XTRA EQUIPMENT is a new collection of BODEGA tracks from the same 2020-2021 Trout Studio sessions that spawned BROKEN EQUIPMENT. Much like the songs on BROKEN EQUIPMENT, we were trying to make these tracks extra breezy and hooky as well as more philosophically ambitious than our previous recordings. Even when in the mode of social critique, I personally tend to think of my songwriting as more literary than analytic but here the ‘The Art of Advertising’ and ‘Art and Advertising’ diptych functions as a sort of pop rock treatise on the subtle but crucial distinction between art and advertising (’Art creates cosmos’ whereas advertising ‘surface(s) status quo’). ‘Everybody’s Sad’ (the THROWN b-side) highlights and bemoans the connection between the current pop obsession with individuality and the aesthetics of melancholy (‘everybody’s sad at the top of the billboard’). ‘Top Hat No Rabbit’ (the DOERS b-side) was written coming down from a Ulysses(Joyce) induced high —> it’s a flurry of thoughts attempting to reconcile free will (necessary for any change) with my deep-seated belief (and BODEGA obsession) that all thought is determined (or ‘thrown’) by external and/ or physical stimuli. Conversely, I wrote the opening ballad ’Memorize w/ yr Heart’ (previously only available as a bonus track on the BROKEN EQUIPMENT CD) to remind myself not to get stuck in abstract mind games —> most of all philosophy should be done with the body (or at least with a steady backbeat). In some ways ever