My Space

So I pimped out the myspace today, two new songs, a news update thing, a show update thing, new background and profile pic, etc. So if yer intrested (dialogue) you should prolly check it out. In the meantime I'm gonna watch Juno yet again, and fuck it's great.

So I saw Cadence Weapon yesterday. That's the culmination of 12 years of lovin the fuck outta Hip Hop. Man, it was the best show ever and there is no way for me to describe it in a mere blogpost. I will say this: it went well. Also I wrote a new short story today and put it on www.freewebs.com/writingetcetera and I like it so maybe you will as well. Peep it, werd.

Listening to Wonderwall

I've been playing Wonderwall on guitar lately because it was my favourite thing to play when I was in grade ten and eleven and everytime I've listened to it it's applied to things that it doesn't really apply to but with lyrics like this who cares? The thing, though, with this song, is that I've only been able to listen to the Oasis version since last year, and obviously the Ryan Adams version is better. But, alas, I find it impossible to listen to without breakin down bitchstyle. But fuck that. I'm listening to it right now so whatever. I'm probly gonna try to keep typing though until the song is over. This is a ridiculous post. I was trying to show this song to someone in the summer and I couldn't keep listening to it and had to turn it off. But fuck that, bitches are gonna stop ruining shit for me from now on, it's my shit, and it's my shit. I can listen to Wonderwall and David Bowie if I fucking want to, and next Xmas, I'm gonna love the best Christmas music of all time. And bitches can fuck off.

Things I've Been Doing While Without Internet

- A few weeks ago I started telling people that I was working on two new albums to be finished within the next month or two. This was not bullshit. The country album has 5 tracks so far, and looks like this:
'Blue Sky Country Gold'
1) Girls at the Bus Stop
2) Across the River and Through the Trees
3) 27
4) My Mother's Eyes
5) Drinkin Some Wine (Goin Over the Hill)
And the pop album had 4 and looks like this:
'A Million Statues'
1) When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
2) Pardon My Intrusion (That Can't Possibly be True)
3) Your Blueeyed Boy
4) A Farewell to Arms

That's right, I'm all about references now. Anyway I've been spending all my money on weed and snack foods and writing all these songs with JD and Cam, and working, and that's kind of my constant level of wutupwitmalyfeness.


- Al Pal shows up at the crib at like 2 in the morning the other day, on account of his late shifts (no homo with this whole thing, btw) and wakes me up and I'm like, 'Ugh, we need some fuckin light in this bitch,' and he's like, 'No way, man, the fuckin power's out!' and I'm like 'Whaaat?' in my best Bun impersonation, and so anyway we smoke a bowl by candlelight (I'm sorry but this requires another no homo) and go for a walk, obviously. Everything was badass as shit, most notably the burial ground and the boardwalk. Shit.


- I hit Val Vil with the old man the other day and picked up some vynil luv (Rod Stewart, Supremes, Billy Joel) and a cassette (Young MC) and some CD's (Weezer, Elvis, Space Jam soundtrack) and bought a VCR for 5 bucks and some neat shades, and a turtleneck.

- Since I got the VCR to work (I had to blow on it a lot and remove the top and clean it, and then hit it really hard) I've watched Jacob's Ladder twice, Rules of Attraction 4 or 5 times, Antz, a few Elvis movies, a home video from childhood and a home video of the band like 10 times, Ghost Dad, Super Human Samurai Syber(sic) Squad, the Power Rangers movie, The Fox & the Hound twice, and Josie and the Pussycats the movie about 6 times. The latter film made me laugh a bunch, then cry, then laugh again, then cry and laugh at the same time, then get bored. The Fox & the Hound made me sob like a bitch when she left Tod in the woods (but then he meets that hot bitch).


- Played a show at SJHS (bitches loved it)

- Went on a 'mad tear' with Al Pal to my bro's pad to run some errands and it was very aptly referred to as a 'mad tear.' We had many awkward encounters and I'll tell the bucks about them in real life.

- Read Less Than Zero twice and then wrote a ripoff of it that was pretty much just my journals written in long sentences and subtle intenseness. I dug it though, I mean, I wrote it.

- The other day I did about 7 blades right before leaving for work and I exhaled weed smoke on the west side while walking to the McDonald's for my first coffee of the day. I was way too high to be in public. I started getting really wrapped up in thinking everything as Ellis's writing.

-Yesterday I ran into two awkward girls from my past while tearin' with Al Pal and we were both really high and it was awkward as shit. Not for Al Pal though, he doesn't believe in awkward sitches (insider!!).

- I got high and went looking for Cam and/or JD at SJHS the other day and they weren't there so I spent like an hour and a half looking at shit in Loyalist City Coin and eventually bought two cassettes when the dude kicked me out (Frank Sinatra: best of the early years and a Nat King Cole collection).

- My nephew was born the day before yesterday.

- I completely stopped using my discman and now only use a walkman, and this has forced me to listen to several mixtapes of mine (Shiny Tunestation 1 & 2!) and the Head on the Door (which was alright, I guess) and Strangeways (which is good for a bunch of reasons, but I have some complaints) and this Jim Croce tape that I listened to when I was a kid, and a Young MC album (Stone Cold Rhymin').

-I've been having all these shitty dreams and the other night I couldn't sleep cause I kept getting woken up by this terrible noise that was just in my head, so I thought I was losing my mind, and there was no internet!

-Oh! I forgot this. I noticed this hilarious connection to Josie and the Pussycats that has to do with a bitch sitch, so I think it's pretty funny.

- I'm running out of things to say in songs, so I find myself trying to come up with stuff in my head while I'm walking that's so like, cliche David R. Elliott (or whatever) that it makes me lol in public. So it's pretty funny, but since I made that wine drinkin song whilst stoned the other day I think I might just start gettin high and makin up shit. New concept album! It's gon be called, 'Chronic Luv.' Look out for it y'all.

-New Lil Wayne street single is killin everyone in the game. Hardest shit out, period. (Also, 'Gettin Some Head,' is such a good fucking song.)

- Went to the ol weed spot twice today already, and it looks like I might be doin that again in like a half hour. LOLZ.

- Going to see CADENCE FUCKING WEAPON TOMORROW!!!!!! UGH!!!!!!! YEH.

This Gun

This is a thing I started writing a while ago and finished today:

I would like to preface the following blurb by noting that if anything personally significant surfaces as a result of this writing, it will be entirely indebted to Ben Burnett and his impeccable blog. Well, perhaps not entirely, but mostly.

First of all I'd like to note that the drums in 'Oh, Sister,' are pretty much a blueprint for the drums in 'Come Pick Me Up,' and that is awesome. I'm working on an album right now, and it is almost entirely finished, save for some recording, some re-recording, and the submission of what will most certainly be some kick-ass album art, that I'm psyched as shit about. Now, I realize that in my mind, the three albums that I 'finished' over the last 6 or 7 months were never 'finished' in any tangible sense, in that they are not available for you in any way, aside from 'Blue & Grey,' which is available on myspace for free, so take it. I would really like to finish all of them, so that anyone who wishes to could own a copy of the Elvis EP, Tuesdays and Blue & Grey, but it hasn't happened, and I've become more distracted by the day, and to be perfectly honest, the motivation just isn't there. Sorry dawgs. This is not to say that I will never finish them, because it is my belief that they are all worth finishing (this includes Blue & Grey, which I don't consider finished on account of the fact that 'Snake Eyes' deserves a better quality recording, and 'Same Heart, New Winter' is played with awful tempo, and lackluster vocals). But it may be a while, is all I'm saying.

Now, I'm gonna go a little crazy here and completely blow the lid off of this whole mystery thing behind the new album, 'cause almost everyone knows what's up anyway, so fuck it, and also, it should be done in no time.

So that everyone knows, the official title for my upcoming release (which will be on cassette, btw) is This Gun

Okay, this is why:

You have probably noticed (and I'm assuming you know me, obviously) that I write songs about girls exclusively. This is because of two things: one is that all the best songs are about girls, and two is that I am fucking obsessed with them, I can't help it, it's just my steez. Now, because of this condition, the last two albums I made were 100% centered around a chick (that's one chick per album, sadly), and this isn't necessarily a bad thing, cause I always have a lot of shit to say to a chick that I will not, and if I can be cliche for a moment, it is through song that I express said 'shit.' So I wrote a few albums for some chicks and afterwards it struck me...'what next?'

This puzzled me for about a day, until I was riding the bus to work one morning, this would've been somewhere on the Martinon bus route at somewhere around 7 in the morning, and I most certainly would not have had no more than 2 hours of sleep the night before, and I was listening to Bruce Springsteen in my headphones, specifically, 'Dancing in the Dark.' Now, I am aware that Bun fucking loves that song, and I assume that is because it is stupidly good. This is part of the reason that I so specifically kept him in the dark about this title, cause I knew he would think it was a great reference, but my friends, it is no mere reference.

The line I'm referencing, of course, is 'this gun's for hire...even if we're just dancing in the dark.' Which is great lyricism, by the way. And while I was riding the bus and watching the sun rise and desperately trying to keep from falling asleep and spilling a cup of coffee on my crotch again, this line struck me in a panicky wave.

I decided, in that moment, that I would write an album centered around me and my relentless, desperate, awful, stupid, uselessly strategic pursuit of females, and that I would call it 'This Gun,' because that is the fucking perfect title. In that line, Springsteen is obviously using a metaphor, and that metaphor of 'this gun,' is obviously him, in pursuit of her, which is pretty much my whole steez wrapped up in one perfect lyric.

So, about three days after I came up with this idea, I was doing blades at JJ's with him and Al Pal and I could not contain my excitement about this idea that I had, despite the fact that I had no idea how I was going to approach it, and I didn't even have songs semi-written for it. I told them the idea, and although we were quite stoned, it was obvious immediately that this idea was the right one for various reasons. It was perfectly appropriate, clever enough, and most importantly, it looked and sounded good. Because of their reaction, it was no longer an idea, it was the title.

Some time after this I attempted to finally write a song for the album, but there arose many problems. Firstly, it sucked ass, and secondly, it was about two different girls, instead of none. I liked the guitar riff, and I said this sort of semi-clever mean thing about someone, but ultimately the song proved inconsequential. This was unfortunate, but not impossible or at all discouraging, as the song did sound different, and was thusly a move towards my goal.

All I knew at first, was that I wanted to sound more like early to mid-90's radio rock. I also wanted to write about myself, and therefore write about an assload of people. So I wrote that song, and scrapped it, concentrating instead on new and better lyrics and songs.

Then I had this great weekend, and it really kicked off the whole album. Bun, Al Pal and Arbro spent a weekend eating pancakes at my crib, and on Saturday morning, I believe, as Bun and Arbro were leaving to buy more pancake mix, Bun jokingly told me to write a song while he was gone, so I did. That song was All Those Adjectives, which was originally going to be the opening track. With this song I had found a 90’s aesthetic I felt comfortable with, as it didn’t seem trite and it addressed the subject of the album.

On the strength of that first song, I embarked on a 5-day songwriting streak; that is to say I wrote a song a day for about 5 days, which Al Pal predicted would happen. Unfortunately, I don’t think any of those songs proved worthy of the final product I had in mind. Unless ‘I’ll Be Online’ was one of them, which I’m not sure of. I wrote a few okay choruses n junk, but one of the songs reminded me of 4am by OLP, which is funny but not really a good thing, and the other one had a bad title and awkward verses, and both stuck to the 90’s thing far too much, and I didn’t want the album to be a shitty version of Rock N Roll.

One day though, and I don’t remember which or anything, I told Al Pal that I wanted to write our generations first official love song, which is obviously a pretty bold statement to make, but whatevs dawg. So I wrote a song called ‘I’ll Be Online,’ that I really liked, and I think that’s where the turn for the better happened.

Some time after this, I wrote I Am Your Gun, which I knew immediately would be the album closer (and is coincidentally a perfect counterpart to the album opener). So I had a tiny bit of a tracklist and I was happy about that, but this is where the shitty part happens. I hit this block, and fuck writer’s block dawg, I’m a song-a-day type a dawg. So I hit this wall. I was trying to write my way out of it by just writing all day everyday and trying everything. I even, and this is not a joke, got high and sat in the kitchen, because I don’t write songs whilst high, or in kitchens, and the song I wrote sucked ass. I also wrote this pretty song called ‘I Am Trying to Catch You,’ that I got bored of immediately. Plus I was specifically trying to write this one song, that I had a chord progression and lyrics to but no chorus at all, and obviously good pop songs hinge on an irresistible chorus. I did, though, eventually finish that song, and I’m gonna tell that story cause I like it.

So I’m waiting for Mike to pick me up so I can go up to his crib and smoke some dope and write raps, and I’m strumming my little brothers guitar and I hit this really easy like, A7 and D thing, and started singing over it, and it was rad. But like I said, no fucking chorus. So I spent the next two or three weeks working on this song, because it was really important to me. So after weeks of writing shit for it every day, I sit down at my desk with the guitar, and just play it, and I added this line from this awful poem I blogged, and it worked, but I still had no chorus, so I said fuck it, and took out all of the lyrics for the chorus I had, and replaced them with, ‘No arms will ever hold you like these arms of mine,’ cause I heard it on my crooners collection that day. But because I didn’t have a surefire chorus progression, I decided to just press record and wing it. So the chorus is just on the spot, and I really fucking like it, so it made the cut.

I also had this idea that I wanted to write a song with my electric organ, cause it kicks so much ass, and I never use it (except to play ‘These Eyes’ whilst stoned). So one night I moved the organ into my room and wrote this awful overdramatic love song that was trite and obvious. Some time after that, Cam showed up at the crib out of the blue and brought ice cream, and forced me to show him this awful song. We decided to scrap the lyrics and add guitar and harmonies. We started working on it, but we had to leave to buy weed. So we went on a bit of an elaborate tear and came home and got high. Then we finished the song, recorded it and listened to an Elton John record. It took two takes, which I was pissed about, but in retrospect that’s quite efficient.

I skipped ‘From Chivalry,’ which is fucking stupid. So JD and I are chillin, and we’re waiting to go get my tattoo, and I was probably bitching about something, and we started writing this song, but we had to leave. So we go get the tattoo, and we decide we should go get beer afterwards, but because I wanted to get real drunk, I suggested we skip the bar and just buy booze, then we decide to buy weed. So we get some weed, hit the crib and write this great song that is still my favourite cut on the album.

Earlier in that week was when I broke my writer’s block, with ‘Lackluster Penmanship.’ I was basically just in a shitty mood and wrote about it using Graham’s words. I can’t remember if I was drunk or not. I think I was. Then I decided I should add Quit Breakin My Heart to the list, because it’s still fresh, and the story behind it is the opposite of what everyone thinks.

So me, JD, Al Pal and Cam are chillin and I decided to buy a bottle of wine and drink it. So we do some hangin while I get drunk, and Josh starts playing this chord progression that he has structured, and because I was drunk and emotional I quickly wrote two verses and a chorus. But I was wearing a towel on my head so we just put it aside to finish later. We still haven’t really done that but I have the rough draft on the copy of the album that I have thus far.

So at this point I think I thought that the album was finished, for the most part, but then on Sunday, I was chillin around the crib, planning on cleaning, but instead wrote a new song. I wrote it as a kind of ‘that‘s the end of that chapter‘ kinda thing because it‘s been one year this month since I kicked fuckface out the crib. I was pretty psyched about it as soon as I finished writing it so I called Josh and got him to come over and put harmonica on it, then we did like 20 takes of it to get it right, then we were good. A little time after we were listening to Elvis and I was telling JD why Are You Lonesome Tonight? Is such a kickass song, and I decided we should try to cover it, so I called Cam and got him to help me figure out the chords and we started playing it and I just kinda improvised this little guitar part and then we practiced it and recorded it, and that‘s pretty much the whole thing.

So it’s been good to have it pretty much finished. I got the album art from Kay-T and obviously (if you’ve seen it) was pumped as fuck, cause it kicked a bunch of ass, and then I designed the album case at cam’s and made some copies. I even got this cool pic on the inside behind where the tape goes that I really like. Also, I have three new songs for the next album that are really really good, and I’m pumped as such. Today I locked myself out of my apartment and spent the whole day smoking weed at JJ’s and put some lo-fo shit on the comp and made a ‘greatest hits’ kind of deal for myself, with the new songs and cuts from every album. I’m pretty happy about it, I just called it Alas! I Shall Prevail.

We played at SJHS’s coffee house the other day and it went really well. A few people really liked it, apparently. Chicks like the romantic angle, I bet, and my stage banter went over really well. Plus we were right high so our on-stage personas were quite funny. Anyway, I tried to put a thing on purevolume today but I don’t know if I did. I figured out how to put This Gun on the net though, so I’ll get on that pretty soon, and once everyone has already found a way to listen to their personalized cassette copies of the album I’ll think about making some CD’s.

purevolume.com/davidrelliott

lyrics i wish i could use but it just aint happenin bro

dear child,
i've been reading the waste land
and i wish that it was where i am
but id wanna have your hands
bejeweled and oppressively present.
dear child,
i never meant to blow smoke in your eyes
but of all the things to tear from,
let the smoke bereave you
and ill believe you

tuesday morning,
and im thinking about the work my hands will do
but everyday will leave me desolate
christ wheres the voice at




also

1 You Gave Me Two Weeks of Summer (Dear Lonely Hearts)
2 Lackluster Penmanship
3 Al Pal vs. Ray Bradbury
4 Are You Lonesome Tonight?
5 Quit Breakin My Heart
6 All Those Adjectives
7 The River Was There
8 I'll Be Online
9 What Blue Means
10 These Arms of Mine
11 From Chivalry
12 I Am Your Gun (You Send Me)

that's the final tracklist, now I'm just waiting on album art and a little more recording and the album will be done, so hopefully by the end of this month.

edit: new thing! writing letters and not sending them. this, my friends, is a very useful idea for some reason.

"You were bright like the business end of this cigarette, and so lost it was obvious and heavy. But none of that matters if your heart aches like pneumonia and everything you own is little shit. It's hard to care about you. Love has destroyed you."



This is about you, not me.
Well, it's about me, but only if this 'me' is thinking of you.


When it comes to my youth,
I only wish that I drank more,
shoulda slept with some girl,
whose name I can't remember.
Shoulda wrote a bunch of letters,
and actually sent them.
Shoulda been less bold,
less intense and less cynical.

Maybe there'll be girls who don't fuck you up,
just spend the winter drinking and taking drugs.

One scratch, three scrapes,
illegible notebooks.
These days, it takes,
so much patience.
Maybe there'll be girls who don't fuck you up,
maybe there'll be girls who don't fuck you up.

When it comes to my house,
I just fill it with small shit.
I should throw it all out,
and start buying new shit.
Call and wake me up,
cause I'll sleep when I'm dead.
I'd rather have your voice,
than nothing in my bed.

One scratch, three scrapes,
illegible notebooks.
These days, it takes,
so much patience.
Maybe there'll be girls who don't fuck you up,
maybe there'll be girls who don't fuck you up.