No Bikini
'No Bikini' is a kind of natural follow-up to 'White Bikini,' but it does have a story behind it.
Back in 2019, my wife and I were in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, rafting down the San Juan River. A month previously, the San Juan had been in full flood and someone had actually drowned while rafting it. However, by August, the water was low and rafting the river was strenuous. We were forever having to get up off our rafts and maneuver them around the rocks. Anyway, in front of a large crowd, Kathleen managed to let her bikini bottom slip down her legs. To hear her tell it, it came off completely, but I doubt that. I didn't catch the incident as I was snagged on a rock at the time, but I did hear the laughter.
So that's the story behind the title and the cover art is my crude version of Kathleen, c. 2008.
But albums move on as you write them and the major theme of this album has morphed into being about facing the world naked, just as we are. The painting of a woman at ease in water is based on Kathleen also, accompanied by her two favorite fish, a salmon and a halibut. This contrasts with the painting of a woman feeling naked at work as she comes under scrutiny for everything she is and everything she does. The two other smaller paintings show a white man summoning up rather ridiculous fears - those of bring attacked by a hippo or being eaten alive by piranhas, while the non-white guy struggles to get into the water at all because of all the rocks impeding his progress.
The paintings accompanying this album can be found here.
Back in 2019, my wife and I were in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, rafting down the San Juan River. A month previously, the San Juan had been in full flood and someone had actually drowned while rafting it. However, by August, the water was low and rafting the river was strenuous. We were forever having to get up off our rafts and maneuver them around the rocks. Anyway, in front of a large crowd, Kathleen managed to let her bikini bottom slip down her legs. To hear her tell it, it came off completely, but I doubt that. I didn't catch the incident as I was snagged on a rock at the time, but I did hear the laughter.
So that's the story behind the title and the cover art is my crude version of Kathleen, c. 2008.
But albums move on as you write them and the major theme of this album has morphed into being about facing the world naked, just as we are. The painting of a woman at ease in water is based on Kathleen also, accompanied by her two favorite fish, a salmon and a halibut. This contrasts with the painting of a woman feeling naked at work as she comes under scrutiny for everything she is and everything she does. The two other smaller paintings show a white man summoning up rather ridiculous fears - those of bring attacked by a hippo or being eaten alive by piranhas, while the non-white guy struggles to get into the water at all because of all the rocks impeding his progress.
The paintings accompanying this album can be found here.
01 Backstroke
One of our favorite places to swim is Radium Springs, ten miles north of Las Cruces, New Mexico. The Rio Grande there is fast and shallow - no more than four feet deep. You get in at the top of the park and the river flows you down to the bottom of the park, without the need to swim at all. Or perhaps you can throw in a leisurely backstroke ...
02 Evensong
When I was twelve years old, I attended a Harvest Festival Evensong. I was a choirboy at the time. The church was decorated with the fruits of the harvest and lit only by candles. I felt very much in the presence of God at that moment.
If a harvest fails in the Western world nowadays, there won't be mass starvation, but in other parts of the world, and in the past, there is and was (ask the Irish). So, when a congregation thanked God for His beneficence, it really meant it. A good harvest meant you lived to see the next year.
I have moved the story east toward Siberia in this song so that the villagers dancing in the fall to celebrate a successful harvest could be the same ones who are dancing with polar bears in the next song.
If a harvest fails in the Western world nowadays, there won't be mass starvation, but in other parts of the world, and in the past, there is and was (ask the Irish). So, when a congregation thanked God for His beneficence, it really meant it. A good harvest meant you lived to see the next year.
I have moved the story east toward Siberia in this song so that the villagers dancing in the fall to celebrate a successful harvest could be the same ones who are dancing with polar bears in the next song.
03 Polar bears dancing
With the shrinking of the Arctic ice cap, polar bears are being forced into villages in Siberia, where I envisage them joining in the dancing, maybe to celebrate the harvest. I was going to give the song a rousing ending, but decided instead to depict a lone polar bear dancing on a chunk of split-off ice, not knowing where it might lead.
04 I'm with you, Mr. Hughes
When I started writing this, Kathleen was reading about the British poet Ted Hughes and the American poet Sylvia Plath who both, in their own ways, struggled to get their compelling thoughts out into the world, laying themselves bare, so to speak, for their art.
05 Summer
The centerfold painting is of two naked women lying on a beach. They may or may not be in a relationship. Either way, with all the mistreatment of women about, it's a brave thing to do. Two children, one black, one white, play side-by-side. A racoon rides an alligator, as the alligator is preoccupied with chasing two flying fish.
So the piece is about daring and risk.
So the piece is about daring and risk.
06 No Bikini
Well, you already know the story ... both stories. The one about finding yourself suddenly naked and the other about facing the world naked while trying to survive. And Kathleen did once water ski around Big Lake in Alaska naked for a bet.
07 Working in the fields
... sweating, under a hot sun, stripped to the waste, and probably wishing you were naked except for the flies, the chemicals, and stinging or stabbing plants.
08 The long, slow ascent
The struggle, forever the struggle ...
Instruments used during the recording of ‘NO bikini’
Balalaika - unbranded
BG Guitars Viper
Epiphone Les Paul Custom Shop Special
ESP Ouija (Kirk Hammett signature) – most of the songs were originated on this as it was the only instrument I traveled with
Fender Stratocaster (Mexican-built)
Gretsch Streamliner
Ibanez Gio
Ibanez RG
H. Jimenez Quinto acoustic/electric
Rogue mandolin
Savannah acoustic
Washburn Lyon
Bass:
Sterling SUB
Keyboards:
Yamaha P-115
Medeli SP4200
BG Guitars Viper
Epiphone Les Paul Custom Shop Special
ESP Ouija (Kirk Hammett signature) – most of the songs were originated on this as it was the only instrument I traveled with
Fender Stratocaster (Mexican-built)
Gretsch Streamliner
Ibanez Gio
Ibanez RG
H. Jimenez Quinto acoustic/electric
Rogue mandolin
Savannah acoustic
Washburn Lyon
Bass:
Sterling SUB
Keyboards:
Yamaha P-115
Medeli SP4200