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

Ok so I'd had the opening line "repetition is the key to memory, and history speaks louder than the truth" in my mind for a while, mulling over the idea of winners writing the history books... this carried on to a conversation I'd had with my sister about communism, how it's a good system in theory, but in practice it's not perfect (rather like capitalism) and she said "it's just a pity that communism often seems to be associated with violent uprisings" and I thought about it and really that's the only way it could happen; I mean think about the uproar to change any one little thing in our political system (raising taxes, restructuring our voting system) now imagine someone suggested changing our entire way of life!  ...people would fight
It also go me thinking about other big changes, if you look at movements like feminism, civil rights, gay rights; they are fighting an uphill battle against entrenched opposition who are shouting down this change/potential threat to their dominance, and because they are writing the history books, the majority will listen to them.
So yes, democracy is great, but sometimes it stagnates and needs to be given a push by strong revolutionary action.

As for the music... you'd think that a punk piece with just guitar, bass, drums and vocals would be easy but NO it was a 'mare, things were all melting into each other, I had to do a few rerecords, and as it is the guitar is still not as strong as I'd have liked it.

"There Will Be No Revolution Today... Please Enquire at the Office" Puppet Fight

I added the bracketed part in the title because I realise that this could easily be misconstrued as some sort of anti-immigration or refugee song... sorry, racist redneck types, it's about the simple but frustrating pleasures of mowing the lawn.

Had it in mind to write a punk song and it ended up popping right into my head (love it when that happens)

Kill The Invaders (not about immigration or  refugees)

I'd been mucking around with harmonics and I liked what was coming out of it.  I slapped a big grungy chorus on to piece and was pretty happy with it.  Unfortunately then all of my equipment broke down for 4-6 months which I guess gave me time to tweaking everything.

Lyrically, I was thinking about inconsiderate people and how so many people just do whatever the hell they like and the rest of us have to put up with it because there's only so much the law covers.  

Everything from inconsiderate drivers to people who just yell and crank their stereo in the wee small hours, or people who try to dick-over others just because it suits them.

Puppet Fight - Aridite

We Are The Dirt

I love 7/8 timing, it's just so jerky and unrelenting... it does make it difficult to sing over as that half beat you lose is essentially where  you'd often take your breath.

I'd had the "punking Galileo" thing in mind for a while so the rest of the lyrics grew from that.

Minis - Highspeed Standstill

Flatten The Curve - Minis

The main riff lodged itself in my hands every time I picked up the guitar so I knew I had to do something with it.

I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of this particular metal vocal style, but I was interested to try it out on at least one track.  May give it another go if the right riff presents itself.

Haunt-id

Rootsy acoustic track that was kind of drawing on a couple of similar acoustic rock tracks "Aktion 13F14" by Tomahawk and "Rowing" by Soundgarden.

While most of the 'minis' tracks don't make it past 60-90 seconds, having a slightly longer track as the album closer seemed appropriate.

Beneath The Underdog

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

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