Duration: 12:23

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this is "empty-handed travelers", a performance-piece-like jam-song by large prime numbers.

the main riff has been in my head for a few years; today was the first time i tried playing it with a drummer.

zak had never heard the riff before, so i just told him we should come in all glacier-like and you just add some dynamics and stuff and we see what happens.

90% of what happens after the first solo is completely improvised. i wouldn't mind spending six hours playing just this riff!

on the train home, i tried to write lyrics, though they ended up really wordy, so it's more like a poem. i'm going to print them out and read them off a sheet of paper during the next rehearsal while the riff loops and before i start hitting the big power chords and eventually triggering the flanger and delay or whatever. i guess i'll tape the piece of paper to the mike stand. i can't remember all that shit otherwise. just a bunch of bullshit about glaciers telling lies and a wandering minstrel putting his wallet on a sleeping woman's bed and walking out identityless into the chill air, about how one man suddenly finds himself able to without fail tell the difference between mid-spring and mid-autumn, about how the only way to achieve perfection is to find it lying in the road, about how always looking down while walking is a lonely way to move through life, et cetera. you'd think i was on caffeine pills or nitrous oxide when i wrote it.

short summary of my feelings on take one of this song: needs a delay pedal. also needs a pop vocal hook (which has maybe been born in my head as i watched this video).

this song is dedicated to doug jones, the man who first gave me a guitar.