Ball And Chain

Ball And Chain comes from a love of obscure 70's power-pop...There's a vibe there, redolent of dry bonus rooms, shag carpets, lava rock mantles, super 8 movies and records going 'round....an in-between spot in the church of rock and roll occupied by groups like the Guess Who, Badfinger and the early solo Beatles, human scaled, full of "exotic" friendly and lo-key charm....So here's "Ball And Chain", with a Soul School beat, a post-Specter/pre-Ramones melody, siren and frogs:

Lazy Jane

"Lazy Jane" is now on SOTGD...

It's a gothic little alt rock morality story of how we give birth to our own tragedies.

(The current Depression being a case in point)

There Is A Reason For Everything

"There Is A Reason For Everything" is one of my favorites on "Songs Of The Great Depression". It too has a 70's vibe and is meant as a statement of Hope.
I've personally found that even the darkest moments of my life have led, step by step, into an inevitable blessing or revelation of some kind...That if i could go back in time to remove one horrible thing the blessing too, disappears...

the future

My blog header says "Vaughn Trapp's blog, Music, Economics, Politics, Songwriting, Songwriters and Gear"...a strange mix.... 
Money is a subject that underlies all others. Just ask a homeless man how high up on his list of concerns "Gay Marriage" is, or the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan (and soon Iran(?)), his thoughts on gun control, school vouchers or affirmative action. Ask a church in bankruptcy or a University or City Manager faced with 30% budget cuts....

Permanent Plan "B"

What can i say about "Permanent Plan "B"?

It's the weirdest song on SOTGD. It's a weird song for weird times.

I once read a piece on Little Richard that claimed "wop bop a loo bop ba lop bam boom" was LR exploding into sheer abstraction at the frustration of being a gay black man in '50's America....I think that's what happened here a bit...

"Plan B" started off with a Gary Glitter beat and soon found me channeling Thin Lizzy as I free-styled lyrically through the 1st drafts... Why?

I never liked TL before. I always thought of them as the masters of "Lunkhead" rock, the soundtrack of Joe 12 pack's clueless pastimes....

I guess I just wanted something decadent and annoying to go along with...

Paradigm Shift

"Paradigm Shift" is another from SOTGD. I was still in the process of rounding out the album thematically when I went to jam with a buddy, Paul Gagliardi, and a couple of his other friends one saturday.
Paul likes to freestyle lyrics at the mic and while i was playing these chords underneath Paul eventually latched onto a typically brilliant non-sequitor, "You can't have love without... law and order"...
Bingo. A toss-off for Paul (he wanted to change it), I told him that it ranked up there with Oscar Wilde or Orwell.
What does any government tell its people in the waning days of empire?

1st post

SOTGD is my roll out blog for a self produced album of the same name as well as a diary of life during amerika's 2nd economic depression during this early 21st century. Why the "k"?

Because Dorothy, we aren't in Kansas anymore...

Yesterday, my bank was robbed, it rained all day and i spotted 2 people living in the bushes under the 710/405 junction. 93% of Iceland voters turned down the ironically named Icesave bill in a historic referendum, which would have saddled citizens with an additional $16k in per capita debt to compensate the UK and Holland with a $5.3 billion note for the failure of Landsbanki.