No, the title of this song isn't a reference to Joss Whedon's current television series (although, given my nerdy predelictions, I can see why one might leap to that conclusion).

This track is actually a reinterpretation of a song I first wrote way back in '91 or '92. Dollhouse has been through a number of incarnations, having been in the set lists of no fewer than three of my old bands. Some of you who've known me for many years may well remember certain parts of the song, if not the current arrangement, but note that it's now missing the lyrics from which it derived its name. The song was originally about a serial killer who filled his home with the bodies of his victims, creating a grisly surrogate family of dessicated trophies, but the years since I wrote the song have reduced that notion to a fairly standard horror-movie trope. So long, lyrics...you served your purpose for many long years.

As usual, I wrote it, arranged it, and played all the instruments. The goal was to reinterpret one of my oldest songs and turn it into (let's see if this makes any sense at all) a piece the likes of which one might find on a film soundtrack. Also as usual, I leave it up to you to decide whether or not I succeeded in the attempt.

Copyright©2009, Mike Hall. All rights reserved; no unauthorized use is permitted.

I have tried and tried to write lyrics for this song; unfortunately, this four-minute-and-eleven-second song has so many influences behind it that no single set of lyrics I could concoct would adequately encapsulate the dozens of stories that led to this track’s creation. And so, like “The Ancient” before it, this song is doomed, it seems, to remain an instrumental…barring any unforeseen fits of inspiration, of course.

Imagine a river, black and deep, winding lazily amid dense clusters of cypress trees draped in Spanish moss. A bloated moon is reflected off the water’s surface, and a distant splash along the shore reminds you there are creatures out here wholly unimpressed by your ability to walk upright. As your little boat drifts with the current and the humid Southern air clutches at your lungs, your imagination wanders, eventually coming to dwell on the hundreds of tales bound to this river: of Fat Louis, the riverboat gambler whose cards went cold just before he found himself resting on the riverbed in chains for all eternity…of the witch buried behind the rotting hulk of an abandoned chapel, who rises from her grave once a year to grant the wish of any man desperate enough to seek her out…of buried treasures, corrupt lawmen, ‘shine-makers, runaway slaves, and Confederate soldiers breathing their last. These are the stories, and the gentle lapping of the water against your boat becomes a whispered voice retelling them all.

Too many tales to fit in one set of lyrics, I’m afraid.

Musically, there isn’t much to say here: once again I find myself striving to force disparate styles to play nice long enough to wrangle a song out of them, and once again I leave it to you to decide if I pulled it off. Recording this piece was a challenge; the instrumentation came together easily, but during the mixing process, I experienced repeated computer instabilities, and I really thought I’d lost the track on a couple of occasions. Luckily (or regrettably, depending on whether or not you like the song), whatever was amiss seems to have worked itself out after reinstalling my virtual instrumentation. However, I think it might be time to reformat the studio computer…I doubt I’ll be as fortunate next time.

Written and performed by Mike Hall. Copyright©2009, Mike Hall. All rights reserved; no unauthorized use is permitted.

If King Missile, Jimi Hendrix, Clutch, and Rage Against the Machine were somehow diced, pulped, and served as a rich-in-rock-vitamins smoothie, it might taste a little bit like this song sounds.

That was possibly the strangest sentence I have typed this year…so far.

The science (and I used that term rather loosely) of eschatology is the study of, believe it or not, the end of the world. Since first becoming cognizant of time, human beings have obsessed over the end of existence. The religious community—though perhaps the most obvious example of end-times ideation—doesn’t exactly have the eschatological market cornered; science becomes increasingly more consumed with the oncoming end of life and the universe with each passing year. This song, however, is not intended to be a downer, despite it plunging headlong into metal territory (complete with guttural vocals akin to the musical stylings of Cookie Monster) about halfway in. Rather, the song “Eschatology” is a cautionary piece about living in fear of things we cannot control, and how living as such blinds us to the beauty of being human. I hope you enjoy the lyrics: they drift between science and philosophy with gleeful abandon, and drop enough "end-of-the-world" words to keep you online research fans busy for a couple hours.

Musically, "Eschatology" is my (hopefully not disastrous) attempt to channel a number of very disparate influences into a song that stands on its own. I first began writing the tune a few months ago, and its evolution has been an interesting process. The original iteration of the main riff was much slower than the version you hear in the final song. Laden with echo, it was firmly rooted in Hendrix tunes like “Machine Gun.” As I fiddled with the tune, though, the tempo picked up and acquired a little more “groove,” the guitar suddenly drawing new inspiration from Tim Sult of Clutch and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. As to why I turned to the spoken word for the main body of lyrics, this is a style I’ve always been intrigued by, yet have had little to no opportunity to explore; if you need someone to blame, blame King Missile.

Turn off your lights, listen on a good pair of speakers, and crank it up.

Eschatology
Written and performed by Mike Hall

The clouds hung low in Winter when I came upon the prophet
He spoke to me of numbers and the horrors that lie beneath
The fire blazed in his eyes as he raged atop the mountain
The fury in his words was palpable as he spat between clenched teeth
At the terminus of the trajectory of the entropic arrow of time
The thermodynamic system cools into infinite density
Penetrating the mysteries of space breeds equal wonder and fear
The scientist becomes the philosopher and shares the latter’s intensity

The End is nigh
The Sign of the Hour
Gotterdammerung
The Kali Yuga ends, see Shiva destroy
Eschaton
Judgment Day
Armageddon looms
Visions of the end eclipse the Here and the Now

Though part of living is understanding dying
The blindness of fear brings mankind to his knees
All things are impermanent but we defy death just by living
The man without fear is the only one who sees

Words and music Copyright©2009, Mike Hall. All rights reserved.

This might be the most chipper, upbeat song ever written about absolute ruination.

Lyrically simplistic, this song is dedicated to everyone who’s ever engaged in a risky hobby (motocross, martial arts, rock climbing, etc.) and had the audacity to be surprised when they got injured. And for those who’ve actually turned their dangerous hobby into a profession, it’s also about shady event promoters and career-ending shortsightedness at the negotiating table. I’m entertaining the notion of making a video for it featuring lots of crashes, accidents, and flash knockouts.

Musically, this tune is about as simplistic as its lyrics, and—with a running time just over two minutes—doesn’t belabor its two, count ‘em, two sections. I’ve really been into minimalism lately.

NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE
Written and performed by Mike Hall

The skull is grinning
Your grave you dig
Don’t plan on winning
The game is rigged

No one gets out alive
No one gets out alive
The end of the road
The end of the line
No one gets out alive
No one gets out alive
This one you won’t survive
The end of the road
The end of the line
No one gets out alive

Sign the contract
The dotted line
I’ll take what’s yours and
I’ll keep what’s mine
What were you thinking
Who could you trust
Your ship is sinking
Your bones are dust

(chorus)

One last disaster
To bring you down
You’re falling faster
Now who’s the clown
The train you’ve boarded
Is off the rails
You’ve sold your future
For coffin nails

Copyright©2009, Mike Hall. All rights reserved.

Though I doubt it was intentionally so, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” is just…frakkin’ dreary. Of course, the song was written by a priest and a church organist in the 1860s, and religion was almost universally maudlin in those bleak days of yore. Still, it’s never made sense to me how a song that’s ostensibly about a wondrous, magical event (forget for the moment that I don’t believe in said event and just follow along, OK?) that is celebrated every holiday season could be so utterly devoid of festivity or merriment.

The version my wife and I have recorded is much bouncier, I think you’ll find.

Our first take sounded much different than this one. Originally, there was a driving electric guitar throughout, with the acoustic guitar serving as an accent line. While I was mixing the track, though, I hit upon the idea of flipping the acoustic and electric guitars in the mix, making the electric into the accent and the acoustic into the main guitar. Then I slapped some fat ol’ power chords over the changes and completely reinvented the whole tune! Angela laid some tasty lead licks over the top, I snuck in a guitar/organ coda, and POW! A version of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” that isn’t a one-way ticket to Depressoville.

We also ditched two of the five—yes, five—verses. The whole song is only one frakkin’ chord progression, after all, so there’s no sense in repeating it ad infinitum. Interestingly, I find that a great many Xmas songs are built around a single progression that just repeats, and repeats, and repeats, and repeats…

Listen closely once the music ends.

O Little Town of Bethlehem
Lyrics by Phillips Brooks; music by Lewis Redner (1868). This arrangement by Mike and Angela Hall.
Angela Hall: vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Mike Hall: electric guitar, bass, drums, keyboards

O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight

For Christ is born of Mary
And gathered all above
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love
O morning stars, together
Proclaim the holy birth
And praises sing to God the king
And peace to men on earth

O holy child of Bethlehem
Descend to us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born in us to-day
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell
O come to us, abide with us
Our lord Emmanuel

This arrangement is Copyright©2008, Mike and Angela Hall. All rights reserved.

This song has been remixed and has had totally new vocal tracks added. I just can’t resist messing with stuff…I’m like George Lucas that way.

Normally I write much longer notes when I post something new, but “Love You to 10” was my wife’s brainchild: I just acted as accompanist and producer. This, it turns out, is what happens when a math/ computer nerd writes a love song. Enjoy the lyrics…they’re virtually incomprehensible unless you, too, are a big dork.

The song is an extraordinarily Spartan recording compared to my recent standards. With all the virtual instruments at my disposal, it was an act of sheer will to leave it simple, mournful, and uncomplicated. I’m glad I managed to restrain myself, as the results are—I think you’ll agree—pretty cool.

Love You to Ten
Words and music by Angela Hall
Performed by Angela Hall (vocals, guitar) and Mike Hall (bass, keyboards)

If I am an entity than you are an instance
If I am an int array then you are an int
If you are a primitive than I am your object
I encapsulate your properties and you exist within
What I’m trying to say is that there’s no way to quantify it
But your distance has an inverse relationship
With the rate of my heartbeat, adrenaline, hormones
Perspiration, pheromones, and serotonin

I screwed this up, this wasn’t the way to begin
What I’m trying to say is I love you to 10

I don’t believe in a soul but I have distinct patterns of thinking
Unique to this physiology that concentrate
My attention and my interest to your unique patterns of speaking
And I think that approximates the definition of soulmate

I screwed this up, this wasn’t the way to begin
What I’m trying to say is I love you to 10

You see there is no formula, no quadratic equation
No algorithm, no matrix of observation
So how can I calculate with any precision
My endocrine reaction, my level of elation
But if love is a normal curve in a dispersed population
Then we are the outliers beyond three standard deviations
If love is a function and you are left of the equal sign
Then I’ll try every integer until yours equals mine

I screwed this up, this wasn’t the way to begin
What I’m trying to say is I love you to 10

Copyright©2008, Mike and Angela Hall. All rights reserved.