Four vans destroyed and sold for scrap metal. Five guitar amps crackled, hissed, and went silent, exhaling a final puff of smoke. An irreplacable vintage keyboard face down at the bottom of a flight of stairs, 13 keys cracked and lifted, never to make a sound again.
A string of misfortune seemed to follow the five young men comprising Michigan's Mason Proper (named for an obscure phrase relating to Freemasonry) last year as they toured in support of their 2007 debut album, There is a Moth in Your Chest. Each time they packed up their belongings to head to another town, they would search their bags and equipment for arcane symbols, unexplained objects, anything that might prove to be evidence of the curse of unluckiness they seemed to be living under. "It was a ritual we took up half-jokingly," singer and primary songwriter Jonathan Visger said, "but the second part of the joke was always that if we ever found anything, it would certainly explain a lot."
The band powered on through the mishaps and continued to play as many of the shows as they could make it to, despite sending van after van to the junkyard. The early shows were energetic and bubbling with enthusiasm, but as the band encountered more and more trouble they became progressively wilder and more dangerously frenetic, coping by learning to take a sick delight in watching the chaos around them. They were in the grip of mental instability. During this time period, keyboardist Matt Thomson would often disappear for hours at a time without telling anyone where he was going. He even missed the beginning of several shows, including a well-documented incident at Denver, Colorado's Monolith Festival, where he disappeared into the mountains. Around this time a wild-eyed and bruised Jonathan was quoted as saying, "I'm disappointed if I don't shed a little blood by the end of a show," when asked about his wild and self-destructive performances.
The band's most fervent supporters are a group known as "The New Destroyers," named after an unreleased song the band retired from their live set after noticing that things would mysteriously break whenever they played it. Some of the New Destroyers cracked the coded messages woven into the artwork of Moth, and through it discovered the secret website the band had created, allowing anonymous communication with the band via the same code.
Shortly after they began using it, several unsettling coded messages came in threateningly alluding to private matters in the band's lives. Shaken by the amount of information the person seemed to have, Mason Proper temporarily shut down the site, but not before one last message came in; it decoded as: KEEP GOING CURSESTELLO.
Convinced that this was a reference to the Elvis Costello-like glasses Jonathan wore through this time period, bassist Zac Fineberg and guitarist Brian Konicek refused to do any further touring with what they now suspected was the cursed item. Jonathan refused to destroy them, saying they had sentimental value and that he would just lock them away instead, but drummer Garrett Jones, the most superstitious of them all, stole them in the night and burned them in Zac's fire pit.
After the allegedly cursed glasses were gone, the band decided to turn over a new leaf and look to the future, hopefully leaving their dark past behind them. They met with producer Chris Coady (TV on the Radio, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Blonde Redhead), and with him selected 10 songs from a pool of 30 they had to choose from, aiming to make a very cohesive album, with a tone that reflected the band's collective state of mind as accurately as possible. They rented a small, empty house for a month and recorded the album, and Jonathan met up with Chris again at Carriage House Studios to mix what would become Olly Oxen Free (on the same console the Pixies' "Doolittle" was mixed on).
While some of the songs on Olly Oxen Free do update the dense, electronically-enhanced rock sound the band wielded recklessly on it's debut (which are sure to please longtime fans), it is the times when the band veers off into entirely new territory that are the most intriguing. On "Point A to Point B," nearly all the band's trademark noisiness is gone, while Jonathan sings "In past lives I was wealthy, so probably unhappy. Oh, I'm so glad I died," over a bouncy beat, and a sparse bed of bass and guitar ambience, before opening up to a beautifully simple chorus of, "I swore to myself last time was the last time." The band chose to close the record with "Safe for the Time Being," a song that had surprised the band by becoming an instant live favorite in the months before. A post-apocalyptic slow burner that stays sparse with only a heartbeat kick drum, thin guitar, and the most dynamic vocal melody the band has ever penned, until it explodes at the end in a grand wall of fuzz.
Olly Oxen Free will be out September 23rd on New York's Dovecote Records.
written by Lewis Muzynski, band friend and historian.
Related links:
Mason Proper (official site)
Mason Proper on Myspace
Dovecote Records
Life's Cornucopia
Mason Proper Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
mouth all a'gushing green.
Full, every feaster fades.
Fog framed in rain.
Sir, s'that a watch you wear?
Ma'am, with your bird feather hair!
You shells, you complacent snails
Are you starving?
This is a poison plate
cooked by the face run numbered grinning gates.
You can refuse, be saved.
Would it be nice to buy some time to...
sit and stare for days at stars and lights on satellites,
your eyes going dry but never quite
glossing over?
Though shades of place may lose it's sight
till your mindless,
why not be timeless?
Life's cornucopia,
spilling out, spilling out
.
The song "Life's Cornucopia" by Mason Proper is a thought-provoking and insightful piece about modern society and the way we consume without much thought. The opening lines suggest a mouth full of green, representing an overwhelming abundance of things that we have access to. However, even with all these things, it seems that we're never satisfied, and everyone eventually fades away. The next lines describe people who are content with their lives, but only because they're too stoned or complacent to realize they're not living to their fullest potential.
The line "This is a poison plate cooked by the face run numbered grinning gates" is particularly powerful because it suggests that we're being fed a toxic diet of consumerism by the powers that be. The poem ends with the idea of being timeless, which suggests that there's more to life than mindlessly consuming and being part of the rat race. The repetitive line "Life's cornucopia, spilling out" suggests that there's no end to the abundance of things in life, but we must learn to consume consciously and ethically.
Line by Line Meaning
Life's cornucopia,
Life is like a overflowing cornucopia, a symbol of abundance and plenty.
mouth all a'gushing green.
Refers to the feeling of being so overwhelmed with abundance that the senses are overloaded to the point of saturation, as if the person is gorging on a plentiful feast.
Full, every feaster fades.
Even though the festivities may seem to be endless and full of energy, eventually everyone will tire and fade away.
Fog framed in rain.
This line may refer to the feeling of being lost and overwhelmed in a confusing, disorienting environment, such as driving through fog and rain on an unfamiliar road.
Sir, s'that a watch you wear?
The artist is addressing someone who appears to be wealthy or important, perhaps because they are wearing a nice watch or other expensive accessory.
Ma'am, with your bird feather hair!
The singer is again addressing someone who appears to be unique or different, perhaps because of their unusual hairstyle (in this case, feathers).
You shells, you complacent snails
The singer is making a reference to shells and snails, both hard and immobile creatures. This line may be referring to individuals who are stuck in their ways and unwilling to change or adapt to new situations.
Stoned, slumped and stale.
This line may be describing individuals who are sluggish, inefficient or unproductive, perhaps because they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Are you starving?
This line is a direct question to the listener or reader, asking if they are in need of something that is not currently available.
This is a poison plate
The artist is referring to something that appears to be good or beneficial, but is actually harmful or detrimental in some way.
cooked by the face run numbered grinning gates.
This line may be describing a systematic process or operation, perhaps one that is driven by some sort of unfeeling, mechanized system or corporate bureaucracy.
You can refuse, be saved.
This line may be encouraging the listener or reader to resist or reject something that might be harmful or detrimental, in order to protect themselves.
Would it be nice to buy some time to...
The singer is prompting the listener or reader to consider what they would do if they had the luxury of time or money.
sit and stare for days at stars and lights on satellites,
This line is suggesting the idea of taking time to appreciate the beauty of the natural world and the cosmos, perhaps by gazing at the night sky and watching the stars and satellites pass overhead.
your eyes going dry but never quite glossing over?
The singer is suggesting that even though the viewer might become tired or fatigued, they will never lose their sense of wonder or curiosity as they continue to observe the beauty of the world.
Though shades of place may lose it's sight till your mindless,
This line is suggesting that as we lose our senses and our physical abilities due to age or infirmity, we can still find meaning and purpose in life by engaging our minds and our spirits.
why not be timeless?
The artist is suggesting that even though life may be fleeting and temporary, we can still find ways to create something that will endure beyond our own mortality.
Life's cornucopia,
The refrain of the song repeats, suggesting that life continues to be a source of abundance and plenty, even if we may not always fully appreciate or acknowledge it.
spilling out, spilling out
This line reiterates the idea of abundance and plenty, as if life is overflowing and can't be contained.
Contributed by Isaiah O. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Akid
I LOVE THIS SONG!!!!!!XD mason proper is hands down my favorite band
Selene Honeyhart
I love this song! <3
Vinicius Eduardo
i love this song!
Andi Wiens
I love this song and A Chance Encounter by him too.