The Jones-Hay Residence [EP]

This 4-song EP was recorded with my band “5 Cent Mary” in 1998. It included two of my songs with the highlight on my song “With You” which was to be the first released single off of the planned 3-song EP.

In 1998, 5 Cent Mary began with no name as a result of a series of phone calls I made to each of the other members of the group over about 15 minutes’ time. Its personnel included myself (drums/vocals), Chris Curry (keyboards/vocals), frontman Buddy Hay (lead vocals), Gregory Allen Weiss (bass guitar) and Kevin Slover (lead/rhythm guitar).

After laboriously sitting around Curry’s dining room table for almost 2 hours one late evening following rehearsal, I finally threw out the name “5 Cent Mary” first to Chris, remembering our having discovered a cartoon of the same name from Penthouse magazine when we were in junior high, something we had joked about for years to follow. The name stuck as everyone liked it.

The band played shows, featuring 3 full sets of covers while “peppering in” originals, all culminating in a decision to cut an EP.

Two nights before the recording session at Rocket Silo Studios in Gardiner, NY, the band decided collectively at a rehearsal that the album needed a 4th song. I went home that night and wrote “Hollywood” submitting it the next day at our final practice. We made a rendition and everyone liked it so it became the fourth song and second track on the album. We recorded it the next day in the studio along with, “With You“, “A Friend Like Me” and “5 Cent Mary“.

The band additionally recorded two covers, “Remedy” by the Black Crowes and “The Difference” by The Wallflowers for a separate club demo and ended up including a 5th track to the EP, a special recording of a live show performance of “Since I been Lovin’ You” by Led Zeppelin.

Why ‘The Jones-Hay Residence”?

Having played for years in various bands with each other, particularly frontman, and lead singer, Buddy Hay, at a time when cell phones were nonexistent and we all had answering machines, I am several other friends had all become all too familiar with and accustomed to hearing the greeting on Buddy’s machine at his apartment. He and his roommate, Bill Jones (whom I laughingly always joked was not a real person and was too much of a made-up name) shared the place and Buddy, sporting a faux UK accent created a humorous greeting.

During the recording of Bud’s answering machine greeting, you can hear his long-time friend and friend and supporter of the band, Ralph, in a cameo appearance, calling Buddy’s name during his long pause, to which Buddy in his true and usual tonality and mood answers irritatingly, “What?…”

So, when it came to coming up with an album title, I knew it had to be a direct quote from the opening line of the greeting. Additionally, being a fanatic of Gin Blossoms, Goo Goo Dolls and the like, and with the lead release “With You” conforming to that genre, the name had a ring to it along those lines. But for all to get the joke (so to speak) I wanted to — actually, in fact, INSISTED upon, including the greeting as the opening track on the album, with “With You” starting immediately following the beep. And so, we have the Jones-Hay Residence, as it was all those years on an answering machine tape, saved digitally for posterity!

Unfortunately, shortly after the recording and the final mix were complete, the band split due to differences in opinion on the image and direction of the band. And so the EP went unreleased. One of the members of the band later took the band name and used it for a local bar cover band project he joined. The collectively written “A Friend Like Me” and “5-Cent Mary” were left unpublished and remain so to this day.

The Jones-Hay Residence

BUDDY: Hello, you’ve reached the Jones-Hay residence. Sorry, we’re not home right now. Please leave your name, number and a message and we’ll be back to you real soon. Heidi-Deidi-Doe. Have a lovely day, and take care…

BUDDY: …

RALPH: Buddy…

BUDDY: What?

MACHINE: Beeeeeeeeeep… (cue “With You”)

With You

Well, I don’t care about the circumstance,
that made you look, then step away
because, you see, I think that we are right
for each other and for ourselves,
together now and,

forever has become cliche
and light years seem so far away,
A trillion years,
and here I am with you,

You dropped me off, and it was raining then,
And, then, I turned as you drove away
And, as I walked up to the door that night,
all I could think of was how we belong
together now and,

forever has become cliche
and light years seem so far away,
A trillion years,
and here I am with you,
If I were smart, then I’d seize the day
and hold you before you slipped away
and maybe give forever one more day,
with you…

And, if I failed, and this fell through,
would you never try again to make it
And, if we met some better time,
maybe we could try it then?

For now, I’ll keep it in my heart for you,
a place you may never think to look,
because I think that you and I deserve
to be together when the time is right,
together now and

forever has become cliche
and light years seem so far away,
A trillion years,
and here I am with you,
If I were smart, then I’d seize the day
and hold you before you slipped away
and maybe give forever one more day,
with you…

with you…
with you…
with you…

Hollywood

She slips in the rain and yells at me
She will boast the pain, “Oh, the misery!”
A drama she will save for an audience
Critics will all rave her performance

Sitting in the jam, an emergency
Rages through the cars with an urgency
A battle he still fights from long ago
Played in present time like a movie show

He makes it sound like Hollywood
acting out the pain of his life
He fakes it, just like Hollywood
and it serves him well to survive

Girlfriend sets the stage, their apartment
He mocks up the rage for the argument
She will say some things and pound the floor
He will trake a sweong, then slam the door

He makes it sound like Hollywood
acting out the pain of his life
He fakes it, just like Hollywood
and it serves him well…

I can’t go on with a loved-one dead
You give me worries I take to bed
And, nno one lives a life so free,
Just acting out their scenes

Serves the victim well, the apparency
that his way makes fail so miserably
Now he says, “I’m hurt. Oh, woe is me”
and tries for agreement from the majority

He makes it sound like Hollywood
acting out the pain of his life
He fakes it, just like Hollywood
and it serves him well
He makes it, just like Hollywood
and it serves him well
He fakes it, just like Hollywood
and it serves him well
He makes it, just like Hollywood
and it serves him well
He fakes it, just like Hollywood
and it serves him well
He makes it, just like Hollywood
and it serves him well
He fakes it, just like Hollywood
and it serves him well…

A Friend Like Me

I can’t understand
why you don’t understand
why I don’t need you
How many ways can I tell you
it’s all wrong?
You say you want me,
I don’t want you…

Shaving one morning,
in front of the mirror,
and what did I see?
Someone who looks like someone
that I been waiting for
Clones cost too much money…

If all the world
would just be more like me,
I’d have all
the friends I’d ever need
Don’t you wish
you had a friend like me?
I wish I had
a friend like me!

Yellow pages, want ads, 4-1-1,
internet search agencies
Private Dicks, satellite oictures…
useless to me!
Watch my infomercial on TV…

If all the world
would just be more like me,
I’d have all
the friends I’d ever need
Don’t you wish
you had a friend like me?
I wish I had
a friend like me!

(Solo)

What’s this world coming to?
I can’t find just one friend
like yours truly!
What a sad world to live in
when there’s only one of me!
I think I’ll start my own me factory!

If all the world
would just be more like me,
I’d have all
the friends I’d ever need
Don’t you wish
you had a friend like me?
I wish I had
a friend like me!

Don’t you wish
Don’t you wish
Don’t you wish
you had
you had a friend like me?
Don’t you wish
Don’t you wish
Don’t you wish
you had
you had a friend like me?

5 Cent Mary

She shows a little leg outside
Her passage is guaranteed
Butts out her cigarette
and starts to make a scene

She moves to the front of the line
despite all the looks from the girls
She winks and gives me the sign
that it’s time to rock her world

Now, we don’t condone her,
but we sure understand
why 5 Cent Mary
wants to be with the band
You can compare us
looking deep in our souls
’cause we’re the sluts of
rock and roll

She looks through those 5-cent eyes
and flashes a 10-cent grin
Puts in her 2 cents, at last,
and starts to do her thing

(Solo)

5 Cent Mary wants to beat with the drummer
and do a little “solo” on the lead guitar
5 Cent Mary always stays for an encore
and follows you out to your car

(Solo)

Shows a little leg outside
Her passage is guaranteed
Butts out her cigarette
and starts to make a scene

Now, we don’t condone her,
but we sure understand
why 5 Cent Mary
wants to be with the band
You can compare us
looking deep in our souls
’cause we’re the sluts of
rock and roll

You know we’re just like her
’cause we put out
and Mary’s our biggest fan without a doubt
You can compare us
looking deep in our souls
’cause we’re the sluts of
rock and roll