Liner notes for MANICPHASESHIFTER
"And Then They Were Gone" by Bill Mallonee

Songwriting is a type mourning. And one can mourn with both tears of joy & grief in the eyes at at he same time. In a world of no guarantees it may be the loudest declaration of faith.

From the git-go, there was always so much was inside me.
So much needing to get out, fine tune and then hold up to the light.
So much to place on the table of the marketplace. Back then, I wrote a a clip of something like 75 songs a year. And while the clip is down to something like oh, 40 songs a year, the thrill of making songs is still the same as it was in the early days. "Good work, if you can get it," I say.

But always first: I wrote to save myself, to make sense out of a broken world within. I never wrote with a particular audience in mind.
Why bother? We're all living in the same skin. Me? I was lucky to have great band mates, those other passengers on the train, to make the journey.
This whole live set was freighted with a desperation that is bleeding with Love, Loss and with (for me anyway) nuances of Transcendence.
And transcendence always takes you by surprise.

Hat in Hand. A feedback symphony. The swan song in this collection.
I include this studio song in this collection because it has such a garage desperation feel. It was in essence, a funeral song.
"And then they were gone..."

People ask me if I miss Vigilantes of Love. Of course, I do. Every incarnation, but especially this one, had chemistry that I have rarely seen in any other band. It was brutally honest, gutsy and authentic. The always knew the end was near. How we laughed and wrote our way through it all is, I believe, a testimony to each individual's sheer "cussed-ness."

Mostly, though, I miss the friendships.

And yes, I mourn for what should have been and could have been if the right folks in our industry superstructures (managers, labels, agents) had done half the amount of work we did as a band. I DON'T miss the truck loads of bs we put up with from such incompetent people. Being victimized consistently by incompetent people opened my eyes to one thing: You don't need any superstructure to give you "permission" to be an artist.
How does the song go?
"Sew your heart onto your sleeve...and wait for the ax to fall."

I don't know any other band that released so much work & toured so hard over 10 years with so little results than VoL.
What to say? I think we took as much of it as we could, romanticized it for another 10 albums over the last 5 years of the band's run and then said: "Enough."
This finale is about the "enough."

At the end of the day we were about the song & the moment; the delivery & the spirit...and the rock & roll.

And just what is good rock & roll?
Love, Loss, Transcendence...Rinse & Repeat
~ bill mallonee

Spring 2015