Succumb to the Lure

The surface of things is deceiving. Seeming can hide beauty, pain or consuming power.

On the surface of it, The Lure of Dangerous Women is a trifling thing: seventy-odd simple pages filled with black symbols and white pages that we see every day. On the surface of it, this is the kind of thing that I barrel through in less than an hour. On the surface of it, this is simply another collection of short genre fiction of which there is an embarrassing surfeit. But this book is alive, a breathing, writhing thing that grips you with ever turn of the page, that entices you along like a pied piper. It is not a pleasant ride; it is terrifying and erotic, icy and scalding, messy and precise, all at once.

It took me three days to finish this book. I had to put it down every other story, surfacing to breathe. I had to walk away and let its characters talk to me some more, let the shadowy cling of their adventures become brittle so that I might brush it off and begin my next journey anew, without the weight of the their sexy, horrifying pull.

All of the women in these stories are dangerous in different ways. These are not Ripleys and Amazons; they are not all sirens and femme fatales. Rather, they are fully-realized characters, at once sympathetic and wholly themselves. There is as much pain as power, and many of them are so strong as to push past simple binaries of dominance and submission (sexual, political or otherwise) to offer themselves as sacrifice, or even just a part of themselves, for the good of others. There is no bowing involved, but an entirely self-possessed decision. These are the kinds of heroines we need more of.

A very thorough review might walk you step by step through each of the seven offerings, but I'd like to focus on a few highlights. "Trill" is a study in disturbing subtly, taking a familiar trope and turning upon itself. A dark version of the pied piper is only the starting point; it dips and weaves its song into dark and daring places that set the tone of this collection. "Seed" and "One Woman Town" are terrific examples of worlds that are at once alien and accessible, offering a fantastic reality with its own lexicon, its own culture and sets of ideas, but one that also immediately draws us in with both wonder and lust tinged with the fear of Germain's razor-sharp observation.

For it is Germain's style, flexible, expressive and keen, that ties all of these disparate tales together. Make no doubt, these are imaginative stories of terror that are equally very sexy; but they are also stylish bits of prose, a style that engages and engrosses, that pulls you in with a siren's song that can drown you.

Shanna Germain's latest collection, published by Wayzgoose Press, is heartily recommended reading for those seeking something extraordinary. Bring your red wine for the libido, your teddy bear for your fear and your shotgun for protection. And even still, you will succumb to The Lure of Dangerous Women.

stone-patient & river-flow

http://infogirl.org/

new ink, old lines that sprawl and wind
tributaries of runes calligraphed by half-understood
so doubly-felt pulses of more than blood

the electricity you draw aches and arcs
in waves to make Tesla proud with that smile
at once hubris and hidden

i want to reach through the plasma frames
past the simple dyads and kiss you
in the hot shadows of your bed

it's a fair piece and long time coming
but i am stone-patient wrapped around
a river's serpentine swing

never stopping, ever crooked
breaching my banks, a mad torrent forward
toward the sea of you

A Cold Freezin' Night: "it was a pleasure to burn" production diary

Things have just about wrapped up around the studio. The last chord has been strummed, the last MIDI part tinkered with, the last microphone tucked away. People in bland khaki uniforms are sweeping the floors and carrying out the trash in the reserved, honorable silence of their profession. I've crafted a neat little lyrics booklet to include in the album download and given the mixes those final tweaks.

But I have one more story to tell you, about a weird, weird song and the Gift of Music.


A cold freezin' night
I wish I was a boy
A cold freezin' night
Oh, baby

Why do you always get away with things?
It's not fair
I need to think, think of something
So you can stay alive
I can kill you with a rifle, with a shotgun, if I care
Probably by cut all your your toes off
Make my way up from there

A cold freezin' night
I wish I was a boy
A cold freezin' night
Oh, baby

Boys do tougher than girls
And I wish I was a boy
I'm gonna rip all your hair off
And everybody's gonna think
He is an asshole
He is that asshole
I'm gonna all rip your hair off
An' then you're gonna be

A cold freezin' night
I wish I was a boy
A cold freezin' night
Oh, baby, sing with me

A cold freezing night
I believe I can soar
A cold freezing night
I believe

I usually like to include a someone else's song on an album. There's so much great songwriting out there, and I always enjoy a good cover. And what makes a good cover is the same thing that makes a good movie adaptation: bringing something new to the table, engaging the original work in a way that sheds light on it a different angle. To wit, here's The Books' original composition:

Yup, totally different, but there are some key common touchstones. To explain, I feel I have to rewind all the way to this past December/January to the Gift of Music, which is a wonderful tradition over at Song Fight!. Each winter holiday season, any one who likes signs up by offering three different songs that they'd like to see covered. The potential cover songs are distributed more or less randomly and each participant picks one song to cover (or more, if they really want). Et voilà: a new album's worth of music with some of the most interesting twists on both your favorite songs and tunes you've never heard of.

I will admit, my list was... challenging. I finally settled on The Books' deliriously post-modern mash-up because the words tickle my feminist bones. But this is where my ideals about a good cover song come into play. I feel that core of the song, the melody, should be respected as well as the lyrics, but the rest can be - should be - changed.

So what do you do with a song that has no melody?

You make one up, of course! The Books are big about sampling and recombination, so I felt it was justified to plunder their "lyrics" and reconstitute a song that was more my style. Thus was born the melodic center of what you hear today, and that was pretty much it for my submission to G.o.M. I like the minimal percussion, the 180 take of giving the whole composition a melody, and I like the vocal harmonies of the chorus.

But I wasn't really satisfied. The song didn't go anywhere, and it just kind of... well, stopped. To create more energy and variation, I thought about a solo or a bridge. Yet, this past Sunday, sitting in front of my mixing board, I had an epiphany: this is a sampling song! Forgetting about any guitar noodling or a key change, I headed to my favorite audio junkyard, SampleSwap and sifted through the wonderful disjecta there, bringing home the rattling tin cans, PVC pipes and whirly, wispy bits of noise you hear. The new mix is much improved, with a clearer nod to its sampled, post-modern roots. It's also the perfect final track with its disregard of the fourth wall and distinct sonic approach, leaning against the back wall of the party, cooly sipping its Pabst Blue Ribbon, nodding at its brooding half-sister Soul Clap and thinking "it was a pleasure to burn."

Broken Doll: "it was a pleasure to burn" production diary

I'm a compassionate, generous person by nature, ironically to the point of selfishness: I collect broken dolls in order to fix them. Some times, though, it turns out that the collector is the one that needs mending.

By Joelk75 : http://www.flickr.com/photos/75001512@N00

Crafting a story about a voyage can be a journey unto itself. I published the lyrics to this last Fall. The entire song has since undergone some substantial changes.


the stage was small; the billing, too
it was still the show to end all shows
you take your coffee black but a little sweet
these things stick with me even still
like morning traffic through a dirty pane
waking you from fevered dreams
like letting go while i kicked and screamed
(like letting go with a kiss)

i am letting too much slip away
seems there's nothing left to hang on
just a voice on a distant plain
echoes of things pretending
you are my mirror; i am thine
it's still not - no not the same
there's a hole where you used to shine
(spots on the sun feel no shame)

how do you do it? i  wanna know
this broken doll that you take home
how do you do it? i wanna know
this broken soul you make whole

in that forest of steel and stone
we fought our dragons and we lost
we played at love to bind our wounds
never noticing the cost
lamb or lion it's all the same
i am your shadow ever hence
this lullaby a searing flame
(i am too long hunting this)

how do you do it? i wanna know
this broken doll that you take home
how do you do it? i wanna know
this broken soul you make whole

One of the first things I noticed when I came back to "Broken Doll" is that the melody is rather samey and the verses are long. To keep things interesting and create more dynamics, I decided to double-time the melody in the second half of the verse, making a kind of pre-chorus. I then reduced the choruses from three to two. I even though about making that part a bridge but it's the core of the song, lyrically; so I decided it would work better as a refrain.

I rearranged the verse order for a better narrative: opening with an identifiable setting that establishes the spatial and thematic relations of the characters. I seem to have a tendency to write the ending or the middle of a story first. Even here, the second verse is a kind of flash-forward, the present-tense narrator's point of view on the past events he's ruminating. There are also some modifications to pronouns (well, several). The original story was the intersection of two love triangles but that wasn't really coming through in the verses and it works better to focus on the single, strong relationship.

Like many of my unprompted creations, the recording of "Broken Doll" was a rather organic process, taking the better part of a week. My original plan was for something very minimal: a pair of hard-panned guitar parts, a piano and some very light percussion (like an egg shaker), and maybe - maybe - some electric guitar holding down the low end. Alas, I don't have an egg shaker, and the samples I have are too busy for the low-key vibe of this song. Fine, skip the shaker bit. Oh, maybe a cello would be good instead of a bass guitar. Hrm, no. Organ? Yes. (I am far too enamored of this wonderful little VSTi...). And that chorus, it just has to build. Best thing for that: drums! over-driven guitars! bass! The end product doesn't match my original intentions at all, but I'm still very happy with where it goes.

I always knew that this song would be part of it was a pleasure to burn because its lyrics matched the theme so well. Sonically, she's become something of an outlier: the end product of my development over the past few months. A closer sibling would be my last Song Fight! submission: "Wish You Would," with its E Street-style backing parts and 70's rock vibe.


But outliers are good: proof that I'm stretching my musical muscles, exploring new places and learning new things.

This weekend was unexpectedly productive: studio work is done, I've pretty much settled on the track-order and the lyrics booklet is 90%! Come back on Wednesday for the final production diary entry, and the story behind my take on a song by The Books.

Puzzle Pieces: Nightmare Fuel no. 0

"We never go in there," said Hatter. "That is not the tea cupboard and holds neither ravens nor writing-desks nor anything that may seem so similar one unto the other. " There was something peculiar - well, more peculiar than the other other odd things: his voice crescendoed and became increasingly staccato while his eyes raised towards the ceiling though his neck did not crane. "No, in fact, that room holds things that are quite opposite!" Louder and faster: "Things that are dry to touchy, black to horizon ribbons, breath to - " Silence. A quick dip of the Adam's Apple. His eyes, once nearly rolled back under their lids, now darted to the shadow beyond the doorway, shadows that writhed in feline ways, a Cheshire grin threatening to emerge. "No, my dear, " Hatter said in a voice so calm it reminded me of my father's baritone at his most sanely stoic, "we never go there."

by John Tenniel; from Wikimedia Commons

"And it never comes here." Hatter gestured toward his tea cup: cobalt blue with golden sigils that matched a pot scattered amongst the multitude. Before me as well was a cup: delicate white with blue designs that could must have been Chinese or ancient Sumerian - or was that cuneiform? Surely it had a matching teapot somewhere... Yes, there: that glimmer of white and blue far down the table, many years away it seems, as light counts time. Its lid rattled gently as Dormouse poked her nose out, then slipped back inside.

"It won't do to stare," interrupted Hatter, and I started, for I had indeed been staring. Then my eyes were drawn to the blue symbols on my cup. The figures seemed on the cusp of movement, of dancing some ancient rite.

"No, it won't do," Hatter repeated. "The dancers are puzzle pieces, you see."

I did not see.

"They complete the...." another glance toward the shadows, "... the Other." He swallowed and then his face flickered with mad indifference. "It's tea, hot tea, that always does the trick." He gave me a grin that could cut barbed wire and then poured me out with wicked aplomb. "One lump or two?"

*****

Just a little warm up prompted / inspired by Bliss Morgan's Nightmare Fuel project.

All Swear About Murder: "it was a pleasure to burn" production diary

First off, a quick announcement: I've made all of the tracks for it was a pleasure to burn available for free download! I hadn't done this before for a few reasons. First, the album's not done yet and, as twentieth-century as it is, I still prefer albums to individual tracks as a method of distribution and consumption. Second, Bandcamp limits my bandwidth to 200 downloads a month.

But I realized that it was silly and egotistical to make the songs streaming-only. It should be up to you, the listener, how you want to encounter this music. Also, it's a "limit" of two hundred downloads. If I somehow magically break that barrier, it will be a happy problem indeed.

So, enjoy! Grab the tracks as you please, play them where you want on the device you want. Just, please respect the Creative Commons Attribute-Share-Alike license I'm using. Most importantly, thanks for listening!

On with the show: new track, new stories!

Some times, mistakes are fortuituous. Some times, you just happen to know the right people at the right moment. And some times, it's the wrong moment. "All Swear About Murder" fell out of a Google+ conversation I had last Fall with Denise Hudson (whose work you should totally check out, by the way). Well, the title fell off the back of that truck. The story is pure Appalachian Noir.

you were standing in a shadow of blue
a chord in one hand my heart to undo
you were a cipher, a mistress code
a wind-talker in melody clothed
& we sang all night
& whispered the day
you were standing but i heard you croon
a siren sang your secret tune

it was a tryst it was a whirlwind
but all good things must find their end
your études your ivory keys
my six-string down on its knees
i play the blues
you play for you
it was a tryst it was too facile
i was all swear about blue gun steel

i was all swear about your demise
shed not a tear for all your lies
they put me in chains and on the stand
i told the tale 'bout your demands
'bout what you took from me
my ransomed heart
i was all swear about your timely end
but never said a word about our bed

I don't often write murder ballads. But when I do, they don't have a chorus and I use slide guitar.


I made a demo of this song for FAWM. As you can hear, this girl has undergone several changes. When I started writing, I knew that I wanted to craft a song with no chorus. The original draft has a bridge, but it was always a problematic thing.


I took the chance to perform "All Swear" for a local Atlanta songwriters' group and I realized during the discussion session that 1) the bridge was not working and 2) it still needed a refrain of some kind. And hey, the purely musical refrain for "Susan" is awesome, so why not do that again?

Yes, I'm totally borrowing from myself. Or doing a retread of an idea I explored once. Shoot me. If it works, do it twice more. That's the basis of a song, isn't it?

I also changed the order of the verses after the group discussion because I realized that I was starting the story at the end, and that moving verse two to the first slot would make the story more accessible, since it establishes the setting. That first line is the one real thing in this entire song; I really did meet someone for the first time in a shadow of blue. Also, the last line "about our bed" is the zinger twist, so it's good to hold that back.

Recording of the fully-produced track was a rather organic thing. Since I wasn't under time constraints to submit this to a contest, I was able to fiddle with sounds and tones. So there are at least three different guitar tones there (I love that warbly guitar tone, which harkens to the black-and-white wild west sections of Kill Bill Volume 2 for me). And my favorite organ. And a piano. And acoustic guitars because that's where the whole thing started, right?  (Actually, recording the acoustic was a pain in the rear; I'm finger-strumming again and it was so quiet that I had to work mic positions and the gain and blah, blah blah. Eventually, I double tracked most of it just for volume.)

To make a long story short (too late!) The recording process resulted in a series of happy accidents that gave me the cool intro and that dramatic drop-off at the end of the second break.

There's probably some unfulfilled potential with the tempo change that leads into the third verse; could be a moment for a bridge or another kind of break. As it is, this track is somewhat weak on its own, but it's going to make a killer lead-in for "Where You Can Go."

Besides, some times you just have step back, brush the gunshot residue off of your sleeve and go "good enough."

must

flickr.com/photos/andrewreason

my love is a flower pressed between her sorrow and the pages
she pens to keep unbound until the morrow for sun must rise
stars must sigh charcoal twilight giving way to azure

my soul is a whisper passed along lips of secret lovers
strangers of the witching hour whose sheets fold origami passion
salty lips uncover discover recover hands that must caress
eyes that must rest upon a warm skin that should not be seen
let alone touched tasted consumed

my dream is a traitor lost along the road to Judea
long miles i have let slip between us while tracing small steps
the angel's tread of souls more blindly wise than me
for hearts must believe must feel that they pump and push and pull
our tongues entwined pressing between them this unbearable cry
the petals of a blossom tucked away in the oubliette of her Alexandria