January 2009
1 post
1 tag
Lion Belt
“Lion Belt” recorded May 2006 from the album The New Butters
John Crave steps up to the mic for some lazer rap on this stunner. It was inspired by a real belt that Crave once tried on in a mall. Although he didn’t buy it, the power it gave him was stored within his being for later use.
Features Crave on harmonica and Pragero on trombone as well as samples from Ed McMahon and “The...
December 2008
20 posts
2 tags
Pittsburgh Sons
“Pittsburgh Sons” recorded October 2002 from the album The Golden Rock
“Pittsburgh Sons (Power Apes version)” recorded July 2003 from the album Party Foul!
Larch joins Crave in the studio to lay haunting vocals on this thriller about the dark magic of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Features a newscaster sample from September 11th as well as Larch keeping rhythm with a handful of coins.
The Power...
2 tags
Deep Rising
“Deep Rising” recorded December 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
Crave and Larch had a revelation one evening. Water is the future. The substance itself IS not NOW… it is deep in the future. When you are swimming, you are not in the present moment because you are in the future.
Crave wanted other people to share in this revelation so he recorded a song that would explain it; a gospel...
1 tag
Devils And Astronauts
“Devils And Astronauts” recorded ? from the album The Golden Rock
A very golden acoustic number by Crave and Thkullmaster. Features a unique back and forth trading of vocal duties. Crave has said the inspiration for the title traces all the way back to being a small child staring at a toy block that had arrows pointing up and down painted on it. His mind figured it meant if you travelled...
2 tags
Secret Wars
“Secret Wars” recorded November 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
“Secret Wars (Power Apes version)” recorded July 2003 from the album Party Foul!
“Secret Wars” was an early Crave song featuring fatalist lyrics set to a cheezy 80’s sound. It references having bicycles stolen, something both him and Curt Battles experienced in the preceding years. But I’ve always...
1 tag
Nomads of Thunder
“Nomads of Thunder” recorded summer 2003 from the album Nomads of Thunder
John Crave and Gross Man were looking at small wooden Navajo doll (pictured above) one afternoon. From staring at it, the entire story described in the song unrolled in front of them. The lyrics clearly tell a tale of global rebirth that any listener can understand.
It was recorded in Queens with the songwriters as...
1 tag
Where's My Other Foot?
“Where’s My Other Foot?” recorded February 2002? from the album The Golden Rock
The origins of this musical oddity trace back to a poor soul in Rhode Island. He was an alcoholic who often wound up in the emergency room of a hospital where Crave’s friend Larch’s mother worked as a nurse. On one tragic visit he asked her where his other foot was before begging to be killed.
...
2 tags
Gold Buick
“Gold Buick” recorded May 2005 from the album The New Butters
John Crave’s R&B anthem was a tribute to R. Kelly that took on a life of it’s own. Only Crave could sing about Laguardia Airport, The New Jersey Turnpike, and public transportation and make it sound so sexxxy. He is the man who “pornifies the situation”, a lyric he recalls again from the earlier sex-anthem...
1 tag
East River Winds
“East River Winds” recorded September 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
One of the very first songs that John Crave recorded upon moving to Queens and beginning work on The Golden Rock album. He bought a Radio Shack microphone, pressed record and this song happened. It was a true story; there was a very unpleasant smell in the air of a Queens summer.
Martin Bainbridge was inspired by the...
1 tag
You're So Good 2 Me
“You’re So Good 2 Me” recorded January 2003 from the album Superbuildings
John Crave’s obsession with the Beach Boys continues with this robotic cover of the underrated 1965 B-side.
There is not much else to be said about it other than the fact that it ends with a brief piece of melody from another Beach Boys song of that era, “Good To My Baby”. This was originally...
2 tags
Hungry For Thirst
“Hungry For Thirst” recorded September 2002 from the album Hot
“Hungry For Thirst (Power Apes version)” recorded July 2003 from the album Party Foul!
A John Crave signature song… a collage of life itself for the man, “Hungry For Thirst” has anecdotes and experiences all pasted together with that digital glue that only he has a jar of.
Crave has been careful not to reveal...
1 tag
On The Breadline
“On The Breadline” recorded January 2002 from the album The Golden Rock
After 9/11, Larch stood up in a crowded room and performed an off-the-cuff rendition of a Al Jolson-esque ragtime number regarding the coming depression. John Crave thought it would make a good song.
He told Larch to flesh out all the lyrics and recorded him singing it. Next Crave cut up some songs from Louis...
Robots In Neckties
“Robots In Neckties” recorded January 1993 from the album Of Dogma and Discipline
The teenage John Crave and Curt Battles recorded this dystopic vision of the future on a dark snowy day. It describes a world of “androids who have no souls” going about their daily routine of commuting and work. It takes place in a sci-fi future… or does it?
The obvious and heavy-handed...
1 tag
Properly
“Properly” recorded 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
John Crave “pornifies the situation” with this rare slow jam for the ladies. What kind of woman desires sex with the soundtrack to the 1995 thriller “Congo” playing to set the mood? A John Crave groupie (like me) that’s who.
Features some samples from Japanese anime movies, female orgasms, Steely Dan drum...
1 tag
Jackie's In Trouble
“Jackie’s In Trouble” recorded August 2003 from the album Superbuildings
One summer day, John Crave was sent a trailer for a ridiculous low-budget indie movie called “Jackie’s In Trouble”. That evening he showed it to Sharffmaster and they decided to write a song based on the movie. From what little they had seen in the trailer, they were able to correctly predict what...
1 tag
Runaround Sue
“Runaround Sue” recorded 2004 ? from the album Superbuildings
A motorized cover of the classic Dion & The Belmonts oldie. John Crave grew up absorbing alot of late 1950’s vocal music as his father was an avid listener of doo-wop and WBCS fm radio.
See if you can find a sample from Chic’s “Le Freak”.
1 tag
Albuquerque New Mexico
“Albuquerque New Mexico” recorded January, 1996 Syracuse, NY
The first collaboration of John Crave and Scrapdog, the rap duo later to be known as Mammoth. Recorded in a college dorm room one night using a two-cassette stereo and a Radio Shack microphone. The rhymes were written quickly and rapped all in one continuous take over an instrumental by Massive Attack.
Clearly, John Crave...
1 tag
Placebo
“Placebo” recorded summer 1994 from the album Cobb
John Crave and his brother Curt Battles recorded this one on 4-track in their childhood home at ages 17 and 19. For such young songwriters it is impressively epic, with lyrics and music both cosmic and down to earth.
Crave has never fully explained what the song is about, but he once did say it dealt with “people’s parents”.
...
1 tag
Technotronic Rocket Society
“Technotronic Rocket Society” recorded March 2001 from the album The Lazer Quails
A thrashing rocker that kicks off The Lazer Quails only album in full force. John Crave wrote these lyrics about a well-known California eccentric by the name of Frank Chu who can be seen even today carrying homemade signs proclaiming the guilt of various galaxies around downtown San Francisco.
Lazer Quail...
1 tag
The Moscow Incident
“The Moscow Incident” recorded 2002 from the album The Golden Rock
This instrumental was inspired by a 25 second scene from Kurt Russell’s 1998 movie “Soldier”. It was a scene of intense violence that made a deep impression on John Crave.
1 tag
Indian Summer
“Indian Summer” recorded 2002 from the album The Golden Rock
By far the oldest song of any Crave has ever recorded. “Indian Summer” was written by Crave’s father Laszlo as an adolescent in late-1950’s, Kansas City. Laszlo composed it for a girl he had a crush on and then sent it to the Four Seasons. It was never recorded by the Four Seasons or any other group until Crave...
1 tag
Milky Babies
“Milky Babies” recorded May 2006 from the album The New Butters
A surprisingly fluid and breezy guitar number from John Crave. The first line of “Milky Babies” was stolen directly from the bridge of The Doors’ song “Tell All The People”. (Crave has long cited “The Soft Parade” as an influential album.) He found this idea of distant island populated by...
November 2008
20 posts
1 tag
Shark Of The World
“Shark Of The World” recorded May 2007 from the album The New Butters
One of Crave’s most recent songs at the time of this blogpost. The song title came from a mysterious scribble by a 3rd grade student. The boy wrote this phrase over a drawing of a shark and John Crave later interpolated it to be the unseen cosmic entity that “eats time and pushes all of us forward into the...
1 tag
Leap Into Windows
“Leap Into Windows” recorded 2003 from the album Superbuildings
A song that John Crave collaborated with Tomorrose on in Queens. It speaks cryptically of a morally ambivalent hero whose only weakness was a woman’s love. Tomorrose has said that it was inspired by the samurai films of Kurosawa.
This is one of a few Crave songs that features the sounds of a woman’s orgasm; an audio...
1 tag
Gummi God
“Gummi God (original 4-track)” recorded November, 2000 Albany, NY
“Gummi God” recorded August, 2005 Seattle, WA from the album The Flexible Dime
In 2000, Crave visited his old friend Scrapdog at his apartment in Albany, NY. The two wrote and recorded this strange tune which the lyrics proclaim “the greatest song ever written”. It was recorded bouncing layers back and forth on a...
Jonathon Livingston
“Jonathon Livingston” recorded Fall, 1991 from the album Sometimes Y, Sometimes Chico
This song is from deeeeeep within the vaults. A sparsely beautiful composition featuring a 14 year-old John Crave and a 16 year-old Curt Battles. Recorded after school in Battles’ childhood bedroom. It’s about the seagull of the eponymous book, which Crave had to read for English class.
1 tag
Down By The Lazer River
“Down By The Lazer River” recorded October 2003 from the album Superbuildings
On his third album, Superbuildings, we find Crave recording his own versions of oldies hits. He brings his unique futuristic flavor to each of them. “Down By The Lazy River” by the Osmonds gets reduced to a grid-like thump drenched with lazers (hence the title change).
If you listen carefully you will...
2 tags
Fire Escape
“Fire Escape (original)” recorded July 2002 from the album Hot
“Fire Escape (Power Apes version)” recorded July 2003 from the album Party Foul!
Originally inspired by listening to Bruce Springsteen’s “The Young, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle” on a hot July day, this is Crave’s anthem to Queens. It tells of a tragic pair of lovers trying make a break from...
1 tag
Essence
“Essence” recorded November 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
This song is a rare and honest look back at John Crave’s childhood. It was written and recorded one evening with his actual boyhood friend Ma The. References to such 80’s memories as “Duck Takes”, Hawaiian Punch, Nintendo’s Contra, and Matchbox Cars speak to every member of Crave’s generation.
Old Hazard Row
“Old Hazard Row” recorded July 2003 from the album Party Foul!
This rocker is generally considered to be the highlight of live shows by the Power Apes, the band which John Crave served as lead singer of from 2002-2003. It was penned by Crave and drummer Christian Dahm and it describes the true story of getting chased by police in rural Indiana nearly a decade earlier.
The name of the song and...
The Mother Lung
“The Mother Lung” recorded September 2002 (?) from the album Hot
This is John Crave’s song about death. It explains a view of life, mortality, and the afterlife that may or may not be what Crave really believes. Theologists might say it’s a Buddhist point of view with touches of a MonoDeistic Cosmo-Monarchy.
Curt Battles plays guitar. Features dialogue samples of Frank...
Adam Kovacs
“Adam Kovacs” recorded August 2004 from the album Superbuildings
To explain what this song is about would be redundant, as the lyrics tell the story is in such detail. Much of it is true, based on a man Crave met. The rest is what Crave imagined to be true.
Despite it’s organic sound, this song was recorded in many different parts. Drums - by Endicott. Sydney, NY Bass - by Endicott....
Umm... We Saw F-15's
“Umm… We Saw F-15’s” recorded October 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
The quote which inspired this song’s title was muttered by Crave’s friend Snake the day after the World Trade Center attacks on September 11th. A month later, Crave improvised the song while Quacatron strummed a guitar. It’s a child-like wish for peace during a time when America was in a time...
Fast Angels
“Fast Angels” recorded November 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
John Crave wrote this song about a very strange memory from his childhood.
Friends To The End
“Friends To The End” recorded December 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
Crave wrote this tender song upon hearing stories from his friend’s childhood. The first section is based on a mother’s punishment for two fighting brothers. The instrumental second section is about a childhood crush. Features some drumming by Christian Dahm of the Power Apes.
Romford 1592
“Romford 1592” recorded fall 2002 from the album Hot
More autobiographical than any other song, “Romford 1592” tells of John Crave’s previous life in 16th Century England. At that time, he was much like he is today: a strange lad who is just having fun. But at the time his unique ways led him to being mistaken for a warlock. As a result he was executed at the Essex Witch...
Everybody Just Cool Out
“Everybody Just Cool Out” recorded December 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
A strange sound experimental by John Crave and notable humorist Ass Blacker (pictured above). There is a story somewhere in here. You just have to put it together.
Exclusive: Interview with John Crave
The following John Crave interview was conducted by Sandhay Raman for the “Oberlin Grape” newspaper of Oberlin University. She followed it up by interviewing Dan Meth who created an animated video for Crave’s song “Watermelon Nights”. -Carly
Watermelon Nights: Interviews with John Crave and Dan Meth June 11, 2008
Hi John. How are you?
Good. I’m good.
Alright. I...
The Seculon Wang Saga
“The Seculon” recorded November 2001 from the album The Golden Rock “The Seculon Wang Saga” recorded April 2002 from the EP The Seculon Wang Saga
A man who worked at the New York Public Library told John Crave of an ancient book called the Seculon. Crave looked deeper into this mysterious artifact and discovered a secret cult of high-ranking leaders who worshiped it’s...
The Ballad of Bruce Cocaine
“The Ballad of Bruce Cocaine” recorded December 2003 from the album Superbuildings
This is the story of Bruce Cocaine. There’s not much explaining to be done for this song. It’s all in the lyrics.
Recorded by Crave and Khullmaster in Queens one night.
Death House California
“Death House” recorded September 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
“Death House California” recorded December 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
Once in California, John Crave passed by a house that emitted waves of evil vibrations. Months later in Queens, NY he rigged up a recording device and improvised a song without writing the lyrics out first. That recording is “Death...
October 2008
19 posts
Ghost Radar
“Ghost Radar” recorded November 2001 ? from the album The Golden Rock
This mantra was inspired by a nocturnal bike ride through a cemetery that Crave once took. He mentally conceived of a device that would pinpoint the exact location of ghosts. A ghost radar.
Gold Mine
“Gold Mine” recorded March 2001 from the album The Lazer Quails
A touching acoustic number from the California band that John Crave once was a member of. Crave sings a hopeful first first, followed by a defeated second verse by Tommorose. And then an instrumental third bridge that seems to long for hope again.
The “symbol made of light” that Crave sings of is what the picture above...
Pyramid Scheme
“Pyramid Scheme” recorded July 2003 ? from the album Superbuildings
A thrasher from John Crave’s third album. Features some drums and production by Quacatron and metal guitar touches by Curt Battles.
Carbon
“Carbon” recorded October 2002 from the album Hot
“Carbon” is a song about science and how it’s all around us. John Crave became fascinated in how things break down to surprisingly basic ingredients when closely examined.
Cars are made from steel which is made the earth’s rocks. It’s windows are made from glass which is from sand. And its fueled by oil, which was...
The Answer Is Fuck
“The Answer Is Fuck” recorded September 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
This early John Crave song was the kick-off track on his first solo album, “The Golden Rock”. It features guest vocalist Bratty McGee delivering some powerful diva-like singing. Also sitting in is Corrupto, helping Crave to echo the verses in sniveling falsetto.
The lyrics about a man having sex with a...
The Battle For Kelv
“The Battle For Kelv” recorded December 2006 from the album The New Butters
It’s rare that John Crave creates an instrumental song; when he does it is sure to sound too powerful for lyrics. “The Battle For Kelv” is beyond powerful. It’s truly epic.
This song is a soundtrack for the ancient battles that raged over centuries in the Eastern European nation Kelv. John...
Johnny Don't Be Strident
“Johnny Don’t Be Strident” recorded November 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
This is an unusual song by Crave, since it is sung through the character of someone talking TO Crave. Supposedly inspired by an actual phone argument, it’s lyrics were improvised on-the-spot as Crave’s friend Quacatron strummed guitar.
1 tag
Octapoc
“Octapoc” recorded May 2006 from the album Octapoc
John Crave teamed up with longtime rap partner Nosotros and spent 5 days in the studio building this Lovecraft-ian tale about the end of the world. It’s an epic horror about man battling the denizens of our ocean’s dark depths, (which came out years before “Cloverfield”)
When working together, Crave and Nosotros are...
Beach Boys TV Movie
“Beach Boys TV Movie” recorded October 2001 from the album The Golden Rock
This is John Crave’s bittersweet song about California, from where he had recently returned to NYC at the time of writing these lyrics. The Beach Boy TV movies may represent an idealized fantasy about what people imagine life on the West Coast to be like. Or it may be simply be about the two actual TV movies that...