Election Blues

I’m into my second cup of coffee, letting the new record from Gone drag me into a guitar-skronk fueled trance. Ripping metal claws and a pulsating beat are digging holes in my psych. Hammer-on, pull, bend...skronk! I like it. It mirrors the sound my life is making, going full blast in several different directions at the same time. My new position with MoveOn.Org has been taking up a lot of time. But instigating reckless political debate on street corners is important work ...and fun. Skronk! The power outage in Columbus put a crimp in the progress of our album and upcoming DVD documentary. Earwig plays in Cleveland this weekend. Reading “The Tao of Physics” by Capra. Organizing a Midwest tour for Earwig next summer....wait. Time for a slow blues-jam, walking bass-line with an epic slam-dancing drumbeat. How does that work? It just does.

Horror In The Hills

When we lived at the farm, deep in the hills, Rich Cefalo came to visit with his newly found Super 8 camera in tow. He'd just bought it at the Goodwill store in Columbus and it had one roll of film left in it. That afternoon, we decided to shoot a Low Budget Masterpiece. We built the script around our one obvious prop...a menacing looking dog cage. I grabbed a suitcase, a hat, a suit and tie from the old clothes closet on the farm and we got underway. I play a traveling salesman who has lost his way. We shot each scene consecutively with no second takes. It was all or nothing. It was fall and the trees were beautiful. Aaron Freeman plays the hapless pumpkin farmer and his younger brother Daniel was in charge of lighting. Lighting consisted of a cheap mirror we pulled from the medicine cabinet. Daniel held it in his hands and used it to reflect a small patch of ultra-bright sunlight in my face for every shot. You can see the rectangle of light bounce around as young Daniel moved along with Rich as he filmed each scene. These were the days before steady-cam. Behind the main farm house, there was a lonely outbuilding that, for some unknown reason, was filled with sun-bleached animal skulls. This seemed like the perfect spot to devise the demise of our hero. Corn syrup + pumpkin entrails = a gruesome end. In spite of our shortcomings, the 3 minute epic came out well and we watched it once. The cheap projector (also from Goodwill) ripped the start of the films-strip (that's why it skips badly in the beginning). And so this Super 8 masterpiece sat in an old drawer for several years. Until last week.

I brought it to Matt Parker to archive the footage and figure out some way to use it later on. Matt immediately got excited that it would make a great music video for Earwig. He was right. It might not be obvious from the first viewing, but Matt had a LOT of work to do to make this footage into a good music video. There are so many things that might not work out with timing, no convenient edits, finding the right song etc...But in Matt's hands, Horror In The Hills took on a new life. Originally shot by Rich Cefalo, conceived by Rich, Aaron and Lizard and eventually edited and set to music by Matt Parker. This is Earwig's video for 'Parked'. Enjoy.

One Night in Bangkok

It’s been quite a stroll down memory lane, compiling videos and photo evidence for the upcoming Earwig Gone Wild – DVD series. I remember the night a strapping collection of lesbians wandered in on Earwig’s gig at Café Bourbon Street. They seemed a bit bored and were probably looking for the bar next door. But they quickly livened up when I called them out and started asking for requests. Soon, three divine young ladies staked out the real estate directly in front of the band. After a few songs, I invited them all up on stage to sing while the boys and I improvised some “slow jams”. Things got a little intense. Two of them started “dirty dancing” and I ended up riding the other one around the bar like a pony. Do they make a saddle for that?

SleepStandingUp

Tony and Leilah are getting married. They’re going to be very happy, of that much I’m sure. It’s rare to meet two people who are so incredibly nice and as well-matched as those two are. Tony actually went to the same high-school as I did, Whitehall. Although it was after I graduated so I didn‘t meet him then. But he’s been an Earwig fan since back in the golden years of LFM (the 1990’s!). While we were on tour, Earwig even stayed over at their place in Las Cruces, New Mexico. They brought their whole gang of friends out and that show is one of the best tour memories we have. It was an incredible night. After high-school, Earwood joined the military and moved away from Columbus, but it seems like there is no end to his circle of friends. Some of his C-Bus pals who are going to the wedding offered to pay to fly me and the band out to play at Tony & Leilah’s reception. It’s quite an honor to even be asked, but we can’t go. Tony says that SleepStandingUp from Mayfeeder is one of his favorite Earwig songs. So here’s a special rendition of that tune just for the bride & groom. Congratulations.

SleepStandingUp
Autumn falls and here am I, beneath this windshield that’s built to protect me
Swallow it whole, ginger blue sunshine
is all mine
Try to find you and I will, my sympathies run high tonight
the boy with the cool fag haircut, was he the one
made you so sad
It’s all made up, yr an angel in my eyes
you know the truth and I’m a liar
he uses me

It takes a thin young man to say the things a giant can’t
call me yr thin young man
Sometimes I rely on you to tell me how I feel
Severely restricted and gingerly kissed, mouth wide open
like this

The choice I haven’t made could be my big mistake
I’m hearing opera through the door

I know myself, and it wouldn’t be right, to say the least
Sometimes I rely on you to tell me how I feel
Severely restricted and gingerly kissed, mouth wide open

Yr my warm spider web
Yr my suck benefit
Yr my remember dog
Yr mine

* The first time we played the song, Matt’s amp fell over. The second time we played it, I forgot the words. On the third try, we made it all the way through and that’s what you see here. Third attempt, two cameras, one take. Allan Foster filmed us in Matt’s room on Wednesday night and then our pal Matt Parker edited it together the very next day. Thank you very much to those two guys for helping make this happen.