ABSURDTIA is an album of originally fifteen songs recorded by John M. (Johnny) Thompson from March 2010 to December 2013...Thirteen originals (spanning the early mid-nineties to early 20teens), one derivative work cover, and one derivative work cover - an adaptation of several covers concurrently, in so severely convoluted a context that it would present an impossible licensing nightmare and therefore should just be considered an original, which for all practical purposes, it is. The album, aside from the loftiness of its ambitions, took forever and a day to complete due in large part to several ongoing distractions...Upheaval and growing uncertainty on the homefront, "It's A Johnny Thompson Kind Of Christmas Magic Feeling Volume III - Season Of Sharing", drum sound challenges, quasi-regular live performance and the rehearsals that entails, the EMI debacle, a toy-by-industry-standards recording system pushed to its absolute limitations, studio floods, creativity inhibitions imposed by proximity of tenants in the building, scheduling, musician issues, the "Waiting For The Son" debacle, motivation issues, Facebook addiction...Shall I continue? I liken the situation to biting off way more than one can chew, beginning to choke on the bite in progress, and then additionally biting off way more than one can chew of something else...Yes, at some point along the way, I decided to start work on a separate album, which was to become ABSURDTIA's unwitting companion piece, our consolidated setlist from our three consecutive years at bat on the Diversity Stage of the Bowling Green International Festival, L'INCIDENT INTERNATIONAL...The decision went thusly; "Hey Sean, since we are in good shape on this BGIntFest material and you're fixing to take your awesome drums out of my studio to do your album in your studio, let's spend a few weeks tracking the drums for another album, and I'll magically get the rest of it finished right up..." Only my part went on a couple of years or so. The details are for another manifesto, but I can tell you now that this album sucked plenty of air out of ABSURDTIA, but to have them roll out of the "hand hangar" back-to-back will be worth it in some light. There have been some enjoyably memorable milestones in getting ABSURDTIA delivered...The completion of the first track, "Electrick Blank-it"...Writing a bass part and completing the ridiculously difficult "Rovertussin"...Finishing the last measures of the most absurd 44 seconds of the album, "Tennessee Notes"...Hauling "Unholy Cow" off the cutting room floor, repairing it, and finishing its nighmarish production flourishes...Improvising the "poor man's pedal steel" breaks to complete "Old Dominion"...Rebuilding my alto sax chops to fulfill the vision of "No Regard For The Beauregarde"...The rescue from an older and dying recording unit and subsequent completion of perhaps one of my personal favorite works, my love-letter to God, "Thank-You, I'm Sorry, and Please"...Putting the "fun" in "funky" postmortem roast beats of "Cut To The Mace" and its companion piece, the uncharacteristically urban, "Cordoba"...And the completion of ABSURDTIA's embodiment, a six plus minute instrumental merging the genres of classical, experimental, movie soundtrack, psychedelic, and tap dance music, "Toe-Heel-Toeuvreture", made possible with the help of some extraordinarily talented string players... ...And speaking of made possible by, I had an awful lot of help on this album. First and foremost in the form of a superb drummer (and master tap dancer), Sean Rice. He was along for the entire journey, most notably, its beginning (drums are the first thing recorded on a song, the underlayment, if you will), but lent an awful lot of good ideas on the production and post production elements of ABSURDTIA...A gifted writer/performer/producer/engineer in his own right, I'm proud to have him as first mate aboard the S.S. Farm-Out!; enough to allow certain clueless individuals in our communal midst to carry on with their misconception that we are father and son... ...My guitar prot-egg, Aaron Holder was the live bassist of choice and wound up tracking on five of the recorded versions of selections from our live repertoire. His gracious loan/usage of both his Cadillac-of-a-bass (Fender American Deluxe Jazz), with which I joyously tracked the remaining basslines, and his family's antique Dobro (customized/set-up by none other than Curtis "Dr. Dobro" Burch himself), with which I tracked parts on both "Rovertussin" and "Thank-You, I'm Sorry, and Please", enabled the album to its potential in sound/arrangements/production.... ...There were some great lungs in tow to help blow this thing up. Farm-Out! Records' very own Renee Isaacs helped with notes that had become out of my reach on the harmony breaks on "Old Dominion", and though there were three or so singers in mind for the job, Caitlin Moffit did the honors on "Cut To The Mace", a choice I could not be more pleased with...The song's co-lyricist, Brad "Big Biscuit" Hall drove down from Louisville to reanimate this bit of ancient defamatory prose, and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has still got it!...Madeline Payne effortlessly knocked out the two clarinet lines on "Tennessee Notes" in a single session...and two separate brass and reed ensembles converged to realize the horns on "Cordoba"... Several steps on this long journey were archived in the now-closed facebook group as "hear it here first" press releases for the label's innermost circle of family, friends, clients, supporters...at some point I will likely transfer them to the "Album Notes" feature for ABSURDTIA page on cdbaby.com Special thanks to George Vitorovich for lending his visual/conceptual genius to ABSURDTIA's art..."Maisey's Showdown" really encapsulates the energy and vibe of this particular chapter of my life as this creative endeavor began to form a solid shape for itself. Heartfelt apologies and thanks to my best friend, who long ago resigned herself to the fact that I had a second home in town that would have us to pass like ships once a day for years and years and years. ABSURDTIA "Electrick Blank-It" (1997-98) JMT: Voice, Guitar, Keys, Bass, Bebot Sean Rice: Drums "Old Dominion" (2000) JMT: Voice, Guitar, Violin, Keys, Bass, Harmonica Sean Rice: Drums Renee Isaacs: Voice "Cordoba" (1994) [Additional lyrics by Brad "Big Biscuit" Hall] JMT: Voice, Guitar, Keys Sean Rice: Drums, Synth-programming Aaron Holder: Bass Kyle Acres: Horn Arrangement Development/Revision Dr. Marshall Scott: Trumpets Amy Spears: Tenor Saxophone Conner Eisenmenger: Trombone "Düm" (1997) JMT: Voice, Guitar, Bass Sean Rice: Drums "Cut To The Mace" (1993) [Additional lyrics by Brad "Big Biscuit" Hall] JMT: Voice, Guitar, Bass, Keys, Bebot, WeGO Sean Rice: Drums Brad "Big Biscuit" Hall: Voice Caitlin Moffitt: Voice J Spade: Scratch DJ "Here Comes The Brainsong" (2005) JMT: Voice, Guitar Sean Rice: Drums Aaron Holder: Bass "Waiting For The Son" (2006) [Derivative work adaptation of "Waiting For The Sun" by The Doors] JMT: Voice, Guitar, Bass, Keys Sean Rice: Drums [Lyrics from "A Songwriter's Prayer" by Tommy Womack used with permission] "Rovertussin" (2005) JMT: Guitar, Bass, Dobro, Bebot, Glockenspiel Sean Rice: Drums "Machiabilly" (2005) JMT: Guitar, Keys, Bebot Sean Rice: Drums Aaron Holder: Bass "Hecate Peckety" (1998) JMT: Guitar, Keys Sean Rice: Drums Aaron Holder: Bass "Tennessee Notes" (2006) JMT: Guitar, Keys, Alto Saxophone, Noise Sean Rice: Drums Aaron Holder: Bass Madeline Payne: Clarinet "Unholy Cow" (1993) JMT: Voice, Guitar, Bass, Keys, Banjo, Bebot Sean Rice: Drums "Toe-Heel-Toeuvreture" (2003-2013) JMT: Keys, Bebot, Alto Saxophone, Voice, Tap dance (easy shoe) Sean Rice: Drums, Tap dance (difficult shoe) Ching-Yi Lin: Violin Julianna Waller: Violin Andy Braddock: Viola Sarah Berry: Cello Stacy Sherf Dieterlen: Interjection "Thank-You, I'm Sorry, & Please" (2010) JMT: Voice, Guitar, Dobro, Bass, Violin Sean Rice: Drums "No Regard For The Beauregarde" (2010) JMT: Keys, Bass, Percussion, Drumbot 5000, Bebot, Alto Saxophone, Noise Sean Rice: Keys Produced, Engineered, Mixed, & Mastered by JMT 3/13/2010 - 12/21/2013 @ Scottsville Conservatory and Little Difficult Studios All songs © & ℗ by JMT/Farm-Out! Records 2013 Some milestones heralded along the way... [9/21/2012] Track 1 (and subsequently the first single) of ABSURDTIA just mixed and mastered! "Electrick Blankit" will make its FM Radio debut during my guest DJ stint for Friday's installment of D-93's Cafe Rock with Bryan Locke from Noon til 1:00 pm (CST). I'll be playing a wide variety of sounds and plan to sneak it in at some point during the festivities. You can also catch it streaming live world wide @ www.wdnsfm.com if you are not within range of D-93's megawattage [2/17/2013] Hey all, there is much underway in the way of forthcoming releases on the horizon! With pinpricks of light becoming visible at the end of these all-consuming albums. ABSURDTIA was started in early 2010 and contains original material from early/mid 90's to present, as well as two derivative work covers, as adapted/severely rearranged by yours truly. ABSURDTIA Electrick Blankit * DUM Unholy Cow Old Dominion Cordoba Cut To The Mace No Regard For The Beauregard Rovertussin * Machiabilly * Hecate Peckaty * Tennessee Notes * Waiting For The Son * Toe-Heel-Toeverture Thank-You, I'm Sorry, and Please * Here Comes The Brainsong * * Completed, mixed, mastered, forkstuck...Halfway line crossed last week...Its remainders are in various stages of completion, with some being very near completion...Hopehopehoping to get this out the hangar by late Spring 2013 Its companion piece, "L'Incident International" was started in early 2012 and is an album of covers from our Bowling Green International Festival repertoire...It has a projected release date of Fall 2013... L'Incident International Como Duermas-Tu (Juan Lennon) Girl From Ipanema (Jobim) Brazil (Ary Barrosa) Ore D'Amore (Fred Bongusto) Also Sprach Zarathustra * (Richard Strauss) Villa Alegre (Usted Puede Viver Para Siempre En El Paraiso En La Tierre) Tunak Tunak Tun (Dahler Mehndi) Across The Jayniverse * (Beatles/Harrison/JMT) Gillie Hyde/Bowling Green Technical College (Japanese/Finnish adaptations) Der Kommissar (Johann Hölzel) Laune Der Woche (Freak of the Week - Funkadelic) Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft (Klaatupenters) Como Esta (Park Avenue Dregs) Dark Eyes * (Yevron Hrebrinka) Playing Tag And The Magnificent Horse * (Carmine Coppola) Om Namah Shivaya (Steve Hillage) * Completed/mixed/mastered...many others nearing completion In other Farm-Out! Records news, Sean Rice, amidst recording engineering works for the incredibly talented duo of Casey Eaton and Colin Hancock, is nearing completion on Jack Roland's follow-up full length album, "Avant-Garbage" with a projected release date of mid Spring 2013...really excited to hip the world to this batch! Please lend the support of your good name to the official Farm-Out! Records fb page...this closed group will remain a first alert for the original members, but the official page is our public face...help spread awareness...THANKS - JMT [2/24/2013] "Unholy Cow" ('93-'94)...This version for ABSURDTIA was begun on May 1 2010 and finally completed last night...extry dark-n-nutty...I was dreading this one's completion so much that at times I considered leaving it off, but a full two weeks of repairing some guitar spikes, adding bass, extensive keys, background vocals, ambient effects, and banjo have me thrilled to see this one up and out from "inside the tractor's studio"...Sean Rice (drums) and meself have never sounded so bloated! Hoping to knock out a couple from the "L'Incident..." side of the fence this week. Oh yeah, please lend the support of your good name to the official fb Farm-Out! page and share with the class if you haven't gotten around to it just yet. ;^) www.facebook.com/FarmOutRecords [3/24/2013] I have always contended that there are two ways to cover someone else's music...either note-for-note exactly as it was written, like a human jukebox...or to make it your own ("Here's my impression of Ricky doin' Elvis doin' Ricky doin' Elvis etc..."). This week saw a major setback on the planned course of ABSURDTIA; Yes, the album I've been slaving on for just over three years contained a cover that I spent a solid three months recording...One of my all-time favorite Doors' songs, "Waiting For The Sun". Of course, I took numerous artistic liberties in rearranging this 60's masterpiece. For years I have covered it live after working it up on a 'secret tuning' guitar, which rendered it a tad bit rubbery/seventhy sounding, but still unmistakably "Waiting For The Sun"...Robbie Krieger was my first big slide guitar influence (followed by, as a close second, Tommy Womack, whose hauntingly beautiful "A Songwriter's Prayer" unwittingly lent its "Whisper the songs to me, oh lord..." lyric to the outro refrain of "This is the strangest life I've ever known..."; I promise, Tommy, I was going to beg your blessing/permission this week)...Anyway, I went nuts with the slide guitar on this draft of WFTS. But that's all mute points now, as the high priests of Wixen Music Publishing, acting on behalf of Doors Music Company LLC, have flatly rejected my request for a license to manufacture/distribute/sell my album containing this cover...based on its "derivative work" status...Where were they when Jose Feliciano took liberties with his hit cover of "Light My Fire"? It kills me to cut WFTS from ABSURDTIA's lineup...It was like a family member, who I must now relegate to a future "Free Download", which is still probably illegal, or worse yet, a compromised audio rendering onto YouTube, where Google will attach ads like so many barnacles. I have grown weary of the disparity between creativity and money in the industry of my chosen field...I am surrounded by the accepted norms of piracy and copyright violations via file-sharing/youtube covers/burned cd's...and try to play by the rules, dotting every "i", crossing every "t", and willingly giving the bullies (publishing companies, to whom brilliant and ignorant young artists signed their rights away to) my lunch money to do this legit, only to have some pencil-pushing bureaucrat, who in all likelihood, has no musical leanings, squelch my creative endeavors. F___ 'em...F___ 'em in the neck, I say. In other potential lawsuit news, our covers of the Gillie-Hyde jingle in Japanese and the Bowling Green Technical College jingle in Finnish were mixed/mastered last week and will be featured as hidden tracks on L'ICIDENT INTERNATIONAL for Fall 2013 release. "Düm" was finally mixed and mastered for ABSURDTIA this week. This album has a tentative release date of July 1 2013, in spite of the track-listing setback. [5/12/2013] That's either a train coming or the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter... In January of 2000, a couple of friends and myself sat on the couch in my apartment on the 3rd floor of a Victorian mansion on 3rd Street in Louisville finishing each others' sentences (interrupting one another)...A song's lyrics began with each contributing one line in turn. Now I didn't need any help in the 'people not understanding my lyrics department', but why not go for broke and throw a couple of extra chefs around the cauldron? This lasted all of about two verses, but what it did in fact was effectively kick off a horrmendous writing jag that I'm still crawling out from under. This first song over the crumbling dam was to become "Old Dominion" and just this afternoon I cleared a major hurtle in mixing and mastering it for ABSURDTIA...There's a great demo of it from 2000, courtesy of Shawn Glass's studio featuring Paul Hatchett on guitar, but this formal Farm-Out! Records recording as exceeded my wildest expectations for this little 5:30 chestnut. It's a slow country blues waltz in G with, of course, some twists..."Gentlemen, start your larghetto-blasters"...Sean Rice's tasteful drum work forms the perfect foundation for two guitars, bass, some acoustic slide-work, my harmonica recording debut, a five part violin score during bridge lines, some ambient icing, and the vocals...Renee Isaacs kindly lent her golden pipes on some harmony that I can no longer reach without sounding comical...moreso. The near completed project had been filed away for months awaiting the crowning touch of some pedal steel a la Kevin Grissom, but scheduling difficulties and an eventual determination that this song was just too much off the beaten path of his playing style had the master musician to opt out...Sure, I was disappointed, but rallied to stick a fork in this little beast and be done with it. I actually bought a pedal steel app for iPhone in hopes of pulling a fast one on the listener, but it was far too artificial so I wound up improvising a poor man's steel with slide, E-Bow Plus, and Boss Harmonist pedal...pretty freakin' far out! Earlier this past week also saw my reemergence from a down rabbit hole I chased the album's parting shot; an intended hidden track titled, "No Regard For The Beauregard"...this unconventional instrumental dance tune (again, with a twist...professional dancers only...don't try to dance to it at home!) was to be an afterthought, but rebuilding my chops to pull off the alto sax part I kept hearing over the two outro movements took an additional two weeks to complete, as was the case with the bass...had a blast writing/playing the bass line, but it took a full week or two to complete, as was the case with some of the ambient effects...etc. A heavy sigh of relief upon mixing and mastering its final draft this past Monday. Can't wait to set these afloat with the album's release...Still tentatively shooting for July 1 release, but with my increasing Arts On Main duties and growing pains in the building that periodically compromise my noise lab atmosfear, it may get pushed back a little as needed. We are considering a double release event as "Jack Roland"'s sophomore offering, "Avant-Garbage", is neck and neck with mine in nearing its completion. You'll be the first to know! JMT [6/30/2013] In March of 2012, as drum tracking for both albums was winding down, there was a track that had been saved for last, because of the dread factor...an instrumental from the earlier part of the last decade with a working title of "Heel-Toeverture", possibly named from hearing a kick-line of tap-dancers every time I played its 5th movement. The piece had never been played live and was five different sections, parts, or movements, if you will, loosely strung together, the first two of which were so deliberately annoying/comical that they were regularly requested around the house...requested to stop playing. Now, I only had the slightest idea in mind for a couple of moments of drums on the piece, but any sort of drums beyond ambient percussion accents on the rest of the piece was unfathomable. I just couldn't hear any sort of beat over so much of it. I began the campaign of getting the drums sorted out by playing it at the end of several sessions for Sean Rice, who began taking it in directions I hadn't considered...some of which I was initially uncertain. After several run-throughs we got a good take on the solid and steady parts and then I had Sean track some single bass/snare/cymbal hits for accents...over the next couple of weeks I sat at the console and sewed the most godawful frankentrack together for the drums in the history of the studio...With the foundational framework in place, I could now begin construction in earnest of getting this out of my imagination, onto the paper, and onto the hard-drive...and hit it a good lick throughout that spring and summer...keys, keys, and lots of keys...and an incredible addition in the form of the greatest app in the history of iPhone...Bebot! (a four band analog synth, whose usage would constitute cheating, were some degree of music theory savvy not involved)... I recall playing what I had thus far for Hillarey last September...(You don't think I just sit up here til midnight and beyond, eating candy and making quips on fb?). Upon hearing what the first two obnoxious movements had morphed into, she sat in disbelief and asked if it was for Halloween...would I release the album for Halloween? That would've been ideal, save for the realization that there was no possible way that this song, nor the album housing it would be ready anytime in the foreseeable future...I had some unrealistic designs for the completion of "Toe-Heel-Toeuvreture"...so unrealistic, that it became depressing for me to listen to what I had done thus far, as it seemed that it was a colossal waste of time, as there was no possible way to get it where I wanted... ...A couple of summers ago I was invited by Dr. Ching-Yi Lin, who I was trying to get booked for the 2011 Arts On Main summer concert series, to hear a new faculty performance/recital/reception at Ivan Wilson Performing Arts Center for the new Viola instructor, Andy Braddock...In typical me form, I decided to make an unauthorized recording of the event and within seconds of the opening you can hear a great crash...the sound of me dropping my plate in disbelief of what I was experiencing...like two birds singing, it was! At that precise moment, the wheels began to turn in determining a way to get this caliber of talent into my studio bunker for this piece... ...and two summers later, it actually came to pass. I had been shot two possible windows in Lin's hectic travel/teaching/performance schedule that we could make this happen...mid June or early August. With a tentative release date of July 1, I went with the earlier option. With a mere two weeks before track time, I wrote out twelve separate parts for the score...three for each of the following...Violin I, Violin II, Viola, and Cello...figured out how to scan and send via PDF files to the performers...and on Saturday afternoon June 15, little ol' Scottsville Conservatory was graced with four of the finest string players in our region - Julianna Waller (Nashville Symphony, Orchestra KY, Red River Fiddlers), Ching-Yi Lin (Symphony @ WKU), Andy Braddock (Symphony @ WKU), and Sarah Berry (Symphony @ WKU)...That's right - I brought in professionals to help me fight dirty! We ran through it a few times before tracking and they would ask if I minded to give it another run...Please, I told them they had no idea how many more run-throughs I could sit there and listen to. Upon completion of tracking the refrain, which contained three of the four parts, I was asked to play it all back and I pressed the talk-back mic and said, "I'm scared to...I've never heard all the parts together...I don't know if it'll work." That bit is magic and a high-water-mark for me, the studio and the label...These guys made me sound like a million bucks! For a moment it felt as if the song was finished...before remembering all the other items on its punch list...the tap-dance/kick-line, for starters. I had initially planned to actually track real dancer(s), but it became increasingly awkward to ask... JMT: "Hey girl, would you tap-dance on my album?" Dancer: "Sure, creep, just lay a copy of it here on the floor." I started to realize that this was going to be impractical...JMT; instrumentalist, writer, composer, arranger,...choreographer?!? "Okay, girls, just like we rehearsed it...and 5-6-7-8!" JMT: "Hey girl, can I borry your tap shoes?" Dancer: "Sure, creep." I resolved to record multiple tracks of the tap-dance bit myself...manually...for the really fast and difficult bits, I had to call in Sean and for those parts, we actually laced them over his hands...and were in hysterics over how ridiculous this leg of the recording was...The floor got mighty uncomfortable on these knees and hips, so I found two giant stuffed animals for padding...This was done late at night in a common room (of mystery; hence the stuffed animals, lumber, health pamphlets, etc.) of the Washington Center...The longer it ran, the funnier it got and I became increasingly worried as to how this scenario would appear to anyone who came upon it... Upstairs: "What's going on down there?" JMT & Sean Rice [in unison]: "Nothing!" Upstairs [coming downstairs]: "What the...?" JMT: "It's not what it looks like...I don't know what it looks like, but whatever it looks like, it's not what it looks like..." The following week was spent tracking a tap-dance/kick-line sequence that volleys with the string sections throughout the 5th Movement...and this past week was spent completing some reed work, vocal, and ambient "icing"...and of course numerous practices of the challenging mix for the six minute and four seconds piece, which I had the rare pleasure of nailing on my first attempt late last night. The recording of "Toe-Heel-Toeuvreture" has dogged me for a year and four months, and the notion of formally capturing it in a studio setting has been in my peripheral since writing it the early part of last decade. I slept without thinking about it last night! ABSURDTIA, the album that houses this chestnut, has a release date of September 1...Thirteen down, two to go!!! [10/11/2013] "Cut To The Mace" 3/24/2010 - 10/10/2013 Fudgeamuck, well that took longer than planned... In the spring of 1995, at my lowest, when music seemed to've completely left me, I dreamt of performing this song again live...and the tiniest spark of purpose flickered somewhere deep within...before the next couple of years (seemingly) put it it out. Just a half year earlier, there seemed to be no limit whatsoever to my creative endeavors. I was blessed with a non-stop torrent of ideas (many of them bad) and no shortage of willing participants to bring my musical Thomfoolery to life on stage. Envy Estate had swelled to a fifteen piece band...its core members quit their jobs (unemployable) and dedicated their lives to making a go in showbiz...The memories of the extended freestlye instrumental/lyrical jams evolvement of "Cut To The Mace" at regular live performances in Bowling Green, Lexington, and Nashville were heartwarm and Henry fuzzy. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I have a brown spot for rap music...from my education in spatula scratchin' and drive-thru intercom/headset mc'ing at the Melrose McDonald's in '85...through my backseat ad libfinitums during week-long weekends my senior year...to my toe-water-test of live adraptations and albums' worth of rap egged on and inspired by EE drummer Pat Richardson (AKA P.A.Trick, NKA "Patson") and his homeboy, who became my final roommate in the white house on College Street, Brad Hall (AKA B-Rad, NKA Big Biscuit). The song was whipped out over a riff from the Chicago-era Les Paul tuning (same as "Hopelist", "Thank-You, I'm Sorry, & Please", "Touch(S)toner", "Twenty-Eight Masterpieces", "Cordoba", etc.), as a rag on a lovable malingerer in our circle...Mason Jackson. This embodiment of Schleprock had a heart of gold and a divining rod for trouble, misfortune, and overstaying his welcome. The lyrics he inspired in Brad and myself are nothing short of brutal...as was the style back then. The "adult" me tries to search for justification/validation... 1) I was in my mid-twenties, a dumb and callous age for us types... 2) Hey, I can dish it out BECAUSE I can take it...There has got to be at least an album's worth of (de)famatory songs written about me from the pens of the BG scene back then (not including the ones I misinterpreted by XTC, Rage Against The Machine, and Beck a la Manson-Beatles)...Who could forget such classics as Jupiter Mary's "Take Johnny Away!"?...or Kerry Pruitt's poignant character assassination, "Johnny Dollar"?...Or Geek Love Explosion's "This America", featuring this great lyric; "Ken Smith got a DUI last night...Johnny Thompson got beat up in a fight!"? X^) 3) The abridged misadventures of Mason Jackson are watered down in consideration of six minute song format and rhyme compatibility...AND he was aware of the piece...we would introduce him at shows to introduce his theme song...and he would stand right in front of the mains nodding in tacit approval/perplexion. Fifteen years later it was selected for inclusion on ABSURDTIA...Every one of my albums has the one song that does not belong on it (i.e. "Molly Rovers (Shamrockers)" on HORROW). "Cut To The Mace" is that song on ABSURDTIA and I came this close to cutting it from the team for this and many other reasons (guilt, shame, impossible production/engineering feats to bring to life what I was hearing in my head all along). Sear Rice, Aaron Holder, and myself had a decent live trio version of it resuscitated for our 2008-2010 band and recording began on March 24 2010...drums, guitars, and scratch vocals...and like so many songs started on the album, was scrapped for a better try at the sound/arrangement/instrumentation quality. The last thing Aaron tracked on this album (before he went Jackie Paper on me) was the bass on this song...it was a good step in the right direction...I had no recollect as to what Keith Heric did with it back in the day, but somewhere between his take, Aaron's take, and the new shape of the song the recording was assuming, I knew there was a final version that would unify its past, present, and future. I sat in the studio the entire week(end) of 4th of July and reworked/tracked the final draft of the bass...FYI, I LOVE TO WRITE/PLAY BASS: so fun, so challenging, so make-or-break...possibly my favorite instrument to play. (There are long term plans to re-release ABSURDTIA, once it's out, in a "drums/bass/vocals only" mix!) Next on the sonic docket was getting the song's co-lyricist/voice to come down from Louisville. "Oh, What A Reunion!"...As Brad Hall and I took turns on tracking and lyrical overdubs, there was some sort of somber meeting being held in the big room upstairs...Somewhere between the minutes and treasurer's report were heard shout-ats from below: ...NOT MUCH BETTER WAS YOUR STINT WITH SUZY...DOWN WITH THAT SHIPP SCREAMED ABUSE ME! ABUSE ME!...DAYS LONG SPENT IN THE PORT OF SUZY Q...WELL STEALIN' HER PILLS IS ALL YOU EVER TRIED TO DO...MOVIN' ON UP; LIVIN' IN THE TWIN TOWERS...SHE SAID IT LASTED MINUTES..."NO MAN, IT LASTED HOURS!"...I SEEN YOU IN THE MALL WITH YOUR NEON FLAG SHIRT...I SAID, "WHERE'D YOU GET IT MACE?"..."YO, I STOLE IT FROM WORK!"...THREE HOURS IN THE FOOD COURT AND TWO MORE AT SPENCER'S...BUSTED IN THE WRONG CRAPPER WITH THE STAYFREE DISPENSERS...PAD IN HAND, MACE IS THE MAN, 10-4, GOOD BUDDY!..."I'M IN COMMAND?"..."YEAH, YOU'RE IN COMMAND"...etc. At any rate, another few weeks of vocal edits. Now the real fun/work begins...In early August, Bowling Green DJ/Scratch DJ Jeremy "J Spade" Grogan brings a turntable and cross-fader mixer to Scottsville Conservatory and serves up a heap of scratchy goodness..."whickety bwhickety bwhirrp whickety bwhirrp whickety bwhirrlllll", soundbites, ambient bird-like chwhirrps, and bits that sound like that Brazilian instrument we all play with McDonald's straws in cups. A great session...TONS to pick through...a month's edit work solid. Also...there is a chorus of field workers' wailing moans in three part harmony, and guess who can no longer hit the high one without sounding more ridiculous than he already does? Enter prodigal guitar/keyboard/voice student, Caitlin Moffit. It's hard to believe that this girl, who could scarcely make it through a lesson without giggling fits, distractionary clowning, etc. would re-emerge as a young adult and help me reach those notes on the top shelf. This was a great couple of sessions...a lot of laughs in pushing her to "go from the gut" and breathe new life into this obnoxious old song. And lastly, several layers of ambient icing to spread about in the finalization of production/engineering trickery. A pioneer digital turntable and Macbook Pro came to stay with me at the studio for a week and soon thereafter a Novation Mini-Synth...two fabulous trip-toys that I got lost in during the last weeks of this song's completion. I dreaded the mix and master of this little roast beat...I figured it would be impossible, but I made a great mix map, practiced it for a couple of hours, held my breath for six minutes and nailed it in another rare one-take last night. So that's fourteen down, ONE to go in ending this all-consuming-all-night-every-nightmare. "Cordoba" is the last one, and it's pretty close...I'm gonna hope for December release; after all, December 1st is the new October 1st is the new August 1st is the new etc...Four years...What's another month or two? Epilogue: As "Cut To The Mace" began to really take shape last year, I received word that its dishonoree was in the Medical Center with hours/days left to live. We had just reconnected through the internet after fifteen years off one another's radar and within a month it was off again...forever. He partied too hearty and paid dearly the proverbial fiddler. His passing only threw gas on conflicted emotions about releasing a brutal slamfest that was penned as a joke nearly twenty years ago. I put too much work in this joke and it'd be a shame to let it go to waste. I have to hold it up to the light as a post-mortem roast and believe "the man" would be cool about it. 10-4, Good Buddy.