Archive
A western mood, a cowboy song
I saw True Grit recently, which a) I thought was incredible and b) put be in a country western mood. This has nothing to do with the movie, but it’s a western story.
(Email subscribers, CLICK HERE)
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/
A review! 3-out-5 stars for Fearless Freep
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.
Dive In … to the past
…
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.
(Email Subscribers, CLICK HERE)
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 …
Caution Yellow: Out of lemons, rock
Got stood up for a date recently. It’s ok though; got a nice little rocker of a song out of it. Caution Yellow is below.

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!
(Email Subscribers, CLICK HERE)
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
OMFG! Download the new record, FREE
Hello Freepers! I know you’re Freeping excited about the new record, You’re Still You in Camouflage.
The good news is, you don’t have to wait any longer. Go to my new bandcamp Website and download the entire thing now in the format of your choice! OMFG!!
For future reference, you can always use the FREEP MUSIC DOWNLOADS hyperlink at the right.
For you email subscribers, the website is: http://www.fearlessfreep.bandcamp.com. You’ll definitely want to bookmark it or add it to your favorites!
From the site, you can stream every song on 2009’s This Island Life and the just-released You’re Still You in Camouflage. There are several free downloads between both records. If you want whole albums, YSYIC is free – at least for right now. This Island Life can be purchased in its entirety for $8. It’s worth it, just ask my Mom!
Rock on!
C