new pair of goggles

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

F Posterity, issue 3: "Halfway"

This week's unproduced recording comes from a song I wrote a couple years ago and did nothing with. Occasionally songwriters spill an entire composition in one sitting and walk away from it, not really certain that it's something they're happy with. I've looked at this a few times since writing it one day in August 2004 and recently decided I like it. The other day I wrote one final chorus to vary the finish and recorded a demo today.

Strangely enough, it's the songs I write in half an hour that people seem to love. The ones I labor over for months, fasting and beating my chest with stones, are the ones people say, "Eh. Doesn't do much for me."

Maybe that makes sense.

The lyrics:

It's just a halfway position I'm posing on pedestals
Parasols spinning in timelessness
Weightless aspirations seeking an anchor
Like so many tankards topped off with ambrosia
And soldiered mimosas are flowing from open wounds
Doomed to be spilled upon battlefields sacred
All making it better and softer and easier
Stronger and poignant and guided by lasers
But it's just a halfway position I'm posing you
All along with me on grossly domestic
Convincing projections of fourth-quarter bliss
And I'm aching, I'm faking, I'm vacant, I'm taking you home
Me and the universe, you and the secular
Necking like prudes for the fix of a helix
Approaching another, embracing consecutives
Unlikely to be these end-over-empathies
Dastardly seek the approach of romantics
In frantic obsessions of endless semantics
All tethered to earth with the girth of a feather
And whether it weathers the term of eternity
It's just a halfway position I'm posing you
Nosing my way into fortunes I've no business
Zoning my heart for industrial growth
And condoning its breaking until I'll be taking you home
But it's just a halfway position I'm posing on pedestals
Parasols spinning in timelessness
Weightless aspirations seeking an anchor
Like so many tankards topped off with ambrosia
And soldiered mimosas are flowing from open wounds
Doomed to be spilled upon battlefields sacred
All making it better and softer and easier
Stronger and poignant and guided by lasers
And it's just a halfway position I'm posing
You don't need security clearance to hear this
It's only the loneliness closing in on me
And I'll meet you halfway and say I'll be taking you home

Download mp3s below by right-clicking on the links.

F Posterity, 2006
52. F Posterity (Getzschman) - May 16, 2007
51. Crazy (Burton/Callaway/Reverberi/Reverberi) - May 9, 2007
50. Persistence of Regret (Getzschman/Ryan/Sahm) - May 2, 2007
49. Breakin' Plates (Getzschman/Ruthsatz) - April 26, 2007
48. Trio for Vocal, Metronome, Wurlitzer (Getzschman) - April 18, 2007
47. She Hates It When I'm Right (Getzschman) - April 11, 2007
46. Beat It (Jackson) - April 4, 2007
45. Mass Ave Strut (Getzschman) - March 28, 2007
44. Let's Fall Asleep Like This (Getzschman) - March 21, 2007
43. 2010 Ain't What They Said It Would Be (Getzschman) - March 14, 2007
42. Three Red Stars (Getzschman) - March 7, 2007
41. Birdhouse In Your Soul (Flansburgh/Linnell) - February 28, 2007
40. Everybody Thinks They're Self-Aware (Getzschman) - February 21, 2007
39. Hysterical Woman (Getzschman) - February 14, 2007
38. Hollaback Savior (Getzschman) - February 7, 2007
37. White Collar (old Philly dollar) (Getzschman) - January 31, 2007
36. Bottle of Blues (B. Hansen) - January 24, 2007
35. Ask Somebody (Getzschman) - January 17, 2007
34. All Time High Score (Getzschman) - January 10, 2007
33. Bury Me In My Jetpack (Getzschman) - January 3, 2007
32. Eggnogg Is The Liquor Of This Household (Getzschman) - December 27, 2006
31. Like Spinning Plates (T.Yorke/J.Greenwood) - December 20, 2006
30. Jack or Jesus (Getzschman/Peterson) - December 13, 2006
29. Runes (Getzschman) - December 6, 2006
28. We Leave Just Like We Come (Getzschman) - November 29, 2006
27. Shampoo! (Getzschman) - November 22, 2006
26. Tomorrow Is A Long Time (Dylan) - November 15, 2006
25. Was That Seriously Your Plan? (Getzschman) - November 8, 2006
24. Understated Explosions (Getzschman) - November 1, 2006
23. Everything Sounds Better On Vinyl (Getzschman) - October 25, 2006
22. Take Heart (Getzschman) - October 18, 2006
21. Pigs (L. Freese, S. Reyes, L. Muggerud) - October 11, 2006
20. Upstart Casualties (Getzschman) - October 4, 2006
19. Troubling (Getzschman) - Sept 27, 2006
18. Tales of Woe (Getzschman/Getzschman/Booth) - Sept 20, 2006
17. Manual Labor Pains (Getzschman) - Sept 13, 2006
16. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight (Gibbard/Tamborello) - September 6, 2006
15. Postmodern Burlesque Review (Getzschman) - August 30, 2006
14. Neverending Love Affair (Getzschman) - August 23, 2006
13. Living On Credit (Getzschman) - August 16, 2006
12. Broke As A Muhfuh (Getzschman) - August 9, 20006
11. Josie (Becker/Fagan) - August 2, 2006
10. Cold Day at the Races (Getzschman) - July 26, 2006
9. Calaveras (Getzschman) - July 19, 2006
8. Narcissist Blues (Getzschman) - July 12, 2006
7. Advice to a Young Jedi (Getzschman) - July 5, 2006
6. God Only Knows (Wilson/Asher) - June 28, 2006
5. Miracle Hubcap (Getzschman) - June 21, 2006
4. A Paycheck Is All I Ask (Getzschman) - June 14, 2006
3. Halfway (Getzschman) - June 7, 2006
2. Summer Crazy (Getzschman) - May 31, 2006
1. Sunday Street (Van Ronk) - May 26, 2006

Friday, June 2, 2006

An Inconvenient Truthism

Tonight I saw the documentary of Al Gore's crusade to alert the world to global climate change, An Inconvenient Truth. And earlier this week, some workmen cut down a large tree in my backyard.

Don't worry, I'm not going to relate these in a predictable way.

Rather, I'm going to praise the movie and relate deep concerns about my own ability to focus on a dedicated career path.

The tree behind my house was big and beautiful, perhaps 50-100 years old. About 12 feet off the ground, it split into two dominant trunks instead of one central trunk, growing straight up. The bifurcation seemed to compromise the typical vertical stability of a tree, and it had developed an ungainly lean towards the house. Thus the owners elected to cut it down.

Similarly, my own dedicated interests pull me in compromising directions. I, like some friends I've discovered, have something of a creative myopia that causes me to put myself into whatever role I am most directly looking at. If I'm watching a great film, I consider my life in terms of filmmaker, scriptwriter, preeminent actor. If I'm walking the halls of the Supreme Court, I think to myself, "Yes, I'll totally be a Supreme Court Justice. I'd better look into the LSAT." And if I read Vasari, I quickly fix myself into the historical context of great artists.

It's fairly ridiculous, perhaps symptomatic of any democracy as de Tocqueville noted, and existentially ADD in a way that alternately could be praised as the fruit of an undying curiosity or derided as the side effect of a debilitating lack of focus.

Watching Gore's presentation makes it very clear that the world is at an environmental and cultural tipping point. Environmentally, wide scale reduction in CO2 omissions is urgently needed, while culturally, there is a demand for serious awareness and reevaluation of what macro lifestyles can be sustained by the earth. The film outlines Gore's career of drawing attention to this issue, and how the 2000 mis-election diverted his full focus back to it.

Watching the film has had a similar effect on me. Washington is, perhaps, the most political city in the world, and one can't avoid osmosizing a degree of it. Seeing Gore present his case should strike a chord with any viewer to seek considerable change in the nation's practices and policies (to say nothing of leadership).

So thoughts of how I can involve politics into my career are now enriching/clouding my pursuit. Perhaps this is good, perhaps I should banish the thoughts and focus on art/music/film/writing. But even a successful career in these pales without a dedicated component of service of some kind. Ongoing, lasting service, to mirror a substantial, lasting contribution to the arts.

That's all I want.

So coming right up, the next installment of the Analog Jetpack comic.

That's all I'm saying.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

F Posterity, issue 2: "Summer Crazy"

For the second edition of the ongoing web-published album "F Posterity", I'm dropping one for my Missouri peoples. I came up with the guitar riff for this song in 1996, when I was just learning guitar, found it on a tape in 2003 and wrote some lyrics for it.

As Missouri and its good neighbors in the Midwest have no ocean shores to speak of, our aquatic recreation typically happens in ponds, lakes, and rivers. And when there's a bridge over any of these, the recreation inevitably involves hurling one's self from it into the water below. Down Highway 55 and off Gravois outside St. Louis, there's a great bridge we used to jump off of, pending cops and a rainy season prior. This song covers the experience.

Hollas to all my people who hurl themselves from bridges into the waters below. We don't need no oceans. Here are the lyrics:

Beige vinyl seats in a brown LeMans
Crispy fried heat on the burned out lawns
Asphalt and the open windows sing
'Cause we don't believe in air conditioning

Shorts and shoes without socks or shirts
Old tape cassettes and megahertz
Southbound US 55
'Cause there's always miles to drive
And we're
Pretty colors in the flaming sun
Like a polaroid flashback said and done
Washed out and overexposed
Bad graffiti tags underneath the bridge
Bikini bottoms at the river's edge
Picnic beercan locals
Over muddy water vocals

Thirty-nine feet come free-falling
The water table's low and kick off the bottom
Surface downstream and check your head
And walk back up the muddy bank again
And we're
Pretty colors in the flaming sun
Like a polaroid flashback said and done
Washed out and overexposed
Pretty colors in the flaming sun
Summer crazy, summer dumb
Washed out and overexposed

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Analog Jetpack eponymous debut poll!!

Yo party peops,

So following our last Wonderland Ballroom show, the band has been working on a couple new songs to round out our first album. We've just nailed down a June gig at the Velvet Lounge, and we're looking at a short New York - Philly - DC trip with our friends from Chicago, Hey Champ in July.

Most importantly, we're headed towards recording with Jerome Maffeo, the Baltimore-based producer/drummer for Jimmy's Chicken Shack. Needless to say, we're stoked. And in the interest of getting it out there, we've put together a poll for the title of the debut album. What do you think Analog Jetpack's debut album should be called? Here are a few options.

This Disk Flies is the current title of our EP. It most definitely works for vinyl, compact disks, and all frisbee-compatible media. Less so for tapes, 8-tracks and Edison wax cylinders, but still cool. And appropriate with the Jetpack motif.

Nous Sommes La Resistance is French for "We are the resistance". It's from a line in "Savoir Sonic" that goes, "We plan to usher in the new stance with the way we play these songs / Et si vous voulez, ecoutez, nous sommes la resistance." This title has merit because anything French is inherently condescending, much as the very indie-pop culture we help comprise.

Eponymous Debut is a great paradox title, which just between you and us, nobody will really get, but you'll get, because I'll explain it to you here. Or maybe you already got it and think it's genius. It is. e.g., Led Zeppelin's debut was titled Led Zeppelin. The album is named after the band: dumbest phenomenon ever. Such an album is thus called an "eponymous debut" because the album shares the band name. Good, I suppose, for breaking a band, but not for historical creativity. By naming our debut "Eponymous Debut", we mock the tradition and break it, because by naming it such, it's not an eponymous debut. It just says it is. Heh, heh. (We're patting ourselves on the back here.)

Rapture Misinterpretations could be the controversial favorite, because it denotes what the Bush Administration's foreign, domestic, and environmental policies are founded on. It's also from a line in our punk number "Punish the Rental".

Other... is for those choosy shoppers who see nothing they like here. Post your original contribution in a note below.

On a final note, this is not so much a democratic solicitation as a meaningful chance to interact with dynamic new poll technology lifted from Sarah's blog. Dynamic, I tell you! Doesn't it feel like the future of voting?

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

F Posterity, issue 1: Dave Van Ronk's "Sunday Street"

Since my main focus for producing music right now is the band (see link below), I'm offering to my friends on MySpace something totally unique: a weekly raw track, unproduced, unfettered by instrumentation / ornamentation, save me and my guitar.

The title of the collection will be, "F Posterity."

So each week, the bottom song on my profile playlist will rotate with something totally raw. Sometimes covers, sometimes demos, maybe sometimes a screamo angst piano ballad (on acoustic guitar).

They'll be free for download, so if you collect them all, you win!! But you don't win anything.

These are not polished. On the first track, available now, I play "Sunday Street", a song written by one of my heroes, Dave Van Ronk. You'll note I forgot the third verse (twice), which goes

My hands are shakin' and I ain't feeling well
From drinking king kong liquor and cheap muscatell
A little bit of bourbon and breakfast in bed
Six million dollars can raise the dead
Just me and the other elite
Raising high-class hell up on Sunday Street

I love Dave Van Ronk's music. He was a master of interpretation, to say nothing of being a prime mover in the folk scare of the sixties, as well as a self-proclaimed insufferable jazz snob. But he's known as a folk singer.

So enjoy these downloads. Personally, I can't get enough of the raw edge of a performer accompanying themselves with their instrument de choix, and it's probably why I love Van Ronk so much, and early Dylan. I'm more apt to buy an album of demos than the label release, by anyone from John Lennon to Roky Ericson. Now I've got to get that "Personal File" collection by the man in black. Man, that stuff's good.

If you're not into the unpolished stuff, you can check out my band below. We should have an album out sometime late summer.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

I supported me some local art.

About a month ago, my friend Donia completed her move to Greece, trucking all her art overseas or putting it in storage. Before she did, I bought this:

I must say that seeing it on my wall daily brings me immense pleasure. With true fine art, the more you see, the more you get. This is definitely the case with this piece. Depending on the time of day, the angle of light or the state of mind, it always shows me something different.

This pastel, framed at 14x18", ran me $1200, and I believe Donia cut me a break as a close friend. It's a distinct pleasure to pay her for her work. It validates her as a working artist and me as a income-less master of the arts.

Now, budding collectors, do I have $1200? Certainly not. Do I have next month's rent in my bank account? Certainly not. Did I just make a mad batch of pasta to feed me for the week? I did. Nevertheless, I cut Donia a check for $200, and I'll be paying her in monthly installments until it's paid for. This is similar to arrangements I have with other friends like Chase Mastercard, the Student Loan Corporation, Citibank, and MBNA.

This blog is not about credit martyrdom, however, but supporting local culture. Since most of our daily expended monies go to multinational conglomerate corporations, I encourage you to find a way, any way, to support something you have direct contact with. Buy somebody's art. Buy somebody's music. Buy stuff out of the truck on the side of the highway - that stuff is the bomb.

If, for example, you wanted to buy my latest album, Hypocrisy in the Genius Room, you could go to iTunes or email me your address and I'll send you a "hard copy" for the low-low price of $10. I actually prefer hard copies because I like to pour over the linear notes as I listen to the album, and my album insert has all the lyrics, plus two drawings of monkeys by me and my brother (see below for one). Drawings of monkeys in the linear notes? I ought to being charging $1200.

But if I sell 120 copies, it'll pay for Donia's painting. With 79,670,960 in my extended network, I'm kind of banking on making this a reality.

Monday, May 15, 2006

O! Grad school: reflections on a $40,000 symbolic step

Sunday morning I was announced before about 6,000 people, and I crossed a stage in a funny gown and shook the hand of a man I'd never seen before. We shared a faux significant moment; the camera flashed. I stepped offstage and received a stainless steel business card tote, a token of affection from the only university established by an act of Congress: American University.

The back of the tote read "Made in China."

Grad school graduation carries none of the emotional significance of high school or college. The ceremony was good enough; the speaker, Washington Post Co. CEO Donald Graham, told a few rousing anecdotes, self-deprecated to a pleasant degree, and sent us off with a memorable message: at some point in your life, draft yourself into some scenario beyond your comfort zone. Peace Corps, Teach for America, cooking meth in a drug-free zone, etc.

The process of higher education has seemed a sort of filling in the gaps, which one could just as well achieve by going out and getting the right job, or a library card. Now these aren't easy to do, but neither is paying back $40,000 in federal student aid. Compared to sitting 20 months of 8-hour Saturdays in a classroom, I think I'd prefer the experiential/experimental route. The only benefit of the academic route is the fixed gestation period. And I'm done now.

I reckon I learned about $5-10,000 worth in grad school that I couldn't have taught myself. The balance of the tuition was paid to have an institution lord over me, sort of like joining the Reebok club to get in shape. But strangely enough, the degree does validate me in a way that only a certified piece of paper can. I'm a master of the arts. If I'd gotten my degree in the universe, I'd be He-Man.

An academic degree is a symbolic thing, carrying a different flavor of clout than, say, an Oscar, a Pulitzer, or being shot seven times. Having now achieved that degree, I feel a mix of genuine accomplishment and unapplied, book-larned wisdom. I feel different; I feel... sexier. Now I'm out validate myself based on the 40 grand I doled out to the university. Now I'm out to get shot seven times.

Below you'll find the symbolic achievement of my symbolic degree: the short film that validates my graduate education according to the standards of the institution. In a way, this film cost me 40 grand. If you really enjoy it, PayPal 40 grand to chillrob at hotmail.com, and I'll know it was worth it.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Taxes, filmmaking, moving, selling out stadium crowds.

There is a lot on my proverbial plate these days, and I believe I have reached a veritable* nirvana of procrastination. Having been out of town for most of March and the first week of April, I now face a healthy overwhelm of tabled issues. And they just won't stay down, despite my diplomatic efforts to please and appease each. It's like trying to use Robert's Rules with that game at Family Fun Center where you beat down the little gophers with a mallet as they pop up. You know, like looking for a motion and a seconding and then voting or tabling issues instead of just using the mallet.

Okay, that joke fell flat, but it's kind of funny if you take a few days to consider it in all its comic fullness. Or, if someone were to explain it to you. I find jokes are much more punchy after a vigorous academic discussion of them.

So on the agenda of immediate bloodletting importance are my 2005 taxes. Once again, I'm in the fetal position under a desk at H&R Block, wearing a dress with some Klinger-esque move to prove a mental unfitness for tax-paying. It's never worked before, but I kind of get off on the cross-dressing.

Following that, there's an urgent need to put my graduate program behind me, and to do that, I need to edit about 7 hours of raw footage down to 20 crisp, funny, professional-looking minutes for a May 6th screening before the Iraqi congress.**

And also, my landlord wants to sell after two years in this great big house in DC. By May, ideally.

Oh, and what else, my band has just got to be playing stadium crowds by, I don't know, September? So we're all chipping in, promoting, painting fences, whatever we can do to make it clear that Analog Jetpack is the real deal. We definitely pursued some hot leads last week in New York City. So much so that Dan, Robby and I are all (re) addicted to NYC and looking to move there.

The best thing about being inundated with work is that you can procrastinate on any one important task by doing any of the others! Like right now, I'm not doing taxes, film or moving because I'm MySpacing it. And that's okay, because this is my job, really. I'm promoting and whatnot to get my band onto a record label and tour of Japan by early May. Then when we get back, Bonnaroo will add us late in the game and Radiohead will be sorely impressed by our pluck and invite us on tour with them.***

Man, this is all gonna work out perfectly!

I'm kinda bored with blogging right now though, so I'm gonna browse the apartments on Craigslist and tally some 2005 expenses.

*Yes, and by veritable, I mean actual and literal. I am actually in a nirvana of procrastination.

**It's actually not the Iraqi congress, just my classmates. But man, that would be double-or-nothing, right?

***Radiohead or Aaron Neville. Either one.

Monday, March 13, 2006

The Velvet Wonderland weekend in DC

So Saturday night, at the Velvet Lounge in DC, Analog Jetpack kicks off with what is arguably our lightest (yet pleasing) song, Make It Plane, and the most uncanny of forces caused this mellow number to break the E-string on Dan's bass. Oh, snap.

Broken bass strings are the most rare of rock tragedies, in order with a club fire consuming Great White and crowd. But strangely enough, Dan was prepared. He had the odd intuition to bring extra strings that night.

In jumping on and off stage, however, he drove nearly 180 foot-pounds of force into a two-inch region of his skull by uniting it with the low-hanging speaker cabinet. As I stomped a harmonica field holler with Robby on the kick, Dan stumbled for a few moments and considered passing out. Robby and I move on to ragtime guitar over an impromptu electronica beat, unaware of Dan's plight.

As the bass-string change is dragging on unsuccessfully, Dan rips out the new string and tells Robby and I to just go on. He's just going to play the set with three strings and an octave pedal to hit the low notes.

And he does. The dude played the set flawlessly without an E-string. That's like playing a bassline without a left hand on the piano, or some really hard metaphor like that. I'm strapped for a comparison. Just consider the fact that he's transposing all the notes he usually plays on the E-string to the octaves on the other strings, and you have plainly that Dan Ryan is a genius.

This is fortunate, for it matches Robby Sahm's genius on drums, and my former title of Mac Genius at the Apple Store.

The gig was a trip, lots of energy and fire despite the technical/physiological difficulties. The next night we played at the Wonderland Bar in Columbia Heights, which is also a very cool place. This gig was more laid back, played acoustic with Dan on upright, Robby on kick/hihat/snare and me on jumbo Guild and harmonica. We rocked some alt-country mixed in with our Grammy-assaulting album set.

Mad love to Michael Jantz, who books the place and played before us, for telling us, "It doesn't matter how many people you bring! And you can play whatever you want! That's the best thing about this place - it doesn't f..cking matter!!"

Amen to that.

Keep listening, because our album is going to be awesome. I say that unreservedly.