It's Better This Way

This last weekend we've been in the studio. Good to laugh together again. Good to be with our oaken family. We're springing back from a long break for healing, growing and living our separate lives. The songs are sounding good. In a few short months we'll be releasing our CD. See ya then friends.

A Fallen Oak

Please everyone who prays, pray for Justin the leader of this band. This Halloween weekend is not a happy one for him, his friends and family. He is in the hospital after being hit by a car riding his scooter on Friday night. He is improving and expected to make a full recovery. Everyone should let him know through either telepathic or digital means that we all love and care about him. We need ya Papa Oaks. -clayton

Fork Fest

We had a blast playing the 2010 Garbett Homes FORK FEST. Crazy good time. The love that I feel for and from the Utah music community is immense. Thanks for being friends with us and sharing with us while we try to share peices of ourselves with you. We'll be playing Velour's COMWBOYS & INDIES soon. Hope to see everyone there.

Velour Show March 10th

Ferocious Oaks:


Brandon White & Katie Brandeburg:


Shady Chapel:

Ferocious Oaks Manifesto!

Ferocious Oaks is a band with intention.  An intention to bring art to the local community that we love so much, and not just our art.  We want to host galleries, poetry readings, literary book clubs, and of course support local musicians like ourselves.  Lets stir up an interest in the interesting.  If you would like us to play a house show for you, or you'd like to start something that will raise a brow towards the local art community, send us a message on myspace, or chat with me on facebook.  We can help.  Peace.

-justin

is my tongue bleeding?

my name is clayton godby. i play the drums. this is a poem i use to introduce myself to people.

Introduction to Clayton Godby

Judge me. Harshly.
Judge me harshly
 these lips will never spew sun-warmed words; the only kind these static-addled vagrants long to hear
Judge me harshly sweet Cherubim
 for perhaps your fire-eyed fury can burn and purge me the way I've longed for.
 Cauterize this sloppy soul I've found no remedy for but to drown in piss
Judge me harshly
 my ears need more knives to plug up and shut out the world
Judge me harshly
 All my former lovers will only lick lint from between your toes. If you reveal me you acquit them.
 If with tongues you stab my back they will feel it only as tongues caressing orifices, penetrating deeply all the way to hardened hearts
Judge me harshly
 though my only reservation through our whole ordeal was the fear that I'd burn my tongue if I left it too long upon yours.
 I wish there was still a rock-skip jump in your chest for me but I suppose I ought to be grateful for
 whatever meager portion of your life you deem fit to share
Judge me harshly
 on the phone today I told Ryan I was working in the studio and he called me out on trying to sound cool. He was right
Judge me harshly
 I wish I were a dog. Or at least a homeless person
Judge me harshly
 for I, whilst kneeling at the lavatory throne of my Father, became angry at His hazy-eyed apathy and fell in love with myself instead
Judge me harshly
 I need another name with which to scream my whole soul
Judge me harshly
 take a number and we'll be right with you
Judge me harshly
 in fact, if you've got a saw of some sort feel free to open me up and become drunk on the muddy memory stew. CAUTION: this won't be pretty
Judge me harshly
 though I'm a taxpayer
Judge me harshly
 BECAUSE I'm a taxpayer, and thus a warmonger, bigot, backstabber and all around bastard
Judge me harshly
 once when I was small I soiled myself in the tub and my poor mother had to scoop out the turds from the soup, mumbling discontentedly
 as I stood nearby quietly crying. Yes, all failures are relevant to your investigation, for I plead with you to judge me
Harshly
 I have, my whole life, only caused discomfort in others for sharing such self-deprecating honesty
Judge me harshly
 I recall now my oaken love turning
 willow
 withered
 warped
 then burned in the waning fire-light it was meant to photosynthesize while I slithered through the solar system
Judge me harshly
 I don't lie except when I do
Judge me harshly
 the trees screamed as I emptied gallons of motor oil into drains and vomited molten plastic from my serpentine snout.
 I laughed licking my lips
Judge me harshly
 It will prove your ultimate victory to stomp out any lesser being such as myself.
 Leave me to my sidewalk sepulchre. Publish the proceedings and 
 the President will give a speech.
 the crowd will cheer.
 Grace is your name from henceforth to the brazen horizon.

now please don't judge me too harshly. :)

this is no petition. there are invisible squirrells at work here. obviously

On April sixth of 2009 ferocious oaks was born. In the months previous, a belly of music was already beginning to protrude within us.  Ideas about future projects were discussed among friends, but knowing from personal experience how many of my ideas come to fruition, i put little thought into them. Well I should say little more thought than I already did.  I like playing music.  I like nodding off to midnight melodies that lucid fingers and strings construct until I am asleep and the sudden vacuum of silence wakes me up in the same moment to continue the plangent sounds that will continue this cycle.

April six also happens to be Cherie's birthday. It's no coincidence that we now share this day.  It was Cherie that brought us all together. Poverty and the desire to be authentic led me to write "Cherie" as a gift to her the day before.   I memorized it, and presented it well... probably. Following songs and feasting, we stuffed ourselves in Kjirsten's car and went to a nearby plateau of freshly sprouting grass.  It was there that it happened.  Maybe it was the incidence of me falling off a cliff, almost ending my very life, that caused it.  I might have realized during that moment that above anything else, i needed to get the songs so buried within my winter soil to come out where they would no longer haunt me.  Or it could have been that the spring air,

with its newness encircling, reminded both Clayton and I of our longtime fantasies: living on the shirt tails of society, writing music about the adventures it propelled us into.  A perfect symbiotic relationship.  Or perhaps it was the fact that Daniel seemed to radiate an even more mystical aroma than usual, his young debonair countenance and slender southern boy frame enchanted us to look deep inside and withdraw the future of our choice.  Most likely all of these circumstances had an effect on our decision, and there nestled near snow capped mountains, resting above the abundant alfalfa fields below, Clayton and I decided that we should start a band.

So a part of our beginning is revealed and there you have it. In our crew is a very experienced drummer (Clayton), an inexperienced fledgling songwriter (me, Justin), his sassy girlfriend and a ridiculously talented harpist (Kjirsten), our multi-talented sister (Christel), and our friend Mr. Nutt, the bassist that every band wishes they had (Chris).

We play shows around provo, we hang out, we eat seven layer nachos, we're inappropriate, easily distracted, and authentic. This blog will be about the adventures brought on by our pursuit of music, or really just anything we care to write about.

-Justin