I wrote my first solo song called "She's Alive" in 1994. I wrote it on a Thursday, taught it to my friends Darrell and Brad that Saturday, and then performed it the following Tuesday night in front of 700 people at our summer camp talent show. It was the largest crowd I have ever played for. Eight years later I finished up a summer residency at a local coffee shop performing a song about how Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler look alike to about 17 people. So just like the Beatles, I moved into the studio, recording songs at a pace that alternated between ferocious and moribund, and I've decided to preserve the whole catalog, the "Ryan Tressel" box set if you will, on the internet in all its glory. I'm going to start with the first recordings I did in 2001 when I traded my friend Stephanie an acoustic guitar and $75 for her Tascam 4-track recorder. The first songs that I recorded with my friend Darrell where collected onto a CD entitled "Ampersand", the opening track of which SULKY SKIRT can be listened to here .
The song had its origin after I went to see Elliott Smith play at the Axis, which most nights operated as a dance club. There were two girls there who looked like they had come for club night, but decided to stay for the concert. They looked miserable, which isn't surprising if you're expecting to make-out with a random guy while grinding him to the beat of the extended mix of "Believe" by Cher, but instead are listening to a musician who would later kill himself by stabbing himself in the heart.
Sulky Skirt, written by Ryan J. Tressel, recorded and performed by RJT and D.Morey.
4 comments:
if you're going to do this for real, you'd better include lyrics! (jesse not anna)
Is the Internet big enough to hold the Ryan Tressel Archives?
That box set would be quite something. Would like to hear how your "Somebody" oeuvre would stand up 15 years on.
VT-The lyrics will be on the Tresselsound website, but I can certainly include them here as well.
Mr. Morey- My plan is to break the internet in half.
Brad-I've thought about uploading the funny Somebody songs--like "Requiem for a Vibrating Pen" or the one about the Klansman getting his hip broke by the state police, but our voices are all embarrassingly high, even for 12 year olds. We all sound like Bernadette Peters.
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