farther

I feel like I should put these recordings into a time perspective, especially since these posts aren’t exactly in chronological order. You Do What You Can was recorded and released at the end of 2006 when I was living in Jackson Heights (Queens). I made a whole lot of copies of this record that I still have available if you’re interested. I did some more recording in Queens, but didn’t really start working on (expectations) until I moved to Flatbush (Brooklyn) the following July, and finished it shortly before I moved to Vermont at the end of 2007. I’m still working on new recordings, which I’ll be posting under a new name (although I’ll still be making Black Candy Plus records too) in the near future.

I’m not quite sure what Farther is about anymore. Sometimes I can’t help but make the words so cryptic that even I have trouble figuring out what I meant when I say these things. I wrote the original version of this song when I first moved to Jackson Heights, and I rehearsed it with Justyn and another drummer (with slightly modified words). Then he never panned out and I decided to use the words for this Joy Division inspired Black Candy record. Yes, that’s a backwards guitar in the beginning and I’m still proud of how it turned out. I doubt that I could recreate it nowadays. Ah, the magic of not knowing what the hell you’re doing…

(inside joke alert)

Apparently, Happy Song is better than me. But it’s for me. The sleeper hit of Bulgaria! It’s going to eat me alive. Help…

it’s just a ride

I remember getting really excited about It’s Just A Ride when I just recorded it. I had originally been concentrating on songwriting when I began experimenting on my first Tascam, and while I had done some sound experimenting, I never considered working with primarily electronic sounding music until just before I began recording “You Do What You Can” in Jackson Heights. In retrospect, I wish this record was a bit shorter, but I’m proud of how this turned out nonetheless.

The song title comes from a Bill Hicks quote:

The world is like a ride at an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it, you think it’s real cause that’s how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly colored and it’s very loud. And it’s fun, for a while.

Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: Is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, ‘Hey – don’t worry, don’t be afraid ever, because this is just a ride.’

…and we can change it any time we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money, a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.