Hannah Boo - 5th installment of the Kickstarter Campaign Collaboration Reward

Here is the 5th collaboration from my Won Over Frequency Kickstarter campaign in which a Backer provides me with lyrics which I then turn into a hit song.  The inspiration for this track was provided by Maya Peart, who gracefully recounted the life and final days of her beloved pure bred Bullmastiff, Hannah. 

Regarding the music: 

I don't know why I return to hymnal harmony when trying to communicate pain, but I do. That being said, I purposefully kept it from following any expected direction, so as to simulate the sea-legs of profound loss. To represent that hourly oscillation between numbness and hysterics, I used a man vs. machine theme throughout the production: authentic snare and ride cymbal paired with electronic kick drum; synth strings and rhodes with acoustic guitar and electric bass; unfettered lead vocal with robotic vocoded harmonies. 

Regarding the lyrics:

It is a heavy thing, paying homage to someone this special. It is a heavier thing still to take on the voice of the grieving. If I weren't still knee-deep in my own grieving over Lumas, I'd venture to say that this sort of emotional co-opting is downright morally reprehensible. But lucky for me, Hannah's parents are dear friends of mine and myLumas, and were wonderful enough to trust me with something this sensitive. I really struggled to marry the subjective snapshots laid out in the verses with the objective rhetorical questions posed in the choruses. I know that the specifics of Hannah's death are not entirely clear to a listener who did not know her, and I grappled with whether or not to remedy that. In the end, I felt that vacillating between the details of injustice and a desperate lunge at gaining a larger context turns out to be a pretty accurate depiction of what coping with a loss of this magnitude looks like. So the song remains a dichotomy, optimized for her parents.

Hannah Boo

Well I suppose you were the silent type

but oh oh oh dear, you made a riot out of my tiny life

and nosed your way into every space

the anti-graceful, full of grace

you stoic bulldozer

why did you leave me with this mess?

And why do the biggest hearts break easiest?

Why do the smallest hearts survive?

Is it that love defies naturally selection

or that the big hearts keep the small hearts alive?

The way it went down was so hard to take

we'd been through hell and back but things felt ok

when the call came through we were both far away

Darling Hannah Boo, we never abandoned you!

I tried to be still but I'm not built that way

I couldn't take control or make the call - I had no say

Now I can't fill your space

I can dwell on the best, forget the rest but

why do the biggest hearts break easiest?

Why do the smallest hearts survive?

Is it that love defies naturally selection

or that the big hearts keep the small hearts thrive?

Maybe I'm wrong,

maybe I'm right

maybe my small heart tripled in size

just knowin' you,

just lovin' you,

myHannah Boo...

Close Your Eyes - 4th installment of the Kickstarter Campaign Collaboration Reward

Here is the 4th collaboration from my Won Over Frequency Kickstarter campaign in which a Backer provides me with lyrics and I turn them into a hit song.  The original lyrics for this track were provided by Bryce Carter with contributions by his friend Todd. "The song was inspired by ideal summer moments, simplicity, space, and Carl Sagan."

Regarding the music: 
Since nostalgia seemed to be our most prominent theme, I opted to revisit the 50's aesthetic and arrangement-motifs of my hit song Coffeelocks. I'd worked out a few drafts in very different directions (most of them more downtempo and simpler instrumentation), but none clicked very well for me until I started down the doo-wop road. I used this recording as an opportunity to premier several new toys: my new M3 Hammond Organ / Leslie 45 (captured with a lovely pair of 421s ---- thanks Michael @ Sennheiser!!!), my theramin, my signature series Jay Turser electric bass ($65 value), and a beautiful pair of Cascade Fathead II-sp ribbon mics (thanks Rob @ Parson's Audio!!!). It's amazing how much less work one must do in the mixing phase when one simply utilizes the proper gear.


Regarding the lyrics:
Bryce sent me some lyrics back in mid December, and it took me several months to set aside the proper time needed to carve them into a workable structure. Once I got in there, it was quite a challenge to rework the cadences while maintaining the imagery. One of the more subtle but crucial alterations I made to the narrative was to make it past tense, which better suits the idyllic summer retrospective. I've interspersed my final lyrics (in italics) with Bryce's original lyrics so you can see the adaptation.

Close Your Eyes (Sweet Love)
Step into the lake on a warm summer night

We walked to the lake on that warm summer night

You laugh and tell me not to splash

You were laughing, you were begging me not to splash

The water is calm, we walk palm to palm

And the water was calm, I was pulling your arms

And hop in the rowboat to relive summer past

into the boat, as I'd done so many times in the past 

(Close your eyes, sweet love...)

Close your eyes, close your eyes, sweet love

We paddle past the dock and the shore waves goodbye

Out past the dock, where the shore disappears

The stars light our way from the sky

and the sun's closing eye was just a dent in the sky

The sun's not awake, he's done for the day

I was worn like a gown but could not settle down

But you're wide awake, the night sky in your eyes

I's as lit as the stars in your eyes

(...they swim above us.)

omitted

Worry settles to the bottom while we float on the top

Our troubles had tumbled to the floor of the lake

We lay down to look up above

as we lay on our backs in the craft up above

The stars are painting scenes that only we see

if the stars carved a scene from the space in-between

On a canvas of sky with a paintbrush of love

then the night was a canvas, and the paintbrush was love

(She told everyone what she saw...)

Close your eyes, close your eyes, sweet love

set adrift as the stars swim above us

It's time to head back but we circle around

We made to head back but were all turned around

Sometimes the stars beg you to stay

like the stars, in there way, still had much more to say

But you must listen close if you're to hear what they spoke

So we listened real close as to hear what they spoke

The stars are in us, we are they

but the stars were in us, or perhaps we in they

(...a candle from space)

Close your eyes, close your eyes, sweet love...

Child's Play - 3rd installment of the Kickstarter Campaign Collaboration Reward

Here is the 3rd collaboration from my Won Over Frequency Fundraiser Campaign:





Regarding the lyrics: I received a clump of lyrics from Brandon Murphy at the end of October, 2010. The song was to be the story of he and his best friend, Jason, highlighting their dedication to musical collaboration over the years. The first block of lyrics he sent me was very short; I struggled to find a narrative arc that would span several verses.  At my request, Brandon and Jason provided me with a lengthy backstory to their relationship and growth in music together and apart. I spent a fair amount of time paraphrasing their lyrics and story into what would be the first two verses. By the time I had finished the second verse, the music sequencing and sample-based production (which I so rarely employ) was quickly become central to the process, getting me amped the way it used to when I played with my first sampler, the MS-1 (with $189 5.4mb Flash card), back in 1997.

One night when some old friends were at the house horsing around, I played the track for them and told them I was at a standstill with the narrative. We got to riffing and one thing led to another and Brian challenged me to include the tracklist from Def Leppard's Hysteria in the lyrics. Then he challenged me to include the phrase "Tibetan checkerset." One thing led to another and we had formed an entire verse of ballistic stream-of-consciousness... nonsense. The next day I set about to craft a serious verse, but the more I listened to the debauchery verse, the more it made me smile. After a few days of mulling, and adjusting the production to highlight my favorite parts, I have decided to leave it intact because I think I have inadvertently captured the essence of what Brandon and Jason wanted to celebrate, what making hip hop was for me and my friends back in our teens: the joy of lighthearted fun-focused collaboration - no matter how ridiculous or non sequitur.

Regarding the music: in celebration of Brandon and Jason's love of hip-hop, I decided to shoot for a Public Enemy-ish approach to the track, collage-ing the music from a few of hip-hop's most widely sampled tracks (like Bob James' 'Take Me to the Mardi Gras' and The Sugar Man Three's 'Funky So and So'). To make it challenging I tried to cut them up in ways that left them unrecognizable. As a nod to Brandon's most hated horror film (which played a pivotal role in the boys' first impressions of each other), sections of the theme to Child's Play were used prominently. I used a lot of "dirtying" production techniques to give it edge: over-saturation, copious amounts of side-chaining, and drastic automated EQs.

Child's Play
No one knows how it started

cause it started like a dream

with a seven dollar mic, panty hose

for a pop screen

holed up in the Wreckhouse crafting beats

can't hold back, trying not to clip the P's and T's

sick with the disease of first-time rhyme steez

rappin' bout the underage booze n' weed

it was all about the growth, not about the cheese

cutting every note like blood up on the keys  

It was Child's Play

It was Jay on the mic, and Murph on the beats  

On occasion did they trip up? CAUCASIAN PLEASE

but you're never gonna rise if you never take a knee

every stumble was a lesson for a new degree

stayed humble while they the dressing down the wack MCs

what's it take? What you got? check the inventory

they only need a kick and a snare, bass line or a chord 

always about the story never 'bout the glory
it was Child's Play

"When you left for school I felt dead inside

'cause every inch that you gave me made me feel So Alive"

Love and Rocket

plugging sockets

Women

Rocket

Animal

Love Bites

Pour Some Sugar On Me

Armageddon It

Gods of War

Don't Shoot Shotgun

Run Quiet Riot

Bang Your Head 

Cum on Feel the Noize

Don't Wanna Let You Go

Slick Black Cadillac

Love's a Bitch

Battle Axe

Let's Get Crazy, Thunderbird

Tibetan checkerset, 

Depeche Mode sweater vest

better yet, 

Love and Rockets (again)

plugging sockets (again)

Women, Rocket (again)

Pentax Tampon cronics

Nico Icon Cannon Dannon brogurt

put some fruit on the bottom

where's my mic steez at?  

I still got em

bite these Nuttz™

War Pigs got me 

Paranoid

Planet Caravan

Iron Man

Electric Funeral

Hand of Doom

Brain Salad Surgery

Toccata 

S.T.I.L.L... You Turn Me On (to fruit)

Jack the Stripper

Fairies Wear Boots 

and these boots were made for Christopher Walken

no more cowbell, more face/LandCamera/man-blocking

CHILD'S PLAY
[slap it]

Kevin's Moment - 2nd installment of the Kickstarter Campaign Collaboration Reward

When Kevin George sent me this paragraph for his lyrical contribution to our collaboration, I admit I was stumped:

'I'll see you later,' she says.
'hopefully,' he says, awkwardly laughing.
'you will,' she quickly and seriously replies as if she knew it was coming.
'you better,' he says.

she never once looks back at him, keeping her back to him the whole time.
she seems to be holding her emotions back the entire time. Or so he tells
himself.
she looks through her phone then drives away.
he watches until she is gone from view. gone for good.

In his email Kevin wrote, "It is really just a basic description of a moment. Feel free to use them as just a general outline if you want." There really wasn't much to go on as far as a narrative or rhythm was concerned, so I decided to focus the piece on the impact of the interaction, rather than its context or content.

I took the dialogue of the female and assigned it to a thin woodwinds section of two flutes and one oboe. I took the dialogue of the male and assigned it to a heavy-handed brass sections of six french horns and four English horns. I wrote call-and-response melodies for the two sections, matching the notes to the number of syllables and following the perceived pitch inflections of the characters. I set the tempo so that the whole exchange would last 22 seconds because that's about how long I think this kind of interaction would take. Then I wrote an accompaniment for four double basses, eight cellos, four violas, and eight violins that ends on a very unresolved and abbreviated diminished chord.

Since there is no way I can afford to bring musicians into a studio for these pieces, I synthesized and mixed the short piece in my bedroom. The final, crucial step was to stretch the resulting mix out to 13.6363636363... times its original length (the infinite decimal meant to suggest endlessness without making the user actually listen to this song forever). This stretching of the piece is meant to simulate the perpetual reflecting of the narrator, the picking of a scab, elongating all of the once-tiny dissonant nuances of the weaving lead voices.

Kevin's Moment by gavincastleton

TooForSix - 1st installment of the Kickstarter Campaign Collaboration Reward

This is the first of six collaborations that I'm sworn to complete from my Won Over Frequency fundraiser last fall. It's a song called TooForSix, and the lyrics were (mostly) provided by Ryan Dutkus of Canada, one of the biggest supporters of my work dating way back.

TooForSix by gavincastleton

It's been a very challenging and eye-opening process! Ryan sent me some lyrics, and then (at my request) a line-by-line explanation for them. I cut them up a bit, paraphrased, and rhythmetized them into a format I thought would tell the story clearly enough.

I would classify this as a "coming-of-age" song, so I adopted an ever-expanding instrumentation: first just acoustic guitar and voice, then adding drums and synth and additional vocals, and eventually a pile of percussion, glockenspiel, electric bass (my first new instrument purchase of 2011!), and rhodes. In the last two verses I liberated the time signature to compliment the introspection and developing spirituality unfolding in the lyrics.

I did this all in my bedroom and it took about 19 hours, not counting 4 mix revisions.
Here are the lyrics we ended up with:

TooForSix 
There was never any room on the strip for me to ride
always a bus in the front, a truck in the back, and a Becks on every side,
A simple stretch of lane was all I needed
To take control of the game and make my way on a 10-speed.

Those were the best times that I ever had: two wheels good, four wheels bad

There was never any shortage of excitement
There was never a need for something more
I had more friends than I knew what to do with
but with no love to show I won the battle, but lost the war.

That was a choice that I had to make: to love something so strong, it breaks.

Six long years and what's the result?
I'm burned out, churned out from the growth
and I learned more than I thought I'd ever know,
but I'm a hardened man cut from the same stone as Foucault.

This is the first step that I take: a head first dive into the wake.

This stage of moving on and growing up and looking out
took so long to come my parents numb and start to doubt
but I'm solid now, got me a job, and I'm learning lots,
and I'm through with trying to be something that I'm not.
This is the next step that I have to take, and I don't regret one mistake.

Murmur

When the sails of your tall ship
match the stillness of the water
from the petals of your small lips
falls the flower of our daughter

and you smile the whole way back
and you smile the whole way back

when the bugs in the tall grass
fan your face in the hot sun
you will walk down the rock path
touching moss with your thumb

and you smile the whole way back
and you smile the whole way back
and you smile the whole way back
and you smile the whole way back

when that sunset through the oak tree
paints a leopard on the vast earth
you will wander in your bare feet
to this old heart murmur

Killer's Blood

Don't know how I got here
I can't find a way out
I'll live through tomorrow
If I can kill tonight
I'm low on life
but I can still get high on Killer's Blood
Killer's Blood

Not for drugs or money
not for sex and love
I'm hailing down on heaven
from my hell above
it's napalm on the brain and in my vein it's Killer's Blood
Killer's Blood

I know there's a story line that I'm supposed follow
but structure in destructiveness - that makes no sense at all
it's payback for the way that I've been cut down every single day
when they
take
me
down
they better do it right:
Scorch the earth,
black and white,
slow mo dying,
Five-star crime:
it's a sure sign of Killer's Blood
Killer's Blood!

hard copies of Won Over Frequency available now

Hard copies of Won Over Frequency are now available here. They feature the incredible artwork of Aaron Nagel, Brendan Bell, Justin Muir, and Lorna Carman documented in this Making Of video:

I Only Haunt

Late last night I packed my bags and left your place without even a note
well you'd had too much to drink last night and so the seams began to show
so I told you all the things that you should never ever ever want to know
and you told me that you love me so now it's time for me to go

The slightest hint of love and I'm gone
I've been through enough to know
that I can't give you what you want
I don't love, I only haunt

Your friends they tried to warn you that I wasn't being true
but you romanticized us like that dead boy you wear as a tattoo
and you were sure that you would crack me like the back you never had
but I would prove to be as bastioned as that bastard of a dad

The slightest hint of love and I'm gone
I've been through enough to know
that I can't give you what you want
I don't love, I only haunt

Well I left your town with laundry done and all my debts were paid
I was heading for mistakes out there that I had yet to make
and now the past is creeping up on me but I am not afraid
'cause I'm alone at last, lying in this ballad with an album for a grave

The slightest hint of love and I'm gone
I've been through enough to know
that I can't give you what you want
I don't love,
no I don't love...
and this ain't love... it's just a song.

Lenny

If I take this baby bird in my hands
she'll sing that crushing song I can't understand
it's not that I can't love her - in fact I can
but I crush what I hold dear
in the palm of my hand

As big as life she'd like to be
but I've bigger bones stuck 'tween my teeth
and I am baffled by this pickled pill:
I try and try to hush the thrill,
but if I don't come the violence will.
Brave, brave baby bird,
why are you so still?

If I hold this baby bird in my hand
she'll be another song I write to right a wrong

Racing Trains

We're parallelin' tracks that we sniffed out yesterday
blocking out the sun with the .99 shades
got no place to go but we drove fast anyway
honkin' a salute to the man in the blue suit -
the man with the hat that the Union Pacific pays

---I was too careless just there to think of clever things to say for this whole song
so I just---

Keep on
keep on
keep on
Racing Trains
keeps me young
makes me seem invincible to my son

I'm down on my luck if by luck you mean hygiene
I could spring for a bath but I'd rather keep the car clean

Clean on
clean on

clean break from the fog that I felt back home
and break through the screen of my old broken cel phone

Break on
break on
break on

Racing trains
keeps me young
makes me seem invincible to my son

Racing trains...

The Song You Didn't Write

I'm not trying to be cruel
but you wanted the truth so I'm here telling you
that you're no good for me.

and you're not a bad guy
but the harder I try to be here with you
the less of you I see

and you work yourself sick
but the cost of assiduousness is as high
as your head is thick

I'm so sick of explaining you to my friends

If you come to your senses
or they finally leave you
you'll find it's a blessing, and not quite a curse
'cause I'm just a lesson you had to learn.

You sing all the right things
but your honesty stings
and the real you -
it's somewhere inbetween

Well your heart isn't broken
it just hasn't quite woken up
since you laid it to rest
so many Christmases ago

and I tried not to care
when you laughed at my hair
but I needed something just to prove you're aware
that I'm falling apart
making sense of your heart

don't wait for my call
I have released you
don't wait for my call
I have released you.

A girl who's in love
she sees what she wants to
well you say you're in love with me
but I don't believe you
I don't believe you
I don't believe you

If you come to your senses
or they finally leave you
you'll find it's a blessing, and not quite a curse...
cause I'm just a lesson you had to learn.

Why Is It So Hard?

Why is it so hard?
Why is it so hard?
Why is it so hard to believe someone loves you?

Consider the cutter ant
harvesting the jungletops
twice his weight in toxins
hauled home to his queen.

Now consider the pyramids
tuned to an F sharp
carved into blocks with
tools we've never seen.

So why is it so hard?
Why is it so hard?
Why is it so hard to believe someone loves you?

Consider the fractals
swirled into cornfields
speaking in ciphers
ten thousand years old.

Now consider the dinosaurs,
god-sized and lawless,
cut down and buried
by something unknown.

And if all these things are possible
and miracles are commonplace
then why is it impossible
to love what you are?

Why is it so hard?
Why is it so hard?
Why is it so hard to believe someone loves you?

Grandhands

Winding down the coast of Oregon
I slowed up and pulled off the road just to take it in
the drive so perfectly painted that it can't be true
I don't know how to appreciate it but know how to look like I do

I don't deserve this kind of view
I don't deserve this credit card
I don't even deserve the stream that's running through my own back yard
myGrandpa's waiting down in Waldport so I start the car
and we turn off to Albany before we see the first star
he points out the redwoods where they stand
but I just watch his hands

In the morning tiny cousins climb me like their private mountaintop
Grandpa pulls them off me long enough for eggs and sausage
I go out to see the chickens while my cousins clean the horses' stalls
Grandpa fills the Thermos, tickles every child, and then we're off

We drive into the sunrise
so I can hardly see
the most Terminator of sunglasses
myGrandpa hands to me

If I squint into old age, will my eyes be like his
falcon eyes with 1000 crows' feet
if I don't buy a proper toothbrush, and I keep with the ice cream
can I have all his gold teeth?

We don't barely speak 'til Idaho
NPR is on the radio
when he speaks he snorts and coughs and spits
what he says is wise before he says it

and here in the car
it's nice to feel nice and small again
hoping I grow into him and his hands

Interview with The Frederick News Post

Get won over by “Won Over Frequency”
By: Sandra Bedynek: Sound Check in the Frederick News Post
Originally published September 27, 2010

Occasionally, an artist comes along that isn’t afraid to step outside the standards and rules set up by the music industry. Gavin Castleton is just that kind of artist, and his tenth studio album entitled, “Won Over Frequency” is just that kind of album.
Each song benefits from the fact that Gavin Castleton is not only a gifted lyricist, but also layers his songs with music and instruments that continue to keep you interested. Previous albums from Gavin Castleton have had a strong underlying narrative or central theme, and while this album allows its songs to stand alone, his effectiveness for getting an idea across has not changed. The songs all feel substantial in what he is trying to say, and have an open and honest quality to them that make them very relatable.
One of my favorite elements of this album, though, is in the details. When Gavin Castleton builds on his own music and intensity, waiting until the end of the song to reach a musical peak without ever receding. It builds a sense of urgency and passion that almost makes you lean forward as you listen and wait for the next song. Track number 3 “The Crier” is probably the best example of this rise in musical tension.
Anyone would be hard pressed to put this album into one particular style or genre, and I think that is one of the highest compliments I can pay it. It is unapologetically creative in a way that I wish more artists were willing to be, the music industry could certainly benefit from it.
Recently, Gavin Castleton was nice enough to give me his time and answer a few questions regarding his new album and upcoming tour. For more information please be sure to visit www.gavincastleton.com.

FNP: This album seems to differ from some of your previous albums in that it doesn’t have a strong central narrative or plot underlying it. Which style of writing and recording do you find comes more naturally to you, and did you have to approach the writing and recording process differently?

GC: When I finished Home, I said to myself and those involved, "My next album will be the opposite of Home." I didn't know it was sense, I just knew that Home felt like I'd worked something out as far as I wanted to take it, at least for the time being, and I wanted to stretch in an opposite direction. I'm not sure which approach feels more natural to me... but I think that if an approach starts to feel very natural to me, then it's time to try something else.

The writing was very different than Home, but the recording process was very similar, albeit less grandiose. In the writing process, those songs just came when they came, and they were about whatever they wanted to be about. I wrote Killer's Blood because I was playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto 4, suddenly. It didn't matter to me how it would relate to its sonic siblings, I just wanted to celebrate the joy of mass murder. Whereas in Home, everything had to fit into the big puzzle just so, down to the key of the song, the tempos, and the character development.

In regards to the recording process, I once again had musicians track the parts for multiple songs in one session, used similar tones and instrumentation on different songs to aid in continuity throughout the record, and worked both in and out of professional studios, taking on as much of the workload as I could to keep the budget low and the quality high. I'm a little obsessed with efficiency when it comes to recording. I don't really experiment in the studio.

FNP: This album has a lot of musical layers and collaborations on it. Is that going to make it a challenge to play live, now that you’re getting ready to tour in support of it?

GC: Actually, of all my records, this album should be the easiest to perform live. This is the first album in which I recorded many songs that had already been played live for a year or more. Every other album was entirely new material at the time of its publishing. And aside from that fact, I arranged them with live performance in mind, trying to stay close to the golden rule of good songwriting "a good song can be well represented with just one instrument and voice."

FNP: You can always hear varying influences in your music and albums, what trends (or lack of) do you find inspiring in the music being made today?

GC: I'm not interested in most of the music being made right now. It feels fashion-driven, reactionary, and recycled to me. I'm finding more inspiration from movies, the Internet, family, and relationships at the moment. If I did have to point at musical influences for Won Over Frequency, I would just say that I wanted the compositions to be more akin to those of big 70s and 80s pop writers like Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, Stevie Wonder, and Steely Dan, than anything you'll hear coming out this decade.

FNP: How long of a process was this album, from writing it to final mixes and the artwork?

GC: Some of the songs date back to 2007, but most of them were written within the last year. The actual recording/mixing/production of the album took about a month. It is the fastest album I've made, I think. A lot of that has to do with no label involvement, and the manic pressure I tend to put on myself.

FNP: You had a lot of support from fans in finishing this album. Does that allow you a sense of freedom creatively, or do you feel extra pressure to put out an album that will make them happy?

GC: Good question! I think that people are drawn to an artist who is strong enough to make herself happy, and conversely, people are a little turned off by someone who panders to them. Subconsciously, I'd guess that I picked this career path because it means I DON'T have to work for anyone else. My blood is adverse to subordination.
The support of my listeners on this record was huge for me - it made me value myself and my work more at a time when I felt a bit hopeless, and it made me feel better understood, by perfect strangers no less. I have the exact kind of listeners that most artists dream about - people who truly want me to follow my own instincts and diversify as much as possible - and I would prefer a small group of those kind of listeners over a large group of drones any day.

The Crier

I'm always thinking 'bout your death
wonderin' how it's gonna be

not so much how it's gonna go for you,
but what it's gonna do for me

I think about the tragedy,
huffed out in the messages I left for ex-lovers
the cryptic status updates posted to invoke the most sympathy in others and the desper---

HEY
don't look at me that way
you're due to die some day
and if you've gotta go
don't do it easily
let's make a melodrama
monetize the eulogy
I'll write a poem about it - I mean a hit song
I want the world to know
just how hard it's gonna be for me to carry on
and be whole again in the role of The Crier

I don't want to bring another dog home
that's the last thing I need
best to leave it alone

not that I would breakdown
but I'd have to shake down all the new sheets

ya I see what you mean
about publicized grieving
but I've got a big mouth to feed and
--- what ----
you don't see a profit in the legacy?
I know if you could speak
you'd say it's too soon
but it's the right time
to reach the consumer
these t-shirts ain't gonna sell themsel--

HEY
don't look at me that way
you know how I get paid

It happened slow at first
a couple bulletins
I got some comments back
I wanted more of them
they made me feel as if
my life was more important
when life was boring
I resorted to distorting it, yo
I started posting pics
I made a video
I hit refresh to check my hits every minute or so
I look for validation in that heart-shaped icon
it's a long ride hustlin' down that short road I'm on

I was stronger when I didn't have a feedback loop,
I could hear my own truth
now I long for the self-assured oblivion of youth,
when I didn't have to sweat that click-through
when the line between the marketing and artistry is blurred
the heart of your art is obscured

Are You Brave?

Are you brave?
Brave enough
for my love?
For my love?

Can you walk through walls?
Can you stop a train?
Can you catch a bullet in your mouth?

Well then how do you suppose...
how do you suppose...
well then how do you suppose you're gonna settle me?
No, you won't settle me.

Are you brave?
Brave enough
for my love?
For my love?

Can you stay without hope?
Can you give without take?
Can you love without a guarantee?

Well then how do you suppose...
how do you suppose...
Well now how do you suppose
you're gonna settle me?
You ain't gonna settle me!
No, you won't settle me!
You won't settle me!
no, you won't settle me.

The Making of the Artwork for Won Over Frequency

I just finished editing this video about the making of the artwork for Won Over Frequency. It's such an honor to be visually represented by no less than four extremely talented folks: Aaron Nagel, Lorna Carman, Brendan Bell, and Justin Muir.
If your connection will allow, I highly recommend viewing this in HD full screen; there's so much tiny detail that can go unnoticed when such a beautiful piece is forced into unforgiving bandwidth:

Pre-order my New Album, Won Over Frequency

Here I am, nearing the end of production on my 10th solo record, Won Over Frequency, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that I will be releasing this record without label support. This is not worrisome, as I have been doing so since 1996, but the reason I'm coming to you for help is this: after the advancements I made with my last album, "Home," in regards to production value, I can't stand the idea of regressing and putting out an inferior sounding record. I think I can safely say that every solo record I've made sounds better than the one before it, and this one should be no different.

To date I've spent $3860 out of pocket. I've put together a bare-bones budget that will allow me to finish my new full-length album for far less than a major label record but without sacrificing any quality. Your donations will pay for a little bit of equipment, a little bit of musicianship, a little bit of studio rental time, and a lot of professional mixing and mastering. I have cut every other corner that I can: engineering most of the tracking sessions myself, editing everything before it reaches mixing, paying my musicians with burritos and false promises of fame and fortune.

If I'm able to make my Funding Goal of $4600, this album will be completed and released to the public just before my east coast tour that starts in September (myspace.com/gavincastleton for dates). If I'm able to raise more than the Funding Goal, I will buy my musicians more burritos, and then spend the remainder on publicity to help spread the word about this new record.

Scared, Scared, Scared

I can't stay
I should go
I can't make
this house
a home.
every leaf on
every tree
along our stream
reminds me of her
oh, I cannot help it
this house is so fucking haunted
but I'm not scared of ghosts
but I am scared
scared scared
of being alone.

before bed
when I pray
I don't ask
for anything
I give thanks
for shorter days
and making sure that Lumas stays
oh, if he were to leave soon
I'd set fire to our bedroom
and I'm not scared of smoke
but I am scared
scared scared
scared scared scared
scared scared scared
of being alone.