The pulsing, screaming A-side is a straight take on an ended love affair. At his best/worst, Simon Le Bon is excruciatingly obscure, but this lyric is surprisingly literal: “Where are you now? / ‘Cos I don’t want to meet you / I think I’d die / I think I’d laugh at you / I know I’d cry / What am I supposed to do, follow you?” Yeah, we’ve been there. But I can’t help feeling that the young Le Bon struggles to turn it on its head, and it’s all a bit “post-breakup by rote.”

The one line that intrigues me is the one that references the slow burn: “It always takes so damn long before I feel how much my eyes have darkened.” That is what I want to hear about. Instead we get a wimpy second verse, referencing clichéd “signs of love life scattered” on a table, reflecting only slightly below skin level, asking meekly “what did it all mean?” No, Simon, I want to hear about the darkened eyes. Look underneath the lids. Go below the floorboards, through the muck. Lie low, let it fester, look it full-on in the eye. Rummage through it along with the rats.

It’s so much easier to be by oneself. Relating to other strange creatures is a constant strain. So many relationships become a power struggle. It is so easy to abuse or to be abused – the scales tip ever so slightly. Relationships are damaging. How does the mind process the damage? I am going to attempt to briefly process mine right now. Right here on this blog! (Roll up, roll up!) This might end badly. Here goes.

Piece #1:
Organisms can be really, really small.
You can’t always see them with the naked eye.
Take germs for instance.
This girl I knew had a conversation with her father about organisms,
except she used the word “orgasms” by mistake.
Soon thereafter she realized what she had done, and she was mortified.
I laughed as she told me this, but years later I realize that I too, am infected.

Piece #2:
Although there’s no proof,
I’ve always assumed that certain things exist:
A key under my pillow, below even where I placed a tooth, wrapped in mesh;
A rounded toe upon which my body balances;
A pinpoint of light;
Exactly half the distance, and half again;
Two people synchronized in movement and sound;
The fleeting memory of a fish, fully-colored and flecked, just before it’s gone;
A map of the flecks;
Preservation;
An impervious library of accidental sounds;
The inevitable reset;
A catalogue of individual sparrows;
An illustrated collector’s edition of sparrows;
A subset of sparrows I’ve seen, with footnotes;
A deluxe edition of each organism, at once exclusive and free for all;
Converging orgasms at the very tip;
The secrets of the open mouth;
The purest scream;
A world of unending Now.

Piece #3:
I explained that my brain has misfires.
As I explained, I bumbled.
Oh, she knew so well her own misery,
her disgust.
It infects us.

Piece #4:
Ian McCulloch once said about Radiohead, that no one who knows would ever use a word like “Android” in a song title.
I think “organism” is one of those words, but what do I know?
I ridicule my every word.

Ummmm…. OK. So that was a bit of fun. “Fun with Catbirdman as he trawls through bottom drawers and back doors in search of the darkening eyes…” Ironically, I ended up examining the brightened, widened eyes of a child for the bulk of it… I was trying to set up a contrast, but I don’t think it quite came through. Anyway…

A few notes on the remix itself: I took quite a few liberties here with the cut-and-pste approach. I took snippets and laid them in different points in the measures; I added kick drum accents here and there; I isolated certain frequencies and added effects. It ended up pretty shoegazey with that extended, noisy middle section. I’m actually quite happy with this remix, and my only disappointment is that the momentum is robbed somewhat at the end — it should have ended a minute earlier.

Duran Duran: Careless Memories [Catbirdman Version]

This single featured not one but two solid B-sides. My remix of Khanada lengthens the intro and reprises it before the final chorus. It’s purely an extended version. Fame, on the other hand, has some fun with the descending “fame, fame, fame…” vocal part and the wailing guitar, and a few other little tricks. This David Bowie cover reminds me that I started a thread a while back, mapping Duran Duran’s influences from The Velvet Underground through the 70s up to their first single… well, I never did quite finish that, and now I’m jumping ahead. Maybe I’ll pick that up again…

Duran Duran: Khanada [Catbirdman Version]
Duran Duran: Fame [Catbirdman Version]

I had these things in mind tonight on my way to my local watering hole, Rocket to Venus. I went there for a late light supper and an altered perspective. These humid nights are like swimming through syrup, and the mind gets sticky. So my thoughts, as I walked, became much more grounded.

I had been tutoring an older lady in reading, until one day she came to me and said she was quitting. “It’s no use,” she said. There was nothing to live for and nothing to learn. Her words were actually that bleak. She could no longer hear the sound of the wind, and she swore that for her there was no Love.

Look now, look all around. Who has seen the wind? There’s no sign of life.

And then – today she came back. She has emerged from her cloud, at least for now, and is stepping out in faith. Once again I sat with her and went through the sounds of the alphabet. Once again she strained to hear the vowels and the consonants; once again she struggled to vocalize what for her is shapeless and savage. Language can be like the wind. In the beginning was the Word…

As I walked to the bar, it began to make sense to me, to start with the world of the flesh. This is Planet Earth. Start there.

What do I mean by that? I will try to explain. First of all, understand that I am a perfectionist, and I often judge myself by an impossible standard. This standard is a picture of the wind. It is unseen. It is gnostic almost, a misguided, if not heretical, veering toward spirit over flesh. I want so much that the world could all be sorted out. I want there to be order. And yes, I know, there IS order… I mean, there’s pi, there’s amino acids, there’s pattern in chaos, there’s the perfect 3-minute pop song, there’s the circle of fifths, the migratory sense of birds, the journeys of turtles, the language of whales, the language of humans, for crying out loud… Yes, there is all this. But I want MORE.

And whenever I want more, I inevitably end up right back where I started, on Planet Earth. I ended up there tonight, at the Late Bar, mulling over my next terrestrial step. My student, when in despair, turned her back on the wind. But eventually she came back, and she gave Language another chance. To do that, you have to start with the physical sounds of tongue against teeth, popping lips, vocal cords and saliva.

This blog post is my way of wrestling with all of this pedestrian stuff. I have identified it as my next (and my latest in a lifelong series of firsts) step. Accompanying this missive is Duran Duran’s first single, Planet Earth b/w Late Bar. These are my own “Catbirdman” versions. I’ve spent hours in front of my computer working on these extended, custom versions. It’s all I’ve been doing for months.  I have three albums’ worth so far, plus loads of random remix compilations with custom artwork… it’s kind of scary.

It’s all because Duran Duran are my first favorite band. Way back when, during that time of life when the music lover becomes a music lover, in the Beginning, for me, there was Duran Duran. There was the strange, other-worldly music. Of course, it was sugar: the sweet sugar rush of pop. It’s everything you see on the surface: adrenalin-fuelled fashion and excess, world tours, dance floors, sailing the high seas, stalking the jungle. But it’s also mystery, and tantalizing hints of a world beyond sight, underground chambers of brooding mist, caverns of sound, an alternate planet Earth. It’s all of that, sung to a melody you can never shake off.

As a child, when I first heard it, it sounded different. New. I had no idea what it meant (still don’t, and I’ll put up twenty quid that neither does Simon Le Bon), but it dazzled me. And those first sleeves – the sandy dunes of Planet Earth, the soft glamor of the Careless Memories girl, and the motion blur on the back, and then that bullfighter… I had to HAVE those records. I had to own them, label them, categorize them, know them. Every effort to do so got me closer to that other world, long-hinted at, seldom glanced, never fully faced: the music of matter, of spirit; the newest and oldest, and truest religion.

So, there I was, a few months ago, in a very typical state for me, full of the usual ennui and a heart for God. It reminded me of looking at those sleeves as a child. I wanted to recapture that fascination; I wanted to relive the dream of being submerged in Rhodesian texture, the thrill of a scintillating, busy bass from John Taylor, the ascendant whine of Simon Le Bon. The goal was not to create super whacked-out mash-ups or anything like that, as I don’t have the DJ skills or experience to be truly original with this kind of thing. I resisted adding external, found source material, and I rarely resorted to obvious digital gimmickry or gadgetry (although I did get a little carried away here and there). I stuck with the source material, trying to hone it to its truest root. This is my attempt to answer the question: if Duran Duran existed in its perfect, Aristotelean form, what would it sound like?

Well, it would sound nothing like what I came up with. But that’s because my aspirations were, as usual, unattainable. But it’s the goal of perfection that gets you to the good. As Ian McCulloch sang, you “aim for stars and hit the sky.” Did this get me anywhere in the long run? Am I closer to wholeness? I mean, this is Duran Duran for crying out loud. It’s hardly the stuff of higher thought, at least on the surface. It’s more often called a guilty pleasure than serious fodder for the musicologist (let alone the theologian). Maybe that’s because the surface was so boldly flaunted. The lads themselves calculated it that way: they were determined to be fashionable, visual, commercial. They were mass-produced pop-art pioneers with a hint of art school tinge. They wanted it all, above AND below the surface. And by God, they got it. An extraordinary world.

Enjoy these first two Catbirdman edits, everyone, and may they inspire you to make better versions of your own lives, and to make sense of your own obsessions. Coming soon (probably next week): Careless Memories – The Second Single.

Duran Duran: Planet Earth [Catbirdman Version]
Duran Duran: Late Bar [Catbirdman Version]

• Artist: The Catbirds
• Tour: Subanimal Sounds Record Release
• Date: Thursday, March 4th 2010
• City: The Catbirds in Chicago
• Venue: The Hideout
• Address: 354 West Wabansia
• Venue phone: 773.227.4433
• Country: US
• Admission: $10
• Age restrictions: No Minors
• Box office: 773.227.4433
• Notes: Featuring Detholz! and Thad Salter Opening for Baby Teeth
• Add to Google Calendar | Download iCal

My group, aptly named the Catbirds (I am, after all, Catbirdman), has a new album coming out very soon. It should be available on my band site within the next few weeks, and physical copies will be in my hands in the next few days. This album, Subanimal Sounds, is the cumulative result of 20 years of backlogs, logjams, listlessness, and unfinished lists. One item on the list has now been checked off, thank God.

The above artwork, fashioned in a dark and woolly place by the great Kurt Lightner, fits the songs perfectly. My music draws from blurry impressions of sources, from half-remembered 70s TV soundtracks and devoured mice left on the doormat, to Beach Boys in the background of the sub shop that my Dad took me to on Saturday mornings, to the haze of self-awakening and the obscure forms that accompanied 90s shoegaze, to the singalongs for one that whirl through my head as an adult, singing to my cat like a fool.

Ah yes, the cat. I have driven away more than one woman when the revelation was made: I write songs about my cat. More accurately, my cat shows up in songs that are more deeply focused on other things: mainly the good old human condition. Why animals speak, how animals speak, if they speak at all, and what it might signify. The animal will. The decomposing guts and bones of a fresh kill. I do not apologize about writing songs about my cat. Her name is Addie, by the way.

If you’re looking for RIYL types of comparisons, well, the easiest frame of reference is Belle And Sebastian. I don’t usually explore the soft pink underbelly of soft rock as purely as they have, but I have been known to adopt the type of “hard melody” usually credited to the Beatles and onwards, appropriating it into a more wistful and stark setting There’s a similar humor in my songs, and this, too, has driven away many women in my life. I do not apologize for my humor. Here’s a song that in my mind illustrates the Belle And Sebastian connection:

The Catbirds: Looking Alive

The Beach Boys are the other easy reference point, and the modular wackiness of When you had babies is an example of that; it was in my mind coming from the Smiley Smile fantasy world of little pads and gentle jungles:

The Catbirds: When you had babies

My songs get dark. I often visit not just the cat, but the prey. I try to find out what happened to the prey, where it went. Every now and then I find myself in the loneliest place imaginable. I’ve written about that, and it is on this album. Sometimes it’s raw (“Wild Cat of Borneo”), sometimes it’s calloused (“Eyes in the dark”), and sometimes it’s a sadness bordering on elation (“The Eternal Meow”). Sometimes it’s naff (the various “chants” and interludes on the album), but don’t tell me that to my face.

The Catbirds will be playing a show to promote this CD, Thursday, March 4 at the Hideout in Chicago. We’re honored to support Baby Teeth and their fabulous brand of spastic stomp and bad-ass kitsch. The Catbirds feature members of the Chicago group Detholz!, and while we can’t promise the same amount of glorious spectacle (I can only dream…), we do hope that at least some of you will respond by throwing underwear onto the stage. It’s a natural response, after all, to psycho-cerebral musings on the existence of the Soul and the various levels of animal life, as told through cute little songs I sing to my kitty cat.

So please, come one, come all to the Hideout on March 4. There will be Baby Teeth merch for sale, and there will be Subanimal Sounds. If you like the samples in this post, we hope you will come out for the live offering and/or check the Catbirds’ website for streaming music, an EP for sale, and the album, which will be available there by mid-March. And even if you can’t stomach songs about a cat, well, just come around to see the Detholz! lads and to get blown away by Baby Teeth. See you then!

Catbirds band site: http://catbirdman.com/
Hideout main site: http://www.hideoutchicago.com/
Baby Teeth band site: http://www.lujorecords.com/artist.php?artistid=39
Baby Teeth MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/babyteethmusic
Detholz! band site: http://www.detholz.com/
Detholz! blog: http://detholz.wordpress.com/
Detholz! MySpace:  http://www.myspace.com/thedetholz
Facebook event page:  http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=289529616916&ref=mf

January is already in the books, and were it not for my lackadaisical bachelor ways, the songs would have been posted weeks ago. But I had a Natty Boh or three to drink, and a friend or two to see, and I had to sleep as well, and, well, let’s just be grateful they’re here at last. So without further ado, here are the January songs…

Dave Crozier starts off with a greeting to a former, or would-be lover, a fanciful desert mirage named Vera. He chose to play to his strength: taking on a dubious narrator’s voice, telling deluded tales of skewed romance. The narrator is never to be trusted in a Crozier song, and often times the narrative is told second hand, or seen from a distorted reflection. In this case, our protagonist reveals how often he has listened to a cassette recording made by the titular Vera, wearing it out as he wore out his heart. “You can’t put the contents of your life on a cassette,” the narrator moans, yet he must believe you can, or at least he searched over and over for the bottom line as he oxidized that C-90 that Vera gave him years back. Out of necessity, the singer writes in the present, but what ends up in the forefront are the contents of what has been lost over the course of many years. Loss is key to this song, I think. The singer saw a different future, which became the lost past, yet he won’t let go. A nice start for Mr. Crozier, a misty snapshot, a sketch of lost connections. Can’t wait to see what February holds.

Dave Crozier: Hello Vera

Mr. Catbirdman’s January song is called “Lesser Lights – see the lyrics here. In a nutshell the song is about what lasts and what doesn’t last, and what doesn’t last outlasts that which does. These efforts we make, the flashes and sparks, the rises and falls of celebrities, some known the world over (for now), some worshipped in nooks, unseen by others, and all of us trying to be heroic and bright. Me, I write songs. But who cares? Who will care a hundred years from now? No matter, it doesn’t stop me from writing. Nor should it.

The Catbirds: Lesser Lights

I had a conversation about our true selves,
the aspirations of artists and money-makers,
the children in our schools,
and the dead among us.

I met some early thirty-somethings,
artists, teachers, listeners —
Jamie, Jason, Bryson (known as Bill),
this post is for you.

It takes three decades to learn about your choices,
where they put you,
how that works.
100 years ago kids went to work at fifteen,
fixing on careers years earlier,
staring at their lot in life.

We of the Technological Age,
wondering in the wanderlust of block parties and book clubs,
floundering but funny,
well-fueled:
Empty, aren’t we?

Not really, no.
The dead still inspire the living.
Even my late friend,
even Christopher Tucker,
dead before 40,
never made it big,
even he speaks and points the way.

After the Industrial Revolution we trained children to work in factories.
That infrastructure is now dead,
but it’s still what we teach.
Some people have a genius for making money.
Some people write it all down.

I just wander and watch.

As I said, this is quick and unfocused.
I just wanted to document some of the themes that ran through my evening here in Baltimore, where I met some local musicians, remembered the dead (find rest, Gram Parsons), and pondered vocations and the inherent political baggage that each one brings.

Not that it pertains to anything in particular, but I will leave you with two songs by Baltimore artists that came up in conversation.

Arbouretum: Thin Dominion
Beach House: Take Care

Lesser lights will play out like loud celebrities
on stage in a forgotten age
Whether the world will stay in its orbit or it
withers away with a bang one day
could be fodder for a gossiping
writer’s scathing exposé
Lesser lights shine on all the same
in the darkest days

Lesser lights on a hill
a city in vain
Lesser lights in a pill
dissolving away
Take one for the pain

Lesser lights have made up all my songs
an immortal mistake while I was barely awake
Time has a scythe that takes out
my billy club and siren shake
with a spear that’s a fake
I could die and rise up again
with an adroit plié
Lesser lights are a rousing refrain
of legerdemain

Lesser lights are swill
a drunkard’s stain
Lesser lights can kill
and they can stay the killing for days
We’ll all burn away

01 Lesser Lights (demo)

Watch this space.

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I’m in the process of releasing music into the world. If the Census Bureau came knocking at my door, I would be classified as an ordinary person. But in my queer life, I’m extraordinary. The music that I’ve found is certainly queer, and it too is extraordinary, in ways that are beyond my real life. For sure.

How tied we are to the real life, to the three-dimensional walls that surround us in the waking world. Think of when you’re half asleep, dreaming and darting from scene to scene, and the possibilities that are before you. Think of the real human emotions and spiritual places you go to. Think of the creativity in that hypnogogic state. Imagine if you could start there, and build a bridge into the “real life” world.

I am currently staring into obscurity, with thirty-odd years of lethargy anchoring me to a real life that oppresses me with its dullness and limited scope. I have created this world, acting as a willing accomplice to the law of entropy. There is another world, where programming bugs, expiring domains, flagging inspiration, otherwise-engaged friends, distractions, and pitfalls are all superseded by vision. This vision – it doesn’t ever intersect fully with the real life, but it draws the real life toward it. It drags it further along. It’s a dream, and it’s the only sound basis for making your way in the real life. You can’t wait for it. You have to walk toward it, never reaching it, but moving.

Voxtrot: The Dream Lives Of Ordinary People

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