“Endless Summer Life” … About the Songs

 

“Endless Summer Life” Album/CD – Notes about the Songs

Our sixth album grew out of Colin’s idea that we do a fun, surf sounding collection of songs. I was game. I was a huge Beach Boys fan during the 60’s and have followed Brian Wilson and his music ever since. A number of the songs came out of a jam night that Colin, Bill and I had when we came up with song starts and riffs and rhythms.

I remember back when vinyl “record albums” were just as big as hit singles. I remember back when an album would come out right about at summer time and it would be the album that defined our summers. The summer of the Beach Boys “All Summer Long” album, the summer of their “Pet Sounds” album, the summer of the Beatles “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” We played those albums at parties and in our bedrooms and wore them out.

So this was our attempt to make a summer party album: a feel good, throwback, summer, sunshine, surf, sand, good time, tap your feet, get up and dance party album. So we hope you feel like tapping your foot or getting up and busting some moves across the hardwood floor in white socks or bare feet.

Here are a few notes about the songs.

 

 

Endless Summer Life (P. Davis)
This song owes its title to both the surf movie “Endless Summer” and the Beach Boys double album compilation of hits “Endless Summer.” I live only a short drive to the Atlantic coast beach in Florida and I try to get there once a week, even when it’s not summer weather. I’ve always lived near the ocean, it is a part my DNA by now; the fresh salt air, the waves, the sun and the warmth. If I could, I’d have a beach house on a quiet stretch… “aqua blue horizon line, swimsuit or cut-offs, sandals and T’s…. suits me just fine.”

 Your Front Steps (P. Davis, C. McWhorter, B. Rubino)
This is the first song that came together for us and helped capture a feeling. I have always thought that the Beach Boys “All Summer Long” hit single was two minutes of pure magic. It’s included in the end credits of the movie “American Graffiti.” We couldn’t re-create the Beach Boys’ harmonies, but we mention them in the song. And as a salute and an homage to them, the chorus takes a twist on their song title: “Don’t Worry , Baby.”    When I was in high school and I’d visit my girlfriend, we’d sit out on her front steps and talk, and then we’d go for a ride in my car or go to the basketball game or a movie.  I love how Bill’s mandolin winds up sounding like violin’s with the effects we added. It kicks in halfway through the song to give it some more swing.

East Coast Surf Slide (P. Davis, C. McWhorter, B. Rubino)… David Alan Bruce on additional guitars & lead guitar
We wanted to have a “dance song.” so we made one up. This song started with Colin playing a bass line he came up with and it took off from there. Bill and I grew up on the East Coast, he’s from the Boston area, I’m from Long Island, New York. What a lot of people don’t realize is there is a lot of good surfing on the East Coast. We wanted our song to be one that anyone could dance to, kind of like the Electric Slide that was big when the line dancing craze hit. Maybe someday we’ll make a video of the dance.

So there are steps to our dance as well as a freestyle time. I combined a lot of those early rock and roll nonsensical word sounds for the chorus: “Papa ooh mau mau” by the Del Tinos (1964) that the Beach Boys covered also, “Da Do Ron Ron” by the Crystals (1962), “Be-Bop-A-Lula” by Gene Vincent (1956), the “yeah, yeah, yeah” from the Beatles, “Doo Wah Diddy-Diddy” by Manfred Mann (1964) and “Shoe-bop-shoo-bop” from “Hello Stranger” by Barbara Lewis (1963) another song covered by others.

David Alan Bruce, another songwriter and artist with songs on the internet, is featured on this song. He brought his guitar skills to this and really helped make the song pop. He joined us on two other tracks on this album and we hope on future efforts by Peyote Moon.

Stay Strong (P. Davis)
This started with a drum track and I wrote the melody and lyrics to it. This song is advice to young people. I have grandkids now, and I remember Kajus, Scott’s son, having a real confidence crisis at 5 years old, the whole school thing and all those early challenges of reading and dealing with teachers and new kids. I remember telling him, “We’re all scared at times and we just press on. And you figure it out as you go.”

The Girl too Far (P. Davis, C. McWhorter, B. Rubino)…  Glenn Davis, drums
We all have those stories about the girl we liked who was just a bit out of our league. Maybe we found ourselves dating her for a spell and she was so close. But then so far out of reach. It was nice while it lasted, but it didn’t last. But maybe it was that girl — that one girl — who planted in us that image of beauty, youth, charm, innocence and seduction all in one, that image of the goddess that would always stay with us. There’s a nod to the Beatles in the line: “I saw her standing there.” Glenn Davis, my brother, plays drums on this song.

 Magic Moves (C. McWhorter, P. Davis)
Colin wrote this guitar piece that was perfect. He’s playing really fast (as he likes to do) and I felt that instead trying to sing that fast, I would sing slowly. Again, this song is about that woman in our lives who helps bring the magic to life.

 Her Terms (P. Davis, C. McWhorter, B. Rubino)… Glenn Davis, drums
This song is dedicated to all the young women in our lives (our daughters and maybe granddaughters). It’s advice to the young men who may want to date them.
My brother, Glenn, who plays in another band, played drums for us on this one. I’d have him play on all our tracks if I could pay him and he wasn’t in another band. Glenn’s been in a great local band with these two other “brothers” from a different mom (Bobby and Barry) for close to 30 years now.

Premonitions (P. Davis, C. McWhorter, B. Rubino)
Ah, those summer romances of our youth. You meet a great girl, you date for a semester or two, but inside you slowly start feeling like this isn’t going to last. The summer ends, she goes off to another school or an internship overseas and you know you have to let go, but it’s never easy. There’s “the girl too far” and then there’s the girl you weren’t quite ready for or who was not quite ready for you.

Remember When (P. Davis, L. Torres)… Lou Torres on lead, bass & rhythm guitars, backing vocals
Lou Torres, my friend, taught me my first guitar chords and got me going on guitar when we were in Junior High together back when the Beatles hit and we all wanted to be in bands. He was way ahead of me in guitar playing, singing and performing. But we hooked up after 50 years when we saw we both were going our H.S. Reunion. We wound up performing ten songs at that H.S. in Kings Park, NY. What a blast that was! Lou lives a few states away, but he played all the guitars on this recording and sent me the tracks. Bill added his harmonica skills and I really like how it all turned out.

 True (P. Davis)
This is my Smokey Robinson meets Peyote Moon attempt. We live in a time and culture when there is a lot of flash and not a lot of substance or authenticity. This is our reminder to be true, to stand for something and not just go along with the crowd.

 Best Days (P. Davis, C. McWhorter, B. Rubino)
Sometimes you meet people who talk as if their best days were when they were young — like in Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” (Our song is not “Glory Days.”) Our song is saying the Best Days are always happening, every decade brings newness and great happenings… “the romance of life continues on.”

 The Only One (P. Davis)
This song is about a female surfer who winds up riding the biggest wave, a hurricane wave, when no one else dared. I just made up the story. However, shortly after we finished the track, I read about a Brazilian female surfer who rode a giant wave. Her name is Maya Gabeira; she set a world record in 2018 riding a 68-foot wave off coast of Portugal. So this song is dedicated to Maya Gabeira.

Dawn Patrol (Davis, McWhorter)… David Alan Bruce and Colin McWhorter on Lead Guitars
Colin wrote the driving guitar track that became this song. He wanted to call it “Dawn Patrol,” which is what early morning surfers call their surfing. Then I wrote the lyrics. David Alan Bruce joins us on this track as well. It was a blast having both David and Colin trade rocking guitar leads and let loose on this one. In the instrumental break David starts off, Colin comes in, then David finishes. In the outro Colin rocks the lead, then David slides in and finishes out on the tremolo chords.

Provincetown (P. Davis, C. McWhorter, B. Rubino)… David Alan Bruce on Lead Guitars
Provincetown is now a famous artsy tourist town on the coast of Massachusetts. But way back in the 1600’s it was where the Puritans first landed. The Puritans wound up moving to the mainland because the strip of land in Provincetown is pretty barren. David Alan Bruce joins us again on this one. We hope this tune becomes a hit in Provincetown.

Provincetown represents the spirit of acceptance of all types: “we won’t ask and we won’t tell.” It’s a bar song, a party song, Peyote Moon’s song.

I hope you all enjoy the tunes!

 

Phil Davis
March 10, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Dreaming West”… About the Songs

“Dreaming West” CD – Notes About the Songs

Peyote Moon’s Dreaming West album is both a concept album and a musical journey rooted in the American West. It’s not a single story, but a collection of stories, character songs, and Americana songs. Musically the songs take on a sound and a soundscape inspired by western, rock, bluegrass, country, Americana and gospel music.

The idea for a theme album came to me when Colin gave me a minute and a half instrumental that he wrote.  I sat and listened to it a dozen times and was mesmerized. The image conjured up for me was of the cinematic American West of the 1800’s. It took me several months to find the right lyrics and I used his track to create “The Inconstant Wind”, but during that time I was already taking the west theme and writing songs for this concept album. I think I wrote (or partially wrote) about 30 songs before we decided on these fifteen originals.

The idea of the American West and people launching out across oceans, mountains, plains, frontiers to seek a better life, freedom, fortunes, adventure, and facing all the hardships of pursuing new dreams and new places has always captured my imagination. Running through the songs is a spiritual theme: the heart’s yearning for a better home, a deep spiritual connection to the divine, the God of our fathers and the land.

The songs of this album move us from the early days of America to modern times. The sound and soundscapes change as we move West and forward in time. Some songs are cinematic, some are stripped down, some more rocking… we tried to match the song and the soundscapes to create song images.

Overview of the Songs:

The CD opens with “Crossings” which has the feel of a curtain opening on a scene of a man on an arduous trek, and he has no time to waste, no time for the blues. “Big River Run” invites us to join the journey on the river with all those who have dreams of a better place when they get to their destination. For “The Inconstant Wind” I imagine a group of travelers on a wagon train, stopped for the night and sitting around a campfire.  The fire is dying down, some folks have their instruments our and they sing what might be a “hymn” one of them wrote. And they recount their longings for their destination and the homes they left behind.

“They Came Around” is about generational revenge in the Wild West. “Letters” is a young wife and mother wondering if her husband will return. “Losing Cost” is an older settler reflecting on the cost of going west.   “Hungry Ghosts” imagines a festival in New Mexico similar to the Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos). “Deadwood” is a fun song about towns like Deadwood that attracted the lawless and the outlaws.

Moving into modern times… “Into the Ghost Lands” is about two couples on the run,
from what we don’t know, it’s our X-Files song. “Frontier Bound” reflects on how we’ve carved up the wilderness and not always for the better.

The last 4 songs (before the bonus track) close out the journey. “Appalachian Dreams” is a love song about the eastern mountains in North Carolina where the singer and his lover live. “Chasing Down Heaven: is our gospel song. “Sail On” is our song about the greater journey, the spiritual journey and the journey beyond. “Still Dreaming” closes out our journey and reflects back on the themes.

Track 16, the Bonus Track, is an alternate mix of “Deadwood” that humorously re-imagines the song as if sung by Reverend Chester Dillweed at the start of Deadwood’s annual Founder’s Day celebration.

Some Additional Song Notes….

“Crossings” – This song sets the stage and the cinematic feel. The seminal idea is that of a journey heading west all the way to the California coast, crossing mountains, facing hardship to get to the woman he loves. Since Colin is originally from Colorado, I felt his instrumental evoked the image of being at the base of our country’s “purple mountains majesty.” So the song starts at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. The traveler is not seeking gold or silver, but the woman he loves: “you’re my gold rush, you’re my one sure map.”

“Big River Run” – Before there were trails and roads, rivers were the trails that took explorers deeper into the West and the unknown. The Hudson, the Ohio, the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Rio Grande, the Columbia opened new lands for those early travelers. Here the River is more than a river; it’s something more than water or transport, it represents something deeply spiritual as well – as with ancient people’s this is the God of the River, if you will. It “carries as many dreams as you can hold.”

“The Inconstant Wind” – If the Big River is a Majestic God, then the Wind is the Great Spirit that the Native Americans appealed to and the Holy Spirit that the scriptures say “blows where it wills.” The divine presence is always autonomous, wild and unpredictable. When undertaking a hazardous journey and traveling west across a great land – like the journey of a life itself – it behooves one to take some spiritual anchors and higher help…. So the Big River and the Inconstant Wind are my companions.

“They Came Around” is an age old story of generational revenge. The Wild West could be a dangerous, cruel place. Beyond the reach of civilizations and law, individuals were often subject to cruel personal retribution. Sadly, so much of the West is full of stories of taking a life for a life. “I killed your father, he killed mine, now my son gets to watch me die.” This was one of the first songs that Colin, Bill and I wrote together.

“Letters” is sung by a young wife and mother whose husband has gone further west to secure land and will return or send for his family to follow. But so many times people went in search of a better life and were never heard from again. We asked a young teenager we knew, Shannon Zoltec, to sing the lead on this song. I think she really captures the innocence and youth of a mother who doesn’t know if her husband is still alive or not.

“Losing Cost” – When I look back on all the hardships and the difficulties that accompanied life in the 1700’s and 1800’s in America, I am amazed and impressed by those people and what they went through. My own ancestors came to America in the 1630’s and were among the first Pilgrims to settle in Massachusetts after a hazardous trip aboard a sailing vessel across the Atlantic Ocean. The singer of this song remembers all the pain, but chooses to embrace life.

“Hungry Ghosts” imagines a festival at the foot of Ship Rock in New Mexico. Ship Rock is a huge mountain of rock rising from the sand that looks like something from Mars. Merging a Chinese festival of Hungry Ghosts with Native American folklore and a bit of Día de los Muertos … and we get this night of revelry and dance. “Let all your Hungry Ghosts out to dance.”

“Deadwood” was a notoriously lawless mining town that sprung up near the Black Hills of South Dakota in the Wild West after the Civil War. The town is used in the song as a place for the misfits, the refugees, and those eluding the law. In the Old Testament, “Cities of Refuge” were designated as places where people who committed unintentional murder could find refuge from those seeking to punish them. Refuge, sanctuary, a place for the misfits – “strike-up the homeless heretics band.”

“Rodeo Souls” moves us up into a more modern times. This song was inspired by a Navajo couple I know from New Mexico. They are a rodeo family – the husband was a rodeo star and their three children competed in rodeos. My wife and I spent a memorable night on their ranch on the plains at the foot of the Lukachukai Mountains on the border of Arizona and New Mexico. The song imagines a fiery couple on the rodeo circuit; all the place names in the song are connected to rodeo towns and festivals. This was one of the last songs Lakshmi performed with us before moving to California.

“Into the Ghost Lands” is the Wild West meets the X-Files song. Set in modern times, it imagines two couples on the run who travel through a desolate wilderness to escape the law. But they must make it through the Ghost Lands, a treacherous expanse with its own Devil’s Triangle mythology of gobbling up lost souls.

“Frontier Bound – Circa 1976” is a 70’s southern California type song that moves the timeline along to our environmentalist movement days of Americans realizing that we paved over the wilderness with parking lots and condos and we still threaten our natural wilderness. “I’m packing up and I’m moving on.” The search and Dreaming West is never finished; it’s as much a pursuit of paradise, a heaven on earth, and at the very least our own little peaceful plot of land.

“Appalachian Dreams” brings us to today and moves us back to America’s first “Dreaming West” mountains – the Appalachians – and today’s yearning for that quiet personal piece of paradise. The Appalachian Mountains (which run from Maine to Georgia) are a contrast to the Western Mountains. The Appalachians with their lush greens and less ominous heights are more accessible, more pastoral, less treacherous, more “home-like.” I’ve spent many a memorable vacation in the Appalachians.

“Chasing down Heaven” is our gospel song. All of the album songs have an underlying theme of a spiritual pursuit, a longing for something higher, greater, and deeper. The mythology and imagery of the West are for me an analogy of my lifelong spiritual pursuit.

“Sail On” is another spiritual take on the journey of life. Inspired by Walt Whitman’s poetry and specifically his “Passage to India” poem and his lines about sailing and sailing forth. This song continues the journey West beyond the shores of California to “the ends of the earth.” The journey is never completed for the romantic mystic, the seeker and the explorer.

“Still Dreaming” brings our Dreaming West song cycle to its end with the Dreamer still asking questions, seeking new lands, new insights… “light-years away from home”… “will my soul travel on when I’m gone”… “Don’t wake me, I’m still dreaming.”

Bonus Track: “Deadwood” – Alternate Version We had an old timer with a pastoral background come in and sing a down home version of this song. Rev. Chester Dillweed gives us a movie musical version of the song. I imagine him standing on the town square platform kicking off the annual festival accompanied by the town’s band. The town street is packed with everyone from town and the celebrating has begun.

We hope you enjoy the musical journey,

Phil Davis

 

“Slipstream” … About the Songs

This is a more personal collection of songs which were loosely tied to the theme of having a higher consciousness or as they say today, “woke” or “wokeness.” It’s cosmic consciousness , a spiritual inner and outer view – being in the Slipstream of the whole universe and all of life, being in synch, in tune with life and its all its yin and yang. So the songs in order are…

“Slipstream” sets the stage for the cosmic consciousness theme by imagining us being interstellar beings – one some other plane of being and existence. Imagine being some higher evolved being, where we are like the gods. Where we can move about the universe freely and be way beyond time and not bound by our limited confines and dimensions.

“Back Around Again” is the reassurance that things are highly personal in this immense universe. Everything is in a motion and in cycles. We are all connected. And things come back around again… the way the earth, the moon, all the stars and heavens move, orbit and rotate.

“Mercy Remains” is my reminder that no matter how things go, how much things change in love and life, the one constant is the mercy of God. Divine mercy remains constant. The song is also a nice little 4 minute and 38 seconds mini suite with a few movements, a moment of tribute to The Beach Boys Brian Wilson influence, some Scripture, some Shakespeare, some love advice, and even some rap.

“Epiphany” is a light take on the spirituality of all of life. It’s about looking at all the details, the color and the human moments in life as little epiphanies – moments of wonder and illumination in everyday life.

“Heart and Soul” is a nod to those intangible parts of our existence that make us more than the animals– our heart and the soul.

“Where They Hide” imagines two lovers on a high that brings them to the place where the gods hide. The Ancients used to talk about “going to the gods” in their vision ceremonies. So “this is what they’ve been keeping from us… all blessings, lifted curse.”

The Next 3 Songs are three different ways of looking at Lost Love:

“Under Cerulean Skies” looks back at a young man’s “exchanging innocence for the divine” in a summer love with one’s first “goddess”… “waiting her term in turn in the night skies.”

“Bittersweet” is about a short love affair and a departing lover leaving the singer with an important reminder.

“Next time Around” is one guy reminding himself not to make the same mistake next time in a love relationship. The singer’s ironic undertones leave the listener thinking that the singer maybe hasn’t learned as much as he thinks he has about love and will probably make the same mistakes again.

“Dream Whisperer” is about maintaining a magical sense of one’s dreams… and waiting for the next dream to be whispered to us from the Dream Whisperer – whoever you may name her or him  in your spiritual life.  There are phrases in the chorus from Black Elk’s vision, the Native American shaman who was a visionary for his people. And there’s a verse from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, another one of my Dream Whisperers.

“Hasten the Sun” is a reflection on my spiritual journey and finally pursuing a higher consciousness than fundamental religions typically provide. It’s about making the most of the day and hastening the next one along. “Are you youthening or sinking into time.”

“Into the Ghost Lands” is a story of some people on the run. The universe is a wild and treacherous place at times. The Ghost Lands can be any place, kind of like the valley of the shadow of death.

“Thunder’s Coming” is about the destructive side of the Universe and the ages of man.  Civilizations have come and gone – judgment comes, sometimes from a hostile ways of nature. But in typical Peyote Moon point of view, the second part of the song gives way to a sunny side to it all – like a surf band took over the stage — a foreshadowing of album #6 – “Surf Shack Getaway.”

“Wings of a Cloud” is breezy longing to be carried off to eternity on a cloud. The Americans sound with its dancing mandolin and harmonica is a taste of the band’s next CD – “Dreaming West.”