Dance as Compulsory Liberation

I'll Waste Away (demo 2001)

Faux Friends,

Let me begin by saying “thanks” to the nice people who have gone over to the Faux Jean Bandcamp page and purchased some of the new music.

You are truly awesome!

This Tuesday I’ve added a new song to the “Mixed Up Files” record which you can listen to as an mp3 in the player below:

1.0×

0:00

-1:29

You can also listen to the song here as a higher-quality wav file (I can’t really tell the difference tbh):

The above version is the original demo for “I’ll Waste Away,” a banger of tune that ended up on the Faux Jean release “Dead Lover” in 2003.

The version that I've added to “Mixed Up Files” record is a bedroom recording from 2001 that I transferred to digital with wild panning through the headphone jack on that CD burner I keep prattling on about.¹

I buffed it out a little using Adobe Audition yesterday.

When I made this recording 21 years ago (!!!), I listened to it over and over trying to imagine what it might become. It gave me hope for the future.

I got lost in the swirl and thought about the dancefloor.² Because

the dancefloor is a scared place.

I take the shaking of tail feathers very seriously.

This has been true since 1984 when Prince dropped this on an unsuspecting teenage me cutting a rug at the teen dance club in my hometown, which was called Faces.

Between this song and “Rock Lobster” by the B-52’s, the world seemed like a beautiful place where dancing was a compulsory form of liberation.³

Really, one of the best parts of being in a musical group is moving an audience to dance.

Maybe that’s just me, ‘cause I’m a dancing fool.

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I did get to shake a tail feather briefly last week when Minneapolis legends Night Moves came through San Diego and played a sold-out show at the Casbah⁴. Check ‘em out if you haven’t already. They had people dancing and eating out of their hands.

I missed the opener, Shady Cove⁵, but have been listening to this song of theirs a lot and find it quite mesmerizing.

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I was wearing the Green Bay Packers hat that my wife gifted me at this gig and was approached by a fellow who wondered if I was qualified to wear such a lid.

This mirror was washed shortly after the photo was taken.

I told him I had spent several years in Madison and have attended a number of Packers games.

Turns out, he had moved to San Diego from Madison and used to do sound for bands playing on the Memorial Union Terrace, another place that I hold to be sacred.⁶

We shot the shit for a bit⁷ and he asked me what my five-year plan was. It became clear:

I don’t really have five year plan.

I feel like I’m still emerging from the fog of war from my wife’s cancer battle⁸ and the pandemic on top of that.

Staying alive might seem like we're keeping the bar pretty low for a five year plan, but that's it.

You can tell by the way I use my walk.

Keep dancing, y’all.

I remain your humble servant,

OX&C,

Faux Jean

1. See previous installments of this newsletter.

2. You can dance to the album version.

3. I could not not dance to these songs.

4. Such a great venue!

5. Another band with Minnesota connections.

6. I’ve seen some great shows there.

7. He seemed okay with my Packer credentials.

8. You can read her latest Blog on the subject of cancer here.