So We Open

From now until we release the album Saturday, January 7, 2012 at Cafe Du Nord we'll be posting the songs from Shady Maples' debut record, Unfold, along with my commentary about where each song came from.

Peters and I chose to open the album with Tectonic Plates, a spacey mellow groove that I wrote when I was still living in Brooklyn and contemplating a move back home across the country to the Bay Area. The mountain, ocean wave, cloud, and star gazing imagery are both my recollection and anticipation of the west coast. I have a memory around the time that I wrote the song of driving from SFO toward the Bay Bridge when I was home for a visit and saying out loud on the elevated connection between 101 and 280, "shaky ground be still." It was before the 2011 earthquake on the east coast, back when you had faith in the stability of North American Plate in that part of the world.

I played Tectonic Plates on a few gigs with my band in New York but it didn't get its legs until Peters lay his lap steel on top of my guitar riff and brought the ebb and flow that gives the song its motion. We played it in our Doghouse Brewer days on the road as a duo and nailed down the interaction between our guitars. Trent, Dennis and Bill filled it in with tasteful drums, bass and piano parts.

So we open the record and ease in.

-Owen