Music Archive
Live Virtual Concert!
Recently a friend loaned me an acoustic guitar. I reckon it’s time I made use of it.
On Sunday, January 25 at 3:00 PM Pacific time, I’ll perform in a live virtual house concert (my house) which will stream on video through uStream.
I’ll play for forty five minutes to an hour — a bunch of original music, maybe some surprises, too. It’s the first time I’ve performed a full set since 2004!
Admission is free, but I will have a little tip jar set up. Everyone who donates $20.00 or more the day of the event will get high-quality MP3 versions of every original song I play during the show — at least a dozen live songs!
Here’s a little commercial I’ve created for the event. Please embed the video on your own site and anywhere else you can, and mark it as a favorite on YouTube to help get the word out!
If you think you can make it on Sunday, January 25 at 3:00 PM Pacific time, please RSVP:
- Make sure you’re registered as a user at uStream.tv
- Leave a comment on this post letting me know you’ll be there, and be sure to include your uStream username
See you then! It’s gonna be fun!
Watch the Concert January 25, 2009 at 3:00 PM Pacific Time!
If you’re not already logged in at uStream.tv, be sure to change your nickname so I know who’s who in the chat: just type /nick and your name, then click “send.”
Guitar Fund Drive Didn’t Make It… But I Have a Guitar to Play!
Despite the grand and generous efforts of five kind souls, my efforts to raise $300.00 to purchase an acoustic guitar fell short by $200.00. Since I pledged to make it an all or nothing effort, I just got done refunding the folks who donated. Thank you, sincerely — you know who you are.
All is not lost, however, thanks to one of the nicest people I’ve met in the last year or so, writer and podcaster Jonathan Schiefer. Turns out Jon has a very nice Ovation acoustic / electric… and much to my astonishment, he’s offered to lend it to me for as long as I want. I took him up on the offer. Thanks, Jon!
So I have a guitar to play, and I have been, an hour or so a day for the last couple of days. I achieved blackened fingertips today — I haven’t seen those stains on my fingers for some time, or smelled that metallic mixture of skin, wire and sweat coming off my hands. Felt good.
It’s going to be a little while before I “go public” with playing — I am way, mega, totally out of practice. But it feels good to play again — music coming soon.
I know some awesome people. Yes I do.
On The Fade
Words: 07-11-1992
Music: 07-11-1992
What’s It All About?
So the early nineties were a time of letting go and transition and new beginnings for me — and while I was seven months into what would be a nine year relationship, there was still a sense of sadness and mourning in me. Even if you’re putting things behind you that, well, sucked, it can still be traumatic.
Combine that with the fact that grunge was in full swing. I had just discovered a band called Rein Sanction — in particular their album “Mariposa,” which combined the grunge, lo-fi feel with a wall of feedback-drenched guitars that would make Crazy Horse take notice. Melancholy rock and roll meets melancholy rock and roller… and “On the Fade” was born.
It was a standard for PIGBAT (the second version included here), but I also recorded a semi-acoustic version for my six-song mini-album, “Hundred Seller.” On that version, I invited PIGBAT’s guitarist, Kris Shine, to apply his trademark reverb and feedback guitar stylings. We set up my cassette four-track recorder and his amps after hours in the used record store where I worked and I let Kris go to town.
That version — the first of the two included here — is, to my mind, the definitive one. I hear it, and I see Kris, rocking out and smiling. And I miss him.
Lyrics:
When the winter comes and you finally settle down
By the riverside and your soul plants roots deep in the ground
Take some time and let the world go on its way for you
Feel more and more like your yesterday shines brighter than
Today
Every friend’s a stranger anyway
And it’s strange
How the circle tightens on the fade
Gotta close the ring
Scope in on the range
And allow some players
To one day leave the stage
In your memory the shadows pull apart
While the fog pulls closer in its clutch around your heart
How you want to see a light pierce through the gray
But you feel more and more like solitude’s the order of the
Day
You can’t trust yourself to love anyway
And it’s pain
That brings the noose tighter as it fades
From view everyone
Drifts just out of range
Strip back on the shroud
Face up to this change
And allow some players
To one day leave the stage
Support Independent Music
The media files on this page are provided for your enjoyment — you can listen, and even download the MP3 files, and not pay a dime. I encourage you to share them with friends, provided no one changes or sells the files, and that you attribute them to me.
I do hope you’ll consider contributing an amount proportional to how much you like these songs. When you pay for music on this site, you declare yourself to be a patron of independent creative endeavors… and my supporter. That means a great deal, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
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On the Fade by Matthew Wayne Selznick (version) [4:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (278) On the Fade by PIGBAT with Matthew Wayne Selznick [3:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (270)Me and Hill Watching You
Words: 03-31-1990
Music: 03-31-1990
What’s It All About?
I went on a camping trip to the mountains outside of Tucson, Arizona with three other people. We drove out there in two cars, all the way from South Orange County in California. I was in the car with my best friend, and though we had the kind of friendship that made a long road trip possible, things between us were… complicated.
During that camping trip, I climbed to the top of a rock formation that resembled, to me at least, the shell of a turtle. I basked in the sun and lost myself to the elements and kind of tranced out for a while. And I looked down at our campsite, and saw my friend, lost in her own meditative state.
While my feelings for her had been strong for months, I knew that day I would love her the rest of my life. We’ve built our own lives with other partners in the fifteen years since that trip and I celebrate her happiness, but she’s still one of the very small handful of people who have permanent lodgings in the house of my heart.
The song was originally written on bass guitar. My band at the time, psychopathway, played it live a time or two, but to my knowledge there are no recordings of that version. The version presented here was recorded on acoustic guitar direct to hard drive with no overdubs in my office in Hesperia, California in 2002.
Lyrics:
I can’t rest until I get this out
Finally happiness what it’s all about
I wonder how you’d take these words tonight
Hard to tell if I’m really surprised
Thinking it was all a matter of time
I wonder do you think of me at night?
So long now you’ve been around
But it took so long now to know you
Far away you seemed so small
But for the sun you were all I saw
Me and hill we
Sat and watched you
I was dreaming as he talked
You didn’t know as my white light loved you
That’s something I’ll never stop
All along I
Had a feeling
Upon it I could never lock
Now I know the reason for it
You and I are of one heart
Do you think like me of that one kiss?
Can’t ignore the promise here in this
When will you admit to us it’s all right?
I wonder how you’d take these words tonight?
I wonder do you think of me at night?
You and I are of one heart
Support Independent Music
The media files on this page are provided for your enjoyment — you can listen, and even download the MP3 files, and not pay a dime. I encourage you to share them with friends, provided no one changes or sells the files, and that you attribute them to me.
I do hope you’ll consider contributing an amount proportional to how much you like these songs. When you pay for music on this site, you declare yourself to be a patron of independent creative endeavors… and my supporter. That means a great deal, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Recommended price: $1.00
Listen and Download
Make-Over
Words: 09-29-1993
Music: 09-29-1993
What’s It All About?
This song is all about facing your flaws, admitting your mistakes and finding the strength to — defiantly — dare change to come.
I have been a massive fuck-up at certain points in my life. When things are lowest, I sometimes find myself experiencing an almost euphoric giddiness… as if the laugh-or-cry reflex tilts way, way too far to one side. That wackiness inspired the first line of this song.
Self-discovery is a common theme in my work, both music and prose. This song is one of my many personal standards.
The version presented here was recorded to a cassette four-track in my apartment in Long Beach, California in 1994 for a limited edition cassette mini-album called “Hundred Seller.” It often started my coffeehouse acoustic sets.
Lyrics:
Save me from laughter
That hides me from the pain I should feel
Find what I’m after
And learn just what it means to be real
I missed out, I was absent
On the day the test was revealed
Now I want, want to find out
If I’m too late to make it over
Soul: I think I have it
Buried down in that bottom drawer
Wait, now I remember
The day came when I stopped wanting more
I gave up, I was tired
Don’t you judge me; I did not see you there
Now I want, now all I want
Is to see if I can make it over
Hope is not eternal
That spring runs dry as often as it flows
A dialog, internal
To see myself and find out what I know
Support Independent Music
The media files on this page are provided for your enjoyment — you can listen, and even download the MP3 files, and not pay a dime. I encourage you to share them with friends, provided no one changes or sells the files, and that you attribute them to me.
I do hope you’ll consider contributing an amount proportional to how much you like these songs. When you pay for music on this site, you declare yourself to be a patron of independent creative endeavors… and my supporter. That means a great deal, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Recommended price: $1.00
Listen and Download
