I'd been in a thrash mood and, I could be wrong but I think I chucked this whole thing together in one jam session (is it still a jam session if you're the only one playing... a 'noodling session'?).   The music sat there for a while with no particular lyrical idea to it.

I think I tried a couple of different approaches but they petered out.  Then the BLM protests were all over the news and we saw Idiot45 have people tear-gassed and beaten back for a photo op.  All the while his political cronies and the areas of the media sympathetic to him are bending over backwards to paint a picture of things not really being that bad and trying to insist that the people protesting racism are the real problem.

Sometimes it feels like things have not really gotten much better in the last 100 years or so.

Puppet Fight - Mild Panic

Regressive Oppressive

I had a completely different bit of music behind this lyrical idea but I wasn't overly fussed about it.  Then one day I was jamming on acoustic guitar and this riff came long.  Once I transferred it to distorted guitar and big chunky bass it felt good.

The song originally had this big slow outro section with a bunch of lead guitar over it, but for once curtailed that urge and decided to KISS.

The vocals may or may not have been influenced by me listening to a lot of Layne Staley-era AIC.

Puppet Fight - The Chunky Bunch

The Seed

Noodling about in drop-d and I came up with one of those riffs that you just know you have to do something with.  The music came together really quickly and for once I was really happy with the drum machine track I'd put together (half the battle really).

The Unspeakable Horror Of Tree Ferns

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

This is another of my 'Minis'.  At one point I struck the good problem of too many musical ideas (particularly rock stuff) coming my way, and some of them felt like they didn't need a 3-5 minute song behind them.  The answer was Minis, songs that could be anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 minutess. 

One of the things about getting old is the endless fight to not turn into the curmudgeonly "in my day" "everyone is wrong and I'm right because I'm older" "music is terrible now" "I pay my rates/taxes/other form of entitlement" etc. etc. 

Some people just let it happen, and I can be guilty of grumpiness sometimes, but I really do try and keep an eye on self-improvement in some form or another (sometimes it's slow, hard work), and to keep mixing with and learning from people who are younger than me.

This song is I guess me trying to call myself out on any grumpy old man tendencies.

SUMA

Just jamming back and forth on Ab and E ("AbE" was the working title) and from memory I came up with much of the music in one shot.

The lyrics came from watching news coverage of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. Just thinking, here is this guy who is the leader of his country, has been for ages, is either feared or loved by many of his people, and has more power than most and yet doesn't seem satisfied with it. He feels the need to keep trying to take more.

Burning Man

Anyone who's not keen on sand but has children knows the pain (though usually eventually grudgingly enjoyed) of the beach visit.

I seem to remember the parts for this came together pretty quickly and naturally, with the chunky bassline slotting nicely into the almost droney verse guitar part with everything synching up for the choruses.

Coarse Rough And Irritating

This is another song where the riffs just fell together in short order, then it just became a matter of what to write about.

I'd been reading a linguistics book a while ago that suggested that humans were so geared towards language that we will hear words/voices in radio static or out of other white noise. I found that idea cool and creepy in equal measure and I was away running....

Inside Voice

So the starting point for this was Gojira. I'd been listening to a lot of their music and I tried to come up with a riff that sounded a bit Gojira-esque, though as often happens with these things it doesn't really sound too Gojira at all, but still nice and heavy.

In keeping with the Gojria reference there's an ecology theme to the lyrics.

Puppet Fight - Aridite

Isolated System

Kind of a bouncy almost 90s rock groove that I had floating around for a while and finally laid it down with a drum track.   Some time (I think much later)I chuck some guitars on top of it.  

It fermented a while longer and I actually came up with the main lyrical idea while I was sitting in the dark giving my daughter her bottle.   It's one of the few times that I'm not looking at a screen or reading a book or otherwise providing my brain with 'input'.

I've seen others comment on the fact that people don't really allow themselves to be bored anymore.   Waiting for the bus?  Get your phone out.  On the toilet?  Get your phone out.

Like I say, I'm guilty of this too, but it's a pity because sometimes that boredom, those spaces of 'dead air' can provide you with some great ideas or moments of insight or creative inspiration or whatever.

Boredom Murder

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

This track is not available anymore.

Other tracks from Puppet Fight