Probing, brazen, provocative...at times even comically absurd - the eleven
songs on "godless"
encompass a wide variety of acoustic and acoustic/electric musical styles. The
album is unified by the overall haunting, iconoclastic character of the lyrics
- conscientious, nonconformist and questioning. The CD's irreverent title is a
twist on that mean-spirited epitaph used by some to deride the lives and work
of gay and lesbian artists. It also happens to sum up my own strong
anti-religious convictions.
"godless" opens with the sparse and driving We
Are The Haunted, in which the singer, confronting homophobia
head on, expresses shock and sorrow over bigotry in today's world. More
indictments of oppressive modern culture follow with the amusing, Beatlesque Meat-Eaters'Song,
the medieval, marching Courtship Of Europa,
and a nasty bottleneck-blues called It's Only Love.
In the monumental rocker Cubes Of Light,
a capitalist hack slowly goes mad in his own office surroundings. In the
acoustic coming-out ballad In My Shoe,
hopeless sexual longings for straight friends cease as the singer learns to
accept his own brave new identity.
In addition to singing all the vocals, I also play all the instruments. That
includes acoustic and electric guitars, piano, organ, bass guitar, an
assortment of live percussion, penny-whistle, sampled drum kits and sampled
orchestral instruments. The entire production was mastered at Atlantic
Recording Studios by renowned sound engineer Steve
Innocenzi.
The one song on "godless" I did not write the lyrics
for is "When God Lets My Body Be"
(by E.E. Cummings) - which I set to music and performed for the centennial
celebration of Cummings's birth, held at the New York City Public Library a
few years ago.
The dark & mysteriousPhotos of the Moonhas
been selected for inclusion in a compilation CD put out by the European-based ACID
DRAGON Progressive Rock Magazine & Radio. Released in February of
2001, the CD is entitled "Voices" and showcases
"multi-instrumentalist" rock artists who specialize in playing all
parts in their recordings.
