Song in my head – No More No Less

Quite often I wake up with a song in my head – it often comes out of nowhere; what I mean is its not like I have listened to it the night before – sometimes I haven’t heard the song for a good month or more but suddenly upon waking up, there it is. Today was such a day. Today’s song in my head is Collective Soul’s No More No Less.

No More No Less is the 3rd track listing from their fourth album, 1999’s platinum-certified and critically acclaimed ‘Dosage’ album, released in 1999. Its a hard song to pin down for Genre -its not really a rock song even though it’s quite guitar heavy, and its not a pop song (due to the guitars ) .. it also has almost a bluesy swing feel to in in the chorus’ and bridge.. its unique as all Collective Soul songs are.

The song starts out with what sounds like breaking glass and drums, and just builds from there – add a wicked bass line for 4 bars, then keyboards for 4 more bars before singer Ed Roland comes in with the first vocals and is joined by lead guitar into the first chorus. It’s a smorg of many different instruments each with their own part and all totally distinctive from the other – you can hear each clearly and precisely. The bridge is after the second verse and chorus and has a very bluesy flair to it which just gets you moving no matter how hard you try not to – the entire song is catchy (as all Collective Soul songs are!) and by the end you’ll be singing the chorus even if it’s your first time hearing it.

Ed’s vocal’s are crisp and clear as are bassist Will Turpin’s backup vocals. The drums are snappy and sharp and the double beat in the verses drives me mad it just sounds so good to me. The end of the song has a wicked wandering bluesy guitar solo which melds to sound like two guitars (but which may be guitar and keyboards?) and the song ends abruptly but I quite like it that way. I can well imagine this song played live with a very extended version!

As for the lyrics themselves – Collective Soul songs are always open to interpretation; Ed Roland does not often explain what the song is about or directed towards, preferring instead for the listener to connect with his songs on their own interpretation. I’ve included the lyrics below, as well as a link to listen to this song for yourself.  As for myself, I cant really explain what this song does to me, or how I interpret the lyrics either. Collective Soul songs have the uncanny ability to look simplistic and even lacking, on paper… but combine those words with the music, Ed’s tone of voice (happy, angry, soft, questioning etc) and you suddenly have something deeper – something that is much more than the sum of its parts. This song is such a song for me – depending on the mood I’m in or what I’m dealing with in my life when I listen to it, I find I pick up on totally different parts of the lyrics each time I listen to it.

You can listen to No More No Less here: BLIP FM I’d love to hear how this song makes you feel too so be sure to leave a comment after you listen to it.

Here I lie motionless
Catch me if you can
My properties of no defense
So, strike at your command

But don’t bring me down
All right
Don’t bring me down
Cause there’s purpose
For this night

Save me come tomorrow
Lead me to my urgency
See I’m no more no less
Of an angel
Than you’d have me be
So let’s shake it like this

Steady here I cast my lines
Only to expose
A weaker sense and
No constraint
Now my true self shows

But, don’t bring me down
All right
Don’t bring me down
Cause there’s promise
In the night

Save me come tomorrow
Lead me to my urgency
See I’m no more no less
Of an angel
Than you’d have me be
So let’s shake it like this
(just a little bit like this)

(killer bridge)

don’t bring me down
All right
Don’t bring me down
Cause there’s promise
In the night

Save me come tomorrow
Lead me to my urgency
See I’m no more no less
Of an angel
Than you’d have me be
So let’s shake it like this
(a little bit like this,
lets shake it a little bit like this)

Really, I’m a girl

Today I drove past a construction site on my way home and had a flashback.

I worked in the construction industry for nearly 20 yrs, first as a laborer/first aid attendant, then did a four year apprenticeship for carpentry, and finally ended my career working in the office doing corporate safety in charge of 7 jobsites at once. Its the period in the trenches I had a flashback about.

I had long-ish hair for many years; always kept in a pony tail down my back so it was kept out of the way and confined. It made it easier to keep a hard hat on too with it in a ponytail rather than tucked inside my hat. One day in a fit of pique and in the middle of not feeling well after a week of flu, I went to the hairdressers and told her to chop it off short. Well, she took me at my word! I left the stylist’s chair with hair no longer than 4 inches all over. (note to those reading – never get a hair cut when you’re sick and feel like crap!) Funny thing, I wasnt shocked when I left there – still too sick to care. But boy I sure was shocked the next day when I suddenly had to ’style’ it instead of going out to work with a wet pony tail!

It was mid November and very cold and rainy, and as such I usually wore about 3 layers of heavy clothing underneath a very sexy standard construction worker green rain slicker (I’m being facetious of course). Combine that with even sexier rubber rain pants and its a wonder I didnt have every guy on the site cat-calling me   Funny thing though – that week I was sent to work with a machine operator – excavator. It was my job to do junior layout and survey, which meant working close to the machine with a builders level and ’stick’ and telling the hoe operator where to take fill out of and how deep to dig it out. It was muddy, wet and drizzly, and so much fun (not).

The machine operator and I worked well together communicating by standard hand signals and didnt have much reason to speak to each other – besides you really cant over the roar of the machine. When break time came, I would head back to the shack and warmth, and the coffee wagon for something hot to warm me up and the operator would take his break in his machine where his little baseboard type heater would at least keep his feet and calves warm.

This went on for three days until the machine operator and I decided to take coffee break together – the rain had quit and although it wasnt warm, it was dry. It was the first day my raingear came off and even 20 yrs later I can still picture the look on his face and the tone of his voice as he confessed to me – I didnt realize until just a few moments ago that you were a girl.

Second thoughts on Collective Soul’s Rabbit

I recently BLOGGED a REVIEW of Collective Soul’s new second ‘Self Titled’ album (affectionately known as ‘Rabbit’) and my review was a positive one.

Its been one week since I first began to listen to the album, and I had a day last week where I suddenly had a ‘meh’ moment about nearly all the songs. I was almost disappointed actually. Yes it’s a rock album; their last 2 or 3 albums have been a mix of rock and pop, or just a mishmash of songs that dont really ‘go’ together (‘Afterwords’) – and yes its more polished but the lyrics seemed to be not quite up to old Collective Soul standards. The songs seemed to be almost ‘too’ slick, or just ‘fluff’. And hence the beginnings of disappointment.

However… I plugged the album into my iPod the other night, lay in bed in the dark and the silence and put in my earbuds and gave it a good listen again. This time, not singing along to the songs in my head, but just listening. I knew the words better as I’d followed along in the CD booklet a few days earlier, so even on the faster songs like Understanding, I was able to catch the words instead of ‘guestimating’ what Ed Roland was actually singing. And as I lay there absorbing it all, I began to hear things I had missed up until then. Little things… amazing things. Like a tambourine here and there, a flourish on the drums in the odd spot, a depth to the vocals that I haven’t heard up to this point, especially on Hymn for my Father. Many little background noises that add to the songs as a whole, that are intricate and unobtrusive, and not immediately apparent especially when played on open speakers ( as opposed to ear buds). And things you won’t notice if you are playing the album and ‘doing’ something else at the same time that takes half of your brain away from listening. And there was something I didn’t hear. Orchestrations – strings. Filler.

‘Afterwords’ was a decent enough album, not the best by any means but there were a few songs I thought of as ‘gems’ which I still really enjoy listening to – but that album, and even the one before it, seem to be filled with quite a large amount of Ed’s composing and orchestra filler – a novel idea for some songs, but not for the majority of songs on one album. I quite enjoyed their HOME dvd/cd with the Atlanta Youth Symphony Orchestra, but after awhile (I realized this just now) it becomes too much. The new ‘Self Titled’ (Rabbit) album has only one song, Love, and only one spot in that one song, with strings. A single musician, Bobby Yang, plays violin in that song. It takes me back to December, also with strings (at a time when rock bands were just starting to experiment with adding this), and it’s effective because it’s unique to that one song.

As I lay in the still darkness, I realized that this album is as good as I first thought it was. There are no specific guitar riffs that I will recognize when they play these new songs in concert – but its not always about an instantly recognizable guitar riff. Most times it’s about the lasting power of the song, how the song makes one feel, or think, or react. These songs have a multitude of ways – surface listening will give you plain old fashioned good time rock and roll. Listening to the lyrics will have you wondering what was going on in the band’s life at the time, especially Fuzzy. And listening to the intricate layers of background musicianship will give you an appreciation for how far this band has grown in the last few years as musicians and as a band – Joel especially has improved his guitar skills by leaps and bounds, and Cheney breathes new life into the unit with his distinctive staccato style of power drumming. And as I mentioned, Ed’s voice has matured and mellowed and there is a resonance there that only comes with age – Bono has had it show up in the last year or so, so has Ed.

If you like this new album, I encourage you to go listen as I have… overwhelm your senses.

Thinking about Water

Been thinking alot lately about water… about clean water, fresh water, drinking water, uncontaminated water…  All these things I used to take for granted. Sure, I’ve bought bottled water for some time (my previous house had 40+ yr old pipes and so we didnt trust the tap water for drinking – cooking in it was fine though). But its not until I moved three months ago, that I’ve really come to appreciate water – clean pure water.

The town I now live in, has three distinct and separate water systems. One is so heavily chlorinated that you cannot drink it. Its like bringing swimming pool water up to your face in a glass tumbler… and I cant imagine drinking it long term would be very good for your health as chlorine is linked to cancer, despite its properties of water purifying. The second system I dont know what its like, but the third system is very heavy in peat.

I dont know if you can see it, but in the photograph above, the water on the left is clear.. white but clear. Its bottled water from Hope, BC. The water from this source is so pure that they literally dont have to treat it, but they do because thats what the law says they have to do. The water from this source in Hope is so pure that they win the world water olympics nearly every year. The water on the right, is more yellow.. you can ’see’ it rather than see through it. Its from the taps of where I am currently living. And its full of peat. Peat makes it smell. Turns it yellow. Leaves a coating on things (like dishes, and bodies fresh from the shower). Peat isnt harmful in small quantities – they use it to filter scotch – but it also adds more nitrogen to  the mix which softens the water (and your hair) and so I cant imagine it would be good for your insides in repetitive quantities. Hence the bottled water.

So where’s all this going?

I have been thinking about how difficult it is to find decent water in this town – we have to buy bottled in bulk – 18 litre containers – and I have to wash berries and veggies in it rather than tap water. And steam things in it too… but I still am able to go find pure water at my grocery store with just a little effort. It takes me maybe 20 minutes at the most – once a week – to get my water. I think about all the people in this world that dont have access to clean drinking water at all – and who’s water is more than ‘touched by a little peat’ and how they have no choice but to use it for cooking and drinking. I think about people who have to walk 10 miles each way to find clean pure drinking water, and who willingly do it so that their children dont become ill with water borne parasites. I think too about how readily we waste water – I dont mean little things like leaving the tap running when you brush your teeth, or taking a longer shower… I mean big things like making sure golf courses stay green while all around things turn brown due to the heat and natural climate. About how people use their hoses to wash leaves and dirt off their driveways and sidewalks instead of using a broom or rake. And about how we dont even think about how difficult it is for some people to get pure disease free drinking water.

I suddenly find I have a new appreciation for those people, and for their situations. And being inconvenienced by limp hair or my whites turning beige doesnt really have the same impact it did the first week I moved into my new house.

I’m becoming a hat person

Whether I want to or not!

I’ve recently moved from The Coast (Vancouver) to the Interior (Vernon) and the weather is very very different in this new locale. It’s hotter in summer, with nearly no moisture in the air at all – not like Vancouver which is more humid thanks to the Pacific Ocean on it’s doorstep.

Last week I attended a music fest in the park. I was cautioned to bring a hat.. which of course I didn’t do. I personally hate wearing hats. I wore a hard hat for nearly 10 yrs which actually I didn’t mind, but I  hate wearing baseball hats, fishing hats, cowboy hats etc… because they make my head sweat, my hair goes goofy and not one of them seems to look good on me. And yes, a hard hat messed up my hair, but it was supposed to. When I took it off at lunch and end of the day, everyone around me had hard hat hair. And I’d go home and shower before going out anywhere. With a baseball or such hat, you generally end up taking it off in restaurants and such.. at least I think you should (but thats another blog for later) and so your hair looks like crap.. sweaty and mussed up.

Its not just a vanity thing though – hats dont keep me cool. My male friends wear baseball hats to stay cool. To shade their eyes. I dont find it does that at all, it makes me hotter and I cant wait to toss it off into a corner somewhere.

However.. as I said, Im becoming a hat person whether I want to or not. I actually had to go buy a hat the next day – that or get sunstroke just due to the sheer heat beating on my head up here. So, I went to the Tilley store, and hummed and hawed till I found this exact hat. And.. it actually suits me not too badly. This is NOT me btw   I figure I’ll use it when I garden as well. As long as someone doesnt sit on it by accident, it should last me a good long time and it will keep the back of my neck from getting toasted due to my super short hair these days!

Now I have to also start being a purse/bag carrier so I can take water everywhere I go, as well as a long sleeved shirt in case I’m stuck in the sun and dont want to be burned to a crisp! I can now understand why people in deserts wear lots of clothes.

Duking it out?

Been thinking lately of guys and fights. Why? Three things.

Earlier this month, a well known guitarist was blindsided by a drunken patron at a bar he and his friends were enjoying an ‘end of tour’ drink at. There was blood involved, but thankfully no further injuries and no black eye or broken nose. It was reported only to allay ‘fans’ fears and then blown totally out of proportion by many… but such is the world of instant access and RT (Retweeting, to the uninitiated – basically repeating with or without personal embelishments )

Tonight, this same guitarists’ friend was hit by another drunk at a restaurant or pub – not sure which. I have no doubt it was not instigated, and there seems to be a bump on the head requiring ice (thats what the Twitpic showed – twitter picture, for the uninitiated).

Do I believe all this is random and uninstigated? Yes.

Last year, we went to Nakusp Music Fest as we do each July and my 20-something adult stepson was sucker punched by a drunk as he stepped out of the jiffy john. Broke both his front teeth right off, bloodied his nose and required numerous stitches inside his lower lip to keep everything together. A (reliable) friend of mine saw it happen – no words were exchanged, no heated arguement, just a punch to the face on a whim.

The person tonight commented “something’s in the air” and I agree. Not sure what exactly, but I was thinking about the nature of young men and fights and how things have drastically changed since ‘John Wayne’ days. Really.. they have.

Used to be in my father’s generation, if two men disagreed on something they’d hash it out with words if possible.. if not they’d take it ‘outside and fight like men’. Nobody would get blindsided or sucker punched. If a drunk offended your wife or girlfriend, you’d ask him to ’step outside’ and generally they’d take a swing but you’d be ready and one good hit and the drunk would be out for the night..  Its not like that now days. Seems the drunks and aggro testosterone soaked goons are the ones taking the first swing, and they’re more than happy to have you unawares until you suddenly are seeing stars!  So what ever happened to a fair fight?

I dunno. I do know that my stepson said, the guy who punched him was singing the lyrics to a song that the band on stage was singing at the same time. Lyrics about finding some sucker and kicking him down to the ground. Yeah. What more can I say?

Only… be safe, watch your back and look after your friends. And duck

What i realized last night

Last night i was at a party for some friend of a friend for his birthday… good party in terms of food and drink and the atmosphere was pretty decent as well – but I only knew 4 people who attended, out of about 40 and it brought back stark memories of my 20-something years. I felt very out of my depth last night.

I grew up in a very sheltered family; overprotected and not allowed to do much that most teenagers do ie: parties and going out later on weekends etc. My parents said they didnt trust my friends, but really they didnt trust me to make good choices either. They were scared shitless I”d have a drink or two and turn into an alcoholic :O  So, i basically never went to parties until I left home at the age of 17; one day after graduation!

I did attend a few parties here and there, but as I am not much of a drinker, didnt do pot/dope and wasnt sure how to have a decent conversation with a stranger, my party days were short lived- I’d rather go to the dentist than a party! As i got older, and more comfortable in my own skin, I got to be okay at ‘parties’ if the people attending were mostly people i already knew… i still didnt like being in a room of strangers at that point.

Last night sort of brought all that back. I chose to not drink last night and there is nothing worse than being in a room of people drinking and eating to excess when you are not partaking of same! i felt very much the shy recluse last night again – like i did 20 something years ago. Thankfully a very nice retired man took it upon himself to start a conversation with me -turns out he was a high school teacher in areas that i attended high school as a teenager and so we had one thing in common at least. We also had in common the dislike of being in a room full of strangers so we went for a walk to ‘walk off dinner’. It was quite enjoyable actually.

As for drink – I realized last night that drink is from the devil lol. Seriously – drink is the only substance i can think of that gives people a false sense of security, of bravado – allows them to do or say things they would not normallly do sober. Most people cannot stop at one drink – two or three maybe but not one. Its empty calories and not good for you in the least (a glass of red wine daily might be good for heart attack prevention but is still deadly on the immune system and liver)… and most people that habitually drink even one a day, have this puffy faced countenance – just start observing people in the pub or at that next party you attend! You’ll see what i mean. I’ve decided pretty much that at my age i need all the help i can get to keep looking okay so drink is off my list for the most part – the odd one here or there but no more just to be ’sociable’.  Besides most of the people i know that Social Drink, seem to be in a fog all the time even when not drinking… i’d rather be awake and alive and alert.

Funny how observing people (for me) brings out thoughts and ideas of things… which is also why i’m no good at parties – i’d much rather sit and listen to conversations around me than inject my 2 cents worth!

observations on my new home – day 3

just some stuff point form as i’m running low on laptop battery and short on starbucks card minutes

-no internet for a week till they do a house call – and thats how long i have to wait. not impressed
-it hasnt rained once. its been a constant 82 degrees F about 22 celcius and decidedly dry rather than muggy and i love it
-people in stores are friendlier and actually HELP you!
-people on the street are friendlier too and want to tell u their life story (a total stranger lol)
-we dont have garbage pickup. we have to take it to the dump
-there is only one movie hall in town with 2 movies to choose from
-we have a home depot and a walmart though. not sure if thats good or bad lol
-went to Lumby for their fair yesterday. it was better than any fair i’ve been to in vancouver. seriously.
-its tried to thunder and lightning for two nights – around the edges of the sky its been doing so, but not overhead in the town… the clouds just keep building and building and you can feel the electricity in the air.
-we are in a basement suite. small. cramped. but cool and the best choice for a hot summer i think
-food up here ie produce and veggies, is not very good. not until growing season hits and we can buy local. i’\ve been spoiled on teh coast with tons of hot houses and local stuff from washington and oregan. going to be hard to get used to it not so.

thats about it for now… more later when i can get back on line. tomorrow maybe.

Leaving home

we’re moving. we will be out by thursday night/friday morning and moved to a new location after nearly 18 yrs in the same house. I dont really feel any specific attachment to this place – it is what it is and its been a crazy house with never quite enough room but we’ve always made it work somehow. i’m more attached to my personal items that go into any house i live in.

i was soaking in the tub after 4 hours of loading the moving truck, and happened to look up at the now faded green paint on the walls, the medicine cabinet that was installed brand new by us way back (and which now has a chipped mirror on one side), and our towel bars (utilitarian white metal)… and thinking… when we moved in here, we looked around at the items left by the previous owners (towel bars, old appliances, ratty old chocolate brown shag carpet etc) and could hardly wait to rip, tear, cut and build our way through the entire home to eliminate anything old, worn, faded, broken or not to our tastes and boy we went to town!

as i soaked in my bubbles looking at those towel rods, i realized that the people that have purchased our house will come in and do the exact same thing! They’ll probably replace the pvc mini blinds (never could figure out how to dress our three odd sized, odd height living room windows). They’ll most likely rip out the carpet in our upstairs bedroom (which came from a hotel reno job years ago for free – expensive carpet at the time and mountains of it only a year old), and yes.. they’ll probably replace the towel rods with something in brushed aluminum.

but you know what? i dont care I”m hopefully going to do the same thing at my new house!

no chocolate

No chocolate for a month.

That’s what I promised Collective Soul on their Twitter page 16 days ago. And I’ll stick to it even though they’ll never know if I cheat or not. Am I crazy? Just might be   But so is this band. Sometimes they exasperate me, often they surprise me – but always they inspire me.

Collective Soul joined Twitter a few months back and have not only followed all those following them, but engaged in two way conversations with as many fans, as often as they can. They’ve shared pics of their recording sessions for the next album with us -complete with singer Ed Roland resplendant in pyjamas in this photo. They’ve done Q+A sessions on 3 laptops in real time, and filmed various band members answering selected questions only minutes after fans posted those questions.

Just recently, they asked: “Tweeps- we are going to try to film and post the rehearsal at the studio tomorrow- respond to us HOW MUCH YOU WANT IT (for Ed)”

Without hesitation I said: “I want to see rehearsal video so much I’ll give up chocolate for a month, and I eat it EVERY DAY.”

They really tried – but Youtube was not cooperating that night, so we ended up seeing the video the next day. Was it worth depriving myself of the deep, dark, luscious, velvety smoothness for a day, let alone 30 days in a row? Yes!

So why haven’t I cheated? Why am I determined to make the one month chocolate free? Nobody would know.

Because.

Because this band gives their all in live shows, 110% of the time – irregardless of rented gear, shoddy house sound systems that they are forever having to ‘tweek’, broken down buses, etc – they may arrive hot under the collar because things are not going smoothly but the moment they step on stage, the fans are all that is important.

Because, I’ve seen Ed Roland sing his heart out even while nursing a bad throat; knowing full well he’s doing a show the next night too – the fans in that moment are all that matter to him.

Because even though the band sometimes stands in their own little corners, not interacting as much on stage as I wish (remember the ‘exasperated’ part?), they have a camraderie that is evident. They smile at each other, laugh when fans hold up ‘I love you Dean’ signs or clambor on stage to tackle Cheney, they pull together to get things back on track when a song starts to go sideways- no words; just a look, a gesture, and they all know. They’re a team – a complete unit – the epitome of their name; a Collective of Souls.

And, because they’re human beings who happen to be amazing musicians, singers, and songwriters. Human beings with the same contradictions of ego and self doubt, the same need for control while being overly generous to strangers, the same desire to be well received by their peers, the same feelings of wanting to be accepted for who they are, not what they look like, or how they sound.

Because they respect their fans. I’ve watched Collective Soul with their fans at a meet and greet – three times. I’ve purposely put myself last in the line up just so that I can observe the band with their fans – and it never changes. A desire to put the fans at ease; listening intently to each person with no distractions, as if they were the only person in the room. A quietness of spirit that is evident. And respect. No matter how good a band’s music is, if they don’t respect their fans, I have no use for them.

And because of their music-Ed Roland unashamedly wears his heart on his sleeve for anyone who takes the time to listen to the lyrics. Although many of Collective Soul’s songs are strongly emotional and somewhat sad, conversely they exude an eternal optimism and hopefulness that inspires and uplifts me.

So why am I determined to not cheat, to follow through on this? Because, as difficult as it is, Collective Soul follows through on what they promise fans (things such as fans voting on new exclusive photos for their soon to be released album, or adding additional dates on their upcoming 2009 tour, etc). Because as easy as it might be to have an off night on stage – to slough off here and there when tired, or to just think ‘good enough’, this band doesn’t cheat.

And that’s why I respect them in kind.

No chocolate for me till June 16

*edit. I didnt win the contest but it doesnt matter… I felt good for doing something and sticking to it. And it made the first taste of chocolate all the richer