While I'm at work I keep a piece of paper handy in case some interesting, insightful, ridiculous or occasionally offensive line occurs to me.  Once I had the music sussed for this song (a gumbo of Carl Stalling, Mr Bungle and a few other bits and pieces) I picked up the huge wad of lyric pages and chose the most ridiculous, odd and basically looney patooney lines I could find and came out with this song!

Looney Patooney - TVH

I came up with the riffs for this one just faffing around on the guitar.  One of those gift songs where as soon as the first riff turned up, the rest of the song followed in quick succession.

Lyrically this was in response the protests in Wellington against the NZ government response to Covid 19, but also commenting on similar situations around the world.  

While I wouldn't say that I was 100% in favour of the vaccine mandates (though understood the rationale behind them), and don't doubt that there were people at the protests at first with good motives for being involved, by the end it really did just seem like anti-science conspiracy theorists, people who wanted to fight police and just some generally damaged people. 

When the protest was finally broken up by police I didn't go with the "they should all be locked up" it was more "I really hope there is a lot of really good mental health assessment being carried out here".  People having conflicting opinions is one thing.  People aggressively sticking to certain ideas even in the face of evidence that refutes them is another thing entirely.

The same with so many ideas held by certain quarters in the US.  Again: different opinions, fine; opinions that contradict fact, nope.

The title was a last minute decision that is a probably a bit nastier than it needs to be.  Referring to the people going around the protest wearing tinfoil hats... still don't know if they were taking the mick or if it was legit.

Minis - Unlucky by the Dozen

Cerebral Roast - Minis

The main/opening bass-line of this song is something that I came up with at the end of recording the bass-line for another different song, it felt like it had kind of dirty twangy country sound to it so I put it aside for later use... but not much later, the rest of the song came together around it pretty quickly.  I'd been wanting to do something with a bit of slide guitar for a while.
As for the lyrics, I'd been watching some recent Soundgarden interviews and in the comments to a few of them people would refer to the bassist Ben Shepherd as a "stone cold motherfucker" I thought it seemed like a pretty good title and went with that.
most people who know me are aware that I am not a 'stone cold motherfucker' but eh it's just a boasting thing like all those rappers who claim to have played a million shows and been with a million hoes... that would just be impossible yo! 

SCMF

The music is funk... that pretty much sums it up, there’s a bit of a bass solo and a guitar solo; the words on the other hand, I have a lot more to say about (*rant follows)

The title is a little joke between me, myself, and I related to the first line of the chorus.
The song is about my love/hate relationship with technology; the fact that every technological advance, whilst making our lives easier, also serves to remove an ability (simple or complex) from our basic skill set, makes us lazy, and (fairly often) eliminate jobs.  When watching futuristic/sci-fi films where computers and machines do everything, I can’t help but think “where are all the unemployed people?!”   One of the higher profile examples would be music downloads and people always say “oh well I don’t want to give money to those rich record execs blah blah blah” but of course those guys probably won’t take pay cuts; they just fire lower level employees (some of whom will presumably have families, mortgages and such) and of course the people working in music stores and CD pressing plants and other such places... but hey, at least we don’t have to pay for music if we don’t want to.
Many factories and processing plants have got into automation to the point where they don’t really need many employees.  One or two skilled jobs are created as far as maintaining the machines that do all the work, but of course that’s done at the expense of many, many basic physical jobs, the kind of jobs that people take on while they’re studying, or that they take on because academic qualifications are not something they are able to get at that point.

When I was travelling, I met a young Australian guy who told me that his car turned on the windscreen wipers and lights as and when they were needed, opened the boot for him when he walked past it and started the car when he got behind the wheel... I kind of had to wonder “What are YOU even doing then?   What happens when you have to borrow a car where you have to do all of this?  Will you remember how to, or will those reflexes have been dulled from disuse?”
Technology has the ability to join us to each other but also to keep us somewhat isolated and anti-social.
At the end of the day, I’m sitting here on the internet, posting music that I was able to record in the comfort of my own home thanks to technology, the internet has helped me discover music and movies and meet people that I might not otherwise have done, so I’m not really proposing some solution, such as returning to pre-industrial revolution era practices... I’m really just having a whinge on the current state of affairs that annoy me but that I also enjoy... confused?  I sure am; thanks technology.

The Convenient Bastard

A track with a looooonnnng gestation period.  I had most of the slap bass parts floating about around 4 years ago, I actually recorded the music for the song 2 or 3 years ago, finally wrote the lyrics and recorded the vocals at the end of last year and have been tweaking at the mix since then.
I usually prefer lyrics that are more in the obscure, ambiguous vein, but for this song I purposefully set about writing about my 2012 trip to/around the UK and Europe and the people I met and/or caught up with while I was over there

Phil Does Europe

the working title for this one was BSSM (not to be mistaken for BDSM) because yes it was heavily influenced by that brilliant album; the idea from the opening came from the Beatles' Hard Days Night; I've always enjoyed that jangly discordant chord that opens it.

Lyrically the song was about... well you'll know, if you've ever been in a relationship with someone who you find hilarious and who finds you hilarious... every so often you'll get those moments where you're having a great laugh together and suddenly, the laughter just stops... and it's business time.


Jekyll & Hyde

Chillnessism

Waiting

Mostly loud guitars and rock, mostly 90s influenced, mostly mostly mostly.
This used to be a combination of my Puppet Fight and Limehouse projects... Limehouse can now be found here https://soundcloud.com/user-77144849

Cerebral Roast - Minis

Puppet Fight

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