9/06/21 Setlist Part 2 — Melting On The Streets
Just when I wrote the previous post, I thought that „Mada” is supposed to have this feel of „Low Rider” by War, but covered by the Talking Heads. Just an idea.
The three remaining tracks are the strongest material we’ve got if you ask me. In my eyes, the first four songs are a sort of warmup, in order to get ready to knock everyone off their feet when we start this second half.
Anyway, without further ado, let’s get into the shoegazing & punky reggae party part of the show.
Tea in a Jar
This one is a song I’ve written when I was 17, and recorded for the first time a year later. It became my biggest hit (if you could call it that way) among my friends, and my friends’ friends, etc.
When in high school, every day for a couple of months I brought a jar with tea in it, and one day I found a sticker somewhere and wrote on it „some tea in some jar”. When my english teacher saw that jar on the table, he said it’s the most pretentious thing he’d ever seen. Which I found rather funny at the time.
It started out with the lyrics, that I wrote while trying to find all words in english that rhymed with „Jar”, and then I just needed to fill the gaps in the verses.
This is what I came up with:
I keep some tea in a jar
And when I go to a bar
I drink it all up
And when they kick me out
I’m lying on the floor
I’m freezing in the snow
I’m so cold
I’ve got no home
And I’ve got no job
And I’ve got no god
I am so cold
I keep some tea in a jar
When I’m riding my car
And I’m scratching my scar
I’m stopping at a bar
And when the kick me out
I get beat up
Then I drink it all up
And I’m not cold as much
I keep some tea in a jar
When I go to a bar
With my guitar
The idea behind it was to get „in-character” of a person who on the outside is fine with the attrocities of life, it’s monotone routine, but really he just can’t stand it anymore, but doesn’t know how to change it.
As I mentioned earlier, my 2018 version of this song, became something in the sorts of my biggest hit. And during the last Jam session, when we tried to play „Tea in a Jar” for the first time live, Kilijanek absolutely ****ed up the first drum fill that he tried to do, as he went full Keith Moon mode on the toms and snare and got out of the feel/rythm. And he just said „oh, sorry guys, I just got way to excited that we’re actually playing this”. Which I think is the nicest thing I’ve ever heard about my music.
The song is a two chord composition, with only two fretting fingers needed to play it. It’s basically just a E power chord for four bars, and a C power chord for four bars. But the thing that gives this song it’s punch is that you don’t play only the power chords, but you need to leave all other open strings ringing, and when you put chorus or vibrato effect on it, it creates this brooding, furious but monotone sound, that really delfines the track.
The bass goes mostly for the root, but every four bars has these very defined fills and runs, to push the guitar chords forward. The drums are aggresive, very busy, with high emphasis on the ride, cymbals and the kick that plays more and more hits up until every 8 bars it resets.
During the rehearsal Szelest absolutely nailed the guitar part, with vibrato and reverb turned all the way up to 10, and making lots of feedback against the amp during fills.
It’s all played in this dreampop/shoegazing aesthetic, only with plenty of post-punk style rythms. I’m the one singing again.
Now, this song actually gave me another little stress component. First of these is that I kinda feel there’s a lot of expectations. Like, Kilijanek said that we have to play this song, because plenty of his friends will be there, and it’s like going to a Rolling Stones concert expecting you’d hear „Satisfaction” during it. Which is nice, but still, damn.
The second thing is that the song has (should have) a guitar solo in it. And it should be played with two guitarists really (rythm&lead), as the rythm guitar can’t stop playing it’s part, because it’s by far the most recognisable element of the song. But as we’re a trio, we needed to come up with another idea for it. And we’ve decided that the song will have a bass solo. A fuzz bass solo. Meaning I’ll be the one playing it. And as much as it seems fun and great, that I’ll be able to express the feeling I’ll be singing about through Baśka (that’s my bass’ name), I feel rather unsure of myself whether I can deliver something really exciting on stage. But Hey, there’s still 10 days left to practice.
Chocolate Man
Ok, this one and the next are the songs co-written by me and Szelest. During one of the jam/rehearsals, when we were supposed to go for a cigarette break, Szelest said he has this chord he really likes (it was Emin add9, with a doubled minor third), and I told him to go from there to Amin7 & Bmin7 in the E string shape, which he really liked.
Then after the break, we started jamming some nonsense, and in minutes we were like „Stop. We’ve got these cool chords, that’s what we should be playing”. And „one, two, three, four” we just change the entire sonic landscape from nonsense to beauty.
I came up with this bluesy bassline, that goes something like
E - E - C - B - A
E - E - C - B - A
E - E - C - B - A
A - G - F# - F
And Kilijanek made this „Blood sugar sex magik” type of drum pattern. Pretty much right away Szelest started improvising lyrics, and it sounded so great, we imediately thought that this has to be included in the set. His vocal style here reminds me greatly of both Ian Curtis and Lech Janerka, which is kinda a weird juxtaposition, but I don’t know how to describe it otherwise.
The improvised lyrics are something in the likes of:
A little chocolate
My body
Is made of Chocolate
Everybody’s made of
Something
I’m made of ****ing Chocolate
I didn’t see, no
Whatever my eyes could see
My body is made of Chocolate
And me
I can’t be happy
Because everyday
I’m melting on the streets
Along with my Chocolate brain
Cause I’m a Chocolate Man
A Chocolate maaaaaaaaaaan!
Just a ****ing Chocolate Man
Everybody tends to disagree but
I’m a Chocolate Man
That’s what I am
Oh, as far as I can see
My body is made of
Chocolate and me
I want you to see that
Everything’s allright
With me
(Not)
I’m a Chocolate Man!
A Chocolate maaaaaan!
And so on and so on, we played it for like 15-20minutes straight. Very post-punkish shoegazy. We were supposed to have a trumpet player on this one, but for some inexplicable reason he never shows up.
Jasna Strona Słońca
Now this song has some history. The chords and bassline were written as a reggae songwriting exercise. But it was fun to play, so we jammed on it on different ocasions, including that first jam we had as a band (proto-band?), meaning the quartet one. I played rythm guitar, Kilijanek played bass, Szelest lead and that drummer we had back then - drums (obviously).
It turned out that Szelest had written some lyrics that were sort of a stereotypical ironic lyrics on how people usualy perceive reggae (meaning smoking joints, peace, love, rastafari!). He was supposed to sing it, but we couldn’t plug in the microphone, so he stayed on lead (which was actually a good thing, his guitar work on that version was just amazing, it was like he was telling a story).
Anyway, I went over at Szelest’s place one day, and we got really drunk and high, I started playing the rythm on his guitar and he was jumping all over the place singing the lyrics he’d written before. And it actually sounded like a real song. Then the day after he took me to an open air party, with a fire, and all, and we put the studio version of the song through the speakers. And everybody was having a great time dancing, singing, and stuff. And that’s when we realised there’s something golden in here. Like, for the first time ever people weren’t annoyed by our 10minute Jam session, but quite the opposite — they were having a great time listening to it.
So on the next Jam, already in our power trio configuration we tried to recreate the song, but with lyrics this time. Szelest on rythm and vocals, me on bass and backing vocals and Kilijanek drums. And well, wow, this turned out to be like the definition of a 70s punky reggae party. The song got grittier in it’s sound, and these happy, no-care-for anything, ironic lyrics about smoking joints and making love actually completely changed their meaning and atmosphere when presented in this punky first, reggae second environment.
The chords go
Gmin Gmin Gmin Fmaj
Cmin7 Cmin7 Dmin7 Dmin7
Ok, that’s it for today, tomorrow I’ll talk about development (if there will be any) in these songs after today’s songwriting jam I’ll have with Szelest.
