I won’t call it a perfect storm, but a confluence of events befell me and lifted me up, which allowed the conjuration and recording of the songs that comprise my debut studio album, Shagbark after Dark. There was the mysterious benefactor from Brooklyn, NY, the friends who believed in the songs enough to schlep up to Tooth Mountain and share their talents, a demonic swirling bevy of phantom illnesses, and finally, the passing of my best friend, Babou, which is one of the hardest things I have ever had to face in my life. The last song I wrote for the album is in memory of her, and the whole project is dedicated to her and the aforementioned NY patron, who is known to me only as Elmore.
The album is nearly done. I’m just waiting on a vocal overdub from a very special guest, then Rafael up at Tooth Mountain will do the mixing and mastering. He recorded and produced the album, and it was an absolute delight to work with him. I really like his band, Tuff Guac. It felt like he ‘got’ my songs, which was much better than the last time I attempted studio recording in 2019, when an old Belgian buzzard told me point blank: “I’ve got more than 30 yrs in the music business, and I can honestly say you’re the worst singer and guitar player I’ve ever heard!” Rafael even added some organ parts to a couple of the songs, which I thought was great.
Of the four songs with the full band, I was blessed to be able to work with Junglefish. He is one of those British rock and pop music geniuses, and he knows how to play every Beatles song by heart. I even tested him once, 15 of the most obscure Fab Four tracks I could think of, “Blue Jay Way,” “New Mary Jane,” he can play them all. Not only did he kill it on all the bass lines, but I quite literally would not have known how to tune my guitar properly without him. Check out this lush track from his stellar new EP.
There was also Dog, the epic Belgian shredder who played lead guitar on the four full-band tracks. He is the Einstein of melody, has an ear of gold and hits all the right notes. He is actually the one who built my reputation as a guitar player around Brussels, and by that I mean he once played a blistering set at the Sounds Blues Club open jam, was soloing his ass off, tearing the roof off, everyone on their feet clapping and destroying their throats, begging for more, and when the host of the open jam asked him his name over the microphone, he said, “Reagan.” Every now and then when I introduce myself to someone in the Brussels music scene, they say, “Damn man, I heard of you, you’re that legendary guitar player, right?”
Lastly, one of the most solid drummers I know did me a solid of playing on the album. That would be the New York son, Mike Murray, who is known in the Kingdom for rocking whole hog with the No Matter Nomads and crafting the funnest jams in his solo project. He was the one who told me after my Wildcat reading in Brussels that these songs deserved to be heard with a band, and I owe him a debt of gratitude for helping me get the ball rolling.
Some of these songs indeed date back to the days when I was composing Wildcat Dreams in the Death Light: “The Locksmith,” “Falcons of the Bridge,” and “I Learned” all appear in full or in part in the book. I had been waiting to record these songs for a while. And they’ll be joined with tunes crafted over the past year or two, “The Castle,” “Traveler’s Pen,” “Farmer’s Prayer,” and of course “For the No-Eyed Tiger and Her Whiskers of Magic,” which I wrote last month. The album’s first cut, “The Holy Dead See,” will go up on YouTube sometime in mid-to-late July if everything goes according to plan.
Initially, friends have asked me, “What does this mean, ‘Shagbark after Dark’? Is this some kind of dog?” And I just say, “Dog? He’s the lead guitarist.”
But in seriousness, the title comes from my eyeless best friend Babou - who, yes, was a cat - and the way she would go out into the garden and spend all day beneath a tree, befriending snails, enjoying the air and sunshine. She and I would sit out there together sometimes until the dim sky would darken and night would fall. Our friendship deepened to a profound degree the day her eyes were removed. I was the one who brought her for the surgery, and from then on, I sensed the love she had for me, like she knew I had been watching over her that day. After she inspired a character in my epic poem, we became bonded together for all time, and this is one of the great honors of my life.
I am sure her spirit came to comfort me the day she died because that evening when I was taking out the trash, under the moonlight dashed a tiger-striped tabby cat with exactly her pattern. I froze with a tear perched upon the eye. Do you know how many times in six years I had taken out the trash from my apartment in Brussels and seen any cat, let alone a tiger-striped tabby, scamper off into the moonlight? That would be zero. Until that night. Then going to sleep, I laid my head upon the pillow and dreamed a great hickory tree, which is also known as a shagbark tree. At the trunk, standing upon the roots was my best friend Babou.
In the dream, I know she has died, and I caress her and lay next to her in stillness, as darkness falls. My eyes shut, the stars appear one by one. She stands regally over me, a slight whistle through the nostril, a song of the Holy One — and this time, with the magic whiskers of sight, it is she who watches over me as I die.
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Reagan M. Sova is the author of Wildcat Dreams in the Death Light, a critically acclaimed, 80,000-word epic poem published by First to Knock.
RIP Babou. Keep on rockin. I laughed my ass off at your admission of the criticism in your previous Belgian recording session. Same time, that’s some real deal perseverance. World champion type stuff. Proud of you.