Imagine Earwig

The Imagination gathers up the material by which the Mind weaves the fabric in which your Future is to be clothed. Imagination is the light by which we can penetrate new worlds of thought and experience. Now let's get dressed.

You picked the songs. Now come and sing along.
We're having a special Valentines day show on Friday, February 10th at Outland in Columbus. We're taking an unscheduled break from writing our new record to do this show, so make sure that you're there. We've been posting the song lyrics over at our Facebook page , so come prepared.
Remember: YOU took this show from your Imagination and made it real.
The Future is NOW.
Picture what you want in your mind and make it real.

Ultraman!

As a kid, I watched a lot of Battle Of The Planets cartoons. I loved it. Sci-fi super heroes with gadgets and cool costumes. I loved the adventures of G-Force vs. Voltar and I always wondered what the hell Keyop was saying. It wasn’t until recently though that I discovered Ultraman and all of it’s awesomeness. Originally a live action Japanese Sci-fi special effects kids show, it was brought to America and dubbed. It features a cool Science Team of heroes that fight big Godzilla style monsters from outer space. I talked to George and Costa recently and it seems that they were hooked on the show when they were younger. Every episode seems to have the same plot, but it doesn’t matter. All we really want to see is the big knock-down drag-out fight at the end between Ultraman and the evil baddie. Guess who always wins? Over the holidays, I found a cheapo DVD collection of the first two seasons and have been really enjoying it. So much so in fact that we're working on some Ultraman themed videos for 2 Earwig songs right now. If we can get the orange jumpsuits and space helmets right, we’ll be all set. Go Science Team Earwig!

The League of Extraordinary Hub Caps

When Earwig is on tour we will occasionally get lost. It happens. While trying to locate the club one night near Cleveland, I was having no luck at all. I’m a big believer in synchronicity and intuition. So sometimes, when I’m in a pinch, I just leave it up to the universe to point me in the right direction. Lost and sitting at a random inner-city intersection, I decided to do just that. I wondered, should I turn Left or Right? I asked the universe for a sign. And then I noticed something shiny calling out to me from the parking lot across the street. It was a hub cap, gleaming in the sun. I took that as an omen and went to investigate. As I turned into the lot, I realized it was a gas station and so I decided to go in and just ask for directions. The gal behind the counter knew exactly where the club was and even ended up coming to see the show that night! I picked up the hub cap and brought it along on the rest of the tour for good luck. Ever since then, when I’ve been mulling over decisions or in need of direction, I’ll often see hubcaps on the side of the road that seem to help me resolve my problems or choose what to do. I started picking them up and have amassed quite a cool collection. I just mounted a bunch of my intuition hub caps on my garage to display them. Some of them are pretty cool looking. While we were working on Gibson Under Mountain, I collected a bunch of hub caps on my drives to and from Columbus. I would put them up in the studio in the vocal booth and even kept my favorite, one very special silver hub cap, up over the mixing board while working on the final mixes.

Want to win yr very own Earwig T-shirt? Well, just tell me what make of automobile my favorite hub cap comes from. You can tell from the picture and the image/character on it.
HINT: The hub cap in question is pictured in my last blog post from 2009.
Send the answer in an email to lizard@lizardfamily.com

Songwriting 101

Earwig is taking it easy this December so we can all re-charge our batteries, visit with our families, eat cookies and all that jazz. I’m using this time to write songs for the next record, which we’ll start working on next year. We’ve got a couple of new songs under our belt already, one of which “I Don’t Want to Go”, is performed live here (LINK). All of the songs on Gibson Under Mountain came to me in dreams. But when I sit down to write in a more conventional way it helps to have lots of inspiration laying around. Right now I’m reading The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra and Tertium Organum by P.D. Ouspensky. Just a couple of books to try and broaden my view of reality and hopefully influence some new hit Earwig songs in the process. In addition to having a guitar, Casio keyboard and hand held tape recorder all on standby, I usually fuel my efforts with a strong batch of coffee when I get up. I like being hyper in the morning.

Getting to Know Earwig

Earwig recently released their new album ‘Gibson Under Mountain’ to a small but eager fan-base. As the year winds down to a close, there’s a lot brewing at Camp Earwig and early 2011 will bring the release of another new 4 song EP entitled ‘North High Alumni’. If you live in the Columbus, Ohio area, you can look forward to a rare local show at The Treehouse on January 14th, 2011. If yr new to Earwig, or even if yr not, here are a few quick links to bring you up to speed.

YouIndie interview: Lizard discusses the past, present and future of Earwig.
http://www.youindie.com/?p=18035

Donewaiting Review: A track by track breakdown of the new album.
http://tinyurl.com/2a3ok9k

Outroversion: Respected British music blog reviews Earwig’s new album.
http://tinyurl.com/3ajjadv

Story behind Gibson Under Mountain: What’s in a name?
http://nightcusser.blogspot.com/2010/04/gibson-digital.html

Rock Star Moves

Last Friday Earwig played the CD101 Summerfest/Bacardi party at the Basement. We gave it our all and had a blast. Every time we have a show at the Basement all I can think of is when we played an Abercrombie & Fitch Xmas party there a few years back. I got pretty riled up and started working some “rock out” moves on the last song. I was fist-pumping and making faces. It was then that I noticed a heating duct that runs directly over the stage where I was standing. For some reason thought that it’d be cool to punch the duct with my fist during the solo for Rumplestiltskin. Big mistake. It was not a flimsy heating duct after all. It was solid concrete. I dislocated a knuckle and had to finish the song with a broken hand. All of my cries of pain and the awful faces I made were construed by my band mates and the audience as just more “rocking out”. Yeah. To cap it off, I ended that night with a gash above my left eye that required 6 stitches. Good times.

I guess that sometimes I just don’t know when to quit. But who wants to watch a band that just stands there and plays, right? The picture above is from Lobsterfest in Athens. I actually didn’t hurt myself at that show, but I came close. I’m wearing a brace on my arm because I had recently broken my elbow skateboarding. I had reconstructive surgery and now I have a titanium implant in my left elbow. Bionic elbow. Now that is sort of cool...

If you want to see me possibly destroy myself on stage for the benefit of public amusement, you can come see Earwig this month when we play the big outdoor show at the end party for the Pelotonia ride in Athens. I’ll be making sure that my insurance premiums are paid and up to date.

Gibson Acoustic

Before we started overdubs and mixing for Gibson Under Mountain, I sat down with the producer, Mike Landolt, and recorded quick acoustic versions of all 11 songs. We just set up one mic and I took one shot at each tune. The idea was to establish a point of reference for each song, a basic template. Then, as we worked on overdubs, I posted one acoustic song each week on this blog along with notes about what we were recording that week and maybe the story behind the song. We’ve collected all 11 acoustic versions, had them mastered by Steve Warstler and are offering them together as a FREE album download in exchange for yr email address to add to our email list. I thought it might be fun to re-visit the blog posts about each song, in case you missed it before.

You can download the full Gibson Under Mountain Acoustic album here for FREE:
http://earwig.bandcamp.com/album/gibson-under-mountain-acoustic

Here are the links to the blog posts for each song:

1. Trees - http://nightcusser.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-own-private-listening-party.html
2. Star Cross’d - http://nightcusser.blogspot.com/2009/09/baby-jesus-gave-me-hubcap.html
3. Not About You - http://nightcusser.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-have-not-yet-begun-to-sing.html
4. Her Heart - http://nightcusser.blogspot.com/2009/10/intuitive-golf-and-broken-hearts.html
5. Lovesong Cockroach - http://nightcusser.blogspot.com/2009/10/undecided-decisions.html
6. Sleepyhead - http://nightcusser.blogspot.com/2009/10/this-guitars-been-dreaming.html
7. Next Christmas - http://nightcusser.blogspot.com/2009/11/i-know-what-i-want.html
8. Glorious & Gloom - http://nightcusser.blogspot.com/2009/11/let-waiting-begin.html
9. Wicked - http://nightcusser.blogspot.com/2009/12/bring-on-dancing-keyboards.html
10. Shiny Morning - http://nightcusser.blogspot.com/2009/12/last-of-year.html
11. Rumplestiltskin - http://nightcusser.blogspot.com/2010/01/story-of-rumplestiltskin.html

Short & Funny

Whoah! See you later February. I guess I missed a whole month. Not because I wasn't working, mind you. I was spending my time in nutty-nutcake land trying to make sense of the final mixes for the Earwig album. Well, it's done now. Don't hate me because my hair is delicious, okay? I'm working on the cover now and should have more news for you soon regarding the album release, the new single 'Trees' etc. Until then, enjoy my latest post with a downloadable song that you can sing-a-long to!

I think my daughter James has a wicked sense of humor. When her alarm clock would go off in the morning, she would always check the time and then go back to sleep for a little while longer. That eventually became a problem and she had to fix it. Her solution? Well, that's a picture of her alarm clock now. Problem solved.

My friend David has a crazy daughter named Emma. She's 8 years old, likes to wear costumes, dance and sing songs with her friends. Last year Emma asked me to write a song specifically for her and her friends to sing. I agreed and then promptly forgot about it. After a few months, I got a call from Emma "Hey Lizard, where's my song?". I told her I'd have it to her by the end of the week. When I asked Emma what she wanted the song to be about, she said that she didn't know. How about rainbows? Did she want a song about a rock and roll choo-choo train? The only direction she would give me is that she wanted it to be "short and funny". When I got off the phone I got right to work on the song. After racking my brain for a few hours and coming up with several lame ideas, I realized that nothing good was coming. Eventually, I asked my daughter's advice. What is short and funny? "That's easy" James said, "tiny clowns!" And you know what, she was totally right. I sat down and wrote this song in the next ten minutes.

Tiny Clowns

http://www.lizardfamily.com/mp3s/Tiny_Clowns

To download the MP3 go to File -> Save as and store the file on yr desktop

That's Matt Wagner singing back-up and playing the "Jesus Organ". We recorded the song at his place on his casette 4 track. The download includes a version of the song with lyrics and a version without lyrics, so you and yr friends can sing along. Have fun.

I Have Not Yet Begun To Sing

In the spirit of John Paul Jones (the revolutionary naval commander, not the Led Zep bassist), I have not yet begun to sing. There is a serious possibility that I am in love with the sound of my own voice. There's nothing I like better than cranking the band in the headphones and giving my all for a keeper vocal take. And when we're done, I want to go again. Alas, nothing lasts forever. Landy generally shuts me down after 3 full takes, which is a good thing since I'm usually spent at that point and it's basically a case of diminishing returns. I'm starting to respect Mike's instincts in these matters. He knows what he's talking about. Last week, Mike also clued me in to a crucial element that's missing from our session. It seems that on all major important recording sessions, the band and producer work off of a 'Progress Board'. You can see Earwig's very own progress board for the Gibson Under Mountain sessions above. The board has each song listed in graph-style with specially selected magazine photo cut-outs pasted to show what elements of the recording (drums, bass, guitar, vocals, etc.) have been completed. It's encouraging, in a gold star for potty training kind of way. Whatever that means. I like it.

Things are moving right along. We got a lot accomplished this week and I even found a new hub cap! We worked on Star Cross'd, Lovesong Cockroach, Her Heart and Shiny Morning. We'll be taking the next two weeks off and then be back at it in early October. I'll still be posting a new acoustic song each week though. This week's track is Not About You. Enjoy.

http://www.lizardfamily.com/mp3s/Not_About_You_MCHacoustic.mp3

To download the MP3 go to File -> Save as and store the file on yr desktop

The Silver Baby Cup

Here at LFM secret HQ, everything is grand. As I mentioned in the inaugural post for this blog, there’s a golf course in my front yard named ‘Assisi Threepio’. My best friend and numero uno golf-buddy is a shipwright and knows lots of crazy pirates. We play golf just about every weekend and we're full of glorious ideas so we decided to start our own golf tournament and invite all of our wonderful, crazy friends! On Halloween weekend we hosted the first ever Assisi Threepio Silver Baby Cup Challenge. Sixteen golfers, thirty spectators, four rounds of elimination golf, a one hundred dollar cash prize and a very nice engraved silver trophy cup. Guests arrived from all over the United States to camp for the weekend. Folks from Maine, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, New Mexico and Arkansas regaled to the sounds of Earwig (with Nick S. on drums!) at the annual Freeman’s Secret Ball costume party bash on Friday night. The band played on a specially built outdoor stage constructed just for the occasion.

Saturday saw it’s share of surprises and upsets with the first four rounds of golfers.

And an outstanding evening of entertainment from our pals the Itinerant Locals and Trapper Haskins.

Sunday was the final round of golf. I actually came in second

(thank-you very much).

The trophy, the large $100 check and the honor to host next year’s tournament went home with Andres Bermudez, otherwise know as the "Madman in the kilt".

Year of the Used Kids

I remember being very excited to play CD101 Day at the LC in 2007. Pretty unbelievably, our song “Used Kids” was being played on the radio like crazy. 400 spins in 6 months. You do the math. We got our own dressing room and were generally treated like conquering kings. Earwig got the second to last slot, which was great. The place was packed and the audience was incredible. Despite our nerves, we actually didn’t screw up and played pretty well. It was one of the biggest and best shows we had played up until that point. Then FOX TV called and asked us to come in for an interview and to play the song on their morning show ‘Good Morning Columbus’. We had planned on doing the tune as a full band but, as usual, things went awry and we ended up on-air as an acoustic duo, just me and Matt. It was a happy accident though, since I don’t know if we would have been able to deliver fully functional rock at 7am. I bet the soccer-moms probably liked the stripped down version better anyway . Next, we somehow landed the headlining spot Friday night on the main-stage at Comfest. Despite technical difficulties (with my brain) we did an admirable job and went over well with the massive audience that’s a cross-section of free-music fans and beer lovers from the Midwest. We capped the summer off with another show at the LC, this time outside, and then a short tour (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York) to promote ‘Center Of The Earth’. At the end of October, a week after we got back from the tour, we went into the studio and put down basics for 14 songs that should comprise our next full length album. All in all, it was a fantastic year. You can see clips of Earwig at Comfest, The LC, CD101 Day, FOX TV and several stops on the tour in this new video for ‘Used Kids’, superbly edited by Matt Parker. Enjoy.

*BONUS* Look for the scene where I have Matt in a headlock and then throw him to the ground. We were playing in Cincinnati. I broke a string mid-song and, disposing of my guitar, finished the tune by flailing around the stage like an aerobics instructor on PCP. I guess that I got a little caught up in the moment. Matt, if your out there...I’m sorry.

Foshy Photo

My pal Allan Foster takes lots of pictures. I don’t think that he’d call himself a photographer, even though he’s very good at it. He’s actually sort of a jack-of-many-trades, being a kick-ass photographer is just his latest hobby. In the past he’s directed, edited and shot music videos, built websites (Earwig’s website!) and played drums in a smart and influential Columbus band (Po-Po Volcano). He also makes some wicked salsa. Allan is a very talented, yet unassuming type of guy who is always happy to pick up yr slack and help out in some way. I’ve got plenty of slack that needs to be tended to, so Allan is pretty much President and C.E.O. of “Team Earwig”. He took some great pictures of Earwig in December at the Lyle Gallery. Lately he’s been getting really into this Strobist group and building his own specialty photo and lighting equipment. It's interesting stuff. He got a new camera last year and his skills have improved greatly. In addition to portraits, he’s been shooting a lot of live bands like Watershed , The Editors and Hot Hot Heat. Columbus bands The Guinea Worms and Necropolis had Allan take their picture for an upcoming piece about the Columbus underground scene for some big British Music Magazine. The picture at the top is a shot Allan took of the Guinea Worms for the Columbus Dispatch. One of Allan’s nicknames is Foshy. Wil Foster from the Guinea Worms is his brother. You should listen to a few of the Guinea Worms/Wil Foster songs. Wil is unique, funny and legally bat-shit crazy.

Low Fidelity

I like the sound of tape hiss. It’s warm and fuzzy. I like it when you fall asleep on the couch watching a movie. And when you wake up, the tv’s gone off and your left with a warm blanket of pixilated static (but not like in Poltergeist, that would be bad). There’s just something comforting about analog artifacts. Sometimes, with music, it helps blend everything together. Make it mushy. Like cake batter before the cake. It works in movies too. I loved how in Grindhouse (the movie by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez) they went to great lengths to make it an authentic tribute to B movies and exploitation thrillers. Right down to all of the fuzzy, out-of-focus camera work and stray hairs on the projector lens. My pal Matt Parker makes movies. He let me watch some cool exploitation style trailers that he tacked onto the front of a short horror movie of his called “Hack”.


I dig all of the after effects, the coming attractions, 70’s movie styling, the funky music and the foley sound work. It all makes me feel like I’m back at the drive-in. This is just stuff Matt does for kicks, he also edits video professionally (www.mattparkerproductions.com). Matt is working on a music video for Earwig. It’s a lot of rough live footage that I collected over the last year cut together to the song Used Kids. Matt has a great eye and he’s a very talented cat. It’s coming out better than I had expected. Some of the footage is well shot, glossy, bright and clean. While some of the other raw video I gave him is pretty low quality. Matt found a theme to tie it all together and used filters and other effects to get the footage to all work well as a video. He sacrificed the quality on the pristine footage to give it all a lo-fi feel. There are a few other neat tricks too. I like it. I’ll post the finished video here as soon as it‘s ready.

I like to write. But staring at a computer screen too long hurts my brain. The internet is digital and harsh. I think that coffee in the morning must be somehow analog. The more coffee I drink, the longer I can stare at the computer screen. They seem to almost cancel each other out.

Yard Golfing

When the sun comes out on a day like today, after another long winter spent indoors, I get the urge for new occupation. Today that occupation is yard golf. I live deep in the woods of southern Ohio and have no neighbors (excepting dogs, deer, cats, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, chipmunks, beavers, weasels, raccoons, possums, turtles and the occasional wild boar). My yard is a couple of acres and surrounded on all sides by woods. I have never golfed before, but recently bought three used golf clubs from the thrift store for a buck each. I walked the yard to discover the best drive lanes and set three holes with plastic containers that I dug out of the recycle bin. My new yard-golf course is three holes. The first hole is a fairly long drive, with the chicken house and garden serving as hazards. I'd say par 4. I don't have any golf tees and after digging two pretty good sized divets out of my yard with my number one driver (a 9.75 Hogan) I hit a strong drive that sliced hard, just missing my van and hitting my garage. No damage. I chipped onto the "green" with my wedge and sunk the putt for a swell birdie. I was off to a good start. I cut across the yard, length-wise for a bogey on the second hole. So far so good, par for the course. I felt pretty good. That's when it all went bad. I ended up almost beaning one of my favorite St. Francais statues while trying to shoot around the brush pile on the third hole. 4 shots over par in the end. Damn.