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VELVET JONES |
TIMES IS HARD |
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Times is Hard was the only "official" CD I've ever released, but even some fifteen years later I'm still proud of it. We booked studio time, we pounded out the songs working late into the night. We had a great time. If you're scouring the back crevices of a local music store in Lexington, Kentucky, you might find a copy of it somewhere. Or you can just download the tracks here. |
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Love Theme from Velvet Jones - every great band, from KISS to The Pursuit of Happiness, needs to have a "Love Theme". Also I think we all kind of felt none of the tracks we were recording were solid openers. If I recall correctly we wrote this in about five minutes before we went into recording. You can probably tell that by listening, but it's still a fun song. |
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Here It Comes Again - Four white guys attempt to get down n' funky! Guitarist Eric Akers gets all psychadelic in the middle section. You'll find a more swampy version down below in the SuperAmerica Eternal section, but this is the "official" version of it. |
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Leave It Behind - our power ballad. They played it on local radio, and that's a thrill I can't relay to you unless you've experienced it yourself. There's really nothing like driving your car and suddenly they're playing your song, that you wrote. I originally titled this song "Watertread" and everyone else in the band laughed at me because that was "the artiest, gayest name ever." I threatened a solo album. They called my bluff. What could I do, eh? |
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Ambulance - my friend Mike Parker, the Wayne to my Garth, once said there should be a really bad action drama on TV called "Ambulance" and it should contain every horrible 70s and 80s cliche from every action drama that preceded it. This, then, is the theme song to "Ambulance" |
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Churchyard Blues - still my favorite song we ever did. I'd been studying major black authors and the blues tradition and tried...as best as any suburban white man could...to channel that into a song. We ripped off Robert Johnson's "Travellin' Riverside Blues" riff, but drummer Daylan Kinser and I got this crazy fun idea to go off time on a couple measures, and I think that really helps make the song as cool as it is. |
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Wrong - Part one of the "F You" trilogy. You reach a point with those you've wronged or who have wronged you where the pride can be justified, and you're better off just letting them go. The lie in the song is "If I have to forget you, you know it won't take very long." Obviously not, because I'm still writing about these people! |
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The User - the kiss-off to a singer in a band I was in. She's not nearly that bad. It was just one of those artistic difference things you read about that broke us up, and I was still pissed that she had the audacity not to realize how right I was, you know? To borrow a line from Bob: "I used her/She used me/Neither one cared/We were gettin' our share." Part two of the "F You" trilogy. |
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PMS - Part three of the "F You" trilogy. I pick on Alanis, Stipe, and Henley, and I'm sure they're all quivering in their little space booties about it. For the record, I love all three of these people, and their music, but it was written at a time where artists were on "platforms" instead of just doing what they do best - make great music. The irony that I wrote a song that "platforms" about "platforming" shouldn't be lost on anyone. |
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Change of Season - For some weird reason, I knew several kids who spent their entire lives growing up, only to die in car accidents pretty much right when life was about to get good for them. Life can be downright cruel and unfair sometimes and it really doesn't seem to care if you know that. Also I wanted a Pearl Jam song on this album and this was about as close as we could get to that. I think it's lead singer Jason Nally's strongest vocal performance. |
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Sweet Tea Blues - Another one I think we wrote in about five minutes but is still fun as hell to play and was always popular when we played live. You should have pretty much NO doubt as to what the metaphor is all about. Seriously. |
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You'll Never Know - I didn't write the lyrics to this one, our drummer did, but it's still one of the best songs I think we did as a group. I really like how the bass sounds on this one (I played my new fretless on it!) and it was always a strong sign when you played a slow song like this and nobody left or went to get a beer that you had a pretty good one on your hands. |
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SuperAmerica Eternal |
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These are outakes, rough cuts and our EP "Suspiciously Wintergreen" put together in one CD that never got released. You're welcome. I sang lead on the songs, and you can figure out for yourself why we needed to get an actual lead singer eventually. I still think some of these songs outshine what we did on Times is Hard from a raw, unbridled passion type of thing. SuperAmerica was a gas station company back east that sold really cheap gas and was next door to our rehearsal space. |
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PMS (The Dark Version) - I like the more angry, sonic sound Eric got out of his guitar on this version. |
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Here It Comes Again (Again) - The bass sounds a little more funkified, and I sing like...I don't know who the hell I'm channeling there. David Byrne? Gumby? |
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Believe - the first song I ever wrote, for my previous band, Dear John. It was a pretty big step for me. Not only did I write it, but I sang (for better or worse) the lead vocals on it. The subject matter's nothing unique to music - the frustration and impatience of unrequited love and the desire to either confirm it or kill it - but to me it was a pretty big deal. |
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23 - We were so proud of ourselves that we'd written a song that has a pretty cool time signature change, from 4/4 to 5/4. It never really occured to us that just because someone is a music fan, it doesn't mean they're a musician necessarily. In other words, nobody else cared. The lyrics are pretty inspired, though. I wonder what cold medication I was taking at the time. |
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Something More - This song goes on way too long, I sing way too horrdly, and the lyrics are way too stupid. The bass line is cool, but really, if you skip this one, I think everyone, and your ears, will thank you. |
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When You're Sleeping - I always regretted us not doing this one for the main album. It could have been so much better than it is here, and I think it's pretty good here. I don't know why I felt the need to go from my Gene Simmons growl to a really airy-fairy falsetto, but it works. Maybe this was the unknowing Smashing Pumpkins tribute I always though PMS was. |
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Money - the second song I ever wrote. The bass line isn't nearly as difficult as it sounds, but it sounds like its difficult, so we could fool audiences into thinking I knew what I was doing. At one point when Dear John did this song we had the lyric "I won't give it to a duck/I don't really give a f----", but we cleaned it up for this one. |
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Walk - I make no apologies. I love Guns n' Roses. This was my attempt to cross them with some sort of proto-punk thing and it failed miserably. But I LOVE the bridge that hooks the verse to the chorus. It's arguably the hardest we've ever sounded as a band. We never tried this one live, as I recall. It would have been a good one to kick over the amplifiers with. |
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Killing Time - We wrote this one solely for the purpose of filling any time obligations to be onstage. It could last 5 minutes or fifteen, however long we needed it to be. We also used it as a weapon. One prick club owner demanded we do one more song and then leave the stage so the "headliners" (who were his friends and didn't bring anyone to the gig where we'd had a pretty good crowd for us) could come on. So we played this one...for about fifteen minutes or so. He was pissed, but not as pissed as when his buddies came onstage to an empty club. We'd even hopped into the adjoining room to play pool. Don't mess with us. ^:^ |
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Live at the Millennium |
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One of our final shows was played in a club in Lexington, Kentucky. We knew we were breaking up soon so Eric and I could attend art school (what, and give up all this?!?), so we grabbed my old shitty copy of Rush's Exit...Stage Left and plugged the holes so we could record over it (it occured to nobody to head over to the drugstore and get a tape). The sound is pretty amazing, if you consider that, but unless you want to hear a particular cover, this is pretty much die-hards only. I left out the few songs that were our own. |
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House is a Rockin' - Stevie Ray Vaughan |
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Tightrope - Stevie Ray Vaughan |
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Good Times, Bad Times - Zeppelin |
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The Girl I Love - Zeppelin |
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Cold Shot - Stevie Ray Vaughan |
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Moondance - Van Morrison |
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5 to 1 - Doors |
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Who Do You Love? - Doors version |
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Couldn't Stand the Weather - Stevie Ray Vaughan |
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Pride and Joy - Stevie Ray Vaughan |
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| The Downfall Band |
Fed Up |
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The Downfall Band was me and Eric, computerized drums and a lot of recording equipment. I think it's some of the best stuff we've ever done. Some of it is solely his, but I'll put it up here and make a note of it, because it's worth hearing. I still enjoy listening to this stuff. |
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Fed Up - This one's solely Eric. It's a good one to start the album, and since he pretty much put it together, who was I to tell him different? |
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Another Day - Another one that's all Eric. |
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Spiral - I came up with the lyrics, but the rest is Eric on instrumentation and vocals. For a clue for you budding tunesmiths and poets out there, those two opening lines about the unkindest cut of all? Pretty much from the first day I started writing, I've slapped them into so many songs that never really worked it's not even funny. Eric sat with them for a day or two and came up with this. That's how unfair life can be. |
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Nursing the Erection - my "tone poem". I love the wordplay and this would have made a great Concrete Blonde song, and most importantly, when you come up with a cool bassline like I play in the chorus, you don't let it go to waste. |
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Pretty - The one and only song I play guitar on. I'm pretty proud of it, even if I am blatantly ripping off Oasis' "The Girl in the Dirty Shirt" in the intro chords. Sue me, I love those wacky Gallagher brothers. A paeon to every girl who wouldn't sleep with me. Ever singer/writer/artist has one of those in him/her. |
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Pass the Blame - Solely Eric on this one. |
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True - Love thie one. Love the lyrics. Love the sentiment. Love Eric's guitar break at the end of it. I felt it was a real sign as to how much we'd improved as creators, and a real shame that it was about as far as we got with it. My voice, as usual, is totally inappropriate for it...it really could have used a better singer. |
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Turn My Head Away - I can't decide wither I love or hate this one. It's decidedly sappy, but it's a good kind of sappy. The way the vocals and guitar and bass all kind of follow each other on the chorus, I like. Just not sure about the rest of it. It's a good song, though, don't get me wrong. A lot of artists don't like half the stuff they create, so don't take my word for it, okay? Thanks. |
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You Know - Eric started the album so it's only fitting he close it out. |
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