Includes unlimited streaming of UNPLUGGED: A Survivor's Story in Scenes & Songs
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 3 days
Purchasable with gift card
$12USDor more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Read UNPLUGGED the novel + listen to UNPLUGGED the musical! This bundle gives you both.
Includes unlimited streaming of UNPLUGGED: A Survivor's Story in Scenes & Songs
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 3 days
Purchasable with gift card
$27USDor more
UNPLUGGED is a tale of depression, recovery and self-reinvention. It’s also the story of how a young woman is taught and healed by nature — by the very land beneath her feet.
This expanded 15th Anniversary edition of Paul McComas' award-winning novel includes sheet music for 12 "Dayna Clay" songs. Softcover, 364 pages, published 2017, John Daniel & Co.
* * *
Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. Jim Morrison. Each rocketed to the top of the rock ’n’ roll pantheon — then died at age 27, a casualty of drugs, despair or both. More recently, when Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain took his own life at the same age, his mother lamented, “I told him not to join that stupid club.”
UNPLUGGED imagines someone whose membership in that club is denied — barely.
Dayna Clay struggles through the final concert of a wildly successful tour. Tormented by an ever-deepening depression, the 27-year-old rocker hands her guitar to a fan and beats a retreat. Forfeiting her career, she sets out incognito for parts unknown and winds up in the Badlands of South Dakota, where her growing connection to the land and to the people she meets there begins to heal the wounds of an abusive childhood.
Meanwhile, Dayna’s disappearance only serves to boost public interest in her — and to fuel her skyrocketing record sales. Laboring to choose between her musical ambitions and the new life she has made, she finds herself stranded in a far-flung corner of the wilderness she has come to love. Saved from a suicide attempt earlier by nature, she now may perish by the very same hand.
Includes unlimited streaming of Symmetry [from UNPLUGGED]
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
ships out within 3 days
Purchasable with gift card
$19USDor more
lyrics
The first storm hit me on the eastern Dakota plains. I was in the lowest place of my life, driving westward, speeding away from my old life, trying to leave it far behind — the grief, the depression, the abuse — but I couldn't leave it; couldn’t escape it. My vision was blurred by a near-constant stream of tears.
Then, all at once, through the tears, I saw it: a broad, dense, swirling ground-cloud of dirt and dust was sweeping right toward me. It was like the air just above that desolate, flat land had somehow sprung to malevolent, earth-rending life.
By the time I'd regained enough of my wits to stop and shift into PARK, the dust storm was blotting out all sight and sound and light. It was above me and around me and on top of me: pushing down, pressing in, bellowing into my ears, demanding entry. It was an assault. I should know. I shut my eyes tight. I grabbed onto that steering wheel so hard that my nails cut into my palms. And I thought, "the Hell inside me has escaped; now it’s expanding to destroy the world…and it's starting with me!" Then it moved away, past me, now just a hovering swath of gray in the rearview mirror, shrinking by the moment as it continued to recede. Yet it left me shaking and aching, curled up on my side, sobbing, face-down, into the passenger seat.
But the second storm — yesterday — a few months after the first? Totally different. For starters, the second one was bigger. Plus, I wasn't on the highway, but out on the land, on foot, four or five miles from the Badlands ranch where I’ve been living, and healing. This time, I was out hiking, with no car — unsheltered; unprotected; utterly exposed. But it wasn't any of those things that made the second storm so different. No; the main difference was that, unlike with that first storm…the second time — I was me.
credits
from UNPLUGGED: A Survivor's Story in Scenes & Songs,
released October 22, 2017
Maya Kuper: synths, narration
Paul McComas: bass, guitar
Written by Paul McComas
Produced by Maya Kuper and Paul McComas
Engineered by Joe Dilillo and Maya Kuper
Mixed by Joe Dilillo at Solid Sound Recording in Hoffman Estates, IL
"Dayna Clay" is a fictional 27-year-old rocker, battling depression and PTSD in the wake of childhood sexual abuse. Maya
Kuper & Paul McComas’ alt-rock musical "UNPLUGGED: A Survivor’s Story in Scenes & Songs" chronicles Dayna’s bumpy journey through the South Dakota Badlands, and into self-discovery, healing, full embrace of her bisexuality, and love. Proceeds support The Kennedy Forum....more
Set your ears to "stun." Paul and Maya collaborated with the late, great Richard LaValliere (Oil Tasters, The Haskels) on the soundtrack for Paul's quirky Star Trek parody film, TIME TREK. The Dayna Clay Project
In this collection that ranges from soul to pop to country to folk, 13 talented young women raise their voices against disrespect and mistreatment -- spreading a messaging of healing and hope. The Dayna Clay Project
Earnest tribute to Mr. Franco? Stoner anthem? Who knows? Either way, it's the psychedelic jam of the year, it has a lot of pretty guitars, and it was produced by "Second Storm" remixer Seth Johnson. The Dayna Clay Project
The new LP from this Antwerp group pays tribute to obscure Italian ’70s film soundtracks, krautrock, and psychedelic grooves. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 29, 2022
Never mind The Ventures; CJ Mirra dreams up a new sound of surf, built from moody, expansive electronics and soft, organic textures. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 7, 2018
