A Beautiful Case of the Blues
A throwback, a way forward. This book, 15 years in the making, draws together two distinct plot lines that converge around seemingly unrelated events––a love hotel murder and the kidnapping of an English teacher in Japan. Set vividly in 2007, at the cusp of the iPhone era, the multifaceted plot brings an aging detective on the verge of retirement together with a detective who is just starting on the force and facing brisk institutional headwinds.
Add to this brew a high class Latvian hostess, an American English teacher, a biochemistry researcher, the band Modal Pilaf, Bar Same Same, Club Peach, and a dozen vividly recurring characters. Set them on a Roppongi-centered course that combines elements of LeCarre, Chandler, Hammett, Doyle, Christie, Nesbo, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, and Kerouac. Give them wings to fly toward an ending that threatens the spread of a viral infection that could cause war between Japan and North Korea. Is it too vague? Purposefully so. The plot is logical, forwardly propulsive, relevant to our times, and includes enough breadcrumbs for amateur sleuths to get a kick out of trying to solve.
A throwback, a way forward. This book, 15 years in the making, draws together two distinct plot lines that converge around seemingly unrelated events––a love hotel murder and the kidnapping of an English teacher in Japan. Set vividly in 2007, at the cusp of the iPhone era, the multifaceted plot brings an aging detective on the verge of retirement together with a detective who is just starting on the force and facing brisk institutional headwinds.
Add to this brew a high class Latvian hostess, an American English teacher, a biochemistry researcher, the band Modal Pilaf, Bar Same Same, Club Peach, and a dozen vividly recurring characters. Set them on a Roppongi-centered course that combines elements of LeCarre, Chandler, Hammett, Doyle, Christie, Nesbo, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, and Kerouac. Give them wings to fly toward an ending that threatens the spread of a viral infection that could cause war between Japan and North Korea. Is it too vague? Purposefully so. The plot is logical, forwardly propulsive, relevant to our times, and includes enough breadcrumbs for amateur sleuths to get a kick out of trying to solve.
1. Sunday. 9:47 am. Eve Falls.
Eve had the sensation that she was separate from her body, a sense of dislocation that a hangover could not explain. She was pinned to the ceiling, looking down without signpost or recollection. The world turned upside down and she felt a sandpaper itch down her throat as she tried to swallow. There was a rasp to her breathing and the room went in and out of focus.
Through the darkness an awareness of something immovable pressing in on her in pulse after aching pulse. Casting to a place with no feeling, Eve strained muscles in a dull succession of non-movements. A shivering realization hit that she was paralyzed, limited to phantom limbs.
No, that wasn’t it exactly. There was something in the way––Eve’s fingers came against a heaviness that pressed her down and cut off circulation. Squirming sideways and finding leverage, she managed to heave whatever it was up and into a holding pattern, gravity taking its time in deciding which way to send it. Finally it thudded from bed onto floor.
Eve peered out into darkness, half-expecting some movement, a sign of life. Nothing––no semi-coherent groan, no half-awareness of hitting rock bottom. Searching through memories that did not quite cohere, she found a submerged recollection of last night. Ken… the love hotel.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, nerves exploded in painful reawakening. Waiting for the jagged edges to subside, she worked her way on hands and knees to the pale shape on the floor.
The textured fibers were synthetic, the smell faintly antiseptic. Bringing herself achingly into a seated position, a sinking sensation arose in her stomach, far worse than fear. Realization. Holding her breath for a sickening moment as the half-naked torso came into focus, the soft line of the chest leading to a head cocked unnaturally. The mouth open as if about to speak, eyes lifeless. Grasping at Ken’s wrist, she felt for a pulse—nothing.
Eve worked her way to the thin yellow line that must be a door. Finding the knob and turning, she emerged into an empty hallway. As her legs regained sensation, she registered something sticky along the hem of her dress. Fighting back simultaneous urges to scream and retch. Get a hold of yourself, she repeated silently, wiping the blood down the sides of her dress. Need to… halfway down the hall, she caught sight of herself in a mirror. It wasn’t her––it was some blood-splattered survivor who had descended into subway bowels and fended off zombies. She stumbled back through the hall, through the still-open door, feeling her way along the wall. Her nostrils flaring, a scent she registered only as death cut through layers of antiseptic.
Eve ran cold water in the sink basin and rubbed at her face and arms. She slipped off her dress and rinsed the stiffened fabric over and over. The areas that were still wet, responsive to rinsing––where Ken’s body had lain on her––gave way to edges of crusted hardness, where blood had pooled and thickened. It was not going away and she did not have time. Wringing out, Eve stepped back into a dress that stuck against thighs and stomach. Nausea hit again––she knelt at the toilet basin and heaved without anything coming up. The throbbing in her head increasing, along with a fractured awareness––drugged… I’ve got to get out….
A clumsy search for belongings, purse and cell phone, a frantic groping through bedsheets––nothing, just endless carpet leading to Ken’s inert form. Everything watery, blurred, indistinct. She noticed a flash of something just under the bed and ran her hand along the surface. Her keys. Thank god. Her keys had somehow fallen out of her purse.
Back into the hallway, down four flights of stairs, Eve avoided the main lobby and found a side door next to the ice machine. She pushed it open, blinking in a rush of sunlight. All around her the usual Tokyo workaday bustle, at odds with the nighttime scene she’d expected. Wandering down the street without knowing why or where, she averted her eyes from salarymen in dark suits.
Through Roppongi Crossing and past the Hyatt Regency, down a street that grew narrower and quieter, residential. Turning before she reached the reinforced walls of the Chinese Embassy and guards who stood stock-straight, unblinking. Suddenly she knew where she was––too many cameras, too many eyes––she couldn’t pass this way.
Down a back street, a couple of blind turns on sloped alleyways until the lane opened out into a larger, tree-lined street––the corner of a park. Here she hesitated, glancing around for the first time. Her feet were leading her left and, as she hurried past a tennis club and truncated baseball field, it struck her that they knew exactly where they were going.
Eve found the house on the quiet, sloped street past the Korean embassy; semi-traditional, with a small boulder-indented garden. The only thing unusual about it the large number of shopping bicycles on the walkway. She turned the handle of the front door. It was unlocked, as remembered. Finding the entrance hall empty, she slipped off her shoes and made her way down a narrow hallway into welcome darkness
Eve had the sensation that she was separate from her body, a sense of dislocation that a hangover could not explain. She was pinned to the ceiling, looking down without signpost or recollection. The world turned upside down and she felt a sandpaper itch down her throat as she tried to swallow. There was a rasp to her breathing and the room went in and out of focus.
Through the darkness an awareness of something immovable pressing in on her in pulse after aching pulse. Casting to a place with no feeling, Eve strained muscles in a dull succession of non-movements. A shivering realization hit that she was paralyzed, limited to phantom limbs.
No, that wasn’t it exactly. There was something in the way––Eve’s fingers came against a heaviness that pressed her down and cut off circulation. Squirming sideways and finding leverage, she managed to heave whatever it was up and into a holding pattern, gravity taking its time in deciding which way to send it. Finally it thudded from bed onto floor.
Eve peered out into darkness, half-expecting some movement, a sign of life. Nothing––no semi-coherent groan, no half-awareness of hitting rock bottom. Searching through memories that did not quite cohere, she found a submerged recollection of last night. Ken… the love hotel.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, nerves exploded in painful reawakening. Waiting for the jagged edges to subside, she worked her way on hands and knees to the pale shape on the floor.
The textured fibers were synthetic, the smell faintly antiseptic. Bringing herself achingly into a seated position, a sinking sensation arose in her stomach, far worse than fear. Realization. Holding her breath for a sickening moment as the half-naked torso came into focus, the soft line of the chest leading to a head cocked unnaturally. The mouth open as if about to speak, eyes lifeless. Grasping at Ken’s wrist, she felt for a pulse—nothing.
Eve worked her way to the thin yellow line that must be a door. Finding the knob and turning, she emerged into an empty hallway. As her legs regained sensation, she registered something sticky along the hem of her dress. Fighting back simultaneous urges to scream and retch. Get a hold of yourself, she repeated silently, wiping the blood down the sides of her dress. Need to… halfway down the hall, she caught sight of herself in a mirror. It wasn’t her––it was some blood-splattered survivor who had descended into subway bowels and fended off zombies. She stumbled back through the hall, through the still-open door, feeling her way along the wall. Her nostrils flaring, a scent she registered only as death cut through layers of antiseptic.
Eve ran cold water in the sink basin and rubbed at her face and arms. She slipped off her dress and rinsed the stiffened fabric over and over. The areas that were still wet, responsive to rinsing––where Ken’s body had lain on her––gave way to edges of crusted hardness, where blood had pooled and thickened. It was not going away and she did not have time. Wringing out, Eve stepped back into a dress that stuck against thighs and stomach. Nausea hit again––she knelt at the toilet basin and heaved without anything coming up. The throbbing in her head increasing, along with a fractured awareness––drugged… I’ve got to get out….
A clumsy search for belongings, purse and cell phone, a frantic groping through bedsheets––nothing, just endless carpet leading to Ken’s inert form. Everything watery, blurred, indistinct. She noticed a flash of something just under the bed and ran her hand along the surface. Her keys. Thank god. Her keys had somehow fallen out of her purse.
Back into the hallway, down four flights of stairs, Eve avoided the main lobby and found a side door next to the ice machine. She pushed it open, blinking in a rush of sunlight. All around her the usual Tokyo workaday bustle, at odds with the nighttime scene she’d expected. Wandering down the street without knowing why or where, she averted her eyes from salarymen in dark suits.
Through Roppongi Crossing and past the Hyatt Regency, down a street that grew narrower and quieter, residential. Turning before she reached the reinforced walls of the Chinese Embassy and guards who stood stock-straight, unblinking. Suddenly she knew where she was––too many cameras, too many eyes––she couldn’t pass this way.
Down a back street, a couple of blind turns on sloped alleyways until the lane opened out into a larger, tree-lined street––the corner of a park. Here she hesitated, glancing around for the first time. Her feet were leading her left and, as she hurried past a tennis club and truncated baseball field, it struck her that they knew exactly where they were going.
Eve found the house on the quiet, sloped street past the Korean embassy; semi-traditional, with a small boulder-indented garden. The only thing unusual about it the large number of shopping bicycles on the walkway. She turned the handle of the front door. It was unlocked, as remembered. Finding the entrance hall empty, she slipped off her shoes and made her way down a narrow hallway into welcome darkness
This pinned information is response to persistent inquiry. Apparently my stuff is a little mysterious for the Internet.
ENDURANCEWRITER FAQS
What are you creating?
I offer a mix of original writing, art, and music across 3 platforms:
• DamonArvid.com = the collected cloud novels and art.
• endurancewriter.com = ongoing blog articles + creative projects
• Youtube = music playlist @ fabric - Summon These Days*
What is your purpose here?
I am sharing what I create, approximately when created. The aim is that everything I put up be transitory and yet lasting. Portable, able to travel well to Mars.
What are you selling?
Glad you asked. merch includes: original artwork and signed prints. Any artwork can be turned into a one-off poster, signed, dated, and delivered for $150. Original art can be priced on request. Fancy way of saying it all depends on supply, demand, and how the kombucha is reacting in my gut on a given day.
I also have several ongoing cloud novels. These are being completed at a snail’s pace, as I have a content gig that pays the bills and takes incredible amounts of time that would otherwise be spent authoring.
You want a section or chapter of a specific cloud novel expedited? The sound of clicks motivates the artist not at all. The cost is $1k, with a month to deliver. You get, in addition to that content you are burning to read, a one-off printed version of the chapter, complete with hand edits, cowbell, and random doodles in the margin.
I am also working toward a new fabric album Avocado Sun. Once completed, the plan is to run off a limited edition lp and do a tour across Canada or Europe, dressed up as Bono as a subway busker. The lps can also be ordered n this site, for $60 each. Expected release mid-2020, a run of no more than a few hundred copies.
How can I pay?
Email damon74 (at) mac.com. Minions will respond and share PayPal details.
Why aren’t you putting stuff up on Amazon, Spotify, or Medium?
There is a reason why I haven’t purchased anything from Amazon in over a decade. Medium has been paying me one cent per quarter for about a hundred posted pieces for years. I guess the endurancewriter content itself will always be free, why not concentrate it on my own site… it is up to the public at large to decide if my output is valuable enough to make the ephemera worthy of paying the artist for.
Ok, why an old fashioned website, Boomer?
Listen hipster, those who never leave their app ecosystem are prisoners of their own device. I don’t really aim at a viral audience of device users, though they are welcome to peruse my stuff. Those who use laptops have the usual bookmarks and organizational options for creating a coherent reading system, Maybe they really like my stuff and sit down and enjoy it as the artist intended, instead of as the feed forces. Groovy baby.
Why don’t I see any live concerts or promotional appearances listed, if you are truly an artist?
Part of my conceit is that I don’t have to deal with troops, run through hoops. I haven’t worked in an office or had a conversation with someone I didn’t want to in more than a decade. Similarly, the music I have created has been developed in less than formal settings. Even in the studio its loose and we have fun. It’s no accident that our best popular musicians lived a half century ago and that many died trying to escape the madding mass-consumer crowd.
Let me live. Please. Insta-hate those who play the game and have the machine to support them or spit them out.
*MediaHuman's Youtube to MP3 is a nice app if you want to add a specific fabric song/album to the old playlist. Go ahead, the quality won't be great, but perfectly fine for device.
ENDURANCEWRITER FAQS
What are you creating?
I offer a mix of original writing, art, and music across 3 platforms:
• DamonArvid.com = the collected cloud novels and art.
• endurancewriter.com = ongoing blog articles + creative projects
• Youtube = music playlist @ fabric - Summon These Days*
What is your purpose here?
I am sharing what I create, approximately when created. The aim is that everything I put up be transitory and yet lasting. Portable, able to travel well to Mars.
What are you selling?
Glad you asked. merch includes: original artwork and signed prints. Any artwork can be turned into a one-off poster, signed, dated, and delivered for $150. Original art can be priced on request. Fancy way of saying it all depends on supply, demand, and how the kombucha is reacting in my gut on a given day.
I also have several ongoing cloud novels. These are being completed at a snail’s pace, as I have a content gig that pays the bills and takes incredible amounts of time that would otherwise be spent authoring.
You want a section or chapter of a specific cloud novel expedited? The sound of clicks motivates the artist not at all. The cost is $1k, with a month to deliver. You get, in addition to that content you are burning to read, a one-off printed version of the chapter, complete with hand edits, cowbell, and random doodles in the margin.
I am also working toward a new fabric album Avocado Sun. Once completed, the plan is to run off a limited edition lp and do a tour across Canada or Europe, dressed up as Bono as a subway busker. The lps can also be ordered n this site, for $60 each. Expected release mid-2020, a run of no more than a few hundred copies.
How can I pay?
Email damon74 (at) mac.com. Minions will respond and share PayPal details.
Why aren’t you putting stuff up on Amazon, Spotify, or Medium?
There is a reason why I haven’t purchased anything from Amazon in over a decade. Medium has been paying me one cent per quarter for about a hundred posted pieces for years. I guess the endurancewriter content itself will always be free, why not concentrate it on my own site… it is up to the public at large to decide if my output is valuable enough to make the ephemera worthy of paying the artist for.
Ok, why an old fashioned website, Boomer?
Listen hipster, those who never leave their app ecosystem are prisoners of their own device. I don’t really aim at a viral audience of device users, though they are welcome to peruse my stuff. Those who use laptops have the usual bookmarks and organizational options for creating a coherent reading system, Maybe they really like my stuff and sit down and enjoy it as the artist intended, instead of as the feed forces. Groovy baby.
Why don’t I see any live concerts or promotional appearances listed, if you are truly an artist?
Part of my conceit is that I don’t have to deal with troops, run through hoops. I haven’t worked in an office or had a conversation with someone I didn’t want to in more than a decade. Similarly, the music I have created has been developed in less than formal settings. Even in the studio its loose and we have fun. It’s no accident that our best popular musicians lived a half century ago and that many died trying to escape the madding mass-consumer crowd.
Let me live. Please. Insta-hate those who play the game and have the machine to support them or spit them out.
*MediaHuman's Youtube to MP3 is a nice app if you want to add a specific fabric song/album to the old playlist. Go ahead, the quality won't be great, but perfectly fine for device.
each piece is unique, organic, Beats + cruelty Free. Designed to avoid all algorithms.
Subscribe to the YouTube channel fabric - Summon These Days (some insane number of subscribers and I am considered too legit). Art + merch (proceeds to the serious business of creating fabric. Avocado Sun).
New Medium Article: No Crossover — Auteur Distillation of Joker for Dark Times
Latest CLOUD NOVEL episode, dept.
EVEN 1.1 - VIABLE ARK "Est looked beyond his driftwood desk and out the window, where a grove of redwoods stood tall and unswaying, holding conference with a live oak’s skeletal branches. They seemed to be in detente, each marking territory… though the redwoods, set in a fairy circle, had numbers, growing from the same felled old growth tree, the oak made up in girth and sheer solidity what it lacked in orthopeadic form. As the coastal fog moved in across the ridgeline, the tree trunks turned ghostly, half shrouded in spectral fog. The dampness was everywhere and it made him hungry, in a comfort food seeking way––he walked over to the kitchen and cut a whole wheat pita round in half, slowly heating the two matching pieces in a large cast iron pan with thin-sliced onions and thick cut tomato slices from the garden. If he kept the heat low enough, he didn't need any oil, which was how he liked it." Continue.... Latest Medium Pieces, while the blog is accreting:
Uninhabitable Earth? It’s Not so Bad I’m Not Citified - Soul Workout: latest in the Fabric Discography released Does Mueller’s Greenlighting of False WMD Intel Compromise His Investigation of Trump? Blog @ Endurancewriter.com
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I don't want to give away the plot, but A Beautiful Case of the Blues is kind of a new creation in seven parts from a variety of old threads. Basically for musician reference, i'll finish it off at Strawberry soon. A haunted fabric recorded 4/17 Ruiz Sudios, 12/18 Raleigh, and 9/17, 9/18, 6/19 Strawberry Jams.
The picture? oh hum its actually a piece of Balinese beeswax soaked fabric, an old surfboard keychain from Boracay, and a Siquijor expanding-in-water friendship bracelet made from reeds.
Damon Arvid (vo, fl, harp, percussion), Jing Reyna-Jorge (vo, violin), Kaloy del Puerto (b), Ian Joseph (g), Vinci Castelo (g), Conrado Honojosa (sax), Novel Ruiz (keys). Check out blog article A Piece of Balinese Beeswax for more dets.
The picture? oh hum its actually a piece of Balinese beeswax soaked fabric, an old surfboard keychain from Boracay, and a Siquijor expanding-in-water friendship bracelet made from reeds.
Damon Arvid (vo, fl, harp, percussion), Jing Reyna-Jorge (vo, violin), Kaloy del Puerto (b), Ian Joseph (g), Vinci Castelo (g), Conrado Honojosa (sax), Novel Ruiz (keys). Check out blog article A Piece of Balinese Beeswax for more dets.
Furtive Karma - recorded 6/19 at Strawberry Jams. Filmed in Bali. A rare instrumental, start to finish. A hypnotic showcase for Kaloy del Puerto's bass, Ian Joseph's guitar, and Sharif Haddadin's drums... oh and a little flute. The video is a reflection of the sense of peace that I feel here in Canggu at moments, along the edges of temples, terraced rice fields that Insta hipsters have not usurped. Very fabric question: how can we transform "still nice" into "will be nice?" Are all our gluten-frei boutiques and craft bodegas simply prep work for alien casinos? (June, 2019)
I'm Not Citified - Soul Workout - recorded 6-19 at Strawberry Jams. Lyrics that describe zeitgeist zombies, a world on the verge of dysfunction, if not already there. The more I travel the more I see the impact of incipient fascism, a cloak for land grab + exploitation. Guitarist Ian envisioned the song early Bob Dylan style and you can still hear his acoustic guitar (Phil Ochs, really) peeking through. But Kaloy's bass was insistent and sweet. So I went with that as the driver. Song sketches make up the second half. Ukulele. Drums. Bass. Guitar.
Soul Workout is basically the jazz version of Soul Diver, the song sketched out accappela as a coda. The last progression is based on a work in progress Little Jammy's Gone. Look for those songs proper on the next fabric album. Sessions set for Sept to continue work on Avocado Sun. This one I had a hand at ukulele, bass, and guitar, maybe you can distinguish between my style and that of Kaloy (uke, bass) and Ian (guitar)? One of the profound questions worth puzzling out. (June, 2019)
Soul Workout is basically the jazz version of Soul Diver, the song sketched out accappela as a coda. The last progression is based on a work in progress Little Jammy's Gone. Look for those songs proper on the next fabric album. Sessions set for Sept to continue work on Avocado Sun. This one I had a hand at ukulele, bass, and guitar, maybe you can distinguish between my style and that of Kaloy (uke, bass) and Ian (guitar)? One of the profound questions worth puzzling out. (June, 2019)
Live Worms, North Beach, San Francisco.
Chasing Sun - The ur-fabric recorded throughout 2016 at Alchemy + Strawberry Jams. The impetus was Fly Away Home, a song that came in a dream... I woke up wondering what Bob Marley song it was... a dream or a vision? Includes Aletheia Ellwood Cedino's eco-folk hit Eat the Fruit and Ramke Samadhi's roots reggae groove Ramke's Jam. Also in-the-studio works of poserie She Don't Believe with Paulo Ramos, and However Far You Say (I Will Jump It) that set the template of improvised one-take songwriting. Call it the anti lizard king approach. I Did Not See You, straight from the beaches of Tulum circa 2015 (see accappela coda), is an eerie presage of resurgent intolerance and trails of tears.
Hasta La Vista Social Club was the fruit of the first ever Strawberry Fields session, arranged by Mark Estandarte (Pasada) several months after the Dumaguete sessions. Nils was primarily known to me at the time as the boyfriend of my dentist, who just happened to have hit the skins in college. Burn Belacho a member of the expansive Talahib People's Music I chanced upon and jammed with at Cafe 1511 a year earlier.
Hasta is definitely a turn to the darker, more rhythmic. Small wonder, it was recorded a week after Trump's ascendance to presidency, when night and day seemed to flip. Ask the elephant if it exists when it's already in the room. Table napkin tyrant speaks of forgiveness and practices doom.
The song is also of interest because of the fact that Burn and I both switch off on guitar and flute. Since that time, even listeners with ears never quite know whose playing what. Incidentally, Nils hated on the final product due to the 1-2-3-4 count-in and one missed beat. Obsessive or not, his input got me keyed into making sure the layered grooves line up exactly. Though I never did stop leaving random audible cues scattered. How do you move when there are troubles surrounding, how do you slip on through the groove? When they are looking to fill their quota, indecision––my enemy, how do you do?
As with Like a Ghost and Something Ain't Right, a good portion of the video was filmed with Ike Eisensehr in Boracay in 2018 during closure.... along with some recent scenes from Japan. With this album-length video, patient, longform viewing pays off, as the initial story arc that will inform Great Pacific Pacific Patch (if it is ever made) is revealed. Cliffs: fabric is about looking beyond dollar signs on every palm tree and toward some kind of totality. In flute we trust. (March to October 2016)
Check out blog entry Lofty Stylings for more dets.
Hasta La Vista Social Club was the fruit of the first ever Strawberry Fields session, arranged by Mark Estandarte (Pasada) several months after the Dumaguete sessions. Nils was primarily known to me at the time as the boyfriend of my dentist, who just happened to have hit the skins in college. Burn Belacho a member of the expansive Talahib People's Music I chanced upon and jammed with at Cafe 1511 a year earlier.
Hasta is definitely a turn to the darker, more rhythmic. Small wonder, it was recorded a week after Trump's ascendance to presidency, when night and day seemed to flip. Ask the elephant if it exists when it's already in the room. Table napkin tyrant speaks of forgiveness and practices doom.
The song is also of interest because of the fact that Burn and I both switch off on guitar and flute. Since that time, even listeners with ears never quite know whose playing what. Incidentally, Nils hated on the final product due to the 1-2-3-4 count-in and one missed beat. Obsessive or not, his input got me keyed into making sure the layered grooves line up exactly. Though I never did stop leaving random audible cues scattered. How do you move when there are troubles surrounding, how do you slip on through the groove? When they are looking to fill their quota, indecision––my enemy, how do you do?
As with Like a Ghost and Something Ain't Right, a good portion of the video was filmed with Ike Eisensehr in Boracay in 2018 during closure.... along with some recent scenes from Japan. With this album-length video, patient, longform viewing pays off, as the initial story arc that will inform Great Pacific Pacific Patch (if it is ever made) is revealed. Cliffs: fabric is about looking beyond dollar signs on every palm tree and toward some kind of totality. In flute we trust. (March to October 2016)
Check out blog entry Lofty Stylings for more dets.
A warmup jam at September, 2018, sessions with Nimrod Laquian on guitar and Nils Sens on drums yielded a sound that was equal parts melancholy, warm, and hypnotic. Hey Ringo, hey Ringo, why there's a pigeon on your finger? Faltering people, into the donut shop. Like every piece, there are a number of completely new sounds extracted for future fabric mining. What can you say... when it's your last payday. Get up stand up, or you're going to be lying down all night.A profound influence is Nimrod, who has a background in classical Spanish guitar and pulled out some indelible sounds from what the fabric gave him. I proudly contribute bass guitar to the mix, in addition to my usual flute. Filmed in Tokyo, trying to get the funinki exactly right. (September, 2018)
Something Ain't Right - This song was arrived to me tooling around on a motorbikeon a volcanic island somewhere East of the Sun and combined one thing I had come up with in Vegas in 2015. Plus a jazzy little middle piece inspired by .... Featuring the Dumaguete crew of Robert Bravo on acoustic, Mark Liu on bass, Novel Liu on keys, and Strawberry's Jing Reyna vocal, it is the first original I arranged that seemed to really capture a new fabric mood. Listening now, I think how much tighter it could have been. You can really tell where the parts were stitched together. I take solace in the fact that some of my favorite artists recorded several evolutions. The video is an accurate look at Boracay during closure, 2017, with the assistance of photographer Ike Eisensehr. (March, 2017)
Like a Ghost (Higher Than Most). This is the first song I arranged using a method that I have since refined and recently found out is an old avant-art technique. Still one of the compositions I am proudest of... it has a lot of accidental shit that somehow coheres.
The framework is Station to Station, which proved a little too rubber bandy for release and also unknowingly poached a David Bowie album title. Calling out from station station, this here sound to mash the nation, it's true, it's true. Calling out in desperation, this here ain't no stay vacation, it's you, it's you. And you know, It Ain't No Thing. No, it aint no thing.
This was the first time Kaloy played on a Fabric recording, in tandem with his old Lunar Landings bandmate Vinci Castelo, now no longer on speaking terms. Listen for the ship sinking in the Arctic in the middle and the survivor learning to breathe amidst the fog and clanking metal.
The coda, a stitched together combo of Novel's keys from Something Ain't Right, Conrado's saxophone from I forget, and Jing's vocals from By the Seaside, is incidentally the basis for Let's Make it Love Light, the Kaloy bass-tethered second track of Hit the Pain Game. I'm now arranging that into a concept proper for the album-in-progress Furtive Avocado. Should be putting it up as a separate musician reference "workshop" video soon. (September, 2017)
The framework is Station to Station, which proved a little too rubber bandy for release and also unknowingly poached a David Bowie album title. Calling out from station station, this here sound to mash the nation, it's true, it's true. Calling out in desperation, this here ain't no stay vacation, it's you, it's you. And you know, It Ain't No Thing. No, it aint no thing.
This was the first time Kaloy played on a Fabric recording, in tandem with his old Lunar Landings bandmate Vinci Castelo, now no longer on speaking terms. Listen for the ship sinking in the Arctic in the middle and the survivor learning to breathe amidst the fog and clanking metal.
The coda, a stitched together combo of Novel's keys from Something Ain't Right, Conrado's saxophone from I forget, and Jing's vocals from By the Seaside, is incidentally the basis for Let's Make it Love Light, the Kaloy bass-tethered second track of Hit the Pain Game. I'm now arranging that into a concept proper for the album-in-progress Furtive Avocado. Should be putting it up as a separate musician reference "workshop" video soon. (September, 2017)
The cover of Fabric - Chasing Sun. Thinking of a limited edition poster. Damon74 (at) me.com
Sometimes when the jam is tight we don't even realize what we are playing until we go back and start excavating tracks. This has to be one of the funkiest fabric creations ever, thanks to Nils drums and Kaloy's bass. Also features a slightly rant-like spoken word... its a convenient fiction that men and women are from different planets... merge, emerge.... say what I mean and mean what I say. chaos strikes, zebra stripes... (September, 2018)
Check out blog article A Piece of Balinese Beeswax for dets on the second song, Let's Make it Love Light, which is now incorporated in the musician's workout reference A Beautiful Case of the Blues.
Check out blog article A Piece of Balinese Beeswax for dets on the second song, Let's Make it Love Light, which is now incorporated in the musician's workout reference A Beautiful Case of the Blues.
I Feel So Free came to me on the Boulevard in Dumaguete... there are a couple inspirations that I will not get into. One of my very favorites for the way it evokes the journey from rainforest to the Andean plateau, waiting on that proverbial train as the thunder gathers. Filmed in Camiguin and the American West. Solitude where you find it. (March, 2017)
This and Back Beach are reggae-inflected companion pieces that feature Jahpoy and Chuck Luzon of Jahcoustic prominently on guitar, djimbe, and congas. Plus Nils, Mark, and others. The essence of one version of fabric. Probably ultimately the most accessible version, of which Marley, Sublime, the Doors, the Clash, and garage bands everywhere would approve.
The first track Automatic Driver was Nils, Chuck, Jahpoy, and me literally channeling a new song in the moment. There are no overdubs, there was no rehearsal. Same for the track that forms the foundation of the next song They Say (Real Music is Dead), six months earlier. Except that there are a number layers added to that piece of hypnotic, revelatory reggae.
Holy Wid' is Jahpoy's heartfelt paean to the power of herb, recorded a couple days before his daughter was born. You can hear the hope in his voice. Nils and I had not heard the song, which makes it super, rock the casbah fresh. Followed by Heat of the Day, a fragile song I found in a rough acoustic home tape Bob Marley recorded in 1968. Never can remember lyrics, so it's kind of a remake. Followed by an impromptu acoustic version of Fly Away Home, the song that launched this whole ball of wax. Lastly, anunderrepresented Marley classic that Jahpoy introduced me to at Bamboo Grande, circa 2015. High Tide or Low Tide. Visions of Boracay before the swarms moved in without warning. I'm gonna be your friend. (March to September 2017)
The first track Automatic Driver was Nils, Chuck, Jahpoy, and me literally channeling a new song in the moment. There are no overdubs, there was no rehearsal. Same for the track that forms the foundation of the next song They Say (Real Music is Dead), six months earlier. Except that there are a number layers added to that piece of hypnotic, revelatory reggae.
Holy Wid' is Jahpoy's heartfelt paean to the power of herb, recorded a couple days before his daughter was born. You can hear the hope in his voice. Nils and I had not heard the song, which makes it super, rock the casbah fresh. Followed by Heat of the Day, a fragile song I found in a rough acoustic home tape Bob Marley recorded in 1968. Never can remember lyrics, so it's kind of a remake. Followed by an impromptu acoustic version of Fly Away Home, the song that launched this whole ball of wax. Lastly, anunderrepresented Marley classic that Jahpoy introduced me to at Bamboo Grande, circa 2015. High Tide or Low Tide. Visions of Boracay before the swarms moved in without warning. I'm gonna be your friend. (March to September 2017)
(March and September 2017)
A 90 minute distillation of a four hour session, featuring the ballad She Makes Me and the funky, paranoid (or is it?) rocker Under Surveillance - All Fall Down. Plus a very nice Cat Scat into Space jam. This is a nice reference for the modus operandi on most fabric sessions, where ideas are introduced through seeming ESP. To be worked on further for the upcoming album Avocado Jam. (September, 2018)
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AVOCADO SUN - $450
This artwork was begun looking at the new Tokyo Tower across the Sumida river in May, 2019, and finished in Bali in August, with pen and pencil colorations. Shipping $15, frame $50. The piece is featured in the fabric concept Hit the Pain Game. Contact: damon74 (at) me.com |
Slowly Learning is another milestone, in that it is comprised of two 35-40 minute jams running concurrently and somehow grooving very closely as a piece-de-resistance. One jam was me and Nils in the studio working out new songs to his drums. Overlaid is an earlier Raleigh, North Carolina, session with the jazz trumpeter Paul Rogers, my cousin, where I forgot my flute and had to play in the backyard cause the studio was a little cabin. The genius of it is that each of the sessions, while arranged in and out, is not touched in terms of sequencing. So both internal logics maintain their integrity, spinning around unique axes and creating really interesting ideas fit to be used for future fabric mining. I stumbled upon this mashup in Boracay during the long weeks of storm and closure, playing it seemed to keep hope alive in a pretty much hopeless place. (September and December 2016)
Tijuana, a great place to be at the time of Trump's inauguration. This is probably one of the richest creations in terms of sheer conceptual weirdness. (January 2017)
(March, 2017)
(March, 2017)
(March, 2017)
(February, 2019)