the blog quebecois

The Atlantic Wire:

The Wikileaks cables have brought us tales of nuclear intrigue in Pakistan, secret geopolitical negotiation in China, and the threat of all-out war in the Middle East. But what about our diplomatic mission in Canada? What untold secrets do their classified communications reveal to the world? Now that those cables have been released, we finally know: Canada is a pretty dull place to be a U.S. diplomat.

My cousin wrote the lyrics to this and as far as I can remember, we collaborated on the music. It was kind of new territory for us both -- we didn't know anything about jazz, but when I pointed out the advantages to my cousin, such as being able to play chords such as these:

he was sold on the idea. You'll notice that they set our left hands basically free to indulge in other traditional jazz activities, such as heroin addiction and wearing berets (hey, all the hep cats had 'em). Best of all it insulated us from criticism from our friends, who knew about as much about jazz as we did. No matter how ineptly we played something, no objections could be raised -- we would just slowly shake our heads and say, "Man, you just aren't hip to Coltrane, are you? sotto voce: Let's blow this Squaresville berg and go to New York where they dig The 'Trane, and we can work on the heroin thing, and, uh, some of those snappy berets too."

Musically it's not bad considering we had no idea what we were doing. Lyrically though . . . if you've ever wondered whether singers are paying attention to what they're singing, wonder no more. It only took me thirty years to spot the howler my cousin had written:

When you're in my arms / I know that I must resist

That's a genuine "Flick your Bic" moment if I've ever heard one.

So there's this beach where people love to camp because of frequent dolphin sightings. One day Homeland Security hears terrorist chatter of a possible bomb threat against the campers and dolphins because their carefree hijinks epitomize the Freedom that the terrorists are forever attacking.

An officer is dispatched to the beach to issue a warning. "Is this threat directed against all of us?" a camper asks.

I roughly divide our recording "career" into three parts.

The first, as I've mentioned before, was mainly jam sessions. We started adding vocals near the end of this period, but mostly on jokey material like our "rock opera" and the previously-featured "Warning Shots".

Singing that kind of stuff is a lot easier on the psyche. If you blow a note -- an entire verse, for that matter -- you can claim you intended it that way all along. But it was time to get serious.

Then we focused on my big backcatalog of songs, the quality of which was uneven, to say the least. Sometimes the music was lame, the melody non-existent or the lyrics laughable. Sometimes it would all come together in a perfect trifecta of awfulness. So we futzed around with those for some months, making improvements here and there, but I eventually realized that I was going to have to write some new stuff. Enter the final -- and, I would argue, the most creative -- part of our existence.

This was one of the first of the new songs. I found it easier to start with a blank slate than go back to try and fix songs that I was heartily sick of by then. We were also finding out that we could play with some snap and precision. It would have been nice to have a real drummer to punch some of this home; but hey, you gotta work with what you got.

To that end, we deployed what I coyly describe as "additional percussion." Which was:

A marraca. Usually one refers to "marracas," as they come in pairs. But we only had one, and it wasn't even the real thing, or terribly easy to shake more often than on the quarter-beat (especially while singing). I had some sort of gourd with a removable top that I'd brought back from Africa. I put a handful of dried beans in it and that worked okay. Except that the shaking eventually reduced the bean skins to a fine dust; and the top wasn't airtight. You might think it would be difficult to maintain one's rock and roll cool with regular gouts of white powder settling on every thing in sight. You would be correct. At least not that type of white powder;

a tambourine, with a drumhead and with the jingles (they're technically called "zils") snipped out. This became our snare drum, though it was mainly composed of duct tape by the time we were through with it;

the metal faceplate from a stolen "Exit" sign, which became a "crash" cymbal;

a real cowbell, which was kind of neat; and

um, some cardboard boxes, which weren't.

So, taken individually, not too impressive; when you put them all together, though, it provided an agreeable clatter in the backgtound. Playing with the drum machine alone always seems a bit sterile, like a metronome.

We got off to an uneven start, but soon settled into a groove that we could have played with on and on and on until the last patron staggered out of the bar and the management cut the power and helped us move our gear out: Hey! Do you mind? That doesn't go in the recycling bin -- that's our drum kit, man!

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Verse:

A lazy flare of gas
Sickly yellow and intense
Flicked within the waxworks
Licked the long lonely faces
then retreated in the shadows

Hissing and guttering
A sculptor twice neglected
A suitor thrice rejected
Yet someday to caress...
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Chorus:

There's a fire in the waxworks
Someone torched the paraffin
Smoke boiling from the workshops
Melting history's waxen grin

... somebody should really notify the fire department . . .
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Chorus 2:

There's a fire in the waxworks
Police have named it arson
The destruction of the building
Cremation of the contents
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Like many of our songs, this was a work in progress. I fed the chorus through some effects pedals to make it sound metallic and ominous (but it mainly sounds stupid), and also to distinguish it from the verses, which were musically similar, if not identical. Later, as we played through it a few more times, a new hook started to emerge in the middle of the first verses, a sort of funk improvisation on the phrase "retreated in the shadows." Alas, we never did get a good version of it down on tape.

What's it about? you ask. Never having seen a real waxworks, let alone one on fire, I think I was probably influenced by the 1953 Vincent Price movie, House of Wax, which indeed starts off with a fire in a waxworks.

Of course, I meant it as a metaphor, but I'll be damned if I can remember for what. Possibly global warming. Yeah, that was it. Al Gore, call your office. I want some of that Nobel swag.

I'm going to be quite busy over the next few weeks, so I'll bid you all a Merry Christmas. May Santa`s reindeer die from exhaustion delivering your booty (in the older, nautical sense of the word). How's that for a nice Christmassy image?

Assuming I live through it all, I should be back early in the New Year.