HEAVENS CAFE'
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HEAVENS CAFE' |
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HOW
THINGS STARTED
FROM THE JOURNAL OF JOHN MINER My last day on Earth.........................../Last
Smile Sunshine It became a lot of poking around...rethinking, rewriting,
rehashing and
LAST
SMILE SUNSHINE
ASTRALOGRAPHY I would consider this number from a pure songwriting
perspective,
HEAVENS CAFE'
This song was written a very long time ago.....went through
all
NEVER ALONE In the opera, this is Robinís plea to Lark to find
self love....
CLASSICAL MAN Seeing Classical Man as a stocky robust individual with
a somewhat
LABYRINTH I was listening to a classical music station while driving
on
TOWER OF INFORMATION
Tower was actually three songs woven into one. The most
difficult
AGAIN After the two lengthy pieces proceeding, the Opera needed
a bit of comic
FLOWING HOME The missing track, that should be #9 but was inadvertanly
THE DARK Hey man! Itís Dark in Here! That ís about all
Lark can
ROBIN'S LULLABY
It was only appropriate to write a Lullaby for Robin.....Erica
Heavens Cafeí started in an unusual way in that... I didnít sit down
one day and decide to write a rock opera with some grand epic
vision, nor did I have any preconceived idea about how the
story would go... characters, etc.. Joel of Mantra Sunrise
had taken an art scholarship from the Seattle Art Institute
We all felt the need for a break from the very intensive
recording sessions and live show performances.
There were several pieces I had been working on that I felt needed
further development and refining. These being essentially the rough
drafts for Never Alone, Heavens Cafeí,Tower of Information and
Astralography. I decided to go to Vancouver BC, which has always
been very good writing soil for me. I had hoped to make some sense out
of the material...find some continuity... and possibly write
some new material. It was there I had written the music for what would
later become Classical Man......the basic framework for Labyrinth and
a few other odds and ends which would be developed into other things.
So the whole thing became this puzzle...I had a soft song about self
love (Never Alone), a piece about the feeling of a first afterlife
experience (Astralography), a driving journeyman road song (Labyrinth),
and a number about finding Eastern philosophy within Western culture
(Tower).....pretty unrelated material.... so the challenge became to work
it all into some sort of concept record then string everything together
into some sort of roller coaster story...
The story board looked like this:
First day of afterlife........................./Astralography
Welcome to destination........................./Heavens Cafeí
Meet symbol of Self Love......................./Never Alone
Meet image of Past............................./Classical Man
Go on Journey................................../Labyrinth
Find East meets West.........................../Tower of Information
Acknowledge absurdity of situation............./Again
Sum up the Situation.........................../Flowing Home
Return to Earth................................/The Dark
Try it again!................................../Robins Lullaby
reevaluating and it finally came together..Then with the story and music
in place it was time to start recording it . At the same time I started
to think about what it might look like on stage and what I would need to
accomplish that.....The music itself was very complex and I realized that
the only person who could do it ....and or would want to for that matter
was probably me! So with the much needed help of some wonderful vocalists
I spent about eight months in hibernation making the record. I wanted
something very clean and tight sounding that would hopefully excite
others in the near future to stage it with the most talented team of
people possible.
This was the first song written specifically for the
Opera. The piece
centers around the bass line, which if you listen carefully, is rooted
deeply in Classical music..like a fast waltz.....very festive and cocky.
This didnít leave much room for added melody... so I put the guitar in
a
very supportive position.... then it fires up into a quick and fast tempo
solo...... divided into three quick sections, to represent the three
aspects of Lark...past ...present ....future......The kick drum is very
punchy and the bass tones are full and rich so as to seemingly rise from
underneath. For the record...no pun intended!......I cast my father Ken
to take vocal responsibility for the Classical Man character who sings
these first two numbers.
as maybe the most dynamic song Iíve ever written. I used several
different time signatures with tempo changes to illustrate the quick and
daunting change one might expect as they enter some new kind of reality.
The straight ahead 4/4 to 5/4 into a slower 3/4 back into 6/4.
The whole song dances around, and the continuity holds together quite
well in spite of the various shifts within the dynamic element. I spent
a very long time in particular here developing the guitar sounds and
the solo is always one of my favorites to play live. I used an
interesting recording technique in the latter part of the song.
I set up two amps on each side of the room facing each other,
then had a friend swing the microphone in a circle while standing
in the middle of the room......so the sound just swirls around
between the speakers and of course in the headphones. The conversations
at the end of the song we did at my Christmas party......we had everyone
write something they felt would relate to the story ......mixed up the
cards then had everyone do a quick reading....It was really fun!
kinds of changes lyrically and was just a very difficult song to
ever make sense of.... until of course Heavens Cafeí! It was one
of the very first songs where I experimented in 5/4 meter.
Itís also combined with an open guitar tuning. It never seemed
to fit anywhere and always seemed like a lost step child trying
to find a loving home...when I finally needed a piece to fill in
the gap here......it just jumped out of the pile of demo tapes and
unfinished oddities, and right into the title track of the Opera!
The wonderful vocal track was recorded by Micheí who had just
finished working on a platinum album in New York and agreed to do
the song for the good support of the arts!
Like love itself, Never Alone is a simple tune that just comes
together very easily. I composed the piece using an open tuning
in G major. I think musically, it has a very strong feeling of
harmony and inner contentment.......I didnít think it needed a lot
of lyrics to shape the message. I tried to let the solo at the
end drift around melodically enhancing room space and feeling.
In the studio I recorded five different solos one each day starting
on Tuesday...... mixed it on Sunday and then brought in the
beautiful vocal track sung by Julie Meadows, which had actually
been recorded 6 months earlier with a click track, so weaving
the whole thing together became quite a breeze. Julie, whom I
had met at a rock club in Fresno California, seemed to have just
the right charm for the song and I was able to get her in the
studio for a listen in between her very busy schedule with her own
vocal band. We had a great time recording it and she did the song
in two takes.....I wish things were always so easy! If Iíve ever
written a radio friendly song, heaven forbid! ......this is
probably it...!!
uncomfortable life condition, it seemed appropriate to create a song
that would reflect his character. I started this with the drums in 7/8
meter to give the piece a syncopated choppy feel. The guitar and bass
challenge each other back and forth to create a feeling of friction.
The song was composed from the ground up..... drums-bass-guitar-vocal
melody.....and it just came together in a very logical understandable
way that just worked perfectly. I spent quite a bit of time on the
guitar solo trying to create a brassy bombastic tone, then once I
found it.....I just tried to cut loose. I know at the live shows
it was probably the most fun number to perform; as it really kept
the band on itís toes!...always a challenging tune to play with the
timing, and sudden start-stops.. A very theatrical song and one of
my favorites for sure on the record...My father Ken.....again sang
the piece on the record, we drank beer and just had a great time
recording it...his extensive background in musical theater really
shines on this one!
this long winding road from Aberdeen to the Olympic Forest in
Washington State. When the station vanished, I was left
humming this kind of up and down melody in my head.......that melody would
eventually inspire the bass line that would make up the heart of
Labyrinth...I changed the line quite a bit later...added the 11/8
meter and slowed down the tempo significantly. The 11/8 plays 11
times then shifts gears into a heavy space jam that allows for
a lot of expansive choreography with the dancers taking center
stage...Itís surely the darkest track on the record and I think
it bridges the gap nicely between Classical Man and Tower. The
thunder you hear in the background was an authentic storm that
happened outside the studio one night.....so it was recorded!
thing about this song was finding suitable bridges for the various
sections. I think this to be the most mystically intriguing piece
on the album. Lots of strange effects and sounds woven into the song
with floating vocals, echoes bouncing off canyon walls and many dynamic
changes. Nearly all the lyrics came while in various states of
meditation which I practice. One unusual note.... I had a vision of
passing through a valley of fire ....and when I moved to Las Vegas to
do the shows, there is a State Park of the same name about a hour out
of town of which I had no prior knowledge of itís existence. I went
to visit this most unusual place and the visual aspect of the landscape
greatly resembled what I had seen within the mindís eye. Thereís nothing
like visiting Valley of Fire at night on a full moon. I still go there
often when I can.....
relief I felt. ìAgainî started as a song I had written for a friend
to play on a local radio station as a holiday spoof. I was sifting
through tapes to see if I had a piece that might work when I came across
the old demo and just reworked it, changed the lyrics and brightened
up the guitar solo. Iíve had the odd person tell me that ìAgainî
is
their favorite song on the album! (lump in throat!).... I guess thereís
something for everyone at Heavens Cafeí!
tagged onto the back of ìAgainî, is a quick brief passage setting
up The Dark. Here the Devil gets to speak his two cents!
Mr. Lewis takes the vocal cameo spot here as the Devil.....and
what a Devil he is!... It only made sense since he would be
handling the untidy job of Rock Opera business caretaker!
The music, written in 5/4 meter, I think is unusual in that
it is very smooth and unnoticeably strangely timed.
Deceptively complex yet smooth just like a Devil should be!
say as heís heading back to earth inside the womb soon to be the baby
Robin. No doubt the most musically challenging piece on the
record. A face first dive into polyrythmic structure and complex
musical anatomy! I later used this as an audition piece for the
live band ......if they could handle it....they would certainly make
the grade.......many tried.....few survived! The placement of the
bass notes is really the key to the song working without getting too
convoluted. Very structured and methodical.
and I I quickly sat down and recorded the piece just acoustic guitar
and violin....then I thought....wouldnít it be great if we could
record a new born baby!.....so we scanned our minds for a friend
or someone who was expecting......then Erica remembered her friends
the Kriederís, Paul and Becky were due with their baby very soon!
We arranged for the baby Jennifer to be recorded the day after birth.
They had already figured out that changing the diaper would make
her cry so we used that as a cue!