Here is the state of the album as of April 3: Six songs close to being done and two sketches at the end. I’m psyched to have a draft of the artwork with a little cartoon me meditating my mantras.
Today would be the 56th birthday of brother Franklin. Before him, we lost our father at about the same age. I wrote this song for them, and all the people who are struggling with addictions. I tried to put some of the wisdom and compassion I’ve learned (a lot of it in recovery rooms and therapy sessions) into this song.
I wish at least that you could talk about it
And see the hands extended out to you
You know my dad he was an alcoholic
My brother died of substance abuse
The monsters living at the back of our closets
Are just like mushroom growing in the dark
Take em out an put em on the table
In the light of day it all just falls apart
I wish you’de see that there are so many helpers
So many living with the same disease
Cause every time you flirt with suicide
I’m helpless and angry, in disbelief
I pray for smart and sensitive souls
Right now spinning out of control
Trying to free themselves from their freefall
There’s no shame in seeing yourself
As someone who needs a little help
We all need someone’s help to see
that’s what it means to be human beings
You play it cool out on your own private island
I’m calling out to you as we sail past
But you can’t hear me over the screaming sirens
Don’t want no help off of your Alcatraz
See there is a trick to getting out of the nightmare
You have to learn to say the devil’s name
You have to call him out and stand before him
You have to practice looking in his face
Until you do he’s growing in that darkness
Stranglin your heart and twistin up your mind
Each day he blows out another candle
Each night he dims the light behind your eyes
For all the smart and sensitive souls
Right now spinning out of control
Trying to catch themselves in their freefall
There no shame in seeing yourself
As someone who needs a strong dose of help
We all need some tough love to see
that’s what it means to be human beings
I’m dealing daily with my own damn problems
I’m seeing how bad they can really be
And when I’m living in a state of denial
I’m walking round with internal bleeding
I feel so many hearts holdin me gently
I’ve learned that I can say the devil’s name
I’ve learned to count upon enlightened soldiers
To help me to live with all the shame the remains
I’m staring straight into to the face of the monster
Cuz I know I’ve got an army at my back
I know he will not lay a finger on me
Unless he can separate me from the pack
Cuz I’m a smart and sensitive soul
Who could right now be down in the hole
Trying to be myself from my freefall
I’ve learned the bravery and sense to admit
When I’m headed toward some serious shit
It’s only when with a whole lot of love
I get to be completely human, baby
At the end of two hours of improvising music today, we were tossing out name ideas when Darrel said Amen, Icy Cinema, which is a palindrome. To which I said, Icy Cinema and the three of us looked at each other as if to say, I think that’s it! And so it is, I think we have a name for our Ambient trio.
Here are a number of tracks from our last practice, Feb. 7.
For Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday this year I thought I’d record this favorite from my Sunday singalong songbook, George Harrison’s Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth). So I took my Martin (guitar) over to one of my favorite stairwells on campus last week and recorded this song.
Jason Molin (singing George Harrison)
Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)
Jason Molin (singing George Harrison)Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)
Jason Molin (singing George Harrison)Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)
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Give me love, give me love, give me peace on earth
Give me light, give me life, keep me free from birth
Give me hope, help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to touch and reach you with heart and soul
Ommmmmmmmmmmmm my my lord
Pleeeeeeaaaaaase take hold of my hand
That I might understand you
Won’t you please, oh won’t you…
I’ve come to love ambient music over the last few years, largely because I listen to it by default in the morning, meditating, and at work. So I was jazzed about joining Darrel in Gray’s music room a few times in December for ambient jams to improvise cinematic soundscapes.
Darrel and I are mostly on our guitars, thick with effects and tricks, while Gray floats from keyboard to kit, guitar to Theremin. These are four of the more magical moments from our second session. Here’s what Darrel heard:
Tunnel Vision – making me imagine walking the streets of Tokyo just before Dawn. Won Morn offers lovely weightlessness – dimensions and intrigue, a first spacewalk? But change is afoot with Won Too – with its unsettling fields, dark skies… and battering. And the journey into darkness concludes with a visit with Edvard Munch in Halliday Ja.
I started MANTRAS in 2013 when I chose four songs (#s 1-4 below) that have a reggae/ska feel. I dreamed of a horn section for these and contacted a great local trombone player and arranger (of Grupo Fantasma/Brownout fame) to write parts and produce a horn section.
We went into Tonehaus studio and laid down drums, bass, and guitar. We went back a few months later and laid down a three-piece horn section of trombone, sax, and trumpet.
Dan Bechdolt (sax), Kevin Flatt (trumpet), Mark “Speedy” Gonzales (trombone)
I took all the tracks home, got lost in the weeds of editing it all, not knowing what I wanted. You know when you get your hopes and expectations up and then the details spin you around till you’re dizzy?
Sometimes, it feels like this.
That was five years ago. Since then I have written new songs (and added two to the album that seem to fit nicely) but the unfinished MANTRAS has cast a shadow over my creative output. Now, as 2018 begins and I’ve got a bunch of new projects pulling me forward, my New Year’s resolution is to finish this album as an EP this Spring.
I’ll just keep repeating my mantra from I Have Arrived:
No more waiting for the stars to align
No more waiting, no more hesitating
Tracklist
Here is a rough-cut of the songs for the upcoming EP, MANTRAS:
Bryan Stevenson has spent his life giving not just legal aid but himself to otherwise forgotten death-row inmates throughout the deep south. In his understated way, he reveals systematic injustice and dignifies his clients, creating a redemption so powerful that we feel it from just hearing these stories.
Fear and anger are a threat to justice. They can infect a community, a state, or a nation, and make us blind, irrational, and dangerous.
But simply punishing the broken–walking away from them or hiding them from sight–only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity.
Captain Kidd, now in his 70s, makes his living traversing post-Civil-War Texas reading newspaper articles to frontier people. When he has to escort a 10-year-old German girl back to her remaining family after having been in Kiowa captivity for most of her life, he seems to be the only one who can usher her precarious life between the two worlds. This vulnerable and unlikely pair proved extremely charming and heartwarming for having helped each other survive the unforgiving prairie
Maybe life is just carrying news. Surviving to carry the news. Maybe we have just one message, and it is delivered to us when we are born and we are never sure what it says; it may have nothing to do with us personally but it must be carried by hand through a life, all the way, and at the end handed over, sealed.
I started MANTRAS in 2013 when I chose four songs (#s 1-4 below) that have a reggae/ska feel. I dreamed of a horn section for these and contacted a great local trombone player and arranger (of 
I make songs and sites, a Washingtonian Austinite.