This is a fun power-pop mod-rock glam-romp through some of the fun parts of stardom. I didn’t want to include the downside, as that story has already been told – in plenty of wonderful songs like Ziggy Stardust and Bad Company’s Shooting Star. No, we didn’t need another demise of Elvis dead on the toilet number, it’s been done, and it’s depressing. This is about a star just winning at everything, and they love their fans, and their fans love them, and it’s alright.
You’re making every scene
In every young kid’s dream
You’re on a roll now and no one can get enough of your sweet time
You play by your own rules
Only you know the plan
Your biggest fan just bought Milan we’ll throw a party for you there
And your age it never shows
And thy legend ever grows
You don’t even have to try, why,
You are on top of the world
And it’s alright
Don’t need to own a car
Arrive by shooting star
You land on stage in golden heels and cue the band in on one hand
The crowds are going mad
Around the block they stand
Waiting for hours bearing flowers, you sign programmes, on the run
And like sunshine in the rain
All the colors shimmering
You don’t even have to try, high,
You are on top of the world
And it’s alright
—
Eric Din – Guitars, Bass, Vocals, Drums, Tambourine and indeed Cowbell
This idea popped into my head on January 1 around noon, and I dove right in at my home studio. It’s definitely my 2024 New Year’s song, with vibes of optimism, joy, humor and hope for brighter, rabbity cabbity times to come. Finished the mix just this Monday, sent it to Shannon, he drew the rabbituses, Myles delivered a fab masterus, and here it isimus! Not two weeks later. Apparently it’s true that bunnies reproduce quickly. Carpe Diem, my friends <3
-Din
Here are the elaborate lyrics:
Rabbitus Maximus
Rabbitus Maximus
Rabbitus Maximus
Rabbitisimus Maximus
Rabbit
Rabbitus Maximus
Bass, Guitars, Vocals, Vibraslap, Gongus Rotatus, Hammond Organus, Drummus Wranglitus, Tape Echo Fiddlus, Compositionus, Arrangementus, Purrformed, Recorded and Producifused by Eric Din
Audio Masterus Maximus by Myles Boisen, Suuuuper Genius
Artworkus by Shannon Wheelerus Coffeetoomuchus the 1st
Hey! Wow! New single. Dropped this morning. From a tree. Next to a marmot. And Charlotte.
Waving at the neighbors “Hi!” as the waves crash in,
They look at me and don’t know why, like “Hi, whatever,”
No one talks anymore, no one walks in this town,
Hardly notice myself when I take a look ’round,
Chasing my lost angels through the smog and glory,
Elvis and The Runaways gaze from the HOLLYWOOD sign
And on the gridlock freeway,
Tuning in to float away
Never never never never never sleep, never, never never slow down,
Got a bridge back home to sell ya, and the moon as well
No one talks anymore, no one walks in this town,
Hardly notice my shoes when I look at the ground,
All of these lost angels are gone forever,
Never lookin’ back again, no never never,
And on the zombie freeway,
Casting directors casting doubt,
I’ll never be in your spillway,
I’m not in your secret club,
As I walk in the mall, with my eyes lookin’ down,
Staring at the glowing, gleaming showing,
Now I know the way, following what it say,
Never need to wonder, everything’s easy,
These machines will preen and vent spleen for me,
Waving at my hologram now, the neighbors smile,
And on the scarlet carpet,
Margot Robbie strides away,
And in the garden, Charlotte
Watches a charming marmot play,
And in the garden, Charlotte,
Margot Robbie strides away
——
Guitarscape, Fender P-Bass, Vocals – Eric Din
1965 Ludwig Drums – Michael Urbano
Recorded by Michael Rosen at East Bay Recorders
2nd Engineer – Austin James Hicks
Produced and mixed by Eric Din for Berkeley Cat Records
Mastered by Michael Romanowski at Coast Mastering
Artwork by Shannon Wheeler
Ba Ba Ba, Ba Barbarella, Ba Ba Ba, Ba Barbenheimer, Ba Ba Ba, Be Bop a Thing..
Hello! It’s Caturday and there are things to be done. Cats to be played with, guitars to strum. Rivers to jump in, if it can be arranged.
What of the movies? Barbenheimer, or as I prefer, Oppenbarbie. Will I set foot in a movie theater for the first time in lo these many years? I might. I hope it’s not too loud. My last movie theater experience was bad. Too loud, and, lots of commercials! Yes, commercials. You pay the cover, you pay for parking, you buy the popcorn, you’ve paid, right? Captive audience, commercials. No mute button. This plus internets has made me stay home for my movies. But.. Barbarellaheimerbarbenopalypse.. I think it’s on. I may need to experience this moment of popular culture in its undiluted form. The Barbie preview – I pulled it up on Apple TV yesterday, and wow. I think I like. As for Oppenbabyheimerdude, I have read quite a bit about him, and his brothers, and his colleagues and friends and lovers, over the years. A fascinating and complex man to be sure. Epic moral dilemmas, giant world-changing science with huge secret team in the desert, why not? What we need is both films, side-by-side or even overlapping, to save time and maximize popcorn value. I’d sit through commercials for that.
OK, CONTENT! All of this is content. The writers and actors strike brings up so many fascinating issues. AI does its inevitable advance and hoomans try to understand it. An amusing feature to all this is the ads I see on FB and elsewhere – telling me to use AI to write blog posts or songs. I find it darkly funny that people would spend money to buy ads and target me with that message. I can spell out the reason, that will never appeal to me in any way at all: THE MEANING OF LIFE!
The meaning of life. I enjoy writing, creating, recording, and all of these things. I do them because they are fun. I learn things about myself, by doing them. I might entertain some people, or even inspire them, sometimes, by creating and sharing things that start in my imagination. So, no, thank you, dear AI company, I think I’ll not have you doing the fun bits instead of me.
Hey, my second solo album comes out August 1! This is the title track, sort of, and it may address some of these hot topics. Be well, stay cool and hydrated, <3 E
About a year ago I visited Down Home Music for a wee panel-ish discussion with author Bill Kopp, on his fab 415 Records – Disturbing The Peace book tour. After the event, the good folks at Down Home asked me if I’d like to come in and do a solo set sometime, and sure enough, that’s what I’ll be doing this August 12 right around 2PM. We’ll have a flier for this soon I think, and I’ll share it up on the accursed socialnets then, and for now, here it is on a wee down home bloggy post. Pop on in, say hi, it’s free! On a Catursunday, no less.
Hey! I haven’t written here in a while, and I’m excited to pop in and share a few items this morning.
I just released a new song called Misinformed. It’s on Bandcamp now and will hit the streaming contraptions in about a week.
This is the first track on my CONTENT album, which has an official release date of August 1, a CaturTuesday. Why a few months out? So we can release some singles in advance of it and have some fun putting some light on a few individual songs before publishing the whole kaboodle. So here’s an ask – (“ask” is a noun, now, I’m dealing with it..) – my ask is that you give ‘er a listen and if you dig it, buy or share it or both. Elaborate, no? This is our marketing strategy. YOU are our marketing strategy. And regardless of any of it we send you big kittycat love on this auspicious Caturday.
On August 12, also a Caturday, I’m singing a few songs from both my STREET PARTY and CONTENT albums, at Down Home Music in El Cerrito, around 2PM. I’ll be doing this solo, with an acoustic guitar, perhaps telling a yarn or two about my creative journeys and whatever comes to mind, we shall see, and y’all are invited to pop in and join me. The good folks at Down Home will have copies of both albums on CD available for sale, for any CD-inclined cats among ye. We’ll call it my book tour, even though, it’s not a book. It is content, however, I can confidently say.
News items, links, and bears! Brooklyn Vegan ran a lovely preview of Street Party, last week. The album is now on all the fancy streaming services, linked to from here. The CD is available by mail order directly from me, have at it here. What else? It’s exciting to get this into the world, finally! Lyric sheets and track credits are in the individual Bandcamp song pages, such as this one. Please enjoy, and feel free to share any ol’ which way! Thanks <3
Photo by Thomas White (on some drums he played on this very album!)
Alright, my solo album, STREET PARTY comes out Caturday, April 9, and you can pre-order the limited edition CD now! Five years or a lifetime in the making, depending on how you look at it. Hope you enjoy! On Berkeley Cat Records, of course. Clicketh:
In the middle of all this craziness, I’ve somehow had a rather productive year. One big milestone – the early Uptones album! Been wanting to do that for a long time, and the pieces finally fell into place to make it possible. I wrote some posts about it on the Uptones blog. Out now on Liberation Hall records.
Cover art by Peter Montgomery. Liner notes from Sarah Cain. Have at it!
I’ve produced some more songs of my own. The most recent one, Jupiter Girls, I finished this weekend and shared right away on my Bandcamp page. It’s so fun, and in a way, it’s the most Uptones-y thing I’ve done on my own. The brass section, arranged and performed by the mighty Steven Bernstein, launches the track in a way that reminds me of Uptones arrangements. We’d often do these huge, triumphant horn lines as intros and bridges and whatnot, and when Jupiter Girls was all done and mixed the way I wanted it, I laughed and said, hmm, we kinda Uptone’d that! Thank you Steve, and drummer Jay Lane (speaking of Uptones!), and Shannon Wheeler (who drew the cover art), for joining me on this long-distance collaboration. It brought me some real joy, and I see it is doing the same for some folks out there listening to it already. And that of course means the world to me. Humble thanks and love, all!
We defeated the orange apparition of death, and saved American democracy. I have many friends who volunteered, donated, posted and participated so actively in this election. Starting during the primary we had at it, working hard for our preferred candidates (for me it was Bernie). Then in the general election, many of us got behind the Democratic Party ticket hard and strong, and helped put them over the top. We did that. We. It was a WE thing.
Bernie Sanders’ 2020 slogan, “Not me, US” is one of my favorite political slogans ever. I didn’t like his earlier “Join the Political Revolution” slogan at all, though I strongly supported him then. I didn’t like the Obama campaign’s “HOPE” thing, though I understood its appeal, and vigorously supported his run in 2008 and 2012. Did Hillary Clinton’s campaign have a slogan in 2016? Jeez I can’t remember – what was it – (googling..) oh right, “Hillary for America.” Again, I voted for Clinton, and in hindsight after this unspeakable disaster, I WISH I had campaigned for her, donated, volunteered, done something more than vote, but that’s water under the bridge and.. “Hillary for America?” Hoo boy. Dem’s, we have to do better! Forgive me for this tangent, but I’m a songwriter, and I think lyrics matter. 45’s slogan, which I shall not repeat, is a political masterpiece. In the endless autopsy of the 2016 election I will repeat, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a comfortable margin, and we need to revise or remove the Electoral College, so maybe her slogan worked fine for some folks too. I just thought it said nothing. I couldn’t even remember it. Popular songs, you can remember. But enough complaining.
We WON the 2020 presidential election, decisively. And every one of us has our own inner dialog about what that means, and the dark horror of what another 4 years of this bullshit would mean. Me, in my little corner of the universe, what were some of my anxieties? Oh they’re almost embarrassing, so small are they compared to the concerns of people in real peril due to this monstrosity, but I’ll share, why not? You know what? I produced a really joyous, celebratory song, the above Jupiter Girls. I honestly didn’t know if I’d have the creative energy and will to finish the track properly if our fellow men and women put 45 back in office again. No. I would have lost a piece of my faith in humanity, I might have snapped, I would have bailed out and gone to live in a monastery or something, I don’t know. And the Uptones early recordings album, what would that be, in the context of the election, if it had gone the other way? We waited 35 plus years to put it out (the reasons for that far too lengthy to address here) and boom, the release date was… November 6th! I laughed and cried when I saw that date announced just a few months ago, knowing election day is the 3rd. Fun. I doubled down on my support for Biden/Harris and helped them win.
When I look at the results from state to state, I can easily conclude that WITHOUT the massive efforts of so many of us, this would have gone south. Pun accepted. But we won. We won and government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Not this week. Not on our watch. Not this time. Take a breath and let’s see what we can do to help the Democratic senate candidates in Georgia and mute the evil turtle from Kentucky, shall we? What’s the best approach? I’m looking into this.
At the same time as all of the above, I released some great new music from Russ Ellis and friends, Matte Martin, The Recyclists, Comeback Pete and others on my new label, Berkeley Cat Records. And I’ve been working with a wonderful team at Pandora, remotely, all of this remotely, from the same desk, in my COVID outpost. Without keeping busy, I don’t know how I’d cope. I’m very grateful. What a year!
When I was 17 and the Uptones were starting out, a friend of a friend asked me at a party, “Dude, why do you mix politics with music?” “Dude,” I replied, “they’re already mixed.”
