Lucid Dreaming Album Cover
I Wanna Be Remembered
Water Of My Life
The Eye Of The Storm
Conversations
Uniquely the Same
Porthos
Fear to Whisper
The Uncle Harry Song
Progressive Resonance
Inebriated and Feeling Blue
Music Box
Thirsting Through Time
Album Inserts:
I wrote all these songs and my friend Brian sang along with me and sometimes added in bits of flute where he thought he could get away with it. The Japanese make some damn fine flutes, thanks for that, and sushi. I think everything else is forgivable based on those two things. Brian and I are both from Phoenix, but somehow found ourselves in San Francisco for a couple of years. It is possible to have a lot of money in San Francisco and be broke. Which means, somehow I managed to have enough disposable income to go into the studio and no friends around to keep me otherwise busy. So I guess I owe this album, in part, to the insanity of the prices and the people of that wonderful city, which I miss in the same way one misses an ex who you know is no good for you, with a sort of bitter and desperate love for what once was. The recordings were done at Polk Street Recording, mostly because it was one bus ride from the house, but also because they were cheap and answered their phones. Special thanks to Mango for getting the levels wrong and for having random conversations with us while the tape was rolling. Oh, and for bumming me smokes. Brian did an impromptu trio of songs that feature only him and his flute playing and singing to themselves. Water of my Life, Fear to Whisper and Thirsting Through Time. We sat outside smoking afterwards, listening to them blast through the studio and out onto the street. Gray Room Studios in Phoenix helped me to finally master the CD after I let it sit dormant on ADAT tape for nearly a year. Fayoké Longe put the final polish on the look of the album. And I would like to give thanks to all the women who over the years have helped and hindered, left and lingered, jaded and inspired me. Oh yeah, and lets not forget Mom and God for making it all possible.
There was something I was trying to say, somewhere at the beginning, but I’ve lost track since then. It was something grand involving angels and flashes of sulfur, Sam Colt, that great mathematician and humanitarian who made all men equal and Einstein who gave constant definition to their mass efforts as a species. But the tune was lost in the vibration of an infinite set of eleven dimensional strings. Eleven dimensional angels dancing on the tip of my pen. Don’t give up yet! I know the answers are there, between my personal demons and the physics of godhood, lying dormant in the folds of time, burning away my memories and flashing the ice in my veins to steam. I tried holding on to the love in the form of sex and devotion. Tried being lost in the comfort of good food and song washed down with plenty of cold beer. Explored in midnight conversation that broke with the dawn on tired and happily caffeinated minds. Sought the clarity of thought possible only two thirds of the way down a bottle of tequila and buried myself in books trying to understand and remember. But it still eludes me. I’m afraid to speak because I’ll reveal too much. I’m afraid to think because I know that sin lies in thought not action. Afraid to stay silent because I am all alone inside here. So I’m whispering compromise hoping that no one hears the blasphemies stuck in my throat. Afraid someone will catch my quiet ranting and be infected with grand ideas involving angels and sulfur, choirs of brimstone, redemption and that first moment when things went so terrifyingly wrong. I am scouring old songs and ripping lines from crumpled poems hoping I can coax from subconscious plays of words what is really driving this shit storm of systematic learning and failing. There was something I was trying to say, somewhere at the beginning, something grand. But I am seeking with desperation and desire, forgetting that it can not be sought only realized suddenly and with subtle and staggering clarity.
Band Members
Piano and Lead Vocals: Jonathan Standifird
Flute and Harmony Vocals: Brian Visel
