Sea Level Drive Spoken Word Album Available Now

Halloween 2022 marks the release of my second album Sea Level Drive. A definite labor of love, it’s my continued foray into spoken word recordings with soundscapes created by me and helped with by my two friends, Sad Boy and Robodyke.

Tracks from Sea Level Drive can be listened to on HearNow (andysevenltd.hearnow.com) and a few will remain on SoundCloud (Soundcloud.com/andysevenltd), too.

Not only do you get to hear me read my own poetry but I also read two pieces by the legendary Maxwell Bodenheim, Death and The Ballad of Jack Rose. Let’s go straight to the beginning and talk about the album:

Sea Level Drive begins with Ghosts of Hustlers, an abandoned gay horror novel I started years ago about a young man moving into an apartment off the Sunset Strip where his evenings are haunted by ghosts of murdered young runaways. It wasn’t bad but concepts are hard to sustain over 160 pages. I made it a poem instead. That wah-wah sound you hear is a trumpet, not a guitar. Too much!

Velvet Candybar comes next and I went for a sweet English melody while chanting about making love in a graveyard. The goth boy can’t help it!

The Hardcore Kid is my poem about the hooligan who refuses to give up the hardcore ghost long after the riot’s ended. “He tied a rag around his boot, spare changes for his loot, still lamenting the dead of Sid, he’s The Hardcore Kid.” The legendary 1-2-3-4 countdown runs the gamut from Johnny Thunders, Wilson Pickett, Little Richard, and Sir Paul McCartney.

Disc Over America (DOA) is a political song about murder in the name of church and state. This country feels more and more like a drug store that’s quickly going out of business.

Sea Level Drive finishes the first half of the album. It’s a small road on the extreme end of Malibu right after you pass Zuma and before you enter Ventura County. You could say it’s technically the very end of Malibu. It’s right by Lechuza Beach, which might be the narrowest beach in Malibu. It’s a poem about a couple strung out on drugs who have nothing but the ocean singing for them at night.

The second half of the album begins with Teethgrinder, a poem about the tension, anger and anxiety pouring out on the internet from all sides. People are angrier than ever, exhibiting not a single note of sensitivity or sympathy for each other. Savaging one another for the sake of winning a worthless argument, and most arguments are worthless in the long run. Everybody’s wrong.

The Ballad of Jack Rose by Maxwell Bodenheim features my Ibanez electric mandolin with a strong delay on my voice. It’s a pretty intense poem about a drug dealer who falls in love with an addict’s sister. This poem reminded me of The Panic In Needle Park and some Hubert Selby prose, too.

All The Madwomen is based on the Sam Fuller film Shock Corridor, specifically the scene where Peter Breck wanders into the nympho ward of the insane asylum he’s committed in. Naturally there are soundbites from the film floating all through the track. The original poem appeared in Horror Sleaze Trash Quarterly.

Sometimes people ask me why there's no guitar on my records, and it's like this: once I saw Allen Ginsberg on a TV show reciting his poetry backed by a punk band, and in theory it should have been awesome, but it was horrible. Poor old Ginsberg read his poetry with all his heart and this band behind him were playing so loud, especially this douchebag guitarist cranked so loud like he was Shitface Ramone and ripping out a solo while Grandpa Beat was trying valiantly to have his prose heard. A real shitshow, but lessons learned. Leave the fucking guitar in the corner, preferably in the garbage bin.

In Bed With The Bomb is about the early days of the atomic bomb, its development and testing. “I’m in bed with the bomb, I’m about to kingdom come, Drop it now! Stop it, how? Duck and cover, my atomic lover”. I enjoyed adding the “Andy, are you okay?” soundbite from Happiness.

Oh, My Love Is Like A Rose is a small abstract piano frisson with some sped-up saxophone and trumpet tracks for the Frank Zappa fans. That sound never gets old.

Death by Maxwell Bodenheim is the first Bodenheim poem I ever read, and I was immediately hooked. Goth to the max with its reference to Death’s longing for me and silver braids of hair, well...I laid down some backwards synthesizer for extra death texture. I also made a video of it, which you can see here.

So that’s my new album, Sea Level Drive. Give it a listen on Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, Apple Music or your favorite streaming sevice. If you’re going to listen to poetry/spoken word give it some electronic skronk with some free jazz horns and some lovely mandolin-driven folk to boot.

The tracks:
Ghosts of Hustlers
Velvet Candybar
The Hardcore Kid
On Her Bed of Roses
Disc Over America (DOA)
Sea Level Drive
Teethgrinder
The Ballad of Jack Rose
All The Madwomen
In Bed With The Bomb
Oh My Love Is Like A Rose
Death

Sea Level Drive is available for download or CD format via Bandcamp.com at https://andysevenltd.bandcamp.com/album/sea-level-drive. Meet me there.

In Bed With The Bomb

I recently watched my DVD of the great documentary The Atomic Café, a stunning compilation of newsreels, television broadcasts and other mixed media about the birth of the atomic bomb and tests conducted in the West Coast desert for its development.

The soundtrack to the film is a fascinating combination of country swing and folk songs all concerning the threat of communism, the bomb, and the threat of an impending nuclear war. I normally sandwich this film in between viewings of Kiss Me Deadly and A Boy and His Dog, but that’s another story.

I wrote a poem about the film and while it’s not as contemplative as I’d liked it to be, it’s close to expressing the anxiety that ran through every American at the time. I call it In Bed With The Bomb.

In Bed With The Bomb

I was just a gleam in a physicist’s eye
the final solution from a 12 o’clock high
blowing to bits to a teeny weenie
no people atoll in my radioactive bikini

I’m in bed with the bomb
I’m about to kingdom come
drop it now, stop it how?
duck and cover, my atomic lover

Then I lost my nuclear virginity
on a hot summer’s day in a place called Trinity
caught the atomic dose
in Los Alamos
a sleepy hollow
like Castle Bravo

Got the Manhattan Project in my pocket
hydrogen, neutron, can you fuel this rocket?
shield your eyes and drop the bomb
radiation bath fries in the napalm

Waving it around like a loaded gun
take a look around now everybody’s got one
you think the answer to it all is a mushroom cloud
I’d rather see your corpse wrapped up in a shroud

I’m in bed with the bomb
I’m about to kingdom come
drop it now, stop it how?
duck and cover, my atomic lover

Well, it’s not Phil Ochs but it’s not The Weirdos, either (“we don’t really want it but we got it anyway”). Since there was so much bluegrass in the movie I decided to play my mandolin hardcore punk style to give it an urgent, bluegrass tempo. Here’s the link to the “chune”:

Andy Seven Ltd. · In Bed With The Bomb

Stainless Steel Trees

STAINLESS STEEL TREES

I am cool, polished marble
i lie under stainless steel trees
around a lush green velvet lawn

Chameleons change to survive
changing to survive
too many destroying flesh
killing flesh
burning skin
and flesh
and bone
and hair

Change to survive
no more skin
no more flesh
no mare bone

So muuch killing
means nothing will ever
be the same

Change to survive
want to stay alive
like a chameleon
like a Rodin like a Henry Moore like a Michelangelo

I am cool, polished marble
smooth to the touch
frozen to the ends of time
with my stainless steel trees

Painting - The Big Game by Bernard Buffet.

The Multimedia Poet Refuses To Die!

NERDY GIRL

Oh, Nerdy girl, nerdy girl
put down that book
put down that Playstation 69
and take me, take me, take me
have your way with me
ravish me to the very core of my soul

Nerdy girl, nerdy girl
I want to be your hentai slave boy
when I see the sweat pouring down your forehead
with insecurity
it makes the blood in my balls boil
like an overheated beaker
in the laboratory you probably interned at

Ride me topside like a cowgirl
tell me of quantum physics
every endangered species of wood, birds and marine life
as you lovingly fondle me as you would a slide rule
violate my starving flesh as you would a t-square
as you recite every Green Lantern in the DC Universe

Nerdy girl, nerdy girl
I want to steam up your glasses
the more awkward you get
the more I love it
tear all my clothes off
like it’s a bold science experiment
as you explain every formula in Microsoft Excel, Visio and Access

My first collection of poetry, Year of The Bat will be released this Labor Day weekend. Instead of doing a full promotional burst on every social network I decided to record some of my poetry as audio tracks and do a few readings on video. The audio tracks can be heard and shared on SoundCloud and the videos would be distributed evenly between Vimeo and You Tube.

A few months ago I posted Hollywood Is Killing Me on SoundCloud, a track I really enjoyed recording. Filled with inspiration I went back to recording another poem. this one titled Nerdy Girl, which can also be read in Year of The Bat. This turned out pretty well, too, and I'm already making plans to record a newer poem. I feel like Ken Nordine!

Brake Job - Andy Seven

But sometimes people feel more connected when they can actually see the poet reading his work in person, so for the people who prefer that format I give you a peronal reading of another poem titled Brake Job. This is a prose version of the countless hustles from service centers trying to weasel more of my hard-earned money for bigger repair jobs, all driven by the fear factor. I thought I captured the panic mode these shrewd sales people employ.

The Band Didn't Show Up - Andy Seven

Some folks have nightmares where they're on stage naked and getting laughed at. Since I like my body that nightmare doesn't really scare me, so instead I have this recurring nightamre where I'm ready to pterform a big show and the rest of the band stands me up, leaving me to carry the whole show alone. Hmmm, well now that I've embraced folk music that bad dream is over too, because I plan on doing all my shows solo. Wonder what the new nightmares will be like?

What's the moral to this story? It's very simple: if you can't get people to read anymore then get thy ass up on that soapbox and read in front of a camera lens where people can see you - yes, they will watch - or record your work with a hip music track jamming out. If nobody gives a damn about Emile Zola anymore then they certainly won't be booking it to Barnes + Noble to pick up your masterpiece, so slap on some makeup and work that close-up. And promise me you won't be boring.

Electric Mandolin II - Andy Seven

Andy Seven - Copyright 2020, Nerdy Girl, Scuzzbuster Music (BMI). All rights reserved.

Minstrels Anonymous

I couldn't tell you where my love for the mandolin started, but it started early in life. Maybe it was Ian Anderson playing his great song Fat Man ("people think that I was just good fun, man") or maybe it was all those brilliant Warner Bros. pop records featuring Ry Cooder, but I was so smitten with the instrument that I bought a Nonesuch Records album of classical mandolin music featuring sonatas by Beethoven and Hummel. I've always had mandolin fever but never got into the game. Until now.

Last summer I finally took the plunge and bought a mandolin set - that is, the instrument, a backpack-style gig bag and an instructional book with chords. I went for the completely jet black lute made by Rogue instruments. I set the bridge up and immediately started playing. I was in Seventh Mandolin Heaven!

I taught myself a few chords and started digesting as many YouTube tutorials as my nosy mind would absorb. I also discovered some great mandolin players of the past (Bill Monroe) and the present (young Sierra Hull and the equally amazing Justin Moses).

In addition to playing the easy songs in my instructional book - Wayfaring Stranger, Song of Joy aka Clockwork Orange, and Big Rock Candy Mountain I also began learning some of my own tunes, as seen below.

My decision to engage in acoustic music wasn't as quirky as it might seem. It was a serious decision made regarding my return to music, which I wasn't looking forward to because of my tinnitus. The prospect of performing loud music again was painful just to think about.

That's me at Holmby Park playing my song Husband Material, a song I used to play with my band Trash Can School. I've been playing in parks all over Los Angeles a lot lately and I really enjoy it. It's very invigorating to be able to play outdoors and I try to do it every weekend. Beats playing to a brunch of drunks in some nightclub!

En route to playing all this wild stuff I also got heavily into folk music, and I don't mind listing my favorites: Dave Van Ronk, Tim Buckley (even the gigolo shit), Judy Henske, Fred Neil and even some of the cornball Kingston Trio stuff is decent - check out Hangman by them. Beats Nick Cave at his own game IMO. Listening to these wildmen and women of folk has been a great education in song crafting and phrasing.

In addition to learning my own stuff I'm also learning a few punk songs on my mandolin. I'm working on a cool version of Nice & Sleazy by The Stranglers as well as Ex-Lion Tamer by Wire which I plan on posting soon on YouTube. Keep your eyes peeled on my channel. I've created a monster - a Mandolin Monster and I couldn't be happier.