../melody in chaos
written: 20191113.0927
key: A
time: 3/4
one for the lonely
I set out to write a “holiday song” a few years back, even daring to dream of expanding the thought into an EP I would definitely call A Very Westy Holiday.
The EP’s still a dream, but I was home in NYC a couple weeks back, and dusted off the track, while also dusting off Jolie, my Gibson ES335 modded by Paul Schwartz of Peekamoose Guitars.…
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“Matter is mostly empty space,” Luna piped up on a walk through The Club’s bocce courts. “Ergo, everyone has a big sucking vacuum between their ears.”
“Ergo?” I quired. “Fancy word for a fido.”
“Fancy?” she sniped. “You wouldn’t know fancy if it bit you in the Birken.”…
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Were there inner voices before there was oral language? Just curious what a Neanderthal thought to theirself.
Tbf, I still have no idea how an idea in my head ends up in a written word. I don’t think in words as I write. With no codified written language, maybe Ned Neanderthal, in his codified codpiece, had no facility to express it all, either.…
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In 2018, my wife Cat costume designed the Amazon series Homecoming in Los Angeles, so we decamped Brooklyn for a 1930s cottage aerie perched halfway up Laurel Canyon. I couldn’t bring any guitars to LA, because when you pack for an 8-month trip, with no back-and-forths, hard decisions have to be made between fashion studio and music studio.…
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recorded at the Hood’s Sarsaparilla Soda factory,
30 march 2021
lowell, ma
no princes in this city
no warnings about the wicked
just a princess and a quiet boysleep in a sleepless city
crystal in a concrete world
just a princess and a quiet boya silence passes through us
as our eyes meet on the subway
it wakes me with laughter as we sway with the train
a quiet moment of inspiration
just a boy
and his princessfaith in a faithless city
diamonds in a leaden world
just a princess and a quiet boy syncingthis silence given to us is simply to find
a quiet moment of inspiration
just a boy and a princess
from Windfall, released August 2, 2004
https://thereflectors.bandcamp.com/track/princess
DALL-E 2 AI INPUT: “A former musician, surrounded by destroyed instruments, under a pink sky, photographed by William Eggleston” (2022)
Someone randomly came into one of my social feeds today with “former musician” in their bio, and the notion sent me, well, riffing…
What, exactly, constitutes a “former” musician?
Did they never “make it?”…
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I write every day. I just don’t want to publish every day. Would that I did not think in drafts.
Hard to “Build that brand!” tho, when you have no routine around creativity.
otoh, deadlines make the writer, lest the lines go dead.
Running out of storage on a device hooked to a cloud is a feature, not your fault
Listening to music is a form of mind reading.…
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my most spun track on Spotify from my former days as The Reflectors. Written in 2008. Released in 2009 on my record Goodbye Monday Blue.
It’s all still true lol.
https://thereflectors.bandcamp.com/track/long-road-ahead
we got a long road ahead
settle down. settle back. settle in.
don’t you know that we’re gonna have to work until we’re dead?…
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all the things you love, recorded live this past quiet Saturday magic hour.
Been on a ritual Nick Drake dive in the last couple weeks. Lol can you tell?
I find a watercourse way through life in Nick Drake’s songs – the paradox being he never found that way for himself.…
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up ahead, opinions won’t be outlawed, but there will be no universal standard of listening. having any opinion on any thing will render at least some part of the world, virtual or irl, impassable
Dining off the curb is, in essence, tailgating, since you’re eating in a parking space
Dgmw, I love tailgating.…
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…When you hate, you generate a reciprocal hate. When individuals hate each other, the harm is finite; but when great groups of nations hate each other, the harm may be infinite and absolute. Do not fall back upon the thought that those whom you hate deserve to be hated. I do not know whether anybody deserves to be hated, but I do know that hatred of those whom we believe to be evil is not what will redeem mankind.
all the things you love
20221003.2356
may you turn away
all the darkest things
and turn on the world
every time you sing
rolling on a ball
rolling off a log
rolling and falling for
all the things you love
may all the things you love
always
light the way you came
may all the things you love
one day
all know your name
breathe says the water
when trouble hides and seeks
to overthrow your order
and trade worries for your sleep
to the city walls
cast off doubt
with your bride fly off
reset the clocks
20220926.1306
may you turn away
all the darkest things
and turn on the world
every time you sing
road work outside your window
construction down the block
induction of plans
demolition of clocks
breathe says the water
when trouble hides and seeks
to overturn your order
and trade worries for your sleep
rolling on a ball
rolling off a log
rolling and falling away
from all the things you love
all the things you love
will someday
go back the way you came
all the things you love
will someday / always know your name
religion isn’t about the god, it’s about the faith
faith in a god (irrational and unprovable as any deity is) translates to faith in oneself
that is to say, one’s faith in a god is not faith in itself/himself/herself/theirself being true. one’s faith in a god is faith in one’s belief the god is true.…
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In this world, are there more cheap things or expensive things not worth the money?
commitment is a subset of love
none of my best performances have been recorded 😔
Sometimes I have a lot of trouble figuring out how people zipped themselves into their clothes
there’s more profit in the darkest futures.…
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