I have a million (mostly crazed) ideas. They range in scope from things like TV shows, movie ideas, and art projects to inventing the perfect spoon with which to eat cereal. Within that range, every7th.com was a little more on the crazy side but it was an idea that really stuck with me. Every time I would tell someone about this idea I had for a personal subscription service, they'd (after asking me to let go of their lapels) agree that it seemed like a reasonable idea and one that could have practical application. I know that I had a lot of songs collecting dust that were not really appropriate for the Oranges Band and would not fit together on a solo record either. 

So what to do? Well in my case, I approached my friends at Mission Media to see if this would need a Bill Gates backing to get off the ground or if we could pull it off d.i.y. style! Well, here it is! We did it without the backing (though I am paying monthly so please sign up already...) and I guess it is yet to be determined whether we pulled it off or not, but we got something going and for that I owe Mission Media, all my friends involved in making the music, all my friends who endured my long winded explanations and most of all, you the sincerest of thank yous! Please enjoy this first month for free and let me know what you think of the service and the songs. Sign up for the subscription and on the 7th of next month my next brain spasm will be available in musical form. I think next month's songs will be like the perfect musical spoons... to eat cereal with... musical cereal... wait, what?!?

(Click for larger image)

YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU

Sometimes being super, overly critical and generally dissatisfied isn’t as personally stressful as it would seem.  Well, it is totally stressful but being overly critical and generally dissatisfied might also motivate a unique creation.  “You Can’t Take it With you” began, innocently enough, as a relatively traditional guitar and drum piece.  I recorded pretty much all the parts but was somehow unimpressed.  So I started replacing things.  First I removed guitars and added the keyboard beats in the verse break.  Feeling successful, I re-did the bass to be sparser and more direct.  Overwhelmed with the power I replaced all the drums with bass beats and distorted hand claps and re-did the drum set and percussion in parts to be totally syncopated.  Of course, after so many changes , the vocals needed to be massaged a little too… and before I knew it the song was not the same at all and nothing that I could have predicted.

I was pretty much trying to model the structure after an R+B song called “Me & You” by Cassie.  I heard it in a shoe store in the mall and was just awestruck at how strange this song was, especially given that I was hearing it in a Foot Locker.  It reminded me just how challenging R+B and Hip-Hop can be and, in fact, need to be in order to survive and generate interest.  It also reminded that convention can be so restricting… though sometimes necessarily, I guess, cause it also occurs to me that maybe my rock song wasn’t meant to be an R+B song.  Oh well, there’s always next month. 

PEOPLE ZOO

I was involved, some years ago, in a side project called the Paper Jets, which was a side project consisting of the original members of the Slow Jets, which was an offshoot project of Roads to Space Travel, which was the first band I was in. The Paper Jets was originally meant to help realize the vision of Rick Ivy, a long-time friend and collaborator, band mate and pal who happened to write some of the most compellingly strange pop music I'd heard.  The Paper Jets did fulfill that purpose as it really gave Rick's songs a context but, through Rick's insistence, it also became a place where Greg Preston (Paper Jet and former Slow Jet and former Roads to Space Traveler) and I could try out some songs that maybe didn't fit into our other projects.  I would be inclined, I think, to discount these songs as just passing ideas but, thanks to Rick and Greg and the context of the Paper Jets, I was able to see that they might have a place to exist that made sense out of the song rather than the song having to make sense on it's own.  Make sense? Maybe not, but neither do the songs always, especially to the writer, which was the point.  Greg and Rick could see beyond the writer's insecurity and into it's subconscious validity.   Ah, the twisted minds of the 90s psycho hippies free another earthbound soul!  Thanks guys!

Photography-Natasha Tylea

Cover Design-Romania

You Can’t Take it With You

Romania-all instruments and voices

Craig Bowen-engineering and production assistance

People Zoo

Romania-all instruments and voices

Craig Bowen-engineering and production assistance

The Oranges Band

The Oranges Band on Myspace

Mission Media

The original (Paper Jet) version of “People Zoo” can be obtained through emusic or on iTunes or from Amish Records

Info about the Paper Jets can be found here:
Paper Jets

Bonus Track:

You Can't Take it With You (Instrumental)

YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU

Jackson and Jefferson
well, they were caught in the ring.

And all your nickels and dimes
you know they don’t mean a thing.

Nickels and dimes, they don’t mean a thing to you but now,
after it’s all over, you’ve learned a thing or two.
You pause and reflect on all those things you collect.
And you might wear them around your neck but, you know,

You can’t take it with you.

PEOPLE ZOO

One, two, one, two.
I live in the People Zoo.

All for one for all.
I will build the People Wall.

I’ll let in the cats and dogs.
I’ll let in the birds and the frogs.
I’ll let in the horse and the hog...