Sunday, February 10, 2013

Lots of guys have lots of hair...


 “Hair”—A carry-over from college, written in my dorm room in Yashiro, Japan, on an unplugged electric guitar. This one goes out to my friend Karl Pearson-Cater, one of the coolest people I know. Our bands the Raging Bagels and rottweiller were rad back in the day. While both exchange students in Japan, Karl and I played this song with a young Japanese drummer during a “guitar club” meeting at Kansai Gaidai University. I don’t think this guy had ever played original music, especially not something sorta funky with two American college kids. With a massive grin on his face, the hyped up drummer continued to bounce uncontrollably on his drums stool and laugh aloud for about a full minute after the song finished. (Note: “Hair” was my first-ever music video uploaded to youtube, directed and edited by the amazing Jessie Braun.) Greg Adams—vocals, rhythm and wah guitar; Tom Kutrieb—bass, trumpet solo; Zach Brawford—drums.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Here are the lyrics to "Space Woman Yeah"--


Space Woman Yeah
by Greg Adams (from the album Pareidolia)

It was late on a clear, 30-satellite night,
driving home past the cornfields
I saw some strange lights.
My engine stopped. My fuel-line bled,
under the lights I was stranded.
A spaceship hovered over my head.

I felt the pull of a tractor beam
tug at my car, my head, my entire being.
Up from the road and onto the ship,
this would be my first space trip with her

Space woman, yeah.

My engine stopped, my fuel-line bled.
She gained control over my head,
suspended in her luminous, weightless bed

Space woman, yeah.


Thursday, February 7, 2013

Well, here we go. The first in the series of exclusively on-line content associated with my solo record, Pareidolia. If I had unlimited time and resources, I would release a disc with packaging and liner notes as extensive as one of my favorite albums of all time: Rock 'n' Roll Worship Circus: Big Star Logistics. (The studio and background stories contained within that masterpiece are beyond me; still, here is the best I can offer from my own recordings.)


“Space Woman Yeah”—My dad is a former NASA engineer and lifelong astronomy buff; consequently, my siblings and I spent a lot of nights on a flannel blanket in our backyard staring up at the sky when we were kids. While waiting for a meteor shower one night, we did, in fact, see 30 satellites. (Thus, a "30-satellite night")

Dad was also the local “go-to guy” when anyone who knew him saw anything strange in the nighttime sky. While cleaning and rearranging my basement to create a space for my home studio (Magnetic Door), I happened across a cassette tape marked, “UFO interview 1974.” I transcribed the interview, which was between my dad and a rural Central Wisconsin woman who had seen some strange lights zoom across her farm field near Hixton/Northfield, WI, just off Highway 94. During the questioning, she mentions stories of similar sightings recorded in the Eau Claire newspaper. One man, she says, who also saw the lights, was “so scared, he got out of his car and went down in the ditch.” Wow--how crazily that coincides with my fictitious, alien "seduction" story! Serendipity, man.

My lyrics for this song are heavily influenced by the following: my dad's personal stories, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a 1970’s era TV show called Project U.F.O. (a predecessor of the X Files), and the TV mini-series V. As Fox Moulder says, “I want to believe.”

Greg Adams—vocals, acoustic guitar, Moog tidbits, spaceship whines, background vocals, radio chatter, garage-sale glockenspiel; Tom Kutrieb—electric guitars/feedback, bat guitar, piano, bass, funky keyboard solo, background vocals, radio chatter; Zach Brawford: drums.

Next up: lyrics, etc. from "Hair"