ESCAPE TO PARADOX ISLAND
recorded and mixed 98-99, Lincoln Lounge, Venice, CA
vox,bass,guitar on "I'm in love with the puppet girl" and Somebody knows everything", lead guitar on "All the best people",Procal Harum organ part on Somebody knows everything"-Me
guitar, bass on "I'm in love with the puppet girl" and "Somebody knows everything"- Steve
drums-Rob
rythmn guitar on "Funny baby"- Darryl Jensen
synth lead on "somebody knows everything"-Adam Marsland
piano on "I'm a little time bomb"- Kim Fox
backing vox on "I'm a little time bomb" - Kim Fox, The Julies



Only Love
One of my big problems writing-wise has always been writers block as far as lyrics. So I went through a phase where I would try a sort of "cut and paste" approach to it where I would look through books and magazines, find phrases that I liked and used them to put something together. I did that with this song, which resulted in the sort of stream of consciousness vibe to what turned out to be a love story. The references to "Molly Millions" and San Francisco came from "Mona Lisa Overdrive" by William Gibson, which I was re-reading at the time. So there you go.

Gabrielle
One of my other issues writing wise was that I would never seem to write love songs or just boy/girl type songs very much, which I decided was strange seeing as I have no philosophical problem with doing it. So I started to try, which turned out to be very hard. It actually took me a long time to write most of this and it actually was not totally finished until the day that I had to go in and record the vocal for it.

Go, she said
I started reading the Bible over the past few years and got obsessed with the story of Lot and his daughters. For those who don't know, after the whole whirligig when Sodom gets destroyed and his wife gets turned into a pillar of salt while they are escaping, Lot and the girls camp out in a cave at which point the girls (who are approx 12-15 yrs old) decide that they really want to get pregnant and since he is the only guy who happens to be around, they get him really drunk and take turns having sex with him. I took some artistic license for the sake of the song of course, it all sounds fairly innocent, but basically what you are listening to is a story about a teenage girl asking her eighty year old father to sleep with her. rock on.

I'm in love with the puppet girl
Another attempt to write a love song. Once again, really hard to do. I think I got the idea from watching Claire Danes on TV once.

Somebody knows everything
A song about the feeling that I often get that there is someone SPYING on me, not in any kind of normal way. This is not necessarily bad, just irritating. Deal with it, I know. Props to Adam for amazing Keith Emerson synth solo in the bridge.

I'm a little time bomb
Musically, this song was actually attempt to write a song like Jimmy Webb. Did
not quite pull that off though I think that it turned out very well. Kim Fox does most ruling Floyd Kramer type piano solo.

Candy Jerusalem Theme
Candy Jerusalem is a character from the one long term creative project that I have ever completed, which is a script for a series of comic books called "Candy Jerusalem, The Happiest Girl In The World". It's about a pop star who becomes so rich and famous that she decides that she has the ability to manipulate her own reality in some sort of Godlike way, so she decides to found a new religion called the Church of Hyperpositive Awareness inc. with a television ministry ala Terry Cole Whittaker. Everything is going fine when, unfortunately, her an arch-enemy (and former high school best friend) Libby Lapenca, constantly attempts to assassinate her...

All the best people
There is a scene in "Heavenly Creatures" (a film based on the true story of two teenage New Zealand girls who murder one of the girls mothers in the 1950's) where the two girls first talk to each other and share their experiences of being ill when they were younger, at which point one of the girls says the line that I use in the chorus of the song.

Armageddon Surfer Girl, rock on
A long time ago I used to work at this comic book store where they also sold lapel pins. Looking through them one day I discovered one that had an image drawn of a bikini clad blonde girl with sunglasses on posed in front of a mushroom cloud. Took it and ran with it. Once again proof that I barely have any capacity to write a love song though I do have to say that "I have seen you down by the shoreline, watching the F-111's go by, standing there and looking so fly, I knew that day I had to make you mine" is pretty choice.

Funny Baby
The only song on the record actually inspired by a REAL LIVE GIRL. It's sad. Sad, sad, sad. But what are you going to do? Steve's guitar break on this rules.

 

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