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Smooth Sailing

by Mike Pace and the Child Actors

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    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Please Visit Your National Parks, End Times Behind (Pt.2), End Times Behind (Pt.1), Hazy, Hot & Humid, Smooth Sailing, Get Soft, "The Flood" b/w "Red Sauce Revisited", and Best Boy. , and , .

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1.
A couple of cobras just drew first blood, fended off with our sticks and our spears. They may try to surprise us with asps and with vipers but I can’t see that happening here. Let’s make a break for the Coast or the Cape, peel the paint and draw outside the lines or go down like a ship by the breakers with the comfort of knowing we tried. We can leave them left to their wits to survive. Whoa-oh-whoa-oh-whoa-oh-oh-oh, I’m only just along for the ride. Set my sights on the sunrise and get out alive. There’s nobody left ‘tween the love and the theft and there’s nothing to call for our own. I’m surrounded by angel investors but I’d rather I was left alone. We’re not dead yet though the smoke and regret has left us with bruises and scars. It’ll make a great story someday ‘til then everyone out of the car. Weekend peaking, lost in a sea of red lights. Hold on baby we can make it if we’re stubborn enough. They may fleece our hides but it’s better than dying tonight.
2.
Star quarterback laying flat on his ass on the painted stripe in the road. In the dark of the night it’s the time of his life, a gaggle of friends cheer him on. Then a flash and a splash and a truck barrels past and tears his poor body apart. Rewind back past the tenured track and he’s stalking the length of the halls. Picking off kids who didn’t look like he did, smashing faces in locker room stalls. Saving yourself for confession, hands on the ten and the two, but that darkened room felt so real to you and sucked all the truth out instead. ‘Cause the image in the mirror doesn’t look like the movie that’s playing in my head on a constant loop. Everybody’s looking sideways like they’re trying to hurt me, I’m feeling black and blue. Oh, but how the faithful praised him, and tried to deny that he wouldn’t walk again. This can’t be the end of the line. All the tough boys cried when they said goodbye, your mother wept and lit a candle. Gotta pull yourself together, please try to remember. You got to pull yourself together.
3.
Blaster 03:46
Remember when I told you just how wonderful you are? Like lipstick on a letter that’s slid underneath the door. I’m sinking underwater while you always seem to float. Hand in hand we’re never heading home. Never really mattered if we’d make it very far ‘cause I knew I was a goner when you blasted through my heart. Like lovers in a rainstorm locked in passionate embrace, you’re a sweater in the winter when I cannot catch a break. A burst of red and orange in an October surprise, stars of stage and screen flubbing their lines. New home, old bones but a solid foundation, and we’ll build it on up to the sky or maybe we’ll move forward and leave it all behind one more time and keep the dream alive.
4.
One last masquerade, one more cavalcade, time to take the stage tonight. The end of revelry, black stretch limousines careening down the street tonight. Did our best thinking dancing in the dark. Emphasized our talking points with exclamation marks. Tried to use our heads but got tripped up by our hearts. Turn the radio down, have you heard a sweeter sound? Sell my guitars, tell the boys, escape the noise. No more ragged nights, bacchanal and concubines, I’ve left that all behind. Now I take the train, file these complaints with a smile on my face today. It’s smooth sailing ‘cause the coast is clear after peaking in our twenties rather than our golden years. In the cold grey light of morning when the quiet’s all you hear. No more heart and soul, no more rock and roll, dead air takes its toll tonight.
5.
Bark at the moon. I’m the monster in the basement, in the corner, in dark spaces. I’m coming after you. Late afternoon in the backyard full of aphids, do you know what my name is? I’ll whisper it to you. Don’t forget about my disconnected heart, prone to breaking down in fits and starts. Thanks for concern but I cannot hear you, drowning in the silence, so absurd. I am dumb. No foresight is required, my passport has expired. Take photographs for me. I’m your son. Overgrown love unrequited, but we’re always throwing fire. Pour gas upon the flame.
6.
Lock up the shop know when to stop if all the work is done. Beat the clock dawn to dusk ‘til all the rides close down. Orange neon glowing on the boardwalk, it’s deserted on a Friday night. There goes the sun, summer’s almost gone, come on I’ll keep you warm. A siren song, but one I’ve heard before. Let’s go, I’ll take you home. Stay inside, the rusted signs and broken lights, door’s closed. Shutting down this postcard town until the natives show. Lonely faces staring from the sidewalk, they were younger in a different time.
7.
It’s that time again, that’s where we are. If it’s meaning that you’re seeking inside my heart I can’t promise you if we’ll ever make it as far as any others, twice as good as we are. And if it’s worth noting I’ll never be the same my world’s aflame, encouraged. I’ll be anything you want, anywhere you go.
8.
What are you saying? I can’t hear what’s on your mind. Spent all night and day and I’m still two feet left behind. Totally crazed. It’s the grand re-opening of our California king in Queens tonight. I’ve got a song to sing but nobody’s listening. I’ll go back to the bars, sell the van keep the car and you’ll never hear of me again. What am I doing? I’m much too old for this. Reputation is ruined but it wasn’t much to begin with. Totally cruel, so make sure to tell the kids I’ll be in those bargain bins again tonight.
9.
I said they’re dying to catch us, let’s slip overseas out of reach. We’ll fly down at eight in the morning, have lunch on the beach. Leave at our leisure for business or pleasure, we just got to get out alive. Burn some of this cash and charter a Beechcraft so don’t check your bags or dole out your goodbyes. Gliding across blue horizons at ten thousand feet, Gripping the edge of the armrest o’er Sargasso Sea. As we veer off course, here comes that remorse, the blinking red light’s our last dance. Engine’s lost power, the future was ours but we’ve disappeared under strange circumstance. They left from the shores of the port of St. George, strangers sent looking for friends. The Royal Regiment couldn’t find anything and that’s how we wound up as legend instead. Let’s chalk it up as a loss, bury the lede, but you’ll cover the cost as we lay here on the salty ocean floor, soaking up our days evermore.
10.

credits

released August 3, 2018

MIKE PACE AND THE CHILD ACTORS • "SMOOTH SAILING"

Produced by Matt LeMay
Recorded in New York and New Mexico, Fall, Winter and Spring 2017 & 2018 - drums on tracks 2, 3, 4 and 9 and piano on tracks 2 and 9 recorded by Gabriel Bento at Nuthouse Recording, Hoboken NJ
Mixed by Matt LeMay at a Question of Frequency
Mastered by Alex Saltz at APS Mastering
Cover Photography by Kim Hall, taken on Cooper's Island, Bermuda
Lettering by Tom Nikosey

The Players:
Mike Pace: vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards
Matt LeMay: drums, guitar, bass, Mellotron
Lira Yin: backing vocals
Luke Moller: strings on “Business in Bermuda”
Steven Cracknell: brass on “Escape the Noise”
Valerii Shurygin: brass on “Escape the Noise”
Larry Salzman: percussion on “Senior Statesman”

All songs written by Mike Pace © Sorry Boyz Music (ASCAP)

Thanks to Kim, Jesse and Izzy for putting up with it all.

This one’s for Scott.

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Mike Pace and the Child Actors New York

Mike Pace and the Child Actors is the new(ish) expectation-exceeding project from Mike Pace, formerly of Oxford Collapse.

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