Scratch

2023 saw 20 episodes (really 20 new songs) on Scratch. In this episode I'm joined by my primary collaborator on Scratch - Mike Tierney. And while these Year-In-Reviews always feels one-part reflection and one-part report card, this episode is mostly just a good conversation with someone who I really value. Enjoy, and see you in late March!

"Honor thy mistake as a hidden intention" and more nuggets of wisdom as we explore punk

It's possible heroic efforts will be made and some piece of the statue could be preserved for another few millennia.  But eventually, whether its in a museum or out in the elements, atom by atom, it will fade.  In a way, its already suffered one kind of death.  At its creation, it was a statue of a ruler its people viewed as a God.  It had a talismanic power.  Now it's only relevant because it's an example of ancient sculpture.  Hordes of tourists walk by every day, taking a quick glance at a ruler that few remember, slowly falling apart in a dusty old museum. This song is based on the poem Ozymandias, by Percy Bysse Shelley: I met a traveller from an antique land,Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;And on the pedestal, these words appear:My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal Wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.

I'm more excited about this song than maybe anything else I've done in Season 2. Starting with a sample from a Hewlett Packard Word Generator, "To Hope" blends the poetry of 17th century Mexico with a meditation on the foolishness of hope - the singular importance of today.

How infatuation relates to Sharpie pens, gasoline, and aerosols - the kind of things that give you a momentary high (and an awful comedown). Also in this episode -the "subconscious assembly" technique is a new songwriting technique I'm test driving on this song.

Characters are like buckets of water, dropped from above and left to settle in the natural valleys created by the topography of the setting. Discussing Barbara Kingsolver, Bruce Springsteen, and analog delay

There are a lot of safe spaces for me in music - form, instrumentation, and many others. They're useful, but pushing out of those spaces is where the *really* interesting stuff happens. In this episode I cover the creation of the song Demain - one of my most electronic songs to date.

Very excited to introduce my new single, launching today on all platforms - Nothing In The World Can Stop Us Now. This episode is a rebroadcast from the original airing several months ago - I hope you enjoy.

Nummo are the ancestral spirits of the Dogon people of Western Africa. Hermaphroditic, fish-like creatures that were human from the waist up, fish from the waist down and inhabited a world circling the star Sirius. While I couldn't make the music of the song half as interesting as the lyrical content, I attempted to mash up the Malian desert blues inspired by a chance encounter with Vieux Farka Toure with western-style string arrangements.

There are lots of ways to do a cover. This song takes a character from the Zombies song "Care of Cell 44" and imagines he writes a different type of letter.

The National-style electro-rock, with an old Timbaland "Woo" sample ontop - what could go wrong?

One half Kinks, one half "The Epic of Gilgamesh".

Our first single in 4 years - about when the potential becomes kinetic.

I've unfortunately been in the hospital over the last week, so didn't have time to put together this week's episode - BUT. There will be a special episode next week :-)

The culmination of my debatably healthy Radiohead obsession - "Replica" is my journey of influence through the worlds of Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood.

1/2 Cormac McCarthy, 1/2 Jock Jamz Volume 4

A velvet lined, fully appointed 1970 Plymouth Barracuda rolls down the Vegas Strip, looking for a date for the evening

A song about my friend Steve - honestly, I think a pretty dang good song about my friend Steve.

This song sucks. In this episode, I'll say why - we'll talk about Marshall McLuhan, butchering French, and how I should trust myself to make things that are weirder.

I grew up against a background of casual racism. It was a background heartbeat, a constant ostinato - so socially normalized that it was practically imperceptible. And while I never felt like I was actively part of the problem, I definitely wasn't an active part of the solution. I think of the jokes that shouldn't have been laughed at, but were - or the off-handed comments that were ignored, instead of challenged. And I recognize a complacency - a blithe ignorance. "Black and Blue" is about Tyre Nichols, about the color of bruises, and about the stains that can't be washed out.

When I was a kid I used to play a game in the backseat of my family's Aerostar during long trips out west.  I'd look at every passing car and try to take a moment to imagine the inhabitants as independent people - that woman's kids had left for college and she was finally leaving her hometown.  That man was bored in his marriage, and had an undiagnosed thyroid problem. And the cars would pass by, each containing these universe, and the boundless enormity of being present for the human experience that constantly washes over us would start to feel overwhelming.  So you abstract - no more people, just red car, black car, passing telephone poles.  Truly intaking the amount of energy we continuously swim in is daunting, and I struggle with it. But in moments of passing, that's our duty. To temporarily shed the armored skin we've crafted, and be present. If this world is all that we have, then that moment of clarity, of focused composure, is our parting mortal blessing > I'm not a superstitious man, I know there's not a promised land, I know that we will never meet again > So I'll recall you in this bed, with incandescence overhead, be safe my friend, sincerely Katherine.

Season 2! MREs, racking out, scuttlebutt, dress blues - the first song this year is about the language of the military, and a squadron bonded together over shared purpose.

And after one year and 26 episodes (really 26 songs) the first season of Scratch is done. There were a lot of late nights, early mornings, and lessons learned along the way. In this episode, I'm joined by Mike Tierney (https://www.miketierneymusic.com/), a key collaborator on the first season of Scratch. We'll talk about what we both learned through the first season, and give some honest feelings about the songs that turned out great (and the ones that didn't).

I cannot believe I made it a whole year :D "Make Me New" is a reversal - that's what I call songs where the music and production comes before the melody and lyrics - it's a completely backwards way of working for me, but also a good way of shaking things up.

To me, sirens are best described as "evil mermaids". They lure passing sailors in with their song, and then pull them into the water. In The Odyssey, Odysseus's ship passes by the sirens. Every other sailor had their ears plugged - but Odysseus wanted to hear their voices. So he had his crew tie him to the mast and told them that, no matter what he said, not to untie him as he would surely drown himself. In the movie, the siren's voices are that of his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus, telling him he's home, cursing him for leaving, saying that they have forgotten the look of his face. Sirens are these symbols for wanton self-destruction - for temptation and desire. And they formed the base of this song, Siren.

In December of 1944, a 22-year old Japanese intelligence officer named Hiroo Onoda was sent to Lubang Island, in the Philippines. A couple months later, the island was overrun and Onoda, and three other soldiers escaped into the jungle. where they fought a guerilla war that didn't end until 1974. When Onoda emerged from the jungle, the war he had been fighting had been over for *29* years. This is his story, and his song.

Hotels are these vessels for sacred, precious, lives, and their jobs are to be as blank of a canvas as possible. All traces of the inhabitant that yesterday slept in the bed you will sleep in tonight are gone by the time you walk into the room. And all you're left with are starched white sheets, empty coat hangers, and mass-produced art bolted to the wall.

The apocalypse I had been expecting, as I had been told in countless bible stories and schlocky action movies, was dramatic - or if it wasn't dramatic, it was at least defined. It had a clear beginning - an asteroid striking the Earth, plagues of locusts - and a clear end - a hero saving the day, or a towering inferno that roasted all of humanity. What I had instead was the worst thing - it was boring. Every day droned into the next, and the ambient level of pressure grew so slowly its advancement was indistinguishable. That's the space that inspired the song “Big Black Ocean Liner”.

My tank was completely empty this week, so I inverted my process. Most of the time I write a song and hang production over it - this time, I did the production, and laid a song ontop. I love the result.

Désolé is one of the first songs I've experimented with writing (partially) in another language. And, boy, did I learn a lot on the way

This song could be good at some point, but - it ain't now. The story of how it's made is an interesting one though. And this is the first episode of the podcast that has been made 100% on the road :-)

My song Muscle Shoals tells the story of the legendary Rolling Stones session in the town of the same name. In just 3 days, the band produced "You Gotta Move", "Brown Sugar", and "Wild Horses" - it's an amazing story, and I really like the song that came out of it.

I have a privileged set of things I've been able to run away from in my life. I remember, as a kid, if I felt like a person was going to ultimately be toxic in my life, I'd wholly cut them out. On the surface, they would cease to exist to me (even if, in my head they still did). I wouldn't mention them, wouldn't talk to them, wouldn't even look at them. And after a while, the act of avoiding that person would let me gradually stop thinking about them. It was like a magic trick I performed on myself - make your problems disappear!

Our lived environments are to me purpose-built extensions of our bodies. The proportions of a steering wheel, or the way you palm fits against a doorknob - these objects are all constructed to parallel their creators. And cities! Cities are bodies, seemingly infinitely long, running in place. The roads and train tracks, veins and arteries, the commuters the red blood cells, delivering oxygen into the beating heart. That heart relaxes and fills with travelers during the day, scurrying around sidewalks and office buildings. And in the evening it contracts, pumping the people back into the suburbs, leaving their emptied buildings dreaming of their occupants, and awaiting their safe return.

Our lived environments are to me purpose-built extensions of our bodies. The proportions of a steering wheel, or the way you palm fits against a doorknob - these objects are all constructed to parallel their creators. And cities! Cities are bodies, seemingly infinitely long, running in place. The roads and train tracks, veins and arteries, the commuters the red blood cells, delivering oxygen into the beating heart. That heart relaxes and fills with travelers during the day, scurrying around sidewalks and office buildings. And in the evening it contracts, pumping the people back into the suburbs, leaving their emptied buildings dreaming of their occupants, and awaiting their safe return.

I think that you can ultimately boil a person's life into seven people. Those seven people stand at an inflection point in the arc of that person's journey - signposts directing that person's fate. Sometimes it's the people you think it is - a partner, a child - other times it's someone like Philip.

There are a few types of people who are attracted to classes on dead languages: Those interested in the intersection of something like Latin and English - or the “maybe it will improve your SAT score” camp. Those thinking it'll improve their chances at learning other Romance languages in the future - or the “hopelessly optimistic” camp (that was my camp) People who are really interested in Catholicism I only included that third category because of Jason, because to me, he never seemed particularly interested in anything else. In another time, in another place, Jason would have been some kind of monastic theologian having whispered conversations with other monks over desks littered with parchment paper. But instead, he grew up 15 miles from Alabama like the rest of us, so he ended up in Ms. McAfferty's Latin class.

I moved to New York in 2011, and ended up straight in Williamsburg, a neighborhood in the northern end of Brooklyn. The area had been Italian, then Polish, and was then colonized by artists in the early aughts, who opened a seemingly endless string of independent art spaces and music venues. As is so often the case, after the artists did the grunt work of occupying decaying warehouses and scratching their brand of culture into a dingy industrial sector, the developers swarmed. The area began filling slowly with professionals, lured by the waterfront views of the Manhattan skyline, reasonable commutes, and bohemian ethos. And, as is so often the case, the very thing that drew them there got squeezed out by more expensive rent. Venues began shuttering, first Zebulon, then Death by Audio, then Glasslands. Hugged to death by yuppies.

I moved to New York in 2011, and ended up straight in Williamsburg, a neighborhood in the northern end of Brooklyn. The area had been Italian, then Polish, and was then colonized by artists in the early aughts, who opened a seemingly endless string of independent art spaces and music venues. As is so often the case, after the artists did the grunt work of occupying decaying warehouses and scratching their brand of culture into a dingy industrial sector, the developers swarmed. The area began filling slowly with professionals, lured by the waterfront views of the Manhattan skyline, reasonable commutes, and bohemian ethos. And, as is so often the case, the very thing that drew them there got squeezed out by more expensive rent. Venues began shuttering, first Zebulon, then Death by Audio, then Glasslands. Hugged to death by yuppies.

I loved my friend Lisa for her west Texas drawl and for how dashing she looked in a fitted suit, like some tomboy Virginia Slim. We grew up in different parts of the country, and while her youth of armadillos and Shiner Bock differed greatly from mine of manta rays and Budweiser, we shared a few things in common: A Middle School spent dealing with some of the more ardent forms of Pentecostalism Living, by choice, thousands of miles from your hometown Taste in trash novels

3 short stories about a grocery store

3 short stories about a grocery store

The Solomon Railroad company spread throughout Ohio, Michigan, and into eastern Illinois under Uri's empathetic eye. And while his rails continued a westward expansion, he found a modest home in the Shaker Heights area of Cleveland. He did his best to live simply, directly. But his railroads went everywhere, and such was his fame that, when his children would later introduce themselves to a hotel clerk or professor, they would be asked whether they were from the "Cleveland Solomons".

The Solomon Railroad company spread throughout Ohio, Michigan, and into eastern Illinois under Uri's empathetic eye. And while his rails continued a westward expansion, he found a modest home in the Shaker Heights area of Cleveland. He did his best to live simply, directly. But his railroads went everywhere, and such was his fame that, when his children would later introduce themselves to a hotel clerk or professor, they would be asked whether they were from the "Cleveland Solomons".

I hitchhiked to Santa Fe once and spent the day wandering around the art galleries and adobe huts. The pueblos felt simultaneously modern and primitive - like space ships built a thousand years ago - and I lost track of time. I started making my way back - 30 miles in one car, 10 miles in another. The afternoon turned into a brilliant sunset that radiated an azalea green from behind the hills. My final ride had on Automatic for the People, and the song New Orleans Instrumental #1 played as the sky turned from green to red, red to purple, purple to blue, and blue to black. It smelled like ozone and old leather.

I hitchhiked to Santa Fe once and spent the day wandering around the art galleries and adobe huts. The pueblos felt simultaneously modern and primitive - like space ships built a thousand years ago - and I lost track of time. I started making my way back - 30 miles in one car, 10 miles in another. The afternoon turned into a brilliant sunset that radiated an azalea green from behind the hills. My final ride had on Automatic for the People, and the song New Orleans Instrumental #1 played as the sky turned from green to red, red to purple, purple to blue, and blue to black. It smelled like ozone and old leather.

I'm not aiming to write a finished song when I write an hoursong. I'm aiming to get a piece to a point where I can be comfortable either abandoning it, or investing more time. And in the case of Lena, I thought I had the start of something. This episode tells the story of how the song went from an interrupted idea, to an abandoned sketch, to ultimately, a finished song. In this episode we discuss: Prison life in northeast Florida The history of Jacksonville's intracoastal waterway Fish The history of the Armory, a Jacksonville music venue (for a discarded verse) The life cycle of live oak trees

The ambient religious background of our town started to change when I was in Middle School and the Brownsville Revival happened. I started hearing stories about the Revival, and it sounded like something out of a movie - altar calls, full-water baptisms, people writhing around on the ground speaking in tongues. Over time, the religious fervor that was focused on the Church started bleeding into the town at-large, amplifying what was already a pretty religious community. People started speaking in tongues in school, falling out of their desks and convulsing. It was memorable. I went once. I remember the sweat slowly staining through his entire shirt as he preached through the night. I remember the preacher walking around and touching people's foreheads, which caused them to instantly collapse and start writhing on the floor. I remember him walking up to me, and placing his hands on my head, and nothing happening. In this episode we discuss: Fear of faith "Traditional" song structures The Gamechanger Audio Light Pedal (or as I call it "atmosphere in a box")

Everybody writes songs differently - some people write words first, and then write music that goes along with the words (the idea of this makes my brain hurt - I have no idea how people write songs this way). My technique, most of the time, is to improvise on an instrument and sing nonsense ontop of it until I find something that feels right. I build out the structure from there, and then write to the form. But this one had a different start - music first, no vocals. I call it a "Reversal". In this episode we discuss: Trying and failing to write songs about Civil War soldiers Why it's always a good idea to fiddle with your process

I can't escape my hometown. My Sunburned Town. Its coves and shorelines, its pine trees, its summer rain. It is a constant drip drip drip that seeps out of me and into my songs. And part of that, for me, is hurricanes. I remember printed maps of the Caribbean distributed with every purchase by the Albertson's grocery store, where I had my first job. I remember sleepless nights, waiting for the coordinates of the storm, plotting the latitude and longitude, and connecting it to the previous location to get a sense of the trajectory. In this episode we discuss: y you should sing your guitar solos The beauty and weirdness of pedal steel guitar

You can find lyrics in anywhere. In this song's case it was - paint samples. Someone had left behind a Sherwin Williams paint sampler (the kind that splays out like an Asian folding fan). I was absent mindedly flipping through it one day and realized that the names of paint colors are ridiculous and fantastic. So I went to the color “blue” and pulled out ones that I thought sounded interesting and rhymed: Indigo / Nautilis / Open Sea / Georgian Bay In this episode we discuss: How practicing doesn't necessarily make you better, but it does make you more observant and flexible Paulstretch - the best way to make sound collages How alternate tunings enable the familiar to become foreign