clickety-clack don't look back

2006-11-19T12:06:00.000-08:00

elijahwyman

2006-07-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

I played a show the other day in Agawam, MA. It was a good show... Got the best comment ever after my set. Some kid said to me, "Hey, my grandpa really enjoyed your music...He's seriously like 85."

I'm not sure if it was a compliment, but I'll take it.

-eli.

2006-07-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

The July story songs have been going well. It's been nice to be forced to apply myself and write. I think I'll try and keep this breakneck pace of writing and recording.

Here are some local artists you should give a listen to. If you like them, go to a show, buy their cd, and by all means tell them. It makes a difference, more of a difference than you know.

www.myspace.com/SaintJoeHazelwood
www.myspace.com/JosephFrey
www.myspace.com/ThisBuildingsonFire
www.myspace.com/TomConlonMusic

do it.

-elijahwyman.

p.s. If you haven't checked out the first July song, tonight is the last opportunity to.
Tommorow a new one is posted on www.GrindingTapes.org. Check that one out too.

2006-06-25T19:49:00.000-07:00

The worst part about making music is that people like to ask you what music you listen to. Then they don't want you to actually answer with something boring like, "I haven't really listened to music in a little while," what they are looking for is a magic combination like you're playing pokemon cards that makes you power up to super cool status. Whatever you do do, not only answer with artists who've only been playing for the last 5 years or so. You will betray yourself. They will know that you are undereducated. Always answer with someone old and respected, new and hip, and end with someone they haven't heard of. It gives you the upperhand. (Feel free to use my name as the last one. No one will know it.)

I hate that question. Lately I've been listening to the air conditioner.
-elijahwyman.

2006-06-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hey there,

I'm starting a new project for the month of July where every week I write and record a song named and themed after a random person's story. If you have a great story and think it would be awesome to have a song named and themed
in your likeness, this could be a lot of fun for you.

So here's how it works. You send me an e-mail either telling me about yourself or a something that happened to you. I'll read all the submissions and choose one. Every Sat. in July a new song will be posted for free to download on www.GrindingTapes.org.

So, by the end of July, there will be 5 songs about 5 different people. If you're chosen, a lot of people will be able to sing along to your life! You might even adopt it as your theme song! Please include as much detail and background information as you have. It will give your story a better chance at getting picked and make it easier for me to write a good song about you.

Thanks for reading this, and I hope to be reading about your life soon!
-elijahwyman.

p.s. You can e-mail me at elijahwyman(at)gmail.com.

2006-06-09T11:54:00.000-07:00

I got a call from my kidney specialist today. He said he had some good news. Apparently my last blood work says that my kidneys are working a better. This makes exactly two bits of good news that I've received from any doctor since February. The first was that my vision would not be permanently damaged from the hemorrhage in my eye that my obscene blood pressure had caused. Just the day before I had been told that my left eye would always be irreparably blurry. But good news rarely comes alone. It's like a dream girl with an annoying friend. The annoying friend always has a crush on me.

He also told me that I should start restricting my potassium. Added to my already low-sodium diet and my recent orders to quit eating protein, there's not much left to eat. This might work out well if I were a teenage girl, but the sting lies in that my new medication makes me hungry...seriously hungry. This is one reason among others that I am begining to believe that there is no order; there is just hunger. Unsatisfied hunger. Or perhaps the hunger is the order? I guess I could be looking at it wrong and order isn't necessarily a good thing.

I do know that everyone is the same in that we will all feel different at some point in our life. We will all feel alienated, unattainable, unsoothable, and it's true, we are. I used to think that there was something wrong with melancholia. There isn't. Don't let anyone tell you there is. People who say things like that haven't suffered enough to know anything worthwhile. They are mostly worthless and completely harmful.

It's unnerving to know that my body was killing itself, not slowly either. Quickly and quietly destroying itself. This knowledge has stained me indelibly with two new ideas. The first is that there is no reason for fear of any kind, especially fear of anything physical. There is no avoiding pain and fearing the unavoidable just creates unnecessary anguish. (See Stoicism) The mature thing to do is to accept that pain will find you and resolve to not care.

The second idea is that there is no reason to keep avoidably suffering. This may sound like it is in contrast to my earlier statement about melancholia. It's not. Melancholia is a natural and healthy stage of life. It is a reaction as justified as pulling your hand away from a flame. When I say that there is no reason to keep suffering, I am absolutely implying that there is also no reason not to maximize pleasure. It's like tending to a vine, not only do you have to water it, you have to cut back the excess that is sapping the life from the bulk of the plant. So, I have been attempting to shake myself free from everything undesirable and only focus on what makes me happy. What this literally means for my life is that I'm finished wasting time. I know what is basically good and just and I know basically what makes me happy. This is all that matters.

An opponent may argue that this is a selfish way to live, but this is only because they don't understand the fundamentals of happiness. A truly mature person will only be happy if he is also just. This is not to say that people are naturally just. Clearly people are not naturally mature (or happy for that matter!), how could they be naturally good? It could also be said that the pursuit of happiness is not what the life of a Christian should be centered around. Again, I am lumping goodness and happiness together and goodness is definately a Christian attribute. Other than that my point seems counter intuitive to argue. If you have a problem with it, go right on with being miserable.

Happiness is moderation. This is one of the great truths that Christianity overlooks. Moderation is a fowl word to the Christian. It is associated with verses about being, "lukewarm," or a bad taste in the mouth. What's so insidious about this is that it breeds fanaticism, contempt, and complete intolerance of anything not perfectly polarized as Christian. Where as fervency is holy, the fruit of the previous things are all rotten especially when coupled with heavy, legalistic ideas about what a "Christian" is. In intolerance we may lose some things worth losing, but I am convinced that we lose far more that is God breathed. I am being vague though, let me try and clear this up.

Today Catholics and Protestants can be friends. As they should be. There are great and horrible people who are each. But it wasn't all that long ago that they were slaughtering each other over doctrine. Any reasonable Christian shakes their head in shame about this today. There was no justifiable reason for that. This is a perfect example of a lack of moderation. The fundamentalist stamps his foot and says something foolish like, "The Pope is the Antichrist" here, and it only illustrates the point.

This is something the ancient Greek philosophers understood, honor and goodness came from steering the middle course, not veering to far to the right or left. In doing so, they tried to achieve an objective distance. The Christian will spasmodically regurgitate something about, "The straight and narrow path," and in response I would question why they would assume that the straight and narrow doesn't run right down the center. I'll end with a thought about the way we consider others who are different than we are. Is it possible that in 100 years we will look at the fighting between Christians and Muslims today and realize that it is exactly the same as the violence between the Protestants and Catholics?

2006-06-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

second puberty worse than first.

1.) new medications
red blood cells are back!
mood swings
acne
chubby cheeks
tastes nasty

2.) swollen legs
elevate them at night
new, hip incline pillow
sore back
cankles

3.) wartime guitars
chunky
love!
1942
f-holes
archtops

2006-05-20T19:52:00.000-07:00

girlfriend+pupcat=emptyhousedancing.

We slept on a mattress in this mansion for a while.
If you want to rent it, you can for a modest $10,000 per month.

2006-05-18T05:52:00.000-07:00

Poetry = Music
In Response to a Young Girl Praying for her Dying Grandfather - extended
clicky for bigger.

...but music doesn't = poetry.

I had included a bit of this song earlier on in this here weblog. I thought I'd post a picture of the original scribbles. I realize that most people won't a.) take the time to decipher what in the world I wrote, mostly because it's barely legible b.) probably won't find much joy from reading things like this without the music. It's just that I love the way these sketches look often sometimes more than I love the content. (ha!) Also, poems are songs. They deal with the same things, sound and rhythm.

I think this song will be tossed into the scrapyard because...well just because. Let's not talk about that anymore.

Also, I'd like to put a few thoughts out in the open. It's not popular to write poetry that rhymes. It can seem childish. But in song, rhyme creates a flow so is forgiven, even desired. It's easier to take in etc. What I'm saying is that most everything I post (and write for that matter) is rhymed. This is because I write to music, or I often write phrases and segments by singing to myself. That said, I love rhyme.

-elijahwyman.

2006-05-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

A Scratch - A Disease.

I've been playing this song for the past few shows.
I'm happy with the lyrics.
If you click the picture it will open bigger. Click again for bigger.
You get it.

-----------------

Perhaps you've noticed that my new songs are a diversion lyrically from the last batch. You may think I'm a hypocrite for moving back into writing personally indulgent lyrics with all the anti "bleeding heart across the stage" and whatnot I've preached for the past year. You may be right.

What's changed is that now I have something worthwhile to sing about. Before it was cliche - garbage. What are the chances that I'd enlighten you any more than any of my predecessors who have done an exceedingly fine job of capturing the intricacies of how hard it is to break up or some other mundane topic. Now I have a disease.

But it's not all bad. I'm in good company. There's a long literary tradition of the sick or dying bringing new life to the living. Keats has never been so alive to me. And as depressed as I am, I'm happy. Now I have something to say and a burden to make it beautiful and devastating. I'm not boring. I'm 21 and I've nearly died of an old man's condition.

Everything's changed. My music is changing. And God, it's good to hear music.

I'm meeting with my doctor tommorow to find out more, but what I have is called Berger's Disease. It's a kidney disease that is fairly common as far as kidney diseases go...still pretty rare. I don't know much else.

If you've stumbled across this blog and you have something similiar and need to just tell someone, feel free to e-mail me. I understand how lonely it can feel even with dear friends and family close at hand. elijahwyman@gmail.com is my e-mail address.

Kindly,
-elijahwyman.

"We all fall asleep when it hurts too bad, but the right song will wake us." -Tom Conlon.

2006-05-14T16:55:00.000-07:00

Everybody Loves Me.

Sometimes when I'm feeling particularly low (which is happening more and more frequently I admit!) I like to go back and read some of the kind things people have said publically about me. Here are some that get me through the day:

"I’ll admit, though, after my first listen, I just wasn’t into this album at all. After listening to one or two songs, I was immediately turned off by the irregular, almost off-key vocals entering my headphones."
-Bob Kriva. FleeingtheScene.com
(This review also compares me to R. Kelley's "Trapped in the Closet." Probably the worst hip-hopera of all times.)

"A little pulp, a little emo. Emo-pulp? Wyman sounds a little off key most of the time, but it comes of as part of his 'style'. Interesting but not engaging."
-Justin Wright. Tollbooth.org
(Also calls me a "morbidity obsessed sufjan.)

"Elijah Wyman exemplifies the way good intentions don't always add up to great art."
-Dan MacIntosh. Indie-Music.com

"If you're an aspiring troubadour, but not an undeniable musical force, a compelling, emotionally gripping personality is the key to gaining notoriety. This caveat is particularly applicable to Elijah Wyman, whose songs generally need some lyrical or emotional flair to compensate for his overall lack of musical originality. Beautiful Like Words' songs pack enough emotional individuality to make them mildly enjoyable, but they're by no means exceptional...Also, Wyman would be wise to raise his standards as far as "album-worthy" songs are concerned; Sunshiny Day's tepid melody and off-key vocals should never have made it out of the bedroom...Wyman isn't a naturally gifted singer"
-Parker Campbell. Splendid E-zine.
(That "made it out of the bedroom" line is gold!)

"Like the Kermit voice Dylan had after the accident. I wish I could like it."
-Hybrid Magazine.

Also, I'd like to note that on Maxalbums.com Beautiful Like Words is included in Sufjan Steven's Album Catalogue. I'm still deciding on whether to be flattered or offended. At least now I'm compared to someone cool. Back in the day people used to compare me to Chris Carraba or Dave Mathews. Basically anyone they knew who owned an acoustic guitar.

Thanks for the laughs,
-eli.

2006-04-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

Good-bye Car. Hello Weird Saxaphone Synth?

I own a '91 Honda Civic Hatchback, blue and beat. It was given to me and I loved that car with all my heart for over a year. It had no power anything and it felt spectacular. I remember pumping that clutch, skipping second gear on the highway for fun. It felt like I was really driving. Not like those pansy new cars.

Now it has 220,000 miles on the odometer and a middle school kid once told me it sounds like a motorcycle. He thought that was rad. I concurred. So, now that I'm moving on from life in Danvers to the big city, it's time for my car to move on too, to a different owner that is. I recently posted it on Craigslist. I'm trying to trade it for a decent and interesting instrument. So far I am being offered a banjo from one person and an electric saxaphone synthesizer from another. Hmmmmm... I do love banjo, but a woodwind synth? I saw a picture of one on-line. It kind of looks like a breathalizer. I'll keep you updated on how it turns out.

Love,
-elijahwyman.

2006-04-25T18:45:00.000-07:00

In Response to a Young Girl's Prayer for Her Dying Grandfather.

You may move some air around the room,
but your lungs will draw it right back to you.
That is all.

There was more to this poem, but this is all I liked enough to remember. It might find its way into a song still.

-eli.

2006-04-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

I wrote this last night in the driveway.

2006-04-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

This weblog will be a dumping grounds for my notes and song sketches and whatever. I may also post some audio from live shows or pictures I colored. It will be a map of my creative process. Since more often than not I scratch out words on whatever paper (or otherwise) I can reach, I hope that I can keep some of my notes past trash day on this here page.

We'll see how this goes...

Love,
-elijahwyman.

www.elijahwyman.com