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I've been adrift out in this desert floating along until I see her distant shores.

Shorthand

she says she don’t need no one to come to her rescue

and that’s good cause I ain’t got no oars

I’ve been adrift out in this desert float along until

I see her distant shores

…

maybe I’m the one needs rescuing tonight

maybe she’ll throw me a line

it’s funny how the more I feel the less I say

the more free my heart, the more my tongue gets tied

but I hope she knows that I’m thinking of her tonight

…

self-park garage, a friendly hug

she takes my hand – there goes the rug

an August romance underneath florescent lights

a nice wine buzz, a rooftop bar

from up here we can so so far

and I’ve become aware that my hand is on her thigh

…

maybe I’m the one …

…

a stolen glass, a nervous kiss

the things that make relationships

the tiny gestures that no one else would understand

you build a language all your own

hand signals, mirrors, inside jokes

and over time they become a kind of shorthand

…

maybe I’m the one … yeah I hope you know that I’m thinking of you tonight

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Sarah

Sarah looks me in the eye

Asks me if we’re past our prime

Are we only marking time?

I said I didn’t think so …

Sarah orders one more drink

It’s one too many, you might think

For the middle of the week

But she says we deserve it

…

Sarah don’t be sad tonight

Everything will be just fine

I promise you that the best is yet to come

Sarah make a wish and throw your penny on in now

I’d give my wish to you

I hope they both come true, Sarah

…

We stay out ’til 1:30

She talks about her family

She asks me if mine’s as crazy

I say, ‘Hey, isn’t everyone’s?’

When we’re slowly walking back

She’s got my sweatshirt on her back

It’s getting hard now to relax

But I think that I manage it

… (repeat)

Find more music at my Website: fearlessfreep.bandcamp.com

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Maybe Jericho Hill looks like this.

Showdown at Jericho Hill

meet me there tonight on top of Jericho Hill

if we don’t make our stand right now i fear we never will

i got nothin’ left to say

i got blood left to spill

on Jericho Hill

we’ll release the horses, they got no part in this

we’ll clean our six guns well, tie our holsters to our hips

i’ll pull my hat brim low

you’ll shove a smoke between your lips

and then we’ll take the higher ground

plan an ambush from it

darlin’ here we go

i got one in my sights

won’t you cover me while i reload?

we might not see another sunrise

but i’m proud to stand with you if this is our last fight

if this is our last fight

now i’m winged in the left shoulder

and it hurts like bloody hell

i’ve done for half a dozen of ‘em but i’m runnin’ out of shells

sheriff hollers ‘give it up young man!’

but we both know damn well that i’d take the final bullet

before he’d see me in a cell

and they got a length of rope for me

yeah they wanna see me hung

for a crime i swear to you that i never done

what’s more i think he knows his deputy’s the guilty one

they had to frame me up

so i had to cut and run

partner here we go

this is our last fight

won’t you cover me while i reload?

we might not see another sunrise

but i’m proud to stand with you if this is our last fight

if this is our last fight

they told me ‘come on outta there – hold your hands way up high!’

as you might expect, i hollered down

‘you’ll never take me back alive!’

i hauled leather, my six gun it hammered at the sky

the sheriff fell down dead

i hit him square between the eyes

darlin’ here we go

this is our last fight

won’t you cover me while i reload?

we might not see another sunrise

but i’m proud to stand with you if this is our last fight

if this is our last fight

***

My bandcamp website w/ lots of free music: http://fearlessfreep.bandcamp.com/

Download it today!

Hello legions of Freep fans. It’s been a busy month here in Las Vegas. Lots going on at work and, on the home front, a move. I haven’t had much time to write. But I do have a new, 5-track EP to share. It’s called Our (pretend) Relationship and is available for both streaming and free downloading on my bandcamp website.

Tracks:

1) Before Fairly Begun

2) Caution Yellow

3) Dive Right In

4) Penny

5) Special

Please check it out: http://fearlessfreep.bandcamp.com/

Keep rockin’!

C

Soundscraper says 3-out-of-5 stars. I'll take it!

My music is reviewed in this week’s Vegas Seven magazine, one of the weekly rags covering the weekend scene in the city. An acquaintance at work writes the regular music column. He’s got his own band, a self-described “post-apocalyptic doom death metal band” called Dead Neon, which I’ve seen a few times. I told him about my own DIY hobby a while ago and gave him a copy of This Island Life, which he gently made fun of. When I gave him a copy of YSYIC after a work meeting, I expected much the same result. Certainly, I didn’t expect him to like it. He emailed me about 20 minutes after I gave him the cd, said he listened to some of it on the car ride back to his office and enjoyed what he heard. He wanted to know where people could get the music online. “Why?” I wrote back, genuinely surprised. “You going to write about it?” So that was what prompted my bandcamp Website. I have been patiently waiting for this week’s edition of the magazine ever since, kind of nervous about what he would write. When he told me he put my real name (not just Fearless Freep) in the write-up, I was really nervous.  But he was kind, and it feels good to be featured. He likened my voice to Tom Petty’s (yeah!) and he described subjects of my songs as “characters pushed to desperate margins by their thwarted desires and skewed loyalties.” The guitars, he wrote, are “in your face,” which seems funny because this whole thing was recorded with a crappy single 8″ practice amplifier, not a particularly in-your-face rig. Though I think he meant the phrase more in terms of the guitars being so prominent t in the mix – not all that common in an age of synthesized radio rock. In the end, I got 3-of-5 stars on the rating system. Fair … and totally cool! I kept a few copies for posterity.

Toss a penny. Make a wish.

…

girl i’ve counted two times now

you’ve given me the runaround

you don’t wanna put me down before you pick me up

maybe the third time’s a charm

you know i’d never twist your arm

but i swear on this here guitar that i’m not giving up

what do you think? should i heed your advice

and write you out of my life?

it’s all right …

darlin’ if the world was flat

i’d walk you to the edge and back

throw a penny down and down

to see if it would make sound

i’d watch that penny fall

one cent ain’t worth nothin’ at all

it’s never gonna make us rich

unless you make a wish on it

c’mon now, what do you say?

i won’t keep you out too late

or have i made a big mistake …

mistake in asking you?

girl i think you wanna go

yeah i just got this hunch you know

from up above, down below

so i press on through

should i heed your advice

and write you out of my life?

it’s allright …

Fearless Freep's stand-in getting ready to take a dive.

This was one of the first songs I ever wrote, Dive Right In, circa 1998. It’s about making music without really knowing how to make music … or play guitar … or arrange a song, etc. The first time I recorded it, I didn’t realize I was swinging the beat in my head – didn’t know what swing time was, in fact. That makes programming drums and software instruments pretty hard. No wonder it never sounded right to me!

I can’t remember if I wrote this song before I started calling my music project Fearless Freep, or after. It was right around the same time. I remember thinking how the lyrics dovetailed with the name, which is an obscure reference to a bugs bunny cartoon. You know the one – Yosemite Sam drafts Bugs at gunpoint into a high-dive act when the real performer, Fearless Freep, fails to show up by curtain time. Hilarity ensures. Of course Bugs gets the upper hand. Later, when I found a band already existed called Fearless Freep, I was devastated for five minutes.

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Dive Right In

But you know I’m gonna dive right in

Cause it’s the best way that I know to begin again

C’mon – it’s easy, believe me, when you dive right in

Right in

There’s no right, and honey there’s no wrong

You can take a left, you take a right, you keep moving on

There’s no wrong turns now

There’s only lessons to learn now

When we dive right in

Right in

C’mon in now, the water’s fine

Forget your towel, you’re gonna drip dry

Sink or swim ’cause there’s no better time than now

C’mon give it a try

And dive right in

Right in

You can live your life by one little rule

You can just dip a toe, you could drown in it too

So c’mon

Do what you will now

But I’ll drink my fill now

I’m gonna dive right in

Right in

Pack my suit I’m leaving tonight

I’m off I’m gonna find out the rest of life

Maybe we’ll meet another time

But now I’m gonna find of a little peace (piece) of (my) mind

But you know I’m gonna dive

right

in

now …

Loving my new toy.

In other news I am LOVING my new guitar interface. So much easier to play clean and monitor what I’m playing – now the only sound I hear is post-effects. Before, I was just micing a crappy practice amplifier. Lots of speaker hiss, ambient noise (the dishwasher, air conditioner, etc.), and I could always hear the raw sound sound from the speaker beneath the monitor sound in the headphones. Annoying … but no longer. Now, my only excuse for the guitar not sounding great is that I am not a great guitar player. Working on it.

This is the first song w/ the new setup: interface and Garageband 9 – got a new computer, too. I am discovering a few cool new things in the new version of Garageband. Thank you, Apple, for totally kicking ass!

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Caution Yellow

here I am again, waiting on a girl

and she’s late

Maybe she’s not coming at all

call it flaky, call it fate

but i’d really like …

like the chance …

the chance to read the tattoo that she hides

so i’ll go for broke, hell i’m broken anyway

it’s caution yellow as i accelerate through the light

driving home again

all alone again

she never showed up

any fool could see

anyone but me would give up

but i’d really like …

like the chance …

the chance to read the tattoo that she hides

so i’ll go for broke, hell i’m broken anyway

it’s caution yellow as i accelerate through the light

accelerate through the light

is it green?

is it red?

if it’s yellow, stop ahead …

here i am again waiting on some girl to show up

it don’t look like she’s coming at all

and that’s just pretty fucked up

but i’d really like …

like the chance …

the chance to read the tattoo that she hides

so i’ll go for broke

hell i’m broken anyway

it’s caution yellow as i accelerate through the light

Hello Freep Nation. I thought it was high time to offer a little behind-the-scenes glimpse at Freep Studios. It will make for a short tour, but if there’s anyone out there wanting to record at home and wondering what it takes to get started with a minimal setup, this post will provide a few insights.

My Strat and my $15 yard sale practice amp - three records worth of fun!

Remember, what your about to see is legendary – some (my mom) might even say hallowed – musical ground. Fearless Freep’s last three records, Fossils, This Island Life, and You’re Still You in Camouflage, were all recorded right here. Don’t touch anything inside, but feel free to take pictures, etc. Everyone have their tickets? Okay. The guided tour will take approximately 10 minutes. Don’t forget to hit the Fearless Freep GIFT SHOP on your way out. Enjoy!

…

I record in the bedroom of my apartment. It’s a one-bedroom unit, so space is at a premium. Anyone wondering if a den, apartment or dorm room is too small for a minimal recording setup needn’t worry. My setup is the size of a folding card table, literally. It takes up one corner of the room.

Below is the list of items you need to record at home (or at least the list of stuff that I have):

I use a Mac & Garageband. Great for beginners!

COMPUTER: I record on a MacBook Pro using Garageband. I’m pondering an upgrade to Logic, Apple’s pro-grade software with all the bells and whistles – 40 gigs worth of guitar effects, orchestral sounds, etc., plus super cool editing ability. For now however, Garageband is extremely versatile. Especially if you’re a beginner, I’d recommend spending the extra dough on a Mac and using the out-of-box Garageband software. I just upgraded computers and so am using Garageband 9 for the first time. It’s got lots of new features since the last version (or at least the last one I was using). You can jam along with a built-in ‘band’. You can record multiple takes in a single session without stopping and starting (great for soloing). If you’re a real beginner, there are built-in lessons, too. I haven’t checked them out – probably should!

One note: if you’re shopping for a computer and you’re even halfway serious about recording music with it, spend money on memory, i.e. RAM. You want, at the very minimum, 1 gig of it. I have 2, which was all I could afford (with a Mac). Get 4 gigs if you can spring for it.  Recording in real time requires mucho processing power, particularly if you’re stacking up tracks.

AXE: My guitar is a Mexican Fender Stratocaster, roughly 12 years old. The intonation is terrible, especially on the high E. I have to take it in for servicing, but that means being without for a couple days, so I keep putting it off. I have two acoustics as well, but the Strat is my favorite to play. Don’t ask me why – I know it’s a piece of junk, but I like it. Perhaps because I don’t have another electric to compare it to.

The Blue Snowball USB. Looks funny, sounds awesome!

USB MIC: I got the Snowball USB mic two Christmases ago. It was, I can assure you, one of the BEST Christmas gifts I’ve received recently. (Thank you Mom and Dad!) These retail for about $100 and are worth every penny, especially if someone gives it to you as a gift! It’s versatile and wonderfully simple. The signal is already digital, so there’s no need to convert from an analog mic – just plug and play. No software is required. I can’t speak for all programs or platforms, but the Mac recognized it and knew what to do with it upon first plug-in.

I’ve recorded three albums on this mic – both vocals and guitar. For vocals – this is ghetto, I know – I set the Snowball on top of an unused floor lamp. The round mic fits nicely into the hollow cone atop the lamp, and it’s the perfect height. The Snowball is, I should mention, threaded for whatever I assume is the standard setup for a mic-stand fitting. I’m just cheap. Didn’t I promise a minimal setup?

To record guitar, I set the microphone in front of my amplifier and then strum away. (Or, at least, this is what I used to do. More on that later.) The Snowball comes with a small tripod stand about 6 or 8″ high – good height for a small floor amp.

AMP: If you live in an apartment like I do, you have to worry about neighbors. This is especially true if, like me, you are not particularly good. I use a single 8″ practice amp that came from a yard sale. It gets loud enough to potentially annoy the neighbors, but not loud enough to rattle their flatscreen television off from its mounts on the shared wall.

My newest toy - a direct guitar interface. (Not solely for guitar, but that's what I use it for).

INTERFACE: I just got this puppy, and so have not really used it yet beyond a few hours of messing around. I can already tell it’s going to be a huge improvement. The guitar cable plugs directly into it, and it plugs via USB into the computer, eliminating the need to mic the amplifier. That reduces a lot of buzz, and you’re not reliant on the quality of your cheap, garage sale amplifier.

With this unit, I could record guitar and vocal simultaneously – there are two inputs. I say “could” because I don’t have an analog microphone – just the Snowball. But, should I decide to invest in a high-quality mic in the future, I’ll be ready to go. In any case, the other advantage here is that the guitar is not amplified at all; your neighbors, your parents, your roommate, your wife will have nothing at all to complain about. (Well, one less thing anyway).

HEADPHONES: This is essential. Your headphones are your monitor – letting you hear what you’re playing/singing in real time as you record. Mine aren’t studio-quality headphones by any means, but they are nice, noise-cancelling phones and work very well (I don’t use the noise-cancelling feature while recording; they’re just a nice pair of headphones that I happened to own for airline travel). Don’t even try to get by with iPhone earbuds. Not worth it.

…

So, that’s it. Thanks for peeking into Freep Studios. Now get out, because I have to get some sleep. Wondering what I actually do with all this stuff? Visit the Fearless Freep  GIFT SHOP – there’s even some free stuff in there!

Rock on!

C