The Minus Story
A Drink Of The Slow Heat
Dec 12, 2008
Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound engineering by Patrick Stolley
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Welcome to Daytrotter
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Hold On
original version appears on No Rest For Ghosts
We all grew up in Boonville, Missouri, which has a strong tradition of folk and country music, so when we came up with this song, it seemed like that had something to do with it. Sort of a ballad-y dirge about my best friend suddenly losing her father. I'm sure I was listening to Magnolia Electric Company a whole lot when I wrote it. When we played it in the studio, I remember that we were a little worn out, and it was a really grey day, and playing this song seemed to make sense: a weary song for the tour-weary.
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Misery is a Ship
original version appears on Heaven and Hell
On record this song is acoustic mostly and a really sloppy folk song. Tom Waits would be the obvious reference... On some tours we did with The Appleseed Cast and then Okkervil River, this song became more loud and noisy, and we wanted to document that. I wrote it for my mentor Juan Ormaza, who is an art teacher in Massachusetts.
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Beast at My Side
original version appears on My Ion Truss
Andy wrote this song. I'm not sure if he'd agree, but I've always felt how we chose to approach this song reflected our great love of Pearl Jam. A couple years back, we had a 64 band Final Four style tournament in the van, each band member getting a vote for each matchup to determine who would advance each round and eventually choose the Best Band In the World. The Final Four that year were Fugazi, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, and Pearl Jam. They were all strong contenders, and I honestly can't remember who won. But Pearl Jam was up there is my point.
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Paul's Letter to St. Job
unreleased
This is a song by our good friends Drakkar Sauna from Lawrence, KS, off their amazing Jabraham Lincoln album. Everyone should get their records, go see them live, and listen to their Daytrotter session. When we toured with Old Canes, we listened to this record everyday, and this song in particular multiple times in a row everyday. Howard Draper from Tre Orsi is on percussion.
A buddy explained the other night - as the air outside kicked up a flume of disturbing wintry business - that he's just recently begun taking to sherry to work the feeling back into his fingers and to help apply a charming coat of liquid wool to his body's main street, just every so often. It had become a welcome habit, one that he'd taken enough comfort in that he wanted to mention it.
He had been thinking about cooking sherry and one thing led to another. Soon enough, that begat walking in the door from the outsides like the one on the night of his telling, removing his coat, hat and shoes and knocking back a plug of sherry because, as he put it, "You know, it makes you feel warm." It's the best reason that anyone really could have to do anything with their time. We get to understand warmth ostensibly more during the months when it's so scarce, when it's only furnished by things manmade - big mainframe furnaces, space heaters, wood ovens, the toasting of logs set forth by the hands of people freezing their cheeks off.
The Minus Story is the unsustainable effect of that swig of alcohol when the skin and bones are being bombarded by the cursed cold that comes traipsing through these Midwestern parts as well as those in the band's Lawrence, Kansas, city of record. The band we can follow past the teeth, over the tongue and gums and as it starts to be taken by the gravitational pull of the throat, reaches up and pulls the cord to turn a light on that booms to life and causes more heat than visibility. Suddenly, what takes over is a sensation that feels like a bearskin rug has just been gently stapled to the tracking of that throat and the excess is run down right into the clattering stomach, where the sounds and the alcohol bottom out like children reaching the end of the water park's steepest slide. The Minus Story is just the right amount of sherry for the job. It is the rewarding glow that is no doubt dripping to its end in whatever body it inhabits. Vocalist Jordan Geiger makes sure to touch all of his words and melodies with the utmost care, with a precise hand, which could be holding a quill next to an ink well, next to a bottle.
The music that the Minus Story makes has all of the qualities of a night that moves lightly, of a night that feels aged and would be happy that you noticed these things about it. It's a wonderful kind of pacing that happens when the needle lowers onto the grooves and as much as it is about that sherry or the drink of the hour, it's just as much about or in relation to the treatment that a poor lake receives when the weather turns into its dormant period, when nothing swims and the fish all take to their cramped quarters down near the sludge. . It's the bitter stillness of the blue that's turned white that comes through when Geiger sings, as if offering the ice those stark cracking sounds that pop through a quiet walk when it's stepped upon improperly. It chokes the beat out of a heart and then it's time for another glass of sherry and another story.
The Minus Story Official Site
The Minus Story MySpace
