Name: February Days.mp3 by EW Scott
Duration: 3 min 31 s
Description: This is an Ambition Recliner song from 2009. Eric on vocals and guitar, Neil Fasen on bass, Tom Kemmer on drums. It’s about the frustration of hopeless relationships, seasonal anxiety disorder and loathing February.

It's about time February got its own song.

This song is “Heartbreak Soup” from my 1988 tape “Sympathy Dance”.  It is one of two songs inspired by a comic book story in Love and Rockets.  The other song is Radio Zero.

19 Heartbreak Soup

These two song fragments come right after “Three Blue Teardrops” on my “Unfortunate Rhymes” tape from 1989. 
 
The first segment seems to consist of only two chords.  On top of the two monotonous acoustic guitar chords are some splashes of electric distortion guitar.  A sort of surreal repeated chant about ten spiders and one of them crawling into my ear and singing.  The heat in Chico must have been getting to me or something. 

Because these are short unfinished pieces, I posted the two together as they appeared on the tape.

“Patricia de Rowland” is about a young woman local to Chico that was in a band called “Vomit Launch” at the time.  Heather had a tape of theirs around and I never liked their music.  I didn’t like the name of their band and the music seemed like obnoxious, tuneless punk to me.

My lyrics imagine what Patricia (Trish) would have been like as a little girl and my harsh judgments about the band.  I must have seen her around town from time to time.  Not sure why I had what seems to be a mild obsession about it.  It could just be that I thought her name would fit lyrically in a song.  I think I would have liked Lindsey Thrasher (the other girl in the band) better.  Maybe I should have done a song about Lindsey and the dresses she wore.

The guitar part for this song consists of only three bass notes and some distortion guitar at the end.  I’m not sure why I didn’t bring in some guitar chords for the song.  Maybe I just liked the simple sound at the time.

In the process of posting the song, I looked up “Vomit Launch” on the internet.  I didn’t expect there to be anything.  I thought they would be a totally forgotten band.  But, there’s actually quite a bit about them and there is even a short Wikipedia about them:

Vomit Launch was an indie rock band formed in Chico, California in 1985 as "an excuse to drink beer".    

I suppose Trish must have written the article.  I may just have to write a sequel to the song focusing on what Trish is doing now.

There are also a few videos of the band on line.  Allegedly, MTV’s 120 Minutes played a part of this video once at some point:

http://youtu.be/ULd_MiMX9ZQ

This particular song sounded better to me last night than what I remember most of their stuff sounding like.  Anyway, it made me sort of nostalgic for my days in Chico.  It brought me back to another time.


12 Ten Little Spiders - Patricia de Rowland

Yet another song from my “Unfortunate Rhymes” tape that I recorded in Chico, CA in 1989.

When I was out in California, I heard that the son of the neighbor across the alley from the house that I grew up in had hung himself in his Mother’s garage.  He was my age and there were many elements of the story that haunted me.

That story was the basic origin of the song.  I felt that his act of suicide was really a selfish thing and though I felt bad about it, I did not want to pity him.  The one’s that were hurt was his Mother, sisters, the daughter he left behind and all those that knew him.

I also mixed in some feelings about an older brother of mine that seemed to have mental/emotional problems.  The song touches on fictitiously having him committed for his bizarre hurtful acts.   Again, he was so cruel that I did not have pity for him.

This song is from my distortion guitar period and there is a nice distortion lead.


14 Pity You

Kal - Scratches

Pandemic #4

I've see the basketball, I've seen the stars.

Within the past year or so, I dreamed this first line of a song.  It didn't really make much sense, so I added some more words that didn't make all that much sense for this song fragment.

Let This Brother Sleep (G)

Pandemic #5

I used a vintage vacuum tube practice amp for the guitar and bass.  It's an amp like Jimi Hendrix had.  A friend in California gave it to me many years ago.  The old, worn strap broke when I brought it up from the basement.  An old toothpick was sticking out of the top that holds a fuse in place.

She Said (H)

This is an Ambition Recliner song from 2009. Eric on vocals and guitar, Neil Fasen on bass, Tom Kemmer on drums. It’s about the frustration of hopeless relationships, seasonal anxiety disorder and loathing February.

February Days.mp3

I’ve been writing and recording songs since 1992. You can probably hear my influences (Mojave 3, Beck, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, John Lennon, Woods, Mountain Goats) in there somewhere. I tend to focus on lyrics and melody more than production and performance. I’m not a great guitar player nor have I ever tried to be. I’m more interested in singing and writing.

February Days.mp3

EW Scott

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Mark Charles Schussler

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