A Bothersome Injuries Forty (Vol. 3) - EP

by James O'Brien

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1.
Holy Ground (Demo 2004) 03:52
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In the dream, you were a boxer. In the dream, you were a poet. The ghosts gathered did not know it; they passed you by and made no sound. Did you smell the apparition like a passing wind in cotton, your throat tied up in knots, no one hearing what you needed, your heart then full-retreated, small, and round? Holy ground, holy ground May your love grow on holy ground Holy ground, holy ground May your love grow on holy ground Holy ground This is the land of apparitions. It’s the land of Roman highways. From the hole debris trails sideways; drifting dead slow soft snowflakes silt the ground. I was listing in the water, you were clinging to a coffin. The whale had breached the wave tops, I was reaching for your fingers; the tips white as sheets in springtime; the captain, drowned. Holy ground, holy ground May your love grow on holy ground Holy ground, holy ground May your love grow on holy ground My heart is cool blue water; lift your feet to wash the dirt clean, release your ritual from its meaning, dig your dreams out of the ground. You may abdicate your Jesus, concede the deserts of your heartache, return to simple things and childhood, grasp the good earth, eat the apple; the fruit is back in season, I have found. Holy ground, holy ground May your love grow on holy ground Holy ground, holy ground May your love grow on holy ground Holy ground Holy ground
2.
Barbed Wire (Demo 2007) 02:34
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Most people spend their lives trying to make the New York Times; I made mine quite early but I didn’t believe my product. Now I spend most of my days trying to disentangle the many and various ways I am ensnared in the barbed wire of America. Now, you can sing like a buffoon or you can write yourself in corners painting a new doorway, and never make the threshold, until a man he comes and taps you and says, “Noble or a knave?” It’s just the way you spend your days, trying to disentangle the many and various ways you are ensnared in the barbed wire of America. Don’t make enemies of people who buy ink by the gallon Don’t make friends with people who buy ink by the gallon Now, mostly what I’d like to do is to serve you both a milkshake and a couple of quesadillas and go home, and every night — with the sharp, seductive smell of fresh garlic on my fingers; I could write you encyclopedias about garlic on my fingers — seems I’m doomed to spend my days just trying to disentangle the many and various ways I am ensnared in the barbed wire of America. Don’t make enemies of people who buy ink by the gallon Don’t make friends with people who buy ink by the gallon Still, the truth be told, I do more in afternoons than you could finish in whole weeks of writing and revising, but still I feel so useless, like I’m dying on the vine; let’s do the disentangle baby; come save me from the barbed wire of America.
3.
Guantanamo (Rehearsal 2003) 06:48
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4.
Wrecking Ball (Rehearsal 2003) 03:44
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Dear America, I know I asked you to the prom: if you’re going to come, come, but leave your prom dress at home. I want your skin; I want to see where you have holes; I want to fill you up with stuff that everybody knows. I want to burn. I want to bleed. I want to be what you saw originally. Everybody’s living in the same world Everybody’s looking for a temple to something I’m watching you; you’re watching me go down Watching the wrecking ball Watching the wrecking ball Give me back my heart; I’m not done with it, yet: don’t try to shove it back; only I know how to make it fit. When I was a boy, I saw mushroom clouds at night; nuclear blooms on the walls of my room — now I’m older, I can fight. I fought the law; you know, authority came out winning. I am the fist. You are the glove. We’re middleweights and this is our ring. Everybody’s living in the same world Everybody’s looking for a temple to something I’m watching you; you’re watching me go down Watching the wrecking ball Watching the wrecking ball So grab your boy; yeah, grab your girl, if that’s your style: run for the center — the barrels are burning; you can warm your hands by the fire. There’s always a sword; it’s always poised above your skull. Make every meal a feast; you’ve got to eat ’til you are full. Everybody’s living in the same world Everybody’s looking for a temple to something I’m watching you; you’re watching me go down Watching the wrecking ball Watching the wrecking ball Watching the wrecking ball
5.
Going Nowhere (On-Air 2003) 02:14
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In the land of uranium, in the year of the cat, with half my rack of whiskers and this quarter-inch jack, I’m too far from my baby, in my hydrochloric vat, with these gas station appointments and service station maps. I’m going nowhere Nowhere Snake president’s Mercedes drops the owls off at jail, and pitbulls wrestle words down at the homonym sale. U2s over Asia are rusty threaded nails for the kilotonic Jesus on the bargain-chip rail. I’m going nowhere Nowhere Hey, I’m going nowhere Before this world splits like a melon I’d like to suckle from a tree, whose bark’s black sour venom, whose nectar is free association. And if heaven is like Greek myths, maybe Icarus is free, running through an airport crying, “This time, Dad, you’ll see.” Well, here’s a beeswax kiss for leaving; I hope you get an aisle seat and you’re far away from Heaven when the sky fills with its heat. I’m going nowhere Nowhere Hey, you know me I’m going nowhere
6.
Enemy (Demo 2004) 02:52
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Here is my misery pouring right out of me, bitter black coffee soiling my sheets. I do it to myself, I can’t stop. Here is my misery buried inside of me, little black sparrow eating up my heart. I do it to myself; I can’t stop. While my enemy sings While my enemy sings You are my enemy, opposite cell, you see, negative alter me ... I do it to myself; I can’t stop. You are my enemy, I pay, you get it free. You’re in the bar, you’re in the grand hotel. I do it to myself; I can’t stop. While my enemy sings While my enemy sings I do it for my enemy I do it for my enemy I do it for my enemy I do it for my enemy I do it for my enemy I do it for my enemy I do it for my enemy I do it for my enemy enemy enemy
7.
Election Day (Demo 2004) 02:46
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The riots were forgotten, just some ghosts out on the street: no more peasants holding pole arms; no more doors marked by the Beast. We will wake up in a meadow with the sky a diamond bowl: no more films by Ingmar Bergman; Max Von Sydow keep your soul. We will vote two days from Sunday; dry your cheek We will vote two days from Sunday; dry your cheek Nearby a troop of actors, rehearsing for a play; this one plays the king's son, memorizing what he'll say. Beware the sneak assassin and don’t listen to loose talk; we’ll hire armies of our outcasts, huddled in the dark. We will vote two days from Sunday; dry your cheek We will vote two days from Sunday; dry your cheek I am thinking on Lon Chaney, on pentagrams and grief, how the wolf finally released him in a film that no one sees. I am thinking on your heartbeats, which I desperately try to start; I wish this world of ours would slow down long enough to talk. We will vote two days from Sunday; dry your cheek We will vote two days from Sunday; dry your cheek We will vote two days from Sunday; dry your cheek

about

I wasn’t touring or playing out anymore, but the songs still came — not a flood of them, but a new one now and then.

“Holy Ground” is one song from that time. The lyrics rise from a different well. I am all alone in an apartment and letting this music happen in unhurried, daylong ways. This is the nature of it. You can also maybe detect some Peter Buck down in the DNA, down in the arpeggios.

Another of the laptop songs, “Barbed Wire” emerged from a moment of crisis. I was in a bad job. And you can hear the rawness of the recording-apparatus at work — the texture of the vocals, the swirling hissy quality of the whole thing. Natural flange and phase. There is a un-peg-able atmosphere around these soundscapes. I am thankful for it: in this case, the nature of the recording echoes the mood of the moment.

The next track takes us back to when I was still on the road, still on the mic, still pushing for it. For something. For whatever it was supposed to be. In the timeframe of the same months that included the final sessions for Church of the Kitchen Sink, the band that would bear that album’s name was practicing in a shopping-mall basement in central Massachusetts — Worcester. The space was a dump, once an Army recruiting office but by the time of our occupancy it had collapsed into a long, cluttered, carpeted expanse of junked-up amplifiers and discarded DIY stage lights. Everything was old. Everything old down there was rotting under the remains of the shopping mall.

From these rehearsals, “Guantanamo” post-dates the songs on Church. In this recording, you can hear all the murky, milky frustration of the early 2000s, all that anger coming through. It’s an Iraq War song. It’s a 9/11 song. It’s a George W. dirge, a long-running ramble from an age of imperfect anesthesia. Be patient with the recording quality, in this instance (and in the next one on the track list, too). These bits represent some of the rawest of all possible inputs, but such a gloriously lugubrious result. The bass sounds gorgeous to me. Nudge up your volume a little bit.

“Wrecking Ball.” Same time period. We’re going full-bore, here, performing for each other, listening for where the song is supposed to live if we can just get it down. There are unfinished arrangements floating in the root code. Sometimes the song wants to fly apart, other times it pulses like an anthem, which is what it ached to become. I love the miniature guitar solo; it’s about two-and-a-half minutes into the take. For a moment, this version of the song probably sounded like the future of the band.

“Going Nowhere.” The recording comes from the soundboard at a city university radio station — Northeastern, in Boston — and it sounds clean and clear and strong. Just because you’re precocious doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

“Enemy.” An anthem for the rest of us. I tried to write some notes about this, but I haven’t got it right, yet. It’s not much of a song, sometimes, to me. Other times it’s a very complicated thing. More to come.

Finally, this volume wraps on a topical note, thirteen years in the past. So much seemed to ride on that November’s national election. Some of my favorite lines are in this one. We were so much younger. We’ll leave off, then, now, but we’ll pick up in a similar moment when we get to Volume Four.

Keep it going. See you out there. It’s not over, yet. Thanks.



All these tracks were mastered in 2017 by Matt Girard.

The artwork is by Joe Kowan.

credits

released November 1, 2017

Holy Ground: 2004 ; Recorded/Mixed by: laptop home demo ; Mastered by: Matt Girard, Transference Audio, 2017

Barbed Wire: 2007 ; Recorded/Mixed by: laptop home demo ; Mastered by: Matt Girard, Transference Audio, 2017 ; Artwork: Joe Kowan

Guantanamo: 2003 ; Drums: Joe Brown or Joe Giotta ; Electric Guitar: Torbin Harding ; Bass: Justin Day ; Recorded/Mixed by: rehearsal recording ; Studio: Midtown Mall rehearsal studio, Worcester, Mass. ; Mastered by: Matt Girard, Transference Audio, 2017 ; Artwork: Joe Kowan

Wrecking Ball: 2003 ; Drums: Joe Brown or Joe Giotta ; Electric Guitar: Torbin Harding ; Bass: Justin Day ; Recorded/Mixed by: rehearsal recording ; Studio: Midtown Mall rehearsal studio, Worcester, Mass. ; Mastered by: Matt Girard, Transference Audio, 2017 ; Artwork: Joe Kowan

Going Nowhere: c. 2003 ; Recorded/Mixed by: Ari ; Studio: WRBB 104.9 FM, Northeastern University, Boston, Mass. ; Mastered by: Matt Girard, Transference Audio, 2017 ; Artwork: Joe Kowan

Enemy: c. 2004 ; Recorded/Mixed by: Jordan Tishler ; Studio: Digital Bear Entertainment, Boston, Mass. ; Mastered by: Matt Girard, Transference Audio, 2017 ; Artwork: Joe Kowan

Election Day: 2004 ; Recorded/Mixed by: Jordan Tishler ; Studio: Digital Bear Entertainment, Boston, Mass. ; Mastered by: Matt Girard, Transference Audio, 2017 ; Artwork: Joe Kowan

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James O'Brien New York, New York

James O’Brien toured the U.S. and the U.K. from 1998–2004 playing politically aware songs, sometimes solo and sometimes with a band, sharing billings with artists such as Hamell on Trial, Dan Bern, Michael McDermott, John Sinclair, Bill Miller and Freedy Johnson.

In 2017, after a 13-year hiatus, he began to release archival and new material, expanding his catalog to fourteen albums as of 2022. ... more

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