Category: Los Angeles

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Dusty Stables Los Angeles Music & Songs

Dusty Stables

 

self-portrait in overalls

This is the first song I ever wrote. Well, actually, it is the second song, but the first song is called The Mailman and possibly too perverted to share.

I was a painter living in Los Angeles when I got the feeling it was time for me to do something new, although I wasn’t entirely sure what. The best way to figure out, I decided, would be to spend 5 whole days being drunk. Which was a little bit challenging since the combination of alcohol and sunshine has always made me queasy and L.A. is a very sunny place. It also meant I would have to navigate the city on drunk feet for a few days.

But luckily, it only took a couple of days for the answer to arrive in a flash of certainty- I was going to be a musician! I had always known I was going to become a musician SOMEDAY. In fact, I had already bought myself a little $30 guitar so I would be ready when the time came.

 

Download MP3: Dusty Stables

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Dusty Stables Los Angeles Music & Songs

Black Hearted Life

 

self-portrait in charcoal with blinds and mysterious figure

The first dozen or so songs I wrote were all about my unrequited love for the sophisticated & urbane Dusty Stables. I was living in L.A. and had just been evicted, divorced, and forced to give Pablito and Eekeleedee (my parakeets) up for adoption. I was moving into a 100 square foot apartment with no means of support other than selling paintings. I had no car and all in all my survival skills were iffy.

But Dusty Stables was (in my mind) a true city slicker. He wore sunglasses (I have always admired people who wear sunglasses), and black clothes, something that men in Kentucky never do. The omnipresence of his laptop and phone combined with his height and sharp features to give him a comforting, robotic quality.  I felt he would have an easier time navigating the complexities of city life than your average meat ball. And on top of it all, he seemed nice.

Download MP3: Black Hearted Life

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Dusty Stables Los Angeles Music & Songs

Shy


Julien in blue studio with bandana, mirror, and paintings. Self-portrait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the first song I performed publicly. I had just started playing guitar and writing songs a week earlier, so even under ideal circumstances it was a struggle to get through a song. Still, I was under so much pressure regarding what I was doing with my life, that I didn’t feel I could afford to wait any longer before beginning my new career. But I had no idea how nerve-wracking performing before an audience could be. I especially didn’t realize that nerves could cause my arms and legs to jerk around in large spastic movements completely beyond my control.

So, my “performance” was pretty much a  complete disaster, and when you throw in my painter’s overalls, gigantic pink checkered shirt, and tiny half-sized child’s guitar, the whole scene must have looked strangely pathetic. Still, people loved me, because there is nothing better than watching someone convulse uncontrollably on stage. No amount of skill and professionalism can match the thrill of watching nature have it’s way with a person despite their best attempts to stop it.

 

Download MP3: Shy

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Los Angeles Music & Songs

Ain’t for Sale

 

Hope Morgan in yellow cloud shirt

This is kind of from my “who needs men” songwriting phase. I’ve always admired women with a ‘who needs men’ attitude, although in reality I’ve never been one. Even when I wrote this song, although I was single, I was still dependent on various men for various things like money, food, housing, laundry, transportation, friendship, guitar tunings, advice and approval. But I didn’t feel I was getting these things for free. I felt I was paying top dollar, trading little pieces of my soul for little pieces of safety.

That’s why “man hating feminists” seem heroic to me, not because I think there is anything particularly hateful about men, but because it’s such a bold move to say “Screw you men! I’m opening this jar for myself!” I put them in the same category as people who live off the grid or swim with piranhas for fun. People eager to sacrifice comfort and safety for crazy independence and adventure. Sassy, brassy ladies with nerve. I wish at least a tiny piece of their nerve would rub off on me.

 

 

 

Download MP3: Ain’t 4 Sale

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Kentucky Los Angeles Music & Songs

Love It Don’t Mean Nothing

 

Lady with snake, pearls, and ribbon.

Well, I guess this would be my free love song…  I wrote it while living in L.A.

In L.A. the element of freedom was absolute. Finally, a place where people were free to explore past lives and send golden beams of gratitude to their guardian angels, but also a place where Hugh Hefner was free to parade around in his silky underwear. The sheep could roam freely, but the wolves could eat openly, so all in all it was hard to say if you were better off or not.

So at any rate, this made me nostalgiac for Kentucky, where there is little tolerance for non-conformity of any sort. The land of yellow and green squares, fences, and bread baskets. A place where Hugh Hefner is only free so long as he keeps it within the family.

 

 

 

Download MP3: Love It Don’t Mean Nothing

Categories
Los Angeles Music & Songs Yellow, Gold, Kings, Fathers, and the Sun

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

 

Christopher Dumont with "mustard" on shoulder… if James wasn’t encouraging me to include ALL my songs on this blog I would probably leave this one out because it makes me feel embarrassed! I’m not sure what my brain was thinking when I wrote this, or if it was thinking at all, but I do remember exactly what I was feeling… I was surrounded by a mustard colored light and that light became this song.

I have always felt a little uncomfortable around mustard yellow. Until recently I couldn’t even eat mustard out of an irrational fear that I might end up with a yellow stain on my clothes. I’ve never really taken the time to think about this color or what it means to me, although I always notice when it shows up. It seems to be favored by people who work in the theater and lovers of purple velvet. (It’s also a popular choice for colonial homes around Portsmouth.)

At any rate, this ochre light surrounding me was a blend of several forces, such as:

1. The gold of spirituality and idealism darkened by fear, leading to an apocalyptic outlook.

2. The nutritive butter yellow of Kentucky darkened with nauseating ideas from childhood about the role of females in this world. Such as them being less intelligent than men and doomed to make their way through life on “sexual wiles” alone, an idea which repulsed me- especially when I was still young enough to think boys had cooties. Of course my conscious mind had rejected these ideas, but- like mustard wiped from a white shirt- the stain remained.

I like to think that, for the most part, these mental influences have now been released from my mind, and that is why I can eat mustard without (great) fear. It tastes good.

Download MP3: Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Categories
Los Angeles Music & Songs Red, Soldiers, & Fire

Ring of Fire

 

Nude Lady with green fire hose on red background.

I feel like I need to come up with a wholesome explanation for the sentiments expressed in this song, and luckily I have one. It is a song about fire. As I’ve mentioned before, I used to be very very interested in fire and the spirits of fire, despite not being a very fiery person by nature. My obsession with fire may have had a bit of Helsinki Syndrome to it, since it only began after being dominated by some extremely fiery people that I was unable to escape. Over time the obsession grew into addiction (to fire), and a compulsion to remove everything watery from my nature. The mania really only ended when the fire had nothing left to burn, when I no longer had any friends, possessions or even brain cells to call my own.

The nature of fire is to touch and consume, to tear down boundaries and remove clothes. That is what fire does, I don’t know why, and those are the sorts of images fire gives to people close to it.

Download MP3: Ring of Fire

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Los Angeles Music & Songs Red, Soldiers, & Fire

Life Everlasting

 

Self-portrait in blue coat on red background.

One of my dearest wishes, at the time I wrote this song, was to be illiterate. If only I could have a clean and unconditioned mind, I felt there were so many things I could do and know… the sky would be the limit for me.

Books written by humans seemed like a distraction to me- a way of constraining my mind within a narrow bandwidth of information- when the whole world that surrounded me, with all its colors, shapes, and fragrances, was a page of a book written in the language of the angels (which I called Angelese). Angelese is a language of symbols and the senses, the notion that everything we perceive around us is deeply meaningful and that our hearts are naturally capable of discerning this meaning.

Because people lie all the time, and constantly distort the truth. But in the book of angels, the truth will always be written out, clear as day. As the pedophile walks down the street, there will be a sign, an impression somewhere, that tells you who he is.

 

 

Download MP3: Life Everlasting

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Los Angeles Music & Songs

Lonely Town

 

Recently, I watched the movie Mulholland Drive, and felt it perfectly captured the two sides of Los Angeles. On the one hand, you have people full of dreams, hopes, and ideals, who are open-minded and open-hearted. But, on the other hand, the naive, trusting, and generous nature of these people leaves them open to exploitation by the cunning and unscrupulous, leading to perversity and debasement.

Goodness is good, but no substitute for wisdom and power. You can have the best intentions in the world, but without intelligence and discrimination, somehow you still end up working for the Devil.
Painting of Russel Crowe doing cartwheel, clown, and cute animal holding sign that says "L.A. Sucks Cock"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Lonely Town

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Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Los Angeles Music & Songs

If You Ain’t Mine

 

What I remember about this song is that right after I wrote it I found out my grandfather had just hung himself.

Self-Portrait with tear drops, hand, and green polka-dot shirt.

 

 

In terms of the song’s meaning, I do think we have a certain number of “chairs” in our life that are meant to be filled by certain people, and if these chairs are filled by “imposters”- people who have nothing to offer us, but just a desire to take- then we won’t have the open spaces to attract the people we really need.

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: If You Ain’t Mine