"Send Some Energy" out now!
I occasionally lament that our current situation—the despair, the absurdity, the authoritarianism—began when David Bowie passed away. Perhaps, it's just a coping mechanism, a way to buy some time. Time to find a little peace from the sadness, the concern, and worst of all: the unknown. Still, sometimes I find myself hollering to Bowie, to lost loved ones, to a future version of myself—hopefully wiser, better adjusted than I am now, than we are now, to send a sign.
Was Bowie (or replace with Prince, Chadwick Boseman, Betty White—whoever you find solace in or inspiration from) a thread holding the universe together? We’ll never know. But maybe they know. Maybe the artist you miss the most knows. Maybe the person you miss the most understands. Maybe a future you knows! Also, maybe they don’t—and that, in itself, is a kind of knowing.
"All I know are
The things I just don’t understand
so if your gone but not away
Send some energy"
Send Some Energy—the riff—came to me while messing around with Neil Young’s "Don’t Cry No Tears" and pretending to be Keith Richards. I had a particular guitar in my hands, one that always brings out a little of the strange without sacrificing the rock. At the time, I was running it through my favorite amp at home, cranked up as loud as my family could tolerate. The riff feels normal to me now, but the band always reminds me of its strange origins—an angular G-to-C back-and-forth, shaped now into an arrangement that's a little outside the lines. Somewhere, there’s a voice memo of that first moment—me screaming the melody in gibberish and ending with SEND SOME ENERGY, pleading with the skies. I am still, maybe even more so.
It took the energy of Dave Brophy (drums, percussion, harmony), Cody Nilsen (rhythm guitar), Joe McMahon (bass), and James Rohr (keys) to bring it to life in the studio. The mixing energy of Daniel James Goodwin and the cover art by Ryan Racine, based on the Boys Talking design by Joy Wu sealed the deal. Once the track was all laid down in a take, I recorded the guitar solo, and that was it. Let’s not think too hard. Let’s not labor over our questions and concerns. We’ve got work to do out in the world together. The song will find the people who need it, and each night we play it, it’ll find its own way. I’m not making music for everyone—I’m making music for the ones who need that specific result from Send Some Energy, or any other in my growing parade of songs.
For a piece of music to really live a long life, it needs ears, time, and heart. That’s something I still love, despite all our struggles, failures, anxiety, and fear. We’ve got to thrive in spite of it all. And in the end, it still takes each other.
SEND SOME ENERGY my friends.
