demo days - 05 - Ponchartrain Causeway Driving (Slagle response)

If any of the new demos are of a piece, it's this one and Williamston. They're both rustic yet stately, earthy yet otherwordly, all at the same time. Mixwise they're similar too.

Ever since Mike lent me his e-bow for use in my growing arsenal of gadgets, I've been trying to figure out what exactly to do with the thing. Supposedly it's "easy" to learn how to perform string crossings with it, but so far I haven't found that to be true, so I mostly use it for single-string playing, just going up and down the neck all the time. That's exactly how my part in this song came about.

It's kind of funny now that I think about it, the fact that the e-bow part was born from an idea I had during a rehearsal at Uncle Tom's Cabin in Williamston, but it's for this song, not for the actual song "Williamston." Maybe it's not that funny.

Anyway, sometimes I get really bored of diatonic triads. Adding a second, forth, sixth or seventh really helps to add color to those old major and minor chords. On that particular day in Williamston, I decided that I'd play e-bow during a hash through this new song, and I ended up noodling around while emphasizing the sixth of every chord, even though none of them actually contains a sixth. I kind of forgot about that until Mike told me he listened to the recording of the rehearsal and that he liked whatever I had been doing on the e-bow in this song. So I picked up the guitar one day and came up with this countermelody that Amanda always describes as "Native American." Mike pointed out that it does have that constantly descending quality that is rather common of Native American melodies. Otherwise, I broke from the rule of sixths pretty liberally in the end. Ended up with a line that I really liked, though lately I'm not sure if it's as great as I originally thought. Either way, I really dig the sound of the e-bow track: lots of reverb, mixed off in the distance.

I guess that's all I have to say about that.

demo days - 05 - Ponchartrain Causeway Driving

Song = Ponchartrain Causeway Driving

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!




Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

Ponchartrain Causeway Driving
busted another sunny play on words
we referenced from a collection of books
with bounding pages nobody looks
it's all up to no human's help us
we're lazy headed for dead on time

Ponchartrain Causeway Driving
fair, a moan streaked, splatters the concrete
below where puffed up white and pink
flushes us downwind kitchen sink
unable to see their freedom is freak
label us lazy headed for dead on time

Ponchartrain Causeway Driving
speak spoken a friendly token
slackerman to ration passionate
nationalized i still see slave ships when i drive
it keeps my weeping hypnotized
headed for dead on time



Process Notes = No Admittance

I've decided to keep the setup of this song, from a writing standpoint...I've decided to keep it a mystery. The lyrics and melody, combined with the chords are rather spooky, so when I brought the song forward to the band initially we captured it in a kind of Neil-Youngish way. Slowburn ala Cortez the Killer.

We did it that way in a few rehearsals, but I was unsatisfied. Plus, at the end it had the obligatory "rock out" section that just turned the song into Rescue Team II, so I thought a lot about it before demoing the track. Brian and I worked on it, and during one of the rehearsals, he had worked up a really cool Ebow part that he'll explain a bit later. For the eventual demo you hear here, we tracked an acoustic guitar, slagle's ebow, a Wurlitzer EP200a, an analog monosynth, a piano playing the main instrumental melody in octaves, and a drum beat that was basically a kick drum going DUM DUM DUM DUM. Throughout. Later, a shaker was added to the track from start to finish, bass guitar, and a vocal part. At some point we added a banjo part and I mixed the track down.

I drove around listening to that version and was unsatisfied. So I went back the next day and used the mixing board to edit and rework the song into what you hear today. I cut parts altogether (kick drum, monosynth), pushed certain parts way forward in the mix (banjo), de-emphasized certain frequencies (acoustic guitar), and threw a whole ton of verb on slagle's ebow. The effect of this new mix is a song pretty congruent in tone to Williamston. There is a depth in the mix that I want to achieve on every song we do for the next record. Certain sounds in the mix are up front, like they're on your lap, and some of them seem way off in the distance, and I like that. It kind of happened accidentally, almost...so this way we can work towards that in future tracks.


Future Development

This track is pretty spooky, so I think for future developments it needs more depth of stereo focus, it also needs more electro-acoustic processing going on, maybe some processed field recordings? Not sure yet. Maybe slagle will have more ideas.

demo days - 04 - Williamston (Slagle response)

Catching up on my responses here, finally. Even though Williamston is one of the most straightforward of our recent demos, it's also one of my favorites. Mike and I have talked a lot about mixing as an issue of "foreground vs. background" rather than a "vertical" factor of amplitude. I guess this means thinking of the mix sort of like the composition of a landscape painting... which objects belong in the foreground, what belongs along the horizon, and what happens in between? How do you create that illusion on a canvas? These days, I feel like the process of mixing a song should work in a very similar way. Of all the demos we've produced lately, this is the one that really seems to capture that sort of mix.

I really don't have much else to say about this. I bought a cheap lap steel guitar a while back from some guy in Kalamazoo, and so far, this is the only time we've used it on a recording. I need to learn how to play the thing. Mike plays it here, and I really like the line he came up with. Slide guitar was made for this kind of understated countermelody. Like my banjo, I hope we figure out more ways of integrating this instrument into our songs.

Otherwise, I really dig the shifts from major to minor mode and back, as well as the way that the "theme" melody doesn't enter until the coda. To make up for that, we continuously bash you over the head with it throughout the entire outtro. Really simple, gorgeous melody there. Vasas still seems to think that he unconsciously ripped it off from somewhere, but I guess that's because it just sounds so classic and perfect.

demo days - 04 - Williamston

Song = Williamston

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!




Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

You can add
Or subtract
You can count on a laugh or a paragraph
When it’s least appropriate
I am heartless, I am heartless

Whittled girl
Little girl
On verge on a cliff, on a precipice
I step in too cowardly
I am heartless in Williamston

Fallen men lay ablaze the street
While trophies smile and greet
Make haste to channel conversation
“I am proud and aged”
Put your hands upon this book
I am one of them too
Can you forgive me?
I can be so heartless



Process Notes = Folky Groove

This track developed rather quickly and mysteriously for my tastes. I was messing around with drum beats in Fruity Loops (which I do quite a bit), and I came across this pretty slow four beat. Basically your classic four beat. Boom Smack BoomBoom Smack. Since August of 2005, I had begun practicing my troubador style fingerstyle pattern because I had made a decision around then that it was ridiculous that I didn't know how to do it. It took me a while to get the hang of it, although I figured out in time to fit some of it on tracks on the first BOB record. However, Williamston was one of the first tracks I wrote that started with the troubador fingerstyle. As I played a few chords, I was very conscious of the bass fitting with the acoustic guitar and the drums, and that the bass would define the implied "tempo" of the piece. In fact, as you can note in the final demo, the bass eventually is responsible for defining the momentum of the piece. Before the song arrives at the lap-steel and the words "I am heartless," the bass is outlining the one and two and three and four and beats (this is a very slow 4!) but when it hits that chord and the arrival of the lap-steel, it switches to one....three and......one....three and..... This was always the idea from day one, a kind of production-flag in the low end that something important is happening.

Eventually, this groove worked itself into a second section (which could be considered the chorus of "Fallen men...") which has a mode change implied within the first few chords of the section. After this part in the demo found here, it leads into this mellotron/piano part.

This mellotron/piano melody was the first thing I wrote for Williamston. It was originally written on Ukulele, and I played it so often over last summer when I was at home with my Parents that my mother kept asking me to knock it off. At some point I sat down at the piano and worked it out there, realizing it sounds a lot like one of the Satie piano works. Whatever. At that point I demoed a piano version which included the piano interpretation of the troubador vibe (including the bass controlling the tempo). The demo was absolutely awful. I fudged it all over the place.

Soon after that demo was passed over to the band, I wrote lyrics for the track and it ended up being demoed by slagle and I later. After initial tracking, we worked on pulling instruments in and out and creating an open space where a song can float through space. Maybe he can explain this further.


Future Development

Of all the new material, this is the one I have the most mixed emotions about. I am very satisfied with the three sections of music, and happy that they all flow together so easily, but I also feel as though the track needs something else. I'm not sure what just yet. I'll keep you posted.

demo days - 03 - Filthy Grin (Slagle Response)

I didn't have much to do with this one. It's all Vasas here. My only real input was the half-joking suggestion that the song end in A major instead of A minor, but if I can take any credit for that, I will, since I love the shift in mood when that change hits. I dig the prog-pop feel of this one, and I especially like Vasas's guitar fills. The reggae beat is a little disorienting at first, especially during the opening vocal. I like that.

demo days - 03 - Filthy Grin

Song = Filthy Grin

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!



Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

You know the earth is only sound because the people in the ground
Are said to have lost what once was found, so it only makes sense to keep on grumbling
It brings you to a halt, conniving, fills your wounds with salt, deciding
To assure it’s all your fault and you’re left to make what you want
of the dead and the living

Don’t be shocked, when you find the screen door cocked
And your head stuffed in a sock, you’re in the system

Someone lit a fire hoping somehow it would inspire
Something better from the choir, but it only made them play five German zithers
It brought you to a halt, conniving, filled your wounds with salt, deciding
It was all your fault, you’re left to rake the coals inside your coffin.

Don’t be shocked, when you find the screen door cocked
And your head stuffed in a sock, you’re in the system

Babycakes, honey pie;
Me and you; You and I
We are floating upward.
We are floating upward.
We are floating upward, YEAH!

Don’t be shocked, when you find the screen door cocked
And your head stuffed in a sock, you’re in the system



Process Notes = Taking the Bull by the French Horns

Sometimes there’s a song that has a huge gestation period. Hell, sometimes there’s a work that has a huge gestation period. Look at SMiLE. That was about the most I can imagine a project taking. 37 years. Of course Brian Wilson wasn’t working on it nonstop. It just wasn’t ready to be finished. Eventually, as everybody knows, the time was right, and he was feeling a certain way and TADA; there it is: finished. Sometimes this happens with me but on a much smaller scale. For a while, my longest gestation period was within an album production calendar. This occasionally meant that gestation period could be a couple of years, but that only meant that the song represented the album at a micro-level, so it was there at the inception and there when the album was released. Lately though, nothing has been off limits. I’ve been going back to old songs and taking chord progressions, lyrical fragments, etc and reworking the majority. Sometimes they survive in larger forms. Such is the story of Filthy Grin.

Filthy Grin began as a two-pager of lyrics written in a really old high rise apartment in the hot summer of 2002 in Philadelphia. I was helping my sister move the contents of her apartment and was on “vacation” with my parents. It wasn’t a bad experience, but it wasn’t the best of times. The main reason I didn’t enjoy myself in Philly was fallout from what had happened the previous September. On the streets, everyone still seemed out of it, disconnected from reality. The city of brotherly love didn’t seem so brotherly. I was paranoid, so was everybody else. I carried around with me a notebook so I could scratch away at my thoughts whenever we had a brief break in the action of moving or sight-seeing or whatever. I wrote about 20 sets of lyrics from this trip, and roughly a third of them have ended up songs that have made it onto records. This included “The City,” “Flags Everywhere,” “Crashing Down,” “Father America Blues” and others. Of course they were all slightly political, or at least of the social-commentary ilk. Not too long after much of the thoughts were collected in this book, I decided I didn’t really like political commentary in my music, so many of my soon-to-be-developed songs got axed.

Somehow, Filthy Grin always remained fresh in my mind. I think more than anything it was the line from the original set of lyrics; “They require an incision that starts right below the nose and heads straight to your ankles.” I wish I had all the original lyrics. The phrase “filthy grin” was used somehow too. I eventually made it back to the lyrics (Minus any chords or melody) one day last summer at the piano. I worked out a piano bit that featured a lot of changing chords (much like Bread Beard Read) except the changing a lot of times was significantly connected to bass note walking rather than bass note droning (which was the focus of BBR). The piano part really chugged along and it excited me. Melody just kind of rolled out easily. With some lyrics, a nice thing happens when you can stay focused on the internal rhythm of the words, and it ends up paying off when you apply the lyrics to a melody. I switch between writing melodies and lyrics first, so I never try to be too picky about it. If it can work, it can work. I was excited about the musical content at that point.

I eventually rethought the lyrics, removing a bunch of the social commentary (not all), and focusing more on wordplay then saying anything to personal. I’m pretty protective of my private life, so if I want to say something, I try to present it open enough so people don’t get up in my business, but still sense the personality behind what I’m saying. Anyway, I rewrote the lyrics at this point. It had a lot of verses. The original had even more.

Here are two more verses that made the first demo…

Security’s been breached and eighty sermons have been preached
But not a single damned is reached, not a big surprise with so much candy
They call it unconscious inflation, it’s a popular sensation
Though it wields a deep temptation at rates like this you can’t afford to miss

Sacrificial truth fades indifferent like a sleuth
Who’s turning yellow and uncouth , and despite the stains has no zeal left for tartar
The spots found in your vision are considered by most derision
They require an incision right below the nose straight to the ankles

The original demo of the song featured the above lyrics and a quicker “Mr. Blue Sky” beat. The tempos stayed the same, just double time. Chord progression was exactly the same too. At some point after doing the first demo, I decided to try experimenting with new drum patterns. I switched to the half-time feel, dropped the first drums out and put the second half-time drums in. The lurching movement was immediately recognizeable, so I dropped a few instruments that had been tracked for the first version and threw up an organ ala reggae off beats, and work the piece around that.

In the first demo, Slagle was sitting around with me as a I worked out stuff and said “it’d be cool if it goes major at one point” since most of the tune has an A minor style to it, despite wandering up to C major. Experimenting is the name of the game, so I started to play around with A major progressions and came up with the Tag Bridge and Tag Chorus that begins with “Baby cakes.” I didn’t want to focus too hard on that part lyrically, so I free associated the lyrics as I tracked the melody. I think there’s a little bit of Beatles in there somewhere harmonically. The bit with the final chorus was to make it be the same lyrics and a similar melody but have it be in A major rather than A minor. Once it was all finished, it only took us the remake with the half-time reggae drums/organ to make this specific demo complete.


Future Development

As a pop song, this is a nice one to play and hopefully a catchy one to listen to. Whatever we do with future versions, I think we should focus on keeping the pop pop. I like the idea of working in a few more instrumental countermelodies, and I think it'd be interesting in this song to throw in some more vocal harmonies throughout. No guitar solos though.

demo days - 02 - Cilantro (Slagle Response)

Here's where I admit influences. I've always loved the Pink Floyd song "Dogs," from their 1977 album Animals. The song contains some of David Gilmour's best guitar work, and the verse is propelled by a very strange chord progression that shouldn't work at all but somehow does.

The chords that eventually became the verse for "Cilantro" came about when I started taking chord shapes from the "Dogs" progression and moving them around on the guitar. (I'll admit that one of the chords is actually identical to the third chord from Gilmour's progression.) Once again I continue to explore ways to include open strings in odd chord voicings, and in this one, every chord contains the open E string, sometimes the B string, and sometimes the D and A strings as well. Given the guitar's tuning, it follows that such harmonies would be full of fourths, and they are. I've always been interested in quartal harmonies, because they've got a strange, "open" sound that's very different from traditional chords based on thirds. These are chords that frustrate people who like to have a name for everything, because they just don't fit neatly into typical chord types. Eventually, if you just keep adding notes to a chord, its harmonic identity becomes rather uncertain. What is the root of the chord anymore? Is it the bass note? Doesn't have to be. First chord contains the notes D, F#, B and E. Still not sure what to call that one, but really, it doesn't even matter.

Anyway, I really liked the impressionistic feel of the progression, and I told Vasas unabashedly that I wanted to write a song that hints at the sort of sound that Talk Talk found on their last two records. Those two albums (1988's Spirit of Eden and 1991's Laughing Stock) have been a huge influence on me, along with Mark Hollis's 1998 solo album. Despite the fact that these records are name-checked from time to time and are far more well known now than at the time of their release, I still really haven't heard much of anything that sounds remotely like them. I thought it'd be great to try and capture that sort of sound, and I told Mike that I don't even care if someone accuses us of ripping off Talk Talk. Hell, I'd take it as a compliment.

I brought the progression to Vasas one day during a brainstorming/recording session, and he was the one who suggested that we try the 5+7 feel with my chords. I loved the idea, so we recorded a demo right then. We forgot about it for a while though, in the midst of working on so much other material, but I think we recorded another demo at his parents' house in Dearborn. This second demo included the chords that became the chorus, though I didn't really have a solid idea about the structure of the song, so I just improvised the changes. I ended on a chord that seemed to come out of nowhere, and I forgot how I had even played it. Had to go back and listen to the demo to figure it out again. Mike and I finally recorded a serious demo of the song at Heritage Arms Studios (i.e. the dining room of my apartment), and he came up with some vague lyrics and a mumbly melody that really gets at the Mark Hollis vibe and perfectly fits the ambiguous texture of the progression.

After the chorus, the drums lose the pulse entirely and scatter sporadic gestures until the chorus returns, and for a brief while, nothing at all is keeping time. After the second chorus, we dispense with chords altogether and the song fizzles out without any sort of resolution. Of all the new demos we've produced recently, this is one of my favorites, and I think it'll be especially important to the sound of the next album.

demo days - 02 - Cilantro

Song = Cilantro

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!



Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

I await this...
Is proven
Is branded
Smiles
Tears
Tears through
Sunlight breaks

Oh, limbs fall coldly out
And a hallow wears out coldly
Filling up

I await this...
Is proven
Is branded
Smiles
Tears through
Tears
Sunlight breaks


Process Notes = Sonic Ambivalence, Impressionism.

From a progression standpoint Cilantro was written by Doc Slagle. If I remember correctly, I believe the original idea included the chords during the "verse" section of the piece. At one of the very early demo sessions (back when I still lived in Owen Hall), I remember Brian and I talking about strange rhythmic relationships that weren't actually atypical, but rather with accents in lesser-used places. One of us came up with the idea of emphasizing lesser-used beats in the six/eight pattern which led to the main rhythm of the verse progression. The emphasis is 5+7 beats rather than 6+6 beats. Although we had this idea sitting around to be implemented in other tunes, we ended up applying this "concept" to the chords Slagle came up with because it seemed to support the ambivalence and fleeting impressionism of the chords. Stripping away both key center (although this could be argued on this track, especially with the chorus chords), and rhythmic emphasis, the piece has a floating quality that Slagle and I instantly were excited about. This is why working up the record in this "idea" way is useful. Both Slagle and I had talked about our interest in these musical ideas and thus it was on our mind enough to implement it when the time came.

The first demo didn't have any chorus chords if I remember correctly. Eventually a second demo was made bringing in the chorus chords, a few studio tricks (reverse delay on guitar), and more instruments. This demo is actually the demo I eventually threw my vocals on top of. My vocal melody was vaguely designed before recording it, but not completely designed. I have been enjoying improvising certain aspects of my melody recently, so on this song I listened to the demo countless times and wandered around until I found certain melodic passages compelling enough to document. I still didn't have an exact melody defined, which is just as well. Up until about twenty seconds before I decided to record I had no lyrics anyway. The lyrics in this song are simple free-associations with some use of word-readjustment. The lyrics are meant to focus on tone of vowels and voice, syncopation with the music, and the occaisional image painted in the text. This style of lyric and melody painting was implemented to support the overall ambivalence and impressionism of the music, too.

Future Development

This is one of my favorite tracks from the new material because it is extremely open, slightly off from usual expectations, open to different interpretation, etc. But, most importantly, it has a kind of peacefulness even with its odd beat emphasis and clashy chords. It also is heading in a direction away from some of our old Beasts material, but still seems associate with a song like Rescue Team or Shells. I think in the future Brian and I had talked about including some more change during the chorus section, and I'd like to do an electro-acoustic sound bed that runs throughout the piece.

demo days - 01 - Broken Fingers (Slagle Response)

The intro here came about when I was sort of mindlessly noodling around on my classical guitar one day. I guess I was thinking about the campanella effect used in a number of classical guitar pieces--in simplest terms, all this means is that an open string is allowed to ring alongside a higher note on a lower string. The difference in tone--the lower string produces a much mellow sound in higher registers, while open strings always ring brighter--yields a sort of bell-like sound, hence the name. I've always thought it was a great effect, and one that is rather unique to the guitar. A number of pieces use this technique in clever ways, such as several etudes and preludes by Heitor Villa-Lobos, in particular. Villa-Lobos also uses a similar effect in which one string is left to ring open while chords move about on the surrounding strings. When applied to a right-hand arpeggio pattern, the open string produces a kind of pedal point. I'm thinking especially of the animato section of his fourth prelude, where a dizzying series of diminished arpeggios moves up and down the fretboard, but there's always an open string in there for extra tension. First it's the E string, and then later the B string. Either way, there's always an extra note in each chord, whether it "belongs" there or not.

Couple this with my continuing obsession with the "potential energy" of chord changes. I've always been fascinated by the possibilities that each chord presents. Change one note in a simple triad and you've got an entirely different harmony. For example, E minor could easily move to C major, E Major, E diminished, E augmented, and so on. There are a lot of Bach pieces, especially preludes, that work in this way, changing one voice at a time and sort of "morphing" slowly from one harmony to another. The incidental "chords" that occur between clearly defined harmonies are often rather surprising, leading some to claim that Bach used "thirteenth chords" and such. From a theoretical perspective, I tend to think of this sort of texture more contrapuntally, since that's how it must have been conceived, rather than trying to label each vertical "slice" through the piece as a unique harmony. Check out Chopin's fourth prelude for another fantastic example of this sort of chord movement.

With all of that in mind (subconsciously), I came up with the first nine bars of the intro progression. Lots of suspensions in chords that often lead to unexpected consequents. I'm really interested in "ambiguous" harmonies, and this progression is full of them. Chords that don't lend themselves easily to nice names--F A B E, for example. I have no idea what to call that chord, and I love that. So I started playing this progression with a static right hand pattern. Vasas seemed to like it, so we made a quick demo of it on day in his Owen Hall dorm room. I can't remember if the first demo included the Vasas-composed second half of the progression. Anyway, at some point Mike wrote some more chords, and I guess at the time we were thinking of his part and my part as being two separate sections of a piece, like a verse and a chorus, maybe. Eventually we hit upon the idea of simply fusing the two together, and I recorded a sloppy demo of my playing the two sections seamlessly, using the same right-hand arpeggio throughout. Later I reworked the second half to be more playable by me, and while doing that I started to become very interested in the chromatic voice leading that had already played a part in the first half. The result is the most difficult guitar part I've written so far, mostly because some of the chord changes require really awkward position shifts along the neck. I guess that's what I get for writing such a nerdy progression. Lots of weird chords came up, and eventually I figured out a way to fit them onto the fretboard (though I'll admit it's still kind of awkward to play).

The result is a 21-bar phrase. Mike and I have talked for a while now about wanting to explore really extended phrases like that, as well as long, flowing melodies that never seem to end, like a lot of Puccini. He came up with a through-composed vocal melody for the progression, and that was added to the demo. Since some of our original demos were lost on a damaged hard drive, we decided to rerecord this one. At some point we also considered the possibility of using the piece as merely an intro for a song, and that it might be a cool exercise in contrast. We kicked up the tempo quite a bit, which meant that with my currently sloppy, unpracticed technique, I needed to play the guitar part in two separate sections which were then pasted together. Cheap trick, I know, but hey, it's just a demo, right?

Now the 21-bar bit opens a funk track that sounds nothing like the intro. I guess if I had to name a key, I'd say that the intro is in F# Dorian. The actual song is in F minor, though. I love the dissonant backwards F swell in the bass that ominously foreshadows the change. And then out of nowhere, a new tempo and new key fall from the sky. Still my favorite moment in the song, though the ensuing funk groove is pretty great as well. The original riff is now buried behind new countermelodies and embellishments, but you can still hear it peeking through.

A while ago I read about the genesis of "Happiness Is a Warm Gun". I guess Lennon had ideas for three different songs and didn't know what to do with them, so he just threw them all together and made one song out of them. Brilliant. I've stolen this idea several times lately. Hell, within just this one song, we used three different unrelated sections and just glued them together. Somehow it works.

One thing I'd like to try is synth arrangement of the harmonies in the intro. I'm thinking of something sort of spooky, almost like a Theremin in tone. Or maybe this will be a great place for me to test my e-bow skills and record layer upon layer of harmony lines that way. We'll see.

Also, listen for the lyrics in the intro. I'm on a hide-a-bed.

demo days - 01 - Broken Fingers

Song = Broken Fingers

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!



Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

Quickly roped in by her gaze
Springing as if loitered-fare
Complexion bared description
Held his interest, caught his eye;
Her eyes; hard-edged, that zigzag grin
Discarded ballerina past
And all he could remember
That look of jaded wonder
And all he could remember
That look of jaded wonder

He made her laugh with little mumbles
She seemed to take up arms each time
Her laughter fluttered in his chest
With broken fingers and broken hearts
He fought, but it was sweet duress
They sat together; sensing breath
She’d drift away but always looked back
She’d drift away but always looked back

He noticed little things enlarged
Like she was taller but maybe not
And her choice of words; that zigzag grin
She purposely deceived herself
They never spoke of what had been
Yet, her eyes betray the fight with sin
And so he stapled it to her face
Her response outgrew his age

I try to find you (I try to find you)
I try to find you, you're never there (long gone)
There? (gone)
I try to find you, you're never there (high and low, low and high)
I try to find you, you're never there (binoculars won't help)

But she was young, or so he thought
That look of jaded wonder
Kept on laughing in his face
Her eyes; hard edged, beyond description
She had pretty shoulder blades
But he preferred attention
And something left desire in pieces
Her stifled words were vices

Once he found her on her back
He crouched and mumbled as she cried
Somehow they were closer then
Tributary tears connect
But as he shifted on his feet
Lightning became household current
As he caught her hard-edged eyes
Her laughter fluttered, then departed
She never said goodbye

I try to find you (I try to find you)
I try to find you, you're never there (never there, never there)
There? (open up the door)
I try to find you, you're never there (...)
I try to find you, you're never there (...)

Process Notes = Two Pieces become One

Broken Fingers is actually a combination of two unrelated (?) pieces.

"21 Bar"

The birthplace of the first part, which goes until the atmosphere/music change and vocals arrive with "Quickly roped in," the part with the quick classical bit...that was born in Slagle-land. Hopefully he will come on here and explain the idea process with the initial idea. Slagle brought it forward to me as an unfinished idea where chords were suspensions that moved one note at a time. If you analyzed the movement up and down, it would seem like there are many many chords occuring, and a first-year music major may analyze it that way. Back in the day, I did, because you didn't know any better. But eventually you notice, like with Bach's C Major Prelude, that in fact the piece can't be analyzed vertically, but must be analyzed horizontally. Slagle and I talked at great length about this development, and he must've had it deep in his consciousness because he came back with the first 9 bars of the piece. Plus, note the phrase length...nonstandard at nine bars. Something we had also talked about at great length.

An original demo was created at that point, one of the first of new material. Slagle even played it for the band at Brian Richard's place during a rehearsal. At that point, we were excited about the churning movement of the progression/instrumentation and it certainly seemed like a logical extension of some of the stuff we had explored on the first Beasts record. At some point after initially working with it, I came with up a few chords to another progression, this progression was far more chord-y and outside the original idea Slagle had used, but I decided to pass it along to Slagle and muse about the possibility of combining my part with his part. My part was 12 bars, but not connected to the blues at all. Again with extended phrase lengths, I passed it over to Slagle and we discussed the idea of having these two ideas be the verse/chorus arrangement. At some point Slagle told me that he had worked my part of the piece into the concept of the first 9 bars, with individual notes moving in suspension, etc. He showed it to me, we demoed that, and that became "21 Bar." Possibly the day of the demoing, or a few days later we began musing about the idea of making 21 Bar a phrase, and not the container of two sections. In other words, we thought it would be interesting to make the 21 bar part not a verse/chorus but one giant pharse (verse or chorus, we didn't know). We were inspired by Bizet and his long phrases, and made a comment that it would be fun to drop a long, flowing melody over the 21 bars. Eventually, one floated towards me, and I added it to the original demo. "21 Bar" was catalogued, and we waited.

"Quickly Roped in By Her Gaze"

I wrote the lyrics to Broken Fingers sometime during the Christmas holiday during a spell of insomnia. Originally with about twenty verses, the lyrics were shortened basically to the form you see above, without chorus lyrics and direct repeating of lines. I was uncomfortable with the earnestness of the lyrics, and especially uncomfortable with the lyrics rhythmic capability. It was one of those things where I started with a rhythmic idea, but you can see by the second verse duple seems to the be only noticeable rhythmic connection, what the emphasis, beat, etc...it all went out the window.

Still, I was excited about the lyrics, and I made an effort to try to integrate it into some sort of instrumental we were (or would) develop. Although I tried a few other ideas at the time of recording the track in its current form, the lyrics found here ended up making the most sense with the overall vibe of the track. So, despite having no strong melodic (or even rhythmic) pull I decided to just go for it and throw the lyrics in there.

The musical idea that the lyrics were fit to was a piece called "Not Your Daddy's Funk No More" which was more of an idea than a finished musical thing. Basically an F minor riff. Kind of Stevie Wonderish. In the end, the riff plays the equivalent of fifth or sixth fiddle to other melodic ideas bouncing around in the groove. It's there though, a wah wah keyboard part.

Combining the two

At some point Slagle and I decided that it would be a good idea to make 21 Bar an intro, because it seemed to work against much of the material we had been developing, and we discussed the possibility of making 21 bar more of a study in surprising textural change within a track. In the end, that's what it is. People don't seem to be too surprised with the opening bit, the 21 Bar bit, but when it finally changes to the section with "quickly roped in..." it's quite a surprise. The change is preceded by an reversed low-octave piano note which helps to disorient the listener and inform them some kind of change is coming. We made sure that, production wise, the two held almost nothing in common. 21 Bar is very quick, dense, churning, busy, and the second half is spacious, motif-driven, and spikey.

The groove basically repeats for the entire rest of the track, with a few instruments defining new chords structures at the chorus. But note how many of the instruments stay plodding along on whatever vague musical phrase that it began with. This idea is my new favorite production technique. Modular instrumentation, as mentioned in earlier blogs.

Future Development

We talked about expanding the opening section some so it just doesn't start with the full force it does...Slagle also has some ideas about synth work in the beginning. At the change, I'd like to see even more depth of the sonic field as the groove begins. Right now, it seems pretty up close, and I'd like to hear more layers and depth...almost like more beats are occuring into infinity if you concentrate on background instead of foreground. Coming up with little motifs to run with are pretty easy and fun, so I will keep trying with that. Also, Ryan can add a little more variance in the drum pattern than the drum machine. Plus, Ryan and I talked about exploring untraditional percussion as far back as the first Beasts LP, and I'm always up for integrating it.

Demo Days!

So after the way this podcast thing with odeo is working out, I'm going to try a few more ways to get the demos out to people. I really like ODEO and recommend checking it out. It's kind of like youtube for sound. Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, instead of posting 15 blog posts with the same Odeo player and podcast link, I keep re-editing the one post. It gives the idea that I am not updating my blog, when in fact I'm updating it every few days with new music.

More importantly, there's not really much explanation of the songs or how they have been worked on, and the songs end up being posted in a way that almost implies "check these out, these are finished products." And in some ways, they are finished products, but they certainly are still demos and certainly still need a lot of work. It's easy with demos to focus on the immediacy of the result and say "well, that's that." and sometimes songs are in such good shape at the point of the demo that bands end up just copying the demo for the release. I suppose that's fine, and I've done it before and I'll do it again.

So i've decided I'm going to start something called "DEMO DAYS" where I add a song in both stand-alone single-track ODEO player format and DOWNLOADABLE MP3. This means you can download the mp3s and take it around with you...you can make a list of what you think is the best order for them...even make imaginary albums.

These tracks will include information including lyrics, instrumentation credits, influences, ideas, problems, excitement, and hopefully diary-like blabber from myself and Brian Slagle, the unofficial "co-producer" of all these demos.

These blog posts will happen each weekday Monday through Friday, starting March 26th and will end the Friday before our hiatus which will start on Sunday, April 22. Pay close attention because I may ADD a demo days post here and there on a weekend-day without warning.

This will be the upcoming calendar for each tune.
March
26 Broken Fingers
27 Cilantro
28 Filthy Grin
29 Williamston
30 Ponchartrain Causeway Driving

April
2 Spoons
3 1000 Years
4 Raise the Dead
5 Poor Nancy
6 Silence Brush
9 Red Rabbit
10 Wake Up
11 Money Apple
12 Weapons
13 Howling Wind
16 Photographs
17 Slagle 9/8 Funk
18 Motown Groove
19 I'd Be Green
20 TBA

Weapons Demo added to Demos Podcast

We keep churning 'em out, although admittedly this is actually one of the first demos we did back in January. It was recorded/mixed by Vince Perri in his studio in downtown Detroit. Solos by my buddy Matt Mepham.

The Old Shows

It's just one of those things. Old shows from when you were "young." It's not a matter of how old you were or what show you recall, because I recall a lot more then I'm listing/linking to below. I talk to people on a regular basis that seem either obsessed with youth or obsessed with being "aged" like a fine wine. All sorts of people constantly telling me "you're a baby" or "you're so old" or whatever. I always think about how my age and experiences (when brought up in social situations) always tend to be similar to the biggest complaint thrown on historical research. Is it really about the history or the historian? Is my age really more of a significant thing to me or to those around me? It tends to be the latter. People who go on and on about age tend to be people who have issues with their age. Common sense, I suppose.

But the more I talk to people the more I see being uncomfortable with yourself, having fears, hangups, unchecked aggression, angst. It's a defining human quality not an illness. My friend Doug once told me that everyone has problems. You either know you've got them and try to work on them, know you've got them and try to procrastinate working on them, or you ignore your problems and bad things happen. They manifest themselves in the form of anger, disgust, bigotry, hatred, rude behavior and other social crappiness. Which one are you?

Anyway, here are some old shows from my past.


From Square One TV.


Garfield and Friends.


Garfield and Friends too.


Heathcliff


Today's Special


READING RAINBOW!




And two more from Square One TV.

Early Minor Quintet and Mike Vasas and The Beasts of Burden THIS SATURDAY @ Magdalena's Tea House

Mark your Calendars!

Coming up to the break.

We're getting closer and closer to the April 22nd band-hiatus, and when it comes, I'll stop working on stuff for the band. In the meantime, I'm going to press forward demoing new material, to get at least one decent demo of each song before the break. Then "we" can all sleep better.

So right now we've got 17 tracks demoed, with a bunch more tunes either sketched out (not recorded) or lightly demoed (recorded, with little development beyond chords, riffs, etc)

1. Williamston
2. Drop in Temperature
3. Ponchartrain Causeway Driving
4. Photographs
5. Filthy Grin
6. Silence (Brush)
7. I’d Be Green
8. Red Rabbit
9. Cilantro
10. Raise the Dead
11. 1000 Years
12. Wanderer
13. Wings
14. Weapons
15. A Tiny Place
16. Anthem (Money Apple)
17. Howling Wind

And now the unfinished tracks...

1. So What What

4+3+3+3+4 has a pretty easy feel to it. No lyrics or melody yet. Similar in vibe to Cilantro. Reminds me somehow of that Miles Davis chart, thus the working title. Chords written by Slagle.

2. Poor Nancy

This one should only take a few hours to demo. Real swampy, lots of percussion. Rooted in the blues.

3. Fifth Amendment

Haven't figured out what to do with this ballad. Akin to Mark Hollis's solo record, but as of now is pretty standard. Far more standard than he'd ever think up, it feels half-baked. In any case, I need to do a new demo of this one too, because the original demo was a track of just piano, and it has been lost beyond one mp3.

4. Slagle 9/8 Funk

Another mixed-meter thing for the Doctor, and it will be demoed soon with more elaborate texture and vocals/lyrics. Another one that seems pretty important to the overall vibe of the yet-to-be-clarifed record.

5. Satie Chords

Not sure what to do with this. This is along the lines of Fifth Amendment, but has yet to develop even as far as that chord progression. Still no melody or lyrics. No decision on how it should be taken further into adulthood.

6. I’d Be Green

This track will see the light of day, I promise. It's always been one of my favorite "unreleasers" from the first record, and it has a really spooky vibe that needs to be reflected in earthy, polyrhythmic, plunky textures.

7. Motown Groove

This is another one that I feel as though if I start working on it, it'll just pop out. Of course that only means I've captured the initial idea, and it is way behind development-wise to something like Raise the Dead, but whatever. At least I'll have something to knock around as the break from the band opens.

8. Spooky Funk & Slagle Piano?
9. 21 Bar (as an intro) to New Funk?

These two are tracks where a section that is Vasas-written is combined with a part that is Slagle-written. Spooky Funk was a demo I did initially that I think will fit nicely with the "slagle piano" piece which has undergone quite a bit of morphing. Slagle piano started out as this Rundgren-esque powerpop poly-harmonic thing, and now it's off in some trip-hop vibe. Spooky-funk also was demoed with the whole trip-hop thing going on, so hopefully they will combine to inspire me to get some lyrics/melody going.

21 Bar is officially an intro, which is ironic because it's the longest melody over constantly changing chords I've ever written. The original progression was a combination of a 9 bar phrase written by Slagle with constantly changing notes within the chords, and a 12 bar phrase written by me. At the point I realized they could go together, Slagle re-worked my original chords to fit with the style of the first 9, and thus 21 was born. At this point I wrote a melody that would work in psuedo-counterpoint with the bassline for the 21 bars. Slagle and I talked while driving out to Lake Orion about just making 21 bar an extended intro to another piece, and I think that will work. Will it work with the other demoed piece NEW FUNK? Who knows!

10. Troubador (Folk Demo #8) [Needs Vocals]

Again, production and texture choices will pull this progression and it's melody away from it's folk roots, and hopefully soon I'll be moved to write some lyrics for the melody. This could end up being one of the wierdest tunes on the record if it makes it on the record.

11. F Funk

The most Stevie Wonder-ish of the Funk things I've worked up. I need to get some lyrics for the melody, and then I'll demo this for real. The first demo featured one of my favorite effects in rock/pop/jazz music. The fender rhodes with a panning trem effect. Fantasmic. I was so excited when I found I could do it with one of the VST effects.


So that's about 28 tunes if you keep those few tracks combined. I suppose we could expand some of those out. There's a few more ideas I have that are even less developed then the above tunes/progression and those didn't even make the list.


We're coming up on the break with speed. Maybe I'll put up the demos for you to comment on them.