THE
STILLNESS OF OVER (1997)
Including
out takes and live tracks |
|
 A
descendent of Doc Holiday, a blond with a Marilyn Monroe glow,
so smart her nickname was Einstein, daughter of a Marine wrestler
so a kick ass fighter, Debbie Haliday was the founding drummer
of Lucid Nation.
Ronnie and I were already playing together in a band called Cat
Cult that was briefly courted by Columbia Records even though
we never played a show. (Those recordings will go up near the
end of the Hundred Song March.)
We met Debbie around the same time we met Revolution Rising, an
art collective of former riot grrrls out to change the world.
They changed our world. We became a band.
Lucid Nation’s first show was a Revolution Rising fund raiser
at Cell 63 opening for local riot grrrl favorites Tummyache and
Crown for Athena.
Next we opened for the mighty Team Dresch in a downtown art gallery.
Then we opened for the legendary Bikini Kill in Montebello. We
toured the west coast, playing seven riot grrrl conventions one
summer.
But then like a change of seasons our luck seemed to sour. Back
home in Los Angeles, Debbie’s apartment was broken into
and ransacked. Her twisted tiara was left on her bed. Her gun
was stolen. A gang member was shot dead at the door to her apartment
building.
I asked her to move in with me but she was finished with Los Angeles.
She went home to Florida on her way back to college. I didn’t
want her work to disappear forever. So I put out a CD of what
we had.
“The Stillness of Over” has a
triple meaning. Obviously it refers to the exit of Debbie, and
also to the end of the golden age of riot grrrl. But “The
Stillness of Over” is also the instant when a hurdle is
cleared.
The last song on The Stillness of Over, a cover of Sonic Youth’s
“Youth against Fascism” with guest drummer Nick Romero
of The Limeys, was a way to promise we’d go on.
To my shock “The Stillness of Over,” our most primitive
but proud beginnings, wound up being played on over three hundred
college radio stations.
I don’t know where Debbie is or what she is doing. Here’s
something Debbie wrote about riot grrrl and Revolution Rising:
“RR and riot grrl: two different things. Oh this will take
some thinking. My perspective is so fucked up. It was like one
day I was bored out of my mind, suffering under social expectations.
Confronted by what was supposedly my inadequacies as a girl, because
obviously if I was not inadequate I would be a fairy princess
WEEEeee I so pretty gimme gimme. Instilled were the virtues of
what you could say and how you should look and act if you wanted
to be a good girl.
“The next day I saw the
band Crucifying Girl Jesus and my head fucking exploded, I felt
injected; infected with the validation that I didn't want to be
a good girl, I had a voice and art, thoughts and views and ideas
and opinions that no one expected and all of it crossed that line.
A huge part of me had to be censored and played down and I had
accepted that. A riot started in my being, it was amazing, I broke
free of the shame the good girl virtues had dripped on and into
me like acid. I rose up within my self and claimed my tiara in
the name of everything opposed to the good girl. Riot Grrrl is
the tearing down of the good girl super ego “But the good
girl was not the enemy. RR was the vehicle upon which collectively
we conjured thought with art and challenged social norms with
social necessities. We spoke up and out against censors and created
an atmosphere that allowed many different experiences to be shared,
no matter your gender, sexual pref, and nationality whatever.
RR was not a riot, we did not like violence, although we would
not be opposed to it either; what we would be opposed to is not
having a choice. RR was democratic and polite. Being aware of
choice and making informed choices.” |
|
[1]
- Syndrome (live
at Cobalt)
|
Ronnie’s one minute portrait
of growing up with a desperate housewife mom became our second
college radio hit from The Stillness of Over. I contributed the
line: “her best friend she hates went to the famous doctor
got a Picasso face.” This is the first audio recording of
Lucid Nation live.
That’s me repeating meow meow obnoxiously over and over
again during the sound check, a habit I brought into the recording
studio, too, as you’ll hear when the Hundred Song March
reaches our Suburban Legends CD.
I actually researched this meowing habit and found out that at
a French convent in the Middle Ages the nuns meowed together daily
for hours. The priests said it was possession. Was it a flashback
to the ancient Egyptian temple of the cat goddess Bast, where
they had cat shaped bells they'd ring, and say pleasure? I’d
like to think so.
Or were the nuns protesting? Were they spiritual ancestors of
riot grrl? Or did chronic anxiety cause disassociation and hyper-suggestibility,
delusions spun from a common superstition that women could be
possessed by cats as demonic would-be familiars? (Man! Talk about
fear of pussy!) Or was it just a practical joke? |
[2] -
Dad (live at Cobalt)
|
Cobalt is a small all ages club deep in the San
Fernando Valley. Revolution Rising was centered in the East L.A.
and Hollywood areas so this was an outreach they did, having a
zine table at our show in the ‘burbs.
Many people dismissed riot grrrl as a white upper class movement
but Revolution Rising was Hispanic, Asian, and everything else,
plus boys were allowed to join. The founders did zines like Venus
in the Trenches, Meathook, and Housewife Turned Assassin.
They promoted gigs with great bands like Spitboy, Heavens to Betsy,
Los Crudos, and Bikini Kill. They sponsored open wall art shows
where neither hierarchies nor criticism were allowed. They believed
any person is an artist and only needs a chance to prove it.
“O.J.’s gonna knock that chip off her shoulder,”
are my opening words. Simpson said that about Marcia Clark. The
last line of Dad is from John and Yoko’s song Woman is the
Nigger of the World. |
[3] -
Landmark (live at Cobalt)
|
I grew up on a side street just off the boulevard
Cobalt is on, but way east in the barrio. My mom worked as a waitress
on that street. For me family dinner meant having a swivel stool
at the formica bar with a plastic menu to choose from. I drove
to jobs on that street. I was nearly murdered a few blocks north
of it. When I got the chance to get away I never returned.
Singing Landmark back on the boulevard where so much of my life
happened was intense. You can hear how upset I was. I had driven
down that avenue to the school I mention in the song. It was right
next to a dump.
California landmark/ as if anyone could care/stuck on a fault
in here/under fire out there/all my fake family and alleged friends/TV
celebrates another way to pretend/trying to find some kind of
life/Freeway ends in a mile/here at the edge of the world/fire
red sky meets the tide/in the eyes of an angry girl/Ain’t
no childhood there’s only rules/of conformity enforced at
every school/tight lipped hypocrites controlling every dream/steady
diet of violence breeds the elite/hey do you like this little
life? |
[4] -
The Sun Doesn’t Rise
in the Slaughterhouse (live at Cobalt)
|
Debbie’s vegetarian epic was inspired by
an epiphany she experienced watching a cow peacefully graze under
blue sky one Thanksgiving Day. A vision of the cow’s horrible
fate unfolded and she understood how violence is hidden everywhere
in our supposedly civilized society, and how all violence is connected.
For the intro and outro I tried to capture the dying cow’s
groans by scraping the bass strings, while Ronnie used an analog
echo pedal to create the sound of machinery accelerating then
slowing down to the steady pace of the slaughterhouse. |
[5] -
Youth Against Fascism (live at Cobalt)
|
Ronnie’s punked up cover of the Sonic Youth
classic takes on extra meaning when you know he comes from a Holocaust
survivor family. AOL featured a digital art exhibit about his
family’s experiences on their front page one gloomy Saturday.
When I met Ronnie we were both right out of high school; he was
the ex lead singer of a band with a biker following. The same
biker clans that had followed Manson way back in the day. No shit.
Ronnie’s band ruled redneck north valley when he was eighteen.
I think I was his first real friend. I had to civilize him. I
had to teach him to value honesty, compassion and flossing. But
it was worth it; talk about a diamond in the rough.
A veteran of riot grrrl and Food Not Bombs, you’d think
he’d be a shaved punk, but instead he looks like an occultist
guitarist ala early Page or Bolan. He understands astrology and
tarot, yes; and he hunches over a collection of vintage pedals
conspiring haunting sounds for hours. He was even Poet in Residence
at Newtopia Magazine.
But unlike the mystical dreamers of the Seventies, Ronnie loves
business. And he brings true punk values to his job. He helps
people realize their dreams without selling their souls. |
[6] -
Penetration (live at Cobalt)
|
I love the way we miss the second beat of the big
E minor power chord intro; hey it was only our third gig!
Debbie was at a low key rock club once upon a time when three
frat guys leaned in on her roommate, a petite dancer. They were
obnoxious and threatening. Debbie stepped in front of her roommate.
The drunkest frat guy exchanged a few choice insults with her.
Easily bested, he threw a drink in her face. She threw hers back
so he threw a punch.
Debbie neatly avoided his punch and hit him so hard in the face
he fell backwards over a table. His two friends tried to jump
her but met with the same fate. Did I mention that Debbie’s
dad was a champion Marine boxer? Debbie’s nickname was Einstein.
Check out the way she puns penile and penal in this her anti-rape
epic. |
[7] -
Revolution
Rising Spoken Word
|
From the Revolution Rising zine and cassette compilation
(if anybody out there has one please make a copy for me). Danielle
was one of the founders of Revolution Rising. The photos of us
together were taken by Danielle.
Danielle and several other founders of Revolution Rising, especially
Tye, Sisi and Debbie L gave us our first gigs, nagged us into
agreeing to play them, inspired us by sharing good writing and
music, photographed us, and here, even recorded us. I think of
Lucid Nation as a result of Revolution Rising, their mad experiment
with equality gone terribly right. |
[8]
- Dad (Live at Peace and Justice Center)
|
That's me asking
people to move their cars! Check out the girlish “thank
you.” The Theremin sound at the beginning of this track
is Ronnie fiddling with the tuning tone on our Acoustic 360 bass
amp, a refrigerator sized monster with an 18” folded horn
cabinet we lugged all over the west coast. I especially liked
its distinctive aqua formica panel. You can see Acoustic 360 and
370 amps in the background of many shots of The Doors or Led Zeppelin
live. |
[9]
- Angry Pelicans (Live at Peace and Justice Center)
|
As you’ll hear near the end of the Hundred
Song March, at first this was a Cat Cult song Ronnie sang called
The Boulevard in my Backyard. Debbie sang these lyrics as a joke
at an early Lucid Nation rehearsal and found herself singing it
from then on.
Angry Pelicans was Debbie’s nickname for Republicans. She
also shares the street kid trick she used to ward off unwanted
attention. But my favorite line is “no tulips in May.”
How many runaway kids wish they could return to the sanctuary
of a backyard garden? |
[10]
- Penetration (Live at Peace and Justice Center)
|
Debbie’s voice over loudspeakers echoing
across downtown L.A was surreal. The funny thing was even though
the event was created for just such self expression some people
thought we were too controversial for the show because of this
song so we didn't get asked back.
You can hear the doubt in Debbie’s voice when she says “we’re
all equal.” She could see what was happening in the audience.
The stir of discontent among the dominant males. The females were
busy watching children and preparing food.
But then there were a few who helped us move our gear while telling
us how much they liked our music so the gig wasn't a total loss.
We were trying to build coalitions between undergrounds. Open
a flow between scenes. But none of our riot grrrl friends had
dared to make the Peace and Justice show in the barrio.
Penetration was one of two songs we recorded for Chelsea Starr
of Alive Records, the MC5 imprint Greg Shaw had started was going
to sign us but we were so anti-label, so completely programmed
by riot grrrl DIY principles that we backed out of the deal. Sorry,
Chelsea! |
[11]
- Happy (Live at Peace and Justice Center)
|
This song is about the way the so called sexual
revolution didn’t really change the roles people play, it
only opened the door for both genders to get lost in the traditional
stereotypes. I didn’t want to play mommy or daddy, whore
or loser, I just wanted to be me.
I was really into John Bradshaw and Wilhelm Reich at the time.
Bradshaw helped me see the rigid physics of human abuse, the way
it repeats itself through generations; he laid bare the fixed
roles and games.
I first heard of Wilhelm Reich on a Patti Smith Group bootleg
called Teenage Perversity in the Night. I read his books Character
Analysis and Listen, Little Man, and some of his book about how
Fascism happened. To me he is second only to Guy Debord in the
accuracy of his analysis of how our society works and what motivates
irrational violence. His case studies of sexual repression are
both tragic and hilarious. |
[12]
- The Sun Doesn’t Rise in the Slaughterhouse
(Live at Peace and Justice Center)
|
Debbie was born
near where Jim Morrison was born and her way with epic word poems
always reminds me of him. But she was drumming while reciting
all this from memory!
I’m giving you every version of Slaughterhouse and of Penetration
that I have. Future episodes of the Hundred Song March will have
very little repetition. I hope to put up some video of this song
soon performed at our very first show.
I saw Slaughterhouse reduce people to tears live and I shit you
not she converted a few to vegetarianism on the spot. |
[13]
- More Pagan than Babylon
|
When Lou Reed sang Holly came from
Miami FLA in his famous song Walk on the Wild Side he was singing
about the fabulous Holly Woodlawn. Ronnie and I were good friends
of Holly’s for a time. We were lucky enough to escort her
when she wore a glamorous sequined gown to the Director’s
Guild premier of her restored art film Broken Goddess.
The star of Andy Warhol’s Trash also performed spoken word
live backed by Lucid Nation unplugged. This recording took place
in an apartment. We joined in the conversation or commented with
music where it seemed appropriate, and laughed a lot. We overlapped
Holly’s vocal tracks to overwhelm the listener, to suggest
the way Warhol’s factory was overwhelming; but you can turn
your balance to the right or left speaker to hear one narrative
at a time. |
[14]
- Psychedelic Tea Dance
|
A story about Fire Island in the Sixties, but also
a realist snapshot of hanging out with Holly. Live, Holly read
from her autobiography A Lowlife in High Heels while we sat on
the ground or on stools behind her playing along like a tribal
ensemble. “Babies, take me home,” she'd say when she
tired of her meet and greet.
One of my favorite memories of Holly is of a gig she did with
us at a Revolution Rising fundraiser in West Hollywood. One crowd
must have scared off the other because neither Holly’s regulars
nor ours showed up.
After Revolution Rising and Lucid Nation packed up, Holly gathered
us around her like kids at a campfire. She cheered us up, singing
a song about being glad to be you and screw what the rest of the
world thinks. Her affectionate performance was flawless. |
[15]
- Dad (rehearsal)
|
This version of “Dad” features a more
relaxed groove. Imagine sitting on the couch in our rehearsal
garage in Van Nuys. It was surprisingly clean! We'd take breaks
and lay out on the grass in the backyard watching planes glittering
in the sun as they descended toward Burbank airport.
We were playing all over, from showcase bars like Alligator Lounge
on the Westside to neighborhood clubhouses, from rallies at the
Federal Building to the bedroom of zine writer Princess Robin
on her sixteenth birthday.
We were invited to a meeting by Atlantic Records but we took one
look at the faceless monolith housing its offices and hurried
back to our pick up truck. |
[16]
- Penetration (rehearsal)
|
When I first met
Debbie she was a dancer. She had a huge canvas in her apartment
on which she had painted skull-like ghostly figures that seemed
to emerge like smoke from the canvas. Painting these skulls, she
explained, was how she captured the souls of the men who watched
her.
I was really impressed. She was impressed that I was learning
to play bass and guitar. We had no idea there was any such thing
as riot grrrl even though it was in full swing. Thanks to the
band Girl Jesus and the art collective Revolution Rising our eyes
were opened. For me Penetration captures the transformation from
clueless victim to aware artist as well as any song I’ve
heard. Debbie articulates the before and after with equal precision.
Over time Debbie began to feel like she shouldn’t preach.
She felt like the problems she was describing were so monstrous
no hope was possible and that her anthems for social evolution
were actually laughably naive. You’ll hear the irony in
her voice at the end of this track on The Stillness of Over CD
soon. But at this rehearsal Debbie still meant it.
Happy Birthday, Debbie, where ever you are! |
[17]
- Cut and Paste (Living
Room Show)
|
Recorded in an apartment with an old
Teac 80-8 eight track reel to reel, this cut and paste experiment
was inspired by the writing of William Burroughs.
Ronnie’s text is composed of random snips from a variety
of books. I read the ads in the back of the L.A. Weekly. Debbie
threw in random words in Spanish. We all strummed and banged away
on a variety of instruments.
Our goal was to capture the terrifying disassociation (underneath
a torrent of disconnected thoughts) experienced by abuse survivors;
and how the constant sales pitch of the media invades it. |
[18]
- Syndrome (The
Stillness of Over)
|
Are you ready for
better quality recordings? Welcome to The Stillness of Over, the
first Lucid Nation CD.
The next eight songs were recorded on 2” 24 track at Big
Scary Tree in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, a hell hole of a studio
with a great sound just around the corner from where Al’s
Bar used to be. Most were later mastered by Jack Endino of Nirvana
fame for Public Domain: The Best of Lucid Nation.
Big Scary Tree is a weird place. In the back, up rickety stairs
like ladders, are several rooms like hobbit holes, constructed
of 2 by 4’s, a cluster of rented flops inhabited by mysterious
musicians and artists. The place was always freezing cold and
you could expect the electricity to blow out at least once a session.
To make it even more fun, we didn't have enough budget to go back
and fix mistakes!
But I enjoyed being within walking distance of Little Tokyo. The
shops had lots of Hello Kitty and other fun stuff, and the blocks
of small family run restaurants were a good place to hash out
the next stage of recording over some hot miso and brown rice.
Syndrome was the theme song for a NYC public access sk8 show in
1999, and for a ho boarding DVD by Cocaine Crazy Productions in
2006. |
[19]
- Dad (The Stillness
of Over)
|
This was one of Lucid Nation’s
biggest college radio hits. CMJ #8 most added, it got played on
over 350 stations. It’s also the first song I ever wrote!
When the European television network ARTE chose me as one of three
influential young underground female artists they filmed Lucid
Nation performing this song thirteen times in a row! That’s
definitely my endurance record for screaming goddamnit at the
top of my lungs.
I got an email from a musician who got busted for drugs in Texas.
He was serving time. He said the black inmates spent hours swapping
rhymes. They bugged him until he rapped the only thing he could
think of: Dad. They liked it so much they rapped it back at him
upon his release. |
[20]
- Landmark (The
Stillness of Over)
|
One of the weirdest things about being in Lucid Nation was going through a stretch where the west coast riot grrrl infantry decided to make war on us with snippy anonymous message board insults, mass walk outs, false accusations, and other colorful reminders of Salem. But their generals (Kaia, Jody, Donna, Melissa, Jean and David, Madigan, Phranc) never stopped being our friends. |
[21]
- Them (The Stillness
of Over)
|
A rebel yell for people living lives forced on
them, Them was the first song Ronnie wrote with Lucid Nation.
We could barely play it at first! I have cassette tapes of our
hilariously inept beginnings.
Ronnie writes about the struggle to be authentic when society
(and most families) try to reduce everyone to interchangeable
pieces. I guess not being allowed to be you would have special
significance for a kid whose family was almost wiped out in the
Holocaust.
Fans of black and white science fiction classics will immediately
be reminded of giant ants not just by the title this song shares
with the movie, but by the guitar feedback Ronnie lays across
the track in imitation of their sound. |
[22]
- Penetration
(The Stillness of Over)
|
When we first met, Debbie had an abusive boyfriend.
After she kicked him out, he came back one last time to yell at
her for, among other things, daring to think she could be a drummer.
He reminded her that with all his professional bands and friendships
with rock stars, he had never even been on the radio.
Well, the Great Goddess of Rock and Roll smiled upon Debbie that
day for at that exact moment KXLU played this track. Debbie heard
herself on the radio for the first time but not the last. Today
this song and others with so called obscene content are supposed
to be banned from college radio thanks to rules imposed by the
FCC. |
[23]
- Happy
(The Stillness of Over)
|
I like the way John Lennon played with words, especially his puns and gender shifts; this song was my first experiment with that.
I had noticed the way potential breakthrough movements in social consciousness like riot grrrl always collapse into mammalian politics, what Cobain called territorial pissings. Ultimately somebody emerges as daddy and somebody else gets to be the loser, and so on. Everything good about the scene dies soon after as the stereotypes play themselves out. |
[24] - Trip (The Stillness of Over)
|
Ronnie’s song about touring the West Coast for the first time was popular with other bands who discovered for themselves how accurately he captured their feelings: the spacey disassociation of constant driving, the draining fatigue, the unexpected epiphanies of beauty and inspiration. But this song is also Ronnie’s diary note for a moment of clarity sparked by riot grrrl.
Of course, he left out charming moments like the truck stop gas station at 4 A.M. at the very end of the tour when Debbie at the wheel interrupted our bickering at the gas pump by growling "get in the truck now!" The whole front of our white Mitsubishi Mighty Max was black with the bodies of grasshoppers smashed as we drove through a swarm on the freeway.
As that tour began, on the way up to Portland, we found ourselves in a long stretch of forest stuck a few cars behind a Forest Ranger’s slow pick up truck with a cherry light flashing and a big lit up sign warning danger ahead stay behind. Debbie stepped on it and swung across lanes, zooming past the shocked Ranger. She tore down that mountain road so fast I was hanging on like I was on the Titanic!
We never encountered a dangerous obstacle or any police fortunately, but thanks to her we did arrive at the break of day at a beautiful meadow with clouds touching it and sun rays dazzling the dew. I saw a majestic vulture on a nearby rock warming her wings in the new daylight, while a local station played The Doors and Jim warned us not to waste the dawn. |
[25] - Grounded (The Stillness of Over)
|
I had the music before I met Debbie. Debbie had written the lyrics as a poem before she met me. They fit perfectly together. We thought it was a sign.
It's one of the best things about being in a band, or any kind of creativity really, the way at times the universe seems to support what you are doing with ridiculously appropriate and useful coincidences. Zine writers know this phenomena, the way the perfect illustration or quotation will fall into your hands. As you'll see when the Hundred Song March reaches our Suburban Legends, Nonpoetic Rain: Live on KXLU, and Tacoma Ballet recordings, love of synchronicity eventually led us to record entire albums in a freestyle dare to create real songs on the spot out of thin air. |
[26] - The Sun Doesn’t Rise in the Slaughterhouse (The Stillness of Over) |
This track is the board mix from the night we opened for Bikini Kill, FYP, Mike Watt’s Dos, and Emily Sassy Lime at Terrazza Jamay in East L.A., our third or fourth gig. Since we were the opening band I was up on stage with my back to the audience setting up amps and pedals before anybody else was there but the sound men (and Mike Watt and Kira).
Somebody asked me if they could borrow my screwdriver. I was so excited I almost blurted out "Omigod I can't believe I'm about to meet Kathleen Hannah" when I realized it was her. When she complimented the tool set I gave it to her not realizing until later it had one of my late father's screwdrivers in it, one of the few things I had from him.
After helping Debbie set up her drums I turned to see hundreds of people standing in what had been a huge empty room. We played well. I didn't realize till much later that L.A. was ours. KXLU played us. Sonic Youth invited us to their sound check at the Palladium where Ronnie sat on the far left and I sat on the far right of the floor while Kathleen sat in the center. They sounded so good. Maybe the best live band I ever heard, on one of those sound check songs. Danny Goldberg wanted to talk to us.
But we had no clue we could have parlayed all that into success. Our heads were full of post riot grrrl isolationism and our hearts were heavy with the troubles of our jobless, sickness-surrounded lives.
After Debbie left listening to this track I realized I had to start Brain Floss Records. I had to make sure somehow that Debbie's genius didn't disappear forever. I'm glad to report that this song still changes lives.
Mastered by Jack Endino. |
[27]
- Angry Pelicans (rehearsal) (The Stillness of Over)
|
Recorded by a local bootlegger who boasted one of the world’s best collections of Nirvana shows (and a huge crush on Debbie). Angry Pelicans was Debbie’s nickname for Republicans. She also reveals the street kid trick she used to keep away predators on the sidewalks of Hollywood.
Debbie played a 1965 blue glitter Ludwig gold key Ringo Starr kit. Her dad was a drummer. When she was little she'd point at Animal drumming and say that's me. Besides knowing her away around L.A. better than us natives, Debbie had all sorts of useful knowledge from homespun remedies to psychological quirks of the dominator culture. |
[28]
- Fortunate Punk (live at The Jabberjaw) (The Stillness of Over)
|
I twisted the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic into a punk song about how it feels to be a girl in a world that loves war and mosh pits. For a bridge I threw in the chorus of an obscure Nirvana song called Opinion.
The Jabberjaw was a notorious all ages club in the dangerous Crenshaw district of Los Angeles where bands like Nirvana, Hole, Sleater Kinney and Rage against the Machine started. Lucid Nation’s first release, a tape demo with a lime green label and glitter stickers, was for sale in the Jabberjaw glass case just before the club was closed down forever by a fire code technicality.
The war against all ages venues in America has all but destroyed what was once a vital and viral scene. You'd think that the record companies and musical instrument manufacturers would have the brains to realize that by supporting a network of all ages venues they would sell more records to kids and encourage more kids to create great bands. Instead rock is cut off at the root. |
[29]
- Broken (The Stillness of Over)
|
Debbie’s goodbye to Lucid Nation and Los Angeles. Why did Debbie leave? Was it because she was so disgusted with scene politics? Was it because a gang member was shot dead at the front door to her apartment building?
Was it because her own apartment was ransacked, her gun stolen, her twisted tiara left on her pillow like a threat? I asked her to move in with me. But she was done with Los Angeles. Last I heard, a few years ago, she was married to a soldier headed to Iraq. She regretted giving up music. I don't know where Debbie is or what she is doing now. Here are her lyrics for Broken.
"Everything's fine behind rose-colored glasses
I'm telling lies but it really don't matter
dreaming of rainbows and days never ending
blueberry pies and really great weekends
car alarms, helicopters, and crack
sirens scream, drunkards dream and crack
drive bys, gangs, spies and crack
traffic lights, moonless nights, and crack
cats wail, christ failed, and crack
phone calls, shopping malls, and crack
prostitution, arrested youth, and crack
politics makes me sick and crack
blueberry pies and lemon popovers
dead or alive I'm living in clover
this is what happens to boys and girls
or hadn't you heard?
everything is fine
I had a dream
fear and lies
what the hell is wrong with me?
my dream: you're here
no fear, no lies
don't cry, I'll try
goodbye my dreams
everything is fine
what was it this meant?"
Debbie wasn't into the drug crack, she was really talking about her broken heart. This is the only recording of Debbie on guitar and of Ronnie on drums. |
[30]
- Youth Against Fascism (live at Brick by Brick) (The Stillness of Over)
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Live at Brick by Brick in San Diego, during the Republican National Convention at an anti-censorship show, opening for former MC5 manager and White Panther jazz poet John Sinclair. John was much taken with our freestyle approach.
Nick Romero was drummer for popular L.A. punk band The Limeys. He stepped in when Debbie left so we could keep playing shows; many of them at the lost all ages club The Impala in Little Tokyo, downtown Los Angeles, where we first started experimenting with full on freestyle 100% improvisation.
Nick’s friend, Yves Lelevier, now guitarist for Kennedy, sometimes played gigs with us. Since he was under eighteen and otherwise wouldn't be allowed inside, the best way to get him in was by putting him on stage! For this show Yves loaned Ronnie his gun metal gray Clapton Strat. Listen to that throaty tone through Ronnie's vintage 100 watt Marshall!
Including this song on The Stillness of Over was our way of saying that Lucid Nation would go on. |
[31]
- Wanderlust at Dusk (Debbie’s last rehearsal)
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We now approach the end of episode one of the Hundred Song March. The following three instrumentals are a peek at what would have been the next Lucid Nation CD with Debbie Haliday. They were recorded at Debbie's last rehearsal with us.
Wanderlust at Dusk was going to be a song about the moment when, despite the hectic demands of work and gridlock, a human being glimpses the peaceful invitations of nature, a reminder of the whole world out there, the almost unlimited opportunities lost in the day to day grind. Everybody wants to walk away into the unknown sometimes.
This was the final song I wrote for the original Lucid Nation. I never used these riffs again. |
[32]
- Snowblind
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I was going to sing this for a compilation of Black Sabbath covers by female fronted bands. This was the first time we played it. Some people hear an odd overtone on this track and other recordings we made around then. They compare it to the sound of a piano pounding out chords.
We first noticed it when we used to rehearse in a building that was over 150 years old. We'd be peacefully rehearsing. Suddenly the room got cold and the dark somehow felt darker. A skin tingling eerie feeling what come over us all at the same time. I hated going to the bathroom there, the place felt like a horror movie waiting to happen.
Listening to rehearsal tapes, hearing piano overtones, we joked that we had picked up an ivory tickler. Whoever this ghostly piano player was he must have liked Debbie because while he did follow us to other rehearsal spaces, the overtones stopped when she left the band.
Since Debbie was related to Doc Holiday I used to say maybe the piano player was the ghost of a Tombstone saloon man come out west. Maybe he died in that dreary building twenty miles north of the Pueblo of the City of Our Lady of the Angels, which even then had long known the nickname Devil's Town. |
[33]
- Last Peach on the Tree (Debbie’s last rehearsal)
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This was the last recording by the original Lucid Nation. At the time we rehearsed in a converted garage. We shared it with bands that played there infrequently so we felt like it was ours. In the backyard were peach trees. All that summer we feasted on the warm ripe peaches. But then when the days grew shorter, the peaches were gone.
Ronnie’s last song for the original Lucid Nation always reminds me of that street of stucco houses, lying on our backs in sunshine soaked grass, the cinder block walls which stayed cool the longest, and the peach trees pinned against sunset, their leaves black with the soot of descending planes.
You can hear how reluctant Debbie was to play as she slows down to a funereal four four. She didn't disappear. She told us she was going home. She was even at Nick Romero's first rehearsal. But then she was gone, and it was winter.
We heard months later from Donna Dresch that she saw Debbie on the train in Washington state. Donna thought Debbie was seething with anger, so much so, she didn't dare say hi though she considered her a friend. It still makes me sad when I think about that because Debbie was alone out there and we were her band.
I was a dipstick then. I hadn't yet studied martial arts. I was ridiculously naive for someone who had been dragged through the gutter. If only I could have been then who I am now. I see now how the door was open to our success but no one was there to guide us and all three of us were too traumatized to realize.
Would I trade the Lucid Nation that happened instead for the one that might have been with Debbie? Would I trade the famous female musicians I've had the privilege of playing with? The series of happy accidents that put me on the cutting edge of integrity? Yes.
Ronnie and I later recorded a scratch version of this song for his brief return to Cat Cult, his own project. The title changed to Mourn, and the song became a eulogy for the painter Conrad Santavicca. More on that near the end of the Hundred Song March, when we explore Cat Cult: the roots of Lucid Nation.
EPISODE ONE: THE END
TOMORROW! EPISODE TWO: AMERICAN STONEHENGE |
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