My Secret Career 20: The First Song I Ever Wrote On My Own, Or Fecund Youth's "The Big Adventure"

To get to the first song I ever wrote without any outside help, I have to talk about my favorite band. And I’m not talking about Fecund Youth.

Shortly after forming Fecund Youth with Tom and Justin in 1984, I discovered The Replacements. To call them my favorite band doesn't really describe my fascination with and love of that group. They perfectly articulated my worldview. Whatever the Swiftiest Swiftie feels about Taylor Swift, multiply that by gazillion. There was no internet, we didn't have cable, all there was for me was music. And The Replacements were at the top of the pyramid for me and it wasn't even close.

The rest of the punk world seemed so buttoned up, oddly conservative. There were rules. It was rigid. If you didn't wear combat boots, have a spiked mohawk, and have a black leather jacket with safety pins holding it together, you were (gasp) a poser. The fact that I was a soccer player made me very suspect in that hermetically sealed little world. The Replacements obliterated all that.

Sure they played loud distorted fast guitar driven songs. Sure they screamed slogans over fuzzed out low-fi recordings. But they also sang country acoustic songs. They used a drum machine. They played piano ballads. They were never the same band twice.

This refusal to be pinned down by a genre spoke to me. I never wanted my own sound to be homogenous or consistent. Sure I loved The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones, Minor Threat, 7 Seconds, etc. Those bands carved out sonic territory that was eclectic but contained. The Replacements? They were all over the place.

So when I got my hands on a tiny keyboard with a built in drum machine, I decided to use it. If Paul Westerberg could use a drum machine, why couldn’t I?

Necessary Sidebar: Living within walking distance of the URI Campus came in quite handy from time to time. One of the traditions of my high school life was walking up to Edwards Auditorium every Friday night to go see a movie being screened in a lecture hall. Three bucks, no popcorn, no concession stand, just a movie and whatever liquor you could sneak in. Tommy D and Rex and I headed out from Linden Drive to see "Pee Wee's Big Adventure". We stopped at a historical cemetery on the way and inhaled a joint. By the time we got to Edwards we were a mess. 

The following is my song lyric diary entry about that night. I turned on the tape recorder, played the pre-recorded bit of music that came with the Casio, and sang "The Big Adventure" over it. Tom was with me and he makes me laugh at one point during the take by hitting me in the face with a blue Nerf ball. 

So Fecund Youth would follow in The Replacements' footsteps in the use of electronics and banned substances. And it sure doesn't sound too punk rock, which is why it absolutely is.

Here is "The Big Adventure" by Fecund Youth. For Tommy D and Rex, who made this song possible.

My Secret Career 33: Rite Of Passage, 1996

New York. Upper West Side. 1996ish.

I wasn’t admitting a lot to myself or anyone else. It took a lot to speak as plainly as I do in this song.

I had been expressing myself like someone transmitting sensitive details across enemy lines. Truth could not be plainly spoken. I twisted my words into impossible knots in order to remain camouflaged.

This was as direct as I was able to be. I avoided reflective surfaces. Every piece of clothing I owned was used in service of a disguise.

The pose was exhausting and exhaustive. The only way to decode the content was to have access to the cryptography program that encrypted the information in the first place.

And even I didn’t have access to that key. This song was a shocking breach of security.

Here is Rite Of Passage off of 1996’s “Beauty Is Ordinary” by Onion.

My Secret Career 22: Mr. McGregor

Fables often have strange messages embedded within them. Messages that might not make much sense to a child.

The story of Peter Rabbit always disturbed me. It should have been an heroic tale of a plucky youngster who successfully stole food from a violent psychopath.

Instead, the tale resolves with Peter being punished by his own mother. The undercurrent of guilt and shame is so unmistakeable that it is not even an undercurrent, it is just the river.

Somewhere along the line I developed my own particular brand of body horror. If you engage with my songs it will be unavoidable. It isn’t subtext so I am not revealing anything here, I am simply laying out the underpinnings of this song.

Yet another one-take, sing and play at the same time recording, here is Mr. McGregor from Onion’s 1995 “Beauty Is Ordinary” album. Put to tape on 103rd Street. Mr. McGregor as the moral police.

Also, this one is lighthearted even though it hides a dirty secret. Just like My Secret Career.

My Secret Career 34: Inspired By A Whore

The title of this post is deliberately misleading but also 100% true. 

In 1996, my first big opportunity in New York came when I was cast as Giovanni in John Ford’s still shocking “Tis Pity She’s A Whore”. The production took place in a storefront on Ludlow Street, back when experimental theater had to coexist with crack addicts instead of Starbucks. 

The concept of the production was genius, courtesy of Frank Pisco (RIP). Post-nuclear 1959’s dystopia. Society has retreated underground to bomb shelters. A twisted power structure has resulted. That twisted power structure is embodied in the “love affair” at the heart of the story.

Spoiler alert, but this play was written in 1626 so gimme a break.

In the penultimate scene of the play, my character murders his sister, who is pregnant with my baby. I storm her wedding reception holding her heart triumphantly and saying she will never be anyone else’s to wed. We used a pig heart dunked in Caro syrup and I can honestly say it might be the single most disturbing bit of stage craft I have ever witnessed or been a part of. 

The audience lined the wall right next to me on folding chairs and I saw each person recoil as I passed them. They had cringed when I sang a Tony Bennett song (“Let’s Fall In Love”) to my sister, her in lingerie, me in boxer shorts, but the heart was something else altogether. 

My fingers slid inside of the valves in order to keep hold of it. It was horrific for me to DO and I know it was horrific to witness. There was no proscenium arch to give some distance. There was an actual heart, human or not, gripped by a raving lunatic less than a foot from their seats.

The twisted sexual politics of this play are difficult to comprehend even in modern times. I cannot imagine how beyond-the-pale this piece was when it premiered in 1626.

All I know is an edgy group of amateurs shocked everyone who was brave enough to come to the Lower East Side to see a classical play called “Tis Pity She’s A Whore”.

It inspired the following song, a love song, a song of a love that can never, should never be.

From 1997’s “Beauty Is Ordinary” by Onion, here is Mint Condition.

My Secret Career 36: The Tourniquet Blues, Summer 1994

I was leaving town. Seems like a decisive move, right? Definitive. Psychological, yes, but geographical to boot.

The end of summer approached and I rehearsed for the show I was playing on my way out onto 95 South. Many of these songs I never performed live in any other context, mostly because they were stranger than the songs I wrote for The Mahoneys, gnarlier, harder to elucidate.

To call any song a “blues” has always seemed sketchy to me, something that signaled meaning in lieu of delivering that meaning effortlessly. I named this one “The Tourniquet Blues” as a nasty wink, and to remind people that blue is the natural color of blood.

Also, musically, technically, formally, this music is categorically NOT blues.

My longings were inchoate, my desires obscure, my dysfunction crippling, my ambition enormous. I was absolutely not ready for prime time. But I knew it was time to jump and I’d just have to learn before I hit the ground.

Which, dammit, I did. But not before I had to sing the blues, baby, sing the tourniquet blues.

The Tourniquet Blues

My Secret Career 37: Fast Whiskey, Or The Mahoneys Let Loose 1993

The Mahoneys had a blast every single time we practiced or played. We all got along, we laughed, the only personal issue in the band was that I had only been playing guitar for about a year and a half and I could barely explain what chords made up the songs I was writing. I was insecure and they were even nice about THAT. Hardly a nasty rock ‘n roll outfit!

One of the first songs I ever wrote was “Whiskey Full Of Sea”, an aggrieved song about some college girl who wasn’t into me. Or, no, she was into me late at night when she missed her fiancé back in her home state and needed someone to walk her home after rehearsal and make out in the hallway of her dorm. Always the hallway.

I wrote this song before I learned to play guitar in earnest. I was a junior, maybe, and occasionally sang with Justin out at his house, but songwriting wasn’t really high on my list. And I wasn’t very high on hers.

But years later once I actually learned to play, the song kept coming back. It stopped being about her and it was just a fun drinking shanty, a lilt, a paean to drinking your troubles away, to drinking in general. And I did quite a bit of drinking just to drink in those days. I miss the attitude, but not the result.

Later, The Mahoneys would take this song and turn it into a kind of elegy. That version opens the “Live From The 20th Century” album and think it really showcases the band.

But we would play the song twice in our set. One way was the standard way. The second? We would just randomly attempt different styles. The song was adaptable. We did AC/DC stomps, reggae drifts, country rambles, whatever floated our boat at that moment.

And this version happened to be caught on tape at one of the two rehearsals we recorded.

In this rendition of the song I make it thru the dorm room door and out of the hallway at last.

Fast Whiskey, from 1994’s “Live From The 20th Century” by The Mahoneys.

My Secret Career 32: The Goddess Of Love And Beauty Lives In Champaign, 1994

“Are you strung out on some face?/Well, I know it ain’t mine” - The Replacements

Truly unrequited love is easier to get over than that murky hybrid that also can exist, where there is always the sense that a tiny struggling ember might catch a breeze and burst into flame.

But more often than not the air stays still, the pulsing red in the ash grows fainter and fainter with each moment and you dread the moment when the cold fully asserts itself.

I was still gathering leaves to throw on the fire when I wrote this song. This is one of the songs I have written that I have absolutely no idea how to play on the guitar. At one point I could pick up a guitar and play this song on command.

Now the ash has long blown away, scattered to everywhere and nowhere all at once. We haven’t been in touch since just after the turn of the century.

Here is The Goddess Of Love And Beauty Lives In Champaign, played live at Theater-By-The-Sea in Matunuck, RI in the late summer of 1994.

My Secret Career 38: It’s Maria’s Heart by The Mahoneys

I knew when I wrote “It’s Maria’s Heart” that it was clearly the best song I’d written to date. I immediately brought it in to rehearsal and One Man Out got to work on it.

But the song was never right. The drummer couldn’t handle it. He was as green behind the kit as I was with a guitar slung across my shoulders. The other two members were great musicians. They tried to buoy us but more often than not the song defeated us.

Then we swapped drummers and became The Mahoneys.

The song took off. Literally. It felt like I was strapped to the head of a rocket. The other three guys were so assured I could just make little stabs at my guitar, adding texture to something that was already full. We would have sounded great if I was just singing and there was only one guitar. The overall effect was devastating. 

If you listen, you will hear us kind of botch the ending. But I don’t even care. It sounds exactly like we intended it to sound. I only wish more people could have heard us in all our glory.

It’s Maria’s Heart, by The Mahoneys, off 1994’s “Live From The 20th Century”. 

In a strange twist of fate, Jeff Bibbo of Granite State grunge/jam legends Groovechild heard an early acoustic version of the song on a cassette I made for my sister, who played it for him in NH where she lived at the time. Nearly thirty years after it was written, Groovechild recorded it and released it right before Jeff passed away. Their version is wildly different from mine, and I am very proud that it stuck in his mind enough to record it. I got to sing it onstage at the concert organized to honor his passing.

Here’s Groovechild’s take on Maria’s Heart.

My Secret Career 18: Turf Farm Kings’ “Plaid Mumbo Tango” 1993? 1992?

This song is a minor miracle. 

We used to routinely play something we creatively titled “The Poetry Game”. Everyone should play it.

Whoever is there at the time writes a title on a scrap of paper. A short phrase, an image, a single word…chef’s choice.

Substances were always involved, either of the liquid or flammable variety. The scraps of paper would be put in a bowl or hat and then one by one you would pull a scrap out.

Whatever was on that paper was the title of a poem that you had to write. After an unspecified amount of time, each scrap of paper would be pulled and each person present would have a pile of poems. All unique but sharing titles. Then you take turns reading your poems aloud.

This particular session was out at Justin’s family home. Nestled between a turf farm and the Queen’s River, this homestead is impossibly bucolic and inspirational. Magic oozes from the place.

A good friend Jim came along for a day hang. We altered our perspectives and then started “The Poetry Game”. All but one of those poems are lost to history. One survived.

Justin had written the phrase “Plaid Mumbo Tango” on his scrap of paper. I don’t often believe in telepathy but the proof is in the pudding.

We each read our respective “Plaid Mumbo Tango” stanzas. Normally I would leave to fate whether you listened or not, but since this is such a wonderful example of groupthink I am going to lay out the lyrics…then you can listen to the finished product if you are still on board.

Stanza One (Justin’s poem-Justin on vocals, Justin on electric guitar, drum programming, 4-track mastery)

Plaid mumbo tango/plaid mumbo tango/plaid mumbo tango/And I’m shakin’ my baby

She say “Plaid Mumbo Tango”/She say “Plaid Mumbo Tango”

I had a sip and now I’m feelin’ fine/plaid mumbo tango/she say “Plaid Mumbo Tango”

“When you get up why don’t you drop me a line?”/Plaid mumbo tango/She say “Plaid Mumbo Tango”

I asked “Do you speak-a my lingo?/plaid mumbo tango/She say “Plaid Mumbo Tango”

Stanza Two (Brendan’s poem Pt. 1-me on vocals)

Hoo cha cha ya hoo/Hoo cha cha ya hoo

Here comes that famous man/Here come that only son/Here come that roller coaster/Here come Dress Shoe Gumshoe Private Eye/Hoo cha cha ya hoo

Don’t cross that famous dick/No double-crossin’ slick/If  Dress Shoe Gumshoe is on the track/You better watch your back

Stance Three or Chorus (Jim’s Poem-Brace yourself, this is genius-still me on vocals)

The girl from Ipanema met me in the cabana/She slipped me the film/It was straight from Havana

She slithered out of the leather and ordered a Pina Colada/Her girlfriend joined the table and performed on the Lady Madonna

Smoke I inhaled was racing my heart/A spy code relayed: Iguana/The night heat overwhelmed me/I awoke to Lola Falana

Stanza Four (Brendan’s poem Part Two-me on vocals some more)

Hoo cha cha ya hoo/Hoo cha cha ya hoo

Oh, he could find your short and curly in the comb of that barstool girlie/He’s not just a dick/He’s a walking, talking magic trick/That Dress Shoe Gumshoe really know his trade/Hoo cha cha ya hoo

Here come that dashing man/Here come that prodigal one/Here come that Sherlock Brain/Here come Dress Shoe Gumshoe/Hoo cha cha hoo cha cha ya hoo

If you mess with Dress Shoe Gumshoe/you will wind up in the can/‘coz Dress Shoe Gumshoe always gets his man

In some alternate universe where even my side projects got attention, this song would have had a goofy video and gone into late-night rotation on MTV.

Turf Farm Kings was extra secret, though, and forever lived on, singing against the backdrop of a little patch of green tucked behind a Colonial home and an ancient river.

Only three of us knew about it until today. Welcome to the club.

Here is “Plaid Mumbo Tango” by Turf Farm Kings.

My Secret Career 17: Sadaharu Oh, 1998

1998.

I was apartment sitting. This temporary transplant left me shaken somehow, as if the removal of everything familiar to me had left an actual hole in my life, a week long cliff I had come upon so suddenly I couldn’t avoid falling over the edge.

My other careers were roaring. I was churning out weekly tongue-in-cheek investigative articles about urban legends on this newfangled thing called the internet. I would get off the phone with the head of the New York City sewer system, having asked if albino alligators were really down there, pop out of the ping pong table/bean bag chair office, hit two commercial auditions and two tv/film ones, then write the copy promoting my latest AOL Urban Legends scoop on the subway ride back to the office.

Someone’s cat needed to be fed though so I was going to be living in Manhattan for a brief spell. Alone. I packed my 4-track and my acoustic guitar up and trekked over. 

And the void that opened up in front of me resulted in the following song.

Named after Japanese great Sadaharu Oh who played his whole career with the Yomiuri Giants. Oh hit 868 home runs, still by far the most home runs by any professional baseball player in any league ever.

But over here, all we knew was Babe Ruth. Hank Aaron. Willie Mays. Ted Williams. This guy outdid them all but viewed from a certain perspective it didn’t even count because it wasn’t in the Major Leagues.

The name popped into my head and it seemed the perfect way to describe where I was at in my life. I should have been on top of the world. By any metric I was a success. I should have been resting on my laurels. Instead I was sweating on a white leather couch and wrestling demons that had won a long time ago.

There in that strange apartment, mimicking a life that wasn’t mine, I wrote and recorded this song at three in the New York morning. If you listen all the way to the end, and you might be the first other than me to do so, you will hear a yell from way below, out on the street, a faint intrusive voice that perfectly reflected how far away from myself I had gotten.

This song was about me and a couple of people but I could barely look myself in the mirror because my soul was out roaming empty desolate streets. 

Proud of the song itself but listening to it is like stepping off into the void over and over and over and o-

Sadaharu Oh.