Joe Mersch Music

This song developed around a rhythmic right-hand guitar figure, à la Bruce Cockburn. As a matter of fact, the sonic palette here is very akin to his Charity of Night record: acoustic guitar, ambient snare, upright bass. No vibes on this track though. (Damn - that's what I forgot.)

 

Will You Remember This

A repeating chord/bass-line figure on guitar interlocks with other parts of this track in a sort of hypnotic groove. A feeling that suggests the state of mind experienced by the person in the song.  Acoustic and electric guitar, bass, drums, organ, call and response vocal.  Bells.  Written while still living in Germany, on Keith Duncan's Les Paul.  Some songs arrive unexpectedly and immediately feel like the beginning of something new.  This one did.

 

Divided America

This is a simple track - just vocal and acoustic guitar.  The title says it all. Standard tuning, finger-picking, howling at the moon.

 

No Homage

Forbidden Anthems has a lot of drop-D thrasher tunes, and this is another one.  Sometimes I like that 6th string slammin’. 

Obsession with winners and the worship of success (suc cess, as Graham Parker once put it) is what’s personified here.  I forget what I was reading that connected the image of Kali to might-makes-right ideologies of the recent past, the ‘twisted crosses.’

I didn’t have an informed picture of Kali in the full nuance and variety of Hindu tradition or Indian culture, and was relying on Western impressions (as in the Help! and Temple of Doom movies).  It turns out she is much more complicated - identified as a goddess of time, associated with death, but also with liberation and the destruction of evil.

But in any case it wasn’t my intent to put down someone else’s cultural icon.  It’s not Kali as reality of time, death, and change I’m attacking, but rather the use of these by some to justify their lust for power.

 

Two Triple-0

This is an open-tuning DADGAD song with a groove that feels a bit reggae, though the backing vocals take it towards Brazil.  It was written before the turn of the millenium, and recorded shortly thereafter.  Maybe I was thinking about the (brilliant) Prefab Sprout tune "Carnival 2000" - though it doesn't sound like it much.  The background vocals are Janet Curci, Jim Earp, and I singing on one mic and recorded three times.  Jim and Janet exhibited exceptional patience during that session, because (due to lack of planning) I ran out of tracks and had to learn on the fly how to bounce tracks internally on the digital deck I was using - while they waited.  I hope they think it was worth it...!

 

World of Kings

This song ended up sort of Glam/Grunge-Alternative, but it started out more like early R.E.M. It was part of the "Wisecrackin'" cassette project I recorded prior to the "Forbidden Anthems" disc; it has not been previously released on CD. It's about the condition of isolation and loneliness, and the question of whether we like it that way.

 

Apostles to the Hip

I wrote myself into a corner on this song - those it's directed at either won't get it or won't like it, and nobody else will identify.  Way to go on that instant relatability and universality, eh?  But some songs just need to be written.  The lyrics are not explicit, but to me they ring true and the track feels right.  So here it is.  The background vocal chorus is comprised of Tom Petersen, Jim Earp, Janet Curci, and myself.  Save what you can carry.

 

Looking at the Morning Star

A contemplative ballad built on a finger-picked guitar figure, piano lines weaving in and out.  The song was written for the Dance Beyond Nature project, most of which was incorporated into The Forbidden Anthems.  As far as the guitar is concerned, I think I had at the back of my mind songs like "Don't Feel Your Touch" or "Pangs of Love" from Bruce Cockburn's Big Circumstance.  The recording has a bit of that mid/late 80's sound.  One of the lines from this song -  "On the morning star, straight lines describe no curve" -  would be expanded on in a later song, "Curved Space."

 

The Mountains

"The Mountains" was one of the songs that made me think it was time to start recording again.  Tim Finn's "Underwater Mountain" was part of the impetus - I got such a strong feeling from it.  "Change Town" was already there, and when "Drive" and "Waiting for a Train" showed up, I had a few tunes I thought would go well together on a record.  Dwayne McCobb and I had a version of "The Mountains" worked up when we were playing out as a duo.  It was written (and performed at the time) on a Martin D-28.  But the recording uses the Lowden O-25c for the rhythm parts.  Like the Waterboys before me, I borrowed an image from C.S. Lewis - in this case from the last chapter of The Great Divorce.

 

When Love Turns Back

Here’s a song that pays off, but you have to let it do its thing.  Supported by a distant guitar, the verse winds a snaky path toward you-know-not-whither – until it gets there.  I'm struck now by the vocal texture Janet Curci and I got on the choruses.  And then there is Dwayne McCobb.  He absolutely kills on the instrumental break, and then lends touches that lift the track to a new level.  Though “Friends of Mine” is my favorite recording of us for back-and-forth interaction, I think this is Dwayne’s most inspired playing on any of my tunes; and the track really seems to jell around it.  It was definitely fun to record.

 

The Tree the World Is Hung Upon

This song is the counterpart to "Wrong," though it was written long before.  Dwayne McCobb plays lead on the ending.  The rhythm guitar part in the left speaker (Martin D-28) actually has a couple of "overs," i.e., spots where the signal was too hot and distorted the recorder - a big no-no on digital.  But I let it squeak by because, as they say, that take had the spook.  The right-hand rhythm part is the Lowden.

 

Somehow

“Somehow” is a folky tune that ended up with some out of the way chords and a funky bottom end.  It was written one morning after a night of disturbing dreams, on a newly acquired ’53 Martin 000-18 (the high E string dropped to D).  The ending came about after the tracks were recorded, when I got on a roll with various keyboards and modules.  I kept finding sound after sound that seemed to fit – and I pretty much used them all.

 

Heart's Desire

"Heart's Desire" goes back a ways. My recordings were starting to sound a little more like records and less like demos. This one went in a jangly power-pop direction, with guitar melodies and a punchy feel. This was also the first time I got Dwayne McCobb to play some lead guitar. He overdubbed his part on the outro, and the song suddenly got a Stones-y slam. I should have mixed him way up.

 

Change Town

Change Town is an uptempo/ambient bash-fest about breaking destructive patterns of repetition.  It was the first song to be worked on for the Box of Lightning project, written before all of the other songs but one.  The Lowden and the Strat handle the guitar work.

 

Benediction (Remaster)

Benediction looks back the the loss of a family member, alternating sections of DADGAD fingerstyle guitar with big beat choruses. It closes the Freestyle CD; but because it’s linked to a hidden track, I had to go back to the original mix to make a version for posting. While I was at it, I did a little tidying up - hence the “remaster.”

 

The Road from Eden

Janet Curci and I had a live arrangement of The Road from Eden, which was a favorite of hers. It was fun re-creating the 80’s pop feel and synth figure with two acoustic guitars.

One notable part of recording "Eden" was Jim Earp’s lead guitar. After overdubbing his melodic Strat solo on the middle 8 (actually 9), we decided the outro needed some too. It was going to be a “play out until fade” type of thing. But his guitar work fit the song so well and added so much to the track that I just couldn’t fade it. Instead, I kept it all and extended the rhythm section and keyboard parts beyond the track’s original end point so that there would be something to fade. I think we got away with it!

 

Don't Borrow Trouble

Around 1 AM one night I was putting my guitar away when out popped a little syncopated chord-riff. I played it into the computer so I’d remember it; it was the verse of “Don’t Borrow Trouble.” The song ended up with kind of sandwich structure unusual for me - two choruses with a verse in the middle. In writing the lyrics I remembered a pastor who had warned his congregation: “Don’t ask for trials, because you’ll get them.” I’ve since found out you also get them if you don’t ask.

 

All Heaven Breaks Loose

I find myself in a David-Wilcox-ish mode here. The Freestyle CD came from the period when I was most connected to the San Diego acoustic scene - and there was much admiration for Mr. Wilcox. The song makes a virtue of the insecurity/egomania coin we “artistes” all have in our pockets. As a line from a Stars Wars prequel goes, there’s “always a bigger fish.” Good to remember.
Check out the electric piano sound on this tune, which is really an analog synth. The trombone patch is not bad either, considering its humble origin. The guitar is my D-28.

 

One Two Three

An angsty twenty-something psycho-pop ditty recorded in the mid-eighties, but which sounds more like the late 70’s post-punk pub-rock records that inspired it. “One Two Three” came about while living in Germany. This recording was made after moving back to SoCal and was included in a cassette release of my first solo music. It features the debut of my then new Fender Stratocaster. We also have rhythm guitar doubling here from a Gibson ES-125 played acoustic - and thanks to Tom Petersen for the use of his P-Bass!

 

The Way We Love