Lyrics Book
MUSIC
In LUX every note of every song belongs to Sylvain, 90% of the melodies as well. He takes no notes, has no method, he sits with his guitar and plays and plays. Once the song begins to take shape he might, on occasion, record it on his telephone but that is rare. He tells me that if he has forgotten it by the next day it just means that it wasn’t worth remembering. He never sits down to compose with any sort of specific idea in mind. He takes no models and never tries to do a song “à la” anyone. He just plays until it happens. The result is uniquely his, varied as the wind.
Some of his songs have been waiting years for words and some were born yesterday.
WORDS
I love words. My head is full of them. I put down ideas in notebooks that I keep close in order to make some space up there. A song can start around a single word, an expression, a story. It can come out smooth as ice or require extensive hair pulling and a crowbar. I never know in advance how it’s going to go down and once it is done the struggle to write it or lack thereof has no bearing on the finished text. Sometimes I sit down to write one song and the writing takes me elsewhere and I write a different song. I never show my lyrics until I feel they are worthy. I throw lots of things out.
SONGS
In the beginning I would write a text, give it to Sylvain and he would return a day or so after with the music done. Over time we switched; he would give me the music and I would put the words to it. Now we do both depending on what appears first. Once I have something in writing we sit down side by side and edit. If I have written too much I cut it down, if it needs more I add to it. We sculpt the song together and not a single song of the 70 some songs that we have written have caused any strife, the joy in the creative process is probably the single greatest motivation I have to continue to write songs.
LUX EP JUNE 2014
The first EP is our cornerstone, a first step from being under the radar to wanting to step out into the world. The two of us had started gigging a bit and we had a bunch of songs – already too many. We recorded a few songs in one studio early on but the mix didn’t suit us and there was no added value brought to the songs. Sylvain’s demos on the 32 track Korg sounded fresher and more like us.
And then we went to Black Box.
Their deal for first recordings of unsigned bands was 5 songs in 5 days – mix included. So we took along a drummer and a bass player and set off for the studio.
And it was at Black Box that we first met Peter Deimel.
Peter is the co-founder of the studio and both sound engineer and producer. He works with name bands and small bands and bands from all over and he is very close to the pulse of what is happening in today’s music. And he immediately understood our music and from day 1 helped steer us to the sound we were looking for. He and Sylvain hit it off straight away. For me, recording with Peter is like writing songs with Sylvain – easy, unrestrained, exciting. With Peter we were able to be completely free in an environment where absolutely everything is geared towards creativity and where analog is king. Going to Black Box was like coming home.
The EP was intended as a little sampler of LUX to help us get a few gigs and have something in hand to show. Of the 5 songs, the first 4 were recorded with the band – Sylvain on guitar with bass player Julien Boisseau and Franck Ballier who was drummer at the time. The Gare Saint-Lazare was recorded just the two of us, acoustic live, guitar and vocals.
IN THE END
Sylvain begins the song with the wail of an EBow sliding across the strings. As I recall I found the first takes too splashy, not deep enough, not somber enough. I wrote this song right after returning from a visit back to the States specifically to see my ailing father. He was older and muted by illness (hence the line about someone who “can no longer speak”) and had become a shadow of his former vigorous self. I never had a chance to see him again as he died a couple of months later. It was a hard song to write and remains a sad song to sing.
WINTER IN NEW YORK
I haven’t yet written all that much about New York City. People ask if I miss NY and I do. Perhaps I don’t feel the need to mention the city because I carry it with me all the time. As in Horse where I was trying to get to something essential and magical, similarly with Super 8 where I used childhood memories, I just close my eyes when I want to see my hometown. I really do “know her like the back of my hand” and we did, in fact, adopt one of the “stray cats in the park” when I was a child.
RADIO STATIC
Sylvain prefers sad songs and this is one of his favorites. It’s about the aftermath of a break-up. The protagonist is a guy who has just been dumped and who lies awash in sorrow. The hurt that I describe was one that I have felt myself but I wanted to amplify it. I just didn’t want to get the short end of the stick in the song as I had in real life. Anyway, it’s a familiar subject and we love playing it so it is often on the set list.
NO NEW LOVE YET PLEASE
I like the indulgence of a long title. And here it really does sum up the song. In a way it is a first version of Runway Lights – the same subject explored with a different sort of vibe.
I am constantly trying to find a different take on the love song, fascinated by the small detail, the “dip in the road, the shift in the wind” that sets a new tale spinning.
THE GARE SAINT LAZARE
If this is the big reveal then you should know that this song, song number 13 on the list of songs that we have written, is the one that tipped the scales. I fell in love because of this song.
The lyrics hold little clues to my story with Sylvain, other songs that we had written and references to the music that brought us together. If you look closely you can find references to the Beatles and Dylan. The text flowed out of me one evening in a single go. I sent it to Sylvain who sent me a tape the next day of his singing the complete text – no edits needed.
At Black Box, it took two sessions to record. Unlike the first 4 tracks which were first recorded live with the band playing and then overdubs done, this song was recorded with Sylvain playing and my singing in the same room, recorded live. We only had room for 3 takes given the length off the tape. If we messed it up it had to be erased and we had to start over. The first time round we couldn’t get the right intention. Sylvain would play too tough or I would sing too strong. The next time we recorded was at night in the drum room just the two of us. Peter had put candles all around and Sylvain played and I sang, all in the warmth of that flickering light. I like to think that the fragility of the scene itself comes through when listening to the song.
After that first recording at Black Box, the ambition was to return as quickly as possible. It took over 2 years and a crowdfunding campaign and support from a large number of people to get us back there, this time with Peter as producer, to record our first album “Super 8”.
Paris was no longer new to me by the time I met Sylvain. I had in fact seen him once before, on a random day, in a store in Pigalle where he was trying out a guitar. He didn’t speak to me that day but his playing made its mark. At the time I was getting an incredibly late start to wanting to play music; write songs, perform. I did finally speak to Sylvain at a picnic organized by mutual friends on the last Sunday of June 2009. I could never have imagined that a casual conversation would have such a phenomenal impact.
He came by for tea some time after that and I showed him my stack of lyrics. The first day he took one and two days later came back with the first song. I guess, if truth be told, it was all about my having words waiting for music and his having music waiting for words.
This first album is the culmination of an adventure which has proven that life really is replete with the unexpected and that in the end, love is all there is that really and truly matters.
SUPER 8 OCTOBER 2017
HORSE
Since forever horses have been a great part of my life. For a very long time I wasn’t really interested in pursuing much else. Yet this song is the only one that I have written on the subject. So I guess that, for now anyway, I have managed to say what I had to say. Going back through my notebook I see that the text took some hammering out. I hoped to capture the essence of the nature of horse and in reviewing the infinite images of horses in my head I seized upon just a small number. Their herd instinct and their relationship with the elements is the starting point of the song. After that, the “night riding”, which really is magical, because when the light is low, horses do not move in the same way, there is more suspension and attentiveness in the placing of each hoof as they feel their way across the ground. The “night swimming” is literal – who hasn’t noticed how in the night, everyday things take on a different air? And happily for me, it also refers to R.E.M.’s song of the same name. I am the narrator but the “child” in the song is not me. Near where I used to ride there was a riding program for children with emotional or physical difficulties. It is not uncommon for those who refuse to utter words to finally surrender and speak in the presence of the horses – the perfect audience, the ones who know to listen.
Sylvain says that all of his songs are blues and we were really pleased that Peter loved this “beautiful blues song” as he called it. It may have more of a slow burn than a fast hook but for me it seemed a perfect start to the album.
Gear:
Sylvain plays his Gibson SG main guitar (for the live take). Amp was a Fender Bandmaster blackface from 1967 and a Fender Deluxe from the early 1950’s. Also added a Spring Reverb. Additional guitar tracks were done playing the Deimel Telecaster (some over tracking), the Furch acoustic (over tracking) and Peter’s Fender Jaguar (for the end with the twangy parts).
HIJACK
When Sylvain gave me the music for what became Hijack, I remember thinking that this would be a great track for a James Bond film: dark and sharp and cinematic and I tried to write the text with that in mind. I didn’t realize at the time that I wrote it – some years ago – that recording it would coincide with such a politically violent moment in the world. Against the backdrop of current events, the song has become relevant and gone from nightmarish fiction to a nightmarish reality of “walls”, “false trails”, “lies” and the making hostages of us all.
Technical notes:
The spooky verse (main) guitar is the Fender Jaguar 1967 Lake Placid Blue. Which was run through an electro-booster plus spring reverb plus Ampeg Gemini from the 1960’s. Then, the double track chorus guitar was the Les Paul TV Special and the solo was done on the Deimel Firestar with the BB exotic pre-amp.
SUPER 8
Oh my lovely little “Super 8” – our title song, our cover girl. This song draws upon my memories of watching my own family’s home movies- that were often shot on Super 8 film – and seeing (to my dismay) that I was very rarely in them – as the youngest by far it seems that my parents had run out of cinematic steam by the time I showed up. The reels in their little cardboard boxes were literally “in a shoebox” in the closet. Clearly there was so much that had happened “before my time” and the song expresses the desire perhaps to belong to what seemed – on film anyway – to have been happier times. The song is not sad about it. It starts with a childhood memory of lying in the backseat of the car daydreaming, my father at the wheel, as we drove outside of the city to go to the beach or the countryside or the racetrack (my father’s favorite Saturday pastime). This is why many of the scenes in the video that we did for the song are shot from the perspective of a kid in the backseat of a car. The video was already in my head as I wrote the song. “Super 8” is also a rare example of my having had a strong opinion about some of the arrangements – generally I leave all things musical to Sylvain’s. But for “Super 8” I really wanted the song to have a similar linear groove to that of Kurt Vile’s “Pretty Pimping” and it was hard to get everyone to hold back and not go for a progressive increase of intensity (in the chorus for example). It worked out (thank you Peter) but we did talk quite a bit about it! This is also the song that helped us determine the cover of the album. “LUX is a voyage filmed in Super 8” was something said some time ago about our music. The first idea didn’t have us on the cover. I wanted to use a still from a reel of super 8 film – images from a photographer friend of ours, Robin Cracknell. There was input arguing for putting our faces on the cover so that people could see us (as humans?) on this first album. That led to my idea of combining the still with a photograph of Sylvain and myself taken by another friend and photographer Jehsong Baak; idea turned into reality by our graphic guy, Mike Derez.
Technical notes:
Peter’s Fender Jaguar from 1967 and Sylvain’s Tanglewood 12-string guitar. Used a small cigarette pack size amp and a Wawa with a pencil eraser. All 4 of us did the clapping and then the whoo whoo’s were done by Sylvain, Peter’s wife Sylvie and me.
ROUGH TRANSLATION
Sylvain LOVES this song. It is one of our early ones. The lyrics came first and when Sylvain played the finished song to me he did so with a really slow tempo, which put me right off it. Simply speeding it up changed it completely. “Rough Translation” was also the name of the band – well, the project – that I had started before I met Sylvain. We played some gigs early on as “Rough Translation” but it was impossible for anyone in France to pronounce it or write it correctly and I got tired of explaining. That is why Sylvain came up with LUX, one of the shortest names possible.
The song’s premise is in the opening line: “it’s a work in progress”. It’s an observation on life – we try again and again to get things right but often the result is just a rough translation of what we had in mind.
Tech notes:
Sylvain’s Amp was a Fender Bandmaster blackface from 1967 and a Fender Deluxe from the early 1950’s. Main guitar was the Guild Starfire 1966.
Deimel Telecaster for the little melody was done using a Roland Space Echo and a Moog Moogerfooger. Solo was done with a Mojo gto (Ford colours), which is a French pedal.
DAMAGED
“Damaged” was written shortly before we recorded the album. Sylvain had given me the music some time before (these recordings live in a little folder on my laptop called “music waiting for words”) and I so loved it, found it so strong that it took me a while to find the right subject. Once I started to write, however, with a sort of Lewis Carroll “Alice in Wonderland” opening, it practically wrote itself. There is often what I would describe as a circular nature to Sylvain’s music. There is something round – as opposed to angular – and the sound moves in circles. Perhaps that is what helped provoke the writing about that “sinuous path” that winds around and through the song and the story. This is, by far, the darkest song on the album and probably my most somber lyrics. It is about the gravest crime – that of abuse of any kind – be it sexual or psychological – levied by the predator on its prey. It is the terrible theft of innocence, a crime that cannot be undone.
Tech notes:
Sylvain on his Guild Starfire 1966 for the live take.
Then the Deimel Les Paul Goldtop using an electro-boost by Orion (which is a German boutique pedal). The spacey sounding pedal was a Roger Mayer Mongoose then an original Electro-Harmonix, Electric Mistress.
ISLAND
From the dark labyrinth-like backdrop of “Damaged” we move back into the light with “Island”. Sylvain had the music from way back but the song came together while we were on Île d’Yeu, a tiny island far off the coast of France. Island people are shaped by the water that surrounds and protects and threatens them and life there somehow lies closer to the elements on that small jewel “hiding in the sea”.
Tech notes:
The blue Deimel “Belstar” (Jazzmaster type) with Bigsby + Spring reverb main guitar. 12-string acoustic double tracked. Solo done with the Deimel Firestar
WHILE WAITING
A jumpy song with Sylvain on lead.
Sara Sanders, vocal coach, critic, friend and one of the best encounters to have happened, says that there are only two types of songs: love songs or protest songs. While Waiting is a song about love with a hint of protest. It’s just a description of our life of “dreaming while waiting”. Hoping somehow that the songs you make will carry you somewhere and in the meantime the things you do every day from “listening to the radio and learning to let go” while dancing and laughing and waiting, still waiting.
Tech notes:
Guild for the rhythmic takes.
Sylvain’s Amp was a Fender Bandmaster blackface from 1967 and a Fender Deluxe from the early 1950’s – in parallel – mixture of both amps.
RUNWAY LIGHTS
Another love song! and a continuation of the theme of “No New Love Yet Please” on the first EP. It always seems that just when you get used to being on your own, someone comes along “in your rear view mirror”. The music has the light-heartedness of 1960’s Brit Pop to carry the carefree text.
Tech:
Guild and then Furch acoustic guitar with 2 microphones (high quality condenser microphones) in front. Guitar solo on the Guild.
I’M A MARTIAN
Sylvain plays. Every day he has a guitar in his hands at some point. As for me, I take notes constantly and write songs with varying frequency and phases of intensity. I remember a writer friend explaining writers to me. She said: “what you need to know about writers is that they are always writing, in their head”. I think musicians are the same and all artists really. Anything and everything feeds the machine even in a roundabout way. When I need a boost of inspiration I turn to other writers and sometimes poetry. In I’m A Martian, there are references to images drawn from the likes of Wallace Stevens to that of Dr Seuss.
I just wanted a song that was more way out, less straight laced. I sort of had Radiohead in mind as a mood if not a musical style. Sylvain came back with this song and it’s more unusual vibe. I was seeking non-standard images of fantasy and I was looking to write a song of alienation, always being on the outside although the outsider here happens also to be in love.
I am not sure the others in the band really ever got it but I love this song. And the video for I’m A Martian has been an ongoing project too as we try to find the right feel. I think we’re almost there. And by the way, the Martian is me.
Tech notes:
Main guitar was the Fender Jaguar 1967 Lake Placid Blue (matching headstock)
Deimel Telecaster, voices doubled, Moog filter and delay and the electric mistress on one take.
LIQUID AND FIRE
Sylvain sings. Liquid and Fire is one of the older songs. Needing inspiration, I asked Sylvain to suggest a subject. He told me to write a song about “alcohol and cigarettes” (once a bluesman, always a bluesman). I remember writing a first draft while sitting in a café (yes, really) in Paris. It was really bad, so mundane. So I threw those notes away. I started over without once mentioning the words cigarettes and alcohol. No whisky, booze, beer or smokes. Give me a blues song, a blues theme but do it à la LUX – more mystery please. So it became liquid and fire and a song about subtle addiction and the reasons behind it, “always something to do to keep my hands quiet”.
Sylvain sings and it is his voice, with mine, that ends the album.
Gear:
Main guitar Deimel Belstar
Deimel Guitarworks Firestar in Dakota Red (Peter’s idea) with a Spring reverb on the amps. As well as the Guild in the background.
General notes for Super 8:
Julien used his own Fender Precision Bass Guitar from 1976 on all of the songs. He initially used the Ampeg SVT original (&971, 1972) with an Ampeg Porterflex from 1966 as amplifiers. Then, for Island and Damaged, he changed to a Musicman.
SUPER 8 REISSUE JUNE 2019
We returned to Black Box in late February of 2019 to record two very new songs. It was our press guy, Chris Souza, who suggested that we reissue Super 8 with bonus tracks. This time we set off to Black Box just the two of us. Sylvain played all of the instruments (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, minimalist drums, percussion) and we used almost solely the first vocal tracks recorded live with the lead guitar. Perhaps I am learning how to sing. It was, as ever, great to be back. The three of us huddled into a creative ball for a few days and let the music flow.
SKIN TO SKIN
I still have the music on my telephone labeled “Beatles/Kula” at the same time as some other tracks waiting for words. Sylvain hadn’t given me a “la la” track (thus no melody) so I guess I can get credited for coming up with this one. Did I tell you that we love the Beatles? And Kula Shaker? (loudest concert that I have ever been to in my whole life btw). Anyway, the song doesn’t really resemble either but I had to give it some sort of working title. I loved the sound of this deep boing, boing, boing of the guitar. It wanted to be a love song but something really stripped down, sensual, a love song about touch and taste and feel – words to describe a sensation – not to tell a story. Hey Sylvain, can we dance to this one?
LAY LOW
Alice in Wonderland once again wanders through this song. A story of time past and present – the pocket watch of the white rabbit, a brief reminiscence of Suzanne Vega’s Marlene on the wall but here it is Kandinsky, the painter who attributed sound to color. It’s a wistful reflection about lying low until the wind comes round “to push me back home”.
THE PHOTOGRAPHER JEHSONG BAAK
I met Jehsong Baak the same summer that I met Sylvain. I was looking for a photographer to take some photos for my music project (it was too soon for the word “band”) and a mutual friend from New York suggested Jehsong. We met in Pigalle (not far from where I had first heard Sylvain play) and our first shoot took place at the end of that first summer. I had looked at Jehsong’s work and knew that this was the real deal but what I discovered beyond his inimitable eye and impeccable taste was his tremendous empathy. Portrait photography is an intimate affair and you can sense immediately whether or not there is a connection with the person looking at you through the camera. With Jehsong behind the lens, in the same way as with Sylvain behind the guitar or Peter behind the mixing table, you just know that you are in good hands and that something exciting is going to happen. Jehsong’s stills and videos have chronicled every chapter of this adventure from day 1. He is LUX’s 5th Beatle and our great friend.
THE GRAPHIC DESIGNER MIKE DEREZ
Jehsong introduced us to Mike who is especially gifted in working with photography and photographers and the designing of photo books. He is methodical to a fault and I am sure that we (I) must frequently drive him around the bend but he needs to be mentioned because all the visuals and the tangible elements of LUX bear his touch and because he is part of our gang.
