I wouldn't normally do this until sometime the next day. It's 2:30am right now, and I am equal parts excited and depressed. I'm excited because of this beautiful new single that I have to offer you, and because there's so much more I'm about to give you. It's an exciting time for me, musically. I had enough songs build up that, even being picky, I could hardly not justify an EP, and the title Black Leather and Sugarcane randomly came to me. Well, another couple of songs burst forth, and I mean burst. Each one was written (first full-length draft) in about a day. So, I had a dilemma of replacing existing songs on a seven-track EP with these two new ones...or releasing a nine-track album? But as long as I was going to release an album, why not just include songs from my last EP Compromises - of which there were three I wanted to include on my next album - for a solid total of twelve tracks? I asked for some feedback, and everyone said "do the twelve-track album." Did I mention I was planning on releasing Black Leather and Sugarcane on the birthday of one of my oldest and dearest friends? Well, as it turns out, he's getting a twelve-song, full-length album, dedicated to him and released on his birthday. Happy birthday, William Bryant Mansell. I love you.
But even with all that positivity and good energy, my heart kind of hurts right now. I guess part of it is that I just learned my dear second-mother (of my logical family, as opposed to biological or lawful) is living downstairs from my former flat, and she's looking for an upstairs neighbor. And I'm no position to be moving back to Oregon right now. It would practically be a dream come true if I could. Every time I see ferns on the ground around giant evergreens, with moss and mushrooms all over the place, I think, "Oh, Pacific Northwest, how I miss thee." I know, it's too liberal for everyone in my biological and step family, except for the youngest generation. Me, I'd just like to be in a place more accepting of sexual and gender minorities where there's clean rivers to swim in, and you can smoke pot with your picnic lunch. Plus, there's a bunch of people I miss on the west coast. They might be all spread out now, from San Francisco to Seattle. And I could only afford to live in what were the "redneck" towns when I was growing up. But those redneck towns have changed a lot, and so have I. I could easily see myself fitting back into them now that we've had some time apart, while putting myself back in a position of easy travel to the "gay meccas" on the "left coast."
I wanted to avoid getting into my political positions. But if I'm honest, that's another part of why I'm depressed. I released this single on the anniversary of another of my singles, "Pulses Intertwined." But "Pulses Intertwined" was released on the anniversary of a very tragic event in my life, and so this is as well. I'm trying to orient the date positively with music, and at least right now I'm not crying and in a dark hole of despair. You see, my older brother killed my father and step-mother with my father's gun on this day. I've spent the last few years living in central Missouri trying to reorient my thinking around firearms. The people who use them or even enthuse over them aren't evil. But my determination to be comfortable around guns has waned - I don't even go practice shooting with my family anymore at our little range next to our house. All I can think of is how much anxiety it causes the dogs, and myself as well. There's just no good that comes of it. But what if a bad guy...? you might say. Yes, so many situations in which a gun might be useful. But they're likelihood doesn't outweigh the consequences or discomfort of living with a firearm for me. When it comes down to it: I just think we're better off without them, and the less guns in the world, the better. And there needs to be an attitude change toward guns. They're not cool and should not be celebrated. They're instruments of death. Let's put our energy into not killing each other or making it easier to kill each other, shall we?
There, I went ahead and got a little political. Sorry about that. As much as this blog is supposed to be about the music - and I used to promote it as my musician's web site - it's also, well, a blog. It's about my thoughts and feelings as much as anything else. And so it's a bit of a form of therapy. And on days like today, I need a little bit of therapy. Of course, I have music for that, too. I release my music on special days to try and make them more about art. And if I have to release a single on this day every year to make it about my music instead of my feelings about gun violence, then that's what I'll do.
A little about the writing of this song: I've been getting into recycling piano riffs lately. That's gone a long way toward getting Black Leather and Sugarcane written. I don't think of it as regurgitating the same thing, but expanding on a theme, like you might hear in a Pink Floyd or Nine Inch Nails album. Of course, this isn't sourced from something else new I've written, but instead comes from Saturn Ascending's "Dark Highways." The first two chords are from it's arpeggios; then I kind of took it back up and down the scale to a greater extreme, giving it a bit of a "lilt," if you will. And because I was inspired by Nine Inch Nails, I translated that piano to electric guitar, on two octaves. It sort of wanted to go all-out metal after that. In the end, it made an interesting spectrum for this song to exist on: part neoclassical ballad, part heavy metal rocker. With electronic elements, of course, pursuing a post-industrial niche I seem to be carving for myself. It was like that with Saturn Ascending; you'll find it's a little more of the same with Black Leather and Sugarcane. Hopefully that's a good thing.
So here's what's going to have to tide you over until Black Leather and Sugarcane on December 18th. "My Secret Life" is available at YouTube and YouTube Music, Spotify, Google Play, Apple Music and iTunes, Amazon, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Napster, and TIDAL. It's also at Pandora, which is new! Man, I've submitted and submitted my stuff to Pandora in the past, but their curators always proved too picky. Even when my distributor started distributing to them, they shunned me. So, it was a surprise to me when I Googled "The Lady anoNYMous" (which I now have a measure of control over the results, which prompted this exercise) and there was a Pandora link! Turns out Compromises is good enough for them, and it may have started a trend. So now "My Secret Life" is on Pandora, and hopefully Black Leather and Sugarcane will be too.
See, there's been some uplifting developments in my world. Missing Oregon and the recent shootings have been sore spots. But the music keeps moving forward, and I largely have you to thank for it. If I wasn't so socially conscious of the origins of Thanksgiving, I would have baked a butternut squash and given thanks to all of you. But instead I was with my mom and step-family, so mine was more the traditional, hang out with people you never see and eat too much kind of affair. I'm not complaining. I've definitely had worse. And there was a lot of puppy entertainment in the form of three large dogs and one very small one. Let's all give thanks for puppies! And that my cats didn't run away because of them.
I also have to give a big shout of thanks to the wonderful fantastic Zach Shattuck. We went to middle school and high school together, and used to be thick as thieves before my gradual descent to dropping out of public school. Out of nowhere, he Facebook messaged me, "Are you The Lady anoNYMous on YouTube?" It turns out he stumbled upon a little album called Dialectical Observations that he rather enjoyed. He threw it out there that if I ever wanted some cover art done... Well, I took him up on it, and this slightly unsettling and very provocative image is what he came up with, based on "My Secret Life." Kind of like watching the devil in a mirror, don't you think? I love it. I think I know what's getting tattooed on my lower back.
Well, that's about everything I wanted to get you up to date on, and to get off my chest. Thanks for the little rant, and the pining away. As usual, I have a bonus song that I hope makes it worth your while. Enjoy!
Hang in there these holidays, my lovelies. I know I'm not the only one that has negative associations with them and struggles just to put one foot in front of the other in what everyone else calls "celebration." So I hope my music can be a beacon and a comfort for you. May your inner snails remain resilient and determined.
