Tripecac - The Hermit

This was my first "punk" song. I think it was a mother's day present. I love it, but not many other people seem to "get it". I wonder if it's the music that puts them off, or the apparently violent lyrics.

I don't remember what initially inspired the lyrics. I think I was just trying to come up with something that sounded violent ("punk") but was actually silly. I was probably listening to old IPECAC tapes at the time, and stumbled across the improvised monkey attack in "My Familiar" (from 1988's Catharsis), part of which I used as the intro to this song.

In any case, "Millions of Monkeys" is about a guy who has become frustrated by his relationship with a girl. He's sick of the mind games and insecurity and just wants to relieve the stress. He does this by "sending in the monkeys", which has dual interpretations:

The dark (punk facade) interpretation is that the hero resorts to violence and/or rape, with the monkeys symbolizing vandals or sperm. In the light (Travis-humor) version, the monkeys are clowns or jokes that win the girl through their childlike exuberance and humor.

In either interpretation, the song is about "being yourself": drop the acting, drop the mind-games, and just be simple and primal, and if the girl likes you, then great! :)

The recording starts with the noisy, muffled sample from "My Familiar". Right off the bat, you'll realize that the sound quality on this album isn't going to be stellar. This (hopefully) deflates your expectations, and gets you focusing on the actual tunes rather than the production.

The music itself was an attempt to sound as "punk" as possible on my keyboard. The drums were easy enough to program (on my drum machine), but I couldn't find a good punk guitar sound. At the time, I was really into Julian Cope's "Out of My Mind of Dope and Speed", which has a really driving, punk-like piano sound, so I decided to take a similar approach in this song. I also threw in some distorted baritone sax... Does it actually sound punk? I really don't know!

The bottom line is that I really liked "Millions of Monkeys", but none of my friends or family seemed to appreciate it. They told me it was too noisy and atonal, non-melodic, and that the lyrics were "too violent". I don't think they ever "saw" the second, lighter interpretation of the lyrics and only perceived the violent one... or maybe they disliked the music because they weren't into punk.

In either case, I was really bummed that no one seemed to like "Millions of Monkeys". I loved the energy and spontaneous feel and really wanted to make more "punk" songs, but the unenthusiastic response got me thinking that maybe my keyboard just wasn't suited for playing punk.

For the second song, I opted to play it "safe" and stuck to a genre I "knew" (reggae). I think when I wrote the music I was trying hard to come up with something that would please my parents... Was this around Father's Day?

When it came time to add the vocals, I decided I wanted to make the song more "punk", so I added lots of distortion and reverb. I yelled and chanted and screamed about death. And guess what... My parents and friends hated it even more than "Millions of Monkeys". Sigh.

The lyrics make fun of the "victims of Dungeons and Dragons", the people who responded to role-playing defeat by killing themselves or others. I was also making fun of any concerns that my grandparents and parents may have had regarding my enthusiasm for games and isolation. I wanted to convince them (via parody) that there was no need to worry, that I was in no way depressed, "sick", violent, or otherwise "at risk".

I wasn't into actually pen-and-paper RPGs, so I sang about Hack and Moria, which were my favorite Roguelike games at the time. For those of you unfamiliar with these games, they are little ASCII maze-games full of humor and stats, kind of like a slower, nerdier version of Gauntlet.

Anyone who's actually played Roguelike games will realize that although defeat (character death) is "permanent" (with no easy reloading of save files), it's (a) frequent and (b) entertaining in itself. You get a cute little tombstone and (hopefully) a slot on the high score list. Sometimes your dead character becomes a "ghost" with which your future characters can interact. Death is just another part of the game, and the thought of actually getting upset when a character dies is ridiculous!

"Blame the Game" pokes fun at the notion of games "causing" people to get emotional enough to kill themselves. This song was my way of saying, "Hey, come on guys, lighten up!!!" This became a recurring message on this album.

The "humor" I used was very dark and exaggeratedly morbid, full of vivid images of death and cult-like chanting. I think at the time I had just seen Faces of Death and Man Bites Dog. Faces of Death was disturbing since it was real, but I really got a kick out of Man Bites Dog, which is fictional and wickedly humorous!

My friends and family hated "Blame the Game". Maybe they didn't realize it was a parody. Maybe they even thought ([sub]consciously) that I was indeed suicidal and that this song was my "cry for help"...

Hey, come on guys, lighten up! :)

By this time, the negative reaction to my first two songs was starting to bum me out so much that I took up the hobby of noose-tying... ;)

For my next song I picked an even lighter, safer song genre (easy listening). I wrote a simple little tune but got bored with it and didn't want to go through the bother of finishing it. I didn't want to delete it, so I recorded it to my four-track and added burping noises as a token "punk" element.

Despite the burping, my parents liked this silly little tune. I received a lot of compliments for it, which is strange because the song isn't all that memorable (to me). My guess is that this song serves (for some people) as a "relief" from discomfort caused by the first two songs, which are apparently about rape and suicide (but are really about humor and suicide). :)

Since I love so many songs on this album, it tended to be the first bunch of Travis-songs I played for people. When people heard "Millions of Monkeys" (violence) and then "Blame the Game" (suicide), they usually looked at me strangely and with concern, as if they were wondering, "Is he okay???" Then they'd hear this goofy third song and got a "Pshew!" expression on their faces. :)

If it were placed in a different context, I wonder if this song would still be called "good" or just "so-so".

This song is a musical and lyrical sell-out. It's an ultra-safe "lounge band" song with lyrics that unhumorously tackle what I considered to be "painfully-PC" at the time: social consciousness and capitalistic guilt.

In a sense, this is my "oh, screw it" song. I was tired of seeming (and being) rude and crude and came up with something that was listenable and likely to please my regular audience at the time, which was my parents.

The only "punk" elements in this song are the violent sound effects (machine-guns and explosions) and perhaps the snotty, "rebellious" devil's advocate voice of the Evil Republican.

The humor knob is set very low on this one. Yeah, deep down I was making fun of being PC, but my wise-cracks were more sneer than smile.

The "audience" (my parents) responded so-so to this song. I think they liked the music but weren't very interested in the lyrics.

Serves me right, for being pretentious.

The "fight fight fight" in the lyrics comes from a Cure song I liked at the time. I don't remember why I copied it for this song. I'm guessing it was intentional, but I'm not sure.

As with the first intermission ("The Burping Song"), this was recorded to tape in order to free up sequencing memory. It includes sound effects and vocal fragments from "The American Son", which was still on my four-track.

I decided to stop forcing the songs to be something that I thought other people might like and instead focused on making music that I knew I would like. "New Moon" is a catchy blend of "I'm Too Sexy" and the theme from the Addams Family movie. Maybe I was trying to [subtly] imply that fantasy-related entertainment can be "sexy" (socially desirable).

The lyrics talk about Roguelike games, Hack in particular. One of Hack's many "easter eggs" is that it calculates the current phase of the moon from your computer's clock. If you start a game when there's a full moon, more monsters will be generated than normal (which makes the game harder but can also give you more rewards). Similarly, if there's a new moon, fewer monsters are generated (and/or your luck is higher than normal) and the game is less difficult.

So, in one sense, this song is about taking the easy route. For me, this meant staying in Dillard Dorm a second year, abandoning my physics major in favor of computer science, and maintaining my hobbies rather than "forcing" myself to go out and socialize.

It's also about trying to forget other people's opinions about your interests and habits (however "geeky" they may be) and instead just focusing on the actual fun. (In other words, "Hey, come on guys, lighten up"...)

My friends liked this song. Most recognized the Addams Family influence, and although the song was about geeky stuff, at least it there wasn't any death in it. (Well, except for "hack and slay").

I wrote this piano-heavy instrumental for my mom.

Even though it was easy-listening, I still wanted it to "rock". I added drums and a peppy ending (with wordless ahhhh singing). There's also a lot of distortion; perhaps that was part of my "punk" production strategy. After recording it to 4-track, I noticed I had a free track, so I added computer voices. The end result is listenable but not as memorable as the songs with real lyrics.

My dad liked it enough to select it for Dad's Picks. I guess memorability isn't everything.

Here we go!!! This is where everything "clicked" into place. It was my dad's birthday, and I think I recorded this very quickly as a last-minute gift for him.

Musically, I turned to simple, catchy piano-based pop which I probably wrote in half and hour on my parents' upright piano before scurrying off to my room to finish the song. The lyrics are simple and straightforward. There's no symbolism, no pretentiousness, no real effort... It all flowed very naturally.

Everyone liked this song, including me. My parents enjoyed the music but thought the lyrics were "sad".

By this time I think I started realizing that my parents just didn't "get" the point of many of my songs, which is that:

1. I enjoy being a hermit.
2. I like to talk (and sing) about myself.
3. I like to be funny when I write.
4. So, I often make fun of myself when I sing.

There is no "depression" in my life. There's no real tension, and rarely is there any stress. My life is fun and easy, and I like it! However, when it comes time to sing, I feel like I need something dramatic, some sort of conflict.

It's like making faces in a mirror (or on a video). I don't want to make pretty faces; I want to make ugly faces, the more grotesque and disturbing the better! That's one of the "fun" things about self-reflection.

It's the same way with lyrics. When I'm writing a song (about my favorite subject: me), I'm "looking" at myself and instead of posing "properly" or "handsomely" I prefer to look like the Biggest Dork Ever.

Right now, I'm in my room writing this, getting a total kick out of listening to my music and writing about myself and looking forward to a nice long jog or bike ride this afternoon... I love the control that solitude gives me over my activities. I am having a blast doing these things by myself, and I've always been like that for as long as I can remember.

Of course, every once in a while it's fun to actually talk to another human being. :) There's something inside me, either an instinct or something I was taught at an early age, that tells me to "socialize every once in a while". My guess is that this drive is natural (hardware), that most animals have a primal urge to seek companionship...

Regardless of its origin, for me, the drive to seek human companionship is usually nowhere near as compelling as the drive to accomplish things. For me, creativity, organization, learning, and exploration are the Big Satisfiers, both exciting and pride-instilling, and along with them comes (either naturally or through experiential associations) a desire for "daytime" independence from The Pack.

Of course, if The Pack actually shared 90% of my interests, then maybe I wouldn't "have" to be a hermit in order to pursue the Big Satisfiers. Maybe someday I will find a Travis-compatible Pack, but right now the easiest, most reliable way to have a Good Day is to plan to do things by myself.

If you don't believe me, listen to the music rather than the words. The music is un-selfconscious and FUN, just like my days in my room... It's joyfully indulgent! :)

This was recorded on my sister's birthday.

I was back in college, and listening to lots of Siouxsie and the Banshees. I especially liked the live Nocturne album, and was trying to see if I could get an "epic arena" sound on my keyboard. I don't think it worked very well...

It starts off with an excerpt from my lightest and sappiest song on the album: "The American Son". My "punk" idea was to insult that song ("who is this guy? he sucks") and then "desecrate" it with a "huge and nasty" drum and guitar riff. I cranked up the distortion and reverb, but you can still tell it's a keyboard, with really muddy production. Ugh.

After I finished the music, I was sick of it and didn't want to spend much time on the vocals. The lyrics are simple-minded and an exaggeration of how unnecessary socializing seemed to me at the time.

Even though I hated this song when I first recorded it, I kind of like its epic feel now. Plus, it's kind of funny, and the 4th verse talks about games, which is a recurring theme on this album.

Would I really pick computers over people? Depends on the computers (and the people). :) Seriously, though, I think I was just exploring one extreme, all in the name of Humor and Fun. :)

This started as a simple, "ethnic" sounding instrumental. I had recently noticed some of Julian Cope's plays on words, and wanted to see what I could do along those lines.

The "story" within the word play is about two factions feeling inexorably drawn into battle. Maybe I was trying to say something about the mindlessness of fighting.

For a long time, I didn't like this song at all. I regarded it as the worst song on the album. I didn't even include it on the CD.

Nowadays I think it's kind of cool. It's not "poppy", but has a mysterious vibe to it. It's a nice buffer between the relentless "Who Needs People" and "Do My Heroes Pee in the Snow".

I was feeling bad about my pretentiousness on "Who Needs People?", so I wrote this song about the "public" faces that our favorite musicians present to us. In particular, I think I was reacting to a nasty comment that Mark E. Smith (of The Fall) made about his fans. Musically, however, I was still trying to sound like an epic stage band, so the exercise was a bit hypocritical.

Parts of it are kind of funny, though, so it's not a total disaster.

My girlfriend at the time (Beth) asked me to write a gentle song, so I wrote this. Like "The Hermit", it was constructed around a simple piano-based melody. The mix emphasizes the vocals which is a good thing because these are some of my favorite lyrics (and the music's a bit distorted).

The lyrics are very autobiographical, poking fun at my introversion (the tendency to fixate on my own interests even when other people are right there trying to interact with me).

By the end of the song, however, I was fixating on my girlfriend. Sometimes the bubble of introversion extends to include other people, and when that happens, the Hermit is doubly happy! :)

Although this song is not "punk" or even "manly", I liked it enough to play it on the radio (I was an occasional DJ). When I broadcasted it, it didn't matter to me that no one was listening except my girlfriend (who recorded my shows); by playing "Introvert" on the air I was saying, "look, here's something I like, and if it happens to be girl-pop, then so be it!" Maybe that "ah, just go for it" attitude is punk?

Anyway, this was another well-liked song. Most of my audience by this time was girls. :)

I was getting frustrated by one of my psychology teachers. She seemed more interested in our ability to regurgitate popular psychological theories than our ability to construct and present our own ideas based on behavioral observations. I didn't appreciate her apparently blind/religious acceptance of Freud's ideas. So I decided to make fun of Freud.

The song is about over-analysis and the instinct that some people seem have (but which I normally don't), which is to actively search out faults in things (including people) rather than focusing on what's fun and entertaining and inspiring.

Again, the bottom line message should be familiar to you by now: "lighten up and focus on the enjoyable stuff!"

This is another short instrumental song that I committed to tape in order to make room on my sequencer for a "real" song. It's a gentle string introduction for a song I never finished.

Jon was my bandmate in both IPECAC and The Master Anchovies. During high school, Jon quit the Anchovies to join a "real band" (which played Jazz standards). In college, Jon was playing with some other bands and although their music was technically impressive, I didn't hear anything original or exciting in their music.

Meanwhile, Jon seemed to become less playful and more serious and "proper" all the time, so he was less "fun", at least to me.

"Stop Playing the Blues" was my plea to Jon to "lighten up". I don't know if I ever played this song for him. I think I was worried that the lyrics would offend him, even though they were a kind-hearted attempt to reconnect with him. I didn't have much faith in people's ability to interpret my music.

Musically, I wanted something very happy and light that could act as a cheer-me-up, something that's the opposite of the blues. The end result was this jazzy, polka-like ditty. The bass line is based on the one in "How Ya Is'n", which was a song Jon and I had co-written and sang together in IPECAC.

"Down" was the last song on the album (I later added the "Amateur Night EP" to the tape).

For "Down", I paid lots of attention to the production, much like I did in the closer for my last album ("Going Home"). I wanted to push myself technologically and end with a strong, "rock" song.

Musically, "Down" tries to answer the question I first asked in "Millions of Monkeys", which is: can I make punk music on my keyboard? The song starts with a synthy riff (acknowledging my reliance upon my keyboard), and then has a dense bass/tom/drum thrash which crescendos into the main punk-synth groove. The marriage of that energetic, relentless punk/rock groove to the synthy sounds is hopefully good enough to encourage me (and other "bedroom musicians") to continue to explore the harder, more "raw" side of rock music using nothing but keyboards.

Production-wise, this song is a distorted mess except for the reggae-like bridge, where my little reverb box actually put a really cool spin on the vocals.

Lyrically, "Down" is about acrophobia and, on a deeper level, about maintaining optimism in the struggle against the pressures to conform, conform, conform... It's about looking on the bright side of your current situation and not obsessing over (hopefully temporary) declines in money, grades, fitness, or other non-entertaining things. The message is the same as always: Don't let the bad things dominate your life, focus on the good things.

Was I talking to myself? Was I telling myself to cheer up, to lighten up, to not obsess over boring stuff? Well, maybe a little bit... I certainly wasn't depressed, but I was at times frustrated by other people's gloomy perceptions of life. I was tired of people trying to get me to "grow up", to take things more seriously, to join the Herd, even though the Herd didn't seem nearly as happy as I was.

I perceived most Other People as being insincere, incurious, uncreative, and boring, boring, boring... and those "miserable drones" kept wanting me to be more like THEM. No Way!!!

So, was I depressed? Heck no! Frustrated? Heck yes!

Through my music, I was trying to get other people to stop trying to "spoil" my fun, to get them to realize that I'm here having fun and to either join me in having fun or leave me alone!

The Hermit started with one nightmarish scene ("Millions of Monkeys") and ended with another, which was "Down". Officially, I was done.

However, I hated to leave the last 1/4 of the tape empty, so I added some "bonus songs" that I recorded with Beth. "Forever in Mind" was the first of those songs.

Beth's roommate, Maureen Higgins, wrote a poem for her boyfriend that she wanted to give to him on Valentine's Day or their anniversary. She came up with the idea of asking me to make a song out of it. So, I wrote the music and added some lyrics to it, and got Beth to sing with me. The result is very peppy, definitely not very "lovey-dovey" if you ask me!

Beth and I sang this song together. I recorded the music first and then we added the vocals together. I think we wrote the lyrics together.

Although the song is obviously about ducks, it's also about appreciating the lack of aggression exhibited by a "runt". It celebrates rooting for the little guy, not out of pity (because he looks hungry) but out of respect for his non-violent behavior towards the other ducks.

This is one of my favorite jazz grooves! I don't remember anything about writing the music, but I had recently seen my first jazz poetry reading (at First Night Virginia in Charlottesville). I wanted to record another song with Beth, so I threw the music on my four-track and we improvised our own little "readings" on top of it.

I love this song, both for its groovy music and the vocals which, full of inside (and bad) jokes, still make me grin years later. :)

In fact, I liked this song so much that I played it on the radio at college!

I had a habit of talking at the end of my albums. For this one, I decided to include Beth since she played a big role in the last few songs. During this "song", she interviews me about finishing The Hermit and my musical history in general. The music in the background is the same as in "Amateur Night", although I think it's sped up a little bit.

There wasn't enough room for this on the CD version of The Hermit, so I included it on South or Southeast.