KEN MILLER: To what degree are your lyrics free-associative-or do you try to write songs ‘about’ something?ĭAN BEJAR: I write freely about many different things, one after the other.
I hate chords and chord progressions these days. What doesn’t come all at once is a chord structure, because I never sit down to play an instrument until it is absolutely necessary, and sometimes not even then. KEN MILLER: When you’re writing a song, do you begin with words or melodies?ĭAN BEJAR: They definitely come all at once. I suppose part of it is, in life, we learn to pull the plug on bullshit.
The idea of learning/evolving as a songwriter is an amazing concept, as realistic/fantastic as the idea of learning/evolving as a human being. No album is a reaction to the last-I react to life, not albums. Actually, the more I think about an honest answer to this question, the more I’m confused and filled with dread by the process of record-making (though there is fun to be had, trust me). What, if anything, do you learn from one album to the next?ĭAN BEJAR: I think I learn about the technical aspects of working in a studio, and maybe how different musicians operate in a studio. To me, this is huge-maybe the main thing, and still overwhelming. KEN MILLER: You’ve been at this for well over a decade now. We chatted with him to inquire when the wordsmith becomes a songwriter. Never mind the Aja-esque flute solos-this is a guy who will write a late-night road-trip disco track about the artist Kara Walker. What hasn’t changed is the unique quality of Bejar’s songwriting and his habit of overfilling songs with abstractly funny clusters of words over subtly catchy melodies. With each Destroyer album, the Vancouver, Canada-based Dan Bejar recruits a new set of collaborators, which has created a steady evolution of the band’s sound. PHOTO COURTESY OF TED BOIS.Īlready beloved by discerning indie-rock aficionados and other recalcitrant aesthetes, Destroyer’s ninth and latest release, Kaputt (Merge), has-perhaps inadvertently-encountered a larger audience thanks to the album’s quasi-ironic-sounding synth and sax-filled songs. In 2000, sister ship USS Cole, damaged in the Yemen port of Aden by an Al Qaeda suicide attack, was ferried back to the Northrop Grumman Ship Systems shipyard at Pascagoula, Mississippi for a two year repair process.DESTROYER’S DAN BEJAR. Navy is currently evaluating the ship to determine if it can be repaired in Japan or must be returned to a U.S. Twisting, or torsional stress along the length of the hull, is a more difficult fix and could affect the long term viability of the hull. The AN/SPY-1D(v) radar, part of the Aegis Combat System, was also impacted, with the starboard radar arrays severely damaged.įinally and perhaps most ominously, investigators have concluded the Fitzgerald's hull was twisted in the collision. In addition to the hole punched in the hull, the ship experienced extensive damage to its superstructure, as the Crystal struck a glancing blow against the warship.
Destroyer magazine photos Patch#
In the moments after the accident, the hole flooded the ship, causing the destroyer to list towards the bow and starboard even while damage control pumps were furiously pumping water back out of the ship.Īccording to a previous report, the hole was so big it couldn't be patched with existing hull patch kits and crews "had to cobble together enough material to plug the hole in the side of the ship before it could be safely transferred to the dry dock in Yokosuka." A large hole in the hull, not seen when the ship was in the water, is shown patched with metal plating and large steel bars securing the plates. Navy's Seventh Fleet based in Yokosuka, Japan show the Fitzgerald in drydock with sailors inspecting the damage.