"Essence" is from the latest Doug Hoekstra book, “Ten Seconds In-Between” (2021).  It's a short story about a bus journey, but like many journeys, the protagonist doesn’t really wind up going from A to B, absorbed in layers, gaining by subtracting. Whether the past is present or vice-versa is largely about interpretation. 

"For the backing, I wanted to do something with found sound, to mirror the character having “found” experiences.   I’d also been thinking about John Cage and the idea that all sound is music.   So, I recited the piece to a loop  and added non-musical elements– a stopwatch, a pocket alarm clock, my parents old mantelpiece clock, and the insides of a video cassette recorder.  I just recorded them all the way through, not trying to place anything, letting them ring, click and buzz unhindered.  As one might expect, the randomness worked and all I had to do was mix it, muting bits here and there to create more dynamics."  www.doughoekstra.net

ESSENCE

Time crawls on a Greyhound.

Parker scrawled the words in magic marker on the back of his notebook. He stared at them a moment and fidgeted, looking aimlessly at the rows of empty seats. As always, he had been the first to board, quickly arranging his small space to ready himself for a long ride.

Outside, passengers still waited to board. At the front of the line, there were two girls, less than ten years old, standing on either side of a tall bearded man, holding on tightly to his large muscled hands with tiny delicate fingers. The man was wearing a tweed sports coat and faded jeans, rocking on his feet a little as he leaned over to speak to his children. Parker noticed the smooth stained leather of his work boots, worn from wear, but well-maintained. The man probably worked in those boots and used mink oil or saddle soap to keep the leather supple and make them last. Maybe they were his only pair. The girls both wore colorful t-shirts, sneakers, and jeans. The smaller one had freckles and red hair and held a rag doll in her free hand. Her sister stood still, but she tugged and swayed and jabbered away. Parker smiled and thought about how at that moment the girl’s whole world was her father and her sister and the trip they were about to take. When night fell, she might get excited about all the things taken for granted, the little lights on the bus that she could turn on and off with a flick of a finger, or the foot rests that folded up and down in front of her, or the steady hum the engine made beneath their feet. Or maybe just the way she could lay her head in her father’s lap and know that it made the best pillow in the world. True sleep.

Time stands still on a Greyhound.

This time, Parker let the big black words bleed into the pale cardboard cover, like blood of the pen, or thoughts soaking through a dream dispersed. Then, he frowned and crossed them out, heading back to the newspaper and a front-page story about a lady cab driver from Louisville. She had picked up a fare who pulled a gun on her, took her money, and threatened to kill her. But, for some reason, the assailant took his time. Perhaps he was bored, lonely, or on the wrong side of crazy. Regardless, he told her to keep driving from place to place and she gave the dispatchers hidden clues, false information that would let them know she was in trouble. A dispatcher caught on and called the cops, who followed her clandestine directions, saved her life and nailed the robber. She headed for destinations that didn’t exist, until she wound up somewhere that did. The cab driver was a grandmother, and in the article, she spoke more of her grandchildren than her heroic deeds. She felt she had to save herself, to be there for the children. She didn’t see it as anything out of the ordinary. It was what you did.

Time moves in reverse on a Greyhound.

Parker circled this one and thought of his mother....

(and the story continues, so you'll have to listen for the ending!)

Essence

from the album "Around the Margins"
Birmingham Jail 
 
Around the margins, of the front page, of the daily news 
He wrote in plainspeak of the choices no man should have to choose
Do we remember in our comfort, some words never change? 
The reporters find the angle, but the story's still the same   

Give me a reason        
Give me an answer           
Put a hammer to the nail   
Give me the margins            
Of the letter from a Birmingham Jail       
 
There's a commercial for a movie on the nightly news 
While people suffer over choices no man should have to choose 
Maybe it's Jasper instead of Selma, some words never change 
Where there is smoke, there's something burning under talk that's not so plain 
 
If words are only words, revelation or cliché,  
Then actions are the meter of a heart that beats in pain    

Words and Music by Doug Hoekstra (Doug Hoekstra Music, BMI)

Musicians: 
Nirva Dorsaint & Antonio Meeks  - vocal chorus 
Doug Hoekstra – acoustic guitars, bells, vocals 
Waldo LaTowsky – drums 
Pat Meusel – bass, electric guitar 
 
Produced and Engineered by George Marinelli at Wing Ding Studios, Nashville

Birmingham Jail

from the EP "Six Songs"

The Bottomless Pit 

The world is big, but it don’t matter    
Some folks just don’t fit   
They stand and wait, accept their fate   
And then fall through the bottomless pit    
They fall through the bottomless pit   

There’s a man I know who’s a poet   
Lives in a seaside town                    
He’s worked a thousand dead-end jobs    
One foot in the ground                    

Once he was a cutter
Another time a clerk
And his eyes are sad when he smiles
And when he cries they’re something worse

The world is big, but it don't matter...(chorus)

He’s got stories of his troubled past
And all the deals that never were
And the voyages he almost took
And the things of which he once was sure

He’s got a boy who runs ahead of us
Kicking up the sand
And he tells me of what he could do for him
If he only had one more chance  

The world is big, but it don't matter...(chorus)

I went to one of his readings
Where peaks and valleys freeze
As if only the paper in his hand
Can bring him sweet relief

And, the next day someone asked me
Was his writing any good?
As if the only folks that matter
Are the ones we say are the ones that should….

The world is big, but I think it matters....(chorus)

Words and Music by Doug Hoekstra (Doug Hoekstra BMI)

Musicians:  
Paul Griffith - drums, percussion, handclaps
Doug Hoekstra - acoustic guitars, vocals 
George Marinelli - bass, electric guitar, backing vocals, handclaps

Produced by Doug Hoekstra/George Marinelli, WingDing Studios, Nashville TN

The Bottomless Pit

from the album "Blooming Roses"

Gavin Geist 

So many people pass us by     
I remember Gavin Geist   
Short and squat, glasses round
Good at trig and figuring Pi

He carried a silk handkerchief
His dad was a puppateer
They moved to town from New York City
In the coldest part of my freshman year          

Ho ho ho, hey hey hey, everybody’s looking for a better day    

Lord of the flies every day
A fight broke out in the locker room
When a wrestler taunted him
And the little man snapped in two

Tears and jears and a little blood
After that Gavin changed
Where before he’d been a jolly boy
He winced at the sound of his own name

Ho, ho, ho - hey, hey, hey....

So many years passed us by
Our reunion rolled around
A girl from the committee called
Short and squat, glasses round

A silk scarf hung around her neck
She kissed me on the cheek and smiled
When she stepped out of the dark, I saw
Her name tag read Gwendolyn Geist 

Words and Music by Doug Hoekstra (Doug Hoekstra BMI)

Musicians:
Nirva Dorsaint-Ready – backing vocals
Paul Griffith – drums, percussion, backing vocals
David Henry – cello, stand-up bass, backing vocals
Doug Hoekstra – vocals, acoustic guitars

Produced by David Henry at True Tone Recording, Nashville, Tennessee

Gavin Geist

from the album "Blooming Roses....

Everywhere Is Somewhere

There’s a girl by the window, waiting in the sun    
There’s a girl by the window, she’s waiting in the sun    
Bright as origami, she blinds me like a gun  

She’s got honey colored hair, and a navy colored coat
Her hands are in the pockets of her navy colored coat
Her slingshot opinions hit me like waves upon a boat

She says it’s all about the moment, but I’ve got one eye on the clock
It’s all about the moment, I’ve got one eye on the clock
She says, open up a little, you might see what you have got

There are stars up in the sky, that burned out long ago
They take so long to reach us, they burned out long ago
Something about the time, it passes faster than you know

There’s a house in the picture, doors and windows painted black
In a corridor of white, doors and windows painted black
If I could get a little peace, I’d never want to give it back
 
She said, many people play, but not so many care
She said, many people play, but not so many care
Everywhere is somewhere, and you’re already there.

Words and Music by Doug Hoekstra (Doug Hoekstra Music BMI)

Musicians:
Oyvind Berekvam – pedal steel, piano, mando guitar, drums
Doug Hoekstra – vocals, electric rhythm guitar
Eirik Lye – bass
Aadne Saeverud -  Hammond B-3 Organ

Produced by Eirik Lye and Oyvind Berekvam at Out of Tune(s) Recordings, Stavanger Norway

Everywhere is Somewhere

Carry Me 

Radnor Lake in Nashville.  When my son Jude was little, we’d go for a hike and it wouldn’t take long for him to reach up and shout “Carry Me.”   Time goes on, things change, but it’s still something you do as a parent, in a different way. Somehow I get as much or more from this dynamic than he does, over the years, and  this song tries to get at that idea – we are all connected, taking turns carrying each other as our lives go on.  

I wrote a tune for him when he was born (“Picture of the Soul”) and this is sort of the bookend to that.  It was also a good excuse for me to slip into reggae mode and play some melodica.  I love reggae, but beyond that it’s probably more common for the song about your kids to be more in ballad more.  I wanted this to be more up tempo, to evoke the joy in that experience.

In another side note, my brother Dave, my son Jude, and I went out for a walk on Christmas Eve at Radnor, just before the pandemic.  Unknowing to me, Dave snapped the picture of me and my son on the back cover, which fits all of this perfectly

Rambling autumn walk, 
Colors turn to sounds
Woodpecker clouds 
All around 
Off the beat 
Hammer trees 
In this boss nova forest 
Carry me  away

Critters rustle leaves   
A newborn wails 
Reminding me 
Another time  
This very place  
You would always say   
Before we even started  
Sunny and light hearted   
Carry me  

Reaching outstretched arms  
I’d pick you up so sure  
Proud of who I was   
Proud of who we were   
Your feet touched the ground
You ran beyond my reach to be free
Carry me  

Embracing your own love   
Happiness, and
Sometimes, crazy sorrow  
I walk not far behind 
If you need a little rest
Please remember when  
Everything was new   
And if you’re ever feeling blue  
I’ll be there to carry you  

Reaching outstretched arms  
I’d pick you up so sure  
Proud of who I was   
Proud of who we were   
Your feet touched the ground
You ran beyond my reach to be free
Carry me  

Words and Music by Doug Hoekstra, Doug Hoekstra BMI, Kobalt Music Services

Chris Benelli – drums, percussion
Dave Coleman – lead guitar
Doug Hoekstra – rhythm guitars, melodica, organ, vocals
Paul Slivka – bass

Carry Me

Unseen Undetected  

This song alternates narratives, between that of an immigrant family coming to America for a better life, and white nationalists, who espouse intolerance, and worse.    Both are often unseen and undetected in the daily turning of the earth, until of course, someone lets the genie out of the bottle.   Then, positive light is shone or hidden darkness revealed.   I wanted to write about current events on this record, but in a character-driven way.

Another goal for writing this was to avoid having a traditional chorus; the lines resolve, like something Dylan would do.   David Henry, who produced my previous record, “Blooming Roses,” did a fabulous job of adding cello to give it something extra for the kids.   He also plays some mean gypsy violin on “Seaside Town.”

Like any songwriter or musician, I have my influences, which tend to shape the musical starting point for a song, the place from which you depart to head on to your own journey.     But for many songs on this record, such as this one, it wasn’t about that.    I think because I hadn’t written or recorded in a decade, I was able to come at it fresh, while still carrying that embedded experience of the years before.

Unseen, undetected				
Living in the neighborhood		
Working hard, unprotected			
Doing what they know they should		
To be something, instead of nothing			
They don’t count on lucky breaks    			
Unseen, undetected, unseen…far from Monterrey       

Unseen, undetected
Until they’re othered by the few
Small minds, the unelected
Always turn the screws
For their fears, they are crippled
By their birth they’re falsely claimed
Unseen, undetected, unseen…until they have their say

Unseen, undetected  
Until they came to build my fence
Paint my house and talk of family
And the money they had sent
Back home to their parents 
For their children’s better fate
Unseen undetected, unseen….lost or on their way

Unseen, undetected
Until someone lights the flame
Like a nightmare unaffected
By the clocks that are kept at bay
Little men with blackened magic
Wearing cloaks of doubt and pain
Unseen, undetected, unseen…on the corner of Main and Main

Unseen, undetected
Mexico or Viet Nam
Walking miles to California
On the boat from Amsterdam
To be something instead of nothing
Doing everything it takes
Unseen, undetected, unseen.
In their dreams, in their dreams, in their dreams…they always stay

Words and Music by Doug Hoekstra (Doug Hoekstra Music BMI / Kobalt Music Services)

Chris Benelli – drums, percussion
Dave Coleman – lead guitar
David Henry – cello
Doug Hoekstra – electric rhythm guitars, vocals
Paul Slivka – bass

Unseen Undetected

Gandy Dancer

Before my parents passed, I recorded many hours of interviews with them, family questions, about their lives and the times they lived.   Recently, I was driving along listening to my Dad from the past coming to the present to tell me about his brother Herbie, who worked for a short time as a gandy dancer, on the railway in Chicago.  Apparently, it was a terrible job, very hard, and he quit after a week.  I didn’t remember this particular family tale and I wasn’t even sure what a gandy dancer was, so I looked it up.  Herbie is not Eddie, the rest of this story is simply a noir tale I made up, but I thank my Dad for giving me the idea from then to now, as if he was just waiting to lay it on me, from the great beyond.

This was the last song we finished for the record; I felt like the bass/drums were solid, but that it didn’t have enough layers and that it was probably a song that needed to deviate more from the original path.   When the pandemic hit, however, necessity became the mother of invention as we went back to the drawing board, flying in overdubs, with Wurlitzer (me), guitars (Dave), congas (Chris), and sax (Jimmy) getting added to the mix and creating a whole new stew.

Next up, I’d had this idea of doing round robin vocals, like something you’d hear from the Band or the Staple Singers or Prince (1999).   I just had a one-take scratch vocals in place, but we flew the backing over to Hannah to sing all the way through and did the same, for an old friend of mine, stellar bluesman Preacher Boy.   Then Dave and I listened through and picked parts and put them together and it made sense.   So this track really has a nice evolution, from my Uncle Herbie to my folk’s recordings to the studio to the “community” created during the pandemic. 

Eddie was a gandy dancer 
He only lasted a week
Driving nails, making peanuts, he said  
My time ain’t worth the grief   
Took a cab to see his girl
Spent the night half alone
Drinking wine, making love
In somebody’s home
Interrupted by the phone   

Back in the day, remember
Receivers on the wall 
Voices echo through the building
Between apartments in the hall
Shady and expensive
On the line was a certain man
You still working that railroad job?
Because I’ve got a handsome task
It was a complicated plan 

Gandy Dancer, Gandy Dancer
 
Eddie was a gandy dancer
And tried to keep it cool, but
In a day he’d make more money 
Than a year as a working fool
She said, oh, baby don’t you do it
He ignored her desperate pleas
Working on a straight job
Was close to slavery
Pinching pennies getting squeezed

Gandy Dancer, Gandy Dancer

Little did he know his neighbor
Was an eager beaver cop
Who loved to play canary
And was prone to eavesdrop
He never liked Eddie anyways 
Had a thing for his girlfriend
The cops were waiting armed and ready
The bank job met an early end
Up the river Eddie was sent

Eddie was a gandy dancer 
But he only lasted a week
Driving nails, making peanuts, he said
His time wasn’t worth the grief   
Couldn’t see his girl no more
Always alone
Stuck inside four walls
In somebody else’s home
Always waiting for the phone   
Gandy Dancer, Gandy Dancer

Words and Music by Doug Hoekstra, Doug Hoekstra Music BMI, Kobalt Music Services

Chris Benelli – drums, congas, percussion
Jimmy Bowland - sax
Dave Coleman – guitars, synth guitar
Hannah Fairlight - vocals
Doug Hoekstra – rhythm guitars, organ, Wurlitzer, vocals
Paul Slivka – bass
Preacher Boy - vocals

Recorded by Dave Coleman at Howard’s Apartment Studio and various locations in Nashville, Franklin, and Santa Cruz

Gandy Dancer

"A lot of people write songs, Hoekstra writes five-minute worlds” (Wired Magazine). Musician/author Doug Hoekstra started playing in bands in his hometown of Chicago, with alt-country Bucket Number Six, who released their eponymous debut on Butch Vig’s Boat Records label, followed by High On the Hog, produced by Shoes’ Jeff Murphy (with two cuts recorded at Sun Records, Memphis). 

Post-Bucket, Hoekstra moved to Nashville and began his career as a solo artist, releasing eight CDs on various indie labels in the U.S. and Europe over the next decade, including Rickety Stairs (Nashville Music Award nominee, Best Folk Album), Make Me Believe (Sam Cooke Sang the Gospel appearing in the film Strange Hearts), Around the Margins (Independent Music Award nominee), and Waiting (one of Paste Records inaugural releases). Hoekstra toured extensively on both sides of the pond in support, from castles to clubs to coffeehouses, live radio and letter fests (ala SXSW plus). His work draws comparisons to artists such as Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, and the Velvet Underground, with imagistic lyrics, intimate vocals, eclectic backing.  Key collaborators have included David Henry (Nashville), Jeff Kowalkowski (Chicago), and George Marinelli (Nashville).

In 2006, Hoekstra’s first collection of short stories Bothering the Coffee Drinkers, was an Independent Publisher Award finalist. Two years later, after his Blooming Roses CD, Hoekstra stepped back to focus on fatherhood and prose, stories and essays appearing in numerous literary journals. His first book of poetry, Unopened, was published in  2019; soon after he began work at Dave Coleman’s Howard Apartment Studio in Nashville, for "The Day Deserved," the album to be released in Spring 2021.   A new book of short stories, "Ten Seconds In-Between" is slated for June 2021, as well

Note on the Making Of "The Day Deserved"

“Basically, after all the creative activity I’d been engaged in over the years, I spent the past decade stepping away from music to raise my son, work non-profit, teach, and do some prose writing.  He’s older now and a couple years ago, I was inspired by the influx of free time, things in our country I wanted to write about, and things I wanted to say musically, different than I had in the past.  As my liner note says, “this is a record intended to be a marker of the times, disenfranchised characters inhabiting the tunes, pressing on through barriers and breaks fostered by their surroundings.  Often, they travel a circuitous route, reflected in music that mirrors their path to self-determination, authenticity, happiness.  Sometimes the fruits of this journey are reflected in something as simple as a better day, their day, the day deserved.”  Hope you enjoy and can find yourself between the notes.  (Doug Hoekstra, 2021)

Doug Hoekstra

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