Let's Please End Poverty

As many of you might know, I just did a tour of India with MUTEMATH. This was the band's second time there, but this tour was much more extensive as we spent almost three weeks playing gigs in cities like Kolkata, Bangalore, New Delhi, and Mumbai. What you do not know is that prior to going on my India trip, Cliff and I had been brewing up a version of The Smiths' "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want." This song took on new meaning to me while I was in India as I was again encountered with the most severe level of poverty I had ever witnessed.

Needless to say, I grew up around poverty. It was not uncommon for me to spend weekends across the border in Matamoros, México visiting my grandparents and see poor homeless ladies carrying their kids around in the streets, begging for money or whatever anyone was willing to give them. I believe I've done my part throughout the years in giving to the poor and helping those in need whenever I could; however, this last trip to India, I confronted myself again with the question if I was really doing enough to help end poverty. 

Everywhere I went in India I was confronted with poverty, from children sleeping on a filthy curb of a busy street to young girls doing cartwheels in the street for money. I could not escape it. And I could not help but to imagine them as one of my own. All the rationale and reasoning that made me think twice before if I would give in the past went completely out the window as I realized that these impoverished kids are "my own." I am connected to them if I allow myself to be, and I have a responsibility to them like I do with my own biological children. 

This cover song and video are simply to help bring awareness to the problem of poverty throughout the world. Please, please, please help me get what I want in helping end poverty. Many of these kids cannot even get what they NEED, much less what they want. There are many organizations out there that are making positive strides to end poverty (for example, The Hunger Project, One, Mercy Corps, etc.). None of them are perfect, but as you celebrate the upcoming holidays, please act on supporting some cause that brings hope to the impoverished children in your local community and around the globe.

What Is A Head Green?

What is a Head Green?

When I went into the 7th grade, Corpus Christi ISD decided to institute busing to more fully integrate the schools.  As a result, I was bused to Martin Jr. High on the Westside which is predominately Hispanic.  I’ve always gotten along with about everyone I encounter; so it wasn’t a big deal.  For that matter, the ratio of Anglos to Hispanics on the Southside where I lived was about 50/50, so the environment of my new school was really about the same as the junior high down the street.

Well, there’s no doubt that a small 7th grader with red hair will stick out at whatever school he or she goes to.  Curse of the ginger. And this one guy, Miguel, just wouldn’t leave me alone.  I think it was a 9th grader hazing a 7th grader thing more than a white/brown thing, but who knows.  After lunch, Miguel liked to strike intimidating poses around me and say things like “What.”  To which I would say, “Nothing.”  Then it escalated to him deciding to call me a rooster.  I’ll concede that you could draw some parallels between my striking red hair and a cockscomb.  

I didn’t like where this whole post-lunch thing was going, and the more he called me a rooster, the more it pissed me off, but there’s no doubt that if a fight ensued, I would take a brutal beating.  One day Miguel was staring at me, and I had enough.  I looked at him and said, “What! Is my head green?”  Now, Miguel should have said, “No, you’re head’s red, rooster.”  I don’t think I would’ve had a snappy retort for that, but instead he just clinched both fists and made a beeline for me.  Not good.

As I braced for my pounding, miracle of miracles, Roger Martinez, a 9th grade tuba player from the neighborhood, raced across the schoolyard and pancaked Miguel to the ground right in front of my eyes.  As Roger laid on top of Miguel, he told him not to mess with me anymore.  Roger had 9th grade “street cred,” and my lunch had just gotten a lot better.  My mom had told me that playing in the band would benefit someday.  As an aside, the Martin Jr. High Marching Band played in the Buccaneer Days Parade that year, and our showstopper finale was Play That Funky Music White Boy by Wild Cherry.    

I’ve always thought of “head green” as a euphemism for being different.  We all have our out of place, head green moments, and if you see it happening to someone, try to be their Roger.     

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, but where did The Pink Dust come from?

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, but where did The Pink Dust come from?

Music has always been one of the things that defines me. I was passionate enough about it to
quit college in order to pursue my dream of playing in a rock band. It didn’t quite turn out like I had hoped, but I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. Eventually, I enrolled back in school, graduated with a finance degree and then obtained a law degree. I never really planned to be an attorney, it just kinda happened, and I found myself back in my hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas, married with a law practice.

There’s no doubt I’ve been blessed with having a great wife, friends, and co-workers.
Nonetheless, it’s sometimes hard to shake those childhood dreams. I try to stay on top of what’s current in modern rock and had slowly become bigger and bigger Mutemath fan. I bought their first album after hearing Typical on the radio and really liked it, and I thought their subsequent two studio albums just got better and better. Mutemath had become one of my very favorite bands. Donna and I saw them in Houston on Armistice and then at Stubb’s in Austin on Odd Soul. The Odd Soul show was incredible, and I was inspired. I returned with renewed musical vigor and started writing new songs on my acoustic guitar by myself in the back bedroom. Then, in the fall of 2013, I decided that I needed to play live at least once more. I approached an attorney who played in a band with other local attorneys and judges. I explained that I was ready to set the world on fire with these new songs, but my dreams quickly came to a grinding halt when the attorney said he had no interest in collaborating with me. I realized that I didn’t know any other musicians and reluctantly accepted that my musician days were probably behind me.

I was surfing the web just a few days after being rebuffed by the attorney, and I clicked onto Roy Mitchell-Cárdenas’ blog which I was apt to do every so often. Roy’s a good writer, and I often found things on it that held my interest. Roy had posted that he would be offering a limited number of bass lessons in the Miami area and that if anyone had an interest to email him. Hmmm. Roy was undoubtedly my favorite bass player, and there were certain parallels in our lives. We both grew up in South Texas, attended University of North Texas and attended law school. After a cocktail, these similarities seemed enough to merit an email proposition. I’ll readily acknowledge that my idea was completely insane – send an unsolicited email to a rock star, talk about how much we have in common, and then propose we start a band together. Nothing awkward about that….

My email was a rambling mess that divulged more information than I would ever tell a friend much less someone I had never spoken to. It read mostly like a fan letter I would have sent to Van Halen when I was thirteen. I was embarrassed from the moment I pressed send and didn’t tell anyone, not even Donna. There was no reason that Roy should have done anything other than delete the email quickly and hope he wouldn’t have to get a restraining order against me, but my saving grace was something I didn’t know about him at the time. He’s genuinely a nice guy.

As I was leaving town to see Steely Dan in concert in Houston some weeks later, my computer dinged, and low and behold, Roy had responded. He said that he enjoyed reading my email and was always up for hearing new music and asked that I send him something I had written. Wow. Pretty cool. I honestly had no expectations, but I sent him a song that I had recorded at a friend’s house called Green Eyes.

To my astonishment, Roy wrote back the same day and said that he really liked the song and had been looking for a new project to produce. He continued by saying that he thought I might need to come to Miami and spend a few days in the studio. It was one of those hard to describe moments, these things just don’t happen, but it was also a be careful for what you wish for moment. I was practicing law, living a happy, predictable life with Donna and Basie, our 12-year old Sussex Spaniel. Was I ready to step out of my comfort zone and actually chase the dream? For that matter, was I out of my depth trying to collaborate with a professional musician who was writing and playing some of my favorite songs?

No time for insecurities, Roy called me the next week, and we hit it off. We agreed to explore our musical ideas and see if there was a commonality there or not. Over the next few months, Mutemath played in India and Australia, but Roy would check-in, and we continued to trade song ideas. I loved having someone to collaborate with, and as we got to know each other, the entire process seemed easy and natural. Then Roy said the most exciting/scariest thing yet, “Let’s make an album together.” Could my crazy proposition in that original email actually be coming true?

I really didn’t know how everything was going to play out with Roy, so I had kept it a secret at work, but now seemed the appropriate time to share what was going on. It was a Friday, and I was taking my two legal assistants, Norma and Norma Jean, to the movies. There was a matinee of Pulp Fiction. Neither of them had seen it and that seemed like the perfect excuse not to work that afternoon. However, when I arrived at work that morning, I learned that Norma’s brother-in-law, Randy, who was also a local attorney, had died of a heart attack. Very heavy. Norma didn’t think she could muster going to the movies. I agreed and said she should leave to be with her family, but she had been dealing with everything the entire night before and needed a little break, so we all went to lunch. We needed something to pep us up, so I described my incredible journey with Roy starting with that very first email. They were tripping out but very excited. We laughed little, cried a little and were determined to get through the loss of Randy together and then make a great record. It was a good plan.

Roy wrote all the drum parts which I love. I find them to be so musical and interesting in their own right. He then handed the parts off to Blue Man Group drummer, Jeffrey Alan Wright, who was also a member of Social Ghost and Roy’s collaborator in Plastic Planets with Eric Van Lugo. Jeff and Eric did a fantastic job recording the drums in Orlando, and from that foundation, Roy and I constructed the songs.

Now, it was time for me to go to Miami to record vocals. Also a bit daunting, but from the moment Roy picked me up at the airport, we just continued right where we had left off in our emails and phone calls. Beyond having grown up near one another, it seemed as though we related to one another’s experience. For instance, at dinner with Roy and his wife, Wendy, I admitted that I had stolen lyrics from Guns N’ Roses to write Donna a poem. Roy, in turn, admitted that he had once told a girl that he had written the song That’s What I Like About You by The Romantics. His explanation was that he was so excited to show someone that he knew how to play the song that just went ahead and took ownership of it. Okay, that’s worse than stealing the lyrics, but still hilarious, and who was I to judge? I fully understood.

Those five days we recorded vocals, we had to fight to stop telling stories and watching YouTube videos. There was work to do. We didn’t finish recording until after midnight of the last night. We had worked 12-14 hours each day but had a great time. It didn’t feel like work. We traded more tales on the way to the airport. Then Typical came on the radio which Roy tried to turn down. I immediately told him that if Typical comes on while we’re driving down the Miami freeway as he tells stories of recording the first Mutemath, we’re turning it up!

I returned to Corpus, and we started the post production of the album, but we didn’t have a name. For many, many years, Lebowitz, my friend since childhood, had said that he thought a cool name for a band was Pink Dust. I made a list of about ten names I liked and emailed them to Roy. Without any input from me, he responded that he liked Pink Dust but preferred having “The” at the beginning. That was it. It seemed like it was just meant to be, maybe like this entire project…..

-Cliff Littlefield