Welcome to Raw Impressions, Monday's Music Mini episode. Hi, let me find a new and exciting way to say I have a sinus infection again! How many we had so far as we keep count? Your mom said that we shouldn't be to talk too much about her sinuses.
Oh shit. Yep, I already did it. Alright, so scratch that everyone. Pretend I never said that.
You might be able to tell since you're a dedicated listener that my voice is a little compromised. Because I know our fans, they notice those details, they're smart. I'm going to sing a song today. A very old song.
But first, I'm going to play the original four track version. It was a released song that I actually edited about a minute out of the song. For reasons totally unknown to me. Mysterious to me now.
I thought the song was too long. And you know what? I think I just thought it was too good. Because back then I was like nope, that's too normal.
How old were you when you wrote this song? Well it'd be 93. Don't make me do the math. 27.
Oh, okay. So I was... You know the song called High School when you were 27? I did.
I was kind of comparing my life at that point to my life as a high schooler. The end line of the song is I've forgotten how rotten it feels to be down. I think I did not realize... The song is actually a joyous...
It won't sound like it in any way. But it's actually a joyous celebration of my life as a 27-year-old. And realizing that I was not depressed. That I was not really living under the song.
Commencing in five notes. Retarded by the true world, convinced of a certain execution. I've painted my picture. Now I'm through.
Hopelessly devoted to me. Queen of the open scene, the king. Open scene. Great'll they give their hands on you.
That sounds her plan. It gives me nervous diarrhea. Since me right up to my room, where I play a little tune on my tunes. Magic's rotting back in high school.
Fucking pictures, the angels. Tiggles up and down, to get into the age of love. I see as down the way with the knot inside my brain while you're piston in the way. I cut it up, but these were the proud forgotten how rotten the deal took me down.
This execution. This empty taste of frustrated poetry. Scientific screening. Like I'm celebrating solitude.
Like a rank and file. I'm like the need. It's what I'm tweeting. That sounds unreal.
It gives me nervous diarrhea. Since me right up to my room, where I play a little tune on my tunes. He is not the way with the knot inside my brain. I cut it up, but these were the proud forgotten how rotten the deal took me down.
This evolution, honestly, is not the way with the knot inside my brain while you're piston in the way. I cut it up, but these were the proud forgotten how rotten the deal took me down. I don't know what that song is about now. That's what I'm listening to.
I do. There's so many conflicting messages in that song. I'm like it's truly, it's like I can't. I can't.
God. So much. I think in a way I thought that was my last song. My last song that I was ever going to record on Fortrack.
It was a little bit late. That's when I transitioned into having bands mostly in recording with full completion. I went and did bake sale right on the heels of this. This Fortrack has all the early bake sale, sebato songs.
My early versions of them were also on this Fortrack. I was making a transition and that song was my last really intense Fortrack song. I was like this is it. I'm done.
I can't do any more of this. I'm putting up against the limitations of this tape deck. It's one of the best songs I've ever recorded. I should have never stopped recording like that.
Never. I shouldn't have been. I mean it was like I was so unaware of the power. Well, it's okay.
I mean, wasted. Yeah, you got to forgive yourself. You don't know those things when you're there. No.
That's what is that? That's time. It's given you this wisdom to look back and reflect on it. It was really cool to find this tape and actually listen to it and realize that there was a full version, like a full and it's the right kind of version.
It has three choruses in it's like it's an actual full breadth little journey. And for some reason at the time, I thought it was to, I thought I was ingratiating myself to the craft of songwriting and that I needed to cut it down even further. And that I needed to, it's not bewildering to me looking back, but it's a little sad. And I was also like punishingly high when I would do stuff like that.
So I was like in this very anxious state, like you can hear it in the way that I played guitar back then. It's very layered and I heard the overtones and I was thought I was on to something, but it was just an almost unmanageable sound. I couldn't take that. It's just a slapping acoustic guitar layered and I love it.
But I really thought that it didn't seem like people would like it or that I couldn't really record it with other people. I couldn't like, there was just something so intense about my approach on the Fortrack with that and you can just hear me like just pounding against the limitations of it, which is really why it sounds good to me now. I'm like, oh, it sounds like energy and just this philosophical mind feels. It's kind of like a neat audio time capsule.
You can really feel that time. I really wanted that was my main thing. My recorded things. I wanted transmissions from my life.
I wanted them to be these raw transmissions. I think you succeeded. Really, it doesn't feel like now it feels like then, but in a good way. Like you said, it's definitely, I don't really hear anything like that on the radio now.
People don't do stuff like that. Did they ever do stuff like that? I'm not just saying that I'm a, it's in any way singular or not. Oh no, you're a pioneer.
You just keep saying it, people. No, I mean, it's just, well, the way I'm playing guitar, the way that I'm just wailing on the guitar and layering it with these alternate tunings has more to do. That's more influenced by like Sonic Youth and it's influenced by the more aggressive music that I listen to in the 90s and the 80s and 90s. So it's more, it's aggressive.
It's not like, and at that point, I mean, we were just sort of on the cusp of, you know, pavement kind of taking over and this lighter attitude kind of starting to prevail a little bit more. Yeah. And the dark bands got more dark and heavy and on stage. There was no, and then like Elliot Smith came along where he was this brilliant songwriter and a very consonant songwriter.
It was like, when I say consonant, I mean, it's like melodic, like more, it's like richly melodic. There's not a lot of, and what I'm playing on that song, there's a lot of like, there's a lot of information melodically as well, but like a lot of like atonal stuff that I was also really describing to me. I think it's jarring. I wanted it to be very, very jarring.
That's true. Yeah. Elliot's definitely the opposite of jarring. Yeah.
And I realized when that started to happen when people, I was like, people don't really want this. I saw Sonic Youth perform at St. Catherine's College in St. Paul, Minnesota in the late 90s, maybe it was like, 96, 97.
And they performed at like a theater there at the school. It's an all women's college, or at least it used to be, I'm not sure if it still is. But I remember it's true at that time, there was kind of a transition out of that like extremely kind of harsh earfuck, you know? And it wasn't great.
Like, I mean, I'm sure if you were die-hard Sonic Youth fan, it might have been like your dream concert, but for me, yeah, it was kind of chafing. It was not chafing. They were really my, they were my inspiration. Yeah.
I mean, I like Sonic Youth, but it just for me live at the time, I don't know, it was just maybe where I was at. They presented angry on stage. Yeah. Well, it definitely felt like they were having their own personal journey up there, you know?
We were witnesses to it. So I've learned the song now on a right to play it live. Okay, so now you're going to play. I'm going to play my new, and I could not directly imitate any of the guitar playing, but this is a general thing and it's something to play for the show.
So when people say, high school, high school, high school, like they often do, I'm going to be able to say, I'm going to be able to hit it out. Okay, here you go. You want your high school and doing it. Here we go.
That turned out to be a lot more fun to learn than I thought. I think that'll be fun at the shows. Yeah. I could be a crowd pleaser.
I'm getting really excited when I play it and I feel like I don't have to think about it so much. I didn't have to read the lyrics off the sheet. Nice. They feel like they're just a part of me.
They are a part of me. They are a part of you. Oh, dang. I like that.
I think that actually just got me excited for the shows. Oh, cool. Yeah, I feel a little more pumped. Kind of got me a little excited too.
Cut through my music next haze. Nice. Yeah. I'm really excited about the process of learning this and then being able to do it right now on the spot kind of made me feel a little more relaxed about the shows.
Oh, good. Yeah, it kind of made me feel a little more relaxed too to be perfectly honest. I mean, I'm not playing. I have nothing important to do other than just sit there.
You have to witness me going through that first show jitters and all of that anxiety that I can bring to my first show. It's going to be great. And on that note, music made me Monday concludes. Thank you for listening.