Sabers

“Sic Semper Sabers” was a quote the legendary Van Dyke Parks gave me. I ran a music and film festival for nearly a decade and brought him in for a performance and interview. I told him about this new band Sabers I was fronting, and ever the gentleman, he threw me that bone. Most of the vocals and instruments (including my only recorded drums on Ever Eyeing) were written and recorded by me over many years and at different studios finally completed with my man Mark Mouse Brunner’s at Reel Sounds in Skokie. Lots of collaborators hovered around this project which took about 7 years to finally get released…too long! I put a live band together with friends Shane Schroeder on lead electric guitar, Dave Max Crawford on keys, Colby Starck on drums and vocals, and Ed Anderson on bass and vocals.  So fun.

In 1999, I was dropping a lot of my previous self in search of something new and inspiring; some novel direction. It was an unsettling time. I moved into a 3rd story loft on the west side of Chicago that’s now a Salvage 1 store with a crazy builder/fabricator and his mostly with it actor-girlfriend. We had 3000 sq ft of raw loft space 2 miles from the Loop, and built an indoor shanty town with the existing metal studs and drywall. It was thrilling. Lots of artists, weirdos, motorcycle racers, and escapees were hiding out here, making a community of sorts. We had some good parties. Rent was hardly anything, so I spend a lot of time making stuff. It was here that I built up the idea that I was an artist and that was that.

This record cover was is film still from some movie that I don’t know and made into a picture, mounted to fiberboard, and left in the bathroom of the loft. Besides the immensity and possibly of the space, this was the thing that sold me on living there, and I still have it to this day. I vividly remember my first visit with the landlord, and turning the corner of the bathroom was this picture leaning on the toilet tank. I love the grotesquery and beauty all smooshed together into a fight. This exemplified a lot of what was clanking around in my head at that time of real searching and transition in my life. Probably still clanking (tho a little quieter). Sabers came 14 years down the road, but I knew what the cover would be right away.

Design and layout by Ed Anderson / Sanzimat