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Feels So Good // Feels So Bad

by The Shivas

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1.
Feels So Bad 04:11
I feel so bad I lost everything I had I lost everything I had I feel so blue And I’m so in love with you And I don’t know what to do Help I can’t help myself It’s bad for my health I want you and nothing else I feel so bad I lost everything I had I lost everything I had
2.
Undone 04:53
I lightened up and moved too fast I shook it off and fell off task I hold onto who I love Ghosts remind me what I’ve done Oh I’ve come undone Oh I’ve come undone Every night I waited up Felt confusion, drank too much Will you know me when I’m up After rolling in the mud Oh I’ve come undone Oh I’ve come undone And the worst is seeing you Memories far worse than true If you go I’ll get more done Started out with too much fun Oh I’ve come undone Oh I’ve come undone Falling over broken seats Soft recover, high off sleep Started out with too much fun See me now you off and run Oh I’ve come undone Oh I’ve come undone I’ve come undone, I’ve come undone I’ve come undone, I’ve come undone I’ve come undone, I’ve come undone I’ve come undone, I’ve come undone
3.
Tell me that you love me, baby, tell me Only when you want me, baby, I’ll see Tell me that you love me, baby, tell me Only when you want me, baby, I’ll see Just like grass in the field turns to clover It’s my heart that you’re taking over Tell me that you love me, baby, tell me Only when you want me, baby, I’ll see Darkness appears, but as long as you’re near The light in my heart sings I love you Tell me that you love me, baby, tell me Only when you want me, baby, I’ll see They say that love lasts forever That’s fine just as long as we’re together Tell me that you love me, baby, tell me Only when you want me, baby, I’ll see Oh maybe maybe I’ll see Oh maybe maybe I’ll see Oh maybe maybe I’ll see Oh maybe maybe I’ll see Oh maybe maybe I’ll see
4.
If I could choose anything to be I’d only wanna be me If I could choose anything to do I’d just spend all my time with you Sure that I can’t sure that I can So sure the ocean won’t swallow up the land So sure my line won’t break up the band I’ve cursed us all an evil hand Just shows that nothing goes as planned Hold on, you’re gonna love me when I’m gone Hold on, I can feel it coming on strong If I could choose anything to be I’d only wanna be me If I could choose anything in the world to do I’d just spend all my time with you Sure that I can’t sure that I can So sure the ocean won’t swallow up the land So sure my line won’t break up the band I’ve cursed us all an evil hand Just shows that nothing goes as planned Hold on, you’re gonna love me when I’m gone Hold on, I can feel it coming on
5.
Don't Go 01:41
In the daytime, wanna hear your sigh I’ll be patiently dreaming alone You know, the way you go slow It brings me to my knees, oh please Baby, come back to me I’m sorry, I needed some time alone Stay with me, oh baby Even a ‘maybe’ is better than ‘no’ Please don’t go Please don’t go Please don’t go Please don’t go Please don’t go Please don’t go Please Please Even a ‘maybe’ is better than ‘no’ Please don’t go
6.
Something’s finally happened, looks like you’re doing very well But things have a strange way of looking, sometimes it’s hard to tell You start talking backwards, I couldn’t hear what you said You’re always just looking at me like I’m just standing in your way Don’t tell me you never noticed, yeah there was a time When my whole world, my heart and soul just screamed, “Oh will you be mine?” Now all I want’s for you to stop it And I know that you won’t Well ooh how I love her, yeah, I found another, oh and my baby don’t My baby don’t My baby don’t My baby don’t My baby don’t She don’t, she don’t, she don’t no she don’t she don’t no she don’t she don’t no she don’t She don’t she don’t, she don’t, no she don’t, she don’t no she don’t she don’t no she don’t My baby don’t no no no no no no no no My baby don’t she don’t, no she don’t My baby don’t no no no no no no no no My baby don’t she don’t no she don’t My baby don’t no no no no no My baby don’t no no no no no My baby don’t no no no no no no My baby don’t she don’t she don’t no she don’t My baby don’t
7.
I don’t know Don’t care Won’t go You say you wanna hold my hand You wanna understand You wanna be my man I wish that we could all be free And that you’d still wanna stay with me I wish that things weren’t too dark to see All the million people we could be I wish that it all didn’t get so bad Oh yeah I wish it didn’t get so bad Oh how I wish it wouldn’t get so bad I don’t know Won’t stay Won’t go You say you wanna hold my hand You wanna understand You wanna be my man You wanna be my man You wanna be my man You wanna be my man You wanna be my man
8.
A Gift 00:40
9.
For The Kids 02:51
If the lights turn off then we’ll burn candles We’ve been here before and we can learn how to handle it And if our phones turn off, then no one’s calling Drop the line, feels like I’m falling And there’s a kid in the house on the corner who’s dying He jumped off the roof and he thought he was flying His parents hate him since they learned he’s gay Fly fly baby you can fly away It’s a lie, It’s easier if you don’t try It’ll only bring a tear to your eye Don’t get my hopes up and you Won’t ever let me down Won’t ever let me down, no no Don’t ever let me down I want you around
10.
Rock Me Baby 03:15
Rock me baby rock rock me baby Rock me steady baby Come on over you know that I’m ready Rock me steady baby Yeah I wanna feel your body closer to mine All I need is someone to treat me just right Gettin’ pretty heavy you know that I might Cause baby, it’s the night Rock me baby rock rock me baby Rock me steady baby Come on over you know that I’m ready Rock me steady baby Kiss me all the time that’s what I want you to do Love me just a little for our hearts to be true It’s a wild sensation that I’m getting from you Oh baby, I’m no fool Rock me baby rock rock me baby Rock me steady baby Come on over you know that I’m ready Rock me steady baby I wanna feel your body closer to mine All I need is someone to treat me just right Gettin’ pretty heavy you know that I might Cause baby, it’s the night Rock me baby rock rock me baby Rock me steady baby Come on over you know that I’m ready Rock me steady baby Rock me baby rock rock me baby Rock me steady baby Come on over you know that I’m ready Rock me steady baby Rock me steady baby Rock me steady baby Rock me steady baby
11.
So Cold 03:31
The world is turning And walking away And my heart is burning Cause I’d hoped that you’d stay Stay away Oh, you’re so cold don’t you know I’ve no more to say, dear So tell me just what you see ‘Cause you know you’re like a mirror I look at you and I see me Do you disagree? Oh, you’re so cold don’t you know
12.
Sometimes 04:19
Wake up to the day planned Baby you know I’ve waited endlessly For the day to come when the world starts tripping me Morning goes by slowly Take it all and then just wait to see A thousand waves of colors come to comfort me Trippin’ sometimes slippin’ In and out of worlds I never knew And you know I’m happy frying here with you Slow down, easy come down Breathe the smoky air for sweet relief And you know I’ll always carry this with me Sometimes when I see you Memories go rushing through my veins And I know I’ll never feel that way again Again… And again… Again… And again… That’s the end.
13.
In the daytime, wanna hear your sigh I’ll be patiently dreaming alone You know, the way you go slow It brings me to my knees, oh please Baby, come back to me I’m sorry, I needed some time alone Stay with me, oh baby Even a ‘maybe’ is better than ‘no’ Please don’t go Please don’t go Please don’t go Please don’t go Please don’t go Please don’t go Please Please Even a ‘maybe’ is better than ‘no’ Please don’t go

about

Every working musician has had their life turned upside down by Covid-19. For The Shivas, who had recently released a new LP and normally keep a rigorous touring schedule, it was a particularly screeching halt. “We were about to go to SXSW, the following weekend was Treefort in Boise, and then we were going to open for our friends’ band on tour in the US before going to Europe,” Jared Molyneux remembers. Then everything just stopped.

They were faced with a dilemma. “It forced us to adapt or just quit,” Molyneux says. “The reality is that shows are our job.”

In truth, live shows aren’t just The Shivas job: they are the band’s greatest love. Shivas shows are bombastic, explosive and thoroughly communal live rock and roll experiences where barriers between the performers and their audience seem to dissolve into the sweat and sound. The stage—or the basement, or the living room—that’s The Shivas’ true element. It’s their raison d’etre. It’s their religion.

The band’s live urgency may have been born in 2006, when the band’s young members—who began booking West Coast tours while still in high school—waited without fanfare on sidewalks or in parking lots, before being rushed onstage for their sets at 21-and-up clubs. Maybe it developed a little later, as The Shivas blasted their way through Portland’s storied and unsanctioned mid-aughts house show scene. Whatever the origin of their famously kinetic live experience, it’s the show that keeps them coming back after over 1,000 performances spread over 25 countries in 15 years.

In those 15 years, The Shivas have grown tight-knit as a group. Guitarist/singer Jared Molyneux, bassist Eric Shanafelt and drummer/singer Kristin Leonard have all been with the band since its earliest days; guitarist Jeff City, another high school friend, joined in 2017. Together they’ve learned to thread a seemingly impossible needle: They’ve honed and tightened their performances without sacrificing the element of surprise that makes each show special. And despite touring and recording for most of their lives, they speak about their project with humility, in the DIY vernacular of their Pacific Northwest upbringing. They talk up their own favorite bands, play all-ages shows as much as possible, and bring a sort of blue-collar humanism to the live performances they relish so much. “We just want to make people feel good,” Molyneux says. “We want them to forget they have to work tomorrow.” Kristin Leonard elaborates, “The live show is all about that feeling of catharsis—in ourselves and in everyone who comes out. We’re creating this safe space where we can all let go. Where we can exhale. And it feels really good when we are able to facilitate that.”

So when Covid hit, the band knew it was time for transformation. After a settling realization that live music would be grounded for the foreseeable future, The Shivas booked significant studio time with Cameron Spies, who also produced the 2019 Dark Thoughts LP. They also transformed their lives: three of the band’s four members found work with a local nonprofit serving unhoused Portland residents. They became engaged in protests and fundraisers for social justice. They spent a whole summer actually living in Portland, settling into the city they had always called home, but that sometimes felt like a temporary stop between tours.

“We got into a more community-minded headspace,” Leonard says. “And that did give us some purpose. It felt cool to see everybody come together to stick up for what they believe in. It feels like an incredibly formative last twelve months.”

The album that emerged from this new moment finds The Shivas reborn as a band that seems seasoned and perfectly at home with itself. There is a calm, even a hopefulness, to Feels So Good / Feels So Bad that sounds new. The Shivas didn’t write or record the album with a particular theme in mind, but one seems to have emerged: where Dark Thoughts was about confronting your demons with fearless self-examination, much of Feels So Good / Feels So Bad is about what happens once you find that peace: how being honest with yourself changes your relationships and your priorities. “I do think it’s about acceptance,” Leonard says. “There’s a weird relaxation that comes with being at peace with things you can’t control or have regrets about.”

Maybe that’s why the squealing, riff-laden break-up song opener, “Feels So Bad,” is such a shock to the system. But it’s more of an exorcism than a melodrama: more a song about not being able to do the thing you love (in this case, playing live shows) than splitting with a partner. “It’s like part of you goes to sleep,” Leonard says.

As bandmates who are also in a long-term relationship, Molyneux and Leonard know that their songs might be seen as glimpses into their personal lives, but their songwriting is rarely autobiography. Leonard compares their process to something more akin to screenwriting. “There’s bound to be some autobiographical material in there,” she says. “But the common denominator is the exploration of universal feelings: ones that everyone experiences or can relate to.” The goal is to use the music to drill down into something genuine and sincere, beyond genre or stylistic affectation. That’s where The Shivas have arrived.

Whatever growth led the band to Feels So Good / Feels So Bad, plenty of their fascinations remain. They’re still turning love songs into psychedelic, transcendent epics. “Tell Me That You Love Me” subverts doo-wop extravegence and dabbles in Flamenco rhythms. “Rock Me Baby” is a bubblegum anthem soaked in so much reverb that we might just be hearing it from the stadium nosebleeds. “Sometimes” is almost impossibly huge, like a witchy outtake from the Brill Building era.

Those songs feel like logical expansions from a band that has always excelled at a timeless sort of rock and roll that tinkers with and explodes elements from every era. But on the towering and mournful “You Wanna Be My Man,” a slow-burning six-minute shoegaze prayer for a higher sort of love, there is a level of emotional nuance that feels like something altogether revolutionary. It’s there again in the stripped-down vulnerability of the album-closing elegy “Please Don’t Go.”

Yes, Feels So Good / Feels So Bad is an album about acceptance. Sometimes that acceptance feels enlightened and sometimes it feels like the end result of a lot of kicking and screaming. The Shivas have adapted in both of those ways. With new tours scheduled and a new album on the way, they’re still hoping--like all of us--for a new era of vibrant, cathartic live music. The lessons they learned from having their normal upended, though, have only helped them grow.

-By Casey Jarman (2021)

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released September 24, 2021

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The Shivas Portland, Oregon

The Shivas are a rock & roll band from Portland, Oregon formed in 2006. In the years since forming they have brought their raucous dance party to almost all 50 United States, and over 25 countries around the world, meanwhile releasing 6 full-length albums, 4 EPs and various singles. Their 7th LP, 'Feels So Good // Feels So Bad' will be released on September 24, 2021 on Tender Loving Empire. ... more

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