Roadkill/ Buttsteak 6: "Vientiene" b/w "Time Slows Down"

Hey alls-- Sunday night's getting on, so in the interest of moving thins along, I'll just say that we have a couple more new versions of old goodies for you.

I wrote "Vientiene" back in the late '90s in Baltimore, at the time that Goff and Johnny Rock and I were living on Riverside Ave. on the South Baltimore side of Federal Hill. As a quick spin might make clear, there were two things that I was doing right around the time I wrote this song: listening to a lot of Buffalo Tom and reading Stanley Karnow's great history of the Vietnam war. As the internets will tell you, Vientiene (or Vientiane") is the capitol of Laos, and seemed a romantic, mysterious place that might make a good kernel for a pop song of desperation and dislocation. The Buffalo Tom stylistic appropriation just came naturally.

"Time Slows Down" came a bit later, when I was shuttling back and forth between Bath, ME and Grafton, MA at the waning of my Poor Residency Days. As with "Vientiene", the goal was to give an impression of a scene with a few strokes. Oh, and in this case to give a muted shout-out to the Velvet Underground, whose mojo I was attempting to lift.

Me and Mike E on both of these.

Keating out.

Link, stream or download:

Vientiene:
https://www.box.com/s/254f32b6563aa3c49e89



Time Slows Down:
https://www.box.com/s/ae245e50bcf1276624ea

Roadkill/ Buttsteak 6: "Wonderful Mistake" b/w "Rules of Conduct"

Well, we here at the Roadkill-Buttsteak Corporation never promised you a neverending show of polished jewels, did we?  As you know, we are notoriously fond of the half-baked, off-the-cuff stuff.  Particularly if we're not aiming to take a track to the stage, or trying to make it album-worthy, RK-BSCo. Mgmt. figures what's the point of being too fussy?  Plus this allows us to reclassify the all the blown changes and make-do lyrics as officially rock-y!  Come see how the sausage is made: Four on the floor and get 'em done in under 2:15!

"Wonderful Mistake" is a straight-up, love-gone-wrong-but-that's-OK song. Needs no explicating.

"Rules of Conduct" is roughly a true-life story, pulled in large part from the cautionary posting that used to grace dear, departed Tio Loco's "cantina" in Federal Hill, Bawlmer.  After Tio's gave up the ghost, the Rules left with Brian Whitcomb and ended up in a danker, darker pace behind the bar at good ol' Mum's tavern.

jk/ me

Link, stream or download:

Wonderful Mistake:
https://www.box.com/s/7609b289a4eb02e3fcb0



Rules of Conduct:
https://www.box.com/s/ddbd88e9f588160ffee7

meet me in maplewood

It all went down in New Orleans. The Roadkill/Buttsteaks and Levines had converged on the Cresent City for music, food and a sazerac or three. That's when Jason's phone rang. It was Opportunity. Flash forward a few scant weeks to a leafy yard in Maplewood with a large gang assembled to send Shell, Jason, Cal & Zoe off on another cross-country move. The highlight of the afternoon was clearly Cal sitting in on the drums. The rest of the afternoon it was me back there with the full roster of (state-side)Buttsteaks ripping through two sets of wildly unrehearsed music.

Fun was had and plans were hatched for the next official JHU reunion show that will feature a new roster of hits. Consider yourself warned. Thanks to everyone who hauled equipment, came to the party, put us up (and up with us). xoxo, RK

Roadkill/ Buttseak 6: "Style" b/w "Never 'til the Next Time"

Well, happy 4th to you all!  We've no Independence Day-related material to post, and none pertaining to Canada Day, or Bastille Day for that matter.  But hopefully these posts are summer-y enough to get you through.  Each clocks in at the industry standard 3 minutes flat, so they won't make a dent in your leisure time (or workday), plus each was intended to have enough laid-back '70s L.A. vibe to roll with your midsummer day.  (I should note that by "L.A.", I mean Los Angeles, CA rather than Lewiston-Auburn, ME, our neighbors up the Androscoggin River.  The Lewistonian vibe is altogether different...)   As with the rest of "RKBS-6" these feature me and Mike E.

The A-side, "Style", sneaked up on me during one of my periodic Black Crowes revivals, and I admit that with head held high.   After the usual crash-course in the song's structure (no rocket science involved),  Roady needed no real direction as to where to turn, on account of his extensive database of AM radio hits.  As usual, we were good to go with the 2nd or 3rd take.  Cue the Wurlitzer and the harmonies and the hot winds and the Canyon and all that. 

The B-side, "Never 'til the Next Time", was put together in the same spirit.  Yeah, admittedly it's kind of a throwaway song, but that's what the good lord created B-sides for, isn't it?   It's another in a long line of "let's keep making the same old mistakes over again" songs and, as with"Style, we were shooting for the So Cal feel.  Cue the soft focus golden light and the lyrical reference to the Wrecking Crew,  And if you're not familiar with the 1960's A-team of L.A. studio hands (most famously Hal Blaine on drums, Carol Kaye or Joe Osborn on bass, Larry Knechtel or Leon Russel on keys, and many, many more unsung heroes) who have, unbeknownst to you, probably brought joy into your heart and a skip into your step nearly every day of your dang life... well, that's definitely a story for another day....

As to our ramshackle project, link, stream or download:

Style:
https://www.box.com/s/a8a326416350cefc64d2



Never 'til the Next Time:
https://www.box.com/s/8b415d1fce93b500559f