Songtown - Vol. 11 (Perfume)

Artist: Spin The Spin
Song: Perfume (demo)
Album: Mike's Demos
Year: 2000
Download


Spin The Spin was perhaps the most well-planned band that's ever existed in history. I had been recording my little tapes as Twentieth Century Styles. Mark and Mike's work in The Spontaneous Gyrations in high school was by far the largest musical influence in my life and I'm not sure that the 20thCS would have ever happened without them.

So, it made sense that the three of us would get together to work on a project that Mark had deemed "The Cream of the Pop." We called it Spin The Spin, inspired by the name of an arcade game that Mark, our friend Steve and maybe Mike had played at Towson Town Center. The object of the game was to simply spin the spin.

And so we started writing. The three of us occasionally got together and just jammed on three acoustics, recording every last second of it. Add that to the feverish song writing pace that we were all working at on our own, we ended up having a pool of over a hundred songs or song snippets to work from. We eventually got our buddy Gary to play drums, who ironically would usurp all three of us in songwriting prowess and pace.

We played five or six shows and partially recorded our debut album before Mark moved off to Brooklyn. And now I have stacks and stacks of these song bits saved on my hard drive. Our debut album would have been comprised of three or four songs from each of us. We had recorded the basic tracks for Mark's and my songs, but we never had a chance to start Mike's songs. He wound up recording and releasing "Wanderlust" and "Sing Me A Mountain" on his one and only solo album, but one track, "Perfume," never made its way out to the public. Unfortunately for all of you, this track was the cream of the Spin The Spin cannon. [I've decided to stop italicizing Spin The Spin.]

Fortunately for you, this demo of "Perfume" does exist. Its a short rendition of it. We wound up doing the chorus a few times, and maybe there was a solo or a third verse too.

It was around this time that I remember Mike complaining a lot about how the Goo Goo Dolls had began one of their hit songs with the word "And." He thought that was totally improper and stupid. And what? Who cares about the second part, when you never even told us the first part? I eventually explained it to him that the song was probably a continuation of their last song, as they sounded exactly alike.

Anyhow, the second line in this song ends with an "and," and I think its unbelievably creative. I don't know if he did to set it up as a juxtaposition to the Goo Goo way. As a "Fuck you, Goo Goo Dolls. This is how you do 'and.'" But it would make for amazing lore if he had.

I would rank this song up at the top of the Gittings-penned tunes with "Teacher's Pet," one that will show up on the next Water School album. The melody is really well-defined and clever. And the hooks! Its littered with them. "Fine fine fine....Mine mine mine." "Doo do-do-do doo, doo doo doo..."

This is the one aspect that always suffered in our Water School songs, but we lacked an iconic Sweet Child O' Mine guitar riff, or a Hey Jude "na na na" sing along. "Perfume" would have taken care of the latter, at least.

And try to tell me that you don't smile and snicker a bit at the end of the first verse when he sings "I got high just from standing next to you, sniffing the fumes," and then immediately clarifies them as being "the perfume fumes." I love it!

I have no clue what he's singing about in the second verse but I bet's it sexual. Something about a dentist, embroidery and a tiger.

I should now tell you that this song brings real joy to my heart because its the closest thing that I have to Gooseberry Soda. If I didn't know better, I would think that Mike might have produced the Gooseberry song. Really, its creepy how similar the two songs are. If only Mike would have sung about that black snake in the quarry.

Life After People follow-up

In conclusion, if Life After People was a question, the answer would be "Yes."

In ten thousand years, after corrosion brought down the bridges and buildings and whatever concrete-disease tore apart the concrete stuff, all of your favorite metropolitan areas would be grassed over and you couldn't even tell that other stuff used to be there. The oceans would be plentifully stocked with marine life. The Hoover Dam and the Great Pyramid would last for eons and Mt. Rushmore might just last forever.

During the final 45 minutes, the special finally divulged the fate of your household cats. Well, as with the dogs, if they were able to make it out of their homes, they'd be thriving eating tiny birds and field mice. And in 150 years, while dogs have resorted back to their primitive wolf ways and formed bear-killing gangs...your kitties would take up in skyscrapers, "and if you want to get really imaginative, I guess cats could follow the path of the flying squirrel and start gliding through the sky." !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I began with the conclusion, so now I don't know where to go.

I wish....

....That someone would rip apart my writing like this.

ISO Geeky Scientists

So, I was thinking of submitting this entry in Persian but reality got the better of me.

Monday night, I'm embarrassed to say, I TiVo'd my first ever program on the History Channel. It was a two hour special called Life After People. I had seen a magazine ad for it which featured a cougar (like a cat) lying on a grown-over Brooklyn Bridge. I tried and I tried, but it seems like no one has submitted this image to the internet yet. Anyhow, I was dying to know how this cougar got onto this bridge.

I started watching last night and I've made it just beyond the hour mark so far. The idea of the show, obviously, is to show what would happen to Earth if one day all of the humans died off. As per usual, there was some dramatic narrator taking us through this trip, but the narrated bits would be interspersed with some really awkardly geeky scientists making cute jokes and explaining why the nuclear power plants would shut off as part of a fail-safe measure after just a day or two, but how the Hoover Dam would keep doing what its doing for six months to a year, because that's a real well-oiled machine that they have set up out there. The unsettling part about these scientist segments would be how the special effects team would make them appear out of thin air and then disappear once they were done with what they were saying. These scientists were creepily ghostly.

Apparently, its bad news for our dogs, first and foremost. The largest blow to their survival rate would be that most of them would be locked inside of our homes, so after they finished the loaf of bread that you left on the counter, they'd be goners. Or most of them would be. These scientists lead me to believe that a good amount of these dogs would decide to jump through windows or figure out the intricate lock/handle mechanisms on our doors. Its additional bad news if your dog has a short or a really long snout. Apparently, they can't fend for themselves. Your best bet is to have a medium size dog with medium sized features.

They riffed some more about animals. "The big question is whether the zoo animals would figure out a way to get out of their cages." They lauded the pigeon's ability to make ends meet. They said nothing would kill the immortal cockroach. They'd eat books and boxes for the rest of their existence (where existence equals forever!!!!!!).

After they went through the motions with the animals (thankfully neglecting to tell me of the fate of the reptile), they moved onto nature and how the weeds would take over the streets, wildfires would kill Rome and Chicago, trees would grow on the tops of houses and Amsterdam and London would be overcome by water.

The geekiest of all scientists was doing his interview by an abandoned outdoor staircase that had had weeds growing on it for nearly 20 years. Sure it was pretty ratty looking, but it was still obviously a staircase. But not after 200 years! Oh no. Geekman says that it would be "nearly impossible" to recognize this as a staircase. Yeah, except when you trip over it and bust your face up on step 4.

Anyhow, I guess I sorta enjoyed what I've seen so far, but my suspension of disbelief is teetering on unsuspension. They never gave a plausible reason for what would kill off the entire human race overnight, yet would leave every other animal species intact. This wasn't painted as a slow kill, because every home still had a household pet and a loaf of bread on the counter, so that discounts some sort of man-only disease.

So, I'm sorta dumb about Chernobyl and thermo nuclear war and global warming and asteroids, but what could possibly kill us all? Maybe we weren't killed? Maybe we were all abducted, because they didn't show any of our dead bodies. Sure, they showed the same clip of the coyote ripping apart that poor dead dear over and over, but when are they going to get clued in to the fact that they can eat these billions of dead people dudes, too?

Thus I ask you, dear readers, what would the circumstances be of such a life after people because I just don't get it.

I'll let you know if they explain it in the second hour.