New Music!
The kids are mad. The kids are sad. The kids are alright.
My dad was a Church of God preacher’s kid turned intellectual. He had an interdisciplinary PhD with enough graduate credit hours to teach philosophy, history and religious studies on the college level. As you might imagine, he loved the big questions - you know, the ones that have no clear answers. We shared that in common. After he faced some
My dad was a Church of God preacher’s kid turned intellectual. He had an interdisciplinary PhD with enough graduate credit hours to teach philosophy, history and religious studies on the college level. As you might imagine, he loved the big questions - you know, the ones that have no clear answers. We shared that in common. After he faced some serious health issues, our phone calls were full of the big questions – especially the ones about mortality. Even as he faced his own, he remained comfortable with “letting the mystery be” (as Iris Dement says in her song). I strive to do the same.
I wrote this song shortly after his death. It spilled out quickly. It’s not a memorial. And it’s not exactly a tribute either. I think it’s more like a continuation of our conversations.
- Sean
A song about raising kids to be different than yourself and then struggling to come to terms with those differences.
A return to our folkadelic side, this recording turned out to be a great collaboration. It began with Steph's floating chord progression, vulnerable vocals and intriguing lyrics. Then Jamie and Vince fleshed out the feel with a wonderful, dreamy groove. But Sean was kind of stuck on what to do to finish the song. He had tried playing several
A return to our folkadelic side, this recording turned out to be a great collaboration. It began with Steph's floating chord progression, vulnerable vocals and intriguing lyrics. Then Jamie and Vince fleshed out the feel with a wonderful, dreamy groove. But Sean was kind of stuck on what to do to finish the song. He had tried playing several different instruments during the years that we played this live and had kind of settled on electric guitar. But he felt that he couldn't nail it. So, we sent it to our friend Sean O'Connell. He came up with the guitar riff to pull it all together - playing it on his electric tenor guitar. Then he played some ambient concertina and tasty tenor guitar licks for the outro - all giving Sean something to play off of. Add Willa Mae's backup vocals and this is what you get.
A dreamy, non-chronological, stream-of-consciousness story about Sean’s hippy childhood in the 70s – complete with a cowboy, a school bus with a woodstove, a John Prine songbook, a Chicano poet, and psychedelic volleball - all told over top of the unique combo of mellotron and banjo.
A song about the never-ending allure of California and the oft-disappointing reality - in the spirit of Woody Guthrie's "Do Re Mi."