Leave It Behind 1/14/08
Originally written for someone else (who didn't want it, by the way), I ended up keeping "Leave It Behind" for myself and it's become one of my favorites. Much tweaking occurred before it came together, but once I got there, I was very psyched about it. This song works for me on all levels: catchiness, production, distinctiveness and lyrics ("the printed receipt of a kiss on yr cheek/has you clinging fast to a moment long past"). Even the guitar solo is pretty ace. Ok, enough patting myself on the back. I could break my arm doing this.

You First 1/23/08
Inspiration goes to the great band Big Black and the abysmal president George Bush. Spent a lot of time working on the production details in order to get this up to the size I wanted. Pretty much got there, I think.

One Train Uptown 1/27/08
Definitely a throwaway. And yet, kinda fun and light.

Too Tired 1/27/08
A song that I'd half-heartedly started some months earlier, forgot about, revisited and hastily completed. Kinda sounds like that, but it's got some merit, too.

I Play Keeps 1/27/08
Kind of a throwaway but certainly not a bad song. My favorite part is where the root moves down in the last chorus and it gets all Lydian on your ass.

Crosstown Kisses 2/6/08
If it weren't for the Pet Shop Boys, who knows how this song would have turned out? Really like this tune -- a nice homage but stands on its own legs as well, I think.

Hot Night 2/7/08
Slow-burning and sinister, this one. I remember spending a lot of time tweaking this before it was "right." I wanted it to build up to something massive, but getting the track to sound sufficiently big was a challenge. In the end I think I succeeded -- still really love hearing this song.

Rally 'Round the Queen 2/29/08
I wrote the basic musical idea for this while rotting in jury duty, and, despite that, it turned out to be a very inspired song which became a fun part of BST's live set. I made a pretty crushing remix of it, too, which I happen to like even better than this version (myspace.com/blacksugarremixes). As far as I know this is the only song written entirely about bees.

Beat the Drums Again 3/5/08
A favorite of mine. I like the dubby colorations and the melancholy nature of the song; "the bruised verse that tracks up this page/puts the tragedy at center stage." I played bass with my fingers (rather than a pick), which is something I rarely do and am not very good at. Another jury duty special!

Suffer 3/5/08
The first version of this song utilized more straightforward rock instrumentation (guitar/bass/drums). Then I decided to strip it down, replace the bass with synth and the guitar with coral sitar. Somehow I managed to cop the drum sound of The Cure's Disintegration album by combining different sounds together. This one's a success in my book. Thanks to Gang of Four for getting the ball rolling.

Infected 3/08
This is a very old song (written in '95) that I decided to revisit in '08. I made this version more synthy than the guitar-centric original but kept the rest pretty similar (even managed to replicate the backwards guitar solo parts!).

Goodnight, We're Closed 3/11/08
Lightning struck with this one -- I don't even remember where it came from but it turned into something epic, apocalyptic and just slightly nihilistic ("And I pray for some debris to grace us from above/O satellite, o meteorite, come smite us good, now smite us right"). "Goodnight, We're Closed" was a set-closer in BST for awhile and pretty effective as such. This makes me want to break shit.

This Is Our Song 3/17/08
Any time I can weave a catchy pop hook out of an exotic scale (the Hinduston, in this case), I'm way psyched. This song is one of many faves that came out of this fertile period. "Silencing the haters, from Kennett to Decatur: this is our song."

Don't Give Up on Giving In 3/19/08
The origin of this song is my figuring out how to use the vocoder plug-in and wanting to write something to commemorate the event. The whole song was written in the computer and it turned out to be one of my favorites. We played this live in BST for a spell and I did a yummy remix for it, too (myspace.com/blacksugarremixes). Pure sugar. The end reminds me or Robert Plant's "Big Log."

Submission 3/22/08
Thank you Killing Joke for the inspiration. This song's a real kicker and begs to be played loud. It makes me want to break shit. The lyrical content is pretty self-explanatory ("the riding crop that found its way to your hide/produced an ecstasy that flooded yr insides").

Black Star 3/25/08
"Black star, my celestial crush/after the big bang, the rest ain't much." This is a fun, fizzy, crackling song that was very easy to write. A good driving-at-night song, I'd imagine. Love those fuzzy, gnarly guitars in the choruses. The solo was worked out and doubled.

Runnin' Like a Dog 4/26/08
You may know the later version of this track, which ended up on Black Sugar Transmission's USE IT e.p. Here is the original version, with me doing all the scratch vocals; some of the lyrics are different, too.

"Runnin'" started as an experiment -- I wanted to write a song based almost entirely out of many small orchestral samples (which I pulled directly off of vinyl albums). It ended up being a big deal for me.

At some point it occurred to me to invite one of my favorite singers of all time, Dug Pinnick (King's X) to sing on it, and HE F*CKING DID (he owns the second verse -- and joins in on the choruses -- in the final version). It's one of those "I can die happy now" kinda moments.

Also adding killer vocals to the album version of "Runnin'..." are Matt Farley, Dan Karkos and Alisa B. Matt played drums on the final version, too. Go pick up a copy -- I am beyond proud of it. Many thanks to all the mega-talented contributors.

No-so-fun fact: the original session files for this track somehow disappeared off my hard drive after I'd done a couple days' work, and I had to start the whole thing over from scratch.

Mouth to Mouth (Glove cover) 6/08
Big fan of The Glove, the one-off collab between the Banshees' Steve Severin and Robert Smith of the Cure. This is my take on a lesser-known track from their one and only album, Blue Sunshine. I did a lot of work to make all the sections of this (rather repetitive) song sonically unique and I'm very proud of the results. People have told me they like this better than the original, but I'm not the kind of person who wallows in that kind of praise...

You Should Be Dancing (Bee Gees cover) 6/08
I had tracked the music to this rowdy, Justice-inspired cover and wanted to get another singer to do the vocal honors. I happened to be producing a fantastic Brooklyn band named Nuclear Blouse (check 'em out) at the time, whose singer is outrageously over the top. I asked him to lay waste to the vocal on this track and that's exactly what he did. God DAMN.

Sugar In Yr Cupboard 8/6/08
I owe thanks to The Kills for inspiring this song (not that it sounds like them at all). It's pretty fresh and brisk and good fun over all.

Volume Up 8/6/08
I am super proud of this song -- it has elements of darkness, sexiness, inscrutability. You can't really put your finger on what it is, and to me that's an ultimate goal. I'm always very happy when I record something that doesn't really sound like anything I've done before, and this is definitely one of those songs.

You're A Heart Attack 8/11/08
I would file this under the same category as "Volume Up" -- it just turned out really special and I love the balance of all the sounds and textures. One of the guys from Brooklyn dance outfit In Flagranti paid me the ultimate compliment when he called it "a great disco track."

(Don't Make Me) Late 8/21/08
A quickie. The song was inspired by a killer 70s rock patch on my AxeFX unit, which led to the riffs you hear. The vocals are pretty by-the-numbers for me.

Sirens on the Air 8/24/08
More cool dynamics and sonic details in this song. Believe it or not, most of the really nifty sounds are guitars. Certain aspects of the vocals remind me of Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury (RIP both).

Rabid/Halloween (Damned/Misfits cover) 10/08
"Rabid" is a little known B-side by The Damned but one of my favorite songs they've ever done. I though it would be cute to cover it and post it on Myspace for Halloween. Once I got started on the track, the idea occurred to me to incorporate The Misfits' "Halloween" into the end, which I did. Very happy with this track. Even made a video for it, which is loaded with images from horror and splatter flicks.

Viva 12/2/08
Here's the original version of "Viva", another tune that wound up on Black Sugar Transmission's USE IT ep (with Devlin handling most of the lead vocals on the final). This one's all me, with the exception of the guitar solo, which is courtesy of Vernon Reid. It was actually one of the alternates he recorded for the song "Use It", which fit perfectly in here because it was the same key and tempo! But I replaced it with my own solo, ultimately. This is probably one of the catchiest tunes I've ever been responsible for, and one of the few instances where my lyrics tell any kind of story.

Stay With It 12/2/08
Really cool guitar sounds in this, and the vocal melodies are based on the out-sounding Octotonic scale (for you music geeks out there). This is a quirky little footnote, not much more.

Melody Plays 12/3/08
I've done this kind of thing before; it reminds me of the stuff I was writing in autumn of '99. Kinda perfunctory, but yet, kinda lovely too!

Blasphemies In Starlight 12/5/08
A very rough and unfinished demo. For some reason, the session files for this one disappeared, so "Blasphemies" remains in this state. Guess I never felt strongly enough about this song to build it up again from the ground. Maybe I will someday...

Marching With the Band 12/22/08
It was the end of '08 and I was suddenly desperate to write some tunes before the holidays were upon me. This was one of them. Maybe you can tell that I had a cold at the time? I didn't spend a lot of time on this, but it has legs, I think.

When Elizabeth Sings 12/22/08
An ode to Elizabeth Frazier and her magical former band, Cocteau Twins. I tried to capture the way their music makes me feel.

This Is the Last One 12/22/08
It was the last song of the year, so I sang it well.