Category: Los Angeles

Ride You

Post author By julien
Post date January 19, 2014
1 Comment on Ride You

I wrote this song while living in L.A, soon after I started playing guitar and singing. While writing it, I was visualizing a pink triangle riding a green rectangle into outer space. Maybe it is a song about feeling intimidated moving through a sphere (the music scene) where everyone else had far more skill and experience than me, but where I still felt I had something to offer.

After performing this, a male friend of mine was driving me home and took off his shirt so I could “feel his arms. ” Gross. In real life, I have no urge to touch miscellaneous arms. In dreams though, nakedness symbolizes vulnerability and the exposure of one’s true self.

Sometimes skill is a form of clothing- with enough skill a person can seem very intelligent saying nothing.

Download MP3: Ride You

Tags arms, clothes, green rectangle, horses, nakedness, ride you, vulnerability

Los Angeles Music & Songs

Ain’t in the Mood

A song about a person who doesn’t want to donate blood to psychopathic sex predators while searching for true love.

I wrote it in L.A., when I still had a refreshing mist of anti-man, women’s studies sentiment clinging to me.

Download MP3: Ain’t in the Mood

Tags ain't in the mood, making love, sex predators, women's studies

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

Methodius’ Stand

I wrote this song while living in Los Angeles… I heard these tiny, little voices singing it in unison while I was sleeping, so I woke up & wrote it down, although it seemed like an odd little song, and not very rock n’ rolly.

Download MP3: Methodius’ Stand

Tags confederates, fairies, Los Angeles, tiny voices

Los Angeles Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies

Never Be Alone

I remember writing this song while walking home from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Los Angeles. Obviously, L.A. is more than just a giant brothel, but for whatever reason, it does seem like relationships there take on more unsavory notes than they do in other places. Maybe due to Hollywood’s influence, maybe due to the fault lines, or maybe from the desert-like climate causing some of people’s emotions to evaporate. Personally, I think it is the latter, especially for white people who have less defense from the sun’s rays.

I think this is also the reason for L.A.’s greater interest in all things spiritual- the uplifting impact of the sun, which makes you feel that everything is wonderful and all things are possible- combined with water-loss from the dry air, which removes the heavy, sticky and complicated feelings that are the enemy of most religions.

Download MP3: Never Be Alone

Tags brothels, feelings, Los Angeles, spirituality, sun, Water

Los Angeles Music & Songs Red, Soldiers, & Fire

Fade Away

Hmmm… I don’t know what to say about this song. Generally, I write down a song exactly as I hear it, without questioning it’s meaning too much, because I have a lot of faith in the images that well up from our subconscious minds. In fact, I think the symbols of our minds are generally more literal than symbolic. They are our way of registering information we are not consciously aware of.

For example, we might say “He turned green with envy” and see that as a figure of speech, but what if the person did actually- on a subtle level- turn green due to envy? Or let’s say we have a dream in which a demon is chasing us; we may conclude that the demon symbolizes our horrible boss. But what if the boss is so horrible simply because he is possessed by a demon- the exact same demon we saw in our dream?

Download MP3: Fade Away

Tags demons, dreams, subconscious, symbols

Los Angeles Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs

Stone

Post author By julien
Post date January 5, 2014
No Comments on Stone

Mineral Aklei: A painting of nude lady with drip and rectangles on blue and purple background. — A painting called “Mineral Aklei.”

I wrote this while living in LA, before collecting stones became one of my favorite hobbies. At the time, my main association with stones was the world of inorganic beings from Carlos Castaneda’s books, a place where sorcerers would sometimes get trapped forever.

Download MP3: Stone

Tags Carlos Castaneda, collecting stones, inorganic beings, minerals, sorcerers

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

Collection of Spades

I wrote this after going to the library to check out some children’s book. Frequently, I think children’s books are the best books. They are simple and clear- pure content and vision, stripped of all complexity and intellectualism.

Great Works for Adults tend to be complicated and fibrous, and when you do go through the trouble of digesting them, they rarely have the calorie content of books written for children.

The Wind in the Willows vs. Crime and Punishment…

Mark Twain vs. Hemingway…

To me, there is no contest as to which books speak to us most deeply and directly.

Download MP3: Collection of Spades

Tags children's books, collection of spades, Crime and Punishment, Hemingway, Mark Twain, The Wind and the Willows

Los Angeles Music & Songs Red, Soldiers, & Fire

Shanghai Trio

At the time I wrote this song, I was very into soldiers. I had recently read Gandhi’s biography, and he talked about how he thought of himself as a soldier and tried to live accordingly.

I also tried to be a soldier, and pushed myself to be brave as much as possible, which caused me to have no respect for men whose primary goal in life was to pleasure themselves.

But, being by nature shy and cowardly, it took A LOT of work to be brave, and in the end wasn’t worth it… just like a naturally plump person trying to be super thin, or a skeletal person trying to be obese, it is bound to cause some strain when you try to diverge too much from your nature.

So, I had to come up with many crutches to help me push beyond my emotional comfort zone, such as taking ice cold baths (covering my whole body, including head dunks), and eating insane amounts of ginger. I disliked ginger, but found that if I ate enough (and it took a LOT) I was no longer able to feel butterflies in my stomach, just a warm gingery sensation.

I guess the Shanghai Trio were the embodiment of who I was trying to be- three beings dressed in red, made of fire, and afraid of nothing.

Download MP3: Shanghai Trio

Tags brave, fire, gandhi, Shanghai Trio, soldiers

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

A Ghost

This isn’t a song about ghosts, per se, but rather the ideas and illusions that we sometimes mistake for reality. I wrote it about someone who lived in New York City. On the one hand, I admire people who live in big cities for their toughness, confidence, and energy, but their heads do seem to get filled with very strange ideas as to what life is all about.

Sometimes I think that we get our ideas about the nature of life from the tallest structures in our environment, whether they be mountains, churches, skyscrapers, or a big mansion set up on a hill. If this is true, it could explain the brains of city people, since they would be getting their ideas more from human sources than from natural ones. Not that this would necessarily make their ideas less valuable, but just more transient, since the thoughts and ideals of humans change much faster than the minds of mountains.

Download MP3: A Ghost

Tags city people, ghosts, ideas, illusions, mountains

Los Angeles Music & Songs Plants and the Emerald Kingdom

3 Feather Man

I wrote this song while shopping for nail polish, and didn’t think much about its meaning at the time- it was just a song about three feathers- one red, one yellow, and one green. It wasn’t until I had performed it and a man came up to me and asked “Was three feather man a naughty boy?” that the meaning and story line of the song clicked into my mind. Download MP3: 3 Feather Man

Tags meaning, nail polish, three feather man