Recordings

Nine solo guitar compositions.

All pieces written and performed by Dibson T Hoffweiler, except "Red Pony" and "Sunny Side of the Ocean" composed by John Fahey. Recorded by Jake Feltham in Oakland and Berkeley California 2011-2012, except "The Lead Ball..." recorded by Dibson. Mastered by Major Matt Mason USA at Olive Juice Music.

Listen below - music player may be slow to load.

A pair of improvisations recorded at home on November 17, 2011.

The Lead Ball

• Download The Lead Ball

The Zero Gravity Chamber

• Download The Zero Gravity Chamber

Since moving to Oakland, I've focused most of my creative energy on the guitar. Below you can listen to my latest composition and recording, "Time in Either Direction", recorded on August 13, 2010. Jake Feltham recorded and mixed the piece.

Time in Either Direction

I recorded the Kung Fu Crimewave album Capitol Punishment in autumn/winter 2009. Neil just posted a great music video for "Kill for the Side". While I'm at it, I'm also sharing Preston's video for "What do I do?".

Recorded by Major Matt Mason USA at Olive Juice Studios, NYC, 2010. Album art by Bernard King. Photo by Casey Holford.

Listen below - music player may be slow to load.

It's December 2009. I just performed a show with Sam James from The Wowz. Sam spouts words like few people, and with a guitar in hand he lets loose melodies that shortcircuit my brain with their unpredictable perfection. Working with others, especially those I rarely work with, always shifts my perspective on my own work. Sometimes it changes everything; sometimes it changes nothing. Other times it gives me ideas - new or stolen.

I wake up on Saturday morning, with no plans for the day. The temperature in my home drops low, low, low. Wrapped in a too big blanket, I stand in my living room looking at my breath, looking at Tarot cards. While strumming a stolen idea on my guitar, I imagine a being outside of time and space explaining the images to me, and next thing I know I have way too many words written down.

Below sits another 4-track tape recording, this time from early January 2010. The recording is of the song in progress. I've since updated some lyrics. The lyrics are below, coupled with the Camoin/Jodorowsky Tarot de Marseille cards that the being described.

Download "Make Love, Speak Tongues" by Dibson T Hoffweiler

Outside of my mansion is rock garden made of gold, and the people I tend to it are as ageless as they're old If they're on their hands and knees, I'll set them to their feet And if they look up to me then I'll set myself beneath Cos I'll never get to meet them - no, I'll never quite there be So I just want to give them the love they give to me.

But I don't know anything about making love I just wanna speak in their tongues.

I see the stars above me make a perfect figure eight They're still but ever-moving at an infinite rate I know that they've been there for as long as I've been me And they'll continue to be there until I set them all free When I make that true, none will be alone And love will cover this world like a melting ice cream cone.

But I don't know anything about making love I just wanna speak in their tongues.

I swim inside the swimming pool that sep'rates two dumb king In kingdoms situated such that none's allowed to sing I say that that is silly, and then I sing that it's so They say I must stay away, and I say they both blow But if they really blew they'd not be so down in the dumps They'd be just like their dogs, whose legs they wanna hump.

But I don't know anything about making humps. I just wanna speak in their tongues.

I travel back in time, now, to see you standing on the stage I've words to share with you, but that time I'll never change It's as perfect now, as it was back then. It'll be perfect later when it happens again I made it happen once now, and that'll be enough If you go back to change it, then I'll know true love.

But I don't know anything about making love. I just wanna speak in their tongues.

More tape recordings. This one probably from December 2009. A demo of a song that I performed with Daoud as part of our Wet Bandits/Sticky Bandits collaboration last year. It's the first recording of done of myself playing drums, and the part largely mimics what Daoud did (thanks Daoud!).

Since recording the song, I've changed some of the music. I don't often do that, so I'm looking forward to doing an updated recording.

Download "Loose Lips" Demo by Dibson T Hoffweiler

Loose lips, word "like" get me into trouble. Like you like me but not like I like you.. What is that "like" supposed to mean to me now. That we are like different people always?

Like the time we bust a cap into the sky, And we take a walk through a dilated time. All that we are fits onto a dime, And it spins, spins, spins, Lands face up other side.

We take a walk to overlook the sea. The polished lamps all glow effortlessly, but theirs: it is a mundane beauty. It's available to you and me and everybody.

I can read your words and you can read my mind. My face like your shirt (red). Don't stick your love in places you know it's not When you can observe to find it where it is.

A little instrumental piece I recorded in July 2009. Yet another off of my four track tapes. (See my Nirvana, Phoebe and Huggabroomstik covers.)

Download 4f by Dibson T Hoffweiler

Continuing my 2009 tape dumps (see my Nirvana and Phoebe Kreutz recordings), here's a recording of "Suddenly Something's Changed", a Huggabroomstik song. I've played the song many times with the band, but arranging the song around my guitar part gave me a perverse thrill.

Download "Suddenly Something's Changed" (Huggabroomstik cover) by Dibson T Hoffweiler

Years ago Phoebe asked me to write a song for her to perform at a sort of variety show that was held at Cake Shop. Phoebe often writes about historical figures, so I wrote a song that would (sort of) fit in her song catalog about Ada Lovelace.

Ada Lovelace was one of the world's first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

That's from findingada.com, which is celebrating Ada Lovelace Day to encourage people to write ("blog") about women in science and technology. As my contribution, I present this demo of my musical tribute to Ada:

Download Ada by Dibson T Hoffweiler

The lyrics allude to Ada Lovelace and Ada the programming language named after her.

Ada, they made you in the nineteenth century, The only child Lord Byron bore legitimately. Your mother was the parallelogram princess. To keep herself sane she taught you math; she was obsessed.

Ada, they remade you in nineteen-seven-nine. Department of Defense named you in four years time After last century's Countess of Lovelace, And then they used your name to enter outer space.

But, Ada, you failed them when you tried to launch that ship. And, Ada, they failed you when they bled you - you were sick, But bleeding cannot cure you of uterine cancer. And spaceships won't fly when they're filled with runtime errors.

So, Ada, we remember you by making up this language, And continuing the works of folks like Charles Babbage.

And I always think of you when using my computer.