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 Remember Cassettes Vol 1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Remember Cassettes Vol 1. 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, 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.
A Comment on the New Demo Releases
Seth Timbs has graciously gifted us ravenous fans with a new group of demos from his home collection, this time focusing on material from 1990-1996. Although they are not quite set up for order just yet, you can read the track listing and Seth’s liner notes for them here. I will post a link to notify you when the demos are available for purchase. I had originally planned to include all twenty-four tracks here in this blog, but I have decided that since only the tunes that were features on Big Notebook for Easy Piano were actually performed by the band Fluid Ounces that I will not include them. I have created a label for all the songs, but I have not altered the actual entries.
On another note, it’s good to be back for the final stretch with this blog. I am going to attempt to post three times per week again to help re-energize our readership after the hiatus, so that means you can expect about six more weeks before I run out of songs.
On another note, it’s good to be back for the final stretch with this blog. I am going to attempt to post three times per week again to help re-energize our readership after the hiatus, so that means you can expect about six more weeks before I run out of songs.
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.
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
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.
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