| TALL TALES + SMALL DETAILS 1 Z-intro ... 2 To Impress ... 3 Your TV ... 4 Love Cliché ... 5 Potted Politics ... 6 Elation ... 7 Z-middle ... 8 Make Money 9 Think Twice ... 10 Stolen Sun ... 11 See No Lies ... 12 Popcorn Charity 13 ‘Til Then ... 14 Z-interlude ... 15 Just Enough ... 16 Off the Grid ... 17 It’s All Right ... 18 Z-end ... 19 Zeitgeist (Bonus Track) ... Z-intro The idea was to set the stage for a big imaginary jam session. All kinds of musicians from all genres of music who I work with somehow get together in one room to throw it down. After the orchestra tunes up, I test out my fingers on the Rhodes electric piano. In January 2004, on the very first day of recording in Chicago, I laid down this improvised Rhodes prelude. I had been working on one particular song for over a year, and it had been running through my head that day. It still wasn’t done, but I wanted some kind of demo of the idea. After messing around on my own so we could get a recording level on the Rhodes, I ran through it cold with the two drummers I had there with me: Chicago guy Marshall Greenhouse and Damien Bassman, in from NYC.I ended up using that first take of a half-written song. I solved the song by writing it backwards, figuring out the structure based on what we had created on the spot that night. Over the next 15 months or so, that piece of music would be chopped up into 3 tracks (Z-intro, Z-middle, Z-end). Drummers and bass players from NYC and Los Angeles would also contribute parts. I didn’t finish the lyrics until May 2005. Somehow, that loose jam from the first day became the connective tissue for this sprawl of music called ZEITGEIST. |