This recording is culled from an old Idiot Plot rehearsal cassette, recorded in the spring of 2004 at Matt Taylor's house.  

We had just played a CD Release show, on 3/13/2004.  We were on a kind of high from that, and we were writing some new material.  Our new bassist, Zach Dodson, was proving to have an interesting influence on our material; the kinetic energy that he and our drummer, Ben Munkholm, concocted, drove us to some visceral places.  This was one of two or three songs we wrote with Zach's input.  It was conceived as an instrumental; we never even tried to write lyrics.

Matt "No Choice" Taylor - Guitar
Ryan Dannar - Guitar
Zach Dodson - Bass Guitar
Ben Munkholm - Drums

Originally recorded to two tracks on a crappy cassette-tape, using 2 crappy mics and a Tascam 424 MKii four-track.  Converted to digital and "mastered" (sort of) by Ryan.

Idiot Plot - Voodoo Doll (2004 Spring Rehearsal)

The final song on the "Soft December" EP, which I compiled for my family in December of 2006.  A song about dying, and about and those left behind.  I recorded this song a long time ago, on my cassette four-track, back before I was recording digitally.

04 Bloom

Track 3 from "Soft December," a short EP I recorded for my family in December of 2006.  This shivery piano tune is one of my favorite solo pieces I've written, but it's a bear to play, especially since I don't really play piano.  

Lyrics:

Baby, you should've known better
than to trust a loaded gun
But with a wink and a swagger
he just pulled your string 'til you came undone.

Just like a scene in a movie
how he swept you off your feet
You didn't see what was coming, didja,
'til he had you reeling down that empty street.

A-bang!  Crash!
The name is Love!
Sent down to the world to find ya!
With a rose and a loaded gun
to steal your heart and blow you away!

Are you looking for someone to hold you in the night?
Are you waiting for someone to tell you everything's alright?
It gets so hard to live when you're achin' for someone,
But there ain't no good can come to a girl from a loaded gun.

He kept you waiting for answers
left you hangin by a thread
You told yourself that he loved you
but that wasn't what he said.

You thought he'd give you the feeling
like a woman straight and tall
but all you got was a wound that left you
feeling old and used and very small.

Are you looking for someone to brighten up your day?
Are you waiting for someone to tell you that everything's okay?
We all want somebody to love when the work of the day is done
But there ain't no good can come
(ain't no good can come)
Ain't no good can come
(ain't no good can come)
No there ain't no good can come to a girl
from a loaded gun.

03 The Girl And The Loaded Gun

The second track on the "Soft December" EP, recorded for my family in December of 2006.  The song was just an experiment with a drum-machine and an R&B/Gospel-style vocal.  The lyrics are almost meaningless, just a bunch of phrases that sound nice and sing well, but really don't have much to say.

02 Wheels

This solo-acoustic number was the first track on "Soft December," an EP I recorded for my family in December of 2006.

Lyrics:

Of fire and family
Humor and home
Today I'm thankful
For all I've known

Aw, come inside
Don't have to hide
Call us anytime

I've walked a strange road
The distance grew
I am no longer
The child you knew
And how long
Can we take for granted
The ones we love?
Until they are walking
in fields above.

Aw, come inside
Don't have to hide
Call us anytime

01 Thankful

When I see you smile
I can measure the miles
'cross an ocean so wide
years adrift in the tide

searching for melody, you found
passage through the sound

but it's a lonely road
it's a lonely road.

Back behind these eyes
all these secrets I hide
grew a forest so tall
songbirds nest in my skull!

Why don't you stay with me, awhile
show me how you smile?

It's a lonely road
the only one I know
lift me of the ground
knock my fences down
songbird, take me home

Send me down the road
with that song you know
window of my 
soul, where 
the breeze come drifting in --

Songbird, take me home.

Songbird (solo demo)

Every time
I think about it
It bring a shiver right
down into my bones,
Where the light
of the living
burn a candle in the
halls I walk alone.
But I try!  I do!
Good God, you know I try --
But it ain't easy finding
someone else like you.
I need a sinner!
I need a saint!
I need a body who can 
stay the whole night through.

And when I look into your eyes,
there is a flame I recognize --
But you lead me on!

Oh-ho-oh, I go round...
The only thing you do is just make me cry!
But I wanna know, I wanna know
Why,
Why the river run to the only one?
The bow was strong, the aim was true.
I only want to be with you again,
My friend.
Tell me why?
Why you keep me strung, if I'm not the one?
Woe!

Well the wind
it is a-howlin'
like a wilderbeast
outside my windowpane --
where the night,
shifting shadows,
make a stranger of the
face of yesterday.
But!   Be brave!
Someone walked over my grave!
A ghost is lingerin'!
A cancer put its finger in my heart!
Says, "I been dyin' to meet you.
Won't you be dyin' too?
And don't you wanna see
if you're the one for me?"

And when I woke from that fever-dream,
I couldn't sleep for anything,
and the night was long.

Oh-ho-oh, (come down)
I'm not scared of shadows in the night.
But where were you, to make it right?
Gone!
Gone.
And it's stupid, yes, I know it's true --
how something can take hold of you so long
though it do you wrong.
Oh, why?
Why?

Was that your voice?  Called me by name?  Wrote down my number?


...Shed of the skin
I was born,
Born again,
and the world said,
"Welcome."

Demos

Pink Elephant (solo demo)

A really silly cover of Radiohead's "Just," done with a whispery "soul" vocal delivery style.  This made for an entertaining project one evening, and I was primarily interested in the verse/chorus/verse part of the song, so I didn't even attempt the bridge or solo sections.

Covers

Just (Radiohead Cover)

Romeo and Juliet as Adam and Eve, or perhaps the other way round?  A pretty solid draft of a song from the "Phantasmagoria" cycle I'm working on.   I like what's here, but that long bridge just has the wrong kind of character; it breaks the urgent mood of the tune, and takes it somewhere that's... well, it's nice, but it just doesn't feel right to me.  Anyway, I wanted to post this version for what it's worth, because there are many things I like about it -- but I'm literally already re-writing half the song, and that dorian guitar solo (as much as I kinda love it) has got to go.

Also worth noting:  The lyric is not complete.  I have a solid first/second verse, and a chorus. The third/fourth verses remain to be written.  (So here, I've simply repeated the lyric for verses 1 and 2.)

The artwork I chose is a still from a Mike Figgis film called "The Loss of Sexual Innocence."  Kind of an art film.  Not as dirty as it sounds.  I saw the movie once, a long time ago.  I don't recall thinking it was particularly good -- but its Black Adam/White Eve imagery really stuck with me, and is reason enough to check the film out.

Runaways 1.0 (w/ Leads, Dorian Solo)

This is just an instrumental doodle.  The point was mainly to explore the sounds I can get using my new Lionheart L20T-112 amp.  So I've kept the tone as pure and "live" as possible.  No EQ except for the EQ of the guitar and the amp itself.  The rhythm guitar was a Fender Strat played through an MXR Carbon Copy (with the modulation enabled), using the amp's clean channel.  The lead was an Epiphone SG, played through the amp's drive-channel, with the reverb cranked up a bit.  The rhythm was mic'ed using a StudioProjects C4.  The lead was mic'ed using an SM57.  As far as mixing goes, all I did was pan the tracks 40%L/40%R, reduce the lead-track by about 0.5db, and to boost the master-bus by about 2db using a decent limiter.

Anyway, dig that sweet tone!

To Have and To Hold (Amp Demo)

This is the first full sketch of a work in progress. (Scroll on down for lyrics!) It's probably the most avant-garde thing I've ever allowed myself to write -- but that was the shape this piece needed to take.  The "ambient" middle-section likely goes on a little too long, and the song could benefit from some well-considered percussion and a better-sounding bass-guitar.  But overall, I think it's a pretty cool early demo and I wanted to share it.

- ALL IS LOST - 

Black on black, or so they say
The clothes of the enemy
make him so 
hard to see
 in the dead of the night
  until he is right
   upon you.

Some slight of hand
The deal and the card hidden upsleeve
secrets and plans
revealed as the cellblock surrounds you
All is lost
All is not lost
All is lost
A shadow moves in the darkness...

(your kin turn around
his words in their mouths
the mask is off
his face is everywhere)
-
"Give us a sign
nothing but stars up in the sky
black (dark) as the final curtain
live if you dare
-
hope and despair
will pair in your head; the trick is, now,  
holding them side by side like
the blue and the red."
-
And that's what he said,
before he consumed the poison.
-
Some slight of hand
The deal and the card hidden upsleeve
secrets and plans
revealed as the cellblock surrounds you
All is lost
All is not lost
All is lost
All is naught--

All Is Lost (1/12/20 Sketch)

No lyric, no concept.  Just the embellishment of a riff into a groove, and the result of a couple of hours of playing around in Ableton.

insects_insex

Dust (lyric)

give me some water
mercy to faze this blazing heat
dried up a river,
left a divide
so wide
and deep

fields of my father
salt of the earth, fat of the land
song of our sorrow  
watch every tear
dissolve
in sand

I got nothin' to lose
Just the stars above
and the dust in my shoes...

Sweet California,
See me to
Bakersfield or Bust,
Ashes to ashes,
oh Lord,
and Dust
To dust.

In the summer, so sweet
In the garden
Near the ivy and the reeds
I will meet you there,
and we will wade into the stream
There'll be time again
for lightness, and dream...

Dust

I'm a Tulsa-based guitarist/singer/songwriter who has performed with Dachshund and Idiot Plot, among others.

Ryan Dannar

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