1. Beloved Movie Star (Billy wilder mix)

I had an office on Hollywood Blvd. back in the old days, where I had a studio for a while. The street was pretty run down then and not a day went by when you wouldn't see another young hopeful with stars in their eyes getting off the bus. Hollywood is a state of mind and not a city really. It's a dream. And like any dream, eventually you wake up, It's hard sometimes to hold on to reality in a place like that. This is actually a shorter version than what I initially wrote, but we'll get to that later. I love the harp on this, and Pietra's keyboard textures are great on this as well. I must admit that the movie "Sunset Blvd." was an inspiration here, as well as my own encounters with things of the Hollywood kind. Another mix of this is still available for download at Musicblitz.com, and on my pal Wayne Kramer's "Beyond Cyberpunk" CD, a compilation of great music from the site.

2. Operator Help Me

A very paranoid song but then it was right after the LA riots and I started to think about what it was like for someone living alone in a crime zone. Like a prisoner in your own house. Much in Los Angeles has changed since I grew up. A very sparse track with just me on piano. And a bit of Pietra's mellotron. Left off the Black Diamond CD. I guess I had enough paranoid songs already. I sang this just once into an old dis-patcher's mic I used to use when I worked for a trucking company in the 70's. Nice huh? Call the police and play this over the phone some night.

3. Time inside

As it is with what I do sometimes, I wrote the music for this first, playing all the instruments myself. The lyrics grew from there. To me, music can suggest a feeling or a place, and after some writing, I'll get a clue as to what my subconscious is going on about. This song got left off somewhere, because I'd always felt I hadn't nailed the lyric yet and it just wouldn't stop. Hearing it now, I'm happy with it. There was always something else to say about "time". I honestly forgot all about this one. Lost in time I guess...

4. end of the Line

I was playing two nights with my band in Paris on my first solo tour at a great jazz club called The New Morning, when I was approached by a group of cool French film makers to write a song for their movie, which turned out to be a truly weird sci - fi picture called "End Of The Line". Starring Johnny Hallyday, the "French Elvis..." I liked the title right away and said yes. They sent me some footage after I got back to LA and I got pretty into it. After I was done, the film's title got changed somewhere along the way to "Terminus". Some of you might have heard this before, but itÕs nice to have it here remastered for all its glory.

5. Garage Band '69

This one started out as a Drywall tune, but it didn't seem to fit. I considered it for Black Diamond, but it didn't really fit there either. I guess it was just waiting for this record. I grew up as a musician playing my guitar in garages with my fellow juvenile delinquents when the parents weren't home. You'd could close down the door, bring out the party favors and it'd be a jammin' wino's clubhouse for the whole summer. One summer, an old man who lived next door died in the middle our two hour plus rendition of Canned Heat's boogie lick. I'd always felt bad about that, even if we hadn't caused it. But then, we never could find out. Then, it did make us feel evil and kinda powerful at the same time. Boogie down indeed.

6. Bing Can't walk

A song for the movie thriller "Slamdance" that producer Mitchell Froom called me in to do. That's him on the organ. A friend who worked in television had just shown me some secret horrific out takes of a Bing Crosby TV special where he had tripped into the orchestra pit and broke his legs. A big piece of scenery even fell and struck Pearl Bailey on the head sitting in the front row. It made quite an impression! I certainly was not going to write anything called ÒSlamdanceÓ so this subject matter seemed appropriately cryptic somehow for the film, a gangster kinda murder movie, with a lot of bones being broken and once close partners betraying one another. Being in a the music business, I could relate.

7. Brand New Special and Unique

Another grand Drywall opus that somehow never got nailed up for the public. To all of those that are still waiting for more sonic-mayhem from of our little hardware band and "experimental noise - combo", the construction site is still open, so don't take off your hardhats yet. This one features Pietra's "time machine - Kmart chorus" of voices and samples, arc - welded to a sentiment that we imagined piped into every consumer's zombie shopping mall in the US, at a volume that would break glass. We tried to pitch something like this to a commercial for a dot com once but they said it would scare off new investors. Kinda like what happened with Drywall, but that's another story, best left for a new "documentÓ. The high voice at the end is me after inhaling to many paint fumes at the job site. Dot gone.

8. After the Storm

Out for about a sec. or so as a b-side in Australia. I sometimes get mail from listeners that tell me their use for the music for things I'd never imagine. There's one crazy group that all wear engineer caps, drink beer and jump old freight trains while playing "Mosquitoes" on a boombox. Others race dune buggies in the desert and light gasoline soaked tires on fire and roll them down hills towards their friends while listening to "Ring of Fire". I've seen the pictures. Hey, whatever gets you through I say. This one I imagine might be good for hitting yourself in the head with a ball peen hammer or maybe lying on a sun soaked highway at noon and dodging a huge Peterbilt slamming down the I-15. Its good to know that songs can be useful for any activity of choice. After all, it's America here and I guess that's what this song makes me think of. Come to think of it, I think this started as an excuse to plug in my fuzz tone. Oh well, I hope they're insured out there.

9. Floundering

Written for the indie film dir. by Peter McCarthy, "Floundering" is a cool movie about a well meaning, mixed up guy that lives in Venice, Ca. and finds himself kinda confused about politics, relationships, and well, he's just like the title says. I could relate that summer, as it seemed all my plans had come to a dead stop. Zander Schloss, fantastic musician and Circle Jerk, called about this and then together we recorded two songs for the flick. That's him on the banjo, slide and guitaron. Fond memories and many beers...I think the old folk song "Long Black Veil" was in my head too on this one, "Nobody knows, nobody sees".

10. Amnesia

Another one from "Floundering", with Zander Schloss again adding his inimitable touch. In the film this was called "My Drug Buddy" but I changed it later when I was told someone else had already used that title for a song. I think "Amnesia" describes the song better anyway. I don't know, I can't remember really. This was recorded in my little home studio, sung through a three inch, battery powered speaker from Radio Shack. I really liked the sound.

11. Whatever Happpened to you

Another "dirty audio orphan" left off Anatomy. See if you can guess what other song I wrote over these same series of chords that's on Black Diamond. I was going to call this "Missing in Action", but that sounded like a bad army movie with Gene Hackman. The lyrics started for me like this: First I was getting out of my car somewhere deep in the hot San Fernando Valley one day, when a total stranger shouted my way saying, "Hey Stan, good to see ya man! What ever happened to you?" I, of course, asked him the same question and if he was from some lame show on VH-1. You go along through life, and one day you wake up and you're 40. Fuck, are we old now?! Where did everybody go? For some reason I thought of Waylon Jennings singing this. Clue to other song: DTCH...

12.Act of Faith

I was in an old cowboy's frame of mind one day when this fell out of my head. A song that broke some writer's block for me and a song about mending old friendships that would have regrettably ended otherwise. I recorded it one afternoon in a backyard shed at a friends house, alone with the window open. There were a number of sharp tools lying around and I remember almost scalping myself on a pair of rusty hedge clippers hanging from the rafters. Sometimes its best to take that leap and just trust what's there even though it could bring some pain. It's a simple, sparse song that I'd thought I'd re-record one day, but the more I heard this one, flaws and all, the more I felt it was just fine as it was. Don't put me back in that shed though.

13. Beloved Movie Star Redux

Recorded at around 5 in the morning after a night of working the song through with everyone. Sun was just coming up. The first and more acoustic version of this song before I chopped it down and changed the approach. It's got more story and I like it longer like this. This happens to me a lot when I get writing a song. Most of the time I just let it be as long as it feels right for the story at first. Then I might record it again another way. Listen for our dog Bart around the third verse, barking his approval. Or maybe he was just mad at his agent.