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Reigning Sound – foto Smith

13 months ago I started putting my songs on ReverbNation.com. Now in the category for local blues bands, I’m #11 with 2,405 online listens (2,404 of them are probably me listening to me). There are 44 tunes available for free listen and free download.

I started jamming with Peter Ball of Apartment One in 2002 after he’d been at me for 20 years to record with him. I resisted because I can’t sing or carry a tune but Peter convinced me with enough joy in your heart everything is possible.

We have a very strange process. I bicycle over to Peter’s with my words. Peter starts playing music and I start vocalizing. I have no idea what music he’s going to play and mostly neither does he; and he has no idea what’s going to come out of my mouth and neither do I.

It’s a one-time once-through live jam, although lately we’ve been going back over and adding another track or two of my vocals and 3-4 tracks of his music.

Some of them turn out right fine; others are too strange for words; and more than a few are cringe-worthy but still interesting, sort of like watching road kill dry.

I’ve blogged only a few of the 44 songs online and decided it’s time to post some of the stranger experimental pre-song stuff. By pre-song, I mean we used to just record my poems as songs, but lately I’ve been adding choruses to make them more like songs.

According to my bio on the site, “I met Peter in the Warfarin mines beneath the Cleveland Warehouse District in 1982. I was serving time for bad taste, while Peter was the entertainment director. He needed a monkey to front his tin whistle band and I applied and got the job.”

All music, mix and recording by Peter Ball, with words and vocals by me.

So here’s one of our earlier attempts >>> Unknown Nipple . . .or if that doesn’t work cut and paste http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_8051121.

Unknown Nipple

Your nipple
Though we’ve yet to meet
Must surely seek to touch
My tongue’s erectile tissue
Which seeks south to nether musk
Past inward looking navel
Which wise in eastern ways
When rocked in western rhythm
Knows what in Maya may
Be only sleek illusion
Wonders reaped and sown
In peaks before the valley
Down treasure’s traveled road
Where promise wraps forgiven
Its penis premised trap
Where truth in life is hidden
And minor deaths enact
Their furtive nightly burden
When joy it should be danced
And future fear forgiven
Like past purveyed by chance

Your eyes so solemn watching
Your lips promised pursuit
Your soul silent searching
Your heart no kindness fused
To form for wanting giving
To life its lift and shine
My love it spurts in wanting
Your flesh your spirit wine
Within your skin whenever
Blessings cross my brow
Profane in sacred wanting
Pure light enough for now
But o o unknown nipple
O mind of supple bliss
O soul unsullied, simple
On me bestow your kiss

— Smith, 1992

You can hear 199 more of Peter Ball’s “Apartment One” collective at reverbnation.com/apartmentone, and 40-some of our own collabs at reverbnation.com/mutantsmith.


3-D Rolling Stone Cover – foto Smith

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