HAPPY HOLIDAYS: Bing Crosby Works Here?

Well, its 2 days till Christmas and the taste of Bing Crosby and pumpkin pie is nearly palatable. Sitting in a white-washed office building the air conditioning unit whirls resonate like the reverb off a cheap sound machine.

Am I at work? Why is no one else here?
Is the building even open today, or am I in trouble for being here? Perhaps the lights will go off and I’ll slip out to the recesses of the parking garage. But damn, the parking garage is cold, and if I forget my car keys I’ll be stuck on the 2nd Floor until after New Year’s Eve.

Did I buy enough presents? I must have forgotten someone.
Will anyone give me a gift? Wait, it’s not about the giver; it’s the whole receiver thing.

Wait, there’s someone else here! I hear them.
They’re talking about their grandparents and their travel plans. How is this possible? Are they speaking to me? There must be more people in the building, hidden from my cube. I can never see over this wall.
A low voice wafts through the air duct, "That is quite enough for the day."  I wrestle on a jacket, pick up my bag and head to the 2nd Floor.

As I round the parking garage stairwell the voice hits once more, "Happy Holidays" it says.  I agree.

The Forest is Dark and The Wolves are Keen

Dana and Rita, they sit in the dark, they play with their hands, their giggles are sparse.
They fear what they know, but what's worse is they don't - have enough knowledge to fear what they don't.

Perhaps it is youth, perhaps it is luck, that gets them to safety, that helps them to run.
Whatever it is, it's best just to say, "Don't go in the forest when you want to go play."

TUMBLR: W.A Fite

W.A. gets a Tumblr...glorious!

W.A. Fite TUMBLR





Artwork by Dustin Blocker.
Copyright Hand Drawn Records 2011





In the Haze of Sleep

In the Haze of Sleep
by W.A. Fite

The sleep deprived nature of my days spin quickly to thoughts of restless nights, awakened by the slightest of happenings and sometimes through the lack of such. Flicks of false rain trickling in a loop of a sound-machine. The brown haze of burned up sod speaking in a voiceless sigh as if to beckon me back out into the yard…again.

Sure, duty and recklessness rarely extend themselves during the same times, yet as opposites, they also rarely collide.

Why do my bushes die when I water them so fervently? Why do some men live when they treat their bodies to rough violences and self-degradation?

These are the questions that wind into that flicker rained loop. And as the windy drops grow more false with wakened thought, so do my boundless days.

Oklahoma Gazette's Review: "Poisoning the Medicine Tree"

Neither here nor there

Oklahoma Gazette Article - June 13, 2011

By Stephen Carradini

W.A. Fite lives in Dallas, but he’s signed to the Dallas/OKC record label Hand Drawn Records. His “Poisoning the Medicine Tree” is an album of gritty electronic pop with a modern-rock singer over it. He follows a less-traveled path through electronic music: This is not the subtle indie pop of The Postal Service, the sunshiny pop of Owl City, or dance-oriented electro. This is forceful, rock-oriented, electronic music that sort of sounds like the pseudo-electronic experiments of Bush (“Glycerine”), thanks to both the vocals and the song structures. “Beating Thomas Best” and “Jack” are immediate standouts, while the mellower “Carney’s Lake” kicks off the quieter, more experimental back half. “That Ain’t the Way” is a piano rumination, showing his diversity.

WATCH THIS: W.A. Fite - Carney's Lake

W.A. Fite
"Carney's Lake"
Poisoning the Medicine Tree

Hand Drawn Records / El Villa Films
Fite Lite Productions © 2011
http://wafite.com

PICTURE SHOW: Carney's Lake Video Shoot

Yesterday's video shoot for "Carney's Lake" went off great, with overcast Texas skies and filthy pond water. Initial looks into James Villa's viewfinder show this one will make a clean addition to the videologue.

Photo Courtesy James Villa Photography

Snapshots by Darell Blocker

FREE DOWNLOAD: Carney's Lake

Download "Carney's Lake" FREE for the next 4 days ONLY (ends 4/24/11).

UPDATE - Monday April, 25: Free Download is done, but Carneys Lake still available to stream free.

There will be a new video for the track, with the shoot scheduled for this weekend. So...Enjoy.



Carney's Lake by handdrawnrecords

MORNING MUSING: Early Hour Spindle

I would like to submit that time is not relegated to an important frame within the human psyche during the hours leading to rest, but rather that creative energy is stored in the brain seemingly for release only in early waking hours.

If the creator of said energy is one inclined to production of thought, then that time is spent justly winding the spindle of what may later be physical product. However, if that person does not focus thought, then such ideas may be ones that drive a mind to madness.

NO. 2: Storyboarding "Carney's Lake" Video

Inspiration always creeps in the early hours, and the final logistical ideas for this weekend's "Carney's Lake" video shoot hit me with the veracity of the hail during last night's storm.

BTW: In my young days I received a "D" in Penmanship.

Click Pic for Big Pic:

Storyboarding "Carney's Lake" Video

The El Villa is back at it, and this time he's zero-ed in on "Carney's Lake". An upright piano, water mixing to a shoreline, firecrackers, and grain...thick grain.

Powerplants and gypsies will be left out of this one, but the suppression of literal memory will be omnipresent as surreal visualizations characterize a bulk of the storyboard. This will not be an interpretation of a music video from your Uncle Bob's film school, but rather a live wire act from singularly flightless birds.

Click Pic for Big Pic:

CD REVIEW: Dallas Observer -&- DFW.com

Two semi-opposing views of "Poisoning the Medicine Tree" in last week's editions of the Dallas Observer and Fort Worth Star Telegram's DFW.com; both a good read.

Dallas Observer
April 7, 2011 / by Darryl Smyers
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2011-04-07/music/w-a-fite/

DFW.com
April 6, 2011 / by Preston Jones
http://www.dfw.com/2011/04/06/433956/cds-out-of-the-in-box-kirby-brown.html

Poisoning the Medicine Tree AVAILABLE NOW:
Good Records (Dallas, TX)
Doc's Records and Vintage (Fort Worth, TX)
CD Baby
iTunes
Bandcamp *Bonus Track

Amber the Spite

Pictures of buckets, the lackluster girl, is full of snap buttons, and laces with pearl.

Her mind resting easy in lines wrapped striped green.
A whisper of July that sticks to her seam.

A coin dropped in Amber, a kiss coated ripe; that's nothing to something, which never felt right.

How can we all love her? She asks out of spite.
Why can't we just be her? She asks with her thigh.

The doctors go home when their rounds rounded out, but nurses stay on, and they wish through the night.

Her heart is a baby, that waxes and wanes.
She won't be your lady, if you don't like to strain.

JAM Magazine: CD Review "Poisoning the Medicine Tree"

JAM Magazine - CD Review - MARCH 2011

W.A. Fite - Poisoning The Medicine Tree

Label: Hand Drawn Records

By Chris Branson - The Shop Album Rock

Poisoning the Medicine Tree came out 3/28/11. This is the debut CD from W. A. Fite. Poisoning the Medicine Tree is a CD which an artist has crafted in that need to step out, only to find they've stepped into the Twilight Zone. Who is W.A....(read more)

ALBUM RELEASE: Poisoning The Medicine Tree

6:30am, March 28th -- My debut album "Poisoning the Medicine Tree" is out and spreading it's wings.

Personally, I prefer to wrap my hands and eyes around an actual disc or record to best soak in it's effort, but of course the album is out on digital too.

If you are a bit afraid of buying new things, then check the posts on here, as you can stream the tracks for free to help get your courage up...but yes, you will have to look for them.
(Clue: "Lyrics" are attached to each post w/ a viable 'stream')

Physical::

Good Records (Dallas, TX)
Doc's Records and Vintage (Fort Worth, TX)

Digital::

Bandcamp: http://wafite.bandcamp.com *Exclusive Bonus Track
iTunes: http://itunes.com/w.a.fite
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004QTWJJQ/
CD Baby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/wafite

RE-POST: Rescue of the Tin Man (bonus)

Original post by Hand Drawn Records, Tuesday, March 22nd.

We asked W.A. Fite to deliver us one more bonus track to cap off our media tyrade before his album release next Monday, and he definitely did just that; hitting us with one of the coolest synth and breakbeat takes we’ve heard from the artist...(read more)

HEAR MP3 HERE:
Rescue of the Tin Man (bonus) by handdrawnrecords

http://handdrawnrecords.tumblr.com/

Bonus Track for Digital Release - March 28th

Hand Drawn Records has set the release date for "Poisoning the Medicine Tree", MONDAY, MARCH 28th. In preparation, they asked me to make a track for the digital release as a bonus to a full length album purchase (only available on my bandcamp site). The bonus track is called "Chinese Christmas", and it is so good that it has made me want to write an entire Christmas album¡¡¡

BANDCAMP LINK: http://wafite.bandcamp.com

Production Stills III: Video "Western In A"

Last set of stills....maybe...

Courtesy James Villa Photography © 2011

Video: Western In A

Dallas-Fort Worth provides the eclectic backdrop of art, architecture and culture for the first video installation for W.A. Fite; featuring the track "Western In A". The song is a trek into the composer's past, recalling the loss of an early love for an equally beleaguered run at making music for a living.



W.A. Fite
"Western In A"
Poisoning the Medicine Tree

Hand Drawn Records / El Villa Films
Copyright Fite Lite Productions 2011
http://www.youtube.com/wfite

Lyrics: Feet in the Water

Feet in the river, now calm the waters.
Dirty black toes and eyes that wander.
Clap on the lap and whistle nonsense, but please don't you shake the water...

It's calm, the shade won't glide, won't move an inch.
The heat it wears, it wears me down.

Feet in the river, who's making breakfast?
We rose earlier than Mom should've let us.
Head full of hat, weary pant legs, snapping thumbs and whistle nonsense.

It's calm, the shade won't glide, won't move an inch.
The heat it wears, it wears me down.
My hands go brown, the mind clears up and out the head...I hear no sound.

Feet in the river, who's gonna join me?
I'd ask Sister, but she called me ugly.
Called big Brother said, "Come sit beside me." But he's too busy with Neighbor Holly.

It's calm, the shade won't glide, won't move an inch.
The heat it wears, it wears me down.
My hands go brown, the mind clears up and out the head...I hear no sound.

Lyrics: That Ain't The Way (To The Heart)

That ain't the way to the heart.
A doubled down face of liar.
It's best to get then go. Clean the pants and on with the show.

That ain't the way to the heart.
A bow. A gun. A dart.
A doubled down face of a liar, enough to catch a fire.

That ain't the way to get at me.
That act is not complete.
Them ankles look good, like them feet, so get them on the street.

That ain't the way to the heart.
A doubled down face of a liar...a liar.

The Picture Show: "Western in A" Video Stills / Take 2

"Western in A"

Production stills from upcoming music video.

Courtesy El Villa Films and James Villa Photography

Paunch Gut. Speedy Nose.

A paunch gut and a speedy nose, the middle child of three, both now a man and my foe. Not in a fiendish sense, but in the place of a deterrent; one that would not allow me to fulfill my own time as I incessantly metered his watch during his slow decline.

The man was wildly incoherent for most of his mid-life, which was for him, only the age of 32. I had not the intention of predicting his short lifespan, but it was rather impossible to dismiss, being part of an ongoing conversation amongst the ones who knew him the worst.

I would not like to trifle his life; conversely he was one of my closest friends. I would only like to say that I knew him, and in knowing him I instinctively did not trace his steps, seeing that they were ones only a fool or lonely heart would dare to take.

Perhaps that drops him into one of the two tattered categories, which would probably not offend a man with so distended a stomach. As a man like that lends himself to consumption, but little else.

ALBUM ART: Poisoning the Medicine Tree

"Poisoning the Medicine Tree" by W.A. Fite

Artwork by Dustin Blocker

Lyrics: Jack

Waters mix with the paint and brush. An orange fleck stroke makes your Granpa's hand rush.
People who wait, are the ones who mind. They mind their Mothers. They mind their hairlines.

Will you be just like me?
Resigned to draw your walls in colored streaks?
Should we keep the house unlocked when we leave?

Your Mother preens and primps the house. She wipes the tables, wipes your mouth.
The clothes have grown big, with closets small. The pets go wild waiting in the cramped hall.

Will you be just like me?
Restless at the age where most find peace?
A cold day in December, one marked in ink.

Son you'll see...I'll give you words to see.
That only brave men dine in the Captain's seat.

Will you be just like me?
Slow to write your numbers, slow to speak?
Should your Mother and I wait up till you sleep?

Son you'll see...I'll give you words to see.
That we're all tied bound to the Family Tree.