August 28, 2007

chocolates for breakfast

MP3: Chocolates for Breakfast (3.5 mb)

Pamela Moore wrote the book Chocolates for Breakfast in the mid-1950s when she was just 18 years old. Its story of upper-class teen-aged decadence in a world of martinis, long white gloves and Stan Kenton records - set, most notably, in Manhattan (but in Hollywood as well) - intrigued me from the get-go 'cause I'm a sucker for that whole nicely-dressed and overly-educated but still slightly ill-mannered mid-morning cocktail in an Upper East Side apartment liberal/bourgeois explosion kind of scene. The style and constraints - and the breaking thereof - create, for me anyway, a really interesting story landscape.

Back in the late-80s, after having read the book, I brought the song I'd written not so loosely based upon it to the band I played in called Blond Popsicle. We worked out an arrangement and played it live frequently (we even called our second full-length cassette Chocolates for Breakfast), but we never recorded it. That's a shame....

About a year ago the itch appeared to give it its due, so I sat down to begin recording. The project became a little too ambitious, and I soon lost interest in it. However, a recent cleaning of my hard disk brought it to my attention once again, and it's not as muddled as I initially thought and it certainly deserves an existence somewhere in this interconnected universe of ours. Even though this version is somewhat different, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank Steve & Kenny (and Jim & Toasty & Brent & Clark) for the contributions they made to the song back in those Popsicle days.

I hope you find it tasty....


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2 comments:

Kevin K said...

I found your song while searching for info on the book. It totally captures the feeling of the story and brings it into a new era.

thanks for creating it and putting it out there!

KBJ said...

Thanks!!