#the number of references and callbacks I’ve squeezed into this

[kidovna]

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[theghostpinesmusic]

So. All the music I’ve been working on since 2017 is out now.

It’s up on my website, Bandcamp, and YouTube. It’s all free for streaming and download, but you can throw me a tip on my website or on Bandcamp if you feel so inclined. I’ll be writing a bit more about the various albums in the coming weeks, and I’m working on getting a sound and video setup going so I can do some livestreams, but for now I wrote a thing about the whole project below in case you’re interested in Deeper Thoughts (TM).

theghostpines.com/music

theghostpines.bandcamp.com

bit.ly/theghostpinesYT

At this point, I feel like I’ve spent more time talking about releasing this pile of music than I spent making it. And now I’ve decided to call it done.

To be clear, I haven’t actually spent more time talking about releasing it than working on it. I’ve been writing, demoing, recording, mixing, or mastering some part of this project since early 2017. It just...started as something small and then, umm, got a little out of hand.

I put out Asphalt Ghosts in 2016, and it was my first album of new songs in almost ten years at that point. I’d kept up with playing guitar and singing from 2007 to 2016, and even played a decent amount of live shows during that time, but for some reason new songs just weren’t coming the way they had back in The Way Old Times when I used to sit in my stuffy upstairs loft with a four-track and a $150 guitar. Then, one day in 2015, “The Light” just sort of came out all at once, and I wrote the rest of the album from there, and recorded it pretty quickly after.

Asphalt Ghosts is a sprawling, potentially dumb album that is nonetheless close to my heart, and I knew as soon as I finished that I wanted to write more songs:I didn’t want to lose the momentum I’d built up. I imagined the next album as being something smaller, something more folksy, akin to those early Bob Dylan and Mason Jennings records that had gotten me to pick up a guitar in the first place. I wrote the first song, “Running,” shortly after I finished Asphalt Ghosts with this direction in mind. I really liked it, and decided I’d try to be a bit more selective with this new project. Rather than recording the first ten songs I wrote and calling it an album, as I’d done in the past, I would write a lot of new songs, then be honest with myself about what was good, what was crap, and self-edit accordingly.

I ended up not doing that. Whoops.

After “Running,” I spent a few months pouring over old half-finished demos, old half-finished lyrics, and the ever-present pile of song skeletons I keep recorded on my phone, and ended up with songs and/or lyrics for over fifty songs. Then, I spent a few months writing words for the songs that didn’t have words yet, music for the words that didn’t have music to go with them, and mashing together bits and pieces of what was left like five year-old me making Transformers fight each other.

Ultimately, I demoed something like fifty-five songs, which in and of itself took most of a year, thanks to me having lots of other things going on in my life, including a real job that I have to work at so I can continue to feed myself. Then, like an absolute goof, I decided to keep almost all of these songs rather than just ten of them. See, it turned out that I actually liked nearly all of these songs.

So, the next step in the process turned out to be figuring out what to do with four times more new songs than I’d originally imagined having. As a few of you know, I referred to this project as “Triptych” for a long time. At that point, the idea was to record and release the music as three albums, each part of a thematic triptych, roughly comprising a cyclical year: Wilderness Amen for spring and summer, Maps for fall, and Fire and Rain for winter. But because I love writing and playing music, I kept making and recording more. Eventually Maps became a double album, then I spent five months just randomly jamming along with my looper and totally forgot how to play half of the songs I’d written the previous year in the process. Then COVID hit and I forgot who I was or how to do anything but sleep and eat and record lecture videos for awhile.

I came out of a months-long funk, learned a completely new way of playing melody guitar, relearned all my songs and actually collected them into a goddamn book with chords and keys and such so I couldn’t forget them again, and then set out to write and record the final missing piece in the project: the title track for Fire and Rain, which I had intimidated myself out of writing a year before by imagining it as a massive, ten-minute story song in the tradition of something like “Desolation Row.” Against the background of COVID and everything about my life that it had upended, I wrote it instead as part of a twenty-nine minute, apocalyptic combination of folk and noise rock that culminates with a sonic callback to the beginning of the album cycle’s first album, Wilderness Amen. It frankly feels ridiculous and indulgent now, but it’s a perfect distillation of my headspace last April or May, and so I kept it all on the album as a sort of sonic and lyrical monument.

So, in the end, there are actually six new albums:

The Amen Demos is a curated collection of a few of the fifty-five demos I recorded in 2017 and 2018 (along with a few covers, if you listen on my website or YouTube).

What Comes Around is a weird collection of instrumental, improvised jams I recorded to take a break from the “real” recording process. I might be the only person in the world who enjoys listening to these, but they were free for me to put out, and free for you to listen to,so why not? I like to think they make good ambient background music.

Wilderness Amen is the first album in the “main” four-album cycle. It’s meant to be the “spring” album, and is a mostly acoustic, mostly folk-y set of songs about, well, the wilderness.

Ride is the second album in the cycle, meant to have a more “summer-y” sound and subject matter. A lot of the more complex, jam-influenced songs are on this album, and it has a lot more electric guitars than Amen.

Maps is the third album in the cycle. It’s the “fall” album, and it’s a sort of companion to Ride. They’re both about travel and the road, but Maps is a bit less electric, its songs are a bit simpler, and I would say it is really autobiographical and personal, whereas Ride is more expansive, but also more abstract.

Fire and Rain is the fourth and final album in the cycle. Here’s where all the darkest, saddest songs went, and I think they hang together well, though I think this album is also the hardest listen, in a number of ways. I mean, it opens with a ten minute ghost story song and ends with the aforementioned twenty-nine minutes of end-times folk-rock. I’ve always wanted to write an album of songs without worrying about what anyone else would think of the lyrics, or the music, or the length of the songs, and this is the closest I’ve gotten so far.

So that’s it. Are there some songs here that, given more time, I would record again, but differently? Sure. Do I wish I had a producer who actually knew how to make the records sound good? Of course! I have no idea what I’m doing on the recording end.

But I really like these songs. I liked writing them. I liked recording them. I like playing them and singing them. I wish it was 2003 again, so I could put a band together and spend all day playing them and trying to sell CDs out of my guitar case instead of squeezing in an hour of practice after a long day at the office. I’m super happy to put them out there, though, and if you take any time to listen, I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed putting this whole thing together. Thanks for reading.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

2017 Re-Watch: 6x01 - First Time Again

Morning Everyone! Check out my 6x01 Re-watch post from last year HERE for extra thoughts and insights. My S6 posts were short last year bc I was in a hurry to squeeze them all in before S7 began. This year I have more time and, after S7, definitely more insight.

We start at the quarry with Rick and TF doing a dry run of Operation Lead the Walkers Away. Then one of the semi-trucks falls and them realize they must implement the plan right away. I’m side-eyeing the fact that  a semi-truck is a catalyst for the entire thing. We’ve seen something of a motif with trucks like this. Back in S4, Bob lay/hid atop one right before Daryl and Glenn found him. In 5x16, the whole wolf trap/how the harvest gets home thing centered around big trucks like this. And every scene is riddled with Beth symbolism.

Once everything gets into motion, Sasha calls out to Daryl, “we meet at red,” meaning the red balloons, which are the first phase of the operation. 

Perhaps the red balloons mean reunion? Remember in 5b we saw them tied to a model cruise liner, and we do think Beth is coming through Oceanside, which will lead to a reunion. Just a thought.

We have the flashback scene were Tara wakes up and Glenn and Nicholas make it back to Alexandria. I noticed Glenn tells Maggie he was “winged by a ricochet” bullet. We have Beth = Daryl’s Left Wing 

and could the bullet that hit Beth have been a ricochet?

Tara is a major proxy to Beth here. She sustained a head injury back in 5b and was unconscious for a time. This is her waking up. I notice she says, “I’m okay.” It’s a tie to Beth’s final dialogue (X). Before getting shot Beth says, “it’s not okay.” Now Tara, waking up says, “I’m okay.”

This is the beginning of Sashraham (though we didn’t know it until 6x06) and they’re proxies of Bethyl (X). One of the big reasons I thought we’d see Beth in S7 comes from this episode. Sasha’s car is going 70 mph, and the camera really focuses on it. Because they’re proxies for Beth and Daryl (and have about 10 dialogue parallels in this episode to prove it) I assumed it meant Beth would appear in S7. So what’s the 7 about?

It serves as a fulfillment of what is said here and a death omen. When it shows the gauge, Sasha says doing something as big as this is living, and they talk about it throughout 6a. Abraham’s big living moment came when he stood up to Negan, which technically did come in 6x16, but the Negan introduction carried over into 7x01. Sasha’s big living moment came when she sacrificed herself for TF, which happened in 7x16. What they were talking about here was fulfilled, and they’d both died by the end of S7.

We have lots of callbacks in this episode to when Rick and Morgan met in S1. Interesting because we already know we’ll have callbacks to S1 in 8x01 (Rick at the gas station). You could argue the 2-season rule here. Morgan talked about when they met in 6x01. We’ll see even more throwbacks to that in 8x01.

When Heath arrives at Alexandria, we have the numbers issue here. I talked about this when 7x13 aired, because of the 12 melons. (X) 

Here, Heath asks how many are in Eugene’s group and he answers thirteen, then corrects himself to twelve. It’s because Noah has died recently. The thirteen people would be Rick, Michonne, Daryl, Carol, Abraham, Tara, Sasha, Rosita, Eugene, Noah, Glenn, Maggie and Father Gabriel. I’m assuming he didn’t count Judith because she’s not a contributing member of the group.

Later, when they talk about the quarry, Heath says he’d been there once before and saw twelve people camped there. They’re probably the ones who blocked the exits with the semi-trucks, but they were all dead by the time he arrived. He said he’d never want to revisit the camp that “ate itself.”

We have a repeated instance of the number 12. Because of the melons in 7x13, we’re still seeing it in S7. It’s an important number in Christian numerology, appearing 187 times in the bible.

(We hear it a third time in this episode at the tractor store with Glenn, Heath and Nicholas. Nicholas says, “there’s something like a dozen of them in there,” meaning walkers.)

The whole “camp that ate itself” reminds me of Terminus. Beyond these, I’m not sure what to make of all this. Will definitely watch for it in S8.

Something about Morgan and Michonne’s humorous conversation jumped out at me. Remember Morgan asks if Michonne ate one of his protein bars? 

The thing I totally didn’t connect before is he asks if she ate a peanut butter protein bar. Peanut Butter is a Beth symbol. She ate it at the funeral home in Alone, and Daryl ate it just before escaping the Sanctuary in 7x08.

I remember people saying this thing with Michonne and Morgan was a discontinuity because if you watch Clear in S3, she appears to be eating potato chips. She truly does, but they don’t focus on it, so tptb could totally change it if they wanted to. Minor detail. I don’t even think that’s the important issue here. They specifically brought peanut butter into it, and Morgan is probably the one who found Beth and took her back to Grady (which parallels Daryl’s imprisonment at the Sanctuary). See? It all works together.

Also in talking about the walkers exiting the quarry, they say the exit sends them East. More of the East theme.

Rick and Morgan take Pete’s body outside the walls to bury him. Once there, Rick suggests maybe they don’t bury him and simply leave his body. Morgan says, “That’s not who you are. I know.”

Two things here: Yet another confirmation that Beth should have been buried. TF always buries their loved ones. Even Morgan knows that about Rick.

This could also explain why Morgan has never felt the need to talk about Beth, if indeed he did take her back to Grady. He saw she’d been left behind, and he knows TF wouldn’t do that. He specifically thinks she couldn’t have been part of their group. He says it right here.

Later on the porch, he tells Rick, “that’s you.” He’s talking about Rick sparing Carter’s life. More of the identity theme. I talked about it yesterday. We hear it between Rick and Carl in 4x16 and 5x16. The way Morgan says it here sounded like what Rick says to Daryl in 4x16. Rick says biting Joe’s throat out is what Rick had to do, but it wasn’t him. Rick then says, “No, that was me. You saw what I did to Tyreese…” etc. More of the identity/who he is theme.

We see evidence he’s come out of his brutality arc because of Carter. We actually have a parallel to Coda. Remember when they captured Lecari, Rick almost killed him. Daryl put out his arm and said, “Rick.” Rick stopped, but you could tell if Daryl hadn’t been there, he would have killed Lecari. In this episode, the same thing happens. He has a gun trained on Carter, and Daryl says, “Rick.” Rick shrugs and says, “Naw, I’m good,” and chooses not to shoot him. He’s past his brutality arc in this season and has learned to have a little more hope.

Other small details:

Morgan looks at the quarry through binoculars. (Beth’s Blindness post) At the tractor store, where Glenn, Heath and Nicholas kill walkers, there’s a prominent green tractor, which looks exactly like the one Maggie used to run over the Gremlin/Music Box in 7x05.

Also in this scene at the tractor store, something really interesting happens. (vid) They shoot the glass and all the walkers come at them. They successfully kill them all. Then, after all the rest are dead, they look over and a blond walker stands up. Glenn tells Nicholas to “get it” and he does. Here’s what’s interesting. I watched this sequence many times looking for details. We don’t see this blond walker come out of the shop. Other female, blond-ish walkers come out and are shot, but not this one. 

This walker appears as if from nowhere. It’s possible we simply didn’t see her come out. The camera didn’t show us. The point is, Glenn/Heath/Nicholas didn’t either. She appears as if from nowhere, which is suspicious to me. Plus, but she didn’t come staggering out of the building after the other walkers, as Sophia did out of the barn. She’s already on the ground and rises to her feet. She “rises up.” Like resurrection? And she’s very blond and very Beth-ish.

Then there’s this: 

I’ve always suspected it’s symbolic. In terms of numbers, something occurred to me. They say one, and show Rick with the flare. Two, and show Daryl and Sashraham, and three, and show the blond walker leading the horde. While it’s hard to pin down what events link to each of those beats, I always figured “three” and the blond walker would be Beth reappearing.

This is 6x01. If we begin here and count to three, we land on S8. 1=S6, 2=S7, 3=S8. Also, the sequence itself seems to indicate that Sashraham needs to happen (and perhaps end) before the blond walker appears. As of 7x16, that’s definitely the case.

This is the beginning of Morgan and Carol’s entanglement arcs, which I’m still really enjoying. I think their interactions are very interesting and compelling. It’s no accident that Morgan goes looking for her in 6x16 and they both end up at the Kingdom.

Let’s talk 8s. I’m going to try and do a post this weekend where I point out all the 8s I’ve found in re-watches. IF I can get it finished in time. Wish me luck. ;D

During S7, I did THIS POST about Eugene’s 8-Ball reference, which comes from this episode. As you can see, I thought it pertained to Beth. We’d seen lots of 8s around Beth and this suggests she’s the end game, which is perfectly in line with all of TD’s theories, especially where Negan is concerned. Back then, I didn’t think it showed her return in S8. Now I do.

And check this out. @wdway pointed this out to me. When we first see this map of the area and they’re planning where they’re going to turn the walker horde, there are tons of little 800s on the map. 

They aren’t on roads or major thoroughfares. They seem to be out in the woods. I’m not a map expert so I asked my dad what he thought of them. He said the only thing he could think of is maybe it was part of the scale. Each little square encompasses 800 feet or something. He said there should be a key somewhere on the map explaining. Maybe there is and we don’t see it. Or maybe the 800s don’t mean anything for the map and are a symbolic number put there by the writers.

We see 800s here, there’s Eugene’s 8-Ball reference, and then we also see the Alexandria sign in a big way at the end of this episodes, which says the mansions start in the $800,000 range. Yeah, I think they’re trying to tell us something, don’t you?

Carter, questioning whether the plan would work, says the line of cars won’t hold. He says, “They’re just gonna be bouncing off some sedans?” The sedan part caught my attention because of the Lecari’s car thing we figured out recently. His car, which we saw focused on a TON in and around Coda, and which they probably left Beth in, was a sedan.

Other random details I noticed:

When Eugene accidentally listens in on Carter’s insurrection plans, he’s holding a box of “water crackers.” Another water/ocean reference.

Carter is dressed almost entirely in red flannel, which means he was always marked for death. Notice how no one else running around in the woods is wearing red.

Sasha, Abraham and Daryl are supposed to lead the walkers for 20 more miles after they hit the green station. When this aired, we tried hard to make this about Beth. Most of us hoped it meant she’d show up 2 episodes later. Or 20 episodes later. Yeah nada.

If we look at this in terms of seasons, and 20 miles = 2 seasons later, it still adds up to S8.

Finally, there’s the horn. Again, when this aired I saw theories about the horn that is supposed to precede Christ’s second coming. They thought maybe this horn would symbolically usher Beth back into the story.

That didn’t happen, but I’m not sure the theory was wrong. It could have always been a foreshadow of what would eventually happen. And it came from the wolves arriving at Alexandria, which I think could very well happen again when Beth arrives. We’ll have to wait and see.  

Relevant Posts:

6x01: First Thoughts 10/12/2015

6x01: Structure of the Flashbacks 10/12/2015

6x01: Biggest Foreshadow I Saw of Beth (Balloons) 10/13/2015

6x01: Recap 10/13/2015

Changes in S6 Credits 10/13/2015

6x01: Possible Biblical Symbolism 10/14/2015

6x01: Parallels to 5x01, 4x01 10/15/2015

6x01: Random Symbolisms 10/15/2015

6x01: Red Car Parallels 10/16/2015

6x01: Controlling Walkers 10/17/2015