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(in order of their writing)
Good Lookin’ Woman – lyrics: Sean B; music: Dunn
The first thing the band came up with, done at our second practice. I assume Sean already had the words for this, and just added them to the music that Bryan just came up with on the spot. Thinking about it now, I can see how Bryan came up with the music so quickly, it’s only 3 chords and very simple ones at that. At the time, however, I was really impressed that he could just whip up a coherent song so quickly. The song was just the chord progression repeating ad infinitum. It started out VERY slow and after a couple of verses (I can’t remember the lyrics at all, all I can hear in my head is Sean singing the title) Bryan (and/or Eric) did a solo, over which the rhythm section would get faster and faster until the end of the song.
As a composition, it’s not very good, and I’m glad we canned it once we re-wrote it as Venice. But, it did provide us with a starting point and some sort of forward motion for the group.
Venice – lyrics: Sean B, Dunn; music: Dunn, Hines
After we got back together following the break up, this was one of the first complete things we did. We took the riff from Good Lookin’ Woman (E – A – B), sped it up and that became the chorus. Bryan came up with a new intro (E – A – D), still keeping the E tonality, but making it minor with the D chord which then led nicely into the very minor verse section that I wrote. Like I said in the band history, the riff is a total rip-off of MANY Iron Maiden riffs, but to be honest, when I came up with this it didn’t occur to me that I was ripping off Maiden. It was only a year or so later that I realized what I’d done. Oh well, it’s not like they never ripped themselves or Deep Purple off! It totally wasn’t planned to have the intro and verse riffs to be minor and then kick in with the powerhouse of a major I-IV-V for the chorus, but we came up with it and it worked.
The structure was basically the same as GLW, after the intro we did a couple verses then the chorus, then another verse, chorus, guitar solo then out. When we were re-writing the song, Bry came up with the new words, but we all weren’t too convinced by the chorus so Sean wrote a new chorus. We went back and forth with the 2 choruses, but eventually decided on Sean’s. The words are of course about a girl that Bryan was obsessing over. I can’t remember her name (it wasn’t Sandra), but she lived on a street called Venice so Sean used that little bit of information and wrote the chorus around that.
We used to get going pretty fast during the latter bit of the solo, almost to a speed where we could no longer hold it together. You know how it is, the whole ‘orgasmic’ thing (tension and release). Overall it’s an average song; we kept it in our repertoire up until the end, so it had to do something for the group. Like I said, average stuff.
Hard Rock Café – lyrics: Sean B; music: Davidson, Dunn, Talbert
The only writing credit for Eric, and he doesn’t even know it. Yeah, I know I could say that he had nothing to do with it and just ignore his contribution, but I don’t think it’s right. Even if he never has a clue he contributed. In one of our earliest practices (one that Eric actually showed up to!) he showed us this riff he wrote. We jammed on it a bit, but it really didn’t do much. After all, it was only just an E chord played kinda funky. The next summer when we got Matt in our band we were writing material and (I think) I brought up the idea of using Eric’s riff. We started off with that and then Matt took it and wrote the rest of the verse (C – G – D – A) as well as the ascending chorus patterns. Matt also wrote the coolest part of the song, a little riff that bookended the guitar solo. I love that thing; one of my favorite moments in all of Cheevy’s canon.
Bryan came up with the riff that he soloed over. When Matt was in the group I’m not exactly sure who soloed, but I think he and Bryan alternated each time we played it. The solo riff really didn’t have much in common with the verse, chorus, or ‘bookend’ riffs. The verse is in E (some minor-ness going on there), while the chorus jumps up to alternating chords of F and G. The bookend riff is a delayed E kinda thing, but then for the solo we modulated to Ab with the first chord being a Bb, which is the tritone (evil sounding note) of the E. Kind of a jarring change but it worked and gave the guitars something different to solo over. Another cool thing about the solo riff was that we played the riff 12 times through instead of the usual 8. So that made it feel a bit uneven, kinda stretched out. I like that. Bryan typically did good, rockin’ solos for this one. After the solo we went back to the bookend riff and then a 4 beat stop (which over time morphed into a 4 beat drum fill) and then back to the verse and out chorus.
As for the lyrics, they’re OK. Sean wrote all of ‘em. I think he was aiming for a ‘riding a motorcycle across the country’ kinda vibe. Maybe a La Grange kinda thing. A song that would go on a Harley Davidson compilation or something. I’m not too wild about the ‘got a really bad bone’ line; it’s something a high school kid like Sean would definitely write. I’ve always thought about changing that, just because it’s so stupid. The rest of the lyrics are pretty good. Nothing earth-shattering, but it’s good. It took some time for us to get the right flow of the words and we ended up switching the bridges and choruses around. It was totally a group arrangement, with everyone contributing something.
HRC is a song that we didn’t play too much in the later years, but I always enjoyed. When Bry and I were attempting to do Cheevy again with Troy on the drums, I wanted to make a new arrangement of this (with lyrical alterations too) and change the vibe of it, make it a little more spacious and laid back. Unfortunately we never got the chance to do it; maybe someday.
Earth To Earth – lyrics: Sean B, Dunn; music: Cawthon, Dunn
I think I already said enough about this in the Bio, but I’ll go a little bit farther here. This was my favorite Cheevy song for a long while, until we worked up Amen, then this dropped to #2. No matter, it’s a great song anyway. I think this song, more than any other, really summed up Miniver Cheevy.
The song first appeared at our last full practice before we broke up initially. Sean had these words (the 2nd half of the song) and showed them to us. Bryan immediately presented the music, which perfectly matched the words. The riff is very simple, just an E – B – A, but it had that quality that we were looking for: it made us sound like The Doors. Dave had the perfect drum beat for it and we jammed on it for a while and then moved on to something else. Then we broke up.
After we got back together, Bryan was presenting this new thing he was working on (the verse riff). We did that, he then came up with the chorus. We all 4 really liked what he had so Sean immediately set to write some words for it. I don’t know when he finished them, if it was that day or not, but they did get done. We were playing it through and Dave decided we needed something after the 2nd chorus so he suggested we do a pattern in 9/4 with some sort of break or solo over it. Maybe some kinda drum interlude? I went ahead and suggested he should just do a drum solo over this 9/4 riff. I mean, if we were going to have this totally different section in this odd time signature, we might as well make something REALLY different and have a drum solo with Bryan and I providing the rhythm. Dave showed us what kind of rhythm he wanted to solo over and Bry came up with some chords. For tension purposes, I’m playing in a different key than Bry.
It took Bryan a long time to get the feel of the 9 down right. It was easy for me, since I was playing a 9-note pattern, but Bryan plays the 4 chords and then holds the last one for 5 beats. I think it was on the first run-through of the new song (intro>verse>chorus>verse>chorus>drum solo) that near the end of Dave’s solo I somehow got the inspiration to tell the band that right then after the solo we all should go into that old thing we played before, that “Earth to Earth” thing.
We did, and when it ended I think we all felt a shiver. It was the first time that I ever felt that certain ‘thing’ that can happen with the right music at the right time. A huge moment for me. The E2E section fit perfectly after the drum solo and provided a very trippy end to the song. Bryan came up with a very cool solo that fit the mood perfectly.
Bry and I weren’t too happy with Sean’s verse and chorus lyrics, so after a few weeks Bryan wrote new ones. With a few bits by Dave and Sean, Earth to Earth is mostly a Bryan song. The song stayed in the band’s repertoire until the very end and it was always fun to play. I still like to play it and Bryan and I even tried to persuade 3 Penny Opera to do it. Of course they refused but we tried. Every group has that one song that really defines them, Earth to Earth was that song for Miniver Cheevy.
My Woman’s a Prostitute Blues – lyrics: Dunn; music: Dunn, Talbert
Bryan presented the lyrics to this at our first practice after the break-up but it ended up sitting around for half a year until we brought Matt in. Bryan wanted it to be a blues, but he really didn’t know how to write a traditional blues song (most of us really didn’t know much about music back then). Matt came in and took Bryan’s rough musical idea and made it into the song in its present form. Matt pretty much did all the arranging on this one and even wrote my bassline (I had no idea how to do a walking bassline).
The music is a basic 12 bar blues, nothing difficult at all. After the first two verses Bryan took a short solo and after the third verse he took another couple of solos with a bass solo by me thrown in the middle. I really liked soloing on this one and it was actually my first bass solo for the group. One of my original intentions for the group was, over the course of our whole existence, to have an equal number of bass solos and guitar solos. It didn’t totally come out that way, but I dared to take more bass solos than most bands have.
As for the lyrics on this one, MWAPB was our first instance of humor in the music. Humor is something I think is always needed in music and we tried to keep it in the music without becoming a joke band or something. Bry wrote some good lyrics for this and of course it starts off with the traditional “I woke up this morning…” line. It was always a mouthful singing the title, but that made it more fun. This one kinda dropped off our radar after a few years but it’s something I always liked and I wanted to resurrect it with our “Almost-Cheevy” lineup with Troy.
Cycle – lyrics & music: Dunn
The first song Bryan ever wrote and he STILL plays it. Amazes me. He had actually written this prior to starting Miniver Cheevy with us, but he thought we wouldn’t like it. He finally brought it to the band after we re-assembled ourselves in the fall of 1992. We tried to make it funky, but we really weren’t too funky back then. Sean could never get the singing right, so we didn’t try it too much until Sean was out of the group. After that, we played it on and off for the duration of the group.
Cycle is a good little song, but it’s not anywhere near his best. It’s the simplest thing Bry’s ever written, a very simple G-C-D thang that doesn’t really go anywhere. I have no clue what the lyrics are about. I’m not sure when this was debuted, but I know we played it at the 4th gig. We played it pretty straight, without any dynamics, so it wasn’t that exciting of a song when Cheevy played it. We did an admirable job of it, but it got better with the next groups.
All In The Family (Bootie Wrap) – lyrics: Sean B, Talbert; music: Talbert
What a strange song. It was made up of two separate things and then (sort of) brought together. The music came from Matt after he had been taught a bunch of jazz chords from his ‘guitar guru’, a guy named Pat Deezew. It was never a serious song, but it’s as funky as 5 white guys from Dallas could get. The lyrics are something Sean came up with that none of the rest of us liked or felt comfortable with. There was a girl at our school that Sean liked a lot and he also thought her mom was pretty hot as well. With that in mind, I guess he decided to take that idea as far as it could go and he wrote a pretty perverted song about (how to phrase this delicately?), uh, having sexual relations with numerous female members of a family. Yeah, I know, I didn’t write them so don’t blame me, I’m just reporting here.
Sean brought us these lyrics and we were pretty dumbfounded. We three really did not want to do that kind of stuff in the band so it was weird him almost forcing it on us. He wanted so badly for us to do these lyrics (he was listening to a lot of the Chili Peppers at this time) but we were really apprehensive to doing them. When Matt showed us the funk riff he had, Sean thought that it was the perfect music for his lyrics. We didn’t want to do it, but he was persistent so we tried it, just to please him. I think we ran through the whole song twice and then Bryan, Dave and I outvoted Sean and axed the idea to do it like he wanted. He wasn’t happy about it (at all), but he didn’t have a choice.
Even after Matt left we would still play the funk riff on occasion, but only instrumental. Matt would always come around while we were practicing and listen to us and sometimes jam with us. On one occasion he decided to take the microphone and while we were playing this song he ad-libbed some new lyrics. The new words consisted of Matt saying the word “Bootie” over and over. This had us all just dying with laughter, so it stuck and we re-named the song “Bootie Wrap”. Whenever Matt would come over we’d always play this for a good time.
The music is just a simple funk riff, a mangled 12 bar in D. I kinda ripped off the bassline from Alice In Chain’s I Know Somethin (Bout You) for my bass part and we would just use the song as a jamming vehicle. We never played it live; I really wish we would’ve, it’s a fun song to play and it would’ve got people’s rumps shakin’ (quite the opposite of something like Earth to Earth). Oh well.
The Real You – lyrics & music: Hines
Besides a bunch of early stuff I wrote (which is listed on my tape as Song #1 – Song #6 or whatever) and an instrumental called Niagara Beauty, this was my first real composition. I wrote the music in August of 1993 and did the lyrics sometime that fall. For my English class we had to write an original poem so I decided I’d use that assignment for something positive and write the words to this song.
Inspired by Anthrax’s Potter’s Field, I wrote this song about an ex-girlfriend, Lisa, and events that transpired around a phone conversation we had. Now of course I embellished a bit for the sake of the words, but the feeling is there. The song’s pretty angry, esp. the lyrics which are very nasty. I’m not sure when I turned it in if I omitted the F-word in it or not, but my teacher knew it was there anyway. Ah, the first curse word in my own output.
It’s pretty obvious that the lyrics were not written by someone who considered himself to be a serious and professional lyricist. Many lines are too long for the musical space they go over, but I edited them the best I could. The lyrics are juvenile, and very angry (since I was), but I don’t think they qualify as ‘good’ at all.
Musically, it’s a little more impressive, but not much. Like a lot of my early stuff it’s all over the place. There are some really interesting musical things going on, I was really flirting around with dissonance and tritones throughout this. The main riff is in E, but definitely not in a major scale, with a change up to F# and then back down to E. The pre-chorus/chorus kinda modulates up to G and then before going back to the verse it really hangs around all the ‘wrong’ notes of an E major scale. Lots of tension for that whole chorus. The music all the way through is metal, just not the usual kind of stuff you’d hear.
For the bridge I do a riff that sounds way too much like Iron Maiden, but oh well. Then for the solo I decided to change key again and go to the exact opposite of E, the dreaded tritone (Bb). The rhythm for the solo is as speed metal as I could write and it makes a jarring transition from the rest of the song, which is kinda ‘chunky’ metal stuff.
I kept this around a long time before I brought it to the band, maybe more than a year. It was hard for Bryan to sing the vocal lines, since I didn’t write them with a vocalist in mind. We played it over the course of a few months, but since I had totally outgrown it by then, I wasn’t too excited about doing it. I never really thought it was that great of a song and I had much better stuff that I wanted to do with the band. Bryan said he liked it and wanted to keep doing it. We never got it good enough to ever perform live, so it just kinda sat there. Which is what I think it should do.
Matter Of Principle – lyrics: Sean B; music: Talbert
Lyrically one of the best choruses of any of the bands I’ve been in. I’m usually not one for positive, feel-good type lyrics, but Sean just nailed this one. Basically it says, ‘you can do anything you want, it’s all a Matter of Principle.’ Go Sean. The rest of the lyrics confuse me and really make no sense with the chorus. I don’t know if they were written separate from each other or not, I can’t remember. I remember that after playing this for a few months, Sean wanted to change the name to ‘Snows of Kilimanjaro’, which is a line in the song. We all thought he was nuts and told him no way.
I don’t remember much about the music coming together. I think Matt just wrote it on the spot; I don’t think it was any pre-composed thing. He just wrote the whole thing, right there. Matt’s a stud. It’s a basic rock song, but Matt put in his usual ‘Matt-isms’ in to make it obvious that it was one of his. With the uptempo verses and chorus, it was nice to do a mellow and melodic thing for the solo. Matt wrote a great Iron Maiden type solo and he actually came up with a really nice harmony guitar part that REALLY sounded like Maiden, but for some reason we never really played it like that while he was in the band.
This one did slowly fall out of our rotation, mostly because it was an earlier song and we came up with much better stuff later in the band’s existence. I think it’s a decent song, not perfect, but decent.
Sunshine – lyrics & music: Dunn
The most classic Bryan Dunn song as far as I’m concerned. This is came out of nowhere. Bryan rarely brought unfinished songs to the band, he’d usually bring a completed song and just blow us away with each new one he’d bring. The riff is great. Like most of his, it’s a relatively simple song, but it’s just great. We probably debuted this at our first show, but since I don’t have the setlist I’m only guessing.
From the second he brought this in we latched onto it and it never left our repertoire. And since it’s such a great song, it was also an early foundation of both Echo Juliet and 3 Penny Opera. There’s a reason that is was not only on our demo, but on the EJ CD and the first 3PO album too: it’s a GREAT song.
Lyrics are about Bry’s longtime on and off girlfriend, Sandra and they have some nice Bryan-isms in there. When we played this we mostly had it condensed where we didn’t jam it out. Bryan had his guitar solo and that’s it. I don’t think I started to solo in it until Echo Juliet. I don’t think Bryan plays this one anymore; I really wish he would. It’s one of my favorite songs he’s ever written.
Barney Must Die – lyrics: Sean B; music: Dunn, Hendrix, Hines
Ah, comedy. This is a very interesting song. We wrote it in the course of about an hour after discussing the finer points of Barney the purple dinosaur. OK, there are no fine points, it’s very annoying and we decided to write a very angry song about how Barney must, well, die.
The music for this was very chaotic. We started out (jokingly) with the ‘I love you, you love me’ refrain from the TV show on guitar and then went into the ‘death’ riff on bass. I have no idea what it’s actually named, but I’m sure some classical composer wrote it. Then, thrash metal. I came up with a very dissonant thrash riff for the verse and then for the chorus we jumped ship and went to smooth jazz. See what I mean? After a few repetitions, Bryan came up with a basic rock riff for the bridge and then we went into the verse riff of Purple Haze. We took Jimi’s melody and altered the words to say “Purple dinosaur on public TV, something about him don’t make sense to me, actin’ funny and I don’t know why, ‘cuse me while kill this guy” and then back to the thrash riff and then out.
For every little section we changed key and style; that kinda make it musically similar to Mr. Bungle. The lyrics are obviously anti-Barney. They’re amusing, but the joke does get old. Sean sang the verse lyrics really fast since it was hard to fit them over the 8-second verses. The rest of it went just fine, but we never got the flow of the whole thing down. The song pretty much left our repertoire when Sean left since none of the rest of us wanted to sing it. We never played it live and I think if we had’ve it would have confused the audience. Unless we tore up a Barney doll while we played it, then it woulda been cool, huh huh.
1218 – lyrics: Sean B, Hines; music: Dunn, Hines
Another joke song! We were playing at our second party and after setting our stuff up we headed to Taco Bueno for some pre-gig grub. Yum-my! On the way there we heard AC/DC’s ‘Big Gun’ on the radio and so during the ride, meal and ride home the conversation consisted of how horrible AC/DC, that song and AC/DC’s rhythm section are. Once we got back to the party and were warming up, I pitched the brilliant idea that we should write a spoof of a typical (boring) AC/DC song. You know, the bassline would be just one note and it would be the most rudimentary and basic drum part. Except the twist would be that while the bass would play straight eighth notes (only an E no less) for the verses and choruses, I’d do a bass solo in the middle. We all laughed and I started playing my E, Dave played the most boring AC/DC drumbeat and Bryan came up with the 2 riffs. I think it took 2 minutes (maybe) to write. We laughed heartily and then went back to getting ready for the gig.
The next time we practiced we all wanted to finish it so while making Bry and Dave play the riffs over and over, Sean and I sat outside and wrote the words. I guess we got the sudden inspiration to write it about the place where we were at, my house, and the various things that went on there. It was a 60/40 collaboration in Sean’s favor, but we both contributed. Then the band ‘learned’ it in the time it took to play it through. The song didn’t have a name and I was really perplexed by what to call it. Since it was about my house, I wanted it to have something to do with a house, or a dwelling, or hangout place or something. I searched the dictionary and couldn’t come up with anything. I remember asking my brother if he had any suggestions after explaining what I was after. He immediately came up with 1218, which was our address. So obvious. Big thanks to Alan for naming that one, I’d have never got it right.
We still played it after Sean was gone, but increasingly less and less since Dave really hated it. He hated having to purposefully and jokingly play such a boring part. I didn’t mind since I got to do a bass solo and I actually liked the song. I don’t think we ever did it live, but it wouldn’t have bothered me if we did. It’s a stupid song, but it’s not bad and Bryan came up with some good riffs for it. Actually, the verse riff is a total rip-off of George Harrison’s It’s All Too Much, but it doesn’t upset me. I still like it.
Don’t Let Me Be Alone Tonight – lyrics: Dunn; music: Talbert
This one, like Sunshine and College Radio, ended up being played by all three bands (MC, EJ & 3PO). Matt was just farting around with a blues chord progression one day and Bryan heard it and immediately latched on to it. I just thought it was a typically cool thing Matt would come up with, but Bryan just loved it. A few weeks later he had Matt show it to him and then the next time we had practice Bryan brings in this complete song.
We played it pretty straight, without any dynamics. I think that, at the time, Dave and I didn’t know how to really handle a serious blues song, so it didn’t sound as good as it could’ve. Whenever Matt happened to be at the house during our practices he’d always play it with us. We brought him up to play the lead guitar on it when we debuted it at our second show. It was a great version and even got 2 people by the bar to make out during it! We played it often, but it didn’t really gel as a song until we brought it to Echo Juliet. Then it was perfected in 3 Penny Opera. It’s a great song and I hope Bryan keeps it in his repertoire for a long time; I love it.
Amen – music: Dunn, Hines
I said in the bio that this is my favorite Cheevy song. An instrumental written mostly by me, this was one of the few word-less songs we had. About half of my material is instrumental, so it’s not an oddity for me at all. I came up with the main riff on piano (C-C#) and then wrote a little more on bass. I showed it to Bryan and he contributed the 3rd riff, over which I played some chords that were ripped off/mangled from Iron Maiden who had ripped them off from Deep Purple. By mangled I mean that it starts out the same, but has some dissonances and goes into different places than the IM/DP chord progression does. After a couple of repetitions, we go into the improv. For the first part of the song we’re in the key of C, but then for the improv I started out in A.
I liked, and still like, the idea of having a composed beginning and end, and then making up the big chunk of middle. The structure of the middle eventually became improv > small written section (strange picking pattern that sounds like it should be on King Crimson’s Discipline) > improv > Bryan alone section > improv > song. For the part where Bryan would have his alone time, he would usually play Amazing Grace, but sometimes would switch it around and play some other familiar melody or song or something. Dave and I wouldn’t be totally silent, we’d be bubbling underneath while he melodicized away. After the improv had run its course, I’d play the main riff and lead us back into one last chorus before the final ending. For the end we’d hold out the last chorus note and then to the “Amen” cadence as an ending. Very bombastic, with vocals. That ending just came as a joke thing when we were running through it.
We debuted it at our third gig, at Across the Street Bar. Since we were playing for a bunch of fraternity dudes and dudettes, pleasing them wasn’t on our mind. We stretched Amen out pretty nicely, maybe 10-15 minutes, and honestly, when we finished playing it the crowd was totally silent. Not one hand clap. Everyone was just staring at us (even our friends for some reason). It was truly a hilarious moment. We just stood there for a sec and then went into another song. I love that this song could do that to an audience! We played it at a few more gigs and we always did it in practices. The thrill of creating spontaneous music with Dave and Bryan was always wonderful.
Larry – lyrics & music: Hines
I had just a smidge of help with this one, but not really enough for a writing credit. I don’t think Bry and Dave will mind. One day I heard Dave start playing a reggae drum beat and I thought it sounded cool, so a few days later I wrote a bass line around what I remembered hearing him do. Not really paying attention, it turned out that I wrote the verse in 7/8 and the chorus in 4/4. After noticing that the verse was in 7, I decided to keep it that way to make it more interesting. Honestly, how many reggae songs are in 7/8? Only one that I know of. The rest of the music came pretty easily and it’s actually one of the simplest songs I’ve written. There’s only 3 chords in the whole thing, I believe.
After I came up with the verse and chorus the phrase “I’m sitting naked by the ocean…” came into my head; I have no idea where it came from. A few months later I was in Austin visiting Bryan and we went with a bunch of his friends to a concert at Auditorium Shores. Big Head Todd was the main act, and there were a few others like Ian Moore and Mr. Rocket Baby. This was the “Festival de la Luna”. While being by the river and listening to the music and seeing the new Stevie Ray Vaughan statue over by the water I got pretty inspired to write lyrics. I came up with the first verse while at the concert and afterwards Bryan was having a party at his place and we hulled ourselves up in his room and I proceeded to write the rest of the lyrics based on the day’s event. Bryan came up with the line about ‘don’t fear the reefer’.
The melody line I came up with is pretty boring, it’s pretty much just the bassline. After I felt comfortable enough with the song I brought it to the band. It never really felt right, esp. in Bryan’s singing. Not only is he too white (we’re all guilty of that), he just couldn’t feel it. But we got it down decent, so we had it in our set list at a party we did at Spring Break of my senior year. It was going to be in the 2nd set, but the cops came and busted the party during the break. I guess we just never felt comfortable enough with it to try it at another gig and it just kinda faded away. I did try to bring it back when we were in 3 Penny Opera, but once again it didn’t work. Wiley had immense troubles playing the verse drumbeat in 7. I still don’t know why it was difficult for him, I can play it on drums just fine. I really like the song, I think it’s fun to play so I plan on bringing it back out sometime.
When Satan Surfs – music: Hines
Our only other instrumental, written again by me. I was influenced to write this because of the use of Dick Dale’s Misirlou in Pulp Fiction. As usual I wanted to twist around the idea of a surf song, so instead of the guitar doing the fast picking I did it on the bass with the guitar playing chords in the background. The chord progression isn’t really that normal; I go I-V-I-#VI-VI-I in G (with some extra notes thrown in to throw off the time). The chorus modulates down to a Bb and uses a bunch of evil notes, played in a very chilled out way. The song’s got a couple of repeats then a few bridges that change to 6/8 before the quick ending.
I was asking the guys what to call the song and Dave remarked that it sounded like music that would accompany Satan surfing. We rehearsed it a lot and it sounded fantastic, but we never played it at a gig. I bet if we’d known we would only do 5 gigs, we would have made better setlists and played more songs live. Live and learn.
Forsake Me – lyrics & music: Dunn
Oooh, it’s funkay! By far the funkiest thing we did. I did some faux slap bass parts on this, but they didn’t sound that great. The song itself is decent. The music was fairly simple, with some not so standard chord progressions. The lyrics are interesting; kind of about a nut case who gets a bunch of people to follow and treat him like he’s God.
I know we played it live, but I have no idea which show it was (I only have setlists for 2 of the 5). For a while this was a staple of our practices and we never went one without playing it. It was simple and easy, but always a fun one to do and a good way to warm up.
Empty – lyrics & music: Dunn
This song, along with Amen, was really the direction we were heading once we started to get comfortable as a trio. This song is beautifully heavy and such a joy to play. Bryan wrote a great, heavy, groove in 6/8 and if we’d been around longer this would’ve totally been a Miniver Cheevy classic. We debuted this at our last show and it so great to play it live. Once he wrote it, we practiced it all the time.
After the main song portion we’d just jam the ending out which was always fun. It would start out with pretty high energy for Bry’s solo and then we’d just eventually jam it into a really slow groove before stopping all together.
When Bryan and I tried to bring back Cheevy with Troy, this was the first song we played and one we always did during practices. I absolutely love this one and wish more people could have heard it.
Ascension – lyrics & music: Dunn
Another great Bryan Dunn song. This is a slower one, but not a ballad at all. Very mellow and contemplative. What we all were going for with this was space. I played some simple but effective bass lines and the song flowed perfectly. I used volume swells for the intro that made a nice effect.
We only played this live once, at our last show. It was a great version and I wish I had a tape of that show. One of the biggest mistakes of my life was not tape that last show; we never sounded better. Ascension is such a beautiful song and it’s another I wish we would have done with 3PO. I think we could’ve done a great version of it.
1000 Grains of Sand – lyrics & music: Dunn
Yes! We’re trying to be Rush! Yet another great Bryan Dunn original, he just keeps ‘em coming. We stupidly never played this live. It was on our setlist for both the 4th and 5th gigs, but we scrapped it both times for time constraints. I think we dropped it for Earth to Earth both times. I really wish we could’ve played this live, it was such a fun and challenging song to play. Another one in 6/8, this is by far the most complex thing Bryan ever wrote. Lots of fast playing (esp. the middle section in 7/8) and lots of arpeggios. This is one of the few, if only, Bryan songs that took a long time to get down. I don’t think we ever got it at 100%, but we got it up to about 95% on a few occasions. Very hard song to play right.
The music was very intricate and so much fun to play. The lyrics are really good too. Bryan is a great lyricist; I don’t think that’s said enough about him. He really is. This is another one of my many favorites of his. A great song.
Jay’s Song – lyrics & music: Jay Staton
Not really a Cheevy song, but we played it live with Jay so I’m including it here. Jay played with us for most of our 4th show, so we decided to do one of his songs. I don’t remember much of it, other than it being really simple. I never even knew the name of it, so on the setlist I just put it down as “Jay’s Song”. We only practiced it for 1 or 2 days, and then played it at the gig. No tapes exist of the show so unless I go hang with Jay I’ll probably never hear how it goes again.
Bethlehem – lyrics & music: Dunn
This was an early staple of 3 Penny Opera, but we actually played it a couple of times in rehearsal with Cheevy. It was very raw and we really didn’t know what to do with it. Plus by the time he brought this to the band, we probably didn’t play more than a few more times.
College Radio – lyrics & music: Dunn
Another staple of the EJ and 3PO bands, but it was attempted a few times by Cheevy. None of us had any clue how to approach it so it was relegated to being an “Echo Juliet song”.
Someone to Watch Over Me – lyrics & music: Dunn
No, this isn’t the jazz standard, it’s one Bryan came up with in the later time of Cheevy. I’m not sure how much, if any, of the 3 Penny Opera material he’d written yet, but this one was totally pointing in that direction. I decided to play as simple as I could for this one and just try to make it groove. We played this over a few months in practice and got it sounding OK, but we never had the chance to play it before an audience. I don’t know who or what he wrote the lyrics about, but it was a really good song. I liked playing it and I was hoping it would help Cheevy expand into some more groove-oriented material. I wish he’d bring this one back, I think it’s a great song. Bryan in his big David Bowie period.
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