rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

LITTLE BLEAK HOUSES FOR YOU AND ME

     So Simmons and his friends go to all the trouble to produce a compilation of those tapes I've been talking about for years (and really, I can't thank you guys enough) and I finally have the chance to really put them out there, and I'm foiled by technology.

     Which is a fancy way of saying it's gonna be a while before I get the Tension Envelope and 'Punk Rock Blues' CDs online at lulu or elsewhere. Fact is I'm stymied and will have to wait until my man Everret gets his computer out of hock, which should be in about a week.

     In the meantime, whilst unsuccessfully attempting to convert the .cda files to purt near everything this side of Christianity, I've lived with all these old tunes and re-lived all the times those tunes represent. Many, if not most, if not all of these times were weird, if not hard. The Tension Envelope CDs bring me back to those amphetamine days when there wasn't enough alcohol in the world to save my soul, nor shut me up. I often joke that we (TE) were who the Replacements replaced and maybe we were, but I remember how it felt back then, just divorced and vaguely suicidal all the time, living for those 2 or 3 nights a week we rehearsed and especially for those rare cbgb or Showplace gigs to convince myself that I could win. Win what? The game of life, maybe.

     Yeah it's gonna be one of those columns.

     Tension Envelopes were a great bunch of guys, Carl Simmons, Rick Neblung, Mike Hegger and me. 2 college students, a jock and a drunk. We crossed lines musically, bringing a lot of punk to metal and vice versa, and socially, spiritualism versus cynicism , and attitudinally, from 'let's just have fun' to 'I hate yr fucking guts' (the latter usually aimed, by me, to the audience). Drawing a twisted confidence from the 'anything goes' ethic of the early punk scene we treated each show like we were opening for the Who at Madison Square Garden, an attitude I still take at the even rarer gig now. Listening to these songs from my youth, sung and introduced, for days they're introduced, in the slurred speech of the young drunk, I'm struck at once by conflicting emotions. There's shreds of shame hearing this arrogant little lush condescend to a bar half full of people who just want to get drunk, dance and maybe get lucky. Pangs of regretful memory hit 'cause I remember what sort of things happened days before and days later and not much was pretty, believe me. But at the same time, I got to give the little shit credit. He's putting it out there, not holding back. Sure, he's clearly got issues, but someone who throws that much hate out at that intensity is bound to run out of it sooner or later and find maybe another way to feel, or at least communicate. Right?

     Well, not according to 'Punk Rock Blues' the 2CD set of solo demos Simmons built out of a stack of scratchy tapes I sent him, and the bane of my recent existence vis-a-vis internet posting and the like. No, 'PRB' offers little to no respite from the spite of Tension Envelopes ' In Yo' Face' and 'Live at the Show Place'. Actually the dark factor gets a boost from the fact that much of Disc One, the 'acoustic' CD, was recorded in Greystone Hospital, a mental institution in New Jersey, after a failed suicide attempt on my part. They lent me a classical guitar (like I couldn't hang myself w/nylon strings if I really wanted to. HAH!) and a boombox w/abuilt in mic. These songs were written by a young man who didn't want to live, but didn't have the resources or nerve to kill himself. Also I was wrapped up in what I felt was the failure of, and a wrongly perceived betrayal by, Tension Envelopes. You know, just 23, had a few decent songs, a great band to play them. This was my only shot at any kind of rock and roll success and I blew it. I drank and drugged and atagonized-the-wrong-people- through it. It's no wonder the other three got sick of me, or more likely tired of watching a friend self destruct. Or both.

      So what did I do? I wrote song after song after song about how much things hurt, how many different things I hated and how many different ways in which to hate. And I recorded them with the full knowledge that there was always an attendant or 2, just outside my door, listening and, for all I knew, taking notes. And did I mention I was on psychoactive medications at the time?

     Wallowing, I know, but maybe somebody else who's feeling that same way, that down, that defeated, that close to giving up might hear these songs and know that they're not alone. And maybe that might help. I don't know. Maybe that person might hear these songs and realize how pathetic this kind of response to struggle really is, and maybe move on. Maybe in that way, these songs of drunken madness might bring some good to the world.

     The second 'PRB' disc consists of multi-tracked  demos. The keyboards and drum machines add color and breathing room, a break from the doom and gloom starkness of the voice/guitar live tracks of Disc 1. I think there's more room for more varied emotion when the tunes can be arranged more and especially when I can slap a guitar solo on 'em. The thing with voice/guitar is that the song has to be carried by the lyrics (and yes, I know I have to get lyric sheets printed for all this stuff, hell I can't remember half of 'em) and as a result wind up being largely driven by what I was thinking at the time. Once the guitar solo rears it's sometime ugly head, though, I can communicate what I was feeling at the time. There's room for more than regret and bleakness, there's room for a little triumph, a little swagger and a little of dat id and ego bumpdance in the middle of the song.

     Sometimes one can speak volumes without words.

     In any event, I got a little piece of my history here. Old voices, all mine, speaking of defeat and doing that nihilist slow drag we all think we invented. I'll get 'em to ya as soon as I can. Right now these technical difficulties are moving me to confront the crazy drunk I came from and to make peace with the little bastard so maybe we can both move on.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 17:46 | link | comments (3)

Comments:

#1  20 January 2006 - 20:43

 

Well, that was f.... no, that's not quite right.... anyway, I DID enjoy reading that. :D

And, again, if ANYONE is remotely interested in the materials being blathered on about at both our blogs, I DO have an ancient piece of technology called a "bur-ner"...:P

burninglight

#2  20 January 2006 - 20:45

 

P.S. It's also worth noting that all antagonism aside, it took "near everything this side of Christianity"--at least the people who hang in my corner of it--to GET said tapes transferred. So praise the Lord, and pass the anti-depressants! :P

burninglight

#3  24 January 2006 - 08:50

 

Powerful stuff. Hope to hear it reasonably soon rather than just read about it.

Anonymous

Comments: