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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Stay Positive, Psychobabble, Hydrodynamic, Anchoress is Ruining My Life, T.E.P.F.K.A.L., Compass, Crime, Set Sail, and 1 more.
1. |
Live, On the Air
06:31
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I'm going to sit here waiting for life to happen,
Refreshing and exhausting all of my options.
This is my personal ad campaign
This is just me with puppies and fine champagne.
I present to you my life's highlight reel:
Neatly filtered to achieve mass appeal.
Welcome to all,
Come for the community,
Stay for the crippling ennui.
To brace the fall,
I'm really just putting on a brave face
Inside this crowded and empty place
I'm so surprised everyone's been so nice,
Hashtag humblebrag hashtag did I do that right?
It's a soft addiction: making a new me.
Like tending a garden, pruning back old trees.
I could stop if I wanted to but I keep seeing new weeds.
And now my day of nothing has come to an end
But here I am, still reading the comments.
All these faces keep telling the same joke repeatedly.
The platform is the punchline.
It falls flat every time.
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2. |
Bill Walks West
02:16
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Late at night, after work,
Grab a bench and a beer.
Take in all the city lights,
Mute the buzz, be silent.
Elucidate these skewed thoughts.
Into this introspection,
Caught unlikely conversation.
Street worn, well maintained, good boots.
His name is William. Bill.
He’s seven generations, Atlantic Coast.
We talk about life the way only strangers can.
I offer him my beer.
“you don’t want what I got,
A working man can’t get sick, be too honest,
Or drink too much...
I’m a little out of place, it’s time to move on.”
Bill walks west,
Headed back downtown, crossing Main.
The city takes its pound of flesh, limb by vein.
Bill walks west,
Just a floating effigy now, anchored by those boots,
Marching in place, eroding concrete, cutting down to the aquifer.
Unleashed: erupts a geyser,
To flow up endlessly.
I lost sight of those boots,
As the water rises past my knees.
All the oceans of the Earth,
Evacuating centrifugally.
It’s warmer than I expected,
Elated by buoyancy.
We celebrate this new Atlantis,
We floating people free.
Rename the skyscrapers,
As they touch only sea.
Someone’s speakers scream the Four Seasons,
Someone has mastered irony.
I press my hands on the ceiling,
And I accept drowning blissfully.
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3. |
Fir
03:28
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It was the disconnect between the East and West.
It was our great pride to start the Great North American Divide.
From Pacific tides to Rocky Mountain highs,
From Haida Gwaii to Northern California skies.
We fought to be the new Union’s first state:
Cascadia ascendent: “We Make Our Own Way”.
Though it’s not a perfect political scenario,
At least we’ve got it here better than Ontario.
And the irony is, even after all of this,
Things have changed, but people, they stay the same.
We fought for our craft beers, better pay for our teachers,
Shade grown, small batch souvenirs, and to keep Portland weird.
We campaigned and overcame, threw all the old crooks in the rain.
And the shit of it is, even after all of this,
We will always find something to complain about.
People are funny sometimes, one day we’ll get it sorted out.
But until we do, take a moment to enjoy the view.
Just another beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest.
The rain will never stop; the rain will never stop me.
The rain will never stop; the rain will never stop us.
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4. |
Closing up Zhop
04:30
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In the back of a little record shop,
(A crowd is gathering)
In the dark part of a bright city.
(The walls are vibrating)
In the back of a little record shop,
(The crowd is waiting)
In the darkness at the heart of town.
It’s loud and it’s sweaty
here and the crowd is hungry,
Riding electric waves
To crash again upon the stage.
The band plays on,
Screaming their lives in their desperate songs
Like this is all they have,
Making sense of imperfect math.
As we dance there,
Eyes closed, hearts bare,
They turned the lights on
and said, “get fucking gone.
You kids with your musics.”
So impulsive and reckless.
They made up new crimes
Trying to get us back in time.
I eat discographies and artists biographies.
I need this beating heart sweetened by beats and art.
This city is hiding behind closed doors
That kids aren’t supposed to know about yet.
This city is trying to close doors
That kids don’t even know they want open yet.
But every time a venue gets shut down,
We'll find another stage, another place to play.
I spend my life searching for sounds,
That inspire me to write a song
That inspires them to sing along
That inspires them to write a song
That will mean everything to someone
When they need it most.
This is where we go when we don’t want to be alone.
We are just kids at heart and
We want our lives kick started
We scream for art incarnate
We live for constant struggle
We see a shot at greatness
We see the light in darkness
We seize the brightness in us
We are the constant struggle
We search for imperfection
We search for works of passion
We search for real emotion
This is the constant struggle.
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5. |
The Fuzz
01:49
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I’m going to save the world, one step at a time.
I’m young, sexy and hip, and I know that it’s my time to shine.
I’ve got a brand new badge to use,
A winning smile and a positive attitude.
D. B. A. A.
Don’t be an asshole.
I won’t save a world that won’t respect me,
I don’t remember mercy because I’m too angry.
This kid, he says to me, “hey man, you’re just doing a job.”
This kid is so lucky that I didn’t break his jaw.
I’m itching for a riot,
to break this fucking quiet.
D. B. A. A.
Don’t be an asshole
And now I’m rolling deep in cheap scotch.
You want to see a broken dream? Watch.
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6. |
Over / Under
04:47
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Overworked and underpaid;
Sweating through the heat for below the living wage.
Your two jobs (maybe more) still won’t make rent,
But it won’t matter when they buy the screenplay that you sent.
Eyes glazed over, stocking shelves, writing lyrics in your head.
On your break, you want to finish but it’s back to work instead.
Recording bathroom demos because you have to start somewhere:
Rough songs, cheap mics and stolen software.
Overeducated, underemployed;
Looking at the future like a lost little boy.
From over the counter, or hiding under a desk,
This is my tantrum, this is me holding my breath.
Call it what you will:
Call it aimlessness, call it immaturity,
But living just to work will never ever be enough for me.
I’ve spent enough time with salaried unhappiness,
So I’m shooting for the sun and won’t accept any less.
If we’re defined by what we do and what they take,
I’m an old dusty record scratching memories awake,
So give me time, and give me peace,
To tell stories to my grandkids bouncing on my knees.
So push through the fire, splash through the mud.
Take off like a rocket and surf the rising flood.
“Give all, give everything, give blood.”
“Stormed at with shot and shell,”
And we charge ever on in a dream we believe,
“Boldly they rode and well,”
Far and away the sweetest song that we breathe.
“Into the jaws of death,”
Find what you love, do what you love.
“Into the mouth of hell,”
To sing all the restless to sleep.
To heal every wound and console the bereaved.
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7. |
Icaro
01:12
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Got some money saved up, I’m gonna buy a home,
Somewhere outside the city, buried in snow.
With my thoughts I’m going to die alone,
Finally rid myself of these fucking ghosts.
Fields and rows of trees don’t mean a thing to me.
I look around, I lie face down, and see this world is empty.
I see it coming, it won't stop rolling,
This weight around my neck keeps dragging me to where it’s going.
The ice is coming in, through this skin too thin,
Now light gets inside, illuminates hidden places hollowing within.
The walls are always yelling in between the floorboards swelling
Twist, scream, shout: locked in, locked out.
Why do I feel so cold, inside with the windows closed?
I see myself outside: I’m looking in.
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8. |
Your Career is Over
03:11
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I see you nodding your head as this woman complains
That it is such an outrage: she sees homeless every day.
She’s been talking so long, with no voices of dissent,
She thinks that she’s among friends, so she really opens up.
She blames the mayor, she says, and this neo-liberal wave
That built the shelter down the way: now she sees homeless every day.
We’re trying to have a moment,
Back it on up, watch the throne, quoth him.
I’m sputtering epithets here,
And I don’t need lessons in morality.
But how can you deny them,
When they are just victims of a broken system?
The money is calling,
Walking, talking, balling, brawling.
“Throw them in the ocean,” she says,
“Shape up or ship out.”
Don’t make eye contact.
Got to keep up the walls when under attack.
I know they’re out there,
All those hands, they have to end up somewhere,
And I’m willing to bet that they know where they’re going,
Out the windows with all those Kings’ gold bones.
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9. |
All Colours
05:56
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You’re shaking now,
Like your body wants out.
You’re shaking now,
But you can’t make a sound.
Steam rises around your ears and then
You lose focus from the outside in.
The world folds on itself again,
You’re alone onstage, just skin and a grin.
With your chin on your knees and your eyes shut tight,
Can’t speak above a whisper on a street too bright.
You’re a poet’s caught tongue, with too much gold in your lungs.
It’s pulling you deeper out of sight of the sun.
There’s a circle of light cutting into your eyes,
You’d stamp it out, but your hands are tied.
You’re a dancer undone, an empty shell from a shotgun.
But damned if you won’t try to fire right at the sun.
And you crash landed in the pre-dawn fog
On the tenth floor of the hospital.
Good health
Is a fiction that we tell ourselves.
But who’s going to let that stop them anyway
Because today is another day,
Go hard, live well, make change.
We’re all poetry without plot until we decide we’re not,
Just form and fiction in a space without friction.
Drop a coin in the jar marked: “for who we are”.
And don’t forget these: “for who we plan to be”.
Keep lit your torches, hold them high.
This is your life.
Touch the hollow on your throat, look inside.
This is your life.
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10. |
A House Burning Down
03:51
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So here I find myself again,
Watching a sunset that never ends,
Like a letter that’s sealed but never sent,
As a son sets off like a man condemned.
And so it goes...
The wind chime kept ringing out,
As the house was burning down.
And you want us to forget you now?
You’re surefooted; gone without a sound.
You’ve been down this road before,
Couldn’t do it then, now you ask for more?
While these rotting embers ignite the floor
And you’re strapping up for war.
Why did you choose to walk alone?
(I hope you find)
With your family back at home?
(What you’re looking for)
Endless nights spent by the phone,
(Peace and grace in kind)
Why did you choose to walk alone?
Take the ship from the bottle out to the bay,
It’ll all be better off this way.
A distant goodbye, just a parting wave,
Much to your family’s dismay.
Shake loose the fear that’s in your head,
It comes alive, like the tide it spreads.
You’ve been caught up in such dread,
You are alone and soon you will be dead.
And so it goes and so I find myself here again,
Counting the days in a year that never ends.
Like the litany of words that I’ve never said,
As the shame enshrouds this man condemned.
You’re too far out to see now
The winds have changed, bring the ship about.
There’s a light off the bow,
A house burning down without a sound.
And now we gaze out from the shore.
We’ll stay here, that’s what we’re for,
Hoping that you’ll return once more,
Back from your solitary war.
Walk on, walk on with your weary bones,
Hope you find a new life out on your own.
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