Right On Dynamite

Of Time Marching On And On

Apr 28, 2009

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Words by Sean Moeller // Illustration by Johnnie Cluney // Sound engineering by Mike Gentry

Suddenly, there's a part of me that's uneasy about how quickly the big and the little hands on the clocks go round and round. It's mostly because of Right On Dynamite that this is happening tonight. Sometimes, we all comment - with bewilderment and partially with scorn - that time sure has flown since something else in the past happened. Where did all of those years or months go since that one event happened? So and so has been married how long? How old is that kiddo of yours now? When was it that we ran into Steve Nash as a grocery store in Tempe at 2 a.m.? Wow, that long ago? Really? Are you absolutely sure? Yep, that all seems to make sense. You're right, damn it, you're right. The Brooklyn power trio has an explicit way of jabbing those unsettling thoughts of time getting completely out of control as it refuses to act sluggishly in the slightest, just taking off at a gallop and building it up to an intoxicatingly brisk pace that usually gets ignored because there are too many calls and precious e-mails to get to, too many deals and brokerings to let anything else get in the way. Lead singer Danny Murphy takes us very subtly and very persistently into the path of these gnawing thoughts of deconstructive life, of the abandonment of what's offered in boundless amounts until it's quickly recognized that nothing could be further from the truth. "I'll See You Yesterday," a brand new song taped for the first time for this particular session, Murphy sings, "I leave these mistakes, next to a pile of words that seem to have wasted away," and you can almost picture a body disappearing like Copperfield - straight up vanishing - and all that's left of the floor is a pair of shoes and rumpled clothing, maybe a dash of smoke or dust floating up from the combustion. And that's all that's left, the stray clothing, some unwanted mistakes that were never resolved or cracked and a spirit at-large. The person's just gone as quickly as the sound of the ticking, keeping that perfect time, never faltering because there's no future in that. Right On Dynamite allows the rolling on of the tumblers to happen as part of this sort of mostly energized, garage band sensation that gives it both a sleepier version of the great, scruffy New York band The Figgs and an homage to Chicago's lost great power pop group, Fig Dish (it just so works out that way when it comes to the names folks). It's just about the way everything proceeds - with those invaluable reflections, the spurts and drags, with the melodious phrases and smiles and those sinking realities all just fighting it out for the microphone.

Right On Dynamite MySpace Page

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1. first song

   Welcome to Daytrotter

   
2. second song

   I'll See You Yesterday

   

   - unreleasedThis is a new tune that we wrote just before we started our tour which brought us through Daytrotter. It's changed a bit since we first played it in the studio on that fateful Saturday. I remember that I just penned the lyrics on the way over to Daytrotter once we decided to play it for the session. The title came when Nicky heard some guy say that phrase when he was at the bank or something, we really liked it, and just wrote this song. It seemed to make a lot of sense, the lyrics were pretty much written off the idea of the title.

3. third song

   Pas De Combats

   

   - unreleased"Pas De Combats" is one we wrote right before we recorded our EP way back in the summer of 2008. The version we played at Daytrotter was a lot slower than what we play live, we wanted to do some chilled out versions of the songs this time round. It used to be called "No Fights" but we changed it to something in French, which I think pretty much means "no fights" or something close to that, none of us know French. The vibe's pretty harsh. I guess at its core it's about the people that take advantage of you but you're too frustrated to do anything about it. But we get the last say. It's like an 80's movie -- think of the guitar solo as the point where we kick the shit out of the bully and in the end get the girl.

4. fourth song

   Alright

   

   - unreleasedHere's one we recorded at the time of the EP but it really didn't feel right to include on it. It's pretty rockin' number as they say, but once again we were feeling the sweet vibes of the Daytrotter room and toned it down a bit. The coffee was flowing, our energy was there, but we wanted to let it go in another direction. The song is probably one of the most straight-forward tunes we have, both musically and lyrically. We tend on leaving the objectives of songs and stuff open for interpretation, but in this one I guess not so much.

5. fifth song

   Changing of the Guard

   

   - original version appears on Right On DynamiteThe only song we did at Daytrotter that is actually on our EP. This was done pretty much right before we had to split. Jon really wanted to do an acoustic version of one of our songs, so we picked "Changing of the Guard" just to do something a little different than what we normally do. Like the other tunes we wanted to make all the songs have some other feel than the one on the record. It's definitely inspired by our neighborhood and how much it has changed over the course of the years that we lived there. It's kind of about the faux artists that seem to be around. I mean a lot of cool people have moved in too, but this is about those people that just suck. We listened to about half of this take and it sounded pretty rad...other than that I don't remember much about it. I'm excited to hear it again.