This seemed worth turning the lights back on for:

from the other blog

Song of the Week III: Week 1

I guess I should write something about this before Week 2 turns to, like, Week 18.

Song of the Week was something I did from about 2008 to 2010. Total I did 70 songs (in 104 weeks— don’t think about that too hard). I stopped when I got too busy with school and work, and because I didn’t feel like I could move the project forward. I wanted the songs to be more ambitious & more polished, and at that point I didn’t have the time/money/tools to really get there.

Since then I’ve kept recording, mostly score for my movies and a few demos that (with one exception) mainly served to clutter my hard drive. There’s a great theory that musicians have to reinvent themselves every three years or risk becoming irrelevant. I haven’t made anything in three and a half years.
That realization and a recent birthday (I’m 24, or retirement age in musician years) have suggested maybe I should be working harder on this shit. I have even less money but a lot more time, and we all know how big of a tool I am.
…
On to the song itself: I was a little wary about coming back with a cover, but this song seemed so ridiculously appropriate that I thought I could get away with it. It’s a little messy and really rusty— you can tell I haven’t spent a lot of time setting up mics in the last few years, and some of the instrumental tracks don’t lock in like they should— but there’s something I really like here, even if only as a blueprint. The lead vocal is maybe the best I’ve done, I finally got to use one those stupid harmonicas I’ve had forever, and it actually feels like it adds something to the original song. Going from rock-gospel to folk-blues isn’t exactly a difficult translation to make, but it still feels like enough of a change that it has a reason to exist, but not so much that it totally misses the point of the original, which are sort of the Scylla and Charybdis of cover songs. Following in the footsteps of the real U2, I’m going to try a different arrangement of this, possibly sooner than you might guess.

OK, credit where it’s due: this song choice was partially inspired by U Talkin’ U2 to Me.

[I don't expect to post any future installments here, but you can follow them on my new blog. It doesn't have title but it's till better because it has a picture of a cat.]

something new i’m trying this

reposted from tumblr (I've finally been dragged kicking and screaming into 2010)
 

Unemployment Journal, Day 1
12-15-12

“Let the myopia begin.”

It’s 12:54 AM, which means the first day of the rest of my life is officially over. Blessed with the new prestige of a diploma, the energy of youth, [undisclosed amount] in graduation gifts, and the total freedom to go anywhere and do anything, I elected to spend most of the day cleaning my parent’s house and looking for a stream of Homeland that works.

Later I fought with my new iPod app and made a Christmas tree out of packaging material. Meant to see the Hobbit but then was too busy. It was a good day.

Wake Up Time: 12 noon exactly
Total Amount Written: 0 pages
Job Prospects: unknown

Day Status: B minus—adequate with room for improvement.

Another Movie

#5452 from Drew Smith on Vimeo.


There's a long story behind this I should probably tell. Should.

because it was too long to tweet

What are we to make of the fact that Moneyball (set in 2002) prominently features a character performing a song released in 2008? Is this secretly a time travel story? Did that girl write the song, and then somebody else recorded it several years later (or does she grow up to be Australian singer/songwriter Lenka*? Is this film actually set in an alternate timeline, where the song was released a half-decade earlier? Is Sorkin a huge Back to the Future Fan? Is there a trope for this**?

*Why yes, I did have to look that up.
**There are two.

Illusion'd

Can anybody else see this or did just waste a half hour making this stupid .gif?

[edit: it seems to work if you click/double-click on it]
...

This is possibly the stupidest thing I've ever posted, and I once did a blog about sad trombone.

OK here are the other movies I made and then we're done witht this

"Through the Windshield":


This is technically a photography project, though some weird framerate issue makes it impossible to see the photos. Whatever.

"The Universe" (best viewed in HD)


A big reason why I didn't post much over the last two months. This is the longest film anyone has shot in the history of the class by like five minutes.

"Fortunate Son (Demo)"

...because if you put "Demo" in the name, no one will complain about the poor recording quality. More words...tomorrow?

Update 2 Days Later: I wish I could say my inspiration behind this was strictly political, and that I didn't come up with the idea after hearing it on Sons of Anarchy. I probably wouldn't have gone through the trouble of recording it and posting it if I wasn't such a Communist, though (see previous post).

This song is obviously very similar to "Testify" in that both are really vocal-driven (though here the guitar is used more harmonically, where there it was used more for rhythm and dynamics), and in that both, at least to me, update older protest songs for modern-day issues even though the words aren't changed. "Fortunate Son," while it's rooted very much in Vietnam and the anti-war movement, is pretty easy to translate because it's basically about power and privilege and how wealth tends to set in and fester and slowly decay everything around it. No wait, that's plaque*. Anyway those are universal themes that never go away, they just change to suit the times, like the Endless.

So anyway I was practicing the song, insert "know way do you practice" joke here, and noticed the sort of bluesy sound I was getting from the tuning (it's the same key as the original, but tuned down two steps so you're playing the A/G/D/E chord shapes instead of G/F/C/D). Some versions I tried to do used a lot of seventh chords and switching from the major to seventh chord, but it was too ornate to play easily, and it sort of gets overwhelmed by the vocal anyway. A few sevenths snuck in, on the D chords in the chorus. Similarly I'm sure a full-band version of this is possible, but that would probably be too hard to play distract from what I'm saying trying to say.

I've always had this theory that I could sing, in the same way that I could run a marathon or be elected Dictator-for-Life or get a steady, well-paying job: it was technically possible but highly unlikely. I think I'm getting closer, and didn't expect to get a better take then this one, so decided to use it, but I wouldn't say I'm quite there yet. Also, how do you not breathe into a microphone if it's the built-in microphone? I've had this computer for three years and have taken it apart completely to replace the screen (one of the reasons I didn't blog anything this summer), and I don't even know where the microphone is.

I still have no idea if I'm going to post anything next week.

*I had dental surgery last week.

Tags: ecomonics, Irish people, wankers

This is actually probably the most concise, accurate description of what went down I've ever heard:

"End of the Universe"

Don't read too much into this...I made it as a joke for a class project...we'll see...possibly more later...

But seriously watch it

Wait how did I not know about this?