Bad Tapes: Jacob Bailey

I've talked extensively about recording with Jacob Bailey. As far as mass quantity, I've put in more recording hours with Jacob than anyone else. After recording the No-Nothins, Jacob had me record his solo songs in the spring/summer of 2008. This is when Jacob was at his self-described "creative peak." He was cranking out paintings, drawings, and songs in prolific quantities. All of it good.

We sat about recording in my "studio" I built in my parents' garage, as per usual for 2008. Most of the songs were just Jacob and one of his acoustic guitars, me doing overdubs of ambience (with a hammer as a slide on a guitar or delayed cheap keyboards because I was trying my goddamnedest to be Brian Eno) or whatever else. I had an exceptionally hard time doing overdubs because Jacob plays notoriously out of time, which, admittedly, yields interesting and irreplicable results, but ultimately is a pain in the ass. This lead us to simplifying these songs, such drone and almost inaudible percussion in Log Cabin, no double tracked vocals, and minimal overdubs. Thick atmosphere became crucial to these recordings, leaving in incidental sounds like in American Dream. And in the intro to his rendition of Singin' in the Rain, we left the garage door opened and sat in silence as we recorded a summer storm. Jacob recorded a guitar piece that may have well fallen out of the clouds with the rain.

The writing on this collection is still political largely, albiet here slightly more veiled than with the No-Nothins. The writing is bleeding heart-on-the-sleeve emotional and beautiful and honest; it's the logical extension of his contribution to the No-Nothins. American Dream makes me homesick, Bluebird is hopeful and reassuring, Memphis Blackfoot gives you wanderlust, and Drac and Wolfman, an allegorical take on homosexuality, contains one of my favorite and most empowering lyrics ever written by anyone:

"No god no book can tell you who to be,

you've got one life to live so, honey,

live it and be free."

Just like I've said before, it's young, it's naive, and it's absolutely perfect. A glass of water is a glass of water, but goddamn is it refreshing when it's hot out.