Hi friends! A very quick update to point you to a really cool review of the Tambourines EP—thanks FensePost! A little snippet:
The Good Graces might be the greatest fucking band in the world!
I’ll probably use that in our press kit forever
Also, we’re just two days from taking over NC with North Elementary! Here’s the low-down on our upcoming 3-day tour; hope to see some of you there!
January 28 – Greensboro NC – The Green Bean (8p EARLY SHOW!) w/ Citified
January 29 – Chapel Hill NC – John’s Living Room (Bug Harbor – 117 Kenan Street – park on Franklin and walk up) – 9p – FREE SHOW! Stripped down acoustic versions for NorthE and The Good Graces w/ Billy Sugarfix, Corey Pallon (Pistolero), Anna Bullard (POX artist) , Reid Johnson (Schooner) and Maria Albani (Organos).
January 30 – Charlotte NC – Snug Harbor w/ Radio Taiwan
I’m a big fan of lyrics. IMO, when you’re writing music that even approaches the territory of “pop,” you’ve gotta pay special attention to the lyrics. It’s what people tend to grab onto first. Well, second, I think, just after the melody.
I’m not a fan, however, of including lyrics in the liner notes of CDs. I love it when OTHER bands do it, but I ain’t doing it. No way. Why? Well several years ago an old band I was in received some harsh criticism from a reviewer, in regards to our lyrics. Now, just to get this out of the way, I don’t really pay much attention to reviews. But at the same time I realized, unless you have some AMAZING lyrics, you’re setting yourself up for negative criticism by posting them in your liner notes. It just makes it too easy. And why put such a focus on something unless it really is your strong point? So I haven’t done it since.
Since then though, I like to think I’ve gotten a little better at writing lyrics. Lyrics can be tough, but I will say that ever since I started playing more guitar, they’ve come easier and easier for me. I try not to overthink them. But at the same time, if a lyric’s bugging me, I try to figure out why, and try to change it to something I can be happier with. But that’s about the extent of my editing process.
So anyway, for folks who have been kind enough to give a listen to “… Tambourines,” I thought you’d like a closer look at the lyrics, how I came up with them, etc. So over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting the lyrics to each song off the EP, along with a little about the inspiration behind them. Here’s the first … Working Title.
“Working Title” is not really “about” any one thing in particular. Which makes it a little atypical as compared to most my other songs. I usually write about a previous experience in one way or another. This song grew from the simple lyric “Someone better call someone for backup.” It just popped into my head one day. For no apparent reason. The vocal melody did too. Which made for an interesting challenge—coming up with a guitar part to match it. I rarely write songs that way (with a vocal melody first), because I’m not a good enough guitar player to be able to sit down and figure out something that will work with it. I really should try it on piano sometime. But I guess I got lucky on this day, as the guitar part came pretty quickly to me. It’s sort of a combination of two older songs “What’s Wrong,” and “Over It,” but sped up a bit with some different accents, and more rockin’.
When I sat down with my guitar for this one, I really had no more than that first vocal line to work with. Once I found the guitar part that would work with it, the rest of the lyrics came pretty quickly. But like I mentioned, while I was writing it I didn’t really think it was “about” anything. Looking back, I think some aspects of it might pertain to some of my work life, but for most of it, I think of it as an attempt at getting mildly political. At the time, George W. was still President, and he had just finally dropped the “oh shit, we’re screwed,” bombshell about the economy. (Remember how for months he claimed everything was just fine, then suddenly just threw his hands up?) So now that the song has been done and recorded for a while, I think of “Working Title” as a response to someone just sort of pulling the rug out from under you. It could be anyone. The leader of our country, a significant other, a friend, a boss … it happens. And it really does seem much harder for most people to convey bad news … which results in them either lying, or not even addressing the matter at all. But sometimes, it really does feel better just to say it.
Working Title Someone better call someone for backup
Someone better sound the alarm
Yesterday it seemed like things were working
Today it seems you’re causing me harm
I can tell my the look that’s on your face
that you’re trying to hide some big disgrace
No one ever wants to be the bearer
of anything that sounds like bad news
But sometimes it feels better just to say it
especially when there’s not much to lose
I can tell by the way you shift your eyes
that you can’t tell the truth from all your lies
Did you really think that nobody would notice
that everything we built just turned to shit
And I’m trying to believe we didn’t blow this
but the numbers don’t add up, your piece won’t fit
This is our dear friend Nina modeling the new Good Graces t-shirt! They are splendidly soft 100% pre-shrunk cotton, designed by yours truly (Kim). We’ll have them at our shows or if you live out of town and want one, send $12 via paypal to info@eskimokissrecords.com. Please note your size and color; we have girlie and men’s sizes, in white (red print) and red (white print)!
Today’s a big day for The Good Graces around the interwebs, as it’s digital release day for “Bring on the Tambourines!” So if you missed out on the free downloads from www.bringonthetambourines.com, you can purchase the full release from your favorite digital download site! Here are a few links to purchase for your convenience:
And if you’re following along for the free downloads, it’s not too late to get the final track that we’re making available for free, “Bad Driver!” It’s a favorite at our shows and we hope you enjoy the recorded version.
Finally, I wanted to also send a shout-out to all who attended our CD release show Saturday night at Kavarna! We had a wonderful night that began with obligatory pre-show (flu) shots and ended with a fantastic set by our dear friends Chickens & Pigs, who are also celebrating the release of their great new CD, “See Through Soul.” It was nice to have a full room of enthusiastic listeners; we really do appreciate it! xoxoxyz
I’m very excited to announce that we have our shiny new EPs in hand, and they can soon be in your hands as well! Head on over to www.eskimokissrecords.com to pre-order the disc; the first batch of orders will come with a very limited-edition homemade CDR of exclusive demos, many of which have never been heard outside of the band! We’ll be shipping the discs the first week of October, ahead of the release date of Oct. 27.
Also a reminder, our CD release show is next Saturday, Sept. 26 at Kavarna. It’s a split CD release show with our dear friends Chickens and Pigs, who are also celebrating their brand new CD “See Through Soul” (we’ve heard it, it’s wonderful!). We have lots of surprises in store for this show, and hope to see you there!
Hi friends! Just a quick update to let you know that you can now download “Yo No Puedo Hablar Español” from www.bringonthetambourines.com. So if you didn’t get the first download, “Working Title,” sorry, too late, you’ll have to wait for the full release of the EP.
Some fun “behind the music” background info on Yo No Puedo … last fall, we had a Spanish instructor come to our work once a week, in an attempt to help make us more effective in communicating with our Spanish-speaking coworkers. Well, I’ll just say it. As much as I LOVE Mexico, Mexican food, anything Mexican, really … I have a mental block against Spanish. In fact, I just remembered that last night I had that dream, AGAIN, where it’s time for my final exam in college, yet I haven’t gone to class all semester, so I can’t find the classroom or remember what time the class meets. I have this dream once every six months or so. And the class is always, always SPANISH. Every dang time.
I took two years of Spanish in highschool. And I hated it. I think it was all just a mental block from the very beginning. I remembered my mom telling me I’d do well in Spanish because I was doing so well in my English classes. She said the two languages were more similar than, say, English and French. So I must have thought it would be really easy. Immediately I could tell that it wasn’t going to be. And that it was going to involve a lot of practicing over and over, and memorization. Which I never enjoy. So I quickly decided “this is too hard,” and pretty much gave up, before even giving it much of a chance.
I can’t say my recent experience with Spanish was much different. I still seemed to have that same mental block. I did learn the basics though. And one weekend, I sat with my guitar, determined to write a Spanish song. I struggled with it for a while. Thought about writing out English lyrics and then translating them. Finally I realized that the particular tune I was playing around with really didn’t need very many lyrics. And that the most appropriate thing for me to sing in Spanish really was “Yo no puedo hablar español, muy bien.”
We’re already getting some nice little blurbs from various blogs about the record! I’ve listed a few of the links below; remember, if you haven’t yet downloaded or listened to “Working Title,” get to it, as it won’t be up much longer. In a week or so we’ll take it down and put up another track from the record. (and if you’ve just tuned in, all of this is happening over at www.bringonthetambourines.com)
But without further adieu, here are some links to various postings about the record:
and finally… http://hypem.com/track/872682 – the cool thing about this one is you can click to tweet it, if you’re on Twitter, and that will help move the song up in their charts!
