The song:
Dollhouse Dominatrix is one of those songs that came to me, literally, in a dream. I was living in Los Angeles at the time, but floating in my astral body thru a dining hall at some college in Oregon... I got the feeling it was the U of O... and I could hear music playing over the loud speakers.
I'm a doooolllhooooouse..... dollhouse dominaaaaaatrix..... it's the way that my brain's fixed, like a bomb ticks out of control.....
I immediately recognized my voice and knew it was my song. It sounded so badass. I tried to maintain the out of body state as long as possible, hanging onto every last detail, but shortly afterward I woke up and felt things slipping away. I wrote down everything I could remember, as fast as possible, which was primarily the chorus and the melody.
The verses, in the form I recorded them, came later when I was in my own studio with some dank home-grown purple kush and a hot mic, and they were recorded pretty close to freestyle.
There is actually a verse missing from this recording.... that whole instrumental section in the middle was supposed to have a verse on it, but the finished version burned in the fire. I might do a little video of me singing the lost verse at some point... if ur lucky.
Production:
This is one of the first songs where I ran into significant obstacles trying to write it using just a piano. In the early days, I struggled to arrange this on the keyboard in a way that worked for me live. I knew I needed more sounds. More Action. More Power.
Although I knew Dollhouse had the potential to sound like it did in my dream, it gathered dust in the back of my mind for a long time because I didn't have the tools or knowledge to bring it to life. When I finally built my studio and started using soft synths to layer DD's musical motifs with the contrasting textures of the tinkly Persian santoor and gritty distorted guitar... it just jumped out of the speakers and came alive.
I love the feeling I get when I finally get something right.
I was halfway thru building the track when my brother came over and we sat there together and vibed off each other while I worked the keyboard and the logic file. There's a really sick metallic sounding drum that hits somewhere in there, like four times really fast... that was his idea.
I had a crashed hard drive a few months later and lost a bunch of songs, but luckily I had a mostly-finished version of dollhouse backed up... because after we finished our session, my brother was like BACK THIS UP. Thanks, Charles. Anyway I went back in there and re-did the missing parts. Fucking stupid how many times my music has been eaten.
I figure if I just make music really fast now and release it immediately, the universe can go play shark with another artist.
Music Video:
You ever have one of those days where u get so much good footage u don't even know what to use? Me neither. Unless I'm shooting myself.
Just kidding. Kind of.
I have a love/hate relationship with filming myself... and it all comes down to the lighting. I shot this on my Samsung Galaxy s10+ in the middle of the day with indirect sunlight coming thru a window to my right and a few yellow light bulbs turned on in the overhead fan. Hey, it works!
I nailed a few takes, but the one with the best attitude and delivery was my first take (this is often the case, I'm learning), and I realized watching back that I had totally messed up my lipstick in that take. Something charming about that tho. One of my personalities wanted to swap out that footage with a take where I looked prettier, but it was more lame, so I didn't let that happen.
Which brings me to what dollhouse #dominatrix is all about. It's been my observation for a very long time that there are multiple psyches at work operating thru my human organism. This body is the #dollhouse, and there are a few dolls in here.... but I'm the one in charge. I left for a while because I had things to do in another dimension, and everything went to shit, so I'm working overtime to get things back in order.
I'm pretty good at salvaging shit tho. Which means there's going to be more music. Lots of it. When all the dolls work together, it's like a psychic symphony and we are able to open creative portals and do pretty much anything. We call it the CAN-DO-IT CONDUIT. But it's not a con, it's a pro. And being a pro is what it's all about.
Whorable Adorable:
I'm into archetypes. Channeling them, embodying them... capturing them on a recording. It's like taking a shot of distilled human experience. Then buying rounds for all ur friends for all eternity. That's the magic of making records. You preserve the vibe. It's amazing how many lives it feels like I've lived after I've let the really big energies in. Dollhouse indeed.
Whorable Adorable is a legitimate part of my personality, but blown up into extreme caricature. How I represented her was important to me, because she is a part of me. She had to be edgy, bossy and lovable. The KIND dominatrix who only hurts u the way u like it. Haha.
The Look:
The inspiration for my look -- if anyone cares -- was actually myself, years back, in my naughty Lolita phase when I was first starting off as a performer. As I sat here editing the video I realized that I have become, at last, everything that young aspiring artist dreamed of becoming, and it feels so fulfilling to finally be the me of my dreams.
Of course there's more to life than art, so it's time for some new goals. Like making money.
And raising amazing children.
And, uh... making more art.
xx magic