Late Nite Cookin' Ditty

If there's any Moby or Eels fans out there, you might enjoy this one.  Totally unintentional, but it strikes me as similar to their work.
Anyhow, this is basically a poem I wrote set to music.  It's an exaggerated metaphor therapeutically recounting something that happened recently.  If you can be the first person to figure it out, I will send you a chocolate bar in the mail.

Artwork derived from:  chriscold.deviantart.com/art/Forest-Mirage-145266979

=========================================================================

Lyrics:

The woods were thick with wolves
As always they had been
But these days I was well-equipped and keen
I'd fashioned metal plates
To form a thicker skin
And kept a sword and dagger sharp and clean

But as I ventured on
Into the endless night
I happened on to something strange and new
Ahead a giant orb
Awash in yellow light
Began to draw and permeate my view

I cautiously approached
Inspecting every curve
Before I dared to step within the sphere
And when inside, I felt
My senses might unnerve
But then the glow insisted not to fear

The place was dry and warm
And guarded from outside
A haven for the weary, seemingly
I found a seat of plush
And, too, a table wide
With fresh hors d'oeuvres and wine set out for me

I freed my hands and feet
From dirty leatherwear
And took advantage of the kindness shown
It all could disappear
Into the frigid air
Before I'd properly made it my own

I tossed my armor off
I put my weapons down
I ate as many grapes as I could eat
Then fashioned with the leaves
A temporary crown
And flippantly kicked up my muddy feet

And all while unaware
The forest wolves had made
Their way to making circles round the orb
I didn't even see
The glow begin to fade
Within my haven, I was self-absorbed

The sphere began to thin
As it was destined to
And I began to sense the wooded cold
The seat became a shrub
The yellow turned to blue
The table just a log replete with mold

I sprang to consciousness
The wolves were all around
I stood there naked as a dying tree
My armor lay beyond
The pack, along the ground
And neither could I fetch my weaponry

So I just fled into
The forest night until
I found a limb's protection in the air
But hounded still the thought:
How could I hope to dwell
Inside a place that wasn't really there?

Wolfhaven

My latest full-length album!  Available now at jarvix.bandcamp.com or any other place you'll find music online (iTunes, Amazon, etc.)

"Hugh Manatee & Other Favorites" is a 14-track collection of original material written, performed, & produced by yours truly (with a couple of additional credits here and there).  Familiar listeners will know many of these songs from Soundcloud, but a number of them have been revised or remade for better quality.  For folks less familiar, this should serve as a pretty ideal primer for my style of music, which can be both fun and introspective (or so I'm told).

Photo by Chandler Watson, design by Clint Walkingstick

Thanks for listening!

Hear the whole thing!

"Hugh Manatee & Other Favorites" Album Teaser

A new song off my new full-length album, Hugh Manatee & Other Favorites!  As promised in the description of the audio trailer, here is a special 15% off discount code for you Soundclouders!  The code is "glossyplastic" -- use it now at jarvix.bandcamp.com!!
And as always, thanks for listening!

Snappy Brix (plus exclusive album discount!)

I was recently subjected to one year of Top 40 radio. This is my coping mechanism.

130BPMEP satirizes pop/EDM music cliches over an unchanging four-on-the-floor kick tempo. It runs through a handful of distinct genres and draws heavily from electronic music. Therefore, no ukulele on this one, friends.

Lyrics and individual track downloads at jarvix.bandcamp.com


(btw - Been a while, Soundcloud! I've been working the local scene here in Devon City, but here's a new release thingy for you! How have you been, Soundcloud? I see you've made some changes. Well, let's stay in touch, eh, Soundcloud? ttyl)

Download the tracks!

130BPMEP (full)

Sausage Fanfare

Hot Dog!

Shot entirely in single takes with filmmaker Jake Kelley, this four-video solo performance series features three new original songs and one alternate version of a selection from 2015's Hugh Manatee album. A limited edition cassette release will feature the three new songs as they were performed in the videos.

(videos can be seen here: www.youtube.com/channel/UCqad2gvBS34oAu7NNihNVYA)

As You Are: The Looper Sessions is about vulnerability and privacy, hope and hesitancy, light and dark. Using a looping pedal, overdubs stack in real time and capture a spontaneous balance of human imperfection and inspiration that comes with raw performance. This reflects ideas presented in the song lyrics, which explores the isolation of safety and the nervous excitement of new ventures.

This project is a message to people, introverts and extroverts alike, who face internal battles that may keep parts or all of them in the shadows: you can be beautiful - and courageous - as you are.

As You Are: The Looper Sessions

Seattlesong

As You Are

Concrete Soul

Cake City

written & recorded in the wake of losing work due to COVID-19

lyrics:

Nobody wants to buy flowers
At the twilight of civilization
Cities of crumbling towers
Have no use for a frail carnation

Everyone's bent on survival
With a primal competitive temper
Beauty's a luxury rivaled
Only by not a bang but a whimper

By trade I once was a florist
Now my skills are a trivial tome
Alas I'm a bumbling tourist
In a place that I used to call home

And so I indulge in creation
When there's only destruction around
I trim and arrange my carnations
Then I lay my bouquets on the ground

-

And I offer the world another chance
To rekindle its old romance
With color and fragrance and art
Oh, don't lose your heart

-

Seems to me I shall be martyred
For my faith in the eyes of beholders
Nothing remains to be bartered
But my craft and the clothes on my shoulders

But talents of beautification
Carry negative value these days
For too much attention to station
Is attention this frontier betrays

-

Yet I offer the world another chance
To look inward and reconsider its stance
On color and fragrance and art
Oh, don't lose your heart

-

Our final date of existence
Is decreed to at last have befallen
No stretch of human resistance
Can provide a safe bunker to crawl in

So they peer out of their stations
With their softened brows no longer cages
People, like wilted carnations
Getting sun for the first time in ages

It's only a matter of hours
'Til humanity meets its demise
They look to my luminous flowers
As the colors flood into their eyes

They barter me stockpiled defenses
Wrapped in burlap and steel safes and vials
They breathe and awaken their senses
As escapes from them teary-eyed smiles

-

And they offer the world another glance
At the lifeblood of human spirit and dance
Don't wait a lifetime to start
Oh, unprickle your heart
No, don't lose your heart

Doomsday Carnations

I Love You, Root Beer

Shades of Grey (rough draft)

An Exorcism

One Size Fits All

Are you an armored searobin? Then this song is for you!!

You Armored Searobin, You

Handmade, thoughtful quirkpop ukulele tunes with the occasional flair for experimentation.

Jarvix

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