Behind “Six Lives”
Something I love most about interviewing other artists with my cohost melodywhore on Situation 47 is hearing them tell their stories, reaching back to experiences sometimes from their childhood. The details we remember, how we remember them, and how we sometimes as artists weave them into the stories we tell through our craft has always fascinated me.
Having worked with Dogtablet several times prior, I was thrilled to do so again on “Six Lives”. The project sounded intriguing – both the concept of the featured vocalists all having a story to tell, and being able to tell mine. So, upon hearing everyone else’s tales, naturally I had to know what was behind them.
Marselle Hodges (The Blue Hour)
Music | The Blue Hour (bandcamp.com)
“All Fall Down”
Upon hearing the creaking sound in the music Martin had given to her, Marselle was reminded of a swing set, which in turn made her think of how much she loved swing sets as a child. “I would reach out with my feet trying to get as high as I could. This one time, I got so high I felt like I was flying! I jumped off feeling like the momentum would carry me through the air. But I didn’t land so gracefully.” She thankfully escaped serious injury and was left with a scar on her forehead.
“But even though it was painful and left a scar, I still would reach as high as I could. Again and again and again.”
“Metaphor? Maybe”
Swing sets behind her perhaps, Marselle still flies in her dreams.
https://thebluehour.bandcamp.com
Jane Jensen
“Tinted Windows”
“This song came to me from Dogtablet at the perfect time, to allow me to express some dark and uncomfortable feelings. I don’t do much of that in my day-to-day life so music is my safe space for everything in my life that breaks, to just live in peace, in a broken way”.
“Also, the tone of Martin’s tracks felt darkly unsettling under a sheen of smooth listenability, which reminded me of the Netflix series YOU, about a stalker, which my daughter and I had been binging”.
Jane took traces of her own experiences and, “shellacked them onto an ill-intentioned stalker and set the scene in my beloved and trusty black Cadillac, my other safe space, whose windows I recently had tinted.”
Asked about those personal experiences to which she refers, she recounted two terrifying situations from her past which happened around the same time. One involving “disturbing letters from a prison inmate who was a fan of Tromeo & Juliet” when she was a young mom.
The other being a home invasion where she was held at gunpoint.
“I had a show that week. We were raising funds for the democratic party, for Obama – in Indianapolis. I was playing with The Born Again Floozies. I got through the show, but that was my last show for, well – since 2008 I guess.” Leaving that all behind her now, she very much looks forward to her upcoming show in September with Paul Barker, her very first show since.
https://janejensenmusic.bandcamp.com
Betty X
“In the Night”
Fascinated by clone stories such as those in the TV series “Orphan Black”, Cronenberg fan Betty X took her inspiration from one of his movies which featured clones in a very unique way.
“The inspiration for ‘In the Night‘ comes from the unsettling allure of Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool—a descent into a world where one is seduced by the intoxicating pull of hedonistic orgies… with their own clones.”
“Someone like you, someone like me… In the night, we’re tangled in desire”
Jennie Bellestar (The Bellestars)
“Stay Away”
This track featuring Jennie Bellestar describes the unexpected consequences to selling ones soul…”you signed the deal and lost control…”
The story as she describes it – “In the pursuit of fame and fortune Sandy is presented with a choice. Sign the deal and you will have riches beyond your wildest dreams, by not signing you will be destined to remain invisible in the industry you have always dreamt of being part of.
After succumbing to temptation, she realized soon after that there were stipulations to the deal, once signed she would never own her soul again. For her there could be no turning back and though the fame and fortune was everything she had wished for, it pales in comparison to simply having the freedom to be herself. By signing the deal, she unwittingly became a slave without a voice. Rubbing shoulders with people she really did not resonate with.”
Sapphira Vee
“The Red Tile”
When I was a kid in school, I was given one of those tests where you answer a bunch of questions about yourself and then they tell you what careers might suit you when you grow up.
Mine came back “Private Investigator”, (not hard to believe if you know me and my insatiable curiosity) which, in my child’s mind, translated somehow to “Spy”. And I’ve been intrigued with the thought of being a spy ever since.
“The Red Tile” gives you a peek into a day in the life of an agent, who undergoes an unsettling debriefing, which includes getting drugged, then getting reassigned. All in a room with hideous “what IS this place and who decorates this way” red tile, to the sound of water dripping. Once the deal is made, off she goes for another adventure.
https://sapphiravee.bandcamp.com
Coral Scere (Scere)
“Blood Moon”
“Blood moon…Unfold and swallow me”
Says Coral, “I find Martin’s music so haunting and evocative that everything seems to flow naturally through me.” She immediately finds inspiration for melody and lyrics when working with specific artists including Martin, “as there is something in their music that I emotionally connect with.”
“Blood Moon” is “essentially a selenophile praying to the moon for forgiveness and comfort.” She believes that we are “all impacted in some way by both the moon and the tides.”
Martin King
And finally, Martin King’s inspiration behind putting these six tales together:
“It really started while listening to Betty X on a track called The Velvet Mind, I’d been wanting to write something for her to include on a Dogtablet project for a while, and it really put me in a Twin Peaks kind of place.
I thought it might be cool to write a series of tracks that were like musical versions of 50s / 60s film vignettes. Short stories that appeared important to the narrator either fiction or non-fiction. Then really it made sense to have an all-female cast to make a more natural thread throughout the project. The music was to become the story background and the vocal, the focus point. I’m amazed at how brilliantly it all came together, and with almost zero guidance or input from me, all the tracks started to come together exactly as I imagined.”
Six artists.
Six stories.
Six Lives.
https://dogtablet.bandcamp.com/album/six-lives
By Sapphiria Vee (Situation 47)
