About The Phantoms of Fables CD by Damien Youth: 

The Phantoms of Fables CD has pretty much become the universal hotel CD among all of our guests. Everyone seems to have a copy of it and is very familiar with it. Damien Youth, singer/songwriter of many a haunting musical masterpiece, who used to live here in the Grand Midway Hotel and was part owner for the original season, completed the CD a year or so after his departure from the hotel. There are images from the hotel and the year Damien lived here all over the CD. 

Damien writes: "Aw, I miss that old dusty building. Thanks for mentioning my new album. There’s definitely some of that old hotel dust swirling around on a few tracks of the album. “I Know Where Robyn Hitchcock Lives” has been getting a lot of college radio airplay. Of course, the song has nothing to do with Hitchcock. It was really about Windber legends like Roger & “The Pants-less cowboy”. “Galaxies” was inspired by those drunken nights I spent on the roof top of the Grand Midway, star gazing. A few other tracks have a few subconscious nods to my experiences at the old hotel. Cheers you lot! -Damien" 

Phantoms of Fables offers 16 new tracks: 

1. Artemis 
2. Hope 
3. Red Ghost Mother 
4. Anastacia 
5. The Days Are But Molecules 
6. I know Where Robyn Hitchcock Lives 
7. Freaked Out 
8. Doll Child 
9. There Goes My Girl 
10. Valentine Boyfriend 
11. Lies We Tell 
12. Spy in My Tree 
13. Rooms of December 
14. Don't Want To Be 
15. Dead Relative 
16. Galaxies 

A fresh hotel copy arrived in the mail from Damien. Two songs from the CD went directly into the film Coolsville. I combined Dead Relative with my footage and Adam Blai's light photography to create perhaps the most unique and powerful segment in the film. Several people related to the hotel are playing copies of the Phantoms CD all over the place. I heard Lies We Tell coming out of Adam's car. Dylan is always playing his copy in his room. You can find the CD now turning up on UPJ campus among students new to the hotel. 

"You know Damien Youth?" they ask, kind of stunned. 

"Actually he used to live here, and did some of his original recordings on the third floor." 

Damien notes: "People can download my music from iTunes or they can get hard copy cd's from cdbaby.com Here's a link. Cheers! -DY" 

See http://cdbaby.com/cd/damienyouth 
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DEAD RELATIVE 

I’m going back in my mind, I’m getting lost in the currents 
I’m gonna open that door, float out of your forest 
I’m rising over that wall, staring down at the valley 
and every thing is wrong 

I’m going out of my mind, I’m gonna swim through the violence 
I’m gonna sever the ties, between energy and matter 
My words will stick in your brain, splatter in the bone cave 
like hieroglyphics blood stain, screaming down your hall way 
and everything is wrong 

I’m coming into your room, I’m standing over your body 
I’m gonna reach in your mind, I’m gonna fuck up your science 
I’m coming into your home, I’m gonna stir up your silence 
til everything is gone 

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I KNOW WHERE ROBYN HITCHCOCK LIVES 

Late one night, by chance, I spied, a stranger, yet, familiar guy? 
Twas distant down an alley way half shadow cast, all black and gray. 
Night was thick with humming wires, 
street lamps swayed to paint the spires 
bedroom windows dimmed like ember in December’s frown 

Pre-legendary then, my phantom friend 
still lurking round the bin, in street light dim, my phantom friend 

Amidst the poetry of night A staggering form, no fancy flight 
did wander, thus, did intersect, distracting me as I reflect 
Like an exclamation out of place, 
he steered his form to match my pace 
I turned , too late, he’s at my side, though drunk, 
doth syncopate my stride. 

dare not glance peripheral, to not see what’s visible? 
beyond what I could perpetrate, increase my pace, I deviate. 

Racing running my lair swelling in my sight and 
up the stair way turning on my bedroom light 
footsteps echo, down the dusty corridors of night 

Down the hallways, closing all the curtains and 
I block the doorways, still I hear him coming 
breathing, stumbling, slow across the floors. 

But as I opened up my door, and search the dusty corridors. 
An phantom standing not quite clad, 
save railroad boots and cowboy hat. 
With flannel shirt and blue jean vest, 
just looming there, all Roger-esque. 
Phantom friend 

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LIES WE TELL 

Oh god is that really you and after all of these years 
Must have been out of my mind, I didn’t know you were here 
Got caught up with a friend, we went out for a ride 
then we stopped in for a drink and just to murder some time 

Tell me, how have you been, hope you been keeping warm 
are you still there in the city or did you move to that farm 
and all those plans that you made, did you see them all through 
or did you take it in stride and do the best you could do? 

There are lies we never tell but we mean them just the same 
There are feelings that we feel that there are no words to say 

Me, I’m doing just fine, nothing much has changed 
except a wife and a child and our home on the range 
I still sit up all night, writing songs for no one 
I go to sleep with the sun and with my room all undone 
I still keep telling myself I’ll be discovered some day 
If only time is the cost, then the price I’ll have paid 
to build my legacy, my philosophies, lost immortality 

There are lies we tell our selves, sometimes others go along 
There are feelings that we feel even though we now they’re wrong. 

OK we’re back in the room and I must confess 
I saw you right from the start cause you were wearingthat dress 
But when I looked at you, your eyes looked away 
so I turned to me friend and wished that you’d go away 
Because there’s nothing to say, I like to tell myself 
there’s nothing left to say when there’s too much to say, 
I always tell myself there’s nothing left to say 

There are times when all we have it still seems so far away 
and there are nights when all we want doesn’t seem like much to me 
and there are fears we never say, cause we hope they’ll go away 
and there are secret tears we shed as we turn our backs in bed 

There are lies we never tell but we meant to anyway 
and there are things we’ve never felt, but we said them anyway. 

Like. . . “Me? I’m doing just fine.” 

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OFFBEAT Review by Robert Fontenot 

Although his dive into psychedelic goth folk was reportedly instigated by an overly religious upbringing in the backwater of Hammond (back when it was a backwater), Damien Youth is so not Hammond—which is, of course, the point. The darkness of his vision, first unleashed on a series of Bush I/Clinton era cassette-only releases and expanded throughout numerous side projects (the Freeks, Surprise Symphony, Kyte) is born of betrayal, the sound of someone who realizes he’s been dumped off in the wrong dimension. As such, his endless navel-gazing can become pretentious and his poesy a little florid (“You thought I hated you,” he says here, “and you were not wrong”), but he remains a fascinating composite nonetheless: a creature floating in the ether between Robyn Hitchcock’s nightmares and Nick Drake’s depression, with occasional flashes of Syd Barrett’s disturbed childhood and Ray Davies’ ragged empathy. (An unabashed Anglophile, this.) 

He’s also been remarkably consistent, as you might imagine from someone almost completely untouched by the record industry, which means that Phantoms of Fables, first released in 2004, doesn’t offer any major variations in style or quality. His psychedelia may be taking a turn into noise-pop (Red Ghost Mother) and a Bowie-meets-Cake ballad like Anastasia might, with slicker production, even qualify as a post-alt hit. But that speaks more about how popular tastes have evolved: true musical mavericks, even devastatingly quiet acoustic ones like Damien, remain happily isolated, in direct contradiction to the belief system they never bought into. 
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SIX/TEN SPLIT Review by Mikki Bullock: 

Although Damien Youth has been low on the radar, he’s been making British-influenced folk tunes since 1989. His ‘60s influenced style has remained the same over those 15 years and is often compared to the psychedelic folk-rock singer Donovan. Youth’s new album is a strange sort of short stories allowing us a glimpse into his mind. 

On the first two songs of his new album, Phantoms of Fables, Youth makes references to mythological figures naming the goddess of wilderness, Artemis, on the first track and to Prometheus, the god who stole the lightening bolt from Zeus, on Hope. I Know Where Robyn Hitchcock Lives refers to a huge influence on Youth, the eccentric Robyn Hitchcock. This could be the highlight of the album as it picks up with upbeat guitar and bass lines. Youth’s natural British-sounding vocals should also be noted. Doll Child is a strange, eclectic song that explains an awkward mishap of the cheating man, “like Elvis is to heart attacks or black blind men are to blues, she is to nymphomania…also she reminds me of you.” Phantom Wheels has a very familiar sound with a driving piano line and a bold biblical reference to the holy martyrs who “died for you and me. But truth be known, it was us who killed them anyway.” Lies We Tell is a heartrending window into Youth’s life where he makes mention of his family and the longing for his legacy and philosophy to be “discovered someday.” Spy in My Tree echos Nick Cave—a dark, dramatic quick-moving song that ends with experimental saxophones. The album ends with Galaxies, the most experimental song, ending with layers of effects-processed vocals. 
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all lyrics copyright Damien Youth 
see Zygote Records (www.damienyouth.com)