FIRSTLY, WHERE TO FIND THIS THING! The following are links. Click on them to venture deep into the mystical abyss of the internet. also, we were unable to link these, but search us on: iHeartRadio Rdio Slacker Radio Deezer Xbox Music Яндекс (Yandex) WiMP Google Play Music Store Shazam ....and many more! Curious? A search won't hurt anything. LIMITED EDITION VINYL COPIES TO BE RELEASED AROUND APRIL 2015. MUSICIAN CREDITS: All songs credited to unless otherwise noted: Composer: Deuteronomy Lyrics: Max Aronow Guitars: Max Aronow Drums: Dmitriy Prokopovich Bass: Keith Steinberg Vocals: Max Aronow Producer: Andrew Palais and Deuteronomy Mixer/Masterer: Andrew Palais Special instances: Backing vocals on Passion Abusers, Especially Mad For You, Things Left Unsaid and Shot Her Down: Dmitriy Prokopovich Backing Vocals on Passion Abusers, A List of Demands, Shot Her Down: Keith Steinberg Guest Bass on ABISBWESAKP: Evan Bailey Bass on Passion Abusers: Max Aronow Vocal introduction on Passion Abusers: Ian Ahern Sampler on A List of Demands and Especially Mad For You: Nicholas Alden Secondary percussion on A List of Demands: Nicholas Alden and Max Aronow Piano on Shot Her Down: Keith Steinberg 8 Bit Synth on Money and The Mouth: Keith Steinerg Composer on Money and The Mouth: N. M. Ball, K. Towne and Deuteronomy. Lyrics on Money and The Mouth: K. Towne and Max Aronow Songs and Sounds sampled: Especially Mad For You: Horn tone from Soul Coughing's Screenwriter's Blues, Vocal squeals from Marvin Gaye's Heard it Through The Grapevine, and horn tone from Beirut's Goshen. A List Of Demands: Subtle background noise from Django Reinhardt's Minor Swing, Max squeaking Dmitriy's drum stool, computerized generic violins, distorted tone of an Ilyushin Il-76 landing, distorted 90s dell computer start-up noises, and tones from a 20s circus organ. ABISBWESAKP: Intro of Grant Green's Down Here on The Ground, vis-a-vis A Tribe Called Quest's Vibes and Stuff. SONG MEANINGS: Here are the song meanings, all are quotes by Max Aronow. Disclaimer: Songs are meant to be interpreted however the listener wishes. It s of high hopes that these quotes to not hinder you from your own interpretation. Tell Max what his own lyrics mean to you; His email is Max@deuteronomymusic.com. Passion Abusers - I ascertained the back-bone meaning of this song after a long-winded chat with Gentleman Scott Buck on a rainy day in April, and honestly, it is just a jab at the stereotypical d-bag. You know, someone who thinks he’s all that. “There’s winners and losers, and passion abusers, they all fade the same in time.” Yeah, passion abusers is a euphemism, you could say, for a high-class preppy jock who think’s he’s invincible and has this great legacy, when he just is a flash in the pan, like every other average joe. Daddy’s credit card can’t get you everywhere! Not sure what to think of this, but it came out sounding Hüsker Dü-ish. Especially Mad For You - Boy, girl, melting ice cream, et-cetera. I really did like her. Regretfully, “Did“ is the key word in that sentence. It’s more-than-obviously Mike Doughty influenced. This is my favorite song to date I’ve written. The major key chorus plays off the dorian mode verses in such a manor that great tension is born. There are three songs that are sampled in this song, two of which I suggested, the other one came from the mighty mind of Nicholas. I'll mention my two: to pay tribute to my heroes, Soul Coughing, we sampled the horns from Screenwriter's Blues. Also, to pay tribute to my late mother, we used Marvin Gaye's Heard It Through The Grapevine, one of her favorite songs. I figured it'd just be fitting to pair her favorite song with the favorite song of mine that I've penned. Things Left Unsaid - A very in-general song about a confusing girl. The “Things Left Unsaid” are exactly what it says, just things I never told her. Of all our songs, this gets the ribbon for least lyric-intensive. Just some words mushed to sound melodic over that red-hot bass groove. Very Soundgarden meets Blues Traveler meets Blind Melon-ish. This, hitherto, is the band’s favorite song to jam to during soundchecks. Shot Her Down - The lyrics are derived from my mishearing of lyrics to 1992 Soul Coughing bootlegs and retooling words that I thought Mike was singing. The inspiration for the lyrics are derived loosely from a murder-suicide that happened in my hometown of Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Mount Laurel really does not have murders like this commonly, so it, needless to say, was news that spread like proverbial wildfire. The perpetrator was an illustrious doctor, and he killed his wife due to..... Well, I don't rightly know what the truthful reason was, but as everyone guesses by default, likely infidelity. It was eerie for me for two reasons. I knew of their son, not knew him personally, but I just knew his name and could match it with the corresponding face. Secondly, since this murder-suicide happened at the husband's own doctors' office, their cars remained in the parking lot there for a few days before they were finally towed away. That was very peculiar because in a way, it made the murders of complete strangers hit me harder. Money and The Mouth - This is a very abstract song about the state of being greedy to a kingly degree. It's a chord based song, but I threw in a little Stevie Ray flare for some spice. Keith really made this song his, he owned that bassline on the recording. The lyrics were born out of a vocal melody thought of with "na na na"s, and I just made words that would sound nice. But, take any meaning from this that you will. I'd love it if you could tell me what my song means, because I haven't a clue.
A List Of Demands: Oh boy. This was me rapping. This song is satirical, albeit completely serious at the same time. In accordance with 2015 slang, I did this, for the most part, "off the dome." What I mean by that is we recorded a few takes of me improvising wholly and then in the final take, I took my best improved phrazes from each. I accidentally ganked "the minus sign, underline..." from Q-Tip's second verse on "Jazz" by A Tribe Called Quest. That group was a noteworthy influence on the song, so I suppose my inner-mind took that to the next level. Didn't realize I took it until the song was mixed and mastered and I listened to The Low End Theory again.... A Brain In Solitude Bedecked in Elegant Sapphires and Kingly Platinum: I hate this song. This is the only song I've ever written and used that I hated. The lyrics were ok, but the final cut.... story time. I had a headache and a sore throat from overcoming a cold (this was the last song recorded in mid-December 2014... of course, cold and flu season). This song goes from 7/8 to 4/4 randomly, which can get tricky. The band members, including myself, were physically tired. This led to multiple takes. And by multiple, I mean, like 20. After multiple takes, guitars started coming out of tune, and strings started breaking. All of the aforementioned led to stress between us. It really shows in the song, which breaks my heart. But anyway, about the lyrics, I actually thought of the line "I'll try to treasure my special time with initial misconceptions" by using those refrigerator magnets with individual words and dependent clauses on them. Indonesia - This one isn't on the record, but we play it live enough.... and it appeared on the first record....so....consider this a bonus! I wrote this in the summer of 2010 or 2011, I cannot remember which. I can remember that hot July heat, and I had a friend from South Asia.... ding ding ding, you guessed it! He was an Indonesian. I wrote a very Ramones and Clash sounding spunky chord progression to this, and thus “In-Do-Ne-Sia” was born. Other lyrics are meaningless gobuldeegook.
Album Cover Artwork: The photograph on the cover of the album was taken for the band in 2011 as a potential cover for the first album, 2012's The Propaganda of Deuteronomy. The photographer was Mary Margolina of Munich, Germany, under the pseudonym Freiheitskampagne. The exact city where the photograph was taken has been forgotten over time, and seeing as we are no longer in contact with this photographer, we assume it's either Leipzig, or Chemnitz.... or Munich.... or Berlin.... I'll take Blurting Out Random German City Names for $1000, Alex. We chose this photo for the cover for one outstanding reason. This photo was taken in an abandoned Communist-era apartment block in East Germany. East Germany was a communist nation back in the Cold War era. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had close ties to this nation, which is the same nation that inspired us to name the album what it is called. (see above entry about the naming process.) The photo also has some psychedelic elements to it, so it looked sweet, as well. Here's the original photograph for your viewing pleasure.  "Gentleman" Scott Buck handled the assembly of the cover that you see today. He added our logo to the top, and the text by the bottom. As for Mary, the original photographer, you can check her sporadic postings on her blog on the 'net, Freiheitskampagne. Edit: As of this page revision, her new blog is called Slovva. The information initially posted that we were going on as for her contact info was from 2011. Four years on the internet is like.... eighty seven in real-world time.
Reviews: Our record did pretty well with even the most scrupulous of critics. "Fabulous! My in depth review? The music doesn't need any review. They're doing just fine." - Mark Degliantoni, keyboardist for Soul Coughing, David Byrne, and John Zorn. (We even sampled some of his stuff on EM4U! He was actually flattered!) "It's pretty dang shiny. It makes me want to completely cover my body in mayonnaise, and that's not a euphemism for anything." - Homeless man in Atlantic City, NJ |