Right on time for the summer, my band Tones From The Underground has released a 3 song ep largely inspired by the vibes of reggae music. It can be purchased on amazon.mp3 and itunes and can be heard on spotify.com, last.fm, and myspace. Please check it out and enjoy. The song Moonbathing from the album features interviews with Jacob Gossett, Lindsey Boise, and Amos Fisher.
The album is called Dystopia.
Here are the lyrics for the songs on the Tones From The Underground album Anemology.
Air Reform
If it’s under the sun
Then it’s made ‘ mistake
When it’s all said and done
We’ll all watch the ground fall away
We’re falling apart
But the shards fall right into line
Our chaos makes art
Everything is gonna be just fine
If you’re lacking a muse
And the sky’s gaining weight
Trust it’s not only you
Sorrow don’t discriminate
We’re falling apart
But the pieces fall straight into place
As flawed as we are
It’ll all be safe
Now we’re caught in a cloud
Can’t see the light that surrounds
Trust we’ll figure it out
A silver lining will embrace the crowds
We’re falling apart
Let the cards fall where they may
An end marks a star
It’ll be OK
Hints
Enchanted by the breeze
I’m in the midst of memories
My worries are camouflaged
For now I am at ease
A hint of heaven’s grace
As the the sunlight caresses my face
This life won’t meet infinity
So this moment I’ll embrace
Old Man
Did you second-guess yourself
And suck up some wind
Did you leave it on the shelf
Forfeit your win
Did you watch your dream subside
And not throw it a lifeline
Did you turn your back while it died
And let them eat it alive
Or did you sing it back to life
He said, “A fruitful tree will grow
if a faithful seed has been sewn.”
I hope
Did it tear you up inside
There’s no one to blame
How many times did you ask why
To no avail
Did you watch your mother die
And soak in all her strength
Did you lose your love for life
And label it a gain
Or did you trade it in for fame
When the comfort of routine sets in
The terror’s strength comes back
Ain’t that a fact
You tried and you failed
Did you try again
Did life beat you up
You were a good man
But karma stood you up
You bought the bluff
But you tried
Fall Into Winter
Fall into winter
So heavy
Drowned in thought
Drunk off reverie
I found a friend in your memory
The glass is half full
But my heart is half empty
The city lights
How they temp me
But this comforting fear
Is weighing me down at home
Stuck in this lonely room
Far far away
From anything
Resembling my fate…
is more than me perched up on a windowsill
A gargoyle, aware but absent
Let the absinth spill
and fill the cracks
Now I pick up my bones
I’m tired of hiding under stones
Maybe
My skeleton’s of glass
My dreams and I
Need to rekindle our romance
When you feel the steal of the gun
It makes you change your wager
And your life and your bed
Is a torture chamber
The vultures circling the bedroom ceiling
Were soaring in my head
The past leaves behind emotional land mines
Drops bombs of nostalgia napalm (with no hints
you walk head on)
I see the leaves die with so much grace
I wish I had that faith
cause I need it now
Story
Last night I lost my spine
Spilled my guts ‘cross the room
Never thought that I’d come unglued
I remember swimming through my father’s mind
Vague, scattered, confused
Now a black inky mess of
Blood and breath, and tissue
Got sick once, I was starting to die
They injected me with ink
Those cold steel blocks saved my life
now it seems my skeleton won’t change
I used to variate
Spent time in a pen
Got prison tats etched in my skin
So many cages and cages of pages
Would keep me alive through the ages
Spent my youth in grunts and moans
Seen the world through the eyes of my clones
Thought it was ended
But I kept my appendix
Broken and mended
But I kept my appendix
Paper
I’m trying not to lose my head
And trying to keep my cool
But it’s hard when
When you’re not around
To keep my feet on the ground
to keep my feet on the ground
Imagine what you could see
If you just opened your eyes
And take my hand
Hold on as tight as you can
You’ve got my paper heart
In the palm of your hands
Cause a paper heart
No it won’t let you stand
Paper Heart
*Lyrics by Jacob Gossett
Broken Bottle Beach
A blank face
Like a thirsty page
Yeah I’m just a slave
to the waves
Please spare me
I thought they understood my pain
It was written on the sheets of rain
It tore my clothes and
Washed my hopes up
On a shard glass shore
(When I dropped the floor)
But I’ll keep hunting happiness
I know
Below are the lyrics for the songs on the Tones From The Underground album Dark Matter:
Get In Where You Fit In
Come on baby light the dark
Come on baby light the dark
My vision’s impaired
The drugs are getting soft
Turn the TV off
Your scabs will peel
They crack your will in half
Crack your will and laugh
Smash out their teeth
Tongues will split the seas will choke and spit
Come on bay life’s a charm
Come on baby life’s a charm
Dangling from your arm
Baby it’s not my fault
You’re camera shy in the dark
I don’t get much sleep
Take me to the beach
Far across the sea
Loose my trace
Carve my niche I’ll get in where I fit
A swiveled head
Fractured skin and
Bruised bones
Internal Affairs
Yesterday was rough
I felt like I had enough
Sick and tired of being sick and tired
To call or fall for the bluff
Someone call internal affairs
The karma police are corrupt
Where you going with all them drugs
Maybe you’re just not tough enough
Narcs planted the seed on you
Now you’re reaping the cuffs
Shouldn’t they be stopping
Not pushing the stuff
Breathe
Close your eyes
There’s a grab-bag of mantras to recite
Dream
Don’t apologize
Your head’s Kleptocrats take bribes
I could’ve sworn I handled all this stuff
I guess I just swept it under the rug
The DEA sends its love
As an assassin bug does
A puddle’s an ocean
A nick is a gash
A ditch is an abyss
Palpitation – heart attack
Wait For Patience
I can’t seem to adapt to the pain
It’s been 10 long weeks of the same old same
I hope and I pray I’ll be OK
With the aid of 60mg a day
Wait, they say wait
A mind and body coup d’etat
The rebels exploit the ruler’s flaw
The relentless siege, they can’t seem to suppress
Even with a surplus ammunition of tablets
Patience is a stranger
Patience is a friend
Patience is a pen pal
Patience is a trend
I can’t remember my name
The mirrors morph and shift shape
Come on and join the serotonin parade
We’ll celebrate the day I’ll be saved
Cataphonia
I wear this peace
like a cloak of broken glass
A wheeled statue on a treadmill
Stroboscope life
of suspended animation
Time flies
with your winged wishes
In love with the idea
Slit today’s wrists, it’ll bleed into years
I believe, therefore I am
I’m nothing if I don’t act on my beliefs
Just a tease, a pseudo-life left empty
I believe, I believe I believe too much
Cataphonia
In a rush to stand still see who can stand still the fastest
Balanced on that thin line between patience and laziness
Floating in your face always almost, tasted
A carrot on a string
In love with the idea
Slit today’s wrists, it’ll bleed into years
I bleed; therefore I am
I’m nothing static, at peace
Words we speak are just contaminated air
I bleed, I bleed, I bleed, I haven’t bled enough
The pot of gold is the rainbow
Subway Sands
Riding on the morning train, I close my eyes and lay
Back on a sheet-glass blanket
I listen to the roaring waves and wind as they bicker
I stare up into a candescent sun and relax
My sheet-glass blanket floats onto a quaking ocean
The sand of panhandlers is getting stuck in my shoes and teeth
And the ominous cloud of my stop will
Bring an end to this day at the beach beneath the earthn
Where have all the poems gone?
Are they hiding behind a broken wing
Are they camped out like refugees in
The shantytown ghetto of a busy mind
Lost at sea or lost in a crowd
Of frantic commuters
Who are late to work
And even later to happiness
Are they perched on a branch
Of a night full of sleep
Where dreams take the starring role
And the dream poem is the third understudy
Most talented but too young to speak up
Are they at the bottom of the ocean
Yelling their songs at the top of their lungs
Kneaded and stretched songs
Bubbling and disintegrating
In the gelatin water
Overwhelmed by the spoken word slams
Of whales
Where have all the poems gone?
Are they off and running
Abandoning some hyperlink
On the Internet
Crouching behind the link to a Fatal Error
10 million miles away in cyberspace
Are they there behind the
Overacting determined-for-stardom
Sexual ecstasies of a burgeoning porn star
Are they too lazy to show up to work
Did they get caught in traffic
Or end up catatonic on a stalled train
There are no Dear John letters
No “Hello Mother, Hello Father
I’ve been smoking Marijuana”
Are they the 800 lb gorilla in the room
Are they right in front of my blinded eyes
Under the dirty laundry
Behind the closet
On another channel
I just happen to graze the
Correct channel, but it happens to be
right on time for a commercial
Hide and go seek
Can I leave out some bacon
To lure them back home
How many one-night-stands
Were there
How many one page stands
One stanza stands
My long distance love
Who returns “when they can”
Or a convenient entrepreneur
They love me and leave me
Where are the poems?
Rotting in a word/.doc file
On a waiting line to be published
On the waiting line to the womb
Are they in my teeth cavities
Or buried under my tissue
Or in the pipes or linings of my organs
Are they agoraphobic
Running back up this pen
Clinging to the womb of the ink well
Afraid of the world and loss
Afraid of being judged
Held captive by Sir Psycho Sexy
And policed by rent, bills, employment,
Incomplete goals
They must be camped out with sex
The two evade me
I see them roasting marshmallows
Around a campfire
Telling ghost stories
Of old-time muses that used to
Haunt their forefathers
And make them enter
The parlous physical world
I don’t blame them for their
Fright and consequential flight
This is a scary place
I’d have thought of staying
Cooped up in God’s imagination
After all we all are poems
She’s proven that to me in her being
If only I could convince them of the capacity
Of beauty and charm out here
The gifts
The pleasures after the pains
The lessons
The women who will ogle them up and down
With seductively ebullient eyes
If only I could convince them of their strength
Yet, where are they
Are they in between the lines of some classic novel
Are they behind the sunset
in which they would be used to describe
Where
Could one be on this page
Soap-Box Patriot/Politiques as Usual
I love this country
Because I can get up
On stage and eloquently deliver
A poem of rhetorical craftsmanship
In which I state
Why I hate this country so much
I love this country
Because I can complain about its filthy underbelly
And discombobulated foundation
But then I can still
Live my life here
Speak my thoughts freely and be heard
And not get stoned
I love this country
Because I can comfortably dream of better places
And levitate and exaggerate their perfection
Without having to actually go there
And experience
The negative side of its push and pull
I love this country
Because I hate it
And I’m allowed to hate it
I’m supposed to hate it
And its foundation of antidisestablishmentarianism
It was founded by rebels
I want to pay homage and fulfill the legacy
Now, in this poem
I love this country
Because I’ve seen
All of its flaws
I know its ugly past, yet
I still go to bed with it
Contently
Every night
That’s love
I love this country
Because I’m well aware
That Asia, Africa, and Europe
Have raped pillaged, and lied
Just as much
And smiled about it
Just as much
And protected it with blister fluid
Just as much
Now the world is uncomfortable
I love this country
Because it has responsibilities
That it doesn’t properly uphold
Like most human beings
I love this country
Because the natives are plagued
With inebriation
Just as they would have been before
I love this country
Because the underlying racism
And hypocritical religious and cultural discriminations
Are not underlying at all
We all know them
We all participate to oil the machine
Yet we can go on practicing what we may
As we wish
And be entitled to the anger of righteous indignation
Because my neighbor is allowed to practice the wrong practices
I hate the rusted circuitry of this nation’s brain
But I love the polished gold leaf
Of its heart and soul
Its proud ancestry as the
Epicenter of modern music
I love this country because
I can choose to love or hate it
I love this country
Because its crookedness
Has made the marginal “cool”
And in the margins
“cool” is much of what matters
I hate and loath
The health insurance policies of this country
(Even if they allowed Michael Moore
To make a buck and
Raise his martyred conscious celebrity status)
I love this country
Because the majority of its news media
Is fiction
(Cant get much more romantic than that,
And I’m a full-fledged romantic)
I love this country
Because its not always easy
Its taught me to count my blessings
I love this country
Because I can leave it if I want to
I love this country
Because of the cross-country road trip dreams it offers
The promises of unadulterated possibility
Its diversity
Of land and weather
Of Its women
Its electrical tape infrastructure and roads
I love this country
Because it has jumped the shark
It’s a fun ride on the way down
Especially if you have a passport
From another country
I love this country
Because it doesn’t love me
So here I am unrequited
In a half-ass obsession
Whose indifference drives my doting
I’m sick of these diabetic chicks
Prefer their hearts tangled and shit
Don’t they know a sweet guy
Can still have their feet curled up in fists
Here are the liner notes giving credit to those who helped us make this album, Lindsey Boise, Fernando Toro, Diego Romero etc.
Tone From The Underground:
James Guastaferro
Jacob Gossett
Tristan Pollack
]Song #37:
James Guastaferro – Organ, Synth.
Written, recorded, and produced by James Guastaferro.
]Air Reform:
James Guastaferro – Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Piano, Synth, Programming.
Written, recorded, and produced by James Guastaferro.
Lyrics by James Guastaferro.
]Hints:
James Guastaferro – Vocals, Synth, Guitar, Bass, Kaoss Pad, Keyboard, Programming.
Jacob Gossett – Guitar.
Written, recorded, and produced by James Guastaferro and Jacob Gossett.
Mastered by Francisco Toro.
Lyrics by James Guastaferro.
]Old Man:
James Guastaferro – Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Synth, Programming.
Tristan Pollack – Guitar.
Written, recorded, and produced by James Guastaferro.
Lyrics by James Guastaferro.
]Fall Into Winter:
James Guastaferro – Vocals, Keyboard, Guitar, Synth.
Written, recorded, and produced by James Guastaferro.
Lyrics by James Guastaferro.
]Story:
James Guastaferro – Vocals, Synth, Keyboard, Guitar, Programming.
Tristan Pollack – Guitar.
Written, recorded, and produced by James Guastaferro.
Lyrics by James Guastaferro.
]Paper:
Jacob Gossett – Guitar, Tambourine.
James Guastaferro – Vocals, Bass, Drums, Analog Synth.
Lindsey Boise – Mandolin.
Written by Jacob Gossett.
Recorded and produced by Francisco Toro and Diego Romero.
Lyrics by Jacob Gossett.
]Broken Bottle Beach:
James Guastaferro – Vocals, Synth.
Written, recorded, and produced by James Guastaferro.
Lyrics by James Guastaferro.
Tone From The Underground would like to thank all our families and friends (past, present, and future).
Since I was never able to upload liner notes and give the proper credit for the songs on this album I want to post that information here.
Tones From The Underground:
James Guastaferro
Jacob Gossett
Tristan Pollack
]Get In Where You Fit In:
James Guastaferro – Vocals, Guitar, Synths, Bass, Programming, Tambourine.
Jacob Gossett – Guitar.
Written, recorded, and produced by James Guastaferro
Lyrics by James Guastaferro
]Internal Affairs:
James Guastaferro – Vocals, Keyboard, Synths, Synth Bass, Programming.
Written, recorded, and produced by James Guastaferro.
Lyrics by James Guastaferro
]Wait For Patience:
James Guastaferro – Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Programming, Kettles, Pots, Handbourines.
Written, recorded, and produced by James Guastaferro.
Lyrics by James Guastaferro
]Cataphonia:
James Guastaferro – Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Synths, Programming.
Written, Recorded, and produced by James Guastaferro.
Lyrics by James Guastaferro
Tone From The Underground would like to thank all our families and friends (past, present, and future).
