New Album, “Arrivals & Departures” scheduled to arrive on time Wednesday

Arrivals & Departures is scheduled to arrive ON TIME this Wednesday, May 23.

Hello Freep Nation!

We have some exciting news today from our World HQ in Las Vegas. Arrivals & Departures, the new Fearless Freep record, will be released online Wednesday via the bandcamp website: fearlessfreep.bandcamp.com.

The first five songs are up for live streaming already! The entire collection will be available for free download this Wednesday, May 23. Please check out. Otherwise, what in the hell did I spend all of that time for?

A&D is the first FF release since 2010’s 5-song EP, Our (pretend) Relationship. It contains 10 tracks and runs about 36 minutes.

If you follow this blog, some of the material will be familiar already. If you’ve followed Fearless Freep since the beginning, you’ll find some older songs reincarnated here in a new form; Harsh Winter and Both of Us from Dive Right (2007) get new recordings and arrangements, etc.

Other material, including both title tracks, is brand new. I am very excited to see what people think, so long as the reaction is positive, of course.

Tack listing:

Target

Harsh Winter

Both Of Us

Arrivals

Departures (Sunday Morning)

Big Top Show

Sarah

Shorthand

Enough For Me

Showdown At Jericho Hill

Thanks for reading. Now please, go listen! – FF

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Both of Us

Both of Us

well it’s blue in the bowl and it’s pink on the wrist

you take a little off the top, take everything

a two-week vacation it comes down to this

you get a waiting room, bag full of magazines

it’s pre-dawn for a car ride

we’re going to get something of your chest

but the boy down the hall got a stuffed superhero

and Smiley won’t ask, but he’ll tell you what’s best

and you’re mad

why you angry

why you angry enough for the both us now

and there’s no sense trying to worry

about something you can’t change anyhow

they wheel you although you could walk it

we’re going to count backward from ten

nine …

eight …

get up and get dressed cause you’re home again home again

and you’re mad …

and all the old women will call on the phone lines

and ask Him to make it all right

but you’re riding shotgun

anesthesia driving

and i’m in the back seat I’m seething

you know I’m mad …

Shorthand

Link for email subscribers: https://freepmusic.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/shorthand.m4a

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

The Big Top Show

…

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…

BIG TOP SHOW

…

I live in the desert

east of California

it’s been about four years gone

since I jumped that circus train

and threw my lot in with these hucksters

on the Big Top show

don’t peek behind the curtain

some things are better not to know

.

see the Lizard Man

his face is covered with tattoos

check out the Bearded Lady – she’s a dude from Santa Cruz

the Midway Barker will seduce you

with his lies and love and luck

first he’ll pick your pocket, girl

and then he’ll pick you up

.

’cause we are barkers

we are cheaters

we are liars

we are thieves

we’re in the business of denial

yeah we are selling you your dreams and we are good at it

we’re better than you’ll ever know

so come on step right up here people for the Big Top show

.

Leon is a strongman, claims to lift 1,000 pounds

but those barbells are hollow

magnets hold them to the ground

Trixie is the madame of a tent they call ‘Delights’

you can see them lining up for her almost every Friday night

.

(repeat chorus)

.

Lady Kathryn is our psychic

she’ll tell you what you want to hear

the conjoined twins are sick today

so you’ll have to come back next year

the World’s Largest Lady

she died three weeks ago

we had a moment of silence for her

before we buried there by the road

.

(repeat chorus … )

Visit me on bandcamp. Get free music!

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.

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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/

A review! 3-out-5 stars for Fearless Freep

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.

One Cent: I don’t have any sense!

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 …