by Ryan Woodring

Check out The Elucidator website here: http://elucidator.net/

Sitting in the Elucidator offices head in hand looking at the mess Carter left from his stint as guest Listener.  Did he have to leave a half-eaten Paula Deen brand Honey Baked Spiral Cut Ham out on my desk all winter break and chew all of my Juicy Fruit?  Probably not.  The phone rang.  It was my old pal Doug Hawk.

DH:  Hello, man-friend.   So, my new cd is coming out this weekend.  Any interest in doing a small review for The Lucid-dater?

RW:  Dude.  I am a primed for a review for the Luddite-dater.  Can you drop the CD off for me?

DH:  I’m not producing an actual, physical CD.  I can drop off a burned copy so you can listen in the car.  Or at the gym.  Or at the waxing salon.

RW:  If I can stream it from your site, that’s cool, too.  My waxing salon is also an Internet cafe and a taco stand so I get Wi-Fi and Carnitas there.

DH:  Don’t get any hot sauce in those freshly raped follicles!  Yeeeowww!!!   I just posted the new tunes to my website — www.doughawk.net.

RW:  (Typing) Yo, Bro-man Polanski — so a quick scan of the Internet reveals NOEL JONES beat me to a review of your album.   Stick to griping about the mayor, lady!   Maybe we should do an interview instead.

DH: OK — whatever you want to do is cool.

RW:  (Composing myself) How did the idea for a live album come about?

DH:  The logic behind the live album was that I had a shitload of songs that I was itching to put out. I had basically re-invented myself as a songwriter over the last couple of years and was anxious to get some product out there. Plus, a lot of my lyrics are politically topical and seemed more relevant than ever. Factoring in costs and such, I figured doing a live album would give me the most bangs for my buck. I had never done anything live before and it was a bit of a risk — but it ended up coming together very nicely.

RW:  How did you choose Black and Blue as your venue?

DH:  I chose Black & Blue for a few reasons.  I really wanted to record in Easton.  I have lived here for most of my life and it was important for me to produce this ultimate form of self-expression in front of family and close friends.  People tend to have expectations about who you are and expect you to be a certain way according to their view.  I wanted to make sure they knew what I was really about and this was a perfect way to do that.  I also wanted to do it at Black & Blue because I have a great relationship with Kelly Jo and I love the sarcasm and Pagan debauchery that goes on there.  They also had the perfect room to do it in.

RW:  I assume the title “Eleven Alive” is a reference to television affiliate WPIX and has no allusions to 9/11 or anything esoteric and it’s just a reflection of your love of MASH reruns, televised Yule Logs and the Magic Garden.

DH:  The title is related to the date it was recorded on as well as the number of tracks on the album.  My girlfriend is pretty into numerology and 11/11/11 just happened to be on a weekend.  All of those ‘ones’ represent new beginnings or stepping into one’s true self — something that was very appropriate for me at the time.  It’s funny because I did research the title to make sure I wasn’t infringing on anyone’s copyright or brand or something and the only thing that came up was the WPIX stuff.

RW:  Speaking of WPIX, when you were a kid did you ever call in to play that PIX game they hosted between shows in the afternoons?

DH:  I don’t remember the PIX game.  I just remember that they would show Yankees games and I fucking hated them.

RW:  How did you get Matt Nixon to do the cover art?  Oh, right, I MADE THAT HAPPEN.  I forgot.  Never mind.  Were there any challenges recording live that you didn’t expect?

DH:  It was a little nerve-wracking doing the actual recording.  Ideally, you would record something like this over the course of a few gigs to make sure you got the best takes.  We were only able to get two takes per song with no overdubbing or anything like that. It was definitely a challenge but well worth it.  Jim McGee, the audio engineer, is a goddamn ninja when it comes to stuff like this and got some amazing sounds.  Most importantly, the band played their asses off.  I think we were able to capture a great energy that is hard to reproduce in the stuffy confines of a studio.

RW: Tell me about the Easton All-Stars you pulled together for the gig.

DH:  Actually, the guys in the band are from all over.  Mike Lorenz, the guitarist lives in Philly.  Bassist Lee Clarke lives near Doylestown and drummer Paul Wells is from Hell (Allentown).  This is pretty much the core band.  I’ll have a different bass player at the CD release party and occasionally use a different drummer depending on everyone’s availability.

RW:  What does 2012 have in store for you, aside from the possibility of a President Gingrich and the Mayan apocalypse?

DH:  2012…oh, boy…I actually feel pretty positive about it.  People seem to be waking up en masse to the fact that their minds are being occupied by exploitative entities.  I’ve read a bunch of stuff that rejects a lot of the doom and gloom being propagated about this year.  A lot of the old stuff is breaking down.  A lot of the old systems are breaking down.  As Bill Hicks said, “We didn’t stop evolving just because we grew thumbs.”  Although, if Gingrich ends up being President ignore everything I just said and run for the hills.  Y’know, Gingrich could be the first politician sponsored by mashed potatoes.  He looks like someone just dumped a shitload into a suit and somehow got it to stand erect.

RW:  I think he looks like old dough that wasn’t punched down enough and now is just out of control. That is, if dough could be rich and racist.

DH:  Maybe he can create a dough manufacturing plant on the moon.

RW:  Aside from your site, where can your fans pick up a copy of “Eleven Alive”?  And do you have any last words before I hang up on you?  I have to get back to scraping gum off from under my desk.

DH: Yes – you can buy it on iTunes, CD Baby, Amazon, Napster and Spotify.   A central reason for doing this album was to explore what it means to be a full-time artist – to truly go all in.  I am hopeful that this album can take me to a different level with higher profile gigs and a better internet/radio presence — maybe sell a shitload of music??

-Dave Howell  Special to The Morning Call

“Eleven Alive”  The Doug Hawk Proposition

Finally, Doug Hawk has released a full CD, with 11 originals recorded live at Easton’s Black and Blue.

This is not background music, and it might take a few listenings to appreciate Hawk’s merging of influences. His yearning voice and light touch with electric piano give a suggestion of lounge music. But many of his lyrics are highly political, like “Poison In My Well,” which was inspired by the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.

The opening song, “Calorie Bomb,” is about corporate driven overeating in a world where many go hungry: “It’s all because we eat wrong feast while families starve.” In another setting the lyrics would be too harsh. But carried with the jazzy feel of the band and Hawk’s beautiful melodies, they are a welcome surprise in a world of pop blandness.

Guitarist Mike Lorenz uses a lot of funk chording along with jazz and rock. Lee Clarke on bass and Paul Wells on drums put out a heavy beat, almost as if this were dance music. The drums sound a bit dominating at first, but they make sense with the tough emotional feel of the songs. Hawk even goes into hip hop on “Heroes?” rapping out polysyllabic words about our useless overseas wars.

“Eleven Alive” also includes “Caught in a Quiet Room,” a song Hawk wrote after the death of his mother, which moves from a bleak outlook on life to a bit of hope. He ends the CD by exploring the complex emotions of love in “With You, Without You.” .

This is a CD from an artist whose unique voice deserves wider recognition, in the Lehigh Valley and beyond.

The Doug Hawk Proposition plays a CD release party at 9 p.m. Feb. 3 at Black and Blue, 683 Walnut St., Easton, 610-438-3604.

On 11/11/11, The Doug Hawk Proposition held a standing-room-only live recording party for their latest album, hosted by Easton’s Black & Blue. The album, Eleven Alive, is now available on line and it is a politically-conscious funk fest for the soul.

We are very fortunate to have a musical artist of this calibre among us here in Easton, and that we can actually go hear him gig for free is one of the reasons I love the Easton music scene.

If a living man could be reincarnated, or if a soul could be cloned, I would suspect that perhaps Doug Hawk is Stevie Wonder reincarnated in the body of a white boy with glasses. I also hear hints of Maxwell occasionally, and even a little Marvin Gaye. But whether he’s swinging the funk, or crooning the ballads, this boy is the real thing, and all his own.

Doug Hawk has it all going on: melody, strong chord progressions, interesting arrangements, meaningful, smart rhymes and he swings his ass off with genuine soul. One thing that typifies his original music is an ability to write and deliver lyrics and melody in a way that can make a tune about a political topic sound like a sexy, troubled love-gone-awry song. An example is Track #9, “NASA” which deals with our seemingly endless military involvement overseas, but the refrain, Remember when we did things good/remember when we used to do things good/remember when we just did good? sounds almost like someone lamenting over a failing relationship.

Track #3, “Poison in My Well” was first inspired by the Fukishima disaster in Japan, but Hawk says it seems now to apply more locally to water contamination from natural gas drilling. “The nuclear accident made me realize how tainted a lot of our world is by industrial processes, the most immediate example being the fracking happening here in Pennsylvania.” The song makes me thinks of corporate “personhood” in general, and the way it’s running roughshod over the constitutional rights of all Americans lately, but instead of sounding angry, it sounds like a spiritual appeal for brotherly love reminiscent of Marvin Gaye’s album, What’s Going On?

“Heroes” (Track #4) is a rap about what “heroism” has come to represent in our culture with respect to troops and corporate interventionism overseas, when real heroism in this day and age is having enough to character to not be brainwashed by the media, to think independently, and to be willing to rebel for the right to the “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for which our nation’s forefathers were willing to fight and die.

Track #4, “Caught in a Quiet Room,” starts as a love ballad dedicating to the artist’s dying mother, that ends up up-tempo and optimistic, even after having lost her:

It’s the best and the worst of things

that the twist of this tragedy

is how something so sad can lead to so much growth

A basic dichotomy just like the front and the back of me

all alone with a memory of me and you.

Life is a mystery. Life’s more than history.

Where it has been is gone. The best thing is to move on.

Live on.

There is a lot of love in this album: love of country, romantic love, love of family, brotherly love. Considering the topics tackled in this album, it’s an impressive feat of lyricism and soul.

“What Ever Happened to Kings” (track #8) tackles global banking and monetary policy and how both perpetuate power in the hands of the few. “Calorie Bomb” (track #1) addresses the contamination of our food sources and all the marketing in the media that perpetuates ever-increasing illness from it.

On a couple of songs he goes over the top a little with the positivity for my taste, and on those tunes the lyrics get more vague, but there is enough terrific stuff on this album that, you’re definitely getting your money’s worth. It’ll make you think, wanna sing, and you might even find yourself dancing without realizing it.

The tag line at the top of the home page of Hawk’s website pretty much says it all: Soul.Music.Evolution.Revolution

Support this artist! We can all stand to hear more music from an independent thinker who looks the planet’s problems straight in the eye, and still finds optimism to spread. Go to his gigs. Buy the CD. You can visit his website to listen to tracks (and I love it that he posts all the lyrics too).
***The album can be purchased through the ‘Store’ link at the top of the page or on any of your favorite download sites including: iTunes, Bandcamp, Amazon, Napster and more.  Or just free-stream using the music player on the right of the screen.

The Official CD Release Party is scheduled for Friday, February 3rd at Black & Blue, 9pm.  Hope you can join us.

"Eleven Alive" is now officially available for purchase!!  It will be a couple of days before you can download/listen using iTunes, CDBaby, Spotify, etc. but,  in the meantime, I have posted it to the super-hip, indie-friendly music site Bandcamp. You'll be able to pay whatever you want (with a set minimum) and I get to keep 100%. Plus, you can download it in just about any format available to humankind.  You can also free stream from the music player to the right of this post.  All of the lyrics are available under the 'lyrics' tab at the top of this page.  Remember, this is a LIVE album with no overdubs and a minimum of fixes.   I recommend listening at a loud volume.  Hope you enjoy it.  Many thanks to those who were involved in making this a reality, especially the band -- Mike Lorenz, Lee Clarke and Paul Wells.  And sincerest gratitude to you, the fan, for all of your support.