Basic information
Released: September 25 2008
Label: Shotgun Com.
Length: 53:06
Track listing
Story
1. Cigarettes in my bed (3:27)
2. I hope so (4:54)
3. Queen Mab (3:05)
4. Ah (3:18)
5. Coming soon (3:07)
6. Selfish war (3:25)
7. Has anybody seen my girl? (3:11)
8. Diggin' the dandelions (3:34)
The Vinyl
9. Tears & Ricochets (2:28)
10. Radio Song (4:54)
11. Make me! (3:00)
12. Things I should do (3:20)
13. A merry song for Rosie (2:58)
14. A touch of ultimate pleasure (4:49)
Bonus track: 15. Home (3:30)
Background and concept
After splitting with Rosie I fell in love with Resa and started seeing her. The Story part of the album maps our relationship, as we took a break in December (Selfish war), as I nearly got over her (Make me!) and as we got together again, the very same day I've composed Diggin' the dandelions. That's also the reason why songs are ordered differently on the album than in the booklet. I wanted the booklet to catch the atmosphere of the story, while the actual track on the CD are ordered so that fast ones and slow ones shift.
The Vinyl part records mostly events between January and April. I had something of a creative crisis which resulted in lower activity in writing so two of these songs (Radio Song and Home) are just cover versions, even though Home used to be instrumental only.
Music and lyrics
The Vinyl - Story features Barbora Kortusová, in case you didn't know. I was looking for someone to sing with in our shows but she was more useful on the album. Cigarettes in my bed is a phrase which was invented by Evan Lee (which makes it probably the last contribution in my songs, sadly) about simply leaving a packet of cigarettes in the bed and later being found by someone who doesn't approve smoking, or something. The second "Baby" part is about being parted from Rosie and the third is a cover of Pihovatá dívka by Pavel Novák with reworked lyrics by me - the first about Resa. The same goes for I hope so, I wrote it when she went to France; when she returned she wanted us to split but then changed her mind, this all is in the song. Queen Mab captures my desperation about this fast evolving relationship, the second half of the song quotes Percy Shelley's Queen Mab, accompanied by Massive Attack's Teardrop theme.
You know I felt like I knew that she was going to leave me (she actually did it once already), so Ah and Coming soon (no sexual implication here) were quite pessimistic because I was worried about the relationship all the time, so I at least gave Ah to Barbora and sped Coming soon up a bit (I also gave it a nickname – Emosong). And, as always, it proved me right – she dumped (?) me again in December and none of us could really tell why („breeze of the wrong decision“ in Selfish war). I had to deal with it, somehow. I started seeing Rosie again, even though it didn’t result in anything except writing A merry song for Rosie (as she asked me to write a merry song for her, for a change) and finishing Has anybody seen my girl?. Somehow I was still frustrated after having been left by Resa, so much that I didn’t even try to write songs so I reworked another one, This Boy by The Beatles and came up with Diggin‘ the Dandelions.
We recorded Tears & Ricochets during the first sessions with Barbora (with Cigarettes), Kirk Graham and Arthur Harris when I suddenly remembered a demonstration song I used to have on my Yamaha keyboard, made some lyrics (with many mistakes, apparently) a recorded it. In April, as I was finishing the album, I was getting bored so I did my renditions of Radio Song by Jet and Home, a theme song from Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven and also made A touch of ultimate pleasure, inspired mostly by The Beatles‘ Revolution No. 9.
Miscellaneous
This album was particularly fun to make, despite what was happening to me. I worked with Barbora and Peter Rateer (for example, I sent him a demo of T&R, so that he could send me a solo, as he lived in England at that time; he also recorded lead in Selfish war and Make me). I borrowed Arthur Harris’s Telecaster to record Cigarettes, I hope so and Selfish war, discussed lyrics with Kirk Graham on Coming soon and Things I should do and I also played Kate Johnsson’s piano in Radio song. Finally, FL Studio (ver. 7 probably) was used frequently. These are probably the reasons for this album being my most popular one (apart from the fact it’s a conceptual album).
In Anthology 1 (Part four) you’ll find alternate versions of Frozie, Coming soon also Ah sung by me, a much faster version of DDD, experimental synth-based How I lost me eardrum and quite many funny covers.
