One day way back in 2008, a nice man named Jason contacted me on a social media platform called MySpace and asked if I had any songs that I’d been working on that I might like to record at his studio.
“Heck yes!” I said.
I had just started to figure out how to record myself on a Mac at home and was getting excited about some of the songs I’d made up, but I was recording everything using the built-in PowerBook mic and it sounded like crap—my own beautiful, hissy crap, but alas…
Jason said that he had some really nice microphones and a couple decent acoustic guitars that I could use if I wanted to come over to his place in Wisconsin and lay some things down.
Amazingly enough, he was willing to do this for free. (Mind literally blown.) See previous essay about my being a lucky bastard.
A date was set (I believe it was an early Saturday morning) and I vaguely began to think about what songs I would record.
The night before the recording session I ended up working till about midnight at the restaurant
(I was working at the 112 eatery at this time), and I was stressed because I hadn’t adequately rehearsed the material, let alone decided on which songs to record.
When I got home from work I made a list of songs and started practicing while sipping on a bottle of Cava that I had purchased from the wine steward at work.
I had a gay old time communing with the songs and the spirit of the bubbles.
I turned in for to sleep at about four in the morning, excited about the prospect of the next day’s session.
When the alarm went off at 7:45 a.m., it felt like someone had driven a train spike into my head and dumped an ashtray into the crevice.
I drove to the studio in agony.
It proved a magical drive up the Kinnickinnic River Road with heavy rain, thunder and lightning. It was a wild summer storm to match my wildly throbbing headache.
Creeks were raging, culverts were gushing.
Thinking about it makes me home sick.
By the time I arrived, the storm abated some and the prairie wildflowers were calling the sun out for service.
The headache was still splitting the hemispheres, it seemed.
Jason Was a gracious host and welcomed me in to get set up.
His wife and kids were there in a cabin and we had hotdogs together —it may have been the best hotdog I’ve ever had.
That old Sinatra quotation came to mind as I began to feel less crappy with more water, coffee and hot dogs.
Jason and I retreated to the studio and began to record songs.
On a few occasions he asked if I would like to try to record an alternate version. I said that I felt bad using up so much memory. He said that he had several terabytes of memory available there. (Mind literally blown.) I still refrained from alternate takes.
He had a nice Martin guitar and a sweet Gibson guitar and I used my own Guild for a song or two.
The microphones were fancy and it was a lovely space with high wooden ceilings and large windows looking out onto the prairie.
At the end of the day he gave me a CD with ProTools files of all the songs and wished me luck. I was so grateful to him and remain so. Thank you, Jason!
At that time in my life I didn’t really know how to take those ProTools files and do anything with them so I called on Bryan Hanna, who had produced “Kiss Life on the Lips,” to see if he would consider mixing these files—these mixed-up files—and adding a little reverb etc. etc. He agreed to do that and the song that I am sharing with you today is the result of this chain of events.
I hope to release an album with all of those tracks someday, but for now I will share this song: “Lazy.”
The poetics of this song might seem weak, rhyming crazy with lazy, but when I wrote it I felt it and the feeling seemed real.
And listening back yesterday to a whole bunch of songs to see what I would include in this week’s version of “From the Mixed Up Files of Mr. Matthew T. Schindler,” this “Lazy” sounded good to me, if not a little crazy.
So please go to the Bandcamp page and listen to this song and my lazy ego will be gratified.
That is all.
I remain your humble servant
OX&C,
Faux Jean
lyrics
LAZY
She thinks I’m lazy
It’s all that I am
Won’t life a finger to save my own skin
Save my own skin
It’s so thin
So thin…
Baby
You’re crazy!
I think she’s crazy
It’s all that she is
Tries to live through me and all my mistakes
And only mistakes
That she sees
In me…
Baby
If I could just lose my mind
And you could learn to waste time
Then maybe we’d be okay but still I don’t know…
Faux Jean is singer-songwriter from Duluth Minnesota who currently resides near the border of Mexico. He is kind of a stay-
at-home dad slash dilettante coming out of hibernation and releasing music with greater frequency as time speeds up. Faux Jean cut his teeth in the fertile Minneapolis music scene in the early aughts before settling down to family life. He likes to draw and dance and and and!!...more
My old band Steel Shank opened for this Canadian duo at the Uptown Bar in Minneapolis back in '96, we swapped CDs. I've listened to these songs and luxuriated in their harmonies a thousand times.***** Faux Jean
Sharp, smart lyrics set to ’60s rock melodies, the latest from Daily Worker is the sound of yesterday with a contemporary edge. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 6, 2023
This batch of quarantine recordings by Texas musician Daily Worker recalls the classic lo-fi days of GBV, with hissy sonics and huge hooks. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 14, 2020
