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--from the Walter Ehresman album "Life Outside the Tent" (2012).

Download the whole album here: walterehresman.bandcamp.com/album/life-outside-the-tent

See the video here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hVL203eg_o

“Your Supersonic Stare” is a song with a long gestation period, Ehresman explains. “I wrote the music and 90% of the lyrics back in 2005, but I never recorded it because I thought I’d need a full band to do it justice........As the years went by and I still didn’t have a big band with horns and keyboards, I always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to finish that song because I really liked the way it sounded in my head, not to mention that I was afraid I would eventually forget how it was supposed to go!....... Finally I pulled out the lyric sheet with my notes scribbled in the margins, wrote the short rap section to give it a twist and also to flesh out the lyrical theme, and now it’s done and available for your audio canals.”

Both the music and the vocals seem influenced by one of Ehresman’s favorite artists, the UK’s Bill Nelson, who famously fronted the band Be Bop Deluxe in the ‘70s before going on to have an astonishingly-prolific solo career that continues to this day. Ehresman agrees: “There’s no question that the music was influenced by Bill Nelson, not only in terms of composing via harmonized guitars but also through the electronica rhythm tracks being used in a song that otherwise isn’t in that style.....That’s an influence that actually goes way back, and can be heard on albums of mine as early as 2001's Le Cafard.” He continues, “Nelson’s influence is also felt a bit in the lyrical imagery, although really I see the song primarily as a sort of sequel to a couple of Donald Fagen Cold War parodies on his first solo album, The Nightfly.......Those two songs, 'IGY' and 'New Frontier,' took an ironic look at the gung-ho technology fetishism and America-First sloganeering in the time of Dr. Strangelove...... In my song, the big war has already happened and the war-tech fetish is still in full swing as the human remnants live underground, hoping the air filters keep the radiation out, and prove to have learned nothing from the experience…..the Cowboy Mentality soldiers on.” The music is a grooving mixture of futuristic lead guitar lines with old school funk clavinets and envelope-filtered quacking rhythm guitar, all interspersed with electronica drum breaks and even a hip hop section at the break (“oblivious rapping from the bomb shelter,” Ehresman quips).

lyrics

Your Supersonic Stare
(©2011 Walter Ehresman)

What a flashy future, now the war's come to an end;
Technology will save us, and our style is on the mend;
Roarin' through the city on my throbbing new machine--
us cowboys are all confident that the girls know what we mean.

All that silver gleaming; sound of thousand violins--
smooth lines are important, but we gotta have those fins;
Radio waves crackle as you roll up to the door;
Situation critical, but I've got to have some more (of)

[chorus]
Your supersonic stare; your supersonic stare;
I've got to duck and cover from your supersonic stare.

[rap break]
When you keep your room so clean,
our hair grows fine, our eyes don't gleam;
That ol' bunker mentality
will never get the best of me;
And I don't need the sun to shine
when you're down here with that behind;
There's just one thing that makes me trip--
you scare me when your goggles slip.

credits

from The Best of​.​.​.​.​.​.​.​Electronic Rockers, track released January 1, 2012
--Walter Ehresman: vocals and vocal effects, guitars, keyboards, sequencing, groove box programming and manipulations.

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Walter Ehresman San Miguel De Allende, Mexico

Called "the quintessential Austin DIY artist" by famed local disc jockey Charlie Martin , Walter Ehresman was an eccentric presence in the Austin music scene from the '80s until his 2015 move to Mexico. A prolific songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and recording artist...and a restless musical spirit, always looking for something new, expressed with fearlessly honest, socially-conscious lyrics. ... more

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