Underground Shadows by The Watermelon Tree

Underground Shadows

At most Watermelon Tree rehearsals nowadays, we begin & end with a few improvised jams. Someone will start something and the others will join in and run with it. We record our rehearsals for prosperity, so these jams all tend to get names.

Virtually all of the Watermelon Tree songs nowadays get their starts thru these improvisations by the band. Some songs like “The Centenarians Club”, “An Honest Mistake” and “Rats of Tobruk” were just instrumentals that have the best ideas utilised and turned into songs. Some like “Gambit”, 'Late Rendezvous”, “Ghosts on the Highway” & “Emu Races” even keep the original titles and have the lyrics based on that. Most of our recent songs, such as “Better Luck Next Time”, “A Sitting Duck”, “You can’t get pregnant the first time you have sex” and “Airport Purgatory”, went a step lazier than that and just had the vocals & lyrics improvised at the same time as the rest of the jam.

The result is that a lot of our regular songs are a little improvised too whenever we play them. There’s no definitive arrangement. Paul plays best when he isn’t constrained to an arrangement.

Some songs just remain as great jams because we know we’ll never be able to recapture that moment. (Jack White does a very accurate comment on this in the White Stripes movie “Under Great White Northern Lights”.) So here they are for your pleasure.

I assembled the first 29 tracks as a triple album for a friend. (Disc 1 is tracks 1-11, Disc 2 is tracks 12-21, Disc 3 is tracks 22-29 if you want to play along.) We'll add tracks as we feel like it.

Otherwise, there is a lot to listen to here. Just pick a track you like the look of and go with it.

WHAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT IS THAT YOU DON'T LISTEN TO THESE THRU SHODDY LAPTOP SPEAKERS (or similar).

Being completely improvised, you will notice numerous errors. Bad notes, lost beats, factual errors in the lyrics or inconsistent quality of the ideas. Listen to them with a little grace and you’ll be right. Many of them are rather long too, but are rewarding listening in our humble opinion.

Unseen wonder.

Unheard thunder.

Untold stories.

Unknown glories.