Bernadette

The Holland/Dozier/Holland song. The bass part is not harmonically complex, but hitting all the grace notes and articulating the arpeggios was very challenging. The guitar part turned into a 4/4 funk groove instead of the original 2/4 backbeat groove. I couldn't decide which drum track I liked better, so I kept them both.

Midtown Manhattan on a Saturday Night

A martial snare plays rat a tat tat
On the marital rhythm of tit for tat
But now the tux and the gown are all packed in a bag
And they're off to Manhattan for a Saturday night.

An expensive dinner and a cab downtown
To a basement in Alphabet City
Jazz, funk and rhythm and blues
With a modern sensibility
The dance floor is packed with the lust and sweat
Of familiar possibility

Slinking through the darkened lobby
Empty bottles of water from the minibar
The mirror reflects on the king size bed
She stands on her head
With legs spread wide
Like an apple tree weighted with fruit

The kick drum plays thump a thump thump
On the quick deep strokes of an oft postponed fuck
In Midtown Manhattan on a Saturday night

Terry cloth robes and a room service breakfast
The sun through the curtains above Hackensack
While he reads the paper she looks in the mirror
And it seems like her wrinkles are written in black
But she turns into the room and looks hard at the roses
And says "there's time for a quick one before we have to pack
And get back
From Midtown Manhattan and our Saturday night".

Bodhisattva

Not a Denny Dias fan. Blues with a bridge, huge swaths of harmonized guitars and needless chromatic slurs.

Body And Soul

The Swing standard. I spent some time working on Coleman Hawkins' solo, but it was a very slow process, so I cut bait and moved on.

Strings Of Our Genes (Synth Version)

Spent the weekend playing keys.

Modern Science

Late one night, a man is standing under a streetlamp, looking at the ground. Another man comes by and asks him what he is doing. The first man replies “I'm looking for my keys”. The second man starts to help with the search, and asks “where did you lose them?”. The first man replies “in the bushes, down there”. Annoyed, the second man asks “but, then why are you looking here”? To which the first man replies “well, this is where the light is”.

We started off
Trying to design a new drug
Which would treat a common illness
In a novel and exciting way.

But drug development
Is a long and expensive process.
And when we suffered a setback
In our second round of clinical trials
Our investors had grown tired of the game.

So we decided to sell a tool
(To allow researchers
To design new drugs
Which might treat common illnesses
In a novel and exciting way).
This approach
Promised reduced marketing costs
And a shorter path to profitability.
Our investors were rejuvenated
And ready to get back in the game.

I went to go visit
A lab that used our tool
To design some knockout mice.
Their hypothesis is novel and the theory exciting.
They hope to start clinical trials
By the middle of next year.

The only problem is that the mice
Refuse to breed or even coexist.
Inside the cages they attack one another
Hacking off mouthfuls of raw flesh and fur
Till they have eaten each other alive.

Ain't Too Proud To Beg

The great Temptations I-IV groove. I also like the Stones version. I've played this one for years - recording it wasn't much of a stretch.

I Don't Mind

A little 12/8 shuffle blues with some call and response between the bass, guitar and organ (subbing for backing vocals).

Strings Of Your Genes Arrangement Sketches

A couple of different arrangement ideas.

Lead Sheets

I spent some time dinking around with Band-In-A-Box today, and finally got it to print out a lead sheet. Woot.



I spent some time dinking around with Band-In-A-Box today, and finally got it to print out a lead sheet. Woot.

An Economic Melodrama

It was the 80's. I was reading a lot of Raymond Carver.


      “I can't pay the rent” she said.
      I'd been sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a beer, before Deb came in.
      “Um” I swallowed. “When do you get paid?”
      “Next Friday. Where did you get the beer?”
      “Fridge”
      I watched her bend in the trapezoid of light flowing out of the open refrigerator door. She looked thin. The fruit in the crisper looked pretty rotten.
      “What happened to the TV?”
      Deb was looking for a bottle opener. “Finally threw it away. I was going deaf from having to turn the volume so high over the static.”
      “Use your teeth”
      “What?”
      “How I opened mine”
      “No, I found it.” She came back into the kitchen, her longneck smoking just like the advertisements on Monday Night Football. She took her pocketbook off the table and lit a cigarette. Ultralights. Sounds like airplanes. I fidget with the matchbook. It was from some bar on the North Side. O'Flannery's. There was a phone number written on the inside cover. I closed the flap.
      Deb went to the other side of the room, by the sink, and ashed on a pile of dirty glasses.
      “Been to Jimmy's Bar lately?”
      “Every Thursday night. It's work.”
      The tobacco embers hissed in the dregs of a wine glass.
      “You always hated doing the dishes”
      “Still do”
      I went to the refrigerator. I took the fourth of the six pack I had brought. Then I looked around in the crisper, searching for the least rotten apple. I found one, on the bottom, not quite so bad as the rest. I opened my beer and went back into the kitchen.
      It was awkward, silent. Deb smoked.
      “So Deb, how have you been?”
      “Okay. Fucking job sucks. I don't know. What have you been up to?”
      “The usual, I guess. Wanna go out and have a drink someplace?”
      She looked at my hand. “You've already got one.”
      “Oh yeah, I forgot.”
      Deb lit another cigarette.
      “What I really came over here tonight … well … I need a place to stay for a while.”
      “Can you help me with the rent?”
      “Yeah, I think so. Play a few more bars.”
      “Old habits die hard.”

The Strings Of Our Genes

An original which I hadn't recorded before. Still not happy with the webcam microphone.

Chords and lyrics

Bm7 Em9
A7 Dmaj7
C#m7 F#7
Bm7 Am7 G F#
Em7 A7 D
---
Bm7 G A

I try to be calm
In the face of your rage
Your grandmother's face
Your grandfather's rage
Pulls you out of your seat

A dancing marionette
Tied to the strings of your genes.

The stone and the sod
Whiskey and God
Run from the law
Sleep in the straw
Pulls you onto your feet

A dancing marionette
Tied to the strings of your genes.

I curse you to never feel satisfaction
To see injustice in all of its forms
I bless you with strength
Quickness of mind and
A hurting desire to learn.
I curse you to be unable to follow
This curse and these gifts I give to you
Because I carry them too.

We're dancing marionettes
Tied to the strings of our genes.

Something Light

Give us something light, love
To lift us on our way
A melody to sing or hum
Some warmth on a winter's day

Everything is not your life or love
Or death or a family dispute
Our time is spent mostly working or sleeping
Or shuttling between the two

So give us something light, love
Because I've got my dark places too
But to make time pass more pleasantly
I don't always share them with you.

So give us something light, love
To lift us on our way
A melody to sing or hum
Some warmth on a winter's day

A Hard and Demanding Man

A Hard and Demanding Man

My father was a hard and demanding man
Even if he did not think of himself as such.
For every one of my failures
His sadly disappointed look
Rendered hollow his words and gestures of reassurance.
He always acted as if he had come up from nothing
Although I know he was given much more than he had managed to retain.
And for years, he held it against me
That on the day I finally left his house
I said to him:
“I'm not like you dad
I'm clumsy and stupid
Little and weak
I'm just not like you”.

As he got older, and his drinking started to take its toll
I visited him in the hospital.
After and hour of silence he said:
“My father was a hard and demanding man
But he always did his best by me.
I am truly sorry
That I could not do the same for you”.

197 Words For Snow

The wind is my enemy
The rain is my enemy
The wind is my enemy
Are you my friend?

The sleet is my enemy
The cold is my enemy
The snow is my enemy
Are you my friend?

The snowflakes fall fast
And fill the night sky
A spiraling dementia
For a Friday commute

The flash and the boom
The strobe and the crash
Lightning, then thunder
And through it more snow

The measures get shorter
As the storm gets closer
The flash and the boom
The strobe and the crash

The cold is my enemy
The snow is my enemy
The wind is my enemy
Are you my friend?

Sunshine on a Saturday
An arctic blast blows the clouds to the east
Leaving a blinding glare and prisms of ice
My breath hangs frozen
Before floating away

I pull my muffler
Close to my face
First moist, then wet
Then frozen in place

Shovel the snow
Crack the ice
Salt the steps
So very nice

Whatever did possess us
To come so far north?
I'm going back to Borneo
An old man of the forest
To swing through the trees
With a belly full of fruit

I'm sick of snow
Why don't you take a warm shower?
Meh
It'll make you feel better.
I'll be out of the bathroom in March.

Did you talk to your mom?
Yeah, she's ok
But there were people stuck on Lake Shore Drive for 18 hours.
That thunder snow is some freaky stuff.

Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing

Another jazzy Ashford-Simpson number. The Motown Monday thing was supposed to be a time to work on my bass playing, but I decided to just cut a video of solo guitar and be done with it.

The Girl From Ipanema

The hoary bossa-nova standard. Song is in F, but there is a bunch of chromatic business between G and Gb and B and Bb. The bridge is a pretty straightforward circle of fifths progression.

Reelin In The Years

On Saturdays I am working through "The Best of Steely Dan: An Inside Look at the Guitar Styles of Steely Dan". The tab seems accurate, the CD is useful, and the text is reasonably insightful. At the core "Reelin In The Years" is a straightforward G-D-A song, but there is a bunch of harmonic stuff happening in the solos that is hard to nail. Learned this one pretty much by rote repetition, hopefully I will gain some understanding from future efforts. I'm in the right channel, the original is in the left channel.

Think

Working through "The Great James Brown Rhythm Sections - 1960-1973" on Wednesdays. The playing on this one is pretty bad, but my new RME Multiface is allowing me to record four tracks as once, which is giving me more options for fattening up individual instruments. Right now I've got it set up to record the DI, the line out of the amp head, a close mic on the amp cabinet, and a room mic.

Not much to this song - the original drum part is kind of erratic and hard to follow - my version is more regular (if less funky) - but a pretty straightforward shuffle blues. Main thing to be conscious of is when you double and when you lay out on the bass and guitar.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

It's in D major, but you spend the whole song avoiding D - voice the III, voice the V, voice the IVsus4, just don't voice the I, because that is reserved for Tammi. The bass line has some funky chromatic passing notes, but I didn't really have time learn the whole thing, so I kind of faked it. There is also one of those classic Motown moves where the bridge returns to a modulation of the verse, but again, party over out of time.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough, by TheWoodshedTapes, on SoundClick.

Just The Happy Times

When mom was in the nursing home
I stopped by every day at lunch
And after she passed, I kept going
Partially out of habit
And partially for the good karma
But mostly because I'm a social person
And if I don't get out and talk to people
Something is not right in my day.
So there's this one old lady
Not as good as some, but better than most
She's got a VCR and a big stack of tapes in her room.
When I visit I ask the people if they want to watch
A different channel on the tv
The news maybe, or one of the soaps.
But all she ever wants to do is
Play those tapes again and again
"Just the happy times, Bill" she says
"Put in one of the happy times".
And it's the standard sort of home movie stuff
From when her kids were little and she was young.
So I've seen these kids
Opening presents and blowing out candles
Dying Easter eggs and climbing trees
Over the span of several years.
But I realized today
That while I know exactly what they looked like as babies
I have no idea what they look like now.
I try to ask her about it but all she will say is:
"Just the happy times, Bill
"Put in one of the happy times".

Vertigo in Massachusetts

The jungle gym casts
Trapezoidal moon shadows
Onto the sloping ground

The Flying Wallendas
Triumph again
To the roar of our fantasy crowd

I remember her hands
Slipping through mine
The blood and her tears
On the hard frozen ground

For our album covers
She never once smiled
Everyone thought
She was depressed

But I knew the truth
It wasn't her mind
It was the tooth
Of a flightless Wallenda.

---

Whiskey and ice
On a warm summer day
A bead of condensation
Forms and falls
From the end of the glass
Onto the carpet below.

Her head on my shoulder
She started to cry
A single tear poised
On the tip of her nose
I kissed her and said
"I'll always be there to watch over you".
Knowing, even then, it was a lie.

---

Only in the past
Can we discover
The present.

Our future returns
To unearth
The artifacts.

How people must have lived
In this place
With these things.

Strange yet familiar
Forever retracing
The invisible outline below.

–

Amidst the noises
Of water and china
She sings, under her breath

The record sounds different
The production is dated
But the core of her voice remains.

She steps out of her shoes
Slips her arms around my neck
And we dance

It is familiar, yet strange
To be on this side
We never danced up on stage

But now here we are
Dancing together, turning slowly
In the darkening parlor of our past.

Postscript

I'll drink the red wine
To its bitter dregs
Because I like red wine.

The cat purrs when he's happy
The baby cries when he's sad
What more explanation do you need?

The waves are bitchin
The sun is warm
Get out on your board and ride.

Butterfly

After two bad quarters
The board turned on me.
And when the Chinese factory burned down
They said I had to go.

I pointed the Boxter north on PCH,
Put down the top, and drove fast.
120 through the eucalyptus groves
Does wonders to clear your head.
"Ungrateful bastards.
I built this company from nothing.
Without me you have nothing.
You hear me, nothing!"

T-boned in an intersection
By a careless Suburban
On any other day
Would have been the end.
But charmed was today, and I walked away.
Walked out of myself and into the woods
Till I met a group of people that lived in the trees
On platforms in the redwoods, high in the air.
They dropped a ladder to me, and I ascended their aerie.
I told them my story and Butterfly said to me:

Be silent, and listen.
Hear the sound of the wind.
Hear the sound of the wind blowing
Through the leaves on our tree.

What Is Today?

December 8th, 1980
November 7th, 1991
April 5th, 1994
November 7th, 2000
September 11th, 2001
October 27, 2004
January 20th, 2009

October 10th, 2000
We went to the hospital
First thing in the morning
We were assigned to a room
And the monitors attached
Started the pitocin
In early afternoon.
After eight hours
Of hard labor
A delayed epidural
And a botched episiotomy
A child was born
A happy few hours
Of joy and relief.
He was taken away
To be observed in the NICU
And a bit after than
The hemorrhaging began.

So what is today?
A day that we all remember together?
A day that you will remember alone?
Or a day, just a day, like any other.

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

Color and Class (11/23)

A smart young man from the country
Has to buy himself a suit
If he really wants to make it
In the city

So I bought myself a suit
Found a job and an apartment
Worked up on the 34th floor.
Laney was a trader at the ForEx desk
We dated for a couple of weeks
Till I realized that
She'd share my cabs
And mooch my drugs
But I'd never get to put my gas in her tank
Because my suit
Was made by Joseph A. Bank.

-----

"So, where are you from?"
"I grew up in _____"
"My husband's uncle lives there, Dr. C____?"
"Orthodontist extraordinaire."
"He took us to lunch somewhere, the Dunes Club?"
"Oh yeah, we used to crash their parties
Steal their liquor, and make off with their women.
We'd drive to the end of some dirt road
Get ourselves drunk and howl at the moon."
"Really...?"
"Really."

-----

I live in a land beyond color and class;
In a black Mercedes with bulletproof glass.

Moonshine In A Jar (11/21)

Sitting on the porch with some friends and acoustic guitars
Not trying to bottle lightning, just pouring moonshine into some jars
The sunset is on one side, the other's got the evening stars
Out beyond the pines you hear the passing of occasional cars

Rocking on the screen porch
(Rocking away)
Jamming with the bullfrogs
(Rocking away)
Hooting at the bobwhites
(Rockin away)
Bug candles help to keep the skeeters at bay

We play the same songs that we always play
Simple country blues where you can mean what you say
It's not complicated but it makes you feel good
When music sounds the way that you know that it should

Rocking on the screen porch
(Rocking away)
Jamming with the bullfrogs
(Rocking away)
Hooting at the bobwhites
(Rockin away)
Bug candles help to keep the skeeters at bay

They cut down the pine trees
Carved up the plots
Put in a Walmart
Brought in some slots
I learned some new songs
But it's just not the same
As music from the heart which tells the world from whence you came

Yeah we're
Rocking on the screen porch
(Rocking away)
Jamming with the bullfrogs
(Rocking away)
Hooting at the bobwhites
(Rockin away)
Bug candles help to keep the skeeters at bay

(Solo)

What About The Bun? (11/2)

"When I was driving home tonight
The trees looked like a condiment stand.
'Mustard yellow, ketchup red
Fading green of pepper relish
A hot dog's earthy brown.'"
"But what about the bun?"
"You're right, there should be a bun.
How about 'Branches brown like a hot dog bun'?"
"Yes, that's better.
May I be excused now?"
"Yes Ravi, you're excused."

Like the geese forming their ragged vees
And wending their way to the south.
His mind so like mine, but his words emerge
From the image of his mother's mouth.

Water (2000)

Water

Colorless, odorless, tasteless, pure
My life flows down like water

My eyes are filled with color
Swatches of pigment and shimmering dye
Spectra absorbed and reflected
Careening throughout the luminous world
But my life flows down like water

My nose is filled with smell
Of sandalwood idols and freshly washed sheets
Aromas perceived and remembered
Bringing me back to my childhood days
But my life flows down like water

My mouth is filled with taste
Breathtaking heat and searing sweet
Syrupy peaches
And stiff whipped cream
But my life flows down like water

One man may be a droplet
Humanity a raging stream
Hope and possibility a shack
Built on delta silt
All of life becomes part of the river
Flowing into the sea
But my life flows down like water.

Hey Dad (2008)

Hey Dad

5:45 on a Monday morn
The cab is waiting outside.
I've got my roller bag and my laptop case
And a fat book to read while I ride.

Once at the airport I glide to my gate
On frequent flyer miles.
I keep my receipts and fill out timesheets
And remember how it's worth my while.

What's today?
It's Monday.
What day are you coming home?
Friday night.
Ok, bye-bye.

What's today?
It's Tuesday.
What day are you coming home?
Friday night.
Ok, bye-bye.

Hey Dad
Sit on the couch next to me.
We'll hold hands
And watch tv.
It's my favorite show
It's your favorite too.
And when it's done
We can read Winnie the Pooh.

Law and Order with a room service tray
Sitting on the queen size bed.
Write email, sweat the detail
Fix the items colored in red.

Continental breakfast and coffee to go
Head out to the rental car
Check my tie, polish my shoes
Another day in the life of a star.

What's today?
It's Wednesday.
What day are you coming home?
Friday night.
Ok, bye-bye.

What's today?
It's Thursday.
What day are you coming home?
Friday night.
Ok, bye-bye.


Take me to the park.
Come play with trains.
We'll take a juice box
And some Teddy Grahams.
We'll slide down the pole
Run to the tree
Dig giant holes
And buy an ice cream.

Jefferson and Lincoln
And Robert E. Lee
On the parkway tonight.
Still tapping on my Blackberry
Monday I’ll come set it right.

The house is dark, fumble with my keys
Leftovers waiting for me.
Take off my shoes and walk upstairs
Kiss their heads while they sleep.

Hey Dad
Sit on the couch next to me.
We'll hold hands
And watch tv.
It's my favorite show
It's your favorite too.
And when it's done
We can go to the zoo.

Woo Hoo.

The Knowledge of Engines and Cars (2009)

Flying down the Skyline Drive in an April burst of Spring
Bare tree limbs like dark paint drips on a bright blue canvas sky.
Mountain ranges arrange themselves like waves rolling off the sea
In the valley below they marched to and fro in the War Between the States

Cardinal, Titmouse, Black Capped Chickadee
Come to the feeder, taking a seed
Through the window each eating alone
Find for myself what I will never be.

I was running late to visit my uncle who rarely went far from home
Looked so much like my father could be twins if you didn't know
The cancer cells which laid him down were there, still unobserved
"I'm tired, I can't do much, it comes with being old"

Cardinal, Titmouse, Black Capped Chickadee
Come to the feeder, taking a seed
Through the window each eating alone
Find for myself what I will never be.

Shared schools and holidays, shared the same small room
But I never knew what was in his head and one day he was gone
For a year he didn't return and he never really did explain
What had happened or where he had been

He must have gone to the movies stopped in Bihar
Slept in the mountains in a blanket of stars
Tore his thread off by the side of the road
He returned with the knowledge of engines and cars

Sandy (2007)

Sandy

After hours in the waiting room they sent us home
A prescription and a bedpad and a number to phone
Early in the morning took the kids off to school
Called in sick to work, told them I caught a flu.

I rocked and I rocked in the rocking chair
A dead cold dread wrapped tight to my heart
Not even thinking about what might have been
Just rocking, and rocking, and rocking again.

Sandy with the saddest liquid eyes
I saw you through the bottom of a bottle
Spinning faster than all the others
You are always watching me watching me

You said, I can't stand it, you lurking around
Looking hurt, I hurt, it doesn't help me
When you lurk, just go, take your phone
Right now I need to be alone

So I fished the tiny bits from the toilet bowl
Put them in a cup and walked out the door
Went down to the lab, where I filled out a tab
With our names and the date, what it was for

Sandy with the saddest liquid eyes
I saw you through the bottom of a bottle
Spinning faster than all the others
You are always watching me watching me

Candyland (2005)

Butt-crack of dawn
The dog comes along
Four Runner guns
Headlights turn on
And then we're gone

Path through the trees
Then rocks and the beach
Waves roll in
Below
A secant of sun.

Just me and my board
The wind's from the north
And my troubles are left behind on the shore.

Back in Candyland.

Beds are all made
The toys are displayed
Refrigerator is stocked
The back door is locked
And I'm on my way

Drive 95
Down Old Route 1
Day's just begun
But I've been working
Towards this for months.

Just me and my boys
We'll make plenty of noise
And we'll pick up right back
Where we had to leave off before

Back in Candyland.

Hearing’s not until noon
An hour to spare
Try to prepare
For the questions and glares
It will be over soon.

Don't start a fight
We both know what's right
And if there's any anger let it flow
Over you just like a wave

Washington Square
Been here before
When making nothing out of something
Was the way that I filled up my days.

Back in Candyland..

“Hey Johnny D.
What’s going on?
Still riding your board?
Ain’t seen you around”
He wipes his nose on his sleeve.

“I moved out up north.
Close to the beach.
A mile away I’ve got a
Four foot break
All to myself.”

“Sweet
I’ve got a board you should see.
It’s a classic
You know you ought to buy it from me.”

Back in Candyland.

“D.,
You got some to share?
What about cash?
Front me a grand.
The board’s super sweet.”

“Just a C.
Split a bag you and me
I’ll take you uptown to this guy.
He’s got the best..”

And as I pull out some cash
To pay off the past
The arbitrator stares at me
On his way.

Back to Candyland.

And as I sit
I wonder how this could be
That I lost control of my fate.
My hopes and my dreams
All out of my hands.

Of course, it goes bad.
Of course, I get mad.
And the best I can get’s
Another hearing
In six months time.

Alone on my deck
In a clammy grey fog
Far away waves
Want a fix so bad.
Through the sliding glass doors
Where the toys are displayed
There is a thin box of hope
Marked
Candyland.

Apres Fini (2004)

I forgot how hot Florida gets
Sweat beads beneath my New York suit.
Shuttle bus to rental cars
Ragtop emerges from the back of the yard.

Saw-grass gives way to cypress swamp
Throw away the map; this is where I was born.
In a cinderblock shack; tin roof too hot for a cat
And when I left here I said I’d never be back.

We will be young, so beautiful and free
Après fini.

Knock at the screen door, inside the Braves score
The kids come to receive their gifts.
A Barbie, a Game Boy, a soft plastic chew toy
I give her cheek an airbrush kiss.

The boyfriend appears, muttering about queers
Diane sends him for diapers and cigs.
“Di you look great”
“I still have to lose weight.
It’s great to have you back again.

Mom know you’re here?”
“I told her I’d come.
She didn’t believe me
But she’ll see she was wrong.”
“I’ve done my best John
But now I’m done.
I can’t keep going back there
I’m not that strong.”

We will be young, so beautiful and free
Après fini.

The mailbox is filled with sweepstakes and bills.
The yard is covered in weeds.
Linen is soiled, the milk is long spoiled
The pantry is stocked with pill bottles and Scotch.

She refuses to come, says she has no son;
Just some faggot who should leave her alone,
Who left her alone with that bitch of a girl.
“Diane will come; I can go live with her.”

“Mom, you can’t stay with Di, and you can’t stay here.
Come to New York, and stay with me.
The tickets are booked; your room’s been arranged.
Come back to New York, and stay with me.”

We will be young, so beautiful and free
Après fini.

She tries pushing buttons, tries playing her cards
Tries making me angry, tries going too far.
“Mom, pack up your stuff, and save your voice.
You know, and I know, you have no choice.”

But at the end of the day, back at the hotel
I call home to talk to someone nice.
Cheers me up, wishes me luck
It’s gonna take a little more time.

In the morning I breakfast and draw a deep breath
Drive out to the house, knock on the door
She doesn’t answer, so I find the old key
Open the door, call out “Mom, it’s me”.

We will be young, so beautiful and free
Après fini.

She’s lying in bed, her face has gone grey
Eyes are open, but no pulse, no breath.
I know that it’s over, holding her hand
Crying for someone I can’t understand.

From Ballaghderreen she made her way
To a land where streets are paved with gold.
In this land she grew unhappy and old
And now she’s gone to Tir Na Nog.

Over the western sea
To Tir Na Nog
The western sea
To Tir Na Nog

We will be young, so beautiful and free
Après fini.

Flight To Madrid (2004)

Flight To Madrid

The sun
Scatters through the blinds
Covers twist
Into a tie that binds
The breakfast nook,
Where she cries and smokes
Looking past
Curtains and plants.

D. you know
I hate it when you go.
Staring out
Over the street below.
Why don’t you come
Lie in the sun
Of Ibiza?

And we live
Between the taxi and the plane
And we love
A love which has no name
And we cry
Teardrops in the rain
Till we find
The thread of life again

In the cab
The street scenes going by
Downtown address
He tips the cab a five
Flash his badge
The receptionist she smiles
And he walks
Back into the cubes

Version five
Are we going to ship?
I don’t know
I think it’s going to slip.
By the fall?
He looks up at the timeline
On the wall.
D., it’s not going well.

Let me know
How it goes
And be sure
You bring version four.
Cause it’s good
Only if it works
And I don’t need
To be hammered any more.

And we live
Between the taxi and the plane
And we love
A love which has no name
And we cry
Teardrops in the rain
Till we find
The thread of life again.

Niccolo,
Bambino mio
Questo fai?
I’m doing fine.
Dove vai?
Prendo un café.
Veni, veni
I need to talk to you.

So Niccolo,
Have you seen Levi?
He has dropped out,
I don’t know where he moved
You, you thrive,
I see it in your eyes
But for Vai,
The atmopshere, this air…

Mr. D.
You know it’s not the air
I know I know
Speed and crystal meth
I may be blind,
But I still can see
He should leave,
Come lie in the sun
Of Ibiza.

And we live
Between the taxi and the plane
And we love
A love which has no name
And we cry
Teardrops in the rain
Till we find
The thread of life again

Dance is a beat
Of ecstasy
Rock is a sound
Of needs unmet.
Pop: melody
And unity.
Jazz: harmony
And regret.

So when
Emotions cannot fit
Put them away
For another day.
With each song
Check the baggage
You carry along
Maybe this one is it.

Si senor?
I fly out to Madrid.
And then on?
On to Ibiza.
You check?
Si, the baggage
It comes with me
To the sun
Of Ibiza.

And we live
Between the taxi and the plane
And we love
A love which has no name
And we cry
Teardrops in the rain
Till we find
The thread of life again.

Angarai (2002)

Angarai

Eighty feet isn't as high as it used to be
But with proper tires, and patience
You can roll all the way to the beach.
When you get there,
Avoid the Piping Plovers
Or the ghosts of hairy nudists,
Whichever it should be
And look out to sea.
You should see
In front of the back
Of the Block Island bluffs
Ocean going canoes.
The outline of a lookout
Cresting over the weak willed waves
Looking for a landing
Scanning the primordial landscape
And deciding
That this place is good.

Looking into the appraiser's eyes
I see only numbers:
Square footage, recent comparable sales,
Possible commission, tax rates.
Not a young couple,
Young as I remember them young,
Hopefully hanging a sign,
A sign which only hardy wanderers
Or the hopelessly lost
Would ever see,
A sign with would soon be overgrown
By the inexorable creep of nature's abundance
But a sign which meant
This is our home
A sign which said
Angarai.

An echo of a place continents away,
A small village of small mud houses
With low doorways and open breezeways
A village surrounded by rice paddies and railways
A place I don't remember
But a place my father
Scanning the primordial landscape of his mind
Remembered as the name of the place you call home.

Still I remember them as young:
Glenn put a cherry bomb in our mailbox
Peter had a minibike
Ann and I rode bicycles
Kevin punched my lunchbox
Richard died.

Even then I remember them as old:
Ben Vanderlaan was a clean old man
(As Paul McCartney would say, in Hard Days Night)
Toby Kurtzband had hair in his nose.
Later Astrid and Howie
And their baby
Who also died.

Today interlopers, trash, profiteers
No respect for what came before them.
They only know how things are
Not how they used to be.
To them it is their soil
To do with as they see fit.
But to me
They soil
My memories.

The trees are second generation
As I am second generation.
The soil is not so thin.
Against the fleeting plans of men
An eternal spirit works
Reverting the land to its natural state.

Low stone walls
Overgrown by lichen and moss
In the middle of deep woods
Recall that once this was a farm.
Men sought mastery over the land,
Imposed their will through spade and plow.
Ozymandias say:
"Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Angarai
Tamil village, New England woods, American city
Angarai
My grandfather, my father, my self, my son
Angarai
A place, a name, a sign
Angarai
The sacred thread
Knotting disparate lives
Lived over and over
To the end of time.

The Strings Of Your Genes (3/24)

I try to be calm
In the face of your rage
Your grandmother's face
Your grandfather's rage
Pulls you out of your seat
A dancing marionette
Tied to the strings of your genes.

The stone and the sod
Whiskey and God
Run from the law
Sleep in the straw
It pulls you up to your feet
A dancing marionette
Tied to the strings of your genes.

I curse you to never know satisfaction
To see injustice in all of its forms
I bless you with strength
Quickness of mind, a consuming desire to learn.
I curse you to be unable to follow
To be unable to suffer a fool.
I grant all of this to you
Because I, I carry them too.
I carry them too.

We're dancing marionettes
Tied to the strings of our genes.
Just dancing marionettes
Tied to the strings of our genes.

Socks and Shoes (3/1)

The lunches are all made, just the way you like
Apple slices peeled, chocolate milk mixed up just right
Sit down to breakfast, still waking up
Bowls of frosted cereal and sausage with syrup

"I'm gonna take a shower, you guys get dressed"
Put out some clothes that match, hope for the best
"Get on your socks and shoes; coats and hats and gloves"
Fill their backpacks with homework and a Hershey Kiss for love

Drop them at the front of school. watch them run away
Reach across to close the door and drive off to my day
But before I leave I'll box this memory
Where happiness won't fade.

Brattahlid (10/19)

A crack echoes down the fjord
As the glacier's iceberg calves
Into the waiting sea

Standing on my stony beach
Hay field rises to the farm
I named it Brattahlid

The skraelings bob
In their skin boats
Awaiting the coming wave

I killed a man in Trondheim
I killed a man in Skells
In fights for ships and love

The blood price paid, exile
Banished to the western lands.
My ship, my love and hope.

A great house I promised her
To steal her to this land
I broke the beams from my boat
To erect it to her plan

Now she lies beneath that cross
And I on my stony beach
Each year the hay grows less
Last cow was gone last spring
I should be off, but this is my home
And besides, where would I go?

The skraelings bob
In their skin boats
Awaiting the coming wave

Which crashes on the jutting rocks
The icy spray comes down like rain
The salt, the wind, sod turned to dust
And blown away by fate

Or the yearning for the lands of my ancestors
The traditions and customs
The time honored practices
That make me who I am.

The skraelings bob
In their skin boats
Awaiting the coming wave

Vladimir and Estragon at a James Brown Concert (9/29)

Can you take me higher?
Take me higher!
Fred
Fred!
FRED!

Oh, that's good.
Yeah.

I want to get down.
I feel down.
To get down I've got to be in D.
Down D
Dog D
Funky D
Skanky D
Take me to the D!
Maceo!

What about M?
There is no M.
I want to be in M!
There is no M.

We had good times, didn't we?
I don't remember.
You don't remember?
I can't be sure
But I suspect we have always been
Precisely the way we are right now.

Are you sure about M?
Yes, there is no M.

Three Women (9/21)

You've got your tank top
That summer skirt
Those Chuck Taylors
Love to watch you work

Coke bottle glasses
Hair tucked behind your ear
You're turning heads girl
Mmm, I need you here

So when I get back
To you babe
We're gonna get it on

---

As I rolled over onto my back
She said to me:
"They're fake, you know."
I stared at the ceiling and replied:
"I know, but they are still beautiful."

--

Confronted with evidence
Painstakingly collected over several months
She looked me in the eye and said:
"I have no idea what you are talking about".
And after a pause
"But if that's how you really feel
Perhaps you'd better leave."

Chaco (9/17)

I did what I could
If it would do any good
Like you should
Now I'm the last to leave

I bricked up all the windows
And I bricked up the doors
Just one more
To do when I go

I buried all the chocolate
And buried all the bones
I'm alone
In the once great Hogan

This morning the sun
Rose at the top of the peak
In 53 days
I'll be the last to leave

In 53 days
I'll be the last to leave

Benjy (9/4)

Benjy's hanging on the fence again
That's ok, it's his fence
The lawyer made that perfectly clear

I was a world away, in New York
But we needed someone in the house
To watch Benjy and to take care of things
I needed a place to stay
It seemed like a great suggestion
At the time

I wanted to finish my novel
About the secret inner life of cats
I was making progress in the beginning
But lately I've really gotten bogged down in research
And it's hard to stay focused
When any time you might come home to find
That someone has taken a shit in the middle of the kitchen floor
Again

It's important to remember
That he's my brother
It's important to remember
That he can't always control himself
It's important to remember
That being disabled doesn't mean you can't also be a jerk

At the beginning, I tried to figure out the things that would set him off
Avoid the upsetting stimulus, avoid the crap on the floor
But after a while I realized that those things
Weren't things I had done, or things he had seen
They were happening in another world

Benjy's hanging on the fence again
He's licking the rail, because it tastes so good
Just like that apple he had after lunch
I ask him if he wants another apple
But he's off in another world

I'm sitting on the porch
Drinking a fresh squeezed lemonade
With a soothing Vodka kick
I pick up my book, and read
To return to another world

Nadine (8/29)

You can't stop people from talking
Rumors have a life of their own.
But there ain't no smoke without fire
And you're burning up our happy home.

So Nadine, what's it going to be
Are you coming back home to me?
Or if you're going to keep on running around
Could you please be more discreet?

The church ladies cluck at the kids
I do my best but I'm color blind.
Luanne down at the coffee shop
Has been being extra special kind.

So Nadine what's it going to be
Are you coming back home to me?
Or if you're going to keep on running around
Would you please just set me free?

Now you know there's nothing in this world
I wouldn't do for you.
I thought I'd shown you again and again.
But if he's the one you want I won't stand in your way
Maybe we can wind up friends.

So Nadine what's it going to be
Are you coming back home to me?
Or if you're going to keep on running around
Would you please just set me free?

Millicent (5/21)

We drank Hurricanes
In the middle of the street
Dancing to the Nevilles
And the Mardi Gras beat
Dancing in a sea
Of purple, gold and green
Watching the floats
In old New Orleans.

All the lovely beads
Spread across your chest
Let everyone know
That your tits were the best

Oh Millicent
Your breast are quite
Magnificent
Almost heaven sent
Oh Millicent

Twenty years later you're just somebody's wife
Somebody's mom
A nice suburban life

But every now and then
You get out your bag of beads
Pop in the Nevilles
And roll up some weed
You turn up the lights and you open the shades
And dance like you did on Bourbon Street

And Millicent
Your breasts are still quite magnificent.

Marco (4/30)

Born a Roman son of the privileged class
You always felt like a boy from the streets

At the suburban skate parks
And the 7-11
You fell in love with America

The land of reinvention
The land of good intentions
Everyone's that boy from the street

Wide open spaces
Friendly faces
You fell in love with America

At the suburban skate parks
And the 7-11
You fell in love with America

Yonder Moon (4/23)

Her first thought
As she skidded into the intersection
Was the precision logistics of her life
"I don't have time to die
At this stoplight today"

And as time slowed
In anticipation of the impact
Her second thought was
"I really need to chill out while driving"
And then
"I probably should have gotten the brakes checked
When I had the chance"

A verdigris sheen of fresh tree pollen
Coats the entire scene.

I'm your man baby, outside of your window
As the moon, waning
Rises over yonder.

Chess (2008)

In 1918 Duchamp left his work on the Large Glass and the art scene, and went to Buenos Aires, Argentina for nine months where he often played chess, and carved from wood the only chess set he himself made, though a local craftsman made the knights. He returned to Paris in 1919, where he lived until he returned to the United States in 1920. By the time he moved to Paris in 1923 he was no longer a practicing artist. Instead he played and studied chess, which he played for the rest of his life to the near exclusion of all other activity.


Duchamp At His Chessboard

When I was young
I thought
(Very enthusiastically)
That music was all a matter of skill.

As I've grown older
And acquired a modicum of skill
I have come to appreciate enthusiasm much more.

Perhaps when I die
I shall be silent and wise.
That is all.

I hope someday before I die
To become silent and wise.
Like Marcel Duchamp at his board.

First: Art is in your fingers, expressed through your brush.
Later: Art is where you find it, expressed through your eye.
Finally: Art is what you are, your life is the why.

I hope someday before I die
To become silent and wise.
Like Marcel Duchamp at his board.

On his deathbed, Voltaire spat in the face
Of the priest sent to administer rites.
"The man is the work, and reason the light
Begone to your dismal abode".

Hiding behind the Platonic reflections
Marks a cowardly and incurious mind.
Get out of the cave, come into the light
Stand like a man, don't kneel like a slave.

What is, is, and what is not
Simply has never been.
Love one another, do your part
Try to leave the world a better place
Than it was
Whenever you came.

Before I die I'd be silent and wise
Like Marcel Duchamp at his board.

Starting guitar lessons

after 24 years. I hope I'm more teachable now than I was then.

Assignment for this week is "I Got Rhythm" aka the Rhythm changes. We'll see how it goes.

A Month of Songs - Song 21

I don't do a great SRV, but at least I didn't have to put much thought into what style would work with the backing track.

Texas Shuffle

A Month of Songs - Song 20

Trance

BT has drums, bass, and synths. I'm playing bass and guitar and added the percussion and Rhodes samples.

A Month of Songs - Song 19

Some mellow slow blues with lousy midi trumpets, recorded on a relatively clear Tuesday evening.

Stormy Monday

A Month of Songs - Song 18

Saturday Funk, recorded on a Saturday afternoon.

A Month of Songs - Song 17

I love percussion.

Red Hot Mama

A Month of Songs - Song 16

Porn

Recorded over lunch.

A Month of Songs - Song 15

Back in the saddle again. Not the liveliest effort, but it's Monday.

Mr. Magic

A Month of Songs - Song 14

Big Arena Rock, unfortunately filled with clams.

Live With Me

A Month of Songs - Song 13

When the Lights Are Low

I'm not really feeling it with Red Ant playing "jazz" piano. On the other hand, my "jazz" guitar is nothing special either.

A Month of Songs - Song 12

Note for note is harder than it seems.

Josie

A Month of Songs - Song 11

Trying hard to be jazz ....

Herringbone

A Month of Songs - Song 10

The next song on the list is Footprints, but I've recorded a cover of that fairly recently (Walking In The Footprints, May 2008), so I skipped ahead to Gong.

I'm playing the organ and guitar. No song tomorrow, I'll be out of town.

A Month of Songs - Song 9

I'm sure this story originates in Africa (as all human stories do) but to make things short I'll start with James Brown. James Brown wrote a guitar riff, which was copied by the Average White Band in a song called "School Boy Crush", Eric B. sampled the first five seconds of "School Boy Crush" and Rakim wrote some new words and they released a song called "Microphone Fiend", Rage Against the Machine took the words written by Rakim and wrote some new music and released a cover of "Microphone Fiend", Red Ant took the music written by Rage Against the Machine and recorded a version without vocals, which was covered by yours truly.

What a trip.

Microphone Fiend

A Month of Songs - Song 8

Feel So Bad

with completely gratuitous James Brown outro.

A Month of Songs - Song 7

One week down....

Defunkt

A Month of Songs - Song 6

Come Dancing

This was the most complete backing track so far - drums, bass, electric piano and guitar. Finding space was tough. Plus, I am just not good enough at this point to solo for 32 or 64 bars at a stretch - I need more riffs. I really didn't like the guitar work by the time I got done, so I threw Camel Space over the top to try and cover it up.

A Month of Songs - Song 5

This weekend was brutal - with all the July 4th stuff, getting everyone ready for West Virgina, driving there and back - I had very little music time. Hopefully this week will be better.

The Chicken

A Month of Songs - Song 4

This one was tough. The sound quality on the backing track is lousy to start with. It's just bass a drums - they play two choruses, but on the second chorus the bass player tries to slap and pop and he totally falls off the rhythm. In addition, I'm pretty familiar with the original, which is built around a resonant filter/wub wub synth bass and has all kinds of crazy old school synth parts.

Chameleon

A Month Of Songs - Song 3

Born Under A Bad Sign

This one was a little more in my wheelhouse than the last two, plus I wasn't starting after a full day of work and kids.

If I can make it through the next couple of days I should be able to make it to the end - but I am traveling Sunday and Monday so I need to cheat ahead a little bit today and Saturday.

A Month of Songs - Song 2

Wow, I didn't expect the suck to set in so early. I hope these days start getting easier.


Atomic

A Month of Songs - Song 1

For the month of July I'm going to be doing a song a day as part of the "Month of Songs" (along with Chicken Monkey and smurfco). Some people are writing a new song each day, which is cool, but at this point I think I need to work on my musicianship more than my songwriting, so I'm going to be adding leads on top of a set of 30 jazz/funk backing tracks created by RedAnt (of the Harmony Central Guitar Jam Forum).

I'm going to post all of the songs at soundclick as The Woodshed Tapes. So, without further ado, here is song number 1.

Acid Zappa

Chopping and Slicing

Been working hard chopping loops. I ripped a whole bunch of 70's jazz and funk to my hard drive, pulled the tracks into Pro Tools and chopped them up into (hopefully) usable loops. I'm comfortable with Pro Tools now (which was one of the ancilliary benefits) and in April when I start learning/working with Live I wont be at the mercy of the 13 pitiful sample clips that come with the program.

Not sure if I am going to leave the loops as plain audio and use Live's warping algorithm or if I will slice them and trigger individual beats with midi files using Edison and Fruity Slicer. I sliced a few loops with Edison and it was pretty easy - I'm doing most of the hard work to get the right length and end points for the sample in Pro Tools. I also bought a couple of sample CDs (actually, DVDs, but...). The commercial loops come in wav and rex formats - so if I decided to go with the sliced versions I'll rewire Reason in to Live and use Dr. Rex to trigger the slices.

If I was a NASCAR driver, this is what I would look like

January is gone

Weather is cold and shitty and I have a sinus headache. February is dedicated to loops and slices. Probably start with a George Clinton groove and drum fills from "Bess You Is My Woman Now" and "Polythene Pam/She Came in Through the Bathroom Window".

Played Reason Pianos with some midi loops from Johnny's Toolbox mapped onto an RDK producer kit. Midi file went to the cymbals way too much.

Moving on from Pro Tools

Finished/got sick of the Pro Tools book. Played bass along with the PT Honeywagon demo song (might as well get some benefit out of spending 3 weeks fixing drum hits).

I realize no one is reading this

So I might as well be boring ..... coming soon to a darkened theatre near you - my daily schedule

Tools
The Musican's Guide to Pro Tools pp 219-232

Instruments
Telecaster with backing traks from reasonstation.com. Everyone there seems to love C Minor.

In the same place, at the same time

One of the problems with the demos was that I was never playing the whole song - I played all the drum parts for all the songs, then all the keyboard parts for all the songs, then all the guitar parts for all the songs, and then all the vocals for all the songs. Now, I want to record one song at a time. However, this means that I need to have my chops together on all of my instruments before I start - if I am scheduled to record guitar for several months in a row I can afford to be a little bit rusty for the first few days, but if I am switching instruments every day I can't be spending time on fingerings or technique. So while I am learning my tools I am also supposed to be practicing my instruments.

Monday - Drums
Tuesday - Bass
Wednesday - Acoustic Piano/Electric Piano
Thursday - Les Paul
Friday - Electric Piano/Organ
Saturday - Telecaster
Sunday - Vocals

Solutions Breed Problems

So I have some tools which I think will help solve my problems. But before I can use my new tools to solve my problems I have to figure out how to use my tools.

• January - Pro Tools


• February - Loops, Slices


• March - Ableton Live, Arrangements, FLStudio 7, Pattern Clips


• April - Trigger Finger, Reason Drums


• May - Jamstix 2


• June - Triangle, 3xOsc


• July - Subtractor, Malstrom


• August - Rapture


• September - Compressors, EQ, Automation, CamelSpace, Love Philter

Dance Music for Grownups Needs Work

I recorded the 13 songs I wanted to record. Here is what I think:

• Overall
  • Make every track intersect with the track below it
  • Leave Holes
  • Listen
  • Less is more
  • Smooth out the lyrics


• Drums
  • Need more variation in drum loops/drums
  • Solutions
    • Better use of Dr. Rex
    • Jamstix
    • Reason Drum Kits
    • ReBirth
    • FPC
    • Trigger Finger


• Bass
  • Not organic/funky
  • Solutions
    • P/Jazz Bass
    • POD Bass Pack


• Piano
  • Does not cut through the mix
  • Solutions
    • Reason Pianos


• Electric Keys
  • EP, Organ not great sounding
  • Solutions
    • Lounge Lizard EP-3
    • Native Instruments B4 II


• Synths
  • More whoosh/atmosphere. Tempo synced filters and effects. More interesting sounds
  • Solutions
    • Better use of Reason
    • Rapture
    • CamelSpace
    • Kjaerhus Classic AutoFilter
    • Kjaerhus Classic Phaser
    • FL Flanger
    • FL Flangus
    • Love Philter
    • Fruity Slicer
    • Fruity Granulizer


• Guitars
  • Too much guitar which says too little. Guitar parts have no structure and do not groove with the other instruments.
  • Solutions
    • Have a plan for the guitar solos.
    • Play fewer notes.
    • Record dry.
    • Create a reference wet track after recording.
    • Edit in ProTools
    • Slice in Edison


• Vocals
  • Very pitchy, rhythmically wayward, not layered.
  • Solutions
    • No more one take/afterthought vocals.
    • Record Vocals with minimal instruments.
    • Create a guide track.
    • gSnap
    • Voxengo Voxformer


• Mixing/Mastering
  • EQ - Voxengo GlissEQ
  • Volume Automation/Sidechain - FL Peak Controller
  • Reverb - Wizoo Reverb, Fruity Reverb, Kjaerhus Classic Reverb, SIR + Impulse Reverbs
  • Compressor - Digital Fishphones, Voxengo Crunchessor, Voxengo Marquis
  • Stereo Widener - Fruity Stereo Enhancer, Voxengo Stereo Touch
  • Limiter - Kjaerhus Classic Master Limiter

The Shins

Make Belle and Sebastian seem positively manly...

John Mayer

Has progressed from Dave Matthews lite to John Hiatt lite. Fortunately, I much prefer John Hiatt to Dave Matthews.

Haiku

After an hour's commute
30th floor view
The skyline is swathed in smog

Receptionist frowns
Mind deep in concentration
Black six on red seven?

Deconstruction Constructed

Three easy steps:

1) Scan the text for signs of authorial intent.
2) Construct a Platonic ideal for the text based on authorial intent.
3) Examine the text to see how it differs from its ideal.

You're not stuck, you just do this part-time

Maybe I'm not stuck. Maybe it just takes 500 hours (50 weeks * 10 hours/week) to write and record 250 different parts (12 songs * 3 sections * 7 instruments). If I was a five man band working full time I could have been done in two weeks.

Last night I finished recording the second to last guitar part on the very last song. Almost halfway there (vocals, mix/fix, mastering still to come).

How I came to be stuck...

The process I have been using for my solo effort is similar to your "all or nothing" approach:

1) Get the chords, melody and lyrics written for all the songs
2) Write and record the drums, keys, bass, and synth parts for all the songs
3) Write and record the guitar parts for all the songs.
4) Make tracking mixes
5) Write and record all the vocals for all the songs
6) Final mix and mastering

The reason that I am hoping to hear about other working patterns is that it has been more than a year since I finished step one and I am still struggling to get past step four, with not much to show for a significant investment of time and effort. In addition, it is hard to get (positive) feedback on things which are so manifestly "works in progress"; the whole experience has been much more isolating than I would have liked it to be.

I work in software, and in my professional capacity I spend many days telling people to avoid this kind of "all or nothing" project methodology (in software we call this the waterfall model). The two arguments which seem to resonate the most are:

1) If something goes wrong at any point in your project, you wind up with nothing. If you use a more incremental approach even if your project gets canceled 1/3 of the way through you still reap 1/3 of the benefits.

2) If the people who are so excited by your ideas that they have green-lighted your project have to wait (any longer than they absolutely must) to see the results they will probably forget about you/lose faith/move on to something else new and shiny.

But back to music...

I'm not sure if I can change my approach at this point: I'm far enough in to it that the only possible way out seems to be to keep moving forward or die (aka the deathmarch scenario, another great software concept).

The reason (I think) that I chose to do things in the order I did was that each step in the process (2, 3, 4) used a tool which required a significant learning curve (Reason, Line 6, ProTools), so I was able to spend more time getting familiar with the tools than if I had been sticking to one song at a time and moving from tool to tool.

Somebody's Dad

I posted some tracks from "Somebody's Dad" (Seamus, Coming Home, Daffodils, and Nighttime Feedings) on Soundclick.

How I came to be stuck in audio mixdown limbo - Part 3

I finished recording in 2001 and called the album "Somebody's Dad", because while I was recording it I did become somebody's dad and I found (and still do find) the whole concept slightly unbelievable. The recording quality on "Sombody's Data" was a little better than "Four Track Mind" - I had learned some valuable lessons: don't atttempt to record on the cheapest tapes from Radio Shack, don't attempt to bounce tracks to and from the cheapest tape recorder from Radio Shack, do record at the highest possible signal volume.

But there were still some things I wasn't happy with. Editing on cassette tape is a process fraught with peril - every time you try and fix something you introduce more noise into the signal - so to keep the noise down I kept edits to the absolute minimum. While this technique allowed the album to sound slightly less like mud, it made me leave some things on the tape which, with the charity of hindsight, I can only characterize as fuckups. Also, while I was investigating different, noisier, sounds on the guitar, the 128 midi voices in the Roland were not cutting it any more ("ugh, Japanese Koto again?"). The drums on the Roland were particularly poor and if you don't have drums, you simply do not rock.

So I decided that for my next album, I had four engineering goals:

1) No audible fuckups
2) No more tape hiss
3) Better instrument sounds
4) Real drums

Doesn't look overly ambitious, does it?

Four Track Mind

I posted a couple of songs from "Four Track Mind" (Falling in Love, Roach Motel) on Soundclick.

How I came to be stuck in audio mixdown limbo – Part 2

I recorded an album on the 4-track, called “Four Track Mind” (I know, I know. I thought it was clever at the time, apparently so did every other schmuck sitting in his bedroom with writers block and a 4-track recorder in front of him). I converted the tape to mp3 a while ago and I might post it somewhere on the web for documentary evidence, but it’s pretty hard to listen to. The sonic palette is quite limited: an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar with the distortion pedal in the on position AND an electric guitar with the distortion pedal in the off position, vocals through an instrument mic (SM 57) and ersatz percussion noises from things like me banging on a Quaker Oats can with a wooden spoon. The recording quality is atrocious (cassette tape is a horrible recording medium AND I had no idea about what I was doing) but by the end of it I had accomplished my main goal: to learn about overdubbing and parts – how to write them and how to play them, how to leave space and fill space.

However, I was kind of unsatisfied with what I could accomplish with just guitars, so I bought a Roland midi keyboard with 128 built in voices. I spent some time getting the rust off of my piano skills and listening to the various sounds that the Roland could make - "ooh, a Japanese Koto?!?!" plus stupid sound effects like the sounds of rain/static and breaking glass. But undeterred, I dialed in the "Piano 2" sound and recorded another album on the 4-track, adding the Roland to the basic setup from “Four Track Mind”.

How I came to be stuck in audio mixdown limbo – Part 1

I am a creative/artistic type person. One of the ways that I express that creativity is by playing and composing music, and I have been doing that, not exclusively but pretty consistently, for over 20 years. I started with interminable shuffle-blues jams in High School, progressed rapidly to non-remuniterive attempts to busk in the Paris Metro and quickly graduated to banging out prospective jingles for coffee beans and public transportation on an out-of-tune grand piano in my college fraternity house.

As you can see from my GAS list, musical equipment costs money, and as a young man on my own in the world I didn’t have any. My priorities were paying the rent and getting laid, and the only work I could get (as a temporary office assistant) really didn’t cover much more than the essentials outlined above. There was a period of time where I focused on attaining a slightly more elevated career path than “that kid in the typing pool”, so most of my time (and the little money I had) went to education and training and working long hours at apprentice rates. But by the mid ‘90’s I was making a good salary (essential 1) and married (essential 2), so I started spending a little more time with music.

I had a bunch of songs that I would play at my local coffeehouse on solo acoustic guitar, and a (small) group of accommodating friends who would come down to hear me play, but I wasn’t really happy with what I was playing. The songs were OK, but there were things about the songs that I was just not able to convey on solo acoustic guitar. So I got an electric guitar, a distortion pedal, and a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder.

MARSH

I've been hangining out in some online musician forums for a while now (mostly Harmony Central) but nothing comes close to these two archived threads from MARSH.

The Daily Adventures of Mixerman

Slipperman's Recording Distorted Guitars Thread From Hell

Mixerman is a funny writer and the Daily Adventures are a traditional episodic narrative/workplace sitcom setup like "Tales of the City" except set in an LA recording studio. Slipperman is like the best teacher you never had in High School who can say "fuck" in every other sentence and smoke a cigar while he is standing in front of the class pontificating. It helps to be interested in audio mixing (which is where I am stuck right now) but I think anyone can enjoy these two guys. It's like listening to "Car Talk" (Mixerman and Slipperman apparently tried doing a radio show at one point but I cannot find a link); you don't really need to be interested in fixing cars to enjoy the show.

The Price of GAS

GAS = Gear Aquisition Syndrome, a common ailment afflicting musicians, but also prevalent amoung the general population of middle aged men.

Item	Year	Cost
Aria Acoustic Guitar	1997	300
Shure SM57 Microphone	1998	100
Frankenstein Electric Guitar	1998	300
Tascam 4Track Analog Recording Hardware	1998	300
Boss Guitar Distortion Effect Pedal	1998	50
Dunlop Crybaby Wah Guitar Effect Pedal	1999	50
Roland XP-10 Midi Controller	2000	400
Cakewalk Home Studio Recording software	2001	100
M-Audio Delta 44 Audio Card	2002	200
Line6 POD XT Amp Modeler	2003	350
ImageLine FLStudio Recording Software	2003	200
M-Audio 1x1 MIDI Adapter	2004	50
Digidesign Mbox Audio Card	2005	200
Digidesign ProTools Recording Software	2005	300
Propellerhead Reason MIDI Instrument Library	2005	500
Epiphone Elitist Les Paul Electric Guitar	2005	1000
Squier Telecaster Electric Guitar	2005	200
RODE NT-1 Vocal Microphone	2005	200
Behringer Truth Near-Field Monitors	2006	350

And don't even get me started on what it costs to run my car...

Recycling Bin Overflow

7 Washington Post
7 New York Times
1 New Yorker
1 Economist
1 Science

plus
Smithsonian, Audobon, FONZ, junk mail

equals
1 overflowing recycling bin

The Smartest Person in the Room

As a consultant, your livelihood depends on showing up at meetings and being the smartest person in the room. Say the average meeting has 10 people in it and you go to 10 of these meetings per year for 10 years. That puts you in the top 99.9%. But before you get too cocky, consider that there are 10,000,000 people in the Mid-Atlantic region and your next meeting just might have one of the 10,000 people out there who is smarter than you are.

A Very DC Day

This morning I found out that Chief Justice John Roberts' child plays in the same 5 and under soccer league as my son. This evening I went to "Thank You For Smoking" with my friend Linda, who is a PR flack for the nuclear power industry.

What a city.

Freddy King

Steve Cropper (and in his blues playing, Robbie Robertson) owe a huge debt to Freddy King.

Punk Pop

The number of punk pop bands on myspace astounds me. I was sort of keeping track of the genre without much interest or enthusiasm.

"Oh yeah, Green Day. They sound just like the Ramones"
"Oh yeah, Blink-182. They sound just like Green Day"
"Oh yeah, Fall Out Boy. They sound just like Blink-182"
"Oh yeah, Panic at the Disco. They sound just like Fall Out Boy"

I guess I've been missing something, because according to the myspace music charts punk pop is the only viable sound for a working rock band in the mid-Atlantic area.

I'm gonna go back to listening to "53rd and 3rd" now.

Guitars and Amps

The Les Paul through a Marshall stack has a lot of good sounds - I'm not sure that there are any bad sounds with this combination. For a clean, jazzy lead sound I was using a Roland Jazz Chorus with the neck pickup and a sine chorus, but lately I have replaced that with the Marshall with the gain and drive turned down. For crunchy rhythm I was using a Fender Reverb Deluxe with everything turned up to 10, but I have been playing most of these kind of parts on the Telecaster.

The Telecaster through a Soldano head and Marshall cab is a great, hi-gain sound. For straight blues the Fender Bassman and a TS-808 tube screamer is an excellent sound (the screamer is not nearly so effective with the Les Paul), and with the pedal clicked off I can get that Keith Richards crunchy rhythm sound. The Telecaster sounds good through the Marshall stack as well, but whenever I go there I realize, "yeah, this is good, but it would be better if I was playing the Les Paul right now".

Guitar book recommendations?

I'm an intermediate player and know some theory. I want to improve my playing but don't have time, money, or any desire to take lessons from someone.

Can anyone please recommend a book for self-teaching? What's the best book you've used? I don't want to be steve vai. I'm an indie-rock-blues type player, looking for improvement in that vein.

I like Rikky Rooksby. He is very prolific, but he basically just rewrites the same book, "Rock Music Theory by Example", over and over again so pick the one that seems to relate the best to what you want to accomplish. The books have no music scores and minimal tablature (sort of like leaving the equations out of a science book) but use prose and song examples to teach and illustrate basic music theory.

HTH

Bands and Sounds

Belle and Sebastian
Subjunctive mode character lyrics
Major 7/Minor 7 chords
Piano or retro keys
Acoustic or small electric guitars

Death Cab for Cutie
"I" pov thought feeling lyrics
Electronica drum loops
Synth bass
Piano or retro keys
Acoustic or small electric guitars

Killers
"I" character pov melodramatic lyrics
80's analog synth
Electric rhythm guitar

White Stripes
Electric blues lead guitar riffs or piano
Drums - bass snare hi hat ride primitive

Everything But the Girl
Electronica drum loops
Acoustic guitar
Alto vocals
"I" feeling lyrics

Steely Dan
Character pov lyrics
Major 2 and jazzy minor chord voicings
Piano/retro keys or bright electric lead guitar
Double tracked vocals
Drums - bass snare hi hat funky
Background bass

Prince
Synth drums drum loop
80's analog synth stabs
Bright electric bass
Electric funk guitar stabs
"I" want lyrics

Rolling Stones
Electric rhythm guitar riffs or piano/sax/vocal chorus
Electric blues lead guitar or slide
Small drums swing
Background bass

Stevie Ray Vaughan
Electric blues lead guitar
Backing organ
Small drums swing
Background bass

Jeff Beck
Electric blues lead guitar or 80's analog synth leads
Electric bass
Big drums

Bootylicious

Yes Beyonce, you are bootylicious. It's indisputable. No Beyonce, you're right, I can't handle just how bootylicious you are. Now, will you please take that hook out of my head?