To Sir, With Love (cover w/original vocals)

Ruminating

What's He Doing In There ?

Photo is Lulu at Muscle Shoals studio.
Two turn tables and a microphone. Well, maybe three drum samples and an upright bass. No actual blisters, thanks for the suggestion John, but that tall old man can take a punch. Felt like Daffy at the last take. "I can only do this trick once." My little tribute to the joys of bass playing. ;)

I Got Blisters On My Fingers

Laisse Tomber Les Filles (reframed)

Couch King

Oh baby I’m lazy
But
There is no other
I’ve got the love
To fill a small basket

When you got the time
Concede me your supper
Let this be the summer
For all human kindness
Girl

Oh how sedate
Make a new day out of 
Eight
Yeah

Make up some lies
And feed them to lovers
I’ve got no time
To make a new
Casket

Give me a kiss and 
Find me a shovel
I’ll do the digging
If you’ll take the trouble
Girl

Come now don’t conflate
Love and real estate 

Baby I’ve got you under my skin
You’re my little botfly 
Of sin

Make out in pieces
Break out your mother
Spread new diseases
And hurt one another

Help spread the hatred
You think you invented
You think you’re so clever
But you’re really demented
Girl

Yeah ain’t it grand
And apparently all to plan

Baby I’ve got you under my skin
You’re my little botfly 
Of sin

Botfly

Girls Just Want To Have Fun (The rock version)

Dedicated to my brother Cristopher Robert (1969-1996). Now gone almost as long as he was here.

Hey sometimes I see you standing
In my dreams
But I can no longer hear your voice
You’re mute to me
I miss you
And it still hurts

All my memories of you have become
Old stale vignettes
It’s just not as much fun when you have
All the answers first
I know you’d visit
If you could
So if you’re out there
It’s understood

You were just a kid sometimes I wonder
What we’d talk about
I think I’d be ashamed
My belly full of
What you went without
But I know you love me
And wouldn’t eat off my plate
You can play your cards right
But you can’t beat fate

You Can't Beat Fate

Endless Summer

Friday, I'm In Love (Cover)

I'll give you anything, everything if you want things

Bike (Cover)

Night Party

Funky

Love's Theme (cover)

Uptight

An imaginary theme to an old imaginary show.

Firefly

Me and ghosts. I've always thought this one sounds so much like a jazz club in NYC. I can smell the perfume, stale beer and cigarettes.

Four

One of my favorite bass lines by one of my favorite bass players on one of my favorite albums by one of my favorite artists. Borrowed back with a bit more of my home added. Oh by the way, Elvis is a jive-assed limey.

Opportunity (cover)

My Shining Hour

Oh Woe Is The Teenage Age Heart

I'm such a fan of Axel's wonderful guitar work. I wrote this piece in hopes that he might be generous enough to join me on the track. Thanks Axel a man who is as warm and thoughtful as his playing.
For those who haven't already had the pleasure, find more of Axel's playing here: @axelweis 
Art by Jack Allen

Crabgrass (An Axel Weiß  collaboration)

At some point, a long time ago, I gave up on creating a "new" musical language. It was still possible, in the late nineteen eighties and early nineties when I came of age, for me to see music as a linear progression. In my early twenties I would compose pieces that I thought of as new jazz. Of course they weren't. Just very individual songs in older styles with some ideas for other styles. A dash of Duke Ellington arraignment, a snippet of Monk perhaps a teaspoon of Syd Barrett mixed with some rock and roll harmony. Eventually, after a long pause in playing at all, I came to make music, I see as, more in line with the pop artists like Warhol and, especially Lichtenstein. My own musical ideas are still there but slyly inserted into pieces that are consciously, imprecisely, modeled on other works or styles. Anyway I went to see the new version of West Side Story with my wife the other day. The original show made right before that "pop" era. It was so sincere. No irony with an honest attempt to bring musical theater "forward". I so enjoyed it even if it's a bit middle brow Americana. I'm writing this description in hopes of being equally sincere. The melody borrows a bit of "Somewhere" as a tip of the hat. I hope. My big musical ideas, besides that, are as follows. The key may sound a bit vague at times but floats between B major, E major and A major so that classic one four five, if somewhat buried. the time signature changes a few times, briefly, and syncopates when it doesn't. There's the Syd Barrett influence for those keeping score. There's also some willful changes from major to minor in the harmony that are classic rock ideas. Even if, in this context, they eventually become key changes. Well that's enough sincerity. Oh except for the photo. It's Miss Place. My wife maiden name and me back when I would have written something like this. ;)

Miss Place

Blank Space (Reframing)

Pumkin Pie

Monkey Parts

Got to work with Marc Freak @marcfreak on this one after he foolishly offered to, in a comment on a track of mine. I spent a bit of time in London in the late eighties. Boy George was king, the food was still mostly bland and there were a million different rules for dress depending on where you went. Funny how sometimes things can be so foreign and familiar at the same time. I have lots of thoughts but I won't bore you. Oh and the music. I knew most of the bands but it did change my perception a bit to hear them in context. Thanks so much Marc for the singing, melody, lyrics and maybe some context. ;)
Lyrics:

PERFECT DREAM
Jumping out of the frying pan into the fire
Like a drug bust with a visible wire
But its worth it for the time that we spend
And I pray they don't end

All I crawled through has the skin busy itching
And my internet is permanently glitching
But I cannot bare the time we're apart
Its a trial of the heart

CHORUS
Is this just a perfect dream that's coming true?
I want to spend the whole of my brief life with you

When you're standing in darkness and a glimpse of light shines through
When you're lit up like a beacon
And although you are freaking I'm loving this dream come true
With you

And the time I have left grows ever shorter
I am drowning in invisible water
Its a failure on my part I can't swim
And the prospects look grim

There's a torch that ever shines in the distance
Hold my hands up - show no signs of resistance
I'm a prisoner of love 
I don't mind in fact I'm pleased to do time

CHORUS

When you're standing in darkness and a glimpse of light shines through
When you're lit up like a beacon
And everyone's peeking 
I'm loving this dream come true

Perfect Dream (A Marc Freak Collaboration)

Always Something There To Remind Me

Dance Party!!!

Lyrics

Every time I see your face
I feel my 
Heart race
I can't believe I got the luck
To get in
Your good grace

I am the worm
You are the dirt
the good Lord
Placed me on this Earth
Just to
Chase after your skirt

And when the sun don't shine
And when my life feels black
You move your heart right next to mine
And a cut me a little slack

Your smiling face refracts the light
Straight into
My place
My life has been a decent hand
But you are
My only Ace

I am a slug
You are the warm wet place
The good Lord
Placed me on the Earth
Just to
Gaze upon your face

I do not believe in God
I don't think there'll be any place else
And if I'm right and this is all I get
I'm thankful my cup was filled

-Guitar solo-

And when the sun don't shine
And when my life feels black 
You move your heart right next to mine 
And a cut me a little slack

Cut Me A Little Slack

I sent the original tracks over to Couch King some time ago after working with him on a couple of his projects. I've always wanted to do a hip hop track with some rapping but it's the one thing I haven't gotten down yet. I love what he did both musically and with the subject matter. Plus what a sweetheart to work with. I got it 99% done but then got really busy and left him hanging for far too long. After some gentle prodding, I finally finished. Thanks again Marquis! :)

And So You Say(A Couch King/Jon Lock joint production)

What a great guy to work with. This is the second track, that I wrote, that Couch King worked and rapped on. Love his positive energy both in music and life. Thanks Marquis!
https://soundcloud.com/king-of-the-couch
 Here's a bit more information, for those who are curious.
I am by no means in the habit of explaining what I was trying to say in a piece of music. I generally think the views of an artist on their own work are often, at best, partial or wrong and, at worst, self-serving. It's be better to stick to answering questions if asked(not that for the most part people's interest in my music rises to the level that they do ;). I've started to rethink that position though, in light of my own interest in what the people I listen to are thinking, and in any case I probably owe my collaborator a fuller accounting. I'll start with my own relationship to hip-hop. I'm older than the form. Making it the only major form of music that that is true of. It was also born close, geologically and culturally, to where I'm from but not in my neighborhood so to speak. So to me it's like the kid from down the block, say, four years younger. Growing out of the same environment, ie. soul, funk, jazz, etc., but with a bit of a divide. That being it's original construction out of samples. It was an audio collage art form. This has over time changed of course, although the original form still exerts influence over the way it's played and constructed. I had none of this in my mind when I sent the original tracks to Marquis(Couch King) but when he sent back his first rough draft of his rap; a thought came together in my mind. His speedy delivery set against my languid backing track brought to mind a slightly self conscious dinner guest. A new friend over for the first time. Filling in details of his life, and how he thinks about it, through stories of his past. The first verse addressing his new friends on his background. Small talk if you will. As he gets more intense though he starts to really talk to, in his mind, his father and then an old lover. Not unusual in an interesting, thoughtful conversation, no? I'm taking the role of the host of course. Inviting the younger, but now mature, man from the old neighborhood to my home. It's a dinner party so there are other people there. Chirping in about drinking, smoking, Nietzsche, chasing girls and his date sighing about his story(the samples in order except the bell which I'd rather not explain, you've got to leave something, no?). The music changing as his stories effect the mood in the room. The host though shares nothing. Polite and reasonably warm but sphinx like and a bit haughty. Making interesting ambiguous comments and not explaining them.

Dinner Party (A Couch King Collaboration)

Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!

The great Grandfather of garage rock done as garage rock.

Gnoissienne No. 1

Hey Bulldog (cover)

A collaboration with a fellow bedroom producer. Although, Emily gets out much more now that she's dead.
Lyrics by Emily Dickinson

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading - treading - till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum -
Kept beating - beating - till I thought
My mind was going numb -

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space - began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down -
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing - then -

I Felt A Funeral, In My Brain

Leave Us Alone

I'm a conceptual musical artist but the concepts are vague and I'm not willing to explain them.

jon lock

Pinned to spotlight

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