Recently Spotted

52 Jokers

A recent photo of me.

I wanted to see if I could blog about music while being under the weather. To make matters worse, it’s not even my favorite weather to be under, but the return of nasty, soul-crushing winter. And, just as it does every year, something has come along to make the season even more memorably icky. This very special something is pityriasis rosea or a plan offered by nature for unlimited nasty red spots from the waist up. What a treat! Neither contagious or lethal, just a real eyesore and a true energy drain. I look like a million mosquitos have been on my case.

So the challenge, find a song, post it and use the positive energy of the blogosphere to lift me out of the doldrums. The song is 52 Jokers, in fine demo form from the loft Semi-Twang used to rehearse in. Planning to get this one on the next CD, the only drawback is I can’t understand or remember the words. The long gone notebook that might have them is never coming back, so I have been frantically scribbling and trying to recreate the vibe, which was all important back then. Part of that routine was writing in the morning, pulling arrangements together and starting demos with Mike Hoffmann in the early afternoon and adding the rest of the band when we could at night. Scrappy, fast and loose were the order of the day and this one captures it perfectly. When I listen to it, I forget what about the spots altogether.

© 2012 John Sieger