Mark Mallman
Nighttime Is For All Time
Sep 10, 2009
Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound engineering by Mike Gentry
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Welcome to Daytrotter
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Eternal Moonshine
original version appears on Invincible Criminal
I consider myself a serious songwriter who writes about some not so serious subject matter. I write a lot of tunes about booze and the act of boozin'. So I thought I'd play with the idea of the word Moonshine. Words with double meanings are candy for us songwriters. The social construct around booze is basically this "Oh it's fun, but it's also really bad, and everyone who drinks has a drinking problem." I don't feel that way. This song is kind of, I guess, a love song to drunkenness. It's also one in a string of songs about existential crisis, and my never ending struggle to fight against those banal parts of life that just make me want to curl up and die. Yay, existential crisis!
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Invincible Criminal
original version appears on Invincible Criminal
I rewrote the lyrics for this after visiting Graceland in Memphis. It was originally called "You, You, You" and was very angry. Graceland had a profound impact on me. I went there as kind of a journey into American Kitsch. But when I got inside, it struck me that this iconic figure was an actual person. It made me think of the impact that music has, and I realized that the person who I wrote "You You You" about didn't deserve to have a song so negative floating around out there. So, instead I made it a critique on myself, and the lame attitude I had in being such a dick.
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You're Never Alone in New York
original version appears on Invincible Criminal
I got the idea for this song while flying into JFK on my way home from a tour of the UK with Chuck Prophet. The idea of being an outsider in a huge city, and seeing the good and bad of it. We recorded it first with RUBY ISLE, my other band, but Dan wasn't feeling it. Aaron Lemay, our drummer, as well as the drummer on these Daytrotter sessions, liked it and suggested I rework it for "Invincible Criminal." I'm glad we did.
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Do You Feel Like Breaking Up?
original version appears on Loneliness in America
Before I wrote "Invincible Criminal," I wrote this other album. It was a hateful thing. I was in a bad spot. In 2008 I was supposed to release an album, but I didn't feel comfortable with this group of mean tunes. They were coming from a negative place, and I didn't want to have to play them every night on the road. So I scrapped the record and started over. The result was my 2009 release "Invincible Criminal". This tune was from the album that never saw light of day. It's probably the most poppy song I wrote in '07 and '08. I put it on "LONELINESS IN AMERICA," the free download comp on my website instead. I don't know what'll happen to the rest of those tunes. I kinda wish I'd never wrote em. I dunno. Maybe I'll send em to NIN, that guys seems kinda mad about something, based on his tweets.
We will allow the man of the next 24 hours set the scene for this session as he offered as much. So, without further ado is Mark Mallman on the Mark Mallman Daytrotter session circa spring 2009: "There was a big rainstorm the day we recorded. It followed us on our whole east coast tour actually. After our session, Matt Johnson (Bass), Aaron Lemay (Drums), and myself went to one of many Quad City riverboat casinos and lost about 60 bucks. We ate at the buffet and gained about 60 pounds. Back at the hotel we drank about 60 beers. Sometimes, after shows, I feel like crying. Other nights I feel like a ghost. That night, we didn't have a show. We played basketball in the hotel pool. It was a happy day. I love rock and roll, but sometimes I just need to perform in the afternoon. Thank you Daytrotter!" We would like to take a minute to decry that our riverboat casinos don't always empty everyone's pockets and our all-you-can eat buffets are negotiable. The same does not go for the storm that followed these three gents around the east. The beers are good here, as they are anywhere, and that's the still reigning reason that most dots on every map are palatable. The telling portion of this summarization from the leader of this troupe from Minneapolis is that the 60 bucks that they lost at the boats isn't really all that extreme. The weight they may have gained is very clearly an exaggeration, likely by more than 50 pounds or more, but the claim as to the 60 beers downed (possibly the activity and number that led to the other similar approximations) could be veritable over their two-night stay. Mallman is a man who seems to live a vampiric lifestyle, coming alive when there are no remaining shards of light to be found in the air, just a pall of sinful blackness, with the neon bulbs and streetlamps blaring their artificial glows. He's seen during the regular daytime hours, but just as the actual daytime comes clean in his song "Eternal Moonshine," he may actually be moonshine wearing a mask of daylight just to pass the time faster and get to the good stuff, when cavorting and the more dastardly of persuasions are on display. It's when it's socially acceptable to crack the tops of one beer can after another, when it's understood that there may be some glass breaking or some noses broken, some wives and girlfriends hit on, some loud rock and roll played through the cigarette smoking and some shameful walks in the light the morning after. His leather jackets and his tight jeans are nighttime attire and his songs - glam rock masterpieces - are for those, sunken into an evening, to manically sing along to, with one arm lovingly around the shoulder of a stranger to the left and the other doing the same to a stranger on the right. It should be with abandon that this happens for the way that Mallman writes on "Invincible Criminal" and on all older work is in deference to there being anything worth getting up before 5 in the afternoon for. He sings that we should probably just gather round and "drink to the madness of it," and one could argue themselves red on most days and still not come up with a reason not to do such a thing. It's all madness and still, it finds a way to consume us and keep us hostage in a way. We're at the mercy of our day times, when we're forced to be a breadwinner and a dutiful employee, but the second the clock is punched, we're allowed to become human again, getting shifty and thirsty and letting Mallman take us to his lair of uninhibited instinct, where we're imbued with glamorous introspection from a different universe.
Mark Mallman MySpace Page
Badman Recording Co.
