Yellow Kitchen memoir
When someone asks me what my favorite album is that I've ever made, which has happened to me hundreds of times, it's the most awkward question that I get asked. It's like asking a dad who his favorite child is. I tend to formulate my answer based on a funny interaction I had with a friend.
He said, "Play the song about Caroline!" I asked, "Which one?"
He then said, "Play the song about Lake Tahoe." I asked, "Which one?"
He then said, "Play the song about John Fante."
I said, "You smart-ass. Thank you for pointing out my constantly repeated themes."
So now when asked what my favorite album is, I reply, "The one with the songs about Caroline," or "The one with the songs about City Lights Bookstore," or "The one with the songs about Aquatic Park."
Now, I present: My opinion, of my favorite album, of mine, by me! Only it's by me and another guy, named Sean Yeaton.
The album is called Yellow Kitchen.
I met Sean at a muddy festival in Holland, in 2015. He was playing bass with Parquet Courts and I was with Sun Kil Moon. They went on after us. Hip Brooklyn dudes. A few albums out, maybe — I'm not sure. Steve Shelley and I (a couple of middle-aged guys) watched from the sidelines, my worst nightmare happening right before my eyes. Young hipsters stealing the night-time spot from the old.
It wasn't long after when a publicist at Rough Trade Records introduced Sean and I. Sean was interested in the two of us doing a song together for an album he was going to write and record the music for, an album that had multiple singers lined up, including Kurt Vile. I said sure.
It was December 23, 2016 when I got together with engineer Charlie Beutter in San Francisco. Charlie loaded up the music that Sean had sent. It was the most unusual, spooky piece of music that I'd ever heard. Time signature changes. Mechanicals sounds. Long, sustained piano notes. It was as if Ravel was playing on the radio at an auto-repair shop. It made me think of Vincent Price's Ghost Stories, a show I watched growing up in the 1970s. The music was so musical, and unorthodox, that it was an outside-the-box singer's gold mine. This wasn't going to be a hit; this would be better. It would be the closest thing to a Frank Zappa arrangement that I'd ever been asked to add vocals on. During that period of his life, Sean Yeaton was to music what William Faulkner was to writing. Sean followed absolutely no traditional patterns of how music is supposed to be made, and it worked.
With no words written, Charlie and I went for it, splicing up the music, which included strange metronome and clock sounds. My words were about time travel, taken from memories of a recent trip to China. The song was about the buildup to the Clinton/Trump election. The song is about everything going on in my mind, all at once, while in the sky looking at a travel map. The song is about the San Francisco I once knew, that was rapidly being reshaped by the tech industry. The song is called "Time to Destination" and it was over six minutes long. I did all of the voices, except for a line performed by Holly Throsby. The words weave in and out between the nuances of spoken word, and dissonant harmonies. If anyone wants to hear the best range of my voice, and what I'm capable of, rhythmically, lyrically, range-wise, and otherwise — Yellow Kitchen is the album. Like in many of my songs, Katy ended up being referenced in "Time to Destination."
The beautiful old church down the street on the corner has been demolished and is now Google tech headquarters, and I can no longer buy CDs at Borders; if there's music I'm interested in my girlfriend has to order it from Amazon off the god-damn-internet, and that transaction now makes it into my songs, and I know it’s pathetic, but I'm just callin’ it, as that is what it is; down the toilet went this music business. People say “Mark, why don't you play Katy Song?” “Because she passed away, people, and I don't sing that one to cell phones.” Katy used to sarcastically call me Dark Mark. She had a great sense of humor and she had lust for life, a spark, and she would have supported my every creative decision; she understood growth and art and she understood me as a musician.
Sean was so happy with what he heard that he sent me more tracks to work on. "No Christmas Like This" sounds like an orchestra of woodwind instruments and bells that you'd hear in Christmas cartoons. The words begin with me on a sofa by the fire, looking at sparkling lights on a Christmas Tree and the golden glow of a brass lock doorknob. I love when Sean breaks from ambient to the boogie-woogie, Beach Boys style, guitar riff chorus section, where Steve Shelley added drums, and I give a shout-out to Sam Wo's restaurant in Chinatown and various other places I've had meals during Christmas. "No Christmas Like This" is as croony as I've ever gotten, as a singer. The choruses are as Lou Reed as I've ever gotten with regard to the half sung/half spoken-word style. The words below capture the Christmas Eve that Caroline and I spent together in 2016:
"It’s Christmas Eve and the world is quiet. You cooked a turkey and whole house smells good. I hear the cat nibblin’ her dry food; I hear her claws tap the hardwood; and I'm readin’ a Wilco Johnson biography. A gift from Ireland that I just opened. Ain't nothin' in the world that gets you thinkin’ like Christmas Eve, babe, yeah like Christmas Eve. I reflect on my youth, all the way back to the beginning; this birthday comin’ was not part of my young dream but at the same time, I'm wise enough to count my blessings."
"I'm Still In Love With You" is a love song to Caroline, written about a birthday of hers that we spent in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. I performed all of the horns and percussion that you hear, all with my voice. The song starts with a cool, ascending, electric guitar riff, while my voice follows every note:
"It's quiet this morning here in New Orleans. The walls are painted off white and Grey Poupon. It’s the season of Mardi Gras. At nighttime guys walkin’ ‘round lookin’ like Lil' Wayne. Floats are going by and they're throwin’ out beads. The kids love it; it's a nice time for many folks, but myself I don't like the noise all too much"
The mid-section has the looseness of Neil Young's Tonight's The Night, with a muted guitar strum and the lazy, repeated chorus:
"Everybody Everybody Everybody Everybody Everybody Everybody's on St. Charles, havin' fun."
The song ends with a panicky upscale guitar riff, where again my words are pretty much landing on every note, completing the birthday song where I tell Caroline that I'm still in love with her:
"How wonderful it was to spend her birthday-day with her. Of all things, the movie Papillon came on at 9 p.m., or around there. It was on the movie channel or TMC. The guy set it up by talkin’ about some behind the scenes trivia that I didn't know about — didn't know that Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman didn't get along during the making of the film. Ah, the magic that can happen when talented people who don't get along very well work together. She was blown away by the movie — just like I was when I was a kid. The last words Steve McQueen said before the movie ended at 11:59 pm were “Hey, you bastards, I’m still here.” Yes, I've sang about this movie before and, as life goes, things reappear. But wouldn't you know, I'm still here and so is she, and we woke up today and the sun is shining, and the parade doesn't start until 6:30 pm, and it’s beautiful outside and the view looks over The Garden District. and after all this time I'm still in love with you and after all this time l'm still in love with you and after all this time I'm still in love with you. I look at The Garden District view, and I'm still in love with you."
"The Reasons I Love You" is another love song to Caroline. The percussion is a click track that I find charming, and a guitar riff that reminds me of REO Speedwagon. I couldn't help but turn it into a love song. The guitar vamps the same riff over and over and I whimsically rattle off ten reasons why I love Caroline, but if you read close, it's actually nineteen reasons:
The reason I love you, number one, is because your face lights my day up like the sun and because we both love our cats like they’re our daughters and our sons that's the reason I love you, number one.
The reason I love you, number two, is because of how you comforted me when they kicked me out of the zoo for showin’ my nipples to the monkeys and the baboons; that's the reason I love you, number two.
The reason I love you, number three, is because we both like to take walks in The Marina — and because we also both love Molinari's deli — that's the reason I love you, number three.
The reason I love you, number four, is because you're lady-like and sweet and totally adorable and we both like to take care of our hardwood floors that's the reason I love you, number four.
The reason I love you, number five, is because you're honest with me —you don't speak no jive — and we both like the same songs off Peter Frampton Comes Alive; that's the reason I love you, number five.
The reason I love you, number six, is because you're a wonderful lover and your body fits so perfectly with mine and we both love the same HBO series and documentaries on Netflix: that's why I love you reason number six.
The reason I love you, number seven, is because you bring me bottled water and yoghurts and bananas from the 7/11 and $4.99 DVDs like Sleepers starring Kevin Bacon, that's the reason I love you, number seven.
The reason I love you, number eight, is because we rarely, rarely fight and we get along great — and you're prettier to me than Raquel Welch or Sharon Tate — and that's the reason I love you, number eight.
The reason I love you, number nine, is because you've got a beautiful name, Caroline, and my god you are so, so, so, so, so fine. And that's the reason I love you, number nine.
The reason I love you, number ten, is because in addition to being my girlfriend you're also my best friend and I can see us together long after the end and that's the reason I love you, number ten.
"Somebody's Favorite Song" has the most melancholic, lulling keyboard playing. This kind of loveliness called for tender singing. Thematically, the words are much like the rest of the album, which finds me grappling with turning fifty. The music switches from a sparse, hypnotic keyboard riff to a playful, Beatles-type guitar riff. I loved working within all of the contrasts of what Sean was sending. Everything I sang was a reaction to what he was playing, sometimes down to themes or words I selected. This verse captures my mid-life crisis at the time:
"Then I walked to a health store to get some vitamin D. The girl workin’ there said “Why do you need this?” I said “Because I just turned fifty and I got a vitamin D deficiency,” she cringed and said “Fifty, ah that sucks, I'm sorry.” I said it could be worse then I said “What are you, twenty?” she said “Exactly,” she said, “Good guess” and I said “So was the nurse who prepped me for my very, very, very, very recent colonoscopy.” She said “Ah, gross, you're right, pal. Life could be worse.”
"Daffodils" is one of those songs that is as literate as it gets. I went to an open mic night, in a small town, with the flu, and wasn't in the greatest mood. But I was inspired by a young man's short set. He sang goth-style, to dark, ethereal playback. I walked up to the guy, to tell him how great he was, and he didn't even look at me. I know talent when I see it. The guy had 'it' but I could tell that he had no interest in turning his music over to the business of music.
I went to bed after that show, with a cough that kept me up all night. I was also in a cold war with one of my closest friends over some petty disagreement, which set the tone of the lyrics that range from memories of the open mic performances to a winter spent in Mendocino, 1993. The song starts with sparse, gentle keyboard playing, and builds into harder-hitting riffs that remind me of slow Black Sabbath. The entrance of Jim White's drums cause the song to swing in a Bill Bruford type of way, making the feel even more Black Sabbath-like. The music becomes more suspenseful as it goes along, and finds me in a delirious, sleep-deprived state walking through a graveyard, "More uphill, and more and more uphill." I even imitated the cough I had at the time, and dogs that I heard barking outside. When the song finds me talking with a repairman the next morning, who told me about losing his sister to an amputation procedure "just before Christmas," things couldn't get worse.
The tension finally breaks, and the floor drops out, like The Demon Drop at Cedar Point Amusement Park, when Sean's music goes from intense 4/4 to timeless ambient sounds, with the humming of helicopter propellers in the background. At that moment, I made peace with my friend. What I spoke over that piece of music reminds me of Martin Sheen's narration in Apocalypse Now: "It's a new day now; weeks have passed. A photo of daffodils. Ah, this is a nice surprise, this comforts me, daffodils. She sent a photo of daffodils and said they came and went fast. I told her about mine and how lucky I felt to be able to see them this year rising up. We lost track for a bit, her and I. I was in the dumps for many days and nights and I know she was too and that she was crying, because I was told about a message she left on someone's phone. I tried patching things up by sending a photo of orange California poppies; those are her favorite, but our waves at that time were still choppy. She sent a black and white, of a train in Navarre but I acted like I didn't care and I didn't respond. The hurt still lingers, but slightly less each day — I lost part of her to an illness along the way — but with each night that passes, I'm trying to make sense of it. To make peace with it and to find a way to cope. It's Saturday morning late April. The view is serene and holding on to bad feelings feels inappropriate in its glory. The water is light blue at the bottom and military-tan on top; there's a light breeze in the air as I poke my head out the window. Today I feel myself healing encompassed by this beautiful view of the water and green hills. And looking at a photo you sent: a bouquet of daffodils."
Yellow Kitchen is titled after a study that I'd heard about that took place in the 1950s or 1960s, where statistics showed that couples with kitchens painted yellow argued more than those with kitchens of other colors. A few of the engineers who worked on the record said that the vibe of the music was sometimes "tense." A title landed in my lap, as they always do.
Six songs into it, I got an email from Sean saying that his manager had concerns about him releasing the album, due to contractual obligations with Parquet Courts. I contacted Geoff Travis of Rough Trade, told him how much I invested in the album, and he said, "Release it. We're not stopping you." So with that, I released the album. At six songs, the album ended up being full-length at 42:11."Daffodils" went on to be a strong opener for several Sun Kil Moon shows.
In 2018, Sean and I met up on tour. Steve Shelley and I were in Long Beach with Sun Kil Moon, playing before Parquet Courts, again. This time, they stood on the side and watched as we played "Daffodils" which I dedicated to Sean. Singer Austin Brown complimented me after the show, saying I had "a good command of the crowd" and that was nice to hear. Ten minutes after our set, the stage turned around and Parquet Courts were next. They sounded so tight and polished that I thought it was pre-recorded intermission music. I watched for a while and they sounded great.
For the cover, I took photos of various yellows wherever I went with a disposable camera. With about thirty options of yellow, I ended up using a yellow photo that I got from a vintage laundry detergent metal bucket, that had blue text. The blue font on the cover, is also taken from the same bucket.
If I had to sum up the music that Sean sent me during that period between late 2016 and spring of 2017, I'd describe it as somewhere between Maurice Ravel and Jimmy Page. Sean's the guy in Parquet Courts, playing bass and doing backing vocals. But there is more to him than that. I didn't know there was, until he sent me this music.
I believe that Yellow Kitchen is a great work of art. Like a Vincent van Gogh, it might just take a hundred years or so, for people to figure it out.