I started playing guitar at thirteen on a $35 acoustic guitar with the worst action you can imagine. My paper route money soon allowed me to upgrade to a seafoam green Japanese Strat the same color as what Kurt Cobain played.
When I was fourteen, Kurt died and things changed. Rock music lost its way, and so did I, leaving rock behind for blues, then funk (people like to dance, right?), then jazz (look, it was a phase I went through in college, okay? I’m not proud of it).
This drift took me away from why I started playing music in the first place: to make a noise that howls within my soul. And I came to hate music, even selling the seafoam green guitar.
At that point I realized what I had been missing.
The song ideas started to come. The simple beauty of power chords and weird little melodies revealed themselves again. All those notes I’d played in funk and jazz groups belonged to other people, not to me. After 25 years, I’d managed to unlearn the things that hid me from my own true nature.
But what to write about? They say write what you know. I’m 6’4”, so one of the first things I wrote, on a small green ukulele, was a 4-chord song about what it’s like to be Goliath in the story of David. I called it “Giant.”
That was in 2018. I bought a new guitar and started a new band. Five years later I’ve written lots of new songs, but “Giant” is still in the setlist. Just louder and faster. No Love Songs recorded it recently with Martin Bisi in Brooklyn, and multi-instrumentalist/visual artist Trevor Legeret created a claymation video.
Today, we are pleased to present to you “(New Wave) Giant.”
You can see that I left my guitar home for this one. Big kudos to St. John Lau (guitar), Trevor Legeret (bass), and Mike Mendelson (drums) for knocking it out of the park.
May this song remind you to be the giant that you are. We all need to make mistakes and unlearn the things that push us sideways. Keep your head stuck in the clouds and if you’re fortunate, your heart will lead you back home.
Looking for something to do tonight in Brooklyn? Get your raincoat out and swim on down to Young Ethel’s in Brooklyn for Dr. Boat at 9pm, No Love Songs at 10pm, Strawberry Sun at 11pm, and an open jam session at 11:30pm.
Happy Friday.