‘Five for Five’
Stream or download via bandcamp!
https://jadedazurites.bandcamp.com/album/five-for-five
A spiel about ‘Five for Five’:
Write something. A few sentences, a short paragraph. Tell yourself something you need to hear, yell at someone—an ex, an aggressive driver. Write on a piece of scrap paper, on the back of a dumb bill, on a receipt. Write in pen or pencil, with your hand; make it solid so that you can hold it when you’re done.
Everyone’s a writer, just like everyone can draw or sing or bang an instrument in rhythm. It’s not a question of virtuosity, but of an ancient impulse to escape the self, to forge pathways to each other through channels beyond speaking. Mike Watt has been living this idea for over forty years. “Punk is whatever we made it to be,” said D. Boon, his bandmate in the Minutemen, and Watt continues to carry forth the notion that if he and D. Boon and George Hurley could do it, so can we.
Now his band is my life. Jaded Azurites has a new EP, “five for five,” our fifth since our debut in January 2018. The stakes feel higher this time—I no longer take for granted a “next” anything. We all wake up to the realities of infectious disease, climate collapse, and now a war in Ukraine—images of civilians shot off bicycles, threats of nuclear annihilation that seem designed to keep us frightened, on edge and easier to control. Five new Jaded Azurites songs is an almost laughably minor effort in the face of calamities, yet I think writing something, anything—or playing bass, recording it, making it stick—is minor only if it’s unique. And it’s not. Joining the effort, we make it bigger.
“Argument,” “Sex Is Work” and “It’s Hard to Say Exactly How I Feel” originated as poems; Mike composed bass to words I gave him. “Little Volcanoes” and “Dreamland Fire” are bass compositions from which poems grew. In 1911, the Dreamland amusement park in Coney Island burned to the ground; ambitious carnies sold tickets to the smoldering ruins. Did you ever feel like that? Write it down. Make it stick. I believe in you.
- little volcanoes
- sex is work
- argument
- it’s hard to say exactly how I feel
- dreamland fire
karen schoemer – vocal
mike watt – bass
all words by karen schoemer
all songs schoemer/watt
recorded during 2021 in new york and california
produced by mike watt
all photos by karen schoemer
copyright jaded azurites. all rights reserved.
Watch the video for ‘dreamland fire’
DREAMLAND FIRE
the next door neighbor might be a problem
he asked me to let him into the basement
to make a repair
buckling joists stair lip quarter round
mold on a cardboard box
hide here
under this table
buckling joists stair lip quarter round
mold on a cardboard box
hide here
under this table
voices in the kitchen
can I have a bite?
you ask such penetrating questions
roughened hands scrape dust
ridden with fleas
heavy weight on my chest
I press the curve of a rib
then the rib next to it
until I find the spot that hurts
everyone is laughing
my organs crushed together
light a candle leave the room lock the door
it’s a kind of suicide
the woods and water are on fire
the village is on fire
the amusement park burns down
it seems final but it isn’t
Jaded Azurites 