The Mitchell-Feeney Project – Track 2, The Road.

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The sun beats down like judgement

on the armour-plated road

I just called out God and the Devil

and neither of them showed,

and there’s a sour smell of whiskey sweat

on the air-conditioned air

sometimes I think I care too much

and sometimes I just don’t care……

The Road….a song about a man who has run out of options.

 

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Click Here to Buy album or Individual Tracks

To buy the song, album, click on link above, the album is also available on iTunes (search for “The Mitchell Feeney Project”, no hyphen).

 Notes..

In this lyric, I wanted to imply a story through a series of images. This proved to be harder than I thought! This is one of those songs that John and I kicked back and forward a bit, tweaking the lyric. The chorus was always there, though!

Now, John will tell you how he took the words on paper and worked his magic……. (by the way one of my favourite moments in this song is when the guitar solo kicks in after the second chorus)….here’s John:

 When I read Jim’s poem, “The Road” I could see myself looking through the cracked and dusty windshield of a ’81 Pontiac Catalina, on that real, dry stretch of highway between Santa Rosa and Albuquerque, New Mexico, that seems to go on forever.  The song obviously needed a rolling tempo to match the movement of the car, and I thought that the jangle sound of my Rickenbacker electric 12 string guitar and a solid drum track would add to the constant moving effect. I use the key of G, because that open G chord with an added D on the B string really has an open ringing sound, Lots of fifths. I also felt that the song needed a bridge, but felt that it didn’t need a bridge with a lyric, so just added some different chords and put in a guitar solo using a Standard Strat. on the middle pick-up. Jim’s poems always feel like they have a country twang to them, so an all guitar background was the right thing and some nice tight 2 part harmony seemed to work, thanks to singer, Nikki MN, who just happened to be here from London.

(Photo: Sunrise 1)

 

The Mitchell-Feeney Project – Upcoming Album (Crossing the line between Poetry and Song-Writing)

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I was sitting down one night over a few drinks with my good friend, John Mitchell, talking about music, poetry and soccer when the subject of song lyrics and song writing came up. At that point in the evening where the power of drink makes every idea seem like a good one, John suggested that we should write a song together.  John is a successful professional musician and I am a chemical engineer and occasionally published poet, so I have to admit I felt  a bit out of my league, but I agreed anyway!

Over the next few days, I pulled out some poems I had hanging around but none of them really fitted the bill given that they were basically non rhyming free verse. I had a phrase, though, – “sitting in this motel room/ I could be sitting anywhere”- and I started to develop a character and story around that phrase. The final lyric eventually became the song, “Emma Jean”, which you can take a listen to below. It’s a long way from words on paper to a finished song, and that’s where John’s talent as a singer, song writer, composer, musician and arranger took over (in other words, John did the heavy lifting!). Here’s the song, please, please use headphones to listen rather than just your computer’s speakers, the song is mixed with headphones in mind.

In the end John and I collaborated on 5 songs which, together with 2 songs written by John alone,  we have put together on an album.

Click here to preview the whole album, and if you like the songs, buy one, buy them all!! Also available on iTunes (search for “The Mitchell Feeney Project”, no hyphen)

A few notes about the song “Emma Jean”, it was obvious from the start that this would be a country song, it’s about divorce,  separation, there’s a child involved, and what could be more country than that? But I wanted to avoid formula, so the story took a twist, at the end, that perhaps disqualifies it as a mainstream modern country song, but hey, never pander!   Initially, the song didn’t have the middle two verses, being more accustomed to writing poetry where my rule is “say what you have to say with as few words as possible”,  I thought I had said enough. But songs need verses and John told me to flesh it out a bit, so I came up with the lines “Who know why love goes wrong/ It’s not written anywhere” and took it from there. John was right of course, the extra verses created context. Now…over to John!

Writing lyrics for me, is about as easy as giving birth, not that I have experience of both. My lyrics are either incredibly self indulgent or incredibly preachy, or a bit of both. The ability to paint pictures with words is truly an amazing gift and I appreciate that gift in others. My favourite lyricists tell stories and take us to another place and time or share experiences through someone else’s eyes. When I first read Jim’s poem, Emma Jean, I could see that motel room and I could smell the mixture of stale beer and carpet cleaner that is the telltale odour of cheap motels. I recognise it from years on the road with bands.

In the case of “Emma Jean”, the music came quickly. First, it had to be in a minor key, as the story was fairly dark and the background music needed to be sparse with minimal instruments so as not to interfere with the lyrics – just guitar, a little bass, and a touch of southern slide. The vocal tries to express how Emma Jean’s dad would feel in that hotel room – loneliness with a good helping of bitterness. I then wanted to use different instruments to accent the chorus, so I added accordion and trombone and orchestral cymbals. The acoustic guitar( a Larrivee D-50)  and vocal are all real, but all the other sounds are digital samples. I recorded it all on my laptop using the program, Logic, and mixed the tunes for headphones to hear the full spectrum of instruments.  

As Jim noted above, please use headphones to listen to the sample track above or plug into a good set of speakers.

In our next post, John and I will discuss another track on the album.

Driving Home with Leonard Cohen

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Driving Home with Leonard Cohen

Despite what he says

not everybody knows,

not everybody knows

like Leonard knows.

Not everybody knows

that the best songs

are about loss,

endings,

so long,

ways to say goodbye

closing time,

and that age

can be laughed about

but not at,

if I had a hat

I would raise it to Mr.Cohen

perched up there alone

in his ancient tower.

This is a re-blog of a post from last year.

Where have all the Good Rhymes gone?

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Where have all the Good Rhymes Gone?

 I’m not sure when rhymes all but disappeared from modern poetry, but pick up any recent collection and you would be hard put to find a single rhyme. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing, on the other hand, stop anyone in the street and ask them to recite their favourite poem and invariably, if they reply at all, it will be a rhyming poem. So people like rhyme but if poets have stopped rhyming where do people go for their rhyming fix?

The answer of course is popular song. Pop, folk, country, rock, rap, hip hop could not function without rhyme; obvious rhyme mostly, rhyme that can seen coming a mile away. If you hear ‘dance’ there will be ‘romance’; if you hear ‘night’, it’s going to be ‘alright’, if you hear “love’, there will be a ‘sky above’. This can be boring or comforting depending on your point of view. But there are rhymes in popular song, rhymes that avoid cliché, that manage to surprise. For example:

The bridge at midnight trembles

The country doctor rambles.

(Bob Dylan from “Love minus Zero, No Limits)

Or more recently, check out the “The Trapeze Swinger” from Sam Beam[i] of Iron and Wine who writes songs of such fragile beauty that it feels like they will fall apart if you touch them.

But please remember me, fondly

I heard from someone you’re still pretty

And then they went on to say that the Pearly Gates

Had some eloquent graffiti

 Or, from the White Album:

I’m so tired, I’m feeling so upset

Although I’m so tired, I’ll have another cigarette

And curse Sir Walter Raleigh

He was such a stupid get[ii].

‘Trembles, ‘rambles’, ‘poetry’, ‘graffiti’, ‘cigarette’, stupid get’, all rhymes that don’t resort to cliché, that manage to surprise and there are many more. So if there is anyone out there reading this, send me your favorites, let’s get a list going! Only two criteria: 1) the rhyme must surprise 2) no rhymes ending in ‘ution’ as in “make revolutions/ not institutions/ dilution/ is not the solution/ to pollution/ make restitution…enough already.

*******

[i] Why has Sam Beam not been made poet laureate of the United States of America? He could have written “Trapeze Swinger” alone, and he would be streets ahead of anyone else. Graffiti on the pearly gates -‘tell my mother not to worry’,  ‘rug-burned babies’, ‘a trapeze swinger as high as any savior’; check it out here:

[ii] Some websites write this as “stupid git”, but the album liner notes show it as “stupid get” which obviously rhymes better but also it would be more likely that Lennon being from Liverpool would use the Irish (and also Scottish) pronunciation ‘get’ rather than ‘git’ which is more common in the south of England. By the way, Wiktionary suggests that ‘get’ is related to the word ‘beget’, whereas I think it is more likely that it comes from the gaelic word ‘geit’ meaning ‘fright’ or ‘terror’. The meaning has since morphed into something close to ‘jerk’.

 

Having a Pint with Adele (and the meaning of post modern)

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It is late afternoon in The Post Coital Beetle and Slim and I are starting into our first pitcher of Blue Buck Ale, nachos have been ordered. On the television screen on the wall in front of us, a baseball player is attacking a dugout water cooler with his bat. The television is on mute. Adele emotes in the background.

It’s been a while since Slim and I have got together and although nothing has been said, I sense that he has a beef of some kind. Not that this is unusual, having a beef is Slim’s default mode, but at the moment he seems relaxed. He has just finished a three hour practice with his band “Bad Complexion”. Slim plays bass and does background vocals. The armpits of his faded Clash T shirt are wet with sweat and the T shirt has been washed so many times that it no longer fits, leaving a gap of bristly pink flesh above the belt of his jeans. The image of a pig’s cheek pops into my head.

He’s smiling.

“She’s really just an old-fashioned British pop singer, isn’t she?” He says.

“Who?”

“Adele, you know…somewhere between Lulu and Shirley Bassey.”

“I guess…she also has that girl next door thing”

“Exactly,” Slim says, “like Cilla Black.”

“That name brings to mind a small black and white television set”

“You could have a pint with Adele,” Slim says, wistfully, and we both fall silent thinking about sharing a pint with Adele.

The pub door opens and closes. Cold blast of January air. Skunky whiff of over-hopped ale. Or is that Slim’s armpit? The silence lingers a little too long.

“I’ve taken up cooking, I’ve become a devotee of Wolfgang Puck.”

Slim does an owl blink, I can almost hear his brain working.

“Who the fuck

is Wolfgang

Puck? And why

should I care?”

He intones smugly.

“You’re doing that 12 syllable slimverse thing again, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he says, “and that reminds me, I have a bone to pick with you.”

Ahh, not a beef but a bone.

“Shoot”

“This lame-ass blog of yours, I thought it was supposed to be devoted to my poems, but lately it’s all your stuff and you’ve taken stories I’ve told you and used them for your poems and created this character called Slim”

“I’m being post-modern”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“You know, there are many ways of knowing and many truths to a fact.

“Crystal clear then, how can anything be post-modern? ‘Modern’ means ‘of the present’ – ‘now’, the only possible way a work could be post-modern would be if it was written in the future, for that we will have to wait for the invention of time travel.”

He folds his arms, discussion over.

“You have a point. Anyway, you haven’t been giving me much to publish lately.”

“Ok, how about this one, it’s called ‘Rasta’:

It’s a fact

all Rastas

are born out

of dreadlock.”

“Amusing, but a bit thin, we need flesh on the bones, Slim, flesh on the bones. Besides, I’m not so sure about this slim verse thing.”

Slim drains his half full pint glass and refills it.

“Go on.” He says.

“Well, you know, the haiku has got a headlock on internet poetry and it has seventeen syllables to work with, that’s five more than a slimverse. Now I hear that someone in the north of England has come up with a new form – the ‘anchored terset’ which is essentially a three word/four line poem, the fourth line being a punctuation mark, for example:

Sky

Field

Cow

.

It’s a race towards nothingness.”

Slim drains his pint glass and leans forward, his finger poking in my direction.

“Here’s an anchored terset for you….

You

Fuck

Off

!”

He tries to storm out but because we are in a booth he has to slide along the bench seat, his stomach rubbing against the table’s edge. His T shirt rides up. At the same time the waitress arrives with a plate of nachos shaped like a volcano, a volcano spewing molten cheese lava. The waitress stares in horror at the sinkhole that is Slim’s navel. Slim shouts at the waitress:

“I thought I said ‘hold the jalapenos’!

We watch him leave, on his back Paul Simonon slams his Fender Precision Bass into the stage at The Palladium in New York city.

“He seems upset”, the waitress says, and I’m thinking:

I can’t see

the pulled pork,

she forgot

the pulled pork.

 

After all

that bother

she forgot

the pulled pork.

 

 

Reference:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/feb/04/a-brief-guide-anchored-terset-poetry

 

 

 

Closing Time (Expanded version with additional rhyme)

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Closing Time

Chairs stacked

legs in the air

like dead flies,

 

the barman

has that blank look

in his eyes

 

I’m sitting

watching suds dry

in an empty glass

 

and thinking

it’s July,

twenty sixteen

 

and events

are ripping by

at such a pace

 

it seems that

five minutes

ago was

 

a simpler,

more innocent

time .

 

 

 

Jeffrey Toobin – He’s not romantic about carbon byproducts

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In a recent interview in the New York Times Book Review, Jeffrey Toobin (author of ‘American Heiress’), when asked the question “How do you organize your books,” replied that ‘he was romantic about reading not about carbon byproducts’. He apparently does most of his reading for pleasure on an iPad.

This statement bothered me for a couple of reasons.  A byproduct is “an incidental or secondary product made in the manufacture or synthesis of something else”, a book is not a byproduct of anything, it is produced using paper which contains carbon, but it is a product in itself unlike carbon which is an element and not a product.

But more than the semantics, there was something else.  There was a sanctimonious whiff to the statement, a hint of greener than thou, a suggestion of the moral high ground, an implication that Jeffrey is a greater friend of the environment than all you Luddite book lovers out there (myself included). So, I set out to try and determine whether reading a book on an Ipad is greener than reading an actual book.

Strike one against the IPad is that it consumes energy every time a page is read, whereas a book once it is produced consumes no further energy (for the purpose of this discussion let’s assume that the energy or power required is generated by the combustion of fossil fuel and therefore energy consumption or the need for energy results in the generation of carbon dioxide). How much energy does it consume? To find out I used my iPad to google the question, which proves that I am not adverse to using technology (I just like books).  It turns out, it can all be explained using light bulbs. It takes 1 kWh to power an iPhone for a year, that’s the equivalent of powering a 100 watt incandescent light bulb for 10 hours. The iPad consumes about 11 times that or the equivalent of the energy consumed by a 100 watt incandescent light bulb in 110 hours. Of course, not all that iPad time is spent reading a book, so in the end, relatively speaking, it is not a lot of energy; but for the purpose of establishing  greenness , a small amount is still too much. In the end, using an iPad to read indirectly results in a finite amount of carbon dioxide being released to the atmosphere; whereas the act of reading a book results in zero carbon dioxide emissions.

When it comes to recyclability, the moral high ground gets more slippery. Martin LaMonica of CNET’s Green Tech says only about 10% of US electronics get recycled and, according to Greenpeace not always properly, whereas paper is more likely to be recycled. Plus you can loan that book to a friend or donate it to your public library.

There are additional energy implications, all that data has to be stored. According to Greenpeace, data storage centers are the single largest driver of new electricity demand worldwide.

This is all, of course, just to make the point that it’s called the “moral high ground” because it is difficult to attain and to say to all you book lovers out there keep on reading those paper books with a clear conscience.

By the way, by all accounts Jeffrey Toobin is one hell of a writer.

To end, a slimverse:

What Can I Say

to leave no

footprint we

must fly but

never land.

 

Note: The following articles were used in the making of this post – http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/01/is-apples-recyclable-chemical-free-ipad-really-green-/1

http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2013/09/07/how-much-energy-does-your-iphone-and-other-devices-use-and-what-to-do-about-it/

 

 

Of Fish and War

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Nha Trang

At the National Oceanographic Institute,

among tanks cramped

with circling neurotic fish

(Hit the glass. Stop. Turn around)

 

there is a multi-colored specimen

whose toxin,

the sign says,

renders its victims

 

“unconspicuous or even dead”.

Further north

in the Hanoi War museum

conspicuous beneath glass

 

lie the dog tags

of dead American soldiers –

to a man

young, buzzcut and hopeful.

 

IMGP0855

 

Photo  taken outside The Hanoi War Museum

 

So Long, Halong

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As we ride out of Cat Ba

through a valley circled

by limestone crags,

a compilation of pop ballads

 

from the seventies and eighties

oozes from the speakers

and the affable English backpackers

at the back of the bus

 

groan in faux horror

as Aerosmith follows Bryan Adams

follows George Michaels

follows Michael Jackson

 

but when the Bee Gees launch

“How Deep Is Your Love”

the backpackers quieten down

and the driver stops honking his horn

 

at the dogs, children, women

in cone hats and cyclists

with finely balanced cargos

who drift carelessly

 

in front of the bus

as if it was an invisible

visitor from the future,

and we all strain against

 

the tug of the song’s chorus

far too cool to sing along

except for one backpacker

let’s call him Nigel

 

or Christian, or Jason, or Justin

who, in a high piping voice

declares his oneness

with the song’s embattled lovers.

 

This poem was first published in Oddball Magazine, about 4 months ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Unconventional Republican (remix)

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The center folds

and all ’round topple

into the opening void,

what rough beast

rabble in tow

slouches towards Washington

bursting with tawdry pomp

and irrational schemes.

 

A few notes, this poem of course echoes and directly quotes “The Second Coming” by WB Yeats, a poem which was written after the first World War and still resonates today. For a brilliant analysis of the poem, read “Break, Blow, Burn” by Camille Paglia. The Irish jazz singer, Christine Tobin has put the poem to music on a CD called “Sailing to Byzantium” which is well worth checking out.

Slim at the Vancouver Folk Festival (reprise)

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One hour into the folkfest

and a mellow, minor key, melancholy

is seeping into Slim’s bones,

he feels it like an arthritic ache

and he wishes that someone

would duck walk across the stage

shooting staccato bursts of distorted guitar

at the chill, Tilley clad audience

who, unlike Slim, have a default mode

other than anger.

 

I thought I would reprise this one. I spent yesterday at the Vancouver Folk Festival. The photograph shows the on-site solar-powered ATM. The ATM is housed in a Volkswagen van which is indicative of the post Woodstock festival vibe, in fact some of the people looked like they may have been at Woodstock. At times they must have felt, looking at the current generation of festival-goers,  that they were looking at their former selves – long straight air, flowing dresses, tie-dyed shirts, garlands, beards, that swirling hippy dance. The solar-powered ATM is indicative of the environmental consciousness or conscience of the event ( there are attendants at each garbage bin station to ensure that people make the right recycling choice).

In recent years, local authorities have allowed a beer garden, which means that beer can be purchased and consumed behind a chain-linked fence but not carried around the festival grounds. This is good in that beer is available but having to drink in a compound dampens the free spirit vibe a little bit. It is ironic that at the Republican Convention this week, guns can be open-carried and here in Vancouver, it is forbidden to open-carry a beer. Sometimes erring on the side of safety is a good thing.

Some great acts that I hadn’t heard before = the Moulettes, San Firmin, Hayes Carll.

Slim’s Sudbury Vacation ( a poem and a post-poem interview)

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The Stack (remix)

And what a

beautiful

plume we have

here, Nigel,

 

a plume with

time on its

hands, look at

it loping

 

across the

sky like a

giant Chinese

dragon, let’s

 

hail a cab

to find the

plume’s end, where

the last wisps

 

of vapor

drift upwards

and a blue

mist hangs, yes,

 

there it is

in the sky

to the west

stalking the

 

cars in the

parking lot

outside the

big box mall

 

while the sun

bawls and the

sky gets all

indignant.

 

Post Poem Interview 

You played well out there tonight, Slim.

Slim: Well, you know it’s not about me, it’s about the poem, I’m just part of the process.

Are you suggesting that you are perhaps some kind of conduit linked to some higher power, some higher resource.

Slim: No, I am just mouthing platitudes, isn’t that the idea?

Quite, so I am sure everyone is wondering, who is Nigel?

Slim: He’s my cousin.

That’s a very English name.

Slim: That’s hardly surprising, he is English.

Do you call him ’Nige’ for short?

Slim: No!

It sounds like he could be a member of one of those floppy-haired synth bands from the eighties, you know, like Soft Cell or Human League or The Pet Shop Boys. Didn’t XTC have a song about a guy called Nigel. Is he in a band?

Slim: He’s a welder.

Does his hair not get in the way?

Slim: He’s bald, where is this going?

(mumbles) somewhere slow or nowhere fast. So tell me about the structure of this poem.

Slim: I took the 3 syllable line, 4 line verse , I have been using, and applied it to a poem that I was never happy with and it worked, at least it made me trim a lot of the fat and I came up with a better poem, I think?

……….what? Sorry I nodded off there for a bit. Well, I’m sure you are itching to get back to the dressing room and join the rest of the lads in a lukewarm bath of diluted sweat.

Slim: Can’t wait!

 

 

 

I,ve Got Your Back (2)

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This photo was taken in the late evening, walking south on Sandymount Strand, Dublin. We had just come from Mulligan’s Pub where we watched Ireland tie with Sweden in the first round of Euro 2016. The plastic shopping bag is from Tesco’s and contains comfort food – bags of Tayto Chips (Ireland’s national potato chip) and Cadbury’s chocolate bars.

The chocolate bars in question are Cadbury’s Boost (formerly known as Moro) and Cadbury’s Flake. A Cadbury’s Flake is not really a bar, in that the word ‘bar’ implies solidity, rigidity, the flake is a fragile thing and starts to disintegrate as soon as the package is opened. When Phil Lynnot of Thin Lizzy complained of getting “chocolate stains on his pants” (Dancing in the Moonlight), he was probably eating a Cadbury’s Flake.

There is a feeling of opportunity lost captured in the resigned slope of the shoulders of the people in the photo, Ireland should have won the game against Sweden and at that point faced an uphill battle to reach the next stage of the tournament. In the next game we were thumped 3-0 by Belgium and then needed a win against Italy to make it through. It was looking like the game would end in another tie, when about five minutes from the end, Wes Hoolahan gets the ball inside the Italian half, Robbie Brady, in one of those moments of telepathy that happens between players that have played together for awhile, runs towards the narrow gap between the two Italian center backs which is exactly where Wes puts the ball. Robbie’s head meets the ball and in a flash it’s in the back of the Italian net. The whole Irish nation, scattered across continents like green confetti, jumps from its seat with a collective roar; grown men with beer bellies and heads like bowling balls blub like small children; the Irish players pile on top of Robbie Brady in a tangle of beards, tattoos and expensive haircuts; the Irish manager and assistant manager – two men who would have previously considered a handshake to be excessive intimacy – grapple tearfully like emotional Olympic wrestlers and why not, why not! We are a small country, we have never felt that winning is our birth right, so when we do win, well, catharsis doesn’t begin to describe it.

Take it away, Phil.

 

 

I’ve Got Your Back (1)

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Photo taken above Lough Tay, Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Down below is where the television series “The Vikings” is filmed. Most tourists bypass Wicklow and head down to the Ring of Kerry, Cliffs of Moher, Galway, Clifden, all great places, but 45 minutes max. from Dublin you have this and much more.

My parents’ ashes are scattered near this spot, they were great walkers (they would not have used the term “hikers” or “hill walkers”).

Just don’t get lost in the mist.