Desolation

If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

Kurt Vonnegut

I’m pretty sure my kids know that I would never complain about them being gay, or going into the arts. As a matter of fact, I love getting to brag on them being exactly the wonderful, loving, and creative people that they are. And on account of at least one of them being a very private person, I seldom get the go ahead to do so. But every once in a while…

We interrupt the regularly scheduled program to bring you this important message: My son has released an album this week. https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/mojavehippie/desolation

Having kids in music lessons is always noisy. When they were little we had a piano and I personally replaced the bushings on 81 of those 88 keys. My daughter took guitar lessons, and my son took drums. He had an honest to goodness drum kit. Do you have any idea how loud an eight-year-old with a drum kit is?

I think it was totally worth it though. My son’s music has always had some cool percussion choices. This album also has some really striking piano and bass. He composes it all himself, and puts it together digitally (we have downstairs, and upstairs, neighbors in this apartment, no real drums allowed). The instrumental track The Sound The World Makes When It Ends is one of my favorites, especially with how well it transitions into The Sun Has Gone Away (That’s How I Like It).

You may be catching a theme here. The album as a whole sort of takes place over the span of an apocalypse, but in a subtle way. It’s the world ending with a collection of catchy tunes. There are lyrics online. Self Made Cyborgs and Rock Bottom have explicit lyrics. He’s tried to label them as such, but there was a glitch, and his most explicit song to date is lacking that label right now. He tried. He doesn’t curse in front of his mother, but his lyrics have no rules.

You should totally listen to this album. His first album, Triumph of the Brand, is also pretty awesome. Like even if I hadn’t had the pleasure of raising this kid, I’d dig his music. I love having talented kids. This is the only one who has given me permission to put him on blast this week, though. Also, I’ve just added Virginia Grohl’s book about raising rockstars to my summer reading list, just in case.

If you can’t sing smoothly
Hire a vocalist
They can harmonize in perfect pitch
If you still feel like the singing’s just not there
You can fix it up with some premium software
Sounding good is easy when you’re rich

Mojavehippie
Self Made Cyborgs

P.S. It’s really hard to pull an appropriate lyric to brag about my kid the musician from an album with an apocalyptic theme.