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Citizen Self

by Myself a Living Torch

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Early 1990's-era packaging includes jewel case, full-color folded insert, graphic design by G2DK, photography by LN Cavendar and hand-in-glove modeling by Rodney O'Neal Austin. Original stock, shrink-wrapped for your protection.

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  • Cassette + Digital Album

    Early 1990's-era packaging includes case, full-color folded insert, graphic design by G2DK, photography by LN Cavendar and hand-in-glove modeling by Rodney O'Neal Austin. Original stock, shrink-wrapped for your protection.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Citizen Self via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Mermaid of Marin (Black Sand Beach), (You Come True) In Venus Fur, Instant Karma Cannot Get Me, Show Me a Pearl, Make a Wish, Fear of Velvet, Do Big Men Really Run the World?, Orson Welles, and 1 more. , and , .

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1.
Orson Welles 05:15
Citizen Self In a voice made wood Called in for help On the 24-hour crisis hotline Says, "Time is but sand Wherever I stand Terra firma dreams of ocean" Take my hand, lead me on Twist my arm 'til I understand Say it's all in fun, oh, lead me on In the slave and master 2-step Citizen Self In a voice made of glass Called in for sex On the all-night erotic connection But it's never enough It's never complete I need some greater stimulation Take my hand, lead me on Twist my arm 'til I understand Say it's all in fun, oh, lead me on In the slave and master 2-step In the slave and master 2-step Oh, Orson Welles I don't want to know Oh, Orson Welles Take my hand, lead me on Twist my arm 'til I understand Say it's all in fun, oh, lead me on In the slave and master 2-step The slave and master 2-step In the slave and master 2-step Oh, lead me on and on and on Oh, lead me on and on and on Oh, lead me on and on and on In the slave and master 2-step
2.
You went out last night and had nine drinks I stayed at home to dream You went out last night And I stayed at home to dream On the telephone you said Life is too short to waste on dreams Without a trace of regret you said Life is too short and death is forever You went out last night, I had nightmares I saw the flash, I saw the bomb You went out last night And I dreamt we all died On the telephone you said Life is too short to waste on dreams Without a trace of regret you said Life is too short and death is forever This morning when you called from the jailhouse I said I didn't really mind You were mistaken for a petty thief As you left your mark on Haight Street And I stayed at home to dream You said life is too short and death is forever You said life is too short and death is forever So, I'll do what I want and I'll say what I want No, they can't take that from me It's my own body, and it's my own mind And they can't take that from me They can't take that from me They can't take that from me
3.
Oh, honey bee My skinny arms ache to hold you Please, honey, please Do big men really run the world? Do big men? Do big men? Do big men really run the world? I know I'm a junkie I need you more than you want me But, oh, sugar girl Do big men really run the world? Do big men? Do big men? Do big men really run the world? Jesus, tell me Do big men really run the world? You know who? You know who Was a human ashtray Do big men? Do big men? Do big men really run the world? Oh, in my wildest dreams I hold you in my skinny, honest arms Do big men? Do big men? Do big men really run the world? Jesus, tell me Do big men really run the world?
4.
Yours truly despairs It wouldn't be fair If no one ever cared So I'm at your grave to declare A special kind of love Just me and you, shameless It's a simple thought for a simple god And the beautiful big dipper My, my My requiem for a golddigger It's a simple thought for a simple god And the beautiful big dipper My just revenge, my clever friend My requiem for a golddigger... Requiem for a golddigger Requiem for a golddigger La la la La la la La la la One less golddigger In the heavens you are finally one With the stars and the sun And I picture you dancing there With the moon burning in your hair Like the only jewel you couldn't steal The only love I ever thought was real My, my My requiem... Requiem for a golddigger Requiem for a golddigger My requiem for a golddigger My requiem for a golddigger La la la La la la La la la One less golddigger
5.
10 PM from the headlands, you get the view Breaking dawn on Black Sand Beach, you feel the naked truth Looking for the future, wading toward Japan Vanishing between the cresting swells, she says, "Give me back what's mine" Mermaid of Marin, you're the burning bridge at the back of my mind Mermaid of Marin, in the swallowing, swallowtail tide Signatures on seashells, souvenirs for shore Entangled in economy, she swims until she's sore Then up against the future, I reached out for her hand She declined. She says, "Give me back what's mine" Mermaid of Marin, you're the burning bridge at the back of my mind Mermaid of Marin, in the swallowing, swallowtail tide Mermaid, mermaid... Whispering, "Give me back what's mine" Whispering, "Give me back what's mine" You're the burning bridge at the back of my mind Mermaid of Marin, in the swallowing, swallowtail tide In the tide… In the tide… Whispering, "Give me back what's mine" From the headlands, you get the view From the headlands, you get the view
6.
Two shots of gin, I'm all lit up I guess I'll never know When enough is enough Cold sweats on a dark street A foreign city, a frozen night Think about mom, think about dad Well, I think I'm alright But the devil-ache of loneliness Seldom leaves the bones of the angry Leave me alone Thought I was a walking picture Beginning to happen Then I found myself stuck somewhere Between desperate and drastic And the devil-ache of loneliness Seldom leaves the bones of the angry Leave me alone BUT DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE O'Farrell and Hyde O'Farrell and Jones O'Farrell and I feel the whole of my life Come pounding in my bones Then late that night in the last available diner Entrusted conversation with a strange gay man He promptly stole my lighter Two shots of gin, I'm all lit up I guess I'll never know When enough is enough But, is it ever enough? Is it ever enough? Is it ever enough? And the devil-ache of loneliness Seldom leaves the bones of the angry Leave me alone BUT DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE But don't leave me alone But, is it ever enough? Is it ever enough? is it ever enough? Is it ever enough?

about

Myself a Living Torch was a perplexing San Francisco-based indie/alt rock band active from 1991 to 1993 featuring the Ohio-born songwriting talents of singer/lyricist Jeffrey Bright (previously of Dayton’s influential 1980’s jangle pop quartet, The Pleasures Pale) and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist, Eric Schulz (now Goner Records artist, Harlan T Bobo). Bassist Chris “Troy” Green and drummer Christopher Fisher rounded out the lineup. Green, also from Dayton, and now deceased, previously appeared there in avant-garde acts Dementia Precox and Mom. Oakland, California, native Fisher gained Bay Area recognition with early punk rockers Impatient Youth, in addition to West Coast fame as a teenage skateboarding sensation.

In early 1992, in a significant make-or-break gamble Bright tapped all available resources to finance a 24-track studio project aimed at besting previous MaLT recording projects and introducing the band's developing sound to the world. In spring of 1992, the band committed a set of highly produced and arranged songs to 2-inch tape. Self-released in September that year on CD and cassette, the 6-song Citizen Self EP was produced by Norman Kerner at Brilliant Studios in San Francisco. Brilliant was chosen for its uniquely live acoustics and compliment of vintage and modern recording gear. Kerner had recently achieved local renown producing well-received records for Sister Double Happiness and American Music Club, then two fast-rising stars on the West Coast indie scene.

The compositions on Citizen Self fuse several genres into a sound not easily categorized, and provide an effective platform for Bright’s darkly comic and often surreal lyrics. Throughout the six tracks, musings on the body politic, plots of existential abandon, and broader themes of philosophy and resistance are set against diverse instrumental settings — all to varying effect.

“Orson Welles,” the disc’s opener, weaves guest player Steve Cornell’s haunting pedal steel with Schulz’s gritty playing to underpin an intriguing, tragedy-tinged cultural reference. “Life Is Too Short but Death Is Forever” follows and inhabits the same island of melancholy and melodrama but arrives on a completely different sinking ship, one bobbing in more languid waters. Bright contemplates the inevitable, his own paralyzing inertia, and ends by dipping a toe in the era’s pressing social issues, all while a string quartet floods the view with a lush score written by Schulz and arranged and conducted by Linda Holland from San Francisco’s Conservatory of Music.

Citizen Self revolves around the record’s two most urgent, modern rock efforts, “Do Big Men Really Run the World?” and “Requiem for a Golddigger.” In the former, Bright posits a challenge — or at least yearns for an alternative — to toxic, macho-centric power structures and contemporary male roles in American culture. The song spins on Schulz’s buzzing, hyperdelic vibrato guitar sound and Fisher’s trippy beat. Notably, brief and contrasting voice samples lend an absurdist element — which continues merrily into the next cut. “Golddigger” is a curious track bursting with soaring, arena-quality guitar lines, an infectious rhythm figure — arguably the best work on the record from Green and Fisher — and, as if to spite the song’s commercial potential, a nonsensical, surrealist wordplay apparently describing fawning admiration for a less than scrupulous money chaser. Perhaps it’s all tongue-in-cheek sarcasm — an anti-rock anthem. Perhaps it’s a stab at those who blindly worship at the high altar of hypocrisy and commerce. Perhaps it’s both. Or something entirely different.

Through its last two tracks, the EP zigs and zags to a disquieting conclusion. At first blush, “Mermaid of Marin” and “Devil-Ache on O’Farrell” appear to be wildly divergent creatures. Closer inspection reveals them both as spawn of the same frightful monster mother. In late 1988, Bright, Schulz and Green all transplanted to San Francisco from Ohio, and manifestations of that cross-country, eye-opening leap drive the sub-currents of both songs. “Mermaid” is the awakening of an environmental consciousness — a wave-swelling satori at Marin’s Black Sand Beach, then an occasional hangout for the band. “Devil-Ache” conceives a protagonist, far from home, dislocated, alienated and adrift in the city’s seedy Tenderloin. In both, the geography of an alluring but frightening new landscape (physical and psychological) plays a prominent role. With its mellifluous miasma of guitars and textures, and its impressionistic lyrics, “Mermaid of Marin” may be the record’s glittering prize and crescendo. If so, the ocean-side bliss is short lived. As the set’s disconsolate closer, “Devil-Ache” yanks the whole enterprise back to grimy concrete in a psychotic swirl of pulsing, bluesy, urban rock.

In the final fade, appropriately and apocalyptically, Bright returns to the record’s overarching theme. Teetering on the abyss, he implores a darkening universe for deliverance from the curse of absolute awareness; from the existential dread of inevitable emptiness; from the devastating realization that Western Civilization, in all its machinations, and for all its glories, ultimately relies perversely on the insatiability and wanton nature of the self. “It’s never enough. It’s never complete. I need some greater stimulation.” On and on and on…

While Citizen Self, in its time, was likely too dense, too obstinately ponderous for commercial success — by a wide margin — it shouldn’t be ignored as a significant contribution to the San Francisco indie music scene of the early 1990’s — despite the band’s aversion to fitting neatly in that same scene. Today, over 25 years later, the record exists as a prescient, if overreaching, commentary on the state of the young adult American psyche in the waning years of the 20th Century, and the only crystalline rendering of the enigma that was Myself a Living Torch.

credits

released September 15, 1992

voice, guitar – jeffrey bright
guitars, organ, voice – eric schulz
bass guitar, string bass – chris troy green
drums, percussion – christopher fisher

pedal steel on tracks 1, 5 – steve cornell
additional voice on tracks 1, 3, 4, 6 – deborah borchers

strings on track 2
violin – anna presler
violin – sae shiragami
viola – charlton lee
cello – ellen d. sanders
bass viol – james wilhelmsen
arranged by eric schulz
adapted, scored and conducted by linda holland

produced by norman kerner
for brilliant studios
engineered by norman kerner & bryan zee
associate engineer – adam muñoz

tracks 1, 2, 5 mixed by norman kerner
tracks 3, 4, 6 mixed by adam muñoz

brilliant studios
san francisco, california
march-april 1992

cd mastering at the rocket lab
san francisco, california
by ken k lee jr
may 1992

photography – l n cavendar
design – david karam / g2dk
cover model – rodney o'neal austin

c&p/ 1992 Myself a Living Torch
p/ 2019 JABMA
Fugitive Music Publishing / BMI

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Myself a Living Torch San Francisco, California

By turns surreal, beautiful, arch, and melancholic, MaLT’s sonic adventures explore the meaning of love and role of sex in a failing, depersonalized culture. Literate enough for lasting relevance, tuneful enough for disposable pop; dark, sometimes heavy, but always with sly humor and a dash of hope. Active in SF CA between 1991 and 1993 ... Credit Louis-Ferdinand Céline for the incendiary name. ... more

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