five dollar soul

Back.

2005-04-01T01:15:00.000-08:00

It seems like an age since I last posted here...

Hmmmm... that's probably because it has been an age. Apologies for my lack of devotion to this site, but my time has been munched up faster than Pac-Man on a power pill-fuelled, ghost-chomping spree.

I shall not go into all the details right now... In fact, I shall not go into any of the details, as I am sure you don't want to hear any of my tedious news. Suffice to say that I, along with the rest of the Five Dollar Soul gentlemen, have been busy little beavers.

I should be posting some new stuff for you over the next week. Now it is time for a little bit of a read, then a big bit of a sleep.

If you are around, it would be nice to see you...

Night,

Ross.

Red, Black And Blue.

2004-11-07T06:14:00.000-08:00

Hey.

Sorry for the delay in putting up a new post. The past month has been a hectic time indeed, chock full of personal garbage with which I shall not even begin to bore you. Sometimes, though, it feels as if there is not enough time to do what you want / need to do. It is a cliche, but there really is not enough hours in the day, never mind in the night.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. Or at the end of my fingers, to be overly literal.

I wrote Red, Black And Blue about four years ago, and it was always intended to be a solo acoustic number, which, of course, is the way it appears on the cd. I like that because it adds a texture different from all the angry boy guitars and distortion pedals.

Anyway, here are the lyrics:

Red, Black And Blue

Please don't put on that perfume again

It does funny things to me

And please don't wear that black dress again

Unless you want me to breathe

My heart is a balloon

It inflates when you speak

A moon reflecting your sun

My heart is a space

It aches when you leave

A race that you have just won

The sky is red

Your dress is black

And I'm blue

This song was recorded late in the night / early in the morning during the God Is My Pilot sessions. I was full of the cold (as I am now, incidentally), and most of the other guys had gone home, to see their girlfriends etc.

In the booth, there was just me, an acoustic guitar and one microphone. The mike was so close that you can hear me breathing, the sound of my fingers on the strings (I don't remember using a plectrum), the creak of my chair.

I like the sound for its intimacy, though I do regret that the lyrics are somewhat amateur, maybe a little too six form poetry. There was great debate in the band about the grammatical inaccuracy, deliberate or otherwise, of the line 'unless you want me to breathe'. I don't know if it makes perfect sense, or obeys my normally strict syntactical rules, but it sounds right, and that's good enough for me.

As for what the song is actually about... well, I imagine that you are old and clever enough to figure that out for yourself...

Keeping The Poison Out.

2004-10-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

Howdy.

I am writing this entry in a freezing computer room in Scotland. The reasons that I am here are too tedious to go into, so I shall not bore you with the details. Suffice to say that I am cold, I am hungry, and I need to go to the toilet. I shall rectify all three problems when I am done here.

Went to see The Frames play in Belfast last week, and was blown away by just how good a live band they are. They have so much confidence, energy and charm onstage that it is hard not to be self-critical and think that your efforts pale in comparison. I remember thinking this very same thing when I saw Radiohead play many moons ago, just after they released The Bends.

Glen Hansard makes for a very enigmatic frontman, but they function really well as a unit. The synchronicity between all the members was immense, the way in which they feed off each other and respond to the slightest change in mood or rhythm.

Anyway...

Today's post is devoted to 'Get Through', the second song on our cd.

Here we go.

Brace yourself.

Get Through

Screw your eyes until they hurt

But you won't keep the black out

Ball your fists and swing your torch

But you won't keep the black out

And all you want to do is

All you are trying to do is

All you want to do is

Get through

Tape your veins up at the wrists

But you won't keep the poison out

It cloaks your skin

Soaks your hair like mist

But you won't keep the poison out

And all you want to do is All you are trying to do is All you want to do is Get through

You won't keep the poison out

I guess that this sounds like a very angry, defeatist song. In many ways, it is.

I was in a bit of a bad place, emotionally speaking, when I wrote it, so it is a product of my frustration and disenchantment with the world. This does not mean that I doubt God or His will, but it is just an honest expression of feeling woebegone and lost.

As you may have gathered, it is a recurrent theme in the lyrics that I tend to write. I don't mean it to sound depressing or pessimistic. In fact, as with the song 'Burn The Flag', I reckon that it can be a positive thing to admit defeat, burn the maps and start afresh.

Sometimes, however, it just feels as if you are swimming through a sea of treacle. You can see the lights at the end of the harbour, but they are growing dimmer and further away.

'Get Through' stems from all of these nasty thoughts. It is aggressive and angry and I like that.

A childhood memory:

One of the toys that you seem to find in all primary school play areas / hospital waiting rooms is the plastic ball with the differently shaped holes in the side, accompanied by the corresponding plastic, differently shaped blocks. I hated, and still hate, that "educational" toy. I know that it is meant to teach kids spatial awareness and better coordination, but in my twisted mind it gives the impression that life is simple, that it is merely a process of fitting the right blocks in the right holes.

Life, of course, is not like that.

Half of the time I cannot find the right blocks, let alone the right holes to put them into.

To quote William H. Macy in Magnolia: "I have a lot of love. I just don't know where to put it."

Zeroes And Nones.

2004-09-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

Hey.

Thanks for tuning in again.

Below you should find the lyrics to the 13th track on our cd. As usual, words come first, blether a close second.

Zeroes And Nones

If you add my parts together

I won't make an even number

I'm an equation with one side

A fraction that won't divide

Please God, let me see

There's a plan in store for me

Algebra, arithmetic or geometry

Please God, help me see

I'm an actor corpsing my lines

Playing a cat fast running out of lives

I'm a card shark playing blind

Hustling kingpins out of my mind

Please God, help me see

There's a road leading home and free

Out of all this loss and melancholy

Please God, help me see

I can't decipher all these green

Zeroes and ones raining down the screen

I'm a number past my prime

Please God, help me see

There's a plan in store for me

Algebra, arithmetic or geometry

Please God, help me see

I can't make this choice that I'm offered

Between drowning and treading water

This is another song that I wrote in a burst of uncharacterstic creativity at the end of 2003. And yes, it is yet another about feeling disillusioned and devoid of direction. On this occasion, however, there is the added spin of my total lack of mathematical skills. One of the many things that I disliked about school was being forced to study maths when I had neither the talent nor the inclination to do so.

The lyrics pretty much spiralled out of that way of thinking: it is a rare occasion when the world makes sense, for most times life is as baffling to me as quadratic equations, long division and probability. One of the things with which I really struggle is trying to figure out where exactly each one of us (translated: me) is meant to fit. George Harrison once said (and while he was not being particularly original in this, it does hit home) that everybody asks the same 3 questions: 'who am I?', 'why am I here?' and 'where am I going?'.

Essentially, that is what 'Zeroes And Nones' is about.

I think...

Some useless trivia:

'Zeroes and ones' is the common name for the binary system, in which information is expressed by combinations of the digits 0 and 1.

'Corpsing' is a theatrial term for when actors cannot stop laughing during a take.

'Playing blind' is a technique favoured by either ver clever or very brave poker sharks whereby they guess what cards their opponents are holding. 'Kingpin' is the title for the head of a mob, gang or some other mafia style organisation. I had just watched John Dahl's fantastic poker movie Rounders when I wrote this song, so this whole verse is a reference to that.

‘I can’t make head or tail of all these green zeroes and ones’ is, of course, a reference to The Matrix. The first one, that is. The sequels are rubbish with a capital rub.

And that's about it for now.

See you later.

Danke Schon.

2004-09-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came along to the gig on Wednesday night.

And thanks to those who bought a cd too.

If anyone else is reading and is interested in getting their mitts on our record, then I shall shortly be posting details on where to send a cheque, so we can pop one in the post to you...

Wait For Me.

2004-09-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

Every now and then, I shall post the lyrics to one of the songs from our cd of collected demos, followed by a brief (well, brief-ish) explanation as to what inspired the song in the first place. We talked about putting a lot of this guff on the record sleeve, but there just was not enough room, due to the record amount of guff that we talked about putting there.

Rather than moving through the songs in numerical order, which is pretty dull and predictable, I will chose a song at random and see what happens. Today's episode focuses on Wait For Me, the 4th track on the "album".

As shall become the custom, lyrics are listed first, spiel follows afterwards.

Wait For Me

You're too high to notice

Thunderclouds and rain

Even though you're just smoking it

The effect is still the same

It's a matter of survival

You take what you can get

But how do you expect to stop sliding

When the ground is so wet?

Wait for me

Please don't run so fast

Wait

You're too stoned to feel the

Alpha beta gamma rays

Moving at the speed of sound

You won't come down for days

We all need protection

But you're pressing self-destruct

There's no such thing as fortune

There's no such thing as luck

Wait for me

Please don't run so fast

Wait

This song was written, along with a raft of othersat the tail end of 2003. I would like to say that I know what exactly it is about, but, to be perfectly honest, I don't really have a clue. I know the basics: the fear of being left behind, a childhood memory of being lost in a supermarket, a recurring dream of dying and being refused entry at the Gates of Heaven. As for the origin of the lyrics... well, that is all pretty hazy.

The song pretty much came out in a one-er. I drop-tuned my guitar (D A D G B E, tab fans), started messing around with chords and riffs until the entire thing, lyrics and all, presented itself. I took it to the other guys, and we had the song worked out in about an hour. The whole process was incredibly satisfying, though it is not something for which we can take any credit. Not that music should be about that, anyway.

Apparently, there are three main types of radiation (just one of the many things you learn when watching CSI: Crime Scene Investigation), and they are alphabetically placed in an ascending order of lethalness, Gamma being the worst. You don't want to be about when those particles are flying around.

When I was writing a load of lyrics last Autumn / Winter, the songs separated themselves into two groups: those that were about the end of the world (cheery, I know), and those that were about being in love. Guess which camp this one comes from...

The Beaten Track.

2004-09-16T05:59:00.000-07:00

The tracklisting for our cd of collected demos has finally been... finalised, ten of which have never been released before in any form. Here it is:

01 leviathan

02 get through

03 burn the flag

04 wait for me

05 the loneliness of the long distance runner

06 god is my pilot

07 wolverine

08 the sweetest sin

09 university

10 you saved my life

11 coldhearted

12 water

13 zeroes and nones

14 jesus' blood

15 bye bye

16 french movie actress

17 red, black and blue

These have all been recorded over the past four years. It is funny to listen to the songs, remember when and why they were written, what we were all doing at the time. It is true that music is a memory rolodex, even more so when you are so closely associated with the music in question.

Perfect Opening Line.

2004-09-14T19:44:00.000-07:00

Hey.

Welcome to the official blog for the band five dollar soul. If you have arrived here, you either found your way via a link on our recently released cd of collected demos, or stumbled upon us when doing a google search for something more interesting.

If you are looking for stuff relating to five dollar soul, then this is where you will find it. Here, I am going to post lyrics, photos and explanations as to what the songs are actually about (if, that is, they are about anything at all) and a smorgasbord of other good stuff.

Please, make yourself at home.