Thoughts on a Life Without Chickens

On January 5th, I released a sixth album, Life Without Chickens.

The album was recorded in 1986, from the beginning of May to the middle of June, the fastest I've ever recorded an album's worth of music. For reasons unknown, I thought I'd spent most of the first part of the year making it, but was in fact recording No Love Here, it's predecessor. And as I did not stop in those days, I then moved right into Apologia, which I finished at the end of '86. Three albums in 12 months. I then took a break and didn't record in 1987; I don't remember why.
What I do remember is thinking that Chickens was something of an outlier and because it was on the opposite side of Apologia, which is my favorite from that period, on the master tape, I only listened to it now and again when I didn't want to rewind the tape- oh, to all the love people ascribe to analog!
It was only a decade later when I started listening to it; all of the recordings in truth after not listening to them much at all, that I began to better appreciate what I had done and what direction I was going in.

I know how strange that sounds.

But, my habits at the time were such that once a song was finished I moved on to the next; when I had enough for an album- this was gaged by having completed 45 minutes of music, give or take-I moved on to the next project. I didn't spend a lot of time ruminating on what direction or what kind of music to work on.
That's not entirely true but is representative of how memory deceives us.
I started recording on my Tascam 244 4-track cassette recorder in late 1983. From that point until 1991 I recorded 8 albums of music. By the beginning of 1985, I had a fairly good handle on how to get the most out of the machine given its and my limitations. And by the end of 1985/early 1986, I had decided to minimize the number of voices on any one song-voices being guitars, synthesizers, drums/percussion, bass, and vocals. I found I got a much cleaner, more open sound by limiting myself to basically being a quartet. This also made recording easier by limiting sub-mixes, bouncing tracks, etc. It didn't keep me from lamenting the limitations I was under however. I had also decided in late '85 that I would not be doing any love songs or songs that had to do with me personally; I wanted to write about life, society, social conditions; stuff like that, as well as expand my musical horizons.

Life Without Chickens is the truest embodiment of that. Musically, it is more of a jazz album than rock even though the instrumentation isn't classically jazz, no horns or pianos. This is evident from the first song, a 15 minute three part instrumental that is connected by a bass line. I was heavy into Miles Davis at the time and I subconsciously took a cue from his early 70's work. The following songs deal with AIDS and our fear of it; the artifice of relational presentation, in other words worrying about how we're perceived by others socially; isolation, war, and loss; religious hypocrisy; the idea that we must fall into or belong to rigid class structures, and the corruption of prophets.
Weighty stuff, all to a less structured musical pallet.

The more I listen to it the more I like it, which wasn't true 30 years ago, and for an 80's album, it doesn't sound that way, which pleases me as well.

This week's song, Do Unto Others, is from Life Without Chickens, and it is a meditation on walling ourselves off out of fear, of that leading to persecution, of turning away from kindness or care or knowledge. It was written in response to the AIDS epidemic which claimed the lives of too many, including friends, and our willingness to close ourselves off, to judge without knowing the facts, and be manipulated by fear mongers.

You can listen at mrprimitivemusic.com on the home page under This Week's Song.