From ANDRAS JONES: I was introduced to ZAK SCHAFFER by R8B fave MORTY COYLE, and when I realized that Zak went to school with my best friend and bandmate from high school, JOSH CLAYTON-FELT (who we have talked and cried about a lot on this show) I knew we were gonna be pals.

We recorded this session in Zak’s “song shack” where I actually spent the previous night so we could start our session bright and early that day, and it made me think maybe this is a way the third season of Radio8Ball could look, with me showing up in people’s spaces and recording musical divinations where they live. It’s certainly an option.

There’s a Bob Seger line from his song “Night Moves” that goes, “I used her. She used me. But neither one cared”. That line kind of applies to this session with Zak. Originally, I was using Zak to help me coral the XTC Appreciation Society into presenting an XTC tribute episode of Radio8Ball. When that fell through he used me to promote his solo music as the replacement guest. This, in turn, served me by filling the hole in my schedule, and allowing me to wheedle my way onto his XTC tribute show the week after we taped this. All in all,  I think I came out ahead.

There’s actually a whole lot of synchronicity with the release of today’s episode on July 20th. It’s the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing in 1969, which is also the 50th anniversary of my first steps as a toddler. I’m not making that up and I did nothing special to make it so, that I am aware of. In keeping with a baby destined for synchronicity work, the timing just lined up, and speaking of timing just lining up, today is the birthday of Natalie Wood who was the inspiration for my song “Natalie Wood said…” which comes out today as the lead single from my upcoming album “All You Get’ (available on Spotify and iTunes, etc). I’m sure that seems planned but, like my fist steps and the lunar landing, it just kinda worked out this way. Makes me wonder what Natalie Wood was up to on her 30th birthday. Was she looking with hope to the heavens or looking with concern at the lot of actresses of her generation and their post-30 prospects? One can only speculate but here’s the video we made for the song. View it while you can.

During this session with Zak my thoughts were not of lunar landings or famous movie stars’ birthdays or even my upcoming album. My question is about a new song. One which has been growing throughout this last batch of episodes in our second season. The song, with an evolving title “Fucking Hilarious” then “Clown”, was born out of the events that led to our break with Starburns, premiered as an acoustic song in the opening of our Pete Molinari episode, and at this point in its journey I was considering recording it while in LA so, I could go “back to Olympia with  a song…that tells the story”.

POP ORACLE Song of The Day (July 20, 2019): VEDA HILLE “Queen of May”

The Funeral

A    E        D        E

Trees on a hill and the red leaves falling

A    D        E    E

Making me think that I shouldn’t have come

A    E        D        E

Because I need a drink and hasty escape

A    D        Es    E

And I’m starting to think that I won’t get either one

D        E

It’s always so sad to come home

F#        E

And everyone looks like a mirror

D        E

It’s always so sad to come home

A        D        E    D    A    

Everyone cried at the funeral, so did I

A    E        D        E

Nobody knows what I’m thinking in here

F#    D        Es    E

And I’d be content not  to tell them a thing

A    E        D        E

Whoever said money can’t buy happiness

F#    D        Es    E

Was right