New and found songs keep the music playing, but not nearly

frequently enough. Being away from my artsy friends and living in a place where I doubt people would pay much attention to what I’m doing tends to take away some of the inspiration

for writing songs. That’s not to say that I’ve lost interest, but that it takes a little bit more

effort to get around to actually picking up my guitar and trying to

come up with something new.

But here you have something new, and this new thing is a

composite of some extremely old songs I’ve “discovered” on my

backup CDs as well as some more recently recorded songs. Without a doubt, this is the most disjointed DWAB release to date, and this is in large part because of how

scattered the recording dates are. Nevertheless, I felt it best to

go ahead and stick them together, and get them out there....

The songs were recorded over the span of about 10 years, some in

Santa Barbara, some in Madurai, and two in Cambridge. They were named in totally logical illogical ways such as being based on an addition to my house, the country that one of my instruments came from, the way one of my students said a

particular word, or a surgery I had.

This is also the first DWAB release that includes “cover

songs” of sorts. For example, “One Sunday Afternoon” is actually a Stephen Hero song that never

got recorded (and even if it were to get recorded, it would sound nothing like what I’ve recorded here). Similarly, “De Colores” is a traditional song that I recorded for my Spanish class as a special project. And “Paul’s Space Bar”?

Well. I’ll let you figure out what the original song was. Ben and I

butchered it so badly that... well, it has become something totally new.

“Starting Early” was recorded in Santa Barbara. Mr. DWAB worked alone here, reminded of songs like “Enchantment” from “Sherman’s Unfiltered Music.” Most likely, recorded around the same time. Lost around 2000, found again sometime around 2006....

“Kudil Song” named after a little hut I had built on the roof of my home in Madurai. The song,

as you might imagine, was recorded in that little hut. Favorite highlight: when Amy sends me a text message and you hear the alert. Recorded with my digital camera during a scheduled power-outage....

An old student of mine, Gaby, used to say the word “horoscope” in a very funny way, somewhat like

you might say if you were speaking Spanish, but not quite.... “Ho-ros-co-poe!” is just me and my guitarron. Recorded while Amy and I were in Cambridge, Mass.

Mr. DWAB has no secrets, right? “Hi Drocoele, crowin’ under the coconut trees....” is named after a surgery I had in

Madurai. The song was recorded a couple of days before the surgery; it was “mixed” about a week after the surgery. Perhaps not the best state of mind to be editing music....

Recorded using my mobile phone and my portable media player, both of which have nerdy voice-recorders built in to them....

“Plugs (mellow)” was recorded in 2003, lost for some years, found again, then just left in a folder waiting

until something could be done with it. Modified with the word “mellow” because, well, there’s an “un-mellow” version too. Recorded using a little gadget called the Zoom PS-02, which was a portable multi-track recorder. Now that I’ve found the song, I’ve lost the recorder....

Lips quivering, hands trying to cover my mouth. But I really do want to speak, and I really do need my words to make some sense. Maybe everything will be a bit better if my words can make

some sense, especially today.

(Well that ’s just great, I guess it just heightens the fact that I was already in love with you.)

“This isn’t right,” I remember thinking. “I shouldn’t be feeling

these restrictions when I’m

with you, especially not today.” “It’s not you,” you say. “It’s

me, it ’s just a fucked up phase of mine. I will be over it soon.

I should be over it soon.”

One Sunday afternoon....

* * * * *

Based on a Stephen Hero song (sounds nothing like the original, though). Recorded by Mr. John

Lyons at the Living Room in Goleta.

At my 2657 home, I have a really cool instrument called the charango which is a Bolivian instrument. This song is the only one I got to record using it before Amy and I moved off to India. I had a bunch of samples of recordings of phone sound

effects and I wanted to do something with them, and the song seemed to be a perfect excuse to loop them together....

One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen

twenty twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five twenty-six twenty-seven twenty-eight twenty-nine thirty thirty-one thirty-two thirty-three thirty-four thirty-five thirty-six thirty-seven thirty-eight thirty-nine forty. Let me hear ya.

This is the only song on here that features someone other than Mr. DWAB. Ben was visiting me in Boston, and we decided

to “ jam” a bit. Don’t ask me what we were thinking. I’m sure we had a really clear vision. (We usually do.)

“Paul’s space bar” is somewhat of a cover song, but it really only focuses on the intro to the song, so that means

that it doesn’t really count as a cover song, right?

“The long road to nowhere in particular always seems to get us right back to where we started.”

That’s pretty self-explanatory, right?

Recorded on my rooftop in Madurai. My cat was looking at me suspic iously the whole time.

De colores. De colores se visten los campos en la primavera. De colores. De colores son los pajaritos que vienen de afeuera.

De colores. De colores es el arco iris que vemos lucir.

Y por eso los grandes amores de muchos colores me gustan a mi.

Canta el gallo. Canta el gallo con el quiri quiri quiri quiri qui. La gallina. La gallina con el cara cara cara cara cara ca.

Los pollitos. Los pollitos con el pio pio pio pio pi.

Y por eso los grandes amores de muchos colores me gustan a mi.

“De Colores” recorded for a Spanish class I was taking in 2003. We sang the song several times in class, so when we had to do a final project, I wrote a speech about

why music was important to me, and I recorded the DWAB version of this traditional folk song. Viva la fiesta!

Come to think of it, this song was recorded and shelved so long ago that I cannot for the life of me remember why I decided to call it “Plugs.”

As you can tell, I don’t really know much about distortion. I’ve tried several times, but whenever I attempt recording with

distortion on my own, it just ends up sounding like muddy noise.

Today my mouth rarely opened when I wanted to speak, and when it did open, it rarely said what I wanted it to. That

happened all day today, and it will probably happen tomorrow too, and I will continue, to keep my feelings muted.

And I remember when I sat and listened to you today. And you talked to me about yourself. Much of what was said was quite unfavorable, and in

my mind, I disagreed with you. And I know I was right to disagree with you.

But today, my mouth rarely opened. (These are our moments of unnecessary silence.)

“Silence” recorded by Mr. John Lyons at the Living Room in Goleta, I think in 1996, while I was recording the John Lyons Sessions....

Computers are fun. You can take something you recorded on your cell-phone, make it sound like you like to play your guitar backwards in the sewers.... And that is why, to end this random assortment of songs, I’d like to remind you that “The long road to

nowhere in particular takes us to the sewers.”