Jookabox
A Whole Box Of The Necessary Ingredients For Spells of Insanity
Nov 13, 2009
Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound engineering by Mike Gentry
-
Welcome to Daytrotter
-
Ponta
original version appears on Scientific Cricket
This was a staple of the solo-Jooka set, and was written a long time ago. During a trip, my Dad bought me a Kalimba made from a coconut from the side of the road. I like how new instruments can open up new parts of your song mind. This song appeared on the Joyful Noise release "Scientific Cricket."
-
Take Me From Diamond Head
original version appears on Scientific Cricket
I'm pretty sure this is when I was doing the raging distorted bass'n'drum version of this song, which also appeared on "Scientific Cricket" in a quieter (some say better) form. I was tired of playing it, so I figured out a new way to do it. I think of forcing myself out of a comfortable and familiar routine for my own damned good, though it's painful.
-
I Will Save Young Michael
original version appears on Ropechain
Here's a bass looper written for the King of Pop (before recent events, mind you). It appeared on last year's "Ropechain." I grew up on his music, like everyone. I love it. I tried to record a version of "Thriller" this year, and was faced with the towering vocal talent he had. And I just think the life of this man was such an insane, improbable tragedy. Like a Shakespeare play from another dimension. And I wonder a lot about the ingredients for insanity and where exactly the point of no return is.
-
I'm Absolutely Freaked Out
original version appears on Ropechain
Geez, I don't even remember how I did this by myself, but it must have been a mess. I spent a lot of time getting weird in a basement when I wrote this, and not getting any sleep, thinking I might die for no reason, and seeing purple blotches of light.
**These songs were recorded during a solo Jookabox tour, by Moose and his loop pedal star choir.
The version of "I Will Save Young Michael" that David "Moose" Adamson, or the one man who we can pin Jookabox to, recorded here was recorded nearly a year ago, just before the Thanksgiving holiday. Michael Jackson was still very much alive and possibly even rehearsing for the final movie of his life/tour that never existed. He was still a severe case of a man, Jackson was - unable and unwilling to be a normal person for reasons manifested out of thin air, reasons that he fully fostered and engaged and then a more dysfunctional combination of the two that led to the harshest of complications. Adamson, who was here a year ago by himself, with his loop pedal star choir, is a lifelong fan of the King of Pop, and earlier this year attempted to record a full album remake of "Thriller" before recognizing the futility in his actions. The song, a gently layered and loping open letter and public conversation to the people's entertainer, snakes around as if we were listening to a scene from a slowed motion part of a movie where the white sunlight is bleaching out the picture and young kiddos are splashing in a lukewarm wading pool and going slowly wild through the sprinklers on a front lawn in summer. It has instances that bring to mind the mad genius-ing of Dirty Projectors, brings up an angry Joe Jackson ("who badly wants the days he never had") and features an outro monologue as the song is fading to its finish where Adamson says, "Yo, Michael, I know for a fact that you're from Indiana and so am I and that makes us brothers. You oughta come back and dance sometime again okay? Okay. Cause you know it's gonna make so many people happy again. Sincerely Moose Adam-son." Since Jackson's death, one of the common cries toward those making aspersions and assumptions has been that there are relatively few people who know what his mostly secretive personal life was like. No one really knew what he was going through, how he was or was not wrestling with the bedeviling and cruel thoughts, all of the rotten self-image issues in his head, behind the walls of his home. Moose Adamson should in no ways be misconstrued as a fellow suffering in the ways or at the magnitude as Mr. Michael Jackson was before his untimely death/murder. But the kinds of split personalities and insomnia-induced episodes of freakouts and temporary mental catastrophes that find their little ways into his songs are of a similar ilk - though still largely imagined or distorted to be more like such preposterously real and debilitating issues that Jackson faced. There are so many individual breakdowns in Jookabox songs that are just wonderfully odd and there are flashes of craziness all over last year's "Ropechain" (from which "I Will Save Young Michael") and Adamson's latest, "Dead Zone Boys," that make the music feel like this vacation from sanity that they'd never book and they'd never take in a million years. The figments of these crazy as hell vacations and mental experiments are of course fascinating for all of the reasons above and the Jookabox albums are sandboxes for all of the many ways that things get away from us and shift us into bodies having some of the necessary ingredients for spells of insanity. Now, whether those spells take or not, as they did with MJ, that's left up to the fates.
Jookabox MySpace Page
Asthmatic Kitty Records
