Short History of "The Lightning Rod"

So I thought I'd start something new and constructive/instructive (?) with the old weblog. I've always enjoyed the way our songs grow and change over the years as we got to be better players, composers, and lyricists. I've always wanted to chart this somehow and show it off, too, so why not now, when we have no idea when our next show will be, and when I can drag my best song front and center yet again. Here's the first in what I hope will be a series: a short history of "The Lightning Rod".

Under The Sun (original instrumental demo, 1997)
I think this is the earliest recording of me playing bass guitar with the DD3 echo-pedal over a drum machine track from Bryn's keyboard. Actually, all of it is me- especially the pathetic guitar playing. This is definitely from late 1997, November or so. It's of a piece with the other trippier, relatively experimental stuff we were working on, but it's still just a 12-bar (guess I hadn't written the chorus yet). No vocals or lyrics yet either, and as with most every Mojo Wire-era recording, it's in mono.

Under The Sun (album version, April 1998)
This is the version that appeared on the Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor demo CD in April '98. It was recorded at the Bedrock, first in Brandon's apartment with the live band (and without vocals), and then with vocals, guitars, and echo-bass overdubs later. Brandon's drums sound drum-machine-ish because that's what they are. We didn't have enough microphones to record a drum kit properly, and the small Tascam 4-track only had so many inputs, so Brandon played his practice kit live and through one skimpy cable attached to the recorder. This might be your first indication that myself, Bryn, and Adam didn't know what we were doing for many years when it came to recording.

The lyrics for "Under The Sun" aren't very special to me either- they grasp and claw at Meaningful Significance and fail extravagantly. I hadn't really written many lyrics before and the blues ones from Battery Acid Blues were mostly parodies, and that's the real reason why the 2nd side of Rocket Fuel, including this song, crashes and burns in my opinion. Still, the tune itself was nice and big and I thought it had plenty of potential to become an epic. I decided to rework the lyrics almost immediately after the album was released.

Under The Sun (rehearsal demo, April 1998)
A live take from practice at the Bedrock, with Brandon on his real kit this time. Bryn and I also play on this, but since Adam apparently wasn't around and I hated the lyrics, no one sang anything. It's messy, but not a bad take and is a good idea of what the Mojo Wire sounded live at the time, since none of our shows back then were recorded.

Whatever Gets You Going (July 1999)
The Dive E.P. by Low Tide wasn't really a release at all, since there were only about three copies ever made. Still, Bryn and I decided to do something constructive while the Mojo Wire was on semi-hiatus. I'd already decided to rebuild "Under The Sun" (at least 2 sets of lyrics had come and gone already) and Bryn helped me with a backing drum track recorded at the Bedrock, but I can't remember if it went any further than that when I'd decided to just overdub a ton of echo/wah bass guitar over it, with a droning keyboard on top. Not really a song- it's more like an overdubbed jam, but Bryn and Brian insisted that it was worth something, and so it eventually became that: I used the opening riff in D as the intro for "Lightning Rod" much later, in fall '02.

The Lightning Rod (demo, January 2002)
This take is part of the re-recorded versions of old Mojo songs that we undertook in 2001 for the sake of demos that no one paid any attention to anyway. The vocals are mine, and so not spectacular, but useful for laying down a basic melody and recording a fresh set of lyrics that finally, finally worked well with the epic scope of the music. That's the only real reason this demo exists, actually, to document the fact that for some reason I felt like I had to take 4 years to do it: put myself in my 1998 brain and cook up something about rejection on three different levels.

The Lightning Rod (practice take, May 2002)
Notice how the long intro in D hasn't been attached yet. This is the first digital 8-track-recorded version of the song, from a rehearsal at Table Salt in downtown SB. Probably one of the first 3 or 4 times Honey White attempted "Lightning Rod". This is where Bill begins to throw down the capital-D Drummer card he'd been holding for a month or so. The song kind of falls apart at the end, but it was early in the game yet.

The Lightning Rod (E.P. version, July 2002)
This is the take of Lightning Rod that you all know and love. It is the first of two takes (with overdubs) professionally recorded in Santa Barbara on 7/13/02 and it ended up on the first Honey White CD, the My Band Rocks! disc.

Notable Live Takes:
The Lightning Rod (live 10-31-02)
Probably the best early live take of the song, and the one that ended up on the Live & Unprofessional CD.

The Lightning Rod (live 4-26-04)
Bryn does this one solo, a result of the fact that, beloved though it was, the echo-bass version wasn't working as well as we'd have liked as our live shows progressed. We decided to, once again, rebuild the song from scratch, and the first test would be to see if it worked solely as a composition. Bryn unveiled the bare-bones version to start the set of our 2nd Wildcat Lounge show in downtown Santa Barbara, and people dug it. This take ended up on the Saturated Songs live album.

The Lightning Rod (live 4-20-05)
A more fleshed-out version of the "quiet Lightning Rod" we'd worked on. This is the full re-rebuilt version, with Brian taking a seat to freak out with his effects pedal arsenal, while Bill and I make a sort of weird rococco beat behind Bryn's vocal/guitar version. This was the first time the song was played live in this way (I sorta tank the background vocals again), at our Ventura debut show. It also featured at the next 3 shows, and was done well in L.A., though alas not recorded.

The Lightning Rod (quiet surf take), July '05
Power-trio take of Brian, Bill, and me making a 2nd quiet version, from a practice at the Milpas St. gallery. The ending is sweet.

So there you have it, the incomplete history of one of Honey White's best songs. Which one should we do next? Pick one from the list or choose one I haven't mentioned and let's see what the archives throw back up at us.

a. Fatal Flaws
b. Let Go
c. Sean Goes To Africa
d. How Far Away