Twice in Jeffrey Brown’s latest graphic novel release Little Things: A Memoir In Slices, does the character version of the autobiographical Brown gawk appreciatively at river streams that his friend points out exist and are as cold as they are because they’re the product of a glacier melting high above them. Brown’s on a trip to Seattle, Washington, to see a high school friend, who lives in a cabin three bus rides from the hub of any sort of civilization and his Chicago-dwelling, coffeehouse around any given corner chum finds himself having his breath taken away constantly as critters scurry out and a van of people calmly and coolly just let a bear crossing the road in front of them move about as leisurely as it damned well pleased. ... [Story Continues Below]

First song
Childhood of Playful Heart (Beatbeat Whisper) [3.44MB] [1194 downloads]


– original version will appear on the forthcoming Wonder Continental
Lyrics: Which miracle is it that I get to choose, he got the last one and put it to use
fortune in hand, coloring sand, drawing pictures of truth
And all of the shades between the years are the same
guessing the color next seems such a waste
and the taste of his marker stained parts of his teeth
and when he bit down all the colors leaked
My light bulb remembers a dinner mom made, two minutes in nostalgic microwave
timer it rang, did I tell you he sang every time that he ate
And up on a hilltop in a bathtub I read, last words of funny men make a degree
he made me laugh, dry bubble bath, he took the water to school
Where he met a girl to climb a tree, to lay in her arms comfortably
but unlike my sister who always climbed quicker, I know he said so to me…
He always gloated getting top bunk, twenty-one wishes and he still wouldn’t budge
morning I wake, I draw a bath late, you know I still wash his feet…

Explanation: A little while before the winter solstice of 2006 I was talking with a friend of mine who was about to go around a new bend in his life squiggle. He was hesitant and weary of this new course, but I was convinced it was a similarly blind-turn to others he had taken before. While my little explanation here is using different imagery than I use in the song, this conversation was what shaped the lyrics and voice of this song. It’s me watching myself, with the watcher and the watched being both now and in the past. Huh?

Second song
Old River (Beatbeat Whisper) [4.21MB] [1152 downloads]


– original version appears on Beatbeat Whisper
Ayla: I wrote this song for a play, in which the explorer has to tread through his fear in the forests and climb mountains, and he comes to a river.  It’s rushing so fast, he doesn’t know what to do, how to cross it.  So he sings:
Do you remember Old River, as you run so fast, as you run so far
do you remember Old River, as you run so fast, as you run right past
did the shores that you flew by go by in a blur, or did you see the little children there
on the banks as they played in the afternoon light, in the wake of your water
as you did run on by…
do you remember Old River , as you run so fast, as you run right past
you passed by a hill so sturdy and calm, the land lit up with homes in it’s arms
the land lit up in the half-moon light, you carved out a mountain
as you ran on by that night…
do you remember Old River, as you run so fast, as you run right past
so many things you’ve seen Old River, they didn’t go by too quickly
for you to catch your sweet memories
for you to hold your moons and mountains
for you to wash the many ankles of the children as they play and as they splash and as they tumble round and laugh and as they skip and as they jump and as they dance and as they run on by…
do you remember Old River, as you run so fast, as you run right past?
now you’ll remember Old River, remember everything, remember as you dream…

And the river falls asleep, and the explorer crosses safely…  this song has since taken on new meaning as I sing it without the story context.  It’s a lullaby to the busy mind.

Third song
Suddenly Apart Was Shared (Beatbeat Whisper) [5.46MB] [1085 downloads]


— original version will appear on the forthcoming Wonder Continental
Davyd: We were asked to be part of the compilation “Firsts” from Digital Clouds Records, and decided to go back to our parents home in Sonoma County to write a song for it.
Ayla: Usually we write songs individually, then play them together.  This was a fun experience ‘cause we wrote the song together, Davyd picked out chords, I played around with them, wrote some words in the backyard, then we made lots of noise while mom and dad cooked dinner.  The next day we recorded it in the living room – on our album you can hear our clock ticking.
The round at the beginning is a song we sang growing up, to give thanks to nature.  It inspired the words that follow, about respecting our connectedness to everything and everyone, and thus losing all sense of hate.

For health and strength and daily bread, we give these thanks, our world…
As bread breaks, as bridges bust and quake, underfoot uprooted and waiting
as blind sides stroll casually by, underneath their steps do not know their own meaning…
and at first glance only form will there be, weathered over by time, in lines side by side
placing mirror in front of he, his own ripple water, sudden spied
his own ripple water, his own two eyes…
“But,” they cried, “cast not your weary glances here
for I have to  carry my own, my wings, my shoulders
and blades, they say will wash away my enemy, these blades, they say
will wash away, will wash away…” these blades, they pray will wash away, away…
and looking far, and farther on beyond
they see the lighter skin clothes, darker eye notes, but inside it’s the
same as the sun, from the eyes
it was bright as the sun, in the eyes…
tum-bel-ing down to him, saves him from arrogance
tumbling over him, washes his darkness, the blinds of the horses
tum-bel-ing over him, ricochet lightning show
till mirrors he sees, and through glass he goes…
and looking backwards, beholds the elephant’s child
growing bolder and wise, with no fear in her step for her hide, for her cloak,
and her trunk never stolen, for so precious is her note, so beautiful those notes
those notes, the notes, the notes…
and in her his family, held closely in seams, the stitching is soft, no barrier it leaves
and lightest of thread held them all by the knees
(together at the knees were the strongest of strings)
oh the strings, oh the strings! the strongest of strings
at the knees, together at the knees were the strings
oh the  strings they were needed and seen, they were seen
together at the knees were the strings…
and backwards he bent to see them merely as things
but he’d forgotten the meaning of separate, of sacred
backwards he bent to see them merely as things
but he’d forgotten what it meant to have hatred

Fourth song
Up the Long Tracks (Beatbeat Whisper) [4.02MB] [1155 downloads]


— original version will appear on the forthcoming Wonder Continental
Lyrics: I can see crashes on shore let the seconds slide
by rail I wait so romanticized
dawn of steam, kettle heats the tea I drink from sleep
by rail I await so eagerly
Counting change, three spots on the track for you laid
I can see this morning slip away
distant howl, I can feel a shiver running down
I can see this morning take the crown
But you realize the rumble is yours and
the room it quakes and my shiver shakes
you seem to impress and steal my breath and
as I a child I stared at your magic, press you wide my eyes
your cold steel it seems so alive
Nickels down, rush inside to peek through window shade
timid me I hide while pulses race
steady roll, big wheels turning heads by simple grace
eagerly we watch as pulses race
And just once I can lay my hand upon your side
and feel your steady rumble like a dream you are unstoppable
to you I am grateful, you’re my Wonder Continental
helping whispers ‘tween the eyes to come alive
and one hand cuts the rock like paper thin are views of hate held by closed eyes

Explanation: I wrote this song in Santa Cruz living by some well-trafficked train tracks. I had a small collection of pennies and decided that they should go under the wheels of these big, slow, lumbering ol’ timers and become something more than pocket weight. Seeing and riding these trains and having them so close to my home was a very powerful feeling that impressed upon me my own fragility and impermanence. The title is worded such because a certain freight company has the initials U.P. and when I wrote it I didn’t know what distance the tracks covered. All trains just go forever, I think.

Even with little commentary or descriptive set-up, the comic panels were explicit in depicting the awe in Brown that came about through the age-old, but capital idea of intruding upon nature. There was a strong sense – and this happens to most of us when we break free from the familiarities of bustling and materialism and venture out into the trees, where voices and congestive white noise can’t reach – that all of the things Brown was witnessing, while meaningful and almost too much for him to take it, were part of the humdrum. They were going to get pulled off without the help of anyone or anything else. They just were, these little operations and these tiny processes that have been going on for millions of years whether we see them and are inspired or shocked by them or not. It knocks you down some. Beatbeat Whisper have felt these same things, turning them into the respectable mere mortals that we can always strive to be – the kind of people who look at a fallen leaf and trace over its green veins with their fingertips and try to imagine what it must have felt like to have had rain water shooting through them from the bottom up. Davyd and Ayla Nereo, the brother and sister combination who make us this Oakland, Calif., twosome have surely done something just the same in their time. They’ve likely gone to a secluded bend of a pond or lake and skipped flat, washer-like stones off the surfaced and thought that each grazing of the water’s skin was like a heartbeat to be trusted. They’ve likely wanted to sneak up on jittery squirrels just to calm their tails or to gently pick up a willing bird, put its chest to their ear and hear what a bird’s ticker really sounds like to our ears. Is it the same, is it nowhere near? The music that they make together – that you’ll hear on their new album Wonder Continental this week – is much like that icy stream flowing down from spots on a mountain that people don’t get to very often. They plume out of instruments that sound as if they’ve had countless hands touch them over their many decades – love them and treat them in their own ways, all of them. It can be spooked and startled and yet it’s not precious at all, nature talking its own jive.

Beatbeat Whisper Official Site