Friday, July 14, 2006

Moonrise Over Alamitos Bay

Moonrise Over Alamitos Bay
From a promo page for TK's side project, The Mutant Liberation Orchestra, where the new track below has also just been posted...

This represents a very definite sea change for The Mutant Liberation Orchestra -- although keyboardist TK has been exploring polytonal improvisation since the first time he snuck into the piano room at his maiden aunt Tillies's haunted old mansion in the hills above Pasadena.

As soon as he sat down at the battered old upright grand, he was overcome by the compulsion to spread his tiny hands wide across the old, yellowed ivory keys. Slipping into a state that a concerned girlfriend would, decades later, describe as "a scary, near-catatonic trance," little TK's fingers seemed to fly across the keys in patterns hard to comprehend -- but repeating in intricate, interlocking melodic movements that circled ever wider.

When his aunt rushed into the room she stopped suddenly and began weeping...

Years later, TK would learn that she thought she heard the playing of her long-dead protoge, a frighteningly moody young European refugee composer who would later die in a fiery motorcar crash, plunging off a twisting mountain road after an argument with the then-voluptuosly passionate Tilly, his lover, his benefactor and -- he said as he stormed out of her house, the keys to her ancient Packard limousine in his hands -- his warden and taskmaster...




download [ 3.3 mb]
play [broadband]
AYoS radio [broadband]

more media formats...

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

When they tell you it's time to leave, by God, then it's time to go

An angel came down from heaven...

Storytellers and poets have twisted literature around the lonely figure of the fallen angel since people started telling stories.

There's something about that driven and tragic flight from grace that resonates with the moody and the manic and the wistfully philosophical, as well.

Why would someone leave paradise?

Why would someone turn his back on love and peace beyond knowledge only to flee to a world of desire, pain, and endless longing?

Why not?

Heaven always looked pretty boring to this tragic, moody poet...

download [ 2.7 mb]
play [broadband]
AYoS radio [broadband]

Internet Archive page for this recording
previous AYoS version



ANGEL'S VACATION

He tried to do what was right
but it always turned out wrong
the heavenly host was not impressed
and he had to blow out of town

he came down to earth near Phoenix
in the middle of the summertime
he walked to the first bar he saw
and ordered whiskey, beer, and wine

An angel came down from heaven
hoping to get away
he stewed in the hotel bar all night
and baked by the pool all day

He pushed the desk clerk to a breakdown
and drove the other guests away
he punched out the hotel detective
and ran off with the pretty dark eyed maid

They laid out on the lam for 40 days and nights
and on the 41st they had to rest
the pretty dark eyed maid was all worn out
and the angel was scared to death

he knew they'd have no trouble tracking him down
angels have this certain glow
and when they tell you it's time to leave,
by God, then it's time to go

An angel came down from heaven
hoping to get away
he stewed in the hotel bar all night
and baked by the pool all day

(C)1990,2005, TK Major

[related song: Goin' Home ]