Cometary
SuperNormaal TRACK BY TRACK by David Partridge
SuperNormaal, Available from iTunes and Spotify.
Postcard Comets’ David Partridge muses on the songs of the new album
WATER’S NEVER FAR The album opener is an impressionistic recounting of a journey I made to Ohio to play a gig with friends. For the geographically indifferent, the trip followed the northern edge of Lake Ontario west, then up the Niagara River to the southern shore of Lake Erie and finally up the Cuyahoga River. So, water was, in fact, never far.
I was looking for a way to blend factual and emotional landscape. I kind of fell into the reference to CNN; I watch quite often. I was actually watching in the hotel before the show. They were reporting on flooding in the Midwest and it was a great chance to introduce a different aspect of the power of water.
I like to think of this as the first in a trilogy of CNN-referencing songs. The second may well be on the next album. The third is, as yet, unwritten. Can there be a 2-song trilogy?
Buck plays some nice stuff on dobro here, making the track a favourite of mine on that count alone.
HE COULD FIX ANYTHING Buck wrote this song; I did not. Dammit. Buck’s not available to share his thoughts on the song but if he were, he probably would be loath to do so anyway. Buck prefers to let them stand as they are. That’s why he’s prone to improvising and moving on where I’m determined to tinker and tweak.
But his reticence gives me a chance to talk about Buck’s oeuvre. He’d disapprove of that word, too, by the way. Right about here I’d expect an eye roll and a sarcastic remark about a French egg.
But whether he’d acknowledge it or not, Buck’s material has a unique voice. He regularly writes about regular folks– the farmer in this one as well as a variety of waitresses, gas pump attendants, even abusive husbands. Even in cases like the latter, he tends not to be judgmental. He draws a picture; you see what you see, and think what you think, about the characters he has created. That “let them stand as they are” thing again.
He Could Fix Anything is about a small town handyman and his errant daughter. It’s simultaneously concise and detailed and is one of my favourites among many fine songs Buck has written. I seldom do a solo set without it.
THE L.A. MAN Although I love many Canadian places, I don’t hear the romance in their names. Part of being Canadian, I suppose. UK place names? Sure. American names? Of course. It may be that where my homeland is concerned, familiarity drains the exotic from say, the name Edmonton. I like Edmonton, mind; I’ve been there many times. But the name doesn’t bring a mythology the way, say Kansas City might.
Canadians are not a nation of myth builders; I think that’s fair. Suffice it to say that, for me, I Left My Heart In Mimico just doesn’t resonate like that cable car song.
I raise this because someone referred to this song as “very Canadian.” And it is, in that it longs for the magic of somewhere else, and it has a bunch of snow in it.
But those attributes are not exclusively Canadian. If you switched the chorus reference from Canada to, say, “Michigan’s cooling him down,” or substituted Wyoming or any halfway-northern, three-syllable state, the meaning would be much the same.
So, I suppose, The L.A. Man is about the allure of otherness. And, if I may lead the listener a bit more, you have to wonder whether the singer would really catch fire elsewhere as he believes that he will. Does the lyric acknowledge a real geographical impediment or challenge the dream itself?
Personally, I wax and wane. So you decide.
ANGRY WORDS This song is a favourite of Buck’s. It has a straightforward and direct lyric about being pissed off. That may explain why he likes it. It wouldn’t be because it contains some of his most muscular guitar work, although it does.
I tried for years to get this the way I heard it in my head and, here, I think we got it. Of special note is the fine, “angry wordless” sax part by Bernie Tessier. And let’s nod in the direction of the great bass line from Howard Rabkin, a guy who puts the “fun” in “funky.”
MUST BE THE RADIO This is another of Buck’s character vignettes. The character this time is a working class musician, coming home from a gig on the streetcar, writing a song in his head. It’s very detailed visually; you can see the song’s movie without trying to hard, no video required.
Strictly speaking, this is a cover. Buck performed and recorded this with a previous band. It got on SuperNormaal because I was dying to sing it. Actually, I tried first to get Buck to sing it but he declined. Lucky for me.
It also includes on of my favorite Buck guitar licks, that lovely descending line off the top off the song and in the subsequent breaks. It’s as much a part of the song as the verses and chorus.
So, is this a self-portrait? Don’t know. Maybe, but like the song says, “You never were that clear”….
A LITTLE MORE THAN ME Known by some as “the song with the names,” this is another staple of the live solo shows. For many, this is the favourite from the album. As evidence, consider the fact that someone went to the time and trouble to do a video of A Little More Than Me and post it on youTube. Thanks again, Bob! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xyHYMR-tys
As for those names, all of the folks lauded in the song are personal inspirations for me but I don’t think it matters whether you even know who they are. It’s not about the names; it’s a love song about aspiring to be more than you seem to be.
And yes, I actually did dream that I could sing like Randy Meisner. One listen to Eagles’ Take It To The limit will tell you why.
THE GUARDHOUSE AND THE MOON This is a retelling of an actual incident that occurred near the end of high school; a dear friend enlisted in the armed forces when I had decided to go to university. Hanging above this human drama at the gates of the military base was the moon. It seemed huge, about the size of the hole I expected my friend to leave in my life.
But like all things adolescent, it was not as dramatic as all that, over time at least. We still speak regularly and raucously although he’s lived far away for many years. So the “wound” has faded but the friendship has not.
I’d like to acknowledge my sister and my cousin Glenn who have both been advocates for this song for many years.
And, of course, Buck Wilburn for that wonderful lead guitar.
AT LEAST THERE’S TOMORROW This Buck Wilburn song is an interesting amalgam of elements. It starts with folky picking and continues with at least a nod toward old soul ballads with that descending chord pattern and the backbeat guitar “chick.” Even so, the latter bars of the verse and the instrumental passages have almost a chamber music feel, a blend of formality and longing. But the chorus clearly has roots in country.
For all of that, I consider this one of Buck’s most emotionally complex melodies; and the lyric is focused throughout. There is a broad reach here but a unified intent.
Also, if I may put on my “fan” hat in praise of my friend, let me say, “No one saves their lies like you”– that’s nice. I’d steal his line but you guys certainly would bust me for it. As you should.
NEVER FALL IN LOVE This is a song that I wrote years ago. It’s relatively simple; a six line chorus where four of the lines are exactly the same, and verse and chorus chords that are virtually interchangeable.
But I find that getting simple is not simple at all.
So this one took its time and picked up a little something at every stage. There’s a scent of reggae here that dates back to some Jamaican 45s I catalogued for someone’s music thesis years ago. But this is a long way from the Wailers. It’s Toronto, not Trenchtown. It was a hard rocker for a while, too, but it lost its sadness in that incarnation. Then it went purely acoustic but I missed the pulse.
It’s more balanced now. Buck’s kinetic acoustic playing is a tempering factor; Virginia Evans’ lovely voice brings texture to the choruses and the outro. The bubble and bump comes from the fine bass playing of Howard Rabkin.
Never Fall In Love was a lesson in musical patience. And patience is an attribute where I need all the lessons I can get.
CLANDESTINY This is a story of a seedy affair told from the perspective of the betrayed. I tried to come at this from a different, ironic place because the truth is that I’m more interested in secrets than secretions.
Even though Clandestiny tells a tale of cheatin’, I hope that the seedy details are only signposts. I’m really drawn to why a deceiver fails to see that lies are almost always found out. A secret is not immortal. It perishes with a single observation or the sound of a whisper at a single ear.
The death of a sexual secret is almost inevitable. This is the origin of the concept of “clandestiny”: the destiny of a clandestine act is that it will be exposed.
By the way, I thought I invented the word “clandestiny.” Turns out it’s also the name of some old video game. So much for genius….
ABANDONED HIGHWAY It’s odd how a thing that you saw, or a place where you stood, comes to mind much later, embodying an emotional state completely unrelated to the original event. Odd, too, is the affection we can develop toward a painful moment well past. Odd enough to inspire a song?
Apparently so. Maybe even a modest video to boot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FeYK4UxktQ
Abandoned Highway features Buck Wilburn on two acoustic guitar tracks and the harmony vocal. The organ solo is largely inspired (meaning stolen) from the part on an old demo of the song by a fine keyboardist named Frank Gennuso, with whom I have, regrettably, lost contact. Frank, if this finds you, get in touch.
That’s it, SuperNormaal track by track. Enjoy the album!
David Partridge
POSTCARD COMETS
Listener reviews SUPERNORMAAL, track by track!
Hi, everyone.
This is a “guest Cometary” inspired by a post we got from a listener who bought our just released second album, SUPERNORMAAL, now available on iTunes and amazon.com. Here’s his track by track in its entirety. A big thank you goes out to this listener for taking the time to comment. We enjoyed it, hope you will too!
Water’s Never Far - Great opener. I think it sets the tone for the rest of the disc. Love the chanting and dobro.
He Could Fix Anything - Love this song and the vocals work, but it’s the lyrics that make it. It’s great story this is the best representation of Buck Wilburn’s writing, in my opinion, very “small town Americana”.
The LA Man – This is so Canadian. This is awesome! ‘Stares at the pines but he’s dreaming of palm trees’, good fucking line that is.
Angry Words - ‘nough said. I have to admit I miss the complete guitar solo from the end of an earlier version you posted but I’m partial to guitars– that’s what I play. The sax works perfect, though!!
Must be The Radio - Great imagery. I can see this guy sitting in the streetcar.
A Little More Than Me - Do you have to read the words?
The Guardhouse And The Moon - Nice groove, this is a good cruising tune.
At Least There’s Tomorrow - I don’t remember this one from the pre-release postings. Is it new? Nice production. The verses seem difficult to sing, not pitch but flow, and then the chorus comes in so sweetly, a real nice hook.
Never Fall In Love - Reggae, Virginia Evans in the background vocals? Nice!
Clandestiny - This was the best surprise. I first heard this on a cranked up blaster while taking a bath. Everything was bouncing around the room. Sounded really good. The percussion is bloody ‘A’!
Abandoned Highway - perfect closer. I think this was the first song I ever heard from you guys. David’s best vocal?? This is where the voice shines.
Well done, David and Buck.
(name withheld upon request)
New Brunswick,
Canada
Care to add some comments of your own? Email us at postmaster@postcardcomets.com or just post a comment here. Have your say about SUPERNORMAAL or BODIES OF WATER or anything vaguely Cometesque!
David
POSTCARD COMETS
SUPERNORMAAL, Available now from iTunes and amazon.com
Last year, I wrote a song with Gary Painting, aka Sketchy. Gary lives in London (London, England for my Ontario friends) but he’s a member of Cross the Border, a band based in Scotland who just released their first CD. So, suffice to say, Gary knows a bit about long distance collaboration.
He sent me a guitar idea and, with a bit of tinkering from me, it turned into a song. It worked well enough that we wrote another and then, another.
That third song is called WOULD THAT BE SWEET and we just finished recording it. Gary plays the lovely guitar part that became the first section of the melody and inspired the rest. I sang it and produced.
My co-Comet, Buck Wilburn was on the bench for this one but don’t be surprised if he makes a contribution to the final, final, FINAL version. (As our regular listeners know, “Mixitagain” is my middle name.)
At any rate, we all hope you enjoy this minor departure from the Postcard Comets methodology. Presenting: WOULD THAT BE SWEET.
David Partridge
POSTCARD COMETS
WHEN THE READER WRITES THE AUTHOR
As an unrepentant songwriter, I have a lot of opinions on the nature of music. One of my beliefs is that a song takes its meaning in the ear of the listener. It doesn’t matter what the writer thinks it means; what’s important is what it means to the person who hears it.
Now, I grant you that this can lead to some harrowing moments when you miss the mark and the listener interprets your work in an unexpected and, on occasion, cringe-inducing manner.
But a moment like that should generate wisdom, not mortification. You can learn a lot from the distance between your intent and the listener’s extrapolation. Plus, there are times when the message a listener takes from the song tells you something brand new, a perspective of your work and possibly, of yourself that you might never have experienced without an audience.
So, based on feedback received regarding songs, I came to the release of A MAN OF SUBSTANCES with some curiosity. I think that the book and its subject matter have the potential to reach a broader audience than the music I make. Being new to long-form writing, I had no experience with this broader “audience” in spite of years of turning out tunes. But I still suspected that music’s “ear of the beholder” principle would apply to book readers as well. I was prepared to learn something.
The first surprise came at how consistently reader’s referred to the book as “funny”. Now, Gerry – like his family, in fact– is not without a sense of humour. But some pretty harrowing stuff happens to Gerry in the course of his story. One reader even referred to the “sense of impending doom” she felt in the later chapters of the book. Being told of this comment, a member of Gerry’s family replied, “Tell her to talk to ME!” This, to my mind is the key to the brand of “funny” folks find in A MAN OF SUBSTANCES. While some of the humour is in the events, it’s more often the response to those events that seems “funny”. The sense of doom is there but the absurdity of the circumstance is never far behind. Thanks to a reader, first lesson learned.
Another reader wrote that the story carried her along “like a good novel always does.” The book is a memoir, of course, not a novel. But this is where my perspective (those opinions again!) shaped the way that Gerry’s story is told. I read a lot of memoirs, generally of musicians and artists that I admire. In almost every case, however, I find myself skimming paragraphs about stuff that was clearly important to the protagonist but is substantially less so to me. Even in books about artists I adore, I skim. I don’t do this when reading a good novel.
Memoir or not, I aspired to trim the skim. Full disclosure: this aspiration was at the core of several disagreements with Gerry. You can see his point; the book is about his life, for heaven’s sake. And I’ll admit that we left out some pretty good stories and side trips. But that’s what they were in my mind – roadside attractions. At one point I told Gerry to think of the book as a shared journey where he wanted to stop at every stand for fresh fruit, baked goods and even a bit of wine tasting. I, on the other hand, just wanted to get to Niagara Falls! To fortify my position, in my list of unworthy roadside diversions, I purposely omitted establishments selling ice cream.
To Gerry’s credit, he came to see the point. I think this “stay on the highway” storytelling strategy is why folks tell us that they read the book in “two sessions” or complain cheerfully about staying up too late reading it. I’m grateful that they seem to want to read on. Even so, the guy who wrote of reading the book on the toilet until his bath was too cold could rightfully be accused of over-sharing.
Some readers have noted the book’s intent to reflect the era in which its events unfold. This one really tickled me. As an, ahem, older fellow, I admit to developing a pique from movies set in a time in which I lived, but made by those who, clearly, did not. Don’t take this as reverse ageism – I’m thrilled when research supplants experience. But damn it, disco did not unfold in the Swingin’ Sixties and every attractive woman in attendance at a rock festival was not topless. Gerry’s desperate dash across a department store parking lot in Beatle boots is not in the book because it reflected the era, nor because it is funny. It’s there simply because it’s true. Take the incident out of its time– with Gerry’s footwear unspecified– and it’s not nearly as vibrant. So the details are important. I take great pleasure when readers notice.
>Unsurprisingly, A MAN OF SUBSTANCES’ subject matter comes up most often in reader comments. Those who were not part of the substance subculture express astonishment at the lengths to which a pot cultivator goes to get the weed into the baggie. From field to pocket or purse, it’s a business with a product that requires a manufacturing process like every other consumer product.
This much I understood. As for much of the rest, I was clueless. My partnership with Gerry was serendipitous in this regard. He was immersed in the substance culture; I wasn’t. When Gerry set aside guitar and amp for motorcycle and marijuana, I did not. Similarly, like a lot of readers, I went on to straight job and family without Gerry’s lifestyle schizophrenia. Sure, he had straight jobs and a family as well. But he also had a secret life, the resultant burden of which makes his path unique to a lot of us.
By “us”, I mean the readers and me. I share the reader’s outside perspective when it comes to the way that Gerry lived from rationalization to rationalization, from escalating problem to unexpected solution. Conversely, to those more knowledgeable souls who remark on the accuracy and detail with which the drug culture is revealed, I take no credit. I had a pretty good tutor in Professor Pot.
Someone else who wrote to us called the writing “rhythmic”. Back to the music thing again, this one meant a lot to me. In music, the way you play or sing a melodic thread in the context of a tune’s tempo is termed phrasing. The word is used to describe the way different players string together the same notes over the same bars in a very unique way. It’s partially rhythm, partially volume, partially pitch and partially tone. So, as a muso, so much as nod in this direction from readers of the book is immensely gratifying.
There’s so much to be learned from reader feedback about what transpires when the sentences sink into a welcoming brain. In every case, we’ve gained from the perspective of those who’ve taken the time to comment. On behalf of Gerry and me, thank you for your perspective and the passion expended to express it. Even the over-sharing!
David Partridge This is a blog originally written for and posted at Multi-Hyphenate.com. We thought folks interested in Postcard Comets might enjoy this piece about David’s literary activities. I’ve known Gerry McCarthy since his family moved to Toronto from Peterborough many years ago. We went to the same high school and started playing in bands in the same neighbourhood around the same time. But I knew his brother even better, and it was that relationship which gained me entry into the McCarthy household. Read the rest of this entry » In essence, a song is comprised of a melody and a lyric. Nothing else. A great riff is a great riff but it’s not a song. It’s an arrangement. Even the chord pattern is not strictly a song. Plenty of cover artists, massive or modest, re- jig the chords to famous songs. But that’s not songwriting. That, too, is arrangement.
Postcard Comets songs exist elementally, as all songs do, as a melody and a lyric. The arrangement, I would argue, is a large part of what makes our tracks sound like us. Arrangements contribute atmosphere, groove and ultimately emotional response. But an arrangement can’t do its job if the melody and the lyric can’t establish the mood in the first place. It all started with a monkey. Not an actual monkey. I don’t get a lot of musical inspiration from the residents of the Metropolitan Toronto Zoo. The monkey to which I refer is the online avatar for a singer songwriter who goes by the name of Ayewrite. Ayewrite, or Monkey as he is often called, is an online friend of mine. He’s passionate about music but he’s not a man who bestows praise lightly. But some time ago he told me that I owed it to myself to check out a singer songwriter named Dolores Dagenais. Monkey, who resides in Europe, also said that she was Canadian and lived in Pictou, Nova Scotia. He did not ask me whether, as a fellow Canadian, I knew Dolores. Monkey’s a smart guy. He knows that there’s some distance between western Nova Scotia and southern Ontario, maybe thirty, forty kilometers, by his reckoning. But in fact, the music that had my friend excited was significantly closer than that. It seems that Dolores had a very generous album’s worth of songs, freely available for download on the web. And the web, as fortune would have it, connects directly to my house. Hmm, I thought, this Dolores Dagenais writes interesting songs. And she can sing. That monkey is on to something. NEVER FALL IN LOVE is a David Partridge song written years ago. It’s worn several arrangements, none of which quite fit, at least not to Buck and David’s satisfaction. The problem was that with each successive version, the arrangement of the song just got bigger and more dramatic and, we admit it, longer. But the song itself is a relationship song and was originally written to have an intimacy; that intimacy had been lost. So we decided to revisit Never Fall In Love with the intent of bringing a bit more whisper to a song that, frankly, was beginning to shout. That wasn’t easy. Some cool electric guitar work from Buck fell by the wayside. Fortunately, some cool acoustic guitar work from Buck replaced it, supplemented by some clean electric work. His nicely crunchy solo in the middle remained. Hey, no need to go crazy! The drums and percussion were next. A massive drum kit (there were even timbales in there) was replaced by a mélange of hand percussion. The groove is a blend of cajon, high hat, djembe and frame drum for those interested in the details. For those with less interest, a bunch of quieter stuff will suffice. The vocals were next step in the renovation. This version of the song has a brand new vocal by David in keeping with the more personal feel of the new tracks. To bring a little warmth, we asked our friend Virginia (Vee) Evans to sing on the chorus. Vee has a rich, warm voice that brings a special timbre to the harmonies on the refrain. Some of the texture comes from the fact that Buck’s part is actually higher than the one being sung by Vee. She also contributed some countermelody parts that inspired the woven vocals in the coda. One of the Comets’ very good friends told us that he vaguely recalls a previous version of the tune and asked that the old version be posted for forensic comparison. But, the thing is, we didn’t like the previous version. That’s why we went to the trouble of reimagining it! One element that was not reimagined is Howard Rabkin’s fine bass line, a big solid reggae-inspired wonder that manages to be even more effective without the relative bombast of the drums and big guitars of the original. Reading back, it seems that this entire note is a musical version of “Flip This House”. Who knows, Postcard Comets may yet be cable-worthy. As long as it’s not a spot on “Nancy Grace”! We hope you enjoy Never Fall In Love. Be sure to take a moment to leave a comment. Anyone who drops by here with any regularity has likely read that we’ve been working with singer/songwriter Dolores Dagenais. In fact, we recently posted a duet with Dolores called Never Seen The Mountains. The entire experience of working with another artist was a reminder of how a bit of collaboration with someone who does not live inside your own brain can be a good thing. When we first heard the songs Dolores had assembled for the album, a couple of tunes that had a bit of a swing feel. They’re not jazz of course; none of us would be so presumptuous as to suggest such a thing. But the feel that Dol used for a couple of her songs took us to a place that the Comets had not previously explored. Buck, who would call himself a country-based player, was particularly responsive to the fresh air. Coincidentally, I had been experimenting a few months ago with a rhythm idea that had a bit of swing to it. It inspired a song called In The Room. I wrote it, demoed it and, honestly, forgot about it. Then I heard Buck’s playing on Dolores’ tunes. I played the In The Room demo to Buck and he liked it. So, here’s In The Room. I’m not going to say it was an easy piece to produce– we all know that “new tricks” saying and it’s fair to characterize both Buck and I as “old dogs”. But if this latest Postcard Comets tune sounds even a tiny but different, and it may seem no more than that, now you know the reason why. We stuck a toe outside the Comets’ comfort zone and In The Room is the result. We’re inclined to blame Dolores. We hope you’ll give In The Room a listen and post a comment here on the site. We love to read them and we pay attention to what you say! David Those of you who visit us here with any frequency may have noticed that the last six months of 2009 have been a hiatus period for POSTCARD COMETS. True, both Buck and David have been toiling away on the next Dolores Dagenais album, tentatively entitled Big Girl Art. That was a lot of work and a lot of fun and everyone is looking forward to its release in the Spring of 2010. But that’s not all that’s been going on in Songville. The intensely wet summer moved Buck to build an ark in his basement only to have to dissemble it when he realized it wouldn’t go out the back door. David played the Stateside Gathering this summer with honorary Comet Howard Rabkin. As it turned out, the torrential rain they drove through on the return trip made them regret not bringing Buck’s Ark. There’s a rough clip of their performance on youTube if you haven’t seen it (and it’s fair to say that the majority of the world has not). In the clip they appear to be relatively dry at that particular point in the adventure. OK, enough deflection. Let’s admit here and now that the musical leviathan known as POSTCARD COMETS has not been as productive in the posting of new songs this past six months. But they’ve vowed to change their slothful ways and get some new tracks up here on the website pretty soon. There’s even talk of a recording project with Howard Rabkin if he can tear himself away from the other 12 bands to which he belongs. Will they post new work? Yes. Will they continue to post for the following 12 months without fail? Well, first David has to go into CNN detox and as for Buck, there’s been some dark talk about a dirigible… Thanks for listening, everyone and here’s to a healthy and productive 2010! Tweaks Tatum I recently had reason, need more accurately, to tackle some plumbing in my house. For those who know me well, and know that the idea of me doing anything with a wrench is spine-freezing, be assured that it was only a set of faucets. But, they were the source of a leak that had progressed to another floor so the work was not optional. But this is not about my absence of hand tool savvy. It’s about the fact that I had to shut off the water to the entire household to attend to the task at hand. Because I had to remove the taps and the sink and the attached drain, the water had to be off. Even I knew that. This meant a significant number of hours without water. Now, I have a friend who lives part of the week in a cabin with no running water. He showers at the local KOA campground. But I am not such a hearty soul. I like my taps to flow, my toilet to flush and my shower head to rain down clean clear, temperature-controlled water. All of this has me thinking about wonders taken for granted: the love of my family, yes, electricity, certainly, and even the blessed miracle of garbage pickup. But it may not surprise some that it also has me thinking about music. I record regularly with a certain musician. For purposes of anonymity, let’s call him “Buck”. Buck and I record together as a band. Let’s, for fun, call this band “Postcard Comets”. What Buck and I do not do with any regularity as Postcard Comets is perform live. When an opportunity to play in Cleveland this month arose, Buck’s family obligations prevented him from going. That and the fact that he’s wanted in at least fifteen states. Now, by rights, I should have been screwed. Based on compelling prior evidence, I do not rate my talents as a solo performer. So did I turn down the gig? I did not. I picked up the phone and called another friend of many years. For the purposes of this story, let’s call him “Howard Rabkin”. Howard is a bassist, guitarist and singer of no small ability. He went with me to Cleveland and I think it’s fair to say that the gig went fine, primarily because I have a resource like Howard that can be relied on to elevate the quality of my music and my life. Parallel to all of this, I’ve been working with a singer songwriter called Dolores Dagenais. She asked me to produce her next album. Because I love her work, I accepted. Now, Dol, did not ask me to produce her because I’m a great musician or a fabulous producer or because I’m devilishly handsome (although this must have played some part… a small part, tiny even. OK, none.) She asked because she likes the recordings I’ve produced for Postcard Comets. But the Comets are not just me. I recently sent one of Dolores’ songs to Buck, asking him to send me a guitar part. He did not. He sent two. These two parts are very different from one another but when I added them to Dol’s song, they fit perfectly, not only with Dol’s part but with each other. All I did was turn on the tap. So we’re back to the plumbing. When those taps were installed and the sink was repositioned into the counter top and the drain was reconnected, I cannot tell you how sweet the sound of that flowing water. For me, longtime friends and intuitive musicians like Buck and Howard are that flowing water. Without them, I’d be lost, overheated and unhygienic. To them I raise a glass. Of tap water, of course. David Partridge This crucial video evidence of the existence of POSTCARD COMETS is from August 8th, 2009 in Lakewood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. The gig is the Gathering Stateside, organized by Jo Robinson under the auspices of the Artistic Freedom Collective. We just returned from a gig in Cleveland so the whole idea of playing live is on my mind. I’ll admit to being more of a songwriter/recordist than a live performer. I sing wearing headphones when I record, most often to a track developed earlier, knowing exactly how the track is going to sound as add my vocal. There is good and bad in this, as in all things. You know the foundation over which you play is not going to shift, so you’re free to explore your performance without the danger of stepping on another player’s best moments. But unless the band is playing in the room as you perform, the shooting star thrill and danger of an organic, changing performance is, by definition, absent. The process of recording offers focus but forfeits the opportunity for a lightning strike of communal improvisation. Sounds like a lot to lose, right? Well, let’s chase the metaphor: how many of us have ever been struck by lightning? Very few, of course. But who has not marveled at the beauty of nature’s fury simply by seeing it unfold? The power of a storm seen from a distance is less dramatic than a hissing bolt striking a few inches from your flip-flops. But a safe-distance storm is more frequently experienced and more universally enjoyed. I choose to experience a storm without standing in the middle of a meadow. For me, the frequent small inspirations of recording are preferable to the sparser, more searing thrill of live performance. Now that we’ve beaten the lightning image to death, let’s move on. Why do I feel the thrill of live performance infrequently? Well, for a start, I play live infrequently! But the other factor for the performer is what you hear and how you hear it. Even the seemingly simple combination of a single voice and guitar, filtered through amplification, room shape and size, audience participation and the imbalance of just two aural elements can render me clueless as to whether I’m communicating from that stage or not. And the larger the ensemble, the greater the number of elements that can obscure what you hear. After the show this past weekend, my co-Comet asked about a detail of his performance. I pride myself on my ability to listen but I didn’t hear the element he was describing. Why? During the song in question, I couldn’t hear my own instrument and I was trying to adapt to that while simultaneously thinking about the vocal parts our guest performer and I were about to add to the chorus. When so many factors – instrumentation, audience, room, balance, lyric – are flying by simultaneously onstage, you, or at least I, can’t take it all in. It’s pin-the-tail-on-the-love song. You’re flying through cloud-cover, you’re driving in the rain. This is an aspect of the thrill, of course. But another aspect is that lightning can flash and you can miss it. And so, I suggest, can your audience. So, forgive me if I think that my satisfaction lies more in the glowing, repeatable moments you find in a great recording than in the brilliant, infrequent flashes on a stage. I won’t stop performing when asked but I will stop asking so much of the performance itself. I can drive in the rain but I prefer a clear horizon. David Partridge Sidestepping the tar pit of authenticity or what is or is not real, here’s the core appeal of the acoustic performer as I see it: if the electricity goes off, you can sit on the edge of the stage and play something. As long as you don’t play louder than you sing, people will recognize it as communication and possibly even entertainment. And as traditional acappella performers and instrumentalists will demonstrate, you don’t even need both, just one or the other. Read the rest of this entry » May 4, 2009 Read the rest of this entry » Back at the dawn of popular music, live performance and recording were not greatly dissimilar. When Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five went into the studio near the beginning of the last century, there was a single microphone. The mic, and the musicians for that matter, were positioned and repositioned until the balance was right. When Armstrong played live, there was no microphone; where they stood was determined by Louis and the dimensions of the bandstand. But everyone played together. (This Blog was originally posted on this date 2 years ago. As we celebrate our revamped site, we thought it was fitting to repost the blog that was the beginning of Cometary.) Postcards are a lot like songs. Each is comprised of two forms of communication, picture and text in the case of the postcard, music and lyrics in the case of the song. This isn’t why the COMETS are POSTCARD COMETS, of course; the name uses the adjectival sense of postcard, meaning distillation and brevity. It’s not a novel, it’s not even a letter. It’s a postcard. I read today that actor Van Johnson died last week. He’s not on the tip of many tastemaker tongues these days but back in the middle of the 20th Century he was hot stuff. I know this because my father told me it was true. Songs As Postcards David Partridge I can barely remember where the first droplet of this song came from. But I think it went like this:
ALIBI BOY AND “THE PROCESS”
Sometimes songs get written in a room, just a guitar, a voice, and hopefully, a brain and a heart. Alibi Boy began in a room but it wasn’t completed that way.
Reimagining NEVER FALL IN LOVE
POSTCARD COMETS
Escaping 2009 For The Promise Of 2010
Official Corporate Spokesperson
for
POSTCARD COMETS
IN PRAISE OF RUNNING WATER
POSTCARD COMETS
COMETS Sighted in Cleveland!
Thanks to the camera skills of singer/songwriter Trevor Marty (www.trevormarty.com), we offer this clip of David (guitar) and Howard (bass) dipping into the oldies bag for a song written by Joe South and originally released by Billy Joe Royal.
This POSTCARD COMETS rendition is a bit rough-and-ready and key COMET Buck Wilburn is absent (there are dark rumours of borderphobia and even some evidence of involuntary incarceration) but hey, it’s “live” in all its ragged glory. But be warned: it’s so ragged, it may not be here for long…
We hope you enjoy the clip and be sure to leave a comment in the box below. We love your feedback!
David
“>
DRIVING IN THE RAIN
THE BALANCE
Not that you ever want it to come to that. At least, I don’t. Anyone who regularly boils a kettle knows that electricity’s not a bad thing. Onstage, we use microphones, a PA and pickups on our guitars. We are not purely acoustic. Acoustic sensibility or no, I can’t blame artists for turning to current technology in an attempt to give the best performance they can.
WELCOME TO OUR FACELIFT!
If you’re reading this you’ve had a chance to experience our new look and layout at postcardcomets.com. This is the freshly painted home of the decidedly unpainted POSTCARD COMETS. We hope you’ll find it less cluttered and easier to navigate.
We have a master player on every page now because, after all, the music is what it’s all about. Some of our visitors told us that they liked to use the site as a radio – “ALL COMETS! ALL THE TIME!”. This is tremendously flattering and the master player is a way to facilitate that usage as well as a way to say thanks.
Live Music, Studio Music
With the introduction of multitracking, live and recorded music diverged and emerged as separate art forms. Live is kinetic and visual; momentary lapses in musical precision fly by in a pulsebeat; we’re held by the moment we’re in. Recordings are precise, repeatable and subject to the scrutiny that familiarity brings. I think that songs need the precision of a recording to endear themselves and a live performance to consummate the relationship. Live is physical contact; recordings are long distance love.
But you can’t get physical on a website. Not on this one, anyway. There are functions crucial to a live performance’s success that, in the studio, are just easier or more expedient to do piecemeal. You can play multiple instruments, adding ideas and parts as inspiration strikes. If a player is unavailable, the music goes on.
All of this was brought to mind by a song of ours called ANGRY WORDS. The song is not a Postcard Comets duo performance. But everyone we consider a Comet is on there— same writer, producer, vocalist, and guitarist as the other songs we’ve featured on the site. But this song has a different feel, thanks substantially to the players we don’t regularly feature, but also to our intention to capture the energy of “live”. Why try to blur dissimilar disciplines? Same reason anyone does, I suspect – it seemed best for the song. For me, that’s always the destination.
David Partridge
Songs As Postcards
Postcards are a previous century’s version of text messaging, a quick thought in a compact space. The message itself can be trite, cryptic, even indecipherable. It can brighten your day or touch your heart. Generally, the glossy picture is the postcard’s attention grabber but the words are what makes it worth sending.
That’s kind of how songs work for me. An attractive melody is diminished by a lyric that does not resonate. Alternatively, if a song has a pedestrian melody and a great lyric, I still enjoy it. But I don’t enjoy it often. It seems to me that for a song to be a repeatable pleasure, both the lyric and the music have to be strong and complementary.
And what about performance? The analogy weakens here. Very little of a postcard’s appeal is based in penmanship although extreme scribbling can certainly obliterate its meaning. Conversely, the performance animates a song. Or smothers it.
The performance contextualizes a song as well. Take the R&B classic War, for instance. Edwin Starr’s original is incensed, aggressive and angry. Joan Osborne’s more recent version is full of sadness and regret, as if resigned to the everlasting vitality of human folly. Very different readings and I like them both. Or what about Layla, Derek and the Dominoes contrasted with Clapton’s unplugged reading? Same song, same artist, very different emotional contexts.
I’m sure you can think of other, possibly better, examples. I’m pretty much done here. This particular postcard is taking on the attributes of a letter. Or a novel.
Or a song by Yes.
David Partridge
Farewell, Van Johnson
My dad was a modest movie buff, a fan of ‘40s stuff like A Guy Named Joe, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and State Of The Union with my man Spencer Tracy. I suspect that my movie obsession comes from my father and, by extension, from actors like Van Johnson. Of the movies I’ve mentioned, he was in every one.
Van wasn’t just a “serious” actor, he also did musicals like Brigadoon and Damn Yankees and even The Music Man on stage in London. I read once that one of his first screen roles was in Too Many Girls in the esteemed role of Chorus Boy #41. I didn’t know much about this aspect of Mr. Johnson when I met him briefly in the ‘80s. He was not at the peak of his career at this point but he done a cameo in Woody Allen’s Purple Rose Of Cairo in ’85. At that time I worked for a video company that released the film on cassette— VHS and Beta!
So, when I heard that he was to be the guest of honour at a gala held annually in the Canadian video industry, I was kind of curious. The promoter of this annual affair had an admirable knack for getting a major Hollywood name of the heritage variety to appear at these events year after year. I don’t remember what year this was, exactly, but I’m sure it was late ‘80s because my father was seriously ill. Candidly, this made the flesh and blood appearance of one of his favourites all the more poignant for me.
The affair was an awards dinner held in a hotel ballroom. Everyone dressed in stuff they usually only wore to funerals. We assembled at tables of 10 before a long dais reserved for video industry elite; by this I mean Canadian video industry elite and by that I mean the folks who spent the most money advertising in the magazine published by the event’s host. At the centre of this long dais was a podium; your importance in the industry was inversely proportional to the distance of your chair from the central podium. Van Johnson sat in the first seat to the podium’s right.
This particular year, in order to make presenters and winners seem more august, the event designer had decided to push the section of the dais that held the podium forward by about 4 feet, giving it the appearance of the prow of a ship. Unfortunately, said designer had not seen to the addition of an offsetting 5 feet of flooring behind the podium to compensate for where the prow section was not. As much as the prow protruded aforeship, it was absent in the aft.
We learned this rather early when a local actor known for playing a cheerful bald shopkeeper in lottery commercials strode robustly toward the podium, waving like a vaudevillian. Just short of the lectern, he dropped like an anchor. Not even his buoy-like head was left bobbing. Fortunately the man was not hurt but those happy-go-lucky lottery spots were never the same to me. I kept imagining the poor bugger on the verge of a trap door.
However, the hapless micro-celebrity had done us all a service, alerting us to the dais’ design flaw. Because we were mid-occasion, of course, the show did indeed go on. They did not stop to fix the absence of back end on the prow of the dais. But that absence did not escape the attention of an observant few. One of those was Van Johnson.
Now, anyone who has watched the Oscars knows that these events, even modest Canadian knockoffs of these events, are likely to be long. Longer than the dais. Longer still than the line at the bar. It was a cash bar, of course, but not, it must be said, for Mr. Johnson. It may have been my own evolving state of mind but it seemed to me that, as the wine flowed, our guest of honour grew less and less circumspect and, it must be said, more and more theatrical. He started the night in A Guy Named Joe and progressed slowly but noticeably towards Brigadoon.
Of course, this may have been only my perception as unaccustomed as I was, and am, to film royalty. But this is where I enter the story. In the latter hours of the long fermented evening, a film my company represented won an award. It was my moment to walk the dais. Although the left end of it was closer, I chose to approach the podium from the right side of the long dais in order to walk by Mr. Van Johnson. Such was my admiration and the desire to have a better story for my next visit to my father.
I was not disappointed. Just as I approached the left shoulder of the great man, he turned to face me and, looking directly at me, said something that has guided my steps every day since. Looking to his left and gesturing dramatically to his right, Van Johnson locked eyes with me and bellowed, “Don’t fall into the fucking pit, son!”
When I told this tale to my father, he shook with laughter. Van Johnson, however inadvertently, had once again brought light into the life of a fan. My father died shortly thereafter. I think of him a lot. I think less often of his favourite, Van Johnson. But tonight I’m thinking about them both. And I’m grateful for the moments Van Johnson brought to my father, and by extension, to me.
David Partridge
The Official Blog of Postcard Comets
March 28, 2007
Postcards are a lot like songs. Each is comprised of two forms of communication, picture and text in the case of the postcard, music and lyrics in the case of the song. This isn’t why the COMETS are POSTCARD COMETS, of course; the name uses the adjectival sense of postcard, meaning distillation and brevity. It’s not a novel, it’s not even a letter. It’s a postcard.
Postcards are a previous century’s version of text messaging, a quick thought in a compact space. The message itself can be trite, cryptic, even indecipherable. It can brighten your day or touch your heart. Generally, the glossy picture is the postcard’s attention grabber but the words are what makes it worth sending.
That’s kind of how songs work for me. An attractive melody is diminished by a lyric that does not resonate. Alternatively, if a song has a pedestrian melody and a great lyric, I still enjoy it. But I don’t enjoy it often. It seems to me that for a song to be a repeatable pleasure, both the lyric and the music have to be strong and complementary.
And what about performance? The analogy weakens here. Very little of a postcard’s appeal is based in penmanship although extreme scribbling can certainly obliterate its meaning. Conversely, the performance animates a song. Or smothers it.
The performance contextualizes a song as well. Take the R&B classic War, for instance. Edwin Starr’s original is incensed, aggressive and angry. Joan Osborne’s more recent version is full of sadness and regret, as if resigned to the everlasting vitality of human folly. Very different readings and I like them both. Or what about Layla, Derek and the Dominoes contrasted with Clapton’s unplugged reading? Same song, same artist, very different emotional contexts.
I’m sure you can think of other, possibly better, examples. I’m pretty much done here. This particular postcard is taking on the attributes of a letter. Or a novel.
Or a song by Yes.
Clandestiny Defined
My computer takes a bit of time to boot and have a habit of doodling at the piano while waiting for the sign-in message. Sometimes this produces the musical version of gibberish but every so often…
Anyway, it’s my opinion that the genesis of this song, that opening piano figure, was a lightning strike and not a light drizzle. You may see it differently. But after I had the piano figure, the whole thing came in a downpour. The first line led to the second which suggested the third and pretty soon I was at the chorus. I will admit that a line from Bob Marley’s Small Axe inspired the hatchet and the tree in the second line, turning Bob’s message of oppressed populism into something pertaining more to carnal justice. Thanks, Bob. You kept me rolling right to the last line of that chorus.
And that’s when it happened. I’ll admit it, I opted for an invented word.
There is no such word as Clandestiny, it’s true. But it just seemed to fit; everything in the lyric that comes before it is like a cloudburst of explanation, as if the definition came before the word instead of after as it does in the dictionary.
Clandestiny is the fate that befalls someone who chooses a life of secrets or more likely of deceipt. That’s how I see it. It’s not a real word but it should be.
The rest of the lyric, with the exception of the chant, just followed from there, like the low rumble after the lightning. I whipped up a quick rhythm track (piano bass drums) so that I could remember the thing. Then I played it to Buck at the end of a session for something else.
I should mention that Buck’s lovely snaky electric guitar line came from something I call blind tracking, meaning that he heard only the groove and not the tune and most certainly not the lyric. Sometimes I do this to try to shake things up—” play whatever you want wherever you want. If I don’t like it, that’s why God made the mute button!” If the player feels the track, you can get some great stuff even without all the elements present. I may have la-la-laed the tune in the room once or twice as he played but I sure didn’t sing the whole melody with a lyric.
Why, you ask? I was not yet committed. I had a lyric with a made-up word, for heaven’s sake! What if Buck hated it? What if I hated it by the next morning? So the blind tracking had two benefits— it freed Buck to play in a looser structure and it saved me from presenting the lyric as finished.
Which, as it turned out, it was not. I wanted something to summarize the distain the singer had for his subject but also something that conveyed the fact that the dread she felt was the product of her own actions. Hence, the “Somebody knows..” part. When I had that, it was then, and only then, that I decided that I had a song. With a made up word… for the title, if you can believe it.
David Partridge