So, I started FAWM today and wrote two songs "With 1-2-3" and "I Am Your Greenhouse". I got done with these songs and realized that they are just like every other one of my songs. I really want to do something different this year, so I am scrapping these two songs and trying something grander.
I will try to write and record a rock album this year, not wimpy, three chord acoustic numbers.
Here is the plan:
amenHUSK
Saturn To Your Roulette
01. Sailing For The Scar
02. The Blackest Green Ever
03. Old, Private Leaf
04. To Lollipop An Enemy
05. No Brothers
06. Position & Wellington
07. Carpet Saint's Track
08. Boron Rod
09. The Satellite, The Adventure, The Coach
10. Saturn To Your Roulette
11. Beyond The Divine Century
12. Steal Your Sandman
13. Returning All The Stairs
14. Goodnight (The Leaf)
Well see how it goes. This is the plan.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Test Week Hiatus
I've taken a major break from songwriting. I quit SongFight! and will not be participating in 50/90 this year. With FAWM, the first time was finding my legs, the second time was awesome, and the third time was disappointing. 50/90 seemed to be following the same trend, at least with the first two years, so I decided to skip this year so I won't be disappointed. It is also nice to have a summer without worring about constantly writing and recording.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
What Kind Of Love Are You Looking For
Song Fight! title. Again, not really inspiring. I didn't want to write a song about prostitutes or really anthing that someone else would think of. So, I ended up having to wait until the last day to get an idea. I ended up writing a song from the viewpoint of a dog. Originally, the idea was going to be that the dog was a shelter dog who was being put down due to old age and no one wanting him and "the kind of love" that he was looking for was for someone to say "good dog" to him. This seemed kind of sad, so the one I wrote was about a dog who has a good life and is loves hearing those magic two words "good dog", where most people struggle over those three words (I love you) in showing affection. I recorded this song in sections, live with an acoustic, finalizing the phrasing as I went, all with the same click track so it stayed in time with itself.
Friday, April 30, 2010
April Songs
With April coming to a close, I figure I should post about the songs I have written and recorded over the last month.
First up was "Vegan Music". This was a title I was given in Jon Eric's Circle of Titles Side Fight over at Songfight.org. Basically, you gave a title and got a title in return. There was a nifty due date of Easter, and as of this writing, the guy who suggested the title I was stuck with has not posted his song, and the guy who got my title "We Degender Bawdily. Ha Ha!" has not posted his either. I am not the least bit surprised. Anyway, I ended up writing a song that sums up exactly what I think about most vegans. Strangely, I did not get a "thank you" from the guy who suggested the song, but when I found out who it was, again, I was not the least bit surprised. I entered this contest under the name Apodan.
The next Songfight! title was Double Life/Half Life. Two years ago for the Half Empty/Half Full fight, I wrote two separate songs with the same chord structures and mixed one into each ear. I wanted to do something like that again, but didn't have the time. I ended up writing two unrelated songs.
"Double Life" was written on a Tuedsay night; thus it is about Lost. There are a few direct references to the show (Juliet, Adam and Eve, etc). No one picked up on this in the review thread. I like this song. It's a fun little poppy number that was done up real quick like. The "which one I'm going to ride to the end" was a crass line from the point of Jack/James talking about Kate/Juliet.
"Half Life" was written a day or so later. This song was submitted under the name Kuwait Sheet Set (another anagram of The Weakest Suit). I like this one too, in a laid back low key kind of way. The distorted guitar in the background makes it feel a lot more than just a live acoustic and vocal take. After the first chorus, the rest of the song was improvised at the time of recording. That's why some of the phrasing and word choice is strange. The melodies were influenced by Wilco's Being There which was in my mp3 player at the time.
"Ease Your Storm" What can I say about this one? It's four chords. Falsetto. About someone losing their true love. I intentially had my voice crack in a few places to make it sound more realistic. I also put a "telephone" filter on it to make it sound old timey. Again, lyrics were semi-sketched out before hand, but a lot of the phrasing was improvised at the time of recording. I recorded three takes and used the third one. I originally wanted to write a poppy Frank Black-ish song, but when I sat down to write I had no energy and a slow, sad song came out instead.
"Down For A While" was, up until I started to record it, going to be another anti-Obama song (like "Mediocre Savior", "Sorry To Inform You", and "9-11 Was An Inside Job"). I really didn't want to write another negative song, though. I ended up writing a more positive song inspired by the troubles of a friend on facebook who I last saw when I was in grade school. For percussion, I used a tambourine, a water bottle, a stick for a cowbell, and an egg shaker. I like this one. I wish I had the time to record a better version. Maybe this one will make it into my live shows.
First up was "Vegan Music". This was a title I was given in Jon Eric's Circle of Titles Side Fight over at Songfight.org. Basically, you gave a title and got a title in return. There was a nifty due date of Easter, and as of this writing, the guy who suggested the title I was stuck with has not posted his song, and the guy who got my title "We Degender Bawdily. Ha Ha!" has not posted his either. I am not the least bit surprised. Anyway, I ended up writing a song that sums up exactly what I think about most vegans. Strangely, I did not get a "thank you" from the guy who suggested the song, but when I found out who it was, again, I was not the least bit surprised. I entered this contest under the name Apodan.
The next Songfight! title was Double Life/Half Life. Two years ago for the Half Empty/Half Full fight, I wrote two separate songs with the same chord structures and mixed one into each ear. I wanted to do something like that again, but didn't have the time. I ended up writing two unrelated songs.
"Double Life" was written on a Tuedsay night; thus it is about Lost. There are a few direct references to the show (Juliet, Adam and Eve, etc). No one picked up on this in the review thread. I like this song. It's a fun little poppy number that was done up real quick like. The "which one I'm going to ride to the end" was a crass line from the point of Jack/James talking about Kate/Juliet.
"Half Life" was written a day or so later. This song was submitted under the name Kuwait Sheet Set (another anagram of The Weakest Suit). I like this one too, in a laid back low key kind of way. The distorted guitar in the background makes it feel a lot more than just a live acoustic and vocal take. After the first chorus, the rest of the song was improvised at the time of recording. That's why some of the phrasing and word choice is strange. The melodies were influenced by Wilco's Being There which was in my mp3 player at the time.
"Ease Your Storm" What can I say about this one? It's four chords. Falsetto. About someone losing their true love. I intentially had my voice crack in a few places to make it sound more realistic. I also put a "telephone" filter on it to make it sound old timey. Again, lyrics were semi-sketched out before hand, but a lot of the phrasing was improvised at the time of recording. I recorded three takes and used the third one. I originally wanted to write a poppy Frank Black-ish song, but when I sat down to write I had no energy and a slow, sad song came out instead.
"Down For A While" was, up until I started to record it, going to be another anti-Obama song (like "Mediocre Savior", "Sorry To Inform You", and "9-11 Was An Inside Job"). I really didn't want to write another negative song, though. I ended up writing a more positive song inspired by the troubles of a friend on facebook who I last saw when I was in grade school. For percussion, I used a tambourine, a water bottle, a stick for a cowbell, and an egg shaker. I like this one. I wish I had the time to record a better version. Maybe this one will make it into my live shows.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Front And Center
Another SongFight! title that I didn't have any inspiration for. On the last night before the deadline, I wrote and recorded a quick song about the point in the book Armadale where I was at the time. I really wanted to have drums on it, but none of the presets in the Micro BR fit well enough. I also used up all four tracks (guitar, bass, vocals, vocals) and didn't have the energy to mix some of them down just to add a track of egg shaker. I have a feeling that this song would have been better with a keyboard, but the one we have is not in tune (which I don't understand at all since it is electronic). Anyway, lyrics were made up as it was recorded, but when I was recording the verses, I was, at the same time, playing the vocal melody on the acoustic guitar, to help me sing more in tune. Overall, I don't know what to think about this song. I haven't listened to it since I mixed it. And the book "Armadale" is not all that great either.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Robot Ninja Zombie Bear
Worst. Song. Title. Ever. And darn close to my FAWM song "That's My Fly-Cathching Logic Bear" that I had just written a week or two earlier. Thanks SongFight!. I had three or four (edit: turns out there were five) separate ideas for this one.
1. Write a love song along the lines of...you can get me the stupidest birthday card in the world and I'd just love you more. I was not planning on actually using the title in the song, it would just be implied that it referred to the birthday card.
2. Submit "That's My Fly-Catching Logic Bear" with a badly dubbed "Robot Ninja Zombie" recorded over the "Fly-Catching Logic" lines. I like my original song too much to condemn a hacked-up version of it to the SongFight! archive.
3. Write a j-rock inspired anime-theme type song, probably in badly translated Japanese. Someone already posted lyrics in Japanese on SongFight!, so I decided not to be a "me too" and tried to find a more unique approach.
4. Write a not-so-flattering song about a girl comparing her to each adjective in turn, i.e. "you look like a robot, you love like a ninja, you look like a zombie, you smell like a bear". The next part would involve other ideas like priate, princess, etc. Again, I didn't get very far with this concept because someone posted something similar to the lyrics page on SongFight!.
5. My final idea (melody and all) came into my head on Saturday night. Basically, the lyrics would be about writing a forgettable song about a forgettable girl and giving it the stupidest name possible so no one would remember what it was actually about. This is the one I went with. I wrote and recorded it Tuesday afternoon, after listening to The Pillows all the way home from work. I was originally intending to end the song with the title, but ended up with kind of a punchline by ending the song with another rediculous, but ultimately cooler, title from the songfight archives. Two other ideas for this song were concidered and discarded. Originally between each line about "writing a forgettable song" I was going to insert a line from a previous SongFight! that I had written. Then, the idea morphed into inserting lines from songs that I had not written for and ending with the first line of my first SongFight! song. This didn't happen either, but that's how "Living At The Corner Of Dude And Catastrophe" got in my head.
- For the final song there are two guitars, panned mostly, a bass, and an effect that I originally wanted to do with multi-tracked vocals, but forgot when I was recording it and then ran out of time. There are also four vocal tracks. A doubled lead, and a doubled background. I was making the lines up as I recorded, so the singing is weak in places. I also cut down on the amount of drum fills on the ol' drum machine, in an effort to not make them sound so fake. The whole song was written, recorded, and done between 5:30 and 8:00 p.m. on 16-Mar-2010. I like "That's My Fly-Catching Logic Bear" infinitely better.
1. Write a love song along the lines of...you can get me the stupidest birthday card in the world and I'd just love you more. I was not planning on actually using the title in the song, it would just be implied that it referred to the birthday card.
2. Submit "That's My Fly-Catching Logic Bear" with a badly dubbed "Robot Ninja Zombie" recorded over the "Fly-Catching Logic" lines. I like my original song too much to condemn a hacked-up version of it to the SongFight! archive.
3. Write a j-rock inspired anime-theme type song, probably in badly translated Japanese. Someone already posted lyrics in Japanese on SongFight!, so I decided not to be a "me too" and tried to find a more unique approach.
4. Write a not-so-flattering song about a girl comparing her to each adjective in turn, i.e. "you look like a robot, you love like a ninja, you look like a zombie, you smell like a bear". The next part would involve other ideas like priate, princess, etc. Again, I didn't get very far with this concept because someone posted something similar to the lyrics page on SongFight!.
5. My final idea (melody and all) came into my head on Saturday night. Basically, the lyrics would be about writing a forgettable song about a forgettable girl and giving it the stupidest name possible so no one would remember what it was actually about. This is the one I went with. I wrote and recorded it Tuesday afternoon, after listening to The Pillows all the way home from work. I was originally intending to end the song with the title, but ended up with kind of a punchline by ending the song with another rediculous, but ultimately cooler, title from the songfight archives. Two other ideas for this song were concidered and discarded. Originally between each line about "writing a forgettable song" I was going to insert a line from a previous SongFight! that I had written. Then, the idea morphed into inserting lines from songs that I had not written for and ending with the first line of my first SongFight! song. This didn't happen either, but that's how "Living At The Corner Of Dude And Catastrophe" got in my head.
- For the final song there are two guitars, panned mostly, a bass, and an effect that I originally wanted to do with multi-tracked vocals, but forgot when I was recording it and then ran out of time. There are also four vocal tracks. A doubled lead, and a doubled background. I was making the lines up as I recorded, so the singing is weak in places. I also cut down on the amount of drum fills on the ol' drum machine, in an effort to not make them sound so fake. The whole song was written, recorded, and done between 5:30 and 8:00 p.m. on 16-Mar-2010. I like "That's My Fly-Catching Logic Bear" infinitely better.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
FAWM Wrap Up - 4/4
Songs written and recorded in the 4th week of February for FAWM 2010:
11. Auriform – This was a title left over from my attempted Album-A-Day. This song was written for the Week 3 Challenge: Neither Major Nor Minor. I tried to stick to that concept with my chord choice and I incorporated the challenge name into the first line of the song. The lyrics are about my affection for Yoko Kanno’s music. I mention her band “Seatbelts”, but really, I am speaking to her whole musical catalog. There is not a more creative person currently living on the planet that I have heard of. This song is a three chord throwaway song, but I find it catchy.
12. Constant One – This song was written for the Week 4 Challenge: Time. For awhile, I tried not to use the word or concept of “time” in my songwriting because when I first started writing songs, I completely overused it. For this I wanted to write a major-chord-love-song, and I think it came out pretty well for what I intended. The verses seem a little lazy to me and the falsetto parts were added at the time of recording, adding a little variety to the soundscape. This one was recorded hastily and the verse lyrics were improvised at the time of recording. For the second vocal track, I had to stop after each line and listen to the next line from the first vocal track to remember the exact wording. Again, the title and lyrics could point to another song written about the television show Lost, but that really wasn’t the case specifically.
13. Double Take – This song was written for a Songfight!. It was also, surprise, another Songfight! title that I didn’t like. I had the idea of a somewhat debasing song about getting too excited around someone of the opposite sex. The first lines I had for this song were: My eyes did a double take/My dick did a spit take. This line was changed to be less graphic, but the spirit of the song remained. Neither of the three mini-stories that make up the verses were based on any real events from my life, but more from what I would consider the cliché stories that center around the event described in the chorus. Personally, I find this song a bit gross, and I don’t plan on keeping it around where I can listen to it for very long (pun intended).
14. Your Westness Is Upsetting – Last song for FAWM 2010. This song was written and recorded on the last day of FAWM 2010. The title is from the group of 15 titles I got together for the third week of FAWM. Personally, I don’t care about all the celebrity trash gossip that comes out of California. I also don’t care about California’s problems. All states have problems. I can’t find any energy to care about the wild fires, energy crisis, water shortages, budget shortages, gay marriage, or illegal immigration. Everyone has a choice in where they live, and if you want to live in a state that’s in that state, don’t bitch about it. I would think all that misery would somehow be channeled into really great movies, but no. All we get are remakes and sequels. Again, like so many other songs, the verses were improvised at the time of recording. There is quite a bit of energy in this recording, and it was done really quickly, so I am a bit surprised.
That’s it. FAWM is done. If I were to rate my FAWMs in order of quality:
1. 2008
2. 2010
3. 2009
4. 2007
Now, what’s next???
11. Auriform – This was a title left over from my attempted Album-A-Day. This song was written for the Week 3 Challenge: Neither Major Nor Minor. I tried to stick to that concept with my chord choice and I incorporated the challenge name into the first line of the song. The lyrics are about my affection for Yoko Kanno’s music. I mention her band “Seatbelts”, but really, I am speaking to her whole musical catalog. There is not a more creative person currently living on the planet that I have heard of. This song is a three chord throwaway song, but I find it catchy.
12. Constant One – This song was written for the Week 4 Challenge: Time. For awhile, I tried not to use the word or concept of “time” in my songwriting because when I first started writing songs, I completely overused it. For this I wanted to write a major-chord-love-song, and I think it came out pretty well for what I intended. The verses seem a little lazy to me and the falsetto parts were added at the time of recording, adding a little variety to the soundscape. This one was recorded hastily and the verse lyrics were improvised at the time of recording. For the second vocal track, I had to stop after each line and listen to the next line from the first vocal track to remember the exact wording. Again, the title and lyrics could point to another song written about the television show Lost, but that really wasn’t the case specifically.
13. Double Take – This song was written for a Songfight!. It was also, surprise, another Songfight! title that I didn’t like. I had the idea of a somewhat debasing song about getting too excited around someone of the opposite sex. The first lines I had for this song were: My eyes did a double take/My dick did a spit take. This line was changed to be less graphic, but the spirit of the song remained. Neither of the three mini-stories that make up the verses were based on any real events from my life, but more from what I would consider the cliché stories that center around the event described in the chorus. Personally, I find this song a bit gross, and I don’t plan on keeping it around where I can listen to it for very long (pun intended).
14. Your Westness Is Upsetting – Last song for FAWM 2010. This song was written and recorded on the last day of FAWM 2010. The title is from the group of 15 titles I got together for the third week of FAWM. Personally, I don’t care about all the celebrity trash gossip that comes out of California. I also don’t care about California’s problems. All states have problems. I can’t find any energy to care about the wild fires, energy crisis, water shortages, budget shortages, gay marriage, or illegal immigration. Everyone has a choice in where they live, and if you want to live in a state that’s in that state, don’t bitch about it. I would think all that misery would somehow be channeled into really great movies, but no. All we get are remakes and sequels. Again, like so many other songs, the verses were improvised at the time of recording. There is quite a bit of energy in this recording, and it was done really quickly, so I am a bit surprised.
That’s it. FAWM is done. If I were to rate my FAWMs in order of quality:
1. 2008
2. 2010
3. 2009
4. 2007
Now, what’s next???
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