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Visit, named by the poet Tom Peters, is the culmination of years of unfinished country and rock songs that fermented in gallons of various booze and inspiration from Elvis, Hank Williams, and Johnny Cash. Tyler Burba recorded the album in July 2005 as a farewell to his ten year stint in Boulder Colorado, before spending the summer in Philosopher's camp in Switzerland and then moving to New York City. The entire album was recorded in a miracle week by accomplished engineer Dave Drago. Clint Carlson recorded his drums a week before the main sessions, having to head out to a 2-week drunk in the "hills of old Duluth."

 

 

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Below are a series of videos of mostly solo performances by Tyler Burba of songs that will appear on Think God.

"A Little At A Time" from the upcoming album Think God

 

"I'm Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone" from the upcoming album Think God

 

 

Visit is the solo project of songwriter Tyler Burba, also a member of the band Snowboots. After workng primarily as a jazz and experimental classical composer and musician, Visit is a return to his roots in Country, Folk, and Rock 'n' Roll.

Born in Portland, Oregon, Burba grew up absorbing music. His family attended a church where music was a focal point and he began his performing career singing on local christian radio as well as at gospel competitions. At the age of 8, he began teaching himself piano, picking up Elvis, Beatles, and Bob Dylan tunes off of 45 records. He started writing rock songs at the age of 11 when his mother bought his first guitar with a jar of pennies. At 14, his brother bought him a 4-track recorder and he began recording his many songs. By the time he left the Northwest at age 18, he had written over 300 songs.

At the age of 15, Tyler met the poet Allen Ginsberg, what would be a life-changing experience, leading him to leave Vancouver, Washington for the happier climate of Boulder, Colorado where he attended The Naropa Institute. At Naropa, he studied jazz with Art Lande and Dale Bruning (teacher of Bill Frisell), studied poetry at The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, and became a recording engineer, working with poets Anne Waldman, Akilah Oliver, Jack Collom, and Reed Bye on various recording projects. While at Naropa, he recorded a live album of compositions and collaborations entitled Recital.

After graduating from Naropa in 1998, Tyler worked at Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art as a lighting, sound designer, and music composer. In 2001, he founded farfalla press, an independent publishing company that went on to publish over 20 titles of poetry, fiction and music.

In 2003, while attending University of Colorado to complete his teaching certification, Tyler met and started song-writing with Carlton DeWoody. He left Boulder in 2005 to join DeWoody in New York City and to form Snowboots, an experimental psychodelic rock band.

He currently lives in Williamsburg and teaches "at-risk" middle school children in Harlem. Two albums, Snowboots' Greatest Hits and Visit's Think God, are due out this winter, as well as a book of poetry.

photo by Chris Verene.

 

Clint Carlson has been musically tinkering since he was just a young lad. After moving around between trumpet, guitar, bass, and drums, he ultimately decided that his brain was more rhythmic than melodic, and dove head first into drumming. He played on both Visit albums and currently lives in MN where he loves the frigid winters just as much as the splendid summers. He's putting a project there together as well, but his heart longs for the third Visit album each and every cold, blustery, whiskey buzzed night.

 

 

 

Below are a list of song titles from both Visit albums with accompanying lyrics. All lyrics by Tyler Burba.

Lyrics from Visit (2006)

As It Were

My mind so weighted by ransoms
time-drenched dimes
purblind, unconscious to silence
barks ring sublime

So old that cob webs grow cob webs
and thoughts bleed in rust
in wells reflecting the shadows
smiles sunk in dust

My heart's a wound, my eyes are empty
my soul been trapped inside this century
As it were.

Knelt down to pulpits of paltry
faith-based toil
a world made of concrete so faulty
kissed turned to soil

My heart so ravaged by commerce
beats down the man
my mind a seed fed by sorrow
laps up Iran

And if I beg and weep for pleasure
My heart be torn by dimes forever
As it were

Kneel down, cacophony skyline,
pale face gaze
Moon round in the blue of a bright dime,
hell's beat, erased
flowers flow and melt into body,
hear dolphins purr
come down to heaven below us,
to another world

Cold heart, cold senses, Osiris
Bird corpse sublime
release the lockness, O sadness
moaning the time

Pipe song of heartfelt abandon
hum, whistle, blow
god thoughts will sugar my senses
rock, rabbit, and snow

I'd bleed my mind and break my angles
just to be wept upon by angels
As it were

 

As To Why

Captured in the wake of lightning
cotton in the core of God
whisper in a trance I bleeding
As to why, unknowing
As to why, it’s fleeting
As to why.

Shackled to a suit forever
pigeons peck our souls away
and screaming like a babe I’m leaving
As do I, feel frozen
As do I, fear music
As do I.

It’s the wake as you move
inside my consciousness
It’s the light
and I’m lost without your motorbike
It’s the night
and I’m shucked by all those concubines
It’s the wind
and I’ll lose all my copper pots
It’s the dawn
and I walk inside a parrot’s yawn

Locked into the stare of sunlight
to catapult our tears away
wincing in a knave toward summer
As to why, I’m breathing
As to why, it’s ending
As to why.

 

Poodles In A Shrine

When we are together
and how we pass the time
when we wring our hearts dry
and slowly undress our minds

Let all pettiness fall
Let all hatred dissolve
Let anger only reveal
What awkwardness conceals

When we are together
Poodles in a shrine
barking at convention
happy lapping wine

Let all inhibition melt into wine
Let all action melt into mind
Let the wake of love float us home
Let the words in our ears form to bone
When we are together
When we are together

I need you
to help me escape
I need you
to wipe this apathy off of my face
I need a reason to cry
and no reason to lie
when we are together

Let all pettiness fall
Let all hatred dissolve
Let anger only reveal
What awkwardness conceals

 

I Got Sick

whistling through the willows
wailing through the tears
waking in the mirror
I got sick

Touch the devil's body
by torching up the days
I listened to your heart beat
I got sick

sick of endless restitution
for the crimes commited in my mind
and if I'd wait for just an hour
I'll be fine

Well, I got sick of all times
I could have kissed the corner of your smile
but the joy got beat all hallow
by the mind

sticking out of blood streams
stumbling towards the grave
someone flipped a lightswitch
I Got sick

 

The Time It Takes To Blink

When all of life's pleasures tilt heavy
and your love is clouded by sleep
your heart can be broken in pieces
in the time it takes to blink

And we sweep up each shard of our false dreams
and build a new love by collage
but then in blows a million new pieces
in the time it takes to blink.

In the time it takes to blink
I've no longer thought what I think
and no matter what cause will have made it
it will never be as it was

How long must I master by folly
and finish nothing by muse
I get stuck and confused by the devilish new
in the time it takes to blink

Yet there is a constant star shining
out here in the darkness of night
I turn toward your eyes and I just want to cry
In the time it takes to blink

In the time it takes to blink
our hearts and minds can be taken
but with you I'm never mistaken
you will always be as you are

I'll be caged in your arms forever
and yet flutter like flies on a farm
mind forms like dew and then melts with the new
in the time it takes to blink.

 

Blue

Blue in the morning
Blues weigh constant on my side
But you keep me satisfied

I wake so weary-hearted
want to hold my breath and die
But you help me change my mind

will that liquor keep on flowing
tainted tongue and murmured cries
until the morning burns my eyes

So many nights that break
so many hearts that waste
so many lives I wait
for the dogs in my eyes to
be barkin’ at your blue

Ooooo got no feeling
ghost words falling from my lips
like my soul went off and hid

 

I'll Never Leave You

I will never leave you
Like the wind from a tree
sparked from the start
that glows till it's dark
and reborn without end
though our cattle deceives us
mud floor doesn’t believe us
tomorrow can’t conceive us
and no metaphor explains thus
how blue
I will never leave you

I won't give up your hand
on this cutting floor
where people lose face
and the drive out all grace
and all dampness of love
though time mocks and folds us
hysteria scolds us
this world turns to old rust
and sand
I won't give up your hand

I won't stop whispering your name
from the wake of a train
caught in the wind
where love began
and whirls without end
as the tape pulls my beard off
my tongue numb words smird off
hand cover my mouth
afraid I'll shout out
the propane
I won't stop whispering your name

Conformity may attempt to prevent us
Conformity which has claimed to have invented us

I will never leave you
though our cattle deceives us
mud floor doesn’t believe us
tomorrow can’t conceive us
and no metaphor explains thus
how blue
I will never leave you.

 

Nothing Ever Changes

Nothing Ever Changes
In this cobwebbed world of sorrow
when depression starts to wane
it'll be back strong tomorrow
and If things goes as planned tonight
I'm gonna bitch myself to sleep
Sooth my wallet heart with a thousand slaughtered sheep
cuase nothing ever changes no no.

It's the circle and the line
it's the bleak black road of horrors
the arrow and and cross
that taints the lips of martyrs
When all roads lead to Hell
best to let ambition breath
as it courts you in the desert
until you let believing cease
Cause nothing ever changes no no

Right now
I wanna drink this slop and sleep forever
Right now
I wanna tie my tongue and feet together
Right now
I wanna burn this billfold up to heaven
Right now
ain't no here no how

You wanna break your legs and bleed
against the heartless cogs of money
when all the women bankers plead
just to drown your tears in honey
Well, you've got your mouth to scream
and you've got your heart to bleed
at the pigeons in the temple
peddling weaselry and need
how nothing ever changes no no

 

God's Name

There is a face,
blazed in my mind
trapped in the waves
I see in the tide
And in that face a happenstance
And in that face a loneliness
In that face a future tamed
with thoughts bogged down by chains of same
But when it whispers, it whispers god’s name
it whispers god’s name.

Down by the brook,
lonely for sound
the echo of wind
the music of birds
I called out the names behind
A tangled wood of tortured mind
to question where life surely stood
coiled beneath a rotting world
And when they answered,
They whispered god’s name
They whispered god’s name

I've got a match
to evaporate tears
and steel away stars
and burn away fear
But all my falling memories
blaze and crave life's amnesty
and like the mind in sleepless pain
seeks the broken man's refrain
and when he whimpers,
he whipers god's name,
he whispers god's name

 

In Your Bones

Let the wind blow the hair away from your breasts
Like waves away from the stones
and at the end of this life you'll still be my light
bury my body in your bones.

Like a shipwreck out a sea let death sweep over me
and sink through passages unknown
rested in the arrow, the splendor of your marrow
bury my body in your bones.

In your bones, in your bones
bury my body in your bones
in this world of grief and woe
my gladness you have sown
bury my body in your bones.

When the reaper comes to town to take my soul on down
to Hades, oblivion, or birth
let the Heaven we have found be six feet under ground
bury my body in your bones.

I pray to God above, let be immortal love
warming in the coldness of the soil
and though life has gone away, let loving bodies lay
bury my body in your bones.

In your bones, in your bones
bury my body in your bones
If heaven cannot be, let flesh be memory
bury my body in your bones.

 

Lyrics from Think God (2011)

Horses In The Sky

Horses in the sky
Will have to do our living
After we die
Old friend
This is the end

See the seal broke
By lamb
Righting all the wrongs
That have passed since Abraham
Old friend
This is the end
And the martyrs want revenge
For the world to be killed
As they themselves had been
O friends
There ain’t no friend

Said the little lamb to the shepard boy

Can’t you hear
Can’t you hear
Can’t you hear

Angelic trumpets that are blown
And the unanswered question
Is breaking our bones
Old friend
This is the end

See the seal broke
By lamb
Righting all the wrongs
That have passed since Abraham
Old friend
This is the end

Said the little lamb to the mighty king
Can’t you hear
Can’t you hear
Can’t you hear
Can’t you hear me crying
Can’t you hear me
Can’t you hear
Can’t you hear
Can’t you hear
Can’t you hear me crying
Can’t you hear me crying

 

A Little At A Time

I’ve been looking towards the heavens
leg across the fence
falling like a feather
caught up in the wind
but I can’t wait forever for you to
give me a sign
so for now I’ll hold my breath
a little at a time.

Sucked into surrender
with the dropping of a jaw
I want your words to render like
scarecrows crave the Caw
I could fall to pieces
and burn up in your shine
but for now I’ll hold my breath
a little at a time
but for now I’ll hold my breath
a little at a time

If I had a million days
I’d dig up my graves
If I had a thousand years
I’d drown all my fears
and if any of it was mine
I’d give you my time
but these questions keep burning
a hole in my mind.

Broken by believing
when lover’s words betray
I’m longing for your presence or
salvation in the grave
I could search forever
for a love that’s like mine
but for now I’ll hold my breath
a little at a time
but for now I’ll hold my breath
a little at a time.

 

Cruel God

This old God so cruel
filled the world with harm
and put me in a plane crash
instead of in your arms
Fake
Fate
Fade

Sinking down to heaven
swimming like a stone
find my spirit singing
deep inside your bones
Fake
Fate
Fade

Breath growing cold
as it flows into night
red to
black and
black
to white.

A million Brahmas dreaming
forever and a year
can’t help but birth our lips back
together my dear
Fake
Fate
Fade

I may be a donkey
you might be a fly
I’m happy that your drinking
the tear drop from my eye
Fake
Fate
Fade

Breath growing cold
as it flows into night
red to
black and
black
to white.

 

Born To Cry

There’s a pain in my soul
That makes my thoughts cold
and I feel like an ice age has
covered the world
as Winter’s death ends
and Spring’s rolling in
I feel like joy
will never bloom again
fading out
fading in
fading out
I kiss the dead forehead
kiss the dead’s lips like I
kiss the new life between your hips
Oh little new baby,
you scream and I sigh
You’re just like me, born to cry
you’re just like me, born to cry.

it ain’t fun to fall
but ain’t it wonderful
still I wonder why I held on
I can't escape from you
if I wanna know the truth
still I fall asleep dreaming of hell
to hear you yell
you let me down
with “Oh well”

It’s the same old trauma
since time began
a friend is someone
who’s gonna do you in
and all of those people you
wrongfully fear
just seem so narrow from
holding you near
baleen mouths
bailing tears
I’m bailing out.
I stumble through morning
breaking new brick Fall
flat on my back with the
mire and twig
blinking towards heaven gray
clouds in the sky
You’re just like me, born to cry
You’re just like me, born to cry

I Don't Want To Die

Lord, please tell me why
I don’t want to die
tell me it’s a lie
I don’t want to die

It seems so absurd
You don’t say a word
Gotta fall before I fly
And to live I gotta die

Blue Wing, Nothing
But Earth making
Waves with the wind
Red Tide
Starting to ebb

Is there any word
That you’ve ever heard
Do shrieks just sound like tweets
Do cries just sound like sighs?
Blue Wing, Nothing
But Earth making
Waves with the wind
Red Tide
Starting to ebb

 

It Won't Die

Hurting in the morning as the
stars fade into light
my heart keeps pining for delight
and I’ve tried so hard to kill it
to drown it in booze and guilt
but it keeps beating against my will.
Filled my words with jealousy
Killed inspiration with depravity
Shut down my heart with booze and
women’s lies
but it won’t die
it won’t die.

God keeps a Satan in my face
by putting up mirrors every place
and my clothes the stink of bar rooms
my beard wreaks of cheap perfume
as sideburns try to choke away my pride
Can’t shave the hurt and grief
Can’t comb my disbelief into
a love of emptiness my heart won’t buy
but it won’t die
it won’t die.

Something keeps it beating in my chest
Something keeps it beating against my rest.

I tried to coax it to love cold steel
and to flutter at the green of a dollar bill
to long for its destruction
to lust for life’s abduction
to beat like a robot’s tortured breast.
Choked it with redundance
drowned it in abundance
licked my lips at hate and
gagged upon pure love divine
but it won’t die
it won’t die.

 

I'm Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone

Take the whitewash to the mark
Take the fern frawn to the trace
Like darkness to the mind
The last one to recall your face
It’s a falling in the end
From the pettiness of friends
Who won’t even speak your name
‘less that speaking brings them fame

But I’m gonna miss me when I’m gone
I’m gonna miss me when I’m gone
When the seagull steals my tongue
I’m gonna miss me when I’m gone

To live inside these eyes
Is to live in paradise
And the breaking of your bones
Makes them finally your own
When all I used to be
Is out drowning in the sea
And the thoughts inside my mind
Are out drifting in the pines

I’m gonna miss me when I’m gone
I’m gonna miss me when I’m gone
When my ladder’s out of rung
I’m gonna miss me when I’m gone
I’m gonna miss me when I’m gone
I’m gonna miss me when I’m gone
When the seagull steals my tongue
I’m gonna miss those songs I song.

 

I Hope There's A Heaven

Someone once said that religion is drug
we take it when we need to
get through life’s drudge
and the worse off our lot,
the greater above, that it
keeps us asleep with a vision of God
But so many poor folk drifted this way
to live and to die without
much more than faith, and it’s
too cruel a world, if it’s all in vain
to die into nothing
from this world of pain.

I hope there’s a heaven for
all who believed
and cried out for mercy when they
fell to their knees
and all that they had was the
friendship of God
I hope there’s a heaven
to steal them from sod

I hope there’s a heaven
for the poor houses’ haunt and the
soldiers who died believing that they
did what god wants
for the bums in the church lines
starving and cold
missionary victims who bought
soup with their souls.

So many pained eyes that
bowed to his light
and prayed to his love
all day and all night
the meek and the poor
the victims of greed
that lived every breath by Jesus’ creed.

Well I hope there’s a heaven
for the slaves in the field
with broken down bodies,
hoping heaven would heal
the pains of this world and the
toils of their lives
I hope there’s a heaven for the
way that they died.

 

Ball & Chain

Hey Ma’am take that hammer there
and break my ball and chain
lying by your riverside
my heart is drown with rain
I’ll fill your lap
with gold
and dreams that don’t grow cold
I’ve seen my life
Shine
deep inside your eyes
cold inside your eyes.

Please ease my disbelief
so much time has passed
cast out from the will to live
my feet have turned to glass
I’d crawl for miles through tears
and burn up thirty years
let me die tonight
deep inside your eyes
cold inside your eyes

 

Forever

See that chicken
clucking in the field
ducking in the bush
eating corn meal
what becomes of him
is what becomes of others
cause like the days of summer
his days are numbers

Death will come and
smote him with its thumb
it will be to him like
he has never been
they'll take away his beak
and they'll take away his feathers
and he'll be gone foreverworr

hear that fool
whimper at the mirror
lips all a-quiver
his mind's in a blizzard
the gravity of nught
turn his thoughts to glory
'cause momento mori
is the moral of his story

mort's gonna come
and take away his tongue
takes away the schemes
like waking takes a dream
they'll dole out all his things to
the heirs of his fetters
and he'll be gone forever

Almighty death
must be laid to rest
his bones and cloak
under nails and oak
if it's all got to end
then ending's got to end
he can reap his own
seeds he's sown

Science will come
and smote him with its thumb
it will be to them
like he has never been
they'll take away his scythe
and laugh away his spectre
and he'll be gone forever.

 

Peg Leg

Please believe if
these legs weren’t pegs
I’d carry you.
If youthful days
weren’t in the grave
I’d carry you, and bury you.

Ghost, it has become
and just like you said
it’s done
breath turning the page
rattles like clocks
tilling with toil
til even your soil
fades away

The wax and wane
of joy and pain
have bound me here
The smirk and sigh
of shame and pride
have bound me here
to drown in drear
weight, you have been shrewd
in keeping me here
with you
but time isn’t a lie
though new age books
get you to come
and fill you with fake
that your cares
rattle away

One falling story
pain bathed in glory
and dawn
greets you weary
face
Faded memory
and it fades away
as you fade away
you fade away.

 

 

 

 

To Contact Visit about booking, questions, or comment, please email us at the links below. We look forward to hearing from you.

grizzleroar@gmail.com

127 Eagle Street #7
Brooklyn, NY
11222

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