may 2025: song graveyard
Hi ,
One constant in my life has been writing songs. It started with making up little tunes on the piano when I was a kid and then I found magic as a teenager creating songs with other people and kept at it.
Probably for every song that’s made it out into the world, there are five other songs that are like lost doodles — ideas that maybe never picked up steam or were one-offs or came and went with past projects.
For fun, here are three of them:
“Death and Destruction” by deerwolfbear (2010)
Before I moved to Chicago, I lived in Tempe, Arizona, for two years. The week I moved to town, I joined a band called the Tremulants and met my dear friend Marco. Marco became one of my favorite guitar players I’ve ever jammed with. He was very creative and adept at his craft and super encouraging of me whenever I came in with ideas.
This was around the time I started writing and singing my own songs for the first time. Marco was all about it, and we would drive around in his van singing vocal warmups before practice. I didn’t think I could ever sing lead in a band, but Marco was the first person to help me believe that I could.
So we formed deerwolfbear, a band name making fun of all the other animal band names popular at the time, and my proudest moment was performing on a bill we shared with Love Pentagon at the Bunkhouse in Las Vegas.
A stranger happen to record and post most of our set online. I cringe a little watching my performance, but I love seeing us play and knowing what that younger version of me went on to do.
Marco passed away in 2012 from non-Hodgkin lymphoma and I miss him. I have two Dan Electro guitar pedals that he gifted me when I moved to Chicago that I still use now.
“Hold the Phone” (2012)
I started doing quick sketches in GarageBand and wrote this 30-second song playing around with layered vocals and ukulele. The lyrics came from when I was single and hated all the dumb games people would play while dating.
“Pamela” by Me Jane (2014)
This was the last song we wrote before Me Jane broke up, but I’m glad we got to record it when Chicago Singles Club tapped us for one of their monthly features. I don’t think we ever played it live.
The song started with Katie singing “panhandle-lah, pan-pan-handle-lah” while either fundraising in the parking lot of the high school she taught at, or while riding the bus watching someone panhandle. I don’t totally remember. But she came in with these guitar chords and I pushed myself to write something funky on bass. Then we came up with an outro where I got to turn on every pedal I had and hit my bass with my fist. It’s a great song and I wish we got to play it more.
Next Ovef Ow show is June 13 at the Hideout with our buddies 8-bit crEEps (album release) and Chicken Happen! Love a show with friends.
Have you watched both seasons of Severance? Can we please discuss? (Just literally finished watching it last weekend, so it’s very fresh in my mind. 🤯)
More feminist speculative science fiction! I’m listening to the audiobook of I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. I’m in the first third of it where it’s still world building, but it’s strange and creepy and I’m into it so far.
May 23: Tennis at Salt Shed (Final tour! I lost track of them a few albums back, but I’ve always loved Cape Dory and their sailing story.)
June 8: Bloc Party, Blonde Redhead at Salt Shed (Anniversary tour for Silent Alarm, but I’m more excited to see Blonde Redhead again.)
June 18: Colleen Green at Beat Kitchen (Doing a 10th anniversary tour of I Want To Grow Up… I hope she finally plays “Deeper Than Love” live!)
When Ovef Ow was recording one of our early EPs with Doug at JAMDEK and trying to nail down the bass tone on a track, he pulled out this album as a point of reference and I’ve always liked it. I happened to find a good used copy on vinyl when I walked by Record Breakers a couple of weekends ago.
