Cliff's Return

Yes, Istrailtunes is back, my friends! And in a new format. Every 2 weeks on a Monday morning, I will tell the tale behind a song and provide a link so you can listen and download. Each Monday in between, you'll get my views on some music-related topic, such as stories of high school and college performances. And you are encouraged to post "comments" on this blog.This week's tune is the closer in the hiking trilogy.

First we had "Wrong Way in the Rain," then "Cactus," and now, "Cliff's Return."The first thing you should know about this tune is that part of the music was written by my high school buddy Zach Ireland. Zach played the song to me in draft form, and the lyrics depicted a surreal dream Zach had. The tune stuck in my mind, and during first year of college, I found my own lyrics for it. Zach recently tracked me down on Facebook, so Z, this one's for you!

True story. During a college hiking trip, we had set up in our cabin and found that a guy named Cliff had written in the cabin log. Late that night, he and some friends paid us a visit. To hear what happened, check out Track # 11:
http://amiestreet.com/music/lee-istrail/in-the-studio

My Parents

I am very into the Beatles, Dylan, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Louis Armstrong, and others, but my parents are really my biggest influence, both musically and otherwise. In this season of Thanksgiving, I am grateful for my parents' influence in many ways. To give you a flavor for the music side of this, recall the song "Your Mama Don't Dance (and Your Daddy Don't Rock 'n Roll)," originally recorded in 1972 by duo Loggins and Messina, and then covered by Poison in the 1980s. Well, my parents turn that one one its head; both my parents dance, and they both rock 'n roll!! They dance really well and they got my brother and I interested in ballroom dancing and piano lessons. My dad taught me guitar when I was 13. Plus, they introduced me to the Beatles, Dylan, Joan Baez, Queen, and others. For having cool parents, I am grateful.

To resume next week

This week I will take a break because I don't want to compete with the impending release of the new Guns 'n Roses album, "Chinese Democracy." Just kidding. I will be back with a new post one week from today, and then there will be a post every 2 weeks rather than every week. So, I hope you can defer your curiosity until next week.

Wrong Way in the Rain (aka Freshman Disorientation)

Here is the second installment of my hiking trilogy from "In the Studio." As part of freshman orientation in college, I went on a hiking trip with some classmates and our trip leader. We started out in jolly spirit trudging through the New Hampshire wilderness, but soon it started to rain and we realized that we had set out in the wrong direction Despite this setback, we recuperated and the trip was a lot of fun.

Here it is:
http://amiestreet.com/artist/88281

Cactus

In the summer before college, I was dating a girl I had met while working at Walmart. I was in the shoe department (cue Al Bundy jokes) and she was a cashier. This song is a stream-of-consciousness narrative based on a hike we took in the Sandia mountains.

It is part I of my "hiking trilogy" from "In the Studio":
http://amiestreet.com/music/lee-istrail/in-the-studio/.

Mellow

"Mellow" is a song from freshman year of college. During that year it seemed that several times, I met someone cool and then did not see them for a long time. One problem was that we didn't have common activities. A secondary problem was that, despite a mutual admiration, sometimes we just didn't have many common experiences, so ultimately the vibe wasn't there. Occasionally, this would change and I'd reconnect with them, but not that often.

This was one such story, of the non-reconnecting variety. Early on freshman year, I went to a dance with a girl who I thought I got along with pretty well, but then she simply disappeared. At the time, this was "inscrutable" to me, but eventually I remembered that there was no conversational repartee at the dance to speak of.

It's from the album "In the Studio." I laid this one down at my high school's recording studio, on a break from college. Yes, and produced it myself as well:
http://amiestreet.com/listen/song/shareListen/1210401/

Nostalgia

"Nostalgia" was originally written as a farewell song to friends from summer camp, at the point when we were going our separate ways off to college. I then reprised it when I changed high schools after 10th grade. Finally, when I recorded it during senior year of high school, it took on a new meaning in the four-song cycle. It represented the stage in which one looks fondly back on past unrequited love and with a shrug, chooses to emphasize the bright points. So now, the full cycle goes like so:

Song
1) A Picture of You: Love's first bloom
2) Amiss: It is not requited
3) Three Years Too Late: It may be requited, upon flimsy bases
4) Nostalgia: "Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all"

Here it is, from the album "In the Studio," featuring some neat sax fills from Ian Smolkin, and some overdubbed harmonic high voices towards the end which are purely creatures of the studio:
http://amiestreet.com/listen/song/shareListen/1210399/