Jon Friedman asked if I’d contribute an essay to a book he was editing. This was a thrilling surprise, and as quickly as I could, wrote a piece about a 7” single I’d released.
A week after I'd submitted it, Jon asked if I’d instead write something about my show Inside Joke.
Jon hosts The Rejection Show, an amazing affair that celebrates work that’s been left behind. His book,
Rejected, Tales of the Failed, Dumped, and Canceled, is something I am proud to be included in, and this is a leaner version of the essay that was rejected from the pages of Rejected.
“Glass Pigeons Raining Down on my City Tonight”
In the event that you haven’t written a landmark of alternative music, I’ll do my best to describe it...
My landmark, “Indeed” backed with "Noah's Arcs," a 7” single I released on the SpiFFinG label in late 1993. Packed in a fabric sleeve with a silk-screened cover, the initial pressing of 300 copies quickly sold out or was given away, I forget which, but they probably sold out….
The lyrics came quickly, a stream of consciousness gush that I wrote confidently, in pen, and left unchanged. And the music, entirely in the key of “E,” was as pure and straightforward as could be. Like mountain snow, it needed no explanation, a pristine arrangement of ringing, twanging guitar. The first time I played the song on a 12-string acoustic guitar – the spray-on hair of the instrument world, adding layers of body to an otherwise thin sound – it was clear the two parts couldn’t exist without one another. I imagined it was like sex – whatever that was, but surely I’d soon find out – and the process of creating a hit was as innate to me as digestion. It happened, without thought, and the results were irrefutable.
It would not be long before I moved out of my parents’ house.
Of the three songs I’d written as a solo artist, “Indeed” stood out, though it stood out only slightly more than “Noah’s Arcs,” the single’s eventual b-side. “Indeed” was loaded with intricate turns of phrase, the lyrics filling a listeners mind with vivid imagery – a beach-front grave, pockets filled with sand, a conversation between a dog and man, a bakery. And the refrain was as catchy as crabs:
Glass pigeons raining down on my city tonight….
Indeed…
Indeed…
Indeed…
Indeed…
Listening to it again, I realize it’s about possibilities and opportunities, a song of hope wrapped tightly in angst, the emotional equivalent of silk in music. It was irresistible.
I was once in a band. We split up. I went solo, a musician by default. With an inability to play bass, drums, guitar, piano, keyboards, harmonica, or bagpipes, there was only one position where my lack of experience could be mistaken as being up to the task, the only place where inability might actually be helpful - right out front at the edge of the stage as a lead vocalist. In fairness though, I had listened to thousands of songs by this point, perhaps 11,000 of them, a few of which were routinely referred to as hits in their respective genres, and many more that were not quite hits but still stood out above the rest. Plus, I’d sung along to a lot of them, and that’s what mattered. And I was a noted teen poet.
With “Indeed’ recorded, pressed, and on its way to a number of college radio stations and select publications, my brother Matthew and I flew to London to support a friend’s band for a few shows. Making things even more amazing, Matt would join me onstage playing the mandolin. He was talented, as he’d just learned to hold the thing 3 days before we’d left. Unfortunately for the Euro audiences, pneumonia derailed the entire affair on a side trip to Paris, depriving anyone of hearing the four songs I’d prepared, and that my brother would improvise. But despite a tour that ended before it even began, I returned home with 5 less copies of “Indeed” than I’d left with. And waiting for me was my first review.
From Splatter Effect, Jan. 1994, as penned by Dennis Sweeney:
Tartan Keats “Indeed” 7”
Two tremendously dull songs with pointless lyrics from an embarrassingly wearisome Anglo-Saxon guy and his guitar (no rhythm section). Music such as this that, years ago, might have been filed in the Sensitive Troubadour section now sounds no different than Stone Temple Pilots Unplugged. I’m guessing that Mr. Keats (how dare he use that surname!) intended his vague, non-sequitor verse to convey a sense of modernistic uncertainty and disenchantment, but instead, it just meanders incomprehensibly like the leftover crumpled pages from a groggy night of barely successful Exquisite Corpse. Insomniacs may be interested in this release though because each single contains a sleep-inducing excerpt from Tartan Keats’ long-awaited novel. To tell you the truth, I’m nodding off just thinking about it….zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
If I read that correctly, and I remember thinking it could have just been the fluid in my lungs throwing me off, Sweeney wasn’t liking it.
Stone Temple Pilots? They weren’t a band that released 7”s, there was no possible way I could sound anything like them! Plus, “Indeed” was a song about opportunity and possibility. If there was modernistic uncertainty and disenchantment in there, it wasn’t on purpose, though both are acceptable subjects for a hit song, just have a listen to Husker Dü’s “Makes No Sense At All”.
I cut the review from the magazine and glued it to a sheet of paper scrawling “A prophetic madman is at least amusing” beneath it. This is sadly true.
‘Zines in Britain with circulation numbers in the high double digits were uniformly behind the single, and with college ending for me, I was moving to Ireland. By this time I’d added a fifth song to my canon, “Freshwater,” written by Jake Brockman and recorded for his band BOM, an amazing ambient dub outfit out of Liverpool, and their Bom Bom Shevaya CD. It would also be re-recorded for my second single, a split 7”.
But just before I hopped the flight to Dublin, Dave Thompson, one of the finest writers at Alternative Press, weighed in on “Indeed,” saying:
All hail the band whose single comes in an authentic tartan picture sleeve. Then run howling from a voice which escaped from a growl-ridden folk club, with acoustic guitars and buckets of echo. Indeed. “Noah’s Arcs” offers more of the same, except now the guitars are electric, plugged with Sonic Youth discordance, and this whole thing is so bizarre it’s impossible to actually dislike it.
That would have been the perfect place to stop, but Dave took it one line further.
It’s just hard to listen to, that’s all.
Hit songs, by definition, are not hard to listen to, essentially the way they become hit songs in the first place. “Indeed” wasn’t turning out to be the masterpiece I’d imagined.
In Dublin, I took up busking - a nifty word for playing music anywhere people would rather not hear it - on Grafton Street, where adorable Irish girls wearing traditional outfits perform adorable traditional dances for tourists and their tourist wallets. As always, I was right where I should be.
I set up near a Dunkin Donuts, about 40 feet from a kid with flaming red hair who played Oasis covers on a 3-string guitar. He was brilliant. My guitar, with all six strings, was plugged into a small amp and I’d create sound collages for these same tourists. After converting the Irish pound into American dollars, I would typically earn roughly $1.37 on a good day, and that was mostly from the staff at Dunkin Donuts as thanks for leaving. My student loans would be paid down in no time at all.
As the British press were pretty keen on my music, I figured the Irish press would be as well. People I was staying with caught this review before I did, written by a fellow named Biggley:
Tartan Keats is an American who now lives in Dublin. He’s a solo artist with just a guitar and himself and at times reminded me of the singer from The Stunning which is why I got a bit of a shock when I heart it first and why I still can’t get into the A-side “INDEED” but after a good few listens I have come to like the B-side “NOAH’S ARCS” which is heavier and a bit more left of centre and no so ‘Irish rock’ sounding. Not much more to be said really except that the tartan cover is pretty cool!
I’d never heard of The Stunning, and there was no mention of the Stone Temple Pilots, so I’d chalked it up as a win.
I wrote two more songs while in Ireland but my time there was coming to a close. I was headed back to NY when Hot Press, the Irish equivalent of Rolling Stone, finally caught up with me. I was confident they’d see the merit of my work as it was the one magazine I picked up every week. A new issue was on the stands in the airport that day of my flight home. I cracked it open just as we accelerated down the runway. And to my surprise, there it was…
Tartan Keats is American, but he’s relocated to Dublin and has apparently released two singles, one a double A-side with UK guitar band Reverb. The other, “Indeed,” is in the “me and a guitar and fuck all else” vein. With that style, the songs have to be strong enough to support the artist and “Indeed” falls short by about, ooh, a million runways laid end to end. Meanwhile, “Freshwater” gives the distinct impression that Mr. Keats overdosed on The Velvet Underground, the song being a stream of consciousness monologue with music whinging along in the background. Reverb are English and “The Man…” is a catchy poppy guitar-driven exercise. Their press release describes them as “the universal afterbirth” and who are we to argue?
“’Indeed’ falls short by about, ooh, a million runways laid end to end” as I’m hurtling down the runway. The review couldn’t have been more timely or fitting a eulogy for my time in Dublin.
Years pass, the guitars are packed and stashed in the back of the closet, and I come across a copy of “Indeed” on eBay. When the auction ended – successfully – the winning bidder paid $0.01 for this little artifact, plus $2.50 for shipping. I'm sure Dennis Sweeney would say they overpaid.
In the event you don’t know what it feels like to find your single selling for a penny on eBay, I’ll do my best to describe it…
Your turn for a listen!
Play the single for yourself and leave a review in the comments section.
“Indeed”“Noah's Arcs”
