All songs & lyrics were originally written, performed, and released by singer/songwriter/guitarist Jon Woodstock aka Hubcap

Jon Woodstock produced and recorded this music live at his home in Glen Arm, Md. using a one track tape machine

Tracks 1-7 were originally issued on the 'Hey, Mike' tape which was recorded & released in the Autumn of 1994.

Tracks 8-12, and 14 were originally recorded on August 18th, 1994 then released shortly after that on the 'Bomb Droppings' various artists compilation tape

Track 13 was recorded in 1993 or late 1992 and originally issued on the 'Bomb' various artists compilation tape, July 1994

Album art designed by Mike Apichella

Photo: Jon Woodstock as he appeared in his 1992 Dulaney High School yearbook picture

This re-issue was produced by Lucas Rambo with Mike Apichella in January and February 2018

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TRACK NOTES BY CHRIS TERET

I don’t remember when I first met Jon Woodstock— back in the early 90's I was a big fan of a band called Lardstar that Jon was the drummer for, and we had friends in common and there were a lot of shows and parties in those days so it all kind of blends together. But I remember very clearly how I first got my hands on the solo music he released under the name Hubcap.

It was the summer of 1994, right before Jon moved out to Oregon, and I was with him and a few other people on a beautiful sunny day on a suburban Baltimore street somewhere. Jon was sitting on the trunk of his car, clowning and smoking a cigarette, talking about his impending travels. He was going to drive across the country to join a hippy crew from Baltimore that had moved out there after Lardstar broke up. Then he went into the car and came out with a stack of tapes that he handed out—the 'Bomb Droppings' tape. My memory of that moment matches in some way my feelings about his music. There he was in a uniform and accoutrements typical of that time—knit hat, baggy t-shirt, skateboard, acoustic guitar; about to travel down a path so well-worn it had become cliché—young man drives across the country, seeking adventure and meaning. But somehow he was greater than the sum of his parts and there was a gravity and charisma that went way beyond the surface facts.

Similarly with his music—we’ve all heard countless versions of the young man with the acoustic guitar singing his poetic lyrics to simple strummed chords. But Jon Woodstock is different—his songs are different, his performance is different, and for those who have ears to hear, there is a deep majesty, gravity, beauty, charisma, uniqueness, and maturity that transcends the surface.

This album begins with songs from a different release, the 'Hey, Mike' tape that was left on Mike Apichella’s front door step after Jon’s return from Oregon. Mike knew how much I loved Jon’s music, and he made me a copy of the tape right after he got it. I sat and studied that tape for endless hours, in the pre-internet adolescent bedroom, and it became one of the most basic and profound influences on all the music I’ve made since then. The first song on the tape, “Hayride”, begins with a perfect Jon Woodstock line: “I can still hear my cigarette burn.” For those who haven’t had the experience, there is a slightly audible crackle when you take a drag off a cigarette, but it’s something you only hear when you’re by yourself, in a quiet place. This line sets the tone for the intimacy of the songs ahead, and also for the overarching theme of aloneness that is touched on over and over throughout this record.

“Hayride” also introduces us to Jon’s song structure, which is often more complex than typical folk-song structure, with multiple sections that cycle around each other. We also hear Jon playing with ascending and descending octaves with a droning tone between them, a guitar trick that I’ve been unable to stop doing ever since. It’s also clear from this first song that Jon’s voice is powerful in the same way Charley Patton’s was. Sometimes notes are out of tune, there isn’t a particular virtuosity to it, but there’s a low boominess that hits the chest like a fog horn.

The next song, “Blanket of Wind”, starts with a beautiful guitar figure and then a similarly arresting first line: “Two dead eyes/some fucked-up skin…Two frozen hands/A bow to this hole/Alone alone…” The idyllic harmonic melody of the repetitive guitar part perfectly matches the repeated line at the end of the song, “Secure to rest/On a blanket of wind.” This song captures the side of aloneness that is comforting and romantic, the solitude we all desire. It’s a reminder that being alone is not always something to bemoan, but something to bask in.

Then “Crater” (a re-write of his earlier song "Tell"), which starts with such a beautiful but simple guitar line—paired thirds back and forth—and then descends to a Jon Woodstock trademark—a C chord with an E note at the bottom of it. How could such a simple thing sound so poignant? But it does, and then the main structure of the song is built around a C/em/D/G rotation using only the bottom three strings of the guitar. There’s a density to the notes. The message of this song is starkly clear: “Don’t go home alone/’cause no-one’s gonna miss you there”. Again, it speaks to the richness of feeling that comes from the experience of aloneness.

“Glass-Eye-Dread” is a change of gears—a rhythmic and dissonant exploration of Pixies/punk territory. I remember Jon telling me once that Frank Black was an evil genius, and I can hear him poking around that here. Lyrically, the song pushes into nihilism—“Got nothing in my mind/Nothin’ in my mind.”

“End Up Down” starts with a more conventional chord structure, but there’s a nice little high G in his D-minor chord that captures your attention. “Only when they’ve all turned/It’s my turn/Only when they’ve all become one/I’m the only one”. Jon’s conception of who “I” is was so much more full and complex than his contemporaries. And then he hits that low E on the C chord again for a thoughtful interlude—not afraid to have long instrumental sections on his songs, even though the only instrument is his acoustic guitar.

“shaft” is another celebration of aloneness. It starts with those parallel octave notes that Jon used so well, and then climbs to a church-bell chiming high note section that I’ve always tried to imitate. “You should know/We live alone/All alone.” It’s like a warning and a boast—something a pirate captain could say to a new recruit.

“The Prince” is such a mysterious and beautiful song. It’s another low-note cluster, with beautiful counterpoint harmony. But the lyrics—what picture is he painting? “They’re calling for the prince/Couldn’t have been, no, shouldn’t have been/And then they came before the feast/Locked hands closing in, closing in/I want more beginning again/And they’re calling for the prince/Stuck and still red from me, endless the rest of me/Never said or sent to rest, they enter all these hills/And in the valley/But back in the alley I’m closing in, closing in/I want more beginning again.” I can’t say anything about those words, they transcend explanation, but I love them.

Then our album goes back in time to the 'Bomb Droppings' tape, to the first Jon Woodstock song I ever heard, “Prey”. This batch of songs is simpler than the 'Hey Mike' tape, but still remarkable. The two-note droning set-up of this song draws me in, and so does the meditation on the words “pray” and “prey”. The title is spelled with an e, but the first line could mean “prey for me” or “pray for me.” Religion and antagonism. “I’m always the other/Now I’ve lost the other/Gently crucified…”

The next song, “In-Cast”, digs deeper into the complexity of Jon’s song structure, including a riff he grabbed from a Doobie Brothers song, “Long Train Running.” Jon continues his exploration of loneliness, of the inability to banish the loneliness with a romantic relationship: “She said she didn’t want me around…She said she just couldn’t touch ground/Now she’s not around.”

“Daddy“ was recorded by a brook near Jon’s mom’s house in Glen Arm, and you can hear it through the static of the home-recording tape hiss. Jon was a huge fan of the old, pre-World War II blues records. Charley Patton, Skip James, the compilations of strange, unknown, one-off singers. Towson-Glen Arm artists loved the sound of those old recordings, and that’s why what might sound today like “bad sound quality” in these recordings sounded cool to us back then.

“Tell” is maybe the most distilled masterpiece of Jon Woodstock’s song style. It’s got that first-three-strings guitar style with the cycling chords, the low E on the C Chord, the low F sharp on the D chord. And the lyrics are classic Jon Woodstock. “Maybe I was only lying to myself/Could be I was thinkin’ that you were someone else/But I can’t even tell/I can’t even tell/Could not begin to see/So why don’t you tell me/Could not begin to care now/You never showed me how/I just couldn’t tell/I can’t even tell/I was in the mirror laughing yesterday/I reflect a hell on everyone with what I say/Maybe I’m just all fucked up and I’m just on a crutch/Maybe you’re not who you say and all this really sucks/But I can’t tell/I can’t even tell/Could not begin to care now/You never showed me how/All these things I know/All the things that you show/I still can’t tell/You know I cannot tell.” I believe Jon coined the term “relationshit” to describe problems with your significant other.

“Pump“ finds Jon “Counting up the cracks in my skin.” He pleads, “Leave me all the time/Over and over and over again.” The guitar alternates between a low two-note riff and a high jazz-chord thing, as he vacillates between asking her to leave him and then saying “Take my hand let me forget the rest.”

“Bomb” comes from an even earlier source, the fist 'Bomb' compilation, but it already has the complex song structure, the multiple influences, the love-hate relationship with the human subject of the song. It lays the groundwork for what is to come, including this album's closing track "Tread".

These days, when there’s such a glut of music in the world, when it’s so easy to hear just about anything you want to hear, people are often listening for exciting and unusual sounds that grab them, electronic frequencies—high fidelity whispers, thumping bass drums. It takes a different kind of listening to hear what Jon Woodstock was doing. Turn off everything in your house—the lights, the computers, the phones, and take the time to be alone with his music and listen for everything that’s there. You will be deeply rewarded.

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Chris Teret is a singer/songwriter/guitarist who has been working as a musician since the early 90's. He currently performs with the New England based bands Snaex and Company. He got his start in the Towson-Glen Arm movement working with many of the scene's pioneering acts including The Nudists, Woe*Be*Gone, and The Preschoolers (who also briefly featured Jon Woodstock on drums)