Credits - The Wild Horse
1. Remember
2. Glory
Days Are Gone
3. Take
Me Back
4. Downtown
5. Great
American Dream
6. Identity
7. Ooh
Mama Mama
8. A
Simple Tune
9. Neighbor's
Dog
10. The
Ballad Of Zoe Snow
11. Our
Last Waltz
12.
Watch
Them Ride Away
Recording
and production notes- The Wild Horse
1. Remember 4:55
Derek Ritchie: drums
CVS: detuned acoustic guitar, sleigh
bells, bass, electric guitar, lead and backing vocals
Khoi-San: grand piano,
Wurlitzer electric piano, Hammond B-3
Danny Cao: trumpets
This is version
#7 of “Remember,” which was originally written about the Dalai Lama’s exile from
Tibet*. Somehow the lyric never stuck right with me, so I rewrote it about
something more familiar. One version is in 6/8 time, another sounds just like
McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs.” John Wesley Harding noticed this version sounds
a little like the opening track on his The Confessions of St.AceCD.
Lastly, there is a song called “Remember” that opens John Lennon’s first solo
LP, which also starts with a piano playing repetitive 1/8 notes, but his ends
with an explosion. My song ends up with several key changes, and a horn line.
Khoi-San
hammered the electric piano so hard during his overdub that by the 2nd
chorus, it’s going out of tune. It’s way out by the ending part. He got through
the song before he broke a reed inside his piano. I asked him to play something
reminiscent of a Donny Hathaway solo. This surely must be the longest
instrumental break so far for me, also dangerously long (at 5 minutes) for an
opening tune.
*Mar 31 1959 The Dalai Lama is forced to
leave Tibet, after the Red Communists make it very unpleasant for him to stay.
He accuses the Chinese of “making genocide” against the Tibetan people, by
systematic destruction of Tibetan culture and execution of thousands of
prominent citizens. (From rotten.com)
2. Glory
Days Are Gone 4:27
Derek Ritchie: drums
CVS: acoustic guitar, electric
guitar, lead and backing
vocals, tambourine, Hammond B-3,
cymbals
Dan Carr: bass
Khoi-San: grand piano
As a click track, I had the drums play
along with a slowed-down sample of “My Whole World Ended” by The Temptations.
I’d recorded a version this song in the Spring and Summer of ’98 in San
Francisco and Hoboken. Of course, a live acoustic version appears on Live
Start Lifting. It had been kicking around for a while, but I never got a
record of it I’d liked. On this, I tried to keep the narrative of the verse
more sparse, then building the choruses. The lyric is a bit of a bummer, no?
3. Take
Me Back 4:07
Derek Ritchie: drums
Pete Straus: bass
CVS: acoustic guitars,
Chamberlain flutes, cowbell, tambourine, cymbals, lead and backing vocals,
Hammond B-3, grand piano
“Ain’t
you glad you don’t eat meat?” Rich Billay, once leader of the band Sleepy
Hollow, from Brooklyn, NY, wrote this song. They made one LP in the early 70’s,
and their single was marketed to radio with the implication that it was a
surreptitious Beatles reunion.
This
recording is typical of the 2-3 hour daytime tracking sessions with Derek: I’d
play three bars of the tune, he’d do a fill, start playing along through a
chorus, I’d hit record, interrupt him so that we could hit it from the top, and
we’d do one take. Unless it sped up or fell apart, that would be our master,
and we’d move on to the next song. Derek would get on the Bay Bridge before
rush hour, and I would spend the next 8 months finishing the tracks.
I added backwards
reverb to the opening drum fill, so that it might sound more like, say, Phil
Collins, than Ringo. The backing vocals in the chorus fade out as the reverb
increases, so give the impression they go away as they say “Take Me Back.”
During the repeating chorus at the end, I play one take of the organ, and keep
making a mistake on the major III chord substitution, and one you can hear me
say “whew!” (both times around) as I hear a sour note. Call it Jazz. The ending
wasn’t quite worked out, and I didn’t want to fade it, so it just kind
of…breaks down.
4. Downtown
2:50
Derek Ritchie: drums
Pete Straus: bass
CVS: electric guitars, piano,
lead and backing vocals, orchestral bells
Kelly Hogan: backing vocal
Neko Case: backing vocal
Marc Capelle: trumpet
I
was with The New Pornographers in San Francisco one night, and we went to El
Farolito, a funky burrito place that’s open very late. I forget why, but I
broke into song, singing half of “Downtown” before I noticed everyone was
listening. Why? It was gay pride weekend, and the place was full of drag
queens, bears, and dramatic drunks like myself, all encouraging the camp of it.
I recorded the song, got Neko to sing on it, and later overdubbed Hogan’s vocal
as well. The muted trumpet during the fade-out sounds more like a harmonica or
a Chinese duck call.
5. Great
American Dream 5:14
Khoi-San: piano
CVS: acoustic guitar, electric
guitar, lead and backing
vocals, harmonica, noises
Derek Ritchie: drums
Pete Straus: fretless electric
bass
Neko Case: backing vocal
There’s
a story that there is a ghost that haunts The Great American Music Hall in San
Francisco. I’ve spent a bit of time in the dressing rooms below the stage,
warming up between sound check and show time. If I were to meet a ghost, I’d
want to do it this way.
I had recorded
the band version, which comes in 2:10 into the song. Months later, I decided to
create a segue between Downtown (I didn’t like the cold ending I had) and this
song. I told Khoi-San, “You need to play along with the ending of Downtown, in
the key of E, play an interlude, whatever you want, then somehow get back down
to E flat. See if you can incorporate the bridge of the song, as well.” I was
in the control room, with my guitar and a vocal mic set up. I ran the board and
tape machine and we cut the intro together live. We had to get the tempo up so
it would match the band version, so I had to push it right before verse 3. I
edited the two versions together.
The first section
sounds pretty good, despite the fact I’d taken only minutes to set up, and
didn’t notice the distortion on the piano. Not sure if it me overloading the
preamps or just dirt (more likely) in the signal path on the 30 year old
console. For a short time in my studio, my own board stopped working. I
borrowed some automated digital mixer, and it had some built-in effects. I put
the click track through an envelope filter, then into some patch that makes the
audio resolution 1 bit. Not sure what exactly happens, but it makes it sound
terrible, so that’s what the UFO sound is, going into the last verse. I’m proud
that Pete only did one glissando on his fretless in the song, such restraint is
rarely found in such wild men with punk rock credentials.
6. Identity 4:48
Derek Ritchie: drums
CVS: electric guitars (left
side), acoustic guitar, lead and backing vocals, cymbal, harmonica, Acetone
organ
Tom Heyman: electric guitar
(right side)
Rob Douglas: bass
Khoi-San: grand piano,
Wurlitzer electric piano
I was into some 70’s records like Moondance (Van Morrison),
Faces records, and Jackson Browne’s first LP. In fact, i played them over and over on headphones while
taking a Vicodin or two. The song,
in style, came out of that. the chorus line and melody came to me in the
bathtub one particularly trying night. The rest of the lyrics were written in
an empty bar in Pittsburgh between sound check and the show one day on tour
with John Wesley Harding. The recording was made with Derek, Teenage Rob,
Khoi-San, and Tom Heyman, all together live in my small control room. You can
hear a ghost of my guide vocal, leaking into the drum mics. Tom went for a
guitar solo, but so did I, and he just kind of stops after a few notes. The
false-start beginning, with the drums starting and stopping, is Derek playing
along with my guitar intro, probably thinking he would later be muted. This is
take two.
With the headphones on, it’s mixed like those old records.
Everything is pretty much on one side or the other, except for the drums, spread
across, and my singing. That way, for instance, you can hear my guitar against
Tom’s guitar easily, even though neither one is very loud. Many of the verses
are cloned, because I wrote more words than I initially intended, so had to
make each verse twice as long, so the drums, bass, and electric guitars repeat
themselves in each verse. There are a lot of overdubs on this song made after
the edit, so it’s not obvious. I credit Don Covay for inspiring my chatter at
the top. Derek gets the last word on this, telling us, “Let’s Listen!”
7. Ooh
Mama Mama 3:54
Derek Ritchie: drums
CVS: electric guitar (left
side), detuned acoustic guitars, lead and backing vocals, cowbell, shaker,
tambourine
Tom Heyman: electric guitar
(right side and slide)
Rob Douglas: bass
Khoi-San: grand piano,
Wurlitzer electric piano
Kelly Hogan: backing vocals
I wrote this and
recorded a version for my mother on her birthday, June 2000. Listening more, I
realized it’s not exactly a tribute “to Mom” but decided to keep the lyrics and
recut it for the album. My guitar tone is really wretched, overdriven, and
going through a wah-wah pedal stuck on one spot about halfway down, so it’s all
midrange. Recorded with “Identity,” at the session on the same day I was
heading out on tour for six weeks. We got both songs just before the van came
to get me. When I got back, I overdubbed Khoi-San on piano again, and got Kelly
Hogan to do her best hoochie mama backing vocal. She didn’t balk at my request
for her to really whoop up the “oohs.” Lastly, I found some tapes of Chuck
Prophet yelling “alright!” on several tracks of takes, so I mixed that and
faded it up during the ending.
I totally blame Paul Bradshaw of Mod Lang for this sound- he gave
me a Mott The Hoople boxed set, and showed me some Faces videos. It’s like
giving Edith Bunker some Thelonius Monk fakebooks.
8. A
Simple Tune
Derek Ritchie: drums
Dan Carr: bass
Carrie Bradley: violins
Danny Cao: trumpets
Khoi-San: grand piano
As
I prepared the liner notes, and made sure I’d forgotten no one, I went through
the track sheets for the masters, and realized that I don’t play a single note
on this song. Does this even belong on the album? Who are these people? The
melody was meant to be some sort of funeral march, or a love theme for my movie,
when I make it.
The
production of this tune was anything but simple. I had the violins play dozens
of tracks of that high C, then swooping down for the first note. I wanted it to
be like the moment in Mahler’s 5th Symphony, 4th movement,
right before the last verse, or whatever you call it.
9. Neighbor's
Dog
Derek Ritchie: drums
CVS: electric guitar, bass,
lead and backing vocals, Wurlitzer electric piano
This
was probably the last song I worked on in my old Ordophon studio before the
speculators and the bulldozer came. I wrote it in late 1999 for a UK
Nickelodeon TV show called “Renford Rejects,” and of course I never saw the
episode afterward. I think they were meant to play soccer over the music, or
the other way around. The producer on the project brought me a cassette, and
asked me to write a replacement song for the one by the Wannadies that they
didn’t want to pay the licensing for. I took a drum loop from their tune,
slowed it down, and used it as my click track.
Khoi-San
resurrected this one, saying it was my best song to date. Why? Because it
wasn’t a serious, overwrought and thought out piece of “art” that took seven
versions to perfect. I can’t say it’s my best, but I thought I’d give it a
second chance, so I spent ages reworking it, adding a bridge section to a
year-old recording, doing hundreds of mixes- but I kept the original lead
vocal. It was supposed to sound like a whiny teenager. I swear I hear someone talking at
1:07-1:11 in the right channel. Maybe someone wandered into the echo chamber to
fetch his weed.
10. The Ballad Of
Zoe Snow
Derek Ritchie: drums
CVS: acoustic guitars, bass,
Rickenbacker 12-string electric, electric guitars, lead and backing vocals,
tambourine, snare drum, Wurlitzer electric piano, grand piano
Supermodels? This might be an old song. Yes, I did the first demo in September ’92, which might even be before I went digital. But like the other less-recently written songs on this CD, it went through a long purgatory, waiting for a proper recording to carry it off.
I went through a period in recording
where I double-tracked the snare drum, to make it bigger. I think Jeff Lynne
must do that? Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know, and…neither do you. Anyway, there’s not much to report on
this ditty, other than the piano was nearly impossible for me to play because
of the number of chords (this one wins a prize), the modulations, and the fact
that it’s in G# major. Eventually, I put a capo on the piano and played it that
way.
11. Our Last Waltz
Derek Ritchie: drums
CVS: acoustic guitars,
Wurlitzer electric piano, lead vocal, sleigh bells
Khoi-San: grand piano
Neko Case: backing vocal
Pete Straus: fretless electric
bass
When I lived in New York City in 1990-91, I visited my hometown of Syracuse more often. So, sitting around watching TV and drinking Gin, a program about old wooden ships came on. The show ended with the antique boats sailing at sunset, narrated with something like, “old sweethearts gathering up twilight for one last waltz.” It stuck in my head. The rest of the lyric was about deciding whether one should alter one’s travel plans in light of a new romance.
12. Watch Them
Ride Away
Derek Ritchie: drums
CVS: acoustic guitar, bass,
lead and backing vocals
Khoi-San: grand piano
This
one was a long time coming. The song is from 1988, I believe, and those ghostly
backing vocals were recorded for an earlier version in 1991. I played it in concert
from time to time, and it usually made “the list” of possible songs to do, but
a recording never made it. The drum track was solid, but after putting guitars,
bass, and my vocal on, it didn’t sound finished. I gave that mix to Comes
With A Smile for their CD that comes with the magazine, but it wasn’t until
the piano went on that I felt it was ready for the album.
Women,
Horses, Change, Freedom, Leaving. “One of these things is not like the other…”
Studios & Engineers:
Recorded and Produced by CVS at Ordophon Studio and Hyde St. Studios, San
Francisco
Mastered by John Greenham at Paul Stubblebine
Mastering and DVD
Artwork:
Design and Layout by Kelly Niland
Hotel photos by Doug Adesko
CVS photos by Julie Marten
The hotel room is in China somewhere; Doug
took the photos long before he met me. The radio unit the same kind of hotel
fixture I’ve seen in Japan, the simple looking thing controls everything in the
room, James Bond style. Most of them I’ve seen are broken and the radio doesn’t
have the antenna connected, so it won’t receive a station. I had one in Canada
once (oh, but didn’t we all) that reported nothing but the cold weather the
whole time.
The typeface used on The Wild Horse is
Alternate Gothic. Apparently it’s
everywhere in advertising; it’s so 2002. I keep my eye out now, and I
see it every day on TV, in print ads, and in my sleep. I remember seeing
Madrone (the “big” of Big White Lies) quite a bit in 1994. It could have
been worse then, she could have used Umbra, which refuses to go away. Got Fonts? Good. They’re called
Typefaces.