GREEN FIGURINES

The Lost Death Valley Track

Photo by Maria Jose Govea

The enterprise of making records, for an artist like myself, is partly a LARP. Not all of my moves are practical, economical, or utilitarian. Over the course of my career, I’ve gone on five-week tours and come home with less money than when I left. I’ve been in bands that spent more money recording in a state-of-the-art studio than we would ever make touring or selling records. As an OG when it comes to toiling about in strife, I now avoid these pitfalls and know just what not to do. But musicians run self-defeating errands like these because it’s all part of the grand delusion. It’s what we envisioned when we chose this life of obsolescence.

One example of this idealism that teeters on the edge of impracticality is pressing vinyl. It’s expensive up front, it takes forever to get them back once you place the order, and most people will just stream the album anyway, to name a few issues. Ultimately, it’s worth the trouble. If you have shows lined up, some loyal fans, and you’re realistic about how many you can sell, it’s not hard to turn a profit. But most importantly, it’s of the utmost importance to get to hold a physical copy of your record in your hands. That’s one of the keystones of this pursuit. It stamps completion. Gives body to the birth. Without it, something feels missing. At least to a geriatric millennial like myself.

One of vinyl’s physical limitations is that if you go over 20 minutes per side, it results in lower volume, increased surface noise, and reduced low end. The longer the program, the thinner the groove. It’s a nuance that isn’t necessarily top of mind when writing and producing a record.

Death Valley was fully mixed and set to be an 11-track album when the mastering engineer pointed out that Side B was running just under 25 minutes. This left me with a tough decision: cut a song or settle for a noticeable loss in fidelity. What most artists with a bigger budget would do is spread the songs across four sides. But that’s a lot of record flipping to ask of a listener, and I was in no position to nearly double my production costs.

After some evaluation, I decided to cut the most rocking song on the record—"Green Figurines"—to be released digitally as a bonus track at a later date (today!).

The reason I chose to cut Green Figurines wasn’t because I thought it inferior to the other songs on the album.

One reason it was cut is that it’s stylistically a little outside the album’s aesthetic. But I generally have no issue with that—I always strive for bandwidth and versatility in my writing and production.

The more pressing reason was that I’m always careful not to be overly literal or on the nose. Green Figurines contains a couple of references that, at the time, felt dangerously close to being time-stamped as a song about the spring of 2020, the murder of George Floyd and the protests it sparked. Listening to it now, those references don’t jump out at me as shelf life determination. I’m still not sure I made the right decision in cutting the song.

It’s a song about police brutality and resistance to it. And as I watch ICE arresting taco vendors within half a mile of my house, I’m reminded that, sadly, abuse of power and harassment by law enforcement are about as timeless as it gets.

So now, in a most timely fashion, I’m proud to present to you an OFFICIAL SONG FROM DEATH VALLEY: GREEN FIGURINES.

Richard Gowen played drums and Dave Cerminara mixed. Everything else is my fault.

It’s gonna be a cold thanksgiving as I drive the 65 miles to the prison

How many women have driven through the pass

to kiss their first love through the double paned glass?

Free labor on assembly lines

Anything from lingerie to books for the blind, see

High time for the last mortician

Nobody lived through the war of attrition

I left my baby girl to tally up the score

when her daddy caught the virus in the third world war

Twin Cities on Dickensian time

Blood running through the streets like wine

It’s true

Nothing left to do

Ride into the sun until the heat takes you

Green figurines with kerosene fuses

Melting into puddles in the light

Grown children want their own plantation

Cosplaying to the birth of a nation

Broke the camel now he eats through a straw

with his neck under the knee of Minneapolis law

First Ave makes the world go round

7th street gotta hold shit down

It’s true

Nothing left to do

Ride into the sun until the heat takes you

Green figurines with kerosene fuses

Melting into puddles in the light

Down 23rd, he had to leave the world behind

The highway child

But the fear that the engineer hit rewind came true

Send the cops on a paid vacation

Black bodies piling up at the station

They only tell you em that it’s gone too far

when afraid a rubber bullet is gonna dent their car

Anybody gets to speak their mind

when city council members want a good shoe shine

It’s true

Nothing left to do

Ride into the sun until the heat takes you

Green figurines with kerosene fuses

Melting into puddles in the light

There’s nothing left to do

They’re calling on you