Nope, still can't sing

"Enter Sandman":

(Here's a better version of the same thing. In my defense I only spent like five minutes writing this.)

UPDATED 4/22: There are usually two kinds of ways I'll write a song of the week. Either it's something I've worked on for a while and figured out enough to get recording, or it's something where I started recording with just a concept (sometimes not even) and just worked out ideas as I went along. This is the much rarer third kind, where I'd have an idea and record so I wouldn't forget it. If you want you might call it a sketch.

I had this just come to me after watching that smoothtallica video and a melody just popped into my head. I decided to do it rockapella because the internet has a retarded fascination with a capella and I knew if I put it in the title it would get a billion hits. This turned out to be true. According to the Youtube this has quickly become my 2nd most popular song, beat out only by That Zelda Song. I'm a whore.

Artistically, this is one of my less successful songs, partly because I don't really know how to write a cappella music (at least I avoided the "guy one sings the guitar, guy two sings the bass, guy three beatboxes" cliche, which is basically the lamest thing ever yet describes nine eighths of all internacapella music). The other failure is that I didn't really care enough about this song to work hard on it. Like I said, it's a sketch, and (hopefully people figured this out for themselves) a joke. I tend to obsess when I fail, but here I just hope people listen to my other, better songs after hearing this one.

Not a Massive Attack Cover

"Teardrop":

UPDATED 4/22: So I bought another instrument. I steal food to pay for these, I hope y'all realize that.

There are two things you should know: first, that playing a mandolin is hard. I thought it would be like guitar in a weird tuning but I didn't stop to consider the tiny baby frets or that you have to fret two strings instead of one. Basically what you need is very small, very strong fingers. Mine are neither.

The other thing is that I do realize this is basically the same idea as "Grace" (take a new instrument and try a bunch of styles on it). I liked to think I learnt my lessons, which is why this song is shorter and faster and has fewer boring parts (though I'll admit it maybe loses its way in the middle). Also I decided to add words. People like words. They give a song structure and allow something to sing along to. They make things more memorable. I don't like words , unless I'm typing them, but I'm learning to cope. At least this song only has 9 of them, mostly short ones. That's one of the cool things about folk music, it can be as long or short as it wants to be.

(Title for Indexing Purposes Only...Or Is It?)

"Fencing Wire":

Soundtracking Your Life, Part Seven: (words will be here. check back later)

I refuse to say the SotWW word or I'll curse myself. Let's just say I'm making up for lost time.

UPDATED 4/22: I've been trying to learn more about scoring and composition*, mainly because I'm a dork but also to help me with this project. One of the things that intrigued me was the idea of underscoring, where you have music in the background, but it's not super important to the tone or whatever of things. Basically background noise. The other thing that I keep coming back to is trying to find new and interesting sounds (considering I've previously used a piece of paper, TWO trashcans, and various toys as instruments, you have only yoursleve to blame if this surprises you).

So it was inevitable that these two ideas might intersect (read this sentence again if you didn't catch that). I was sort of just tapping on a guitar and liked the sound (again, an idea with some precedent), and decided to record it so I wouldn't forget it. I knew going in that the sound quality would be kind of crappy but figured the idea was interesting enough to post anyway. By the way, if you've ever wondered the difference between what makes the cut for release and what doesn't, "interesting" is probably the criterion I is using more than anything else, including "good."

An additional note on Sountracking Your Life: there probably won't be much more StYL, at least in the near-term. It's not because the project is over so much as I want spend more time on each song than SotW gives me.

I have another song I want to do for the blog just because I want to write about it (it has a strange concept that I feel might need an explanation), but even though it's sort of partly written I haven't started recording yet. It might get posted tommorow, it might get posted next year, I don't really know yet.

In the long-term I want to rework and most of the songs you've already heard, and start recording new ones. When I'm all finished I'm hoping for something like 15 or 16 full-length songs, and then a smaller number of short pieces like this or "X's Theme." And you'll be able to download it and take it with you, which was kind of the point anyway. I'll probably release the blog versions of these songs as "demos" or something (I'm thinking of signing up for a site that'll help me do all this).

*Bear McCreary, who did the score for Battlestar Galactica and a bunch of other TV shows, has a pretty informative blag on the subject.

DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
[This song can only be downloaded by downloading the full album. To see the page for this track, go here.]
Rerelease Notes: As with "Rose," I mixed a new version, but ended up reverting to the old one because songs always sound worse when published then when played in GarageBand.

How many Times Have I Used "I'm Back, Bitches" as a Post Title?

"22 Minutes Before the Wall Fell":

UPDATED 4/22: Sorry it took so long I always seemed to have something more urgent to do anyway here's post:

I got the idea awhile ago to do a cover by request (bear with me it'll make since in a minute). Since it was my friend's birthday I asked him or a song. His first two suggestions were jokes. His first real suggestion I spent a day and a half on and couldn't get to work, which is a shame because I actually had really good concept. So I asked for a different song, which as it so happens is on my list of "songs that I will never cover because they're about something that really happened."

The fifth song was one I barely knew. I thought this would make it easier, since I wouldn't try as hard to copy the original. I tried a couple different concepts and ultimately decided to do sort of a slowed-down, atmospheric take on it, with lots of echoey vocal effects 'n' shit. But that was never really working, and somewhere in between the first take singing and the first instrumental track it turned into this metal thing, and then I realized I should delete the vocals and write something original on top of it (for about ten seconds I thought maybe it should be an instrumental, but some songs basically have to have words). There's a lesson here, but I'm not sure what it is. Maybe "creativity is weird."

As for the song itself I really like it. I especially like the way it ends, where it threatens to go into this kind of Zeppelin thing for like ten seconds, and then just stops dead. That was basically an accident of the way I write (I improvised all three tracks, drums on top guitar on top of bass). The noise after that, which is me hitting the microphone and knocking it over, required more forethought. The guitar parts were epspecically fun to record because I got to play with my new expensive toy, and just switch it back and forth on the "detune" setting, which is sort of like a chorus pedal on a rocker switch.

The one thing I'm not in love with are the lyrics, despite the fact that I somehow snuck in a reference to John Cheever's "The Swimmer" (required reading ftw). I'm a perfectionist when it comes to lyrics, which is one of the reasons try to avoid them*, and these lyrics are...OK. There's some good lines, some themes I kind of like, they sort of tell a story, but I don't know that they fit together all that well. Improvising usually works well for the instrumental parts of a song (or even the screamy parts that aren't words). I don't know that it works so well with the words.

*The other is I tend to write ten lines and then forget eight of them, so those songs end up perpetually unfinished.

DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: I made the vocals louder, but decided to keep them low enough to be unintelligible.

thing

Some dude turned New York City into Zelda II:

Things that are green (A Playlist)

Green screen:


Green Day:


Green Onions:


Green River (do what I did and play both at the same time):



Also a Green River:



Greenland (green in name only):

Green, Bein':


Green Hill Zone:


Green, Village:


Owls (not green, just funny):


UPDATE: Retroactively it's a pun on "Al Green" (say it out loud).

GREEN MAN!:

Some movies

I like "Lady and the Reaper" best, but I'd bet I'm in the minority.

I'm no good at this, but I spent forever playing with it anyway.

Go forth and prepare to not get anything done for a while.