where I wish I was.”
Put simply, he would prefer for death to be the end of it all as opposed to going through with the mind-games of religion (“Where the angels…to your head”) in hopes of finding some eternal reward or punishment after this life.
The live recording presented here is from The Whole Shebang CD release party on July 3, 2004, performed during Seth’s solo set. To this day, my favorite part of this entire show’s expansive recording is in this song, about two minutes and five seconds in, when you hear a sorostitute exclaim, “Damn! He’s good!” while standing in front of the microphones I was using to record the show. The piano interludes and speed with which he plays this truly sounds like he’s having a good time up there, making for a pleasant listening experience.
Download Live mp3
“Everyone’s a theologian,” a college professor once told me, “some are just better than others.” If understanding God is indeed learning to ask the right questions, perhaps asking, “What are we going to do if there is (or isn’t) a God?” is a better question than simply asking, “Is there a God?” “Role Call” is the culmination of all the religious imagery that buzzes around on Big Notebook and its only b-side, “Sick,” and it asks the former, perhaps more important question.
Throughout all his writings, Seth Timbs so fluently uses a familiarity with the vocabulary of Christian religion that I’ve always wondered exactly what kind of background he has with it, sometimes hearing hints of high church and other times noticing references more reminiscent of country churches and gospel music. He explored the topic of religion extensively when he was younger and playing with The Mad Hatters and before, as if struggling to come to terms with what he had been raised to believe, culminating in the hilarious, “Religious Interpretations,” with its chorus,
“Jesus lives in me
But I don’t know where he’s hiding
No, I don’t know where he’s hiding
Jesus lives in me
But I think he’s playing racquetball today.”
Older and wiser, Seth more seriously (but not too seriously) tackles the subject throughout Big Notebook, with “Role Call” at the center. Its title itself is a play on “roll,” as in a list of people belonging to a certain group, whereas “role” is a part played by an actor—the Greek word from which we derived the word hypocrite. With its countless metaphors, the song refers to dying and reaching the afterlife, being somewhat uneasy of what the outcome might be when it comes time to settle up accounts with “the boss upstairs.” And so he says, “I wish I wasn’t me” (another reference to being an actor and the title “role”), wishes he was lost in the mountains of paperwork (likening the inner workings of heaven to an elaborate bureaucracy), or would happily accept the “combo plate” at the expensive feast for all the honored saints in the afterlife.
There is no clear resolution to the plight in this song, but the chorus seems to come the closest to the heart of the matter,
“Where the Angels fear to tread,
Where it goes straight to your head,
And you’re left for dead,
where I wish I was.”
Put simply, he would prefer for death to be the end of it all as opposed to going through with the mind-games of religion (“Where the angels…to your head”) in hopes of finding some eternal reward or punishment after this life.
The live recording presented here is from The Whole Shebang CD release party on July 3, 2004, performed during Seth’s solo set. To this day, my favorite part of this entire show’s expansive recording is in this song, about two minutes and five seconds in, when you hear a sorostitute exclaim, “Damn! He’s good!” while standing in front of the microphones I was using to record the show. The piano interludes and speed with which he plays this truly sounds like he’s having a good time up there, making for a pleasant listening experience.
Download Live mp3
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Milk Moustache
From Big Notebook for Easy Piano, Soaking in the Center of the Universe, Vol. 2, and Remember Cassettes, Vol. 1
Cigarettes. Drugs. Caffeine. I think there are more references to drugs in this one song than the entire rest of the canon combined. Everywhere else, the references are kind of in the background, but here the speaker relishes in all of them as only a student (or former student) at a party school in a college town could.
And what’s more, this song is fun, like more-fun-than-“Have Fun” fun. We get a quick piano intro, and then the bass exclaims, “Whoopee!” as we dive in for a three-and-a-half-minute romp that includes some of my favorite vocal harmonies to be heard on Big Notebook. In between references to various vices, we get a glimpse of a common relationship trap to plague kids in high school and college: the relationship fueled by substance abuse. From chorus to chorus, the speaker goes between wanting company and not wanting the company of his girlfriend, as if the amount of alcohol or weed or mixture thereof determines his tolerance of the girl and his willingness to pursue the relationship.
The video is from the porch of the Red Rose Coffee Shop from August 24, 2001. After the song is finished, there’s a fine example of how to conduct a sound check at a venue where you have to bring your own PA system.
Cigarettes. Drugs. Caffeine. I think there are more references to drugs in this one song than the entire rest of the canon combined. Everywhere else, the references are kind of in the background, but here the speaker relishes in all of them as only a student (or former student) at a party school in a college town could.
And what’s more, this song is fun, like more-fun-than-“Have Fun” fun. We get a quick piano intro, and then the bass exclaims, “Whoopee!” as we dive in for a three-and-a-half-minute romp that includes some of my favorite vocal harmonies to be heard on Big Notebook. In between references to various vices, we get a glimpse of a common relationship trap to plague kids in high school and college: the relationship fueled by substance abuse. From chorus to chorus, the speaker goes between wanting company and not wanting the company of his girlfriend, as if the amount of alcohol or weed or mixture thereof determines his tolerance of the girl and his willingness to pursue the relationship.
The video is from the porch of the Red Rose Coffee Shop from August 24, 2001. After the song is finished, there’s a fine example of how to conduct a sound check at a venue where you have to bring your own PA system.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Tricky Fingers
From Big Notebook for Easy Piano
If a pianist were to describe the sound of a car wreck or a person falling into deep water in the most consonant way possible, the opening lick to “Tricky Fingers” would be how I’d imagine it would sound (though I’m definitely not a pianist). And with the jarring urgency of a car accident, Seth Timbs baptized us all into the world of Fluid Ounces with this being the first song that he actually wrote for the project.
True, “Sick” and “Record Stack” are older songs, written and played for Ella Minopy, the fore-runner to Fluid Ounces, but they are songs arranged on guitar. Seth had developed some great chops over the years, but it seems he tried to keep the piano equal with the guitar in arranging everything for his songwriting ventures before Fluid Ounces. But with “Tricky Fingers,” it’s like we’re being smacked in the face with the piano, as if Seth is telling the world, “We’re a piano band, dammit!”
Seth has maintained an amazing consistency in the tone of his voice since recording the band’s second album. Anytime I see them live now, I could swear he could go right back into the studio and re-record the vocals to all of In the New Old Fashioned Way exactly the same as the first time. But what amazed me when Seth and Brian Rogers broke this song out in their “Half Ounce” duo set in January 6th, 2007 (presented below for download, though performed sans the record's classic intro), was how easily Seth could turn on the exact same tone to sing this song very close to the way he did when Big Notebook was recorded. He was just a kid back then, and he sang it like a kid. If you compare it to the three Ella Minopy mp3s that have surfaced, or if you’re lucky (or un-lucky?) enough to hear the Seth Timbs and the Mad Hatters demos from ’91-’93, you’ll find that “Tricky Fingers” is a bridge between vocal stylings of the past and the piano-based future that would define the sound for his next ten years of song writing.
The other standard established here that is a hallmark of Fluid Ounces’ music is the idea of the up-beat song that does not necessarily reflect happy subject matter. Exclaiming that, “Life is such a permanent gyp!” and pointing out that, “Everybody seems to be too drunk, so everybody stays…” could never have been said with more excitement in such a seemingly feel-good song. And even though Seth goes as far in the upbeat direction to sing, “If you’re happy and you know it/ it just gets better from here,” it almost feels like a death sentence in light of the rest of the song.
On the other hand, stating that, “It just gets better from here,” also serves as a great jumping-off point for a great band and so many great songs that would follow this one.
Download Live mp3--courtesy of Fluid Ounces! (but recorded by yours truly)
If a pianist were to describe the sound of a car wreck or a person falling into deep water in the most consonant way possible, the opening lick to “Tricky Fingers” would be how I’d imagine it would sound (though I’m definitely not a pianist). And with the jarring urgency of a car accident, Seth Timbs baptized us all into the world of Fluid Ounces with this being the first song that he actually wrote for the project.
True, “Sick” and “Record Stack” are older songs, written and played for Ella Minopy, the fore-runner to Fluid Ounces, but they are songs arranged on guitar. Seth had developed some great chops over the years, but it seems he tried to keep the piano equal with the guitar in arranging everything for his songwriting ventures before Fluid Ounces. But with “Tricky Fingers,” it’s like we’re being smacked in the face with the piano, as if Seth is telling the world, “We’re a piano band, dammit!”
Seth has maintained an amazing consistency in the tone of his voice since recording the band’s second album. Anytime I see them live now, I could swear he could go right back into the studio and re-record the vocals to all of In the New Old Fashioned Way exactly the same as the first time. But what amazed me when Seth and Brian Rogers broke this song out in their “Half Ounce” duo set in January 6th, 2007 (presented below for download, though performed sans the record's classic intro), was how easily Seth could turn on the exact same tone to sing this song very close to the way he did when Big Notebook was recorded. He was just a kid back then, and he sang it like a kid. If you compare it to the three Ella Minopy mp3s that have surfaced, or if you’re lucky (or un-lucky?) enough to hear the Seth Timbs and the Mad Hatters demos from ’91-’93, you’ll find that “Tricky Fingers” is a bridge between vocal stylings of the past and the piano-based future that would define the sound for his next ten years of song writing.
The other standard established here that is a hallmark of Fluid Ounces’ music is the idea of the up-beat song that does not necessarily reflect happy subject matter. Exclaiming that, “Life is such a permanent gyp!” and pointing out that, “Everybody seems to be too drunk, so everybody stays…” could never have been said with more excitement in such a seemingly feel-good song. And even though Seth goes as far in the upbeat direction to sing, “If you’re happy and you know it/ it just gets better from here,” it almost feels like a death sentence in light of the rest of the song.
On the other hand, stating that, “It just gets better from here,” also serves as a great jumping-off point for a great band and so many great songs that would follow this one.
Download Live mp3--courtesy of Fluid Ounces! (but recorded by yours truly)
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