No Blog Posts/myspace/etc unil May 20

I'm going on holiday from typical music-related stuff until July 20. I'm going on total web-related hold until May 20.

So, this means until May 21, I won't be checking my myspace account or blogging. I won't be logging in or anything. Please understand that this means I won't be responding to any mail or messages about comment approval (which is the way I have my settings figured out right now)...and I won't be adding any new friends...With blogging, I won't be approving comments or blogging at all.

if you have something really important to say/ask me please email me. mike@mikevasas.com. I won't be checking that very often either, especially May 10-19, but I thought I'd let you all know that's your best shot for getting me to see your message.

BYE for now

Recent Videos I've been Watching

No More Demo Days for now...but about Amanda's Grandpa...

I'm going to hold off on whatever Demo Days are left until we get some more fleshed out ideas for the remaining tracks...Just thought I'd let you all know.


In other news, Amanda's Grandpa, Jack Foren, is in the paper today in Dearborn about his experiences as a Detective in Dearborn.


Past alive at DPD headquarters

By Cristen Kis, Press & Guide Newspapers

PUBLISHED: April 18, 2007

DEARBORN; The past has resurfaced at the Dearborn Police station.


In a glass case near the police chief's office lie two 70's-era handguns, cuffs, arrest cards, mug shots and various clippings from a 1970 murder.

Standing nearby — bashful, yet proud — is the retired detective who played a key role in solving the homicide even though he was more than 2,000 miles away.

Retired Detective Sgt. Jack Foren spent 28 years in Dearborn's Police Department. Eighteen of those years were spent investigating strange but true crimes.

Now, in a display dubbed: "From the Foren Files," other officers and detectives can re-examine a crime that began with a fake ID and ended with murder.

"It brings alive history," said Sgt. Karen Wisniewski, who set up the display. "Other detectives didn't have as good a story — or memory."

Cmmdr. Jeff Geisinger wanted to bring pieces of the past to the previously empty hallway outside Police Chief Mike Celeski's office. While one of Foren's old investigations is currently showcased, next month will feature a tribute to fallen Dearborn officers.

Since the display's debut, various police employees have stopped to examine the old artifacts and Foren, 77, has visited regularly as he shows the display to family members.

"I think it's great," he said. "I really feel honored."

The murder investigation currently exhibited began Dec. 28, 1970, in San Diego. A man presented a fake ID to bartender who refused to serve him. The suspicious man caused the bartender to alert off-duty officers who were sitting nearby.

After a confrontation with the man and his accomplice, Officer James P. Lewis was shot and mortally wounded. Although injured, Lewis managed to return fire and struck the suspects' vehicle, which had Michigan license plates.

In their hasty getaway, the suspects left behind the fake ID, which provided the name Ronald Lee Baron and listed his address as 7000 Eugene St. in Dearborn.

San Diego Police contacted Dearborn detectives who quickly determined the house number was a fake but the street was real. Officers in San Diego used a newspaper wire service to send over a picture of the ID. On the receiving end of the wire was Foren.

"I recognized the photo right away," he said.

It was Carl Ronald Riggs, who, along with his brother Clarence, was well known throughout Wayne County for multiple robberies. It is the brothers' Dearborn arrest cards that are displayed in the case.

Foren's positive identification helped San Diego police track the cop killers to a hotel where a room was registered to Riggs. More than 50 officers surrounded the hotel where a bullet-ridden car was also found. Riggs, apparently planning an escape, was dressed as a woman when he was arrested.

But the Dearborn man's story doesn't end there. His story would intertwine with another San Diego murderer known as the Candlelight Killer.

Robert W. Liberty was institutionalized for attempted suicide when he met and fell in love with a woman in the same mental institution. In 1966, after their release, Liberty strangled the woman and placed burning candles at her feet and a bible on her chest. He was strumming a guitar when police arrived and was later found insane and institutionalized. A few years later, he was released and struck again — killing his roommate and another associate.

While awaiting trial, Liberty won a motion to be released from solitary confinement and was placed in a jail cell with Riggs who strangled him in their bunk with a T-shirt.

While some of Foren's cases may have had the juicy details of made-for-TV movies, the celebrated detective got his start as a police officer in an unassuming way.

Within six months of his 1950 wedding, Foren was sent overseas to serve in the military during the Korean War. After returning home, he found it difficult to land a job. Although becoming a police officer wasn't a childhood dream, Foren answered a newspaper ad and embarked on his career in the Dearborn Police Department in November 1953. His "big money" career paid $4,600 per year when he started.

In 1953, officers were handed little more than a nightstick, a gun and handcuffs. While their beats were mostly limited to checking bars and coffee houses, they were also paired with a partner to break them in and teach them the ropes, Foren said.

Foren not only learned the ropes, he climbed them until his retirement in 1981 — investigating and solving countless cases, many of which still remain fresh in his mind today.

The murder of 15-year-old John Brown more than 30 years ago remains unsolved, but is still an open investigation for Foren, who knew the boy's mother, and would like to see the case closed.

Brown was hitchhiking on Warren Avenue in the early 70s. A witness later told police they looked in their rearview mirror and saw a van stop and pick up the boy.

His mutilated body was found the next morning in an alley near Ford Road and Outer Drive by a man walking his dog.

After following up on numerous tips and leads, the killer was never found.

"You'd think for sure you could get a lead on it," Foren said. "We absolutely couldn't hit on a thing ... maybe someday..."

While the Brown case remains unsolved, other investigations provided more closure for the detective.

Foren investigated the rape and murder of a teenage girl in Crowley Park in the 70s. The girl was killed by two teenage boys she apparently knew. Her killers were caught after the boys bragged to a friend that their victim had begged for her life before they used a tree limb to kill her.

The friend reported the teens after another neighborhood boy reported finding what he believed was a mannequin — and turned out to be the girl's body — in the park near Michigan Avenue and Telegraph.

Foren also successfully investigated the murder of the owner of Big John's Market — with quite a bit of help from one of the killers.

The owner of the store on Michigan Avenue and Jonathon Street was found shot to death during a robbery. As police later learned, the produce delivery man — an ex-con — had witnessed the owner with a big roll of money and recruited a friend to help him rob "Big John."

The delivery man had violated parole and was locked up on another charge in Lincoln Park when he contacted police and said he would provide details about the crime in exchange for a deal.

"We told him we'd see what we could do and we pampered him because we wanted him to talk," Foren said.

Ultimately, the delivery man was convicted and the triggerman was found not guilty after the defense attorney "poisoned the jury," Foren said. In an era immediately following the Detroit riots and during Mayor Orville Hubbard's reign, Dearborn Police were labeled as racist, Foren said.

Another of the detective's cases with a bizarre twist was that of the murderer who offered to turn himself in if his girlfriend and child could receive the reward money for his capture.

The killer had picked up a Ford employee at a gay bar in Detroit and murdered him in a field near Greenfield and Paul Street. A suspicious car in the area was spotted by officers in a Detroit Police helicopter. They notified Dearborn Police who headed to the scene and found a bloody body along the way.

After the killer's girlfriend refused the money, the murderer said he would back out of the confession, but he was eventually sentenced to life in prison where he wrote threatening letters to Foren, the judge on the case and his victim's widow.

While one of Foren's cases has recently resurfaced in the display at the police station, the detective recently revisited a mafia-style killing when a victim's daughter asked for details about her father.

In the parking lot of the former Dearborn Medical Center, a prominent real estate agent with a gambling problem was found shot in the head.

Foren described the man as a compulsive gambler who would bet the deed to his house in some games. The victim apparently owed money to the mafia when he was killed. Witnesses were intimidated by the mob and the killer was never caught, Foren said.

Solved or unsolved, the detective's cases will remain a part of Dearborn Police history — and just may turn up in a subsequent display cases as the "Foren Files" are re-examined.

Contact News Editor Cristen Kis at (313) 359-7820 or ckis@heritage.com.

link to html of the article here.

demo days - 16 - Photographs (Slagle response)

As Mike said, this one came about because of an attempt to rework one of the songs from the first record. We were tired of the way that we had been playing the song live, so we sat down one day at his parents' place in Dearborn and brainstormed some new ideas for a revamped live arrangement. One of the fruits of this brainstorming was a weird syncopated take on the original riff from the song. It contains one of my favorite rhythms, the old quarter-note triplet, which always creates a three-against-two feel. I am also especially interested in odd syncopations that leave a lot of empty space, and I'm sure a lot of that stems from my undying love for Talking Heads. Anyway, came up with this quirky riff and we decided to jam on it for a bit, which gave rise to a couple other ideas from Mike. We presented this to the band at the next rehearsal, but of course at that point we were still just thinking of the new riff as a fresh take on an old song. Eventually we decided to liberate the new ideas from the old song entirely.

During one of our sessions at Owen Hall, we recorded a new demo with even more ideas floating around. Still all guitar at this point. I came up with a three-beat descending diminished riff that really shouldn't work. C A F# E B. Never mind that the harmony is a static D major chord and that three of those five notes don't belong. Adding to the quirk factor is the fact that it only lasts three beats, so it's never really in sync with the rest of the song (I think it lines up every twelve beats or something like that, but of course that has nothing to do with the actual phrase structure of the song).

Anyway, Mike eventually took this new groove and added some vocals and a great "dentist drill" synth line that wanders all over the place. I really dig the skeletal feel of this one, even though there's actually quite a lot going on, countermelodically speaking. Still, there's a part of me that feels like the song should be fleshed out a little more. I don't know exactly what I mean by that. Nor am I sure if that's actually a good instinct. I kind of like the fact that it's really nothing more than sparse guitar lines, a bassline that never changes, and a simple drum beat. Probably one of the most minimalistic demos we've done, and I like that. But I can't help but feel that we should still up the groove factor quite a bit, somehow. For some reason I make a mental connection between this song and "Broken Fingers" in terms of production values.

demo days - 16 - Photographs

Song = Photographs

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!




Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

I see your caught up in defense
It stole your tennis shoes
How you gonna walk without your tennis shoes?
Barefoot, walking 'round the woods.
Canteen Empty.
Photographs click.
Just minding your own buisness.

But here we are, what's your name?
Figureatively speaking vain and coy,
Boy oh boy old dogs still are filthy. Wash.
Wash that mouth out with soap.
Chop it off, cut it out, rock the boat.
I've heard this story once before.
Your canteen empty and on the floor.

Woa. Your smile is what I wait for.
In and out of my life quick.
Uninhibited, uninhabited.
Get on the bus, come on over here.
Your name ends with the letter A.
Every girl I've fallen for has been that way,
so you fit the pattern, you fit the bill.
And back then you were just minding your buisness.0


Process Notes = DEVOLUTION

This was one of the first new "demos." We actually worked up this song after an attempt to liven up a track from the first record, although I won't say which. The demo which you can hear started out pretty straight forward, and at some point things started moving away from the BOB 1.0 track we were trying to re-work, and either Slagle or I commented that we should turn this new demo into a totally different song with the same chord progression as the BOB 1.0 track. We thought it was funny, but didn't think much of it. We ended up passing the first demo of it (without vocals) to the band as a rework of the BOB 1.0 track. I'm not sure when it happened but we began taking our comment about making a new song seriously. I remember a first demo was recorded in Dearborn, and a second was recorded in Owen hall. I know in the second demo we recorded Slagle's wierd repeating riff (which I'll let him explain), the 3 note main bass riff, and the bass run during what is now the synth solo.

One day I came home from working at Everett and wrote the words to the track and fit them in with a melody. I actually remember writing the melody for this track pretty carefully. I had my keyboard set to record, so I would press record and try to play a melody on the piano. I kept reworking things because I couldn't get the melodic note from De to Fense on the word defense. At some point the melody jump became larger than I'd initially suggested, and most of the rest of the melody clicked after my specific focus on the first line of the song.

Future Development

I'd like to see this track get reworked to include more countermelodies and riffs then this demo, but I like the spareness of this demo. In the future, I'd like to make the vocals a bit more flared and get the rest of the band to join me for the harmonies. I like the minimalist feel of this track though. There are certain aspects of the groove in this track that are implicit rather than overt. I enjoy that.

demo days - 15 - Howling Wind (Slagle response)

Our other albatross. Tried this one in 7/8 at a rehearsal and it failed horribly. I remember about halfway through our attempt, Eric stopped and asked us, "Hey guys... is this in seven?" After we'd been jamming on it for five minutes or so. It's clear then that the band has trouble playing in odd meters without having to count every beat, which is really distracting when you're also trying to do something musical. I think the demo fares a lot better than the rehearsal, but it's still clear that we're trumpeting, "Hey look everyone, we've got a song in 7/8!" Basically the same rhythm just smacks you in the face for the entire song. Not sure how we can liberate it from that repetitiveness while still retaining the meter and keeping the groove. Maybe a more modular arrangement--as in, more countermelodic motifs than Grandma could handle--would help.

I played a spacey lead line that came to me while Brian Richard was laying down the bass, and it's one of those lines that feels so obvious that I'm sure that I ripped it off from something else. It kind of reminds me of ELO. Then of course we had to play it backwards too, and eventually the same line harmonizes with itself when played forward and backward on separate tracks. Anyway, I like that much at least. Also dig Mike's toy thumb piano, which, as Brian pointed out, kind of sounds like a Jack in the box. Brian's bass tone is pretty cool too.

The noisescape breakdown gives a nice break from the plodding beat, but eventually that all comes back. At least the thumb piano really shines through the mix in the second half. Otherwise... where to go from here?

demo days - 15 - Howling Wind

Song = Howling Wind

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!




Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

It starts out like a howlin’ wind. It doesn’t mean nothin’
It can’t be much anyway, just some far off thing fussin’
But through the days it all begins to feel so secure
Then act is cut from judgment. Treatment from cure.
At that point, I remember it all, we were queens and kings
I can recall, before I grew tall, how big I imagined things
And she too planned, assumed, and thought, till both of us were lost
Sometime in there she decided to withdraw. Someone had to pay the cost.

I spent a long time waiting for her to tell me what it was
She spent a long time saying to me saying whatever she must
But she had made her mind up long before she would disclose
Her black diary of deceit in tearful in prose
I think it’s safe to say that sometimes things can be quite a shock
When something unexpected comes cause you left everything unlocked
In that park where I learned the news, she looked more hurt than I ever did.
And though I hoped to be a man about it, I just ended up being a kid.

I never questioned what was there I just took and drank it up.
When the nightmare was over, I found I couldn’t even wake up
And when I finally did I cried till I was in need of drink
I did and hid it often. I refused to even think.
Friends didn’t question who I was, they let me fall.
Sometimes I wonder why we say we’re friends at all.
They told me everything I knew, I’d heard it all before.
It’s hard to get the thing you need when all you know is poor.

It starts out like a howlin’ wind. It doesn’t mean nothin’
It can’t be much anyway, just some far off thing fussin’
It started with those words, and that is where it halts
I can’t spend my life retracing everyone of its faults.
I moved on years ago from that river and that park
I rarely even think of her or that diary so dark
I hear of her, though, we don’t talk, it’s better off that way.
Too little things to speak of and too many words to say.

I know true love, now, things have changed, it’s all been real this time
I’ve realized I was never lost with the exception of that crime
I’m not sure if she ever did find her way back to the path
But she planned, assumed, and thought…you do the math..



Process Notes =

I believe I wrote this in the summer of 2004. It shows. There's a lot of personal/confessional trash in the lyrics that these days I'd never put in a song, but I still like the overall vibe of the thing. It started out as a chord progression on my keyboard with this really echoey synth/organ and had much more in common with the Bob Dylan song "Sugar Baby" then anything else. Eventually, my Love and Theft fetish took complete hold of me and I moved the song from organ over to guitar. By this point, some of the lyrics had been written (I believe the first verse). I started working on the rest of the lyrics and began painting a rather embarassing autobiographical story of a relationship. Most of it is more than true, it's like a script or something. To pull the song away from 100% experience pilfering, I threw in a few verses that added some extra zing to the narrator's fall. I'm not to impressed with much of the lyrics to the song these days, so if I had to redo the lyrics I'd probably only keep the following...

It starts out like a howlin’ wind. It doesn’t mean nothin’
It can’t be much anyway, just some far off thing fussin’
But through the days it all begins to feel so secure
Then act is cut from judgment. Treatment from cure.
So, that doesn't leave much of the track. Whatever. I guess I need to rewrite the lyrics, huh people?

Originally when the song was written, it was an acoustic folk-tune. I wasn't sure where I'd take some of the material (I'm still not sure), and I thought for a while after 2004's The City and the even more elaborate Grace Monica, that I'd release a CD of minimalistic folk material. My main deterent from going that way was of course that I'd just finished doing that almost as a joke in November of 2003 with Collection on Desktops, so repeating myself so quickly seemed goofy. Still, Howling Wind got it's start on acoustic guitar as a sort-of-folk song.

Eventually I demoed the song that summer, threw in some electronic shimmer, and laid it to this constant almost droning double percussion part; drum kit and electronic drums. The first demo eventually gave way to a revision of the first demo which was extended with multiple "out there" solos. Of all the solos I've ever recorded, these are my favorite. Too bad I can't find that demo. They [the solos] were recorded with my acoustic gretsch and then processed with a VST plugin called BUZ. This VST plugin's big brother the "OCTBUZ" is one of the greatest VST plugins ever invented. The BUZ though just does the fuzz/distortion without the octave effect. It's incredible. Gives me the sound of SRC "Black Sheep" ala 1968 perfectly.

At some point after this first demo, after BOB 2.0 started, I started playing my guitar parts for Howling Wind in seven, almost on accident. So I started trying it that way and seeing how easily I could fit the lyrics to the seven/eight thing. It worked easily in most situations, so I suggested to the band we try it in seven. At one of our megarehearsals at Uncle Tom's place, we attempted it, but it was without any success. It was clear that we all weren't audiating seven, which is pretty different then 4/4 or 6/8. Seven isn't really 4/4 minus a half a beat, I mean you could look at it that way and mathematically it is, but really seven is 3+2+2 or 2+3+3 or 2+3+2. Or 3+3+1, I suppose. Really, the point is, the way we were doing it, it was 2+2+3. An extended miniphrase within each bar. instead of 2+2+2. it's like 2+2+2... (try saying it out loud if this doesn't make sense, if I was explaining this to you in person, this is what i'd say two plus two plus twooooo).

In any case, although we've got 7 in this track, it almost feels shakey, because I'm not sure 1)we're all fluent enough in seven to do it and 2)maybe it shouldn't really be in seven.

In any case, as the seven is going, occaisionally you'll hear a syncopated drum beat which is actualy 4/4 against the seven. Plus there's all sorts of wierdness going on in the background. So the track ends up being like 14 mins because the second 8 or something is just me working with all the loops like it's a Bidule piece.

Future Development

More than likely, canning it. That's probably in the charts. Unless I can come up with better lyrics, and make the song pop out to me more. I don't mind the lack of chorus or the hypnotic style of the chords/beat, but it's gotta do something somewhere in some characteristic, and it's honestly doing little to nothing for me. That's why in later mixes, I actually cut the vocal half of the song and just kept the sort-of-bidule remix thing. That's more interesting to me anyway.

Parting Gift

Roscoe Lee Browne, Kurt Vonnegut dead

Saunders from Soap dead at 81. For those who didn't know the show Soap, or his other acting gigs, maybe you remember the Narrator from Babe. That's him. "Slaughterhouse-Five" author dead at 84.

demo days - 14 - Weapons (Slagle response)

Not sure what to say about this one. I keep thinking that it just doesn't feel like a Beasts of Burden song. I can't exactly say why. We did a nice demo of it at Metropolitone, with the fancy lead guitar stylings of the legendary Matt Mepham, but even then it felt like a song by some other band. Maybe it's just not quirky enough? I don't know. A rehearsal produced a noisier take on the song, with Vasas punctuating the breaks with blasts of feedback. I sort of liked it, but it hasn't really gelled the way we would like. Just ends up sounding like you're average rock band "rocking out" I guess. If this one is going to work, i.e. make it onto the record, I think it needs some seriously creative weirdness on the production end. I don't really know what I mean by that, but I'll know it when I hear it.

demo days - 14 - Weapons

Song = Weapons

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!




Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

i trip all over myself
choose our untied hands to bind
you go to sleep. i go to sleep.
our dreams meet for french mocha; all cloudy sal boca.
winding, reeling, fowl-mouthed feelings
give me a chance and i’d throw your mine
or grenade.

you got a body that’s made for diamonds
that’s why I rock you until my credit’s gone
you go to sleep. i go to sleep.
our dreams meet for a book club; c.s.lewis and grub.
winding, reeling, fowl-mouthed feelings
give me a chance and i’d throw your mine
or grenade.

you go to sleep. i go to sleep.
our dreams meet over coffee; black coffee.
winding, reeling, fowl-mouthed feelings
give me a chance and i’d throw your mine
or grenade.


Process Notes = Groove-Pop takes a nose-dive

The lyrics to Weapons were posted in this blog on August 23rd of last year, which if I remember correctly was after I had written both the chords, melody and the lyrics. So from a songwriter perspective, the song had already been finished back before August 23, 2006. This isn't a big shock; a lot of the new material had at least half of a song written going into the demo (a verse part, a chorus part, etc), and some of them had been "finished" in the traditional sense for years. The hunk of space between a finished song and the recording or presentation of the song is a huge hunk of space. So, sometimes years get lost in the black hole. With a song like this, I kind of had some of my "production" ideas in mind as I was writing it.

The song isn't too complex, harmonically.
G C7 for the intro/interlues.

The verse/bridge uses an old trick I enjoy, having both major and minor chord voicings from the same expected chords. So, instead of G to D to G to D, it goes G to D to G to dminorm etc. Anyway, here's the chord layout

G cm7 G cm7
em7 A7 em A7
Cmaj7 bm7 F#7 bm A
G F D -->(back to intro/interlude)


So, nothing special. Although, I get a kick out of the cm7 and the Cmaj7 so close together like that. I also am fascinated with why the G after the A ends up not seeming like home. Hmmm.

This demo was recorded in January @ Binary Detroit Studios (or Metropolitone, depending on who you ask). My old buddy Vince did the engineering on the track. The lineup on it is funny. As in funny strange. Brian Slagle on the clean rhythm guitar (syncopated part), Matt Mepham on lead guitar and guitar harmonies, and I played Matt's bass, electric piano, organ, the straight dirtier rhythm guitar, did the vocals, and played DRUMS! You can tell! Quite a few times I miss fire as I play the hihat. We also did some harmony vocals (Matt, Brian and I) that ended up getting the axe.

The vibe of it is light, almost jazzy. Kind of reminds me of a poor-man's Steely Dan without all the crazy arrangements. Also, the lyrics are a bit too positive for Katy Lied-era stuff that I love. The key to this version is the bass line. On the third note of the bass riff, on the F against the G chord. There's all sorts of emphasis and the bass just kind of hangs there for longer than it should. Brian's rhythm part is cool because it falls in with that bass riff. The accented, held 2+4 that swells. I like it. Matt's solos snake around throughout coming to true fruition at the end. Matt played his solos based on us describing situations to him. Vince did a good job mixing the track.

The track feels like it could've been on Bad Luck, almost. So it's gotta be pushed forward. Let's push things forward. forward.

Future Development

I think I'd like to move this song into a bunch of different categories because this Groove-pop thing isn't doing much for me. It's too simple and easy. It also doesn't fit much with the other stuff we've been doing, despite it being a pretty fun song to play. Speaking of playing it, as the BOB we've played it a few different ways, and the new way is kind of too rock for me. It works for when we play it, and I get to do some wierd solos, but it is moving away from the lightness I like about it. Question is where to go?

Listen to the 89x Homeboy Show Spotlight!

Here's the audio from the 89x Homeboyshow Spotlight, aired April 1, 2007. This is, minus my music, owned by 89x.


powered by ODEO

demo days - 13 - Money Apple (Slagle response)

Here's another song that has already experienced several metamorphoses by this point. The first complete demo turned out sounding like a lounge act that only covers The Band, featuring Marc Ribot on lead guitar. Brian Richard and I have also teased Mike on several occasions about the a certain portion of the chord progression that reminds us of "One More Try" by George Michael. Ain't no joy for an uptown boy, that's for sure.

Later we employed the by-now signature Vasas production trick of replacing the rhythm tracks with a completely different drum beat and then rebuilding the song from the bottom up. Ended up with a 4 + 2 sort of feel, but since we love the guitar solo so much, we decided to leave it in tact and keep the 6/8 feel of that section. And then after the solo the 4 + 2 beat returns, of course.

Mike's vocal here is one of his most playful takes, probably because Cubase had started to lock up while the track was recording and so Mike figured that the track was ruined and unusable. But he finished it anyway, and the result is a lot of fun. There are a few moments that remind me of Joni Mitchell and Regina Spektor, and I'd like to see more of that. Not just on this song either, but others as well.

There was also another demo that Mike did, an ominous grind with layer upon layer of noisy guitars that would make Sonic Youth blush. Maybe we should play it that way live, or release it as a rare B-side.

demo days - 13 - Money Apple

Song = Money Apple

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!




Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

Who stole my hand?
I seemed to have it last night
People and friends said stuff like, "indeed," "so true," and "alright"
Trains never leave on time
But I admit I lost my ticket
I never expected reparations so honed as my hand

A summer salt is lavish
Sprinkle it with mood
You'll be so enabled when I am through
Cartwheels, french fries, your lover and you

Healing the blind man, leading the blind men
Guilty pleasures and all their lack of apple money
People and friends said stuff like, "indeed," "so true,"
and "watch your back you filthy rotten coward of a man"
Trains never leave on time
But I admit I lost my rickety fence that's meant to keep everybody out
I never expected anything so blessed as your hand

A summer salt is lavish
Sprinkle it with mood
You'll be so enabled when I am through
Cartwheels, French fries, your lover and you

I’ve never seen tattoos with elephants, dandelions, and macaroni and cheese

A summer salt is lavish
Sprinkle it with mood
You'll be so enabled when I am through
Cartwheels, French fries, your lover and you


Process Notes = 6/8 Pop Songs

Starting with old classics like "Unchained Melody" and "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," and including BOB songs like "Saints and Sinners" and "Makeshift," I loves me some 6/8 pop tunes. This song got its shape from a keyboard setting I had setup in a virtual instrument stacker program called "chainer." What it meant was a doubled instrument effect. Octave harpsichord (my favorite kind), and a tack piano. When played together it gets this really plunky tone. I didn't invent this tone, it was used on a few Beach Boys records. Anyway, I set this tone up, and was working with descending bass lines, and eventually came across a stately chord progression that became the first demo "Anthem." We actually ran through all the chords once at Brian Richard's place and I mumbled through melodies as we bashed out the chords. It kind of became this Music from Big Pink thing, which I liked.

The next demo I did of it, included melody and lyrics but was basically a stripped down version of the way we played it live in a jam setting. Organ, guitar, classic 6/8 drums, bass, piano doing the 6/8 arpeggio. It was dull. We did this in Cubase, so one day while listening to it and trying to "supe it up," somebody came up with the idea of different drum accents, and we messed around with turning it into a 2+2+2 vibe rather than a 6/8 vibe. It worked pretty well, but the vocals seemed strange because they had that swinging 6/8 thing. I added a few other parts (synth stood the test for the final demo), and retracked the vocals.

At the "solo" section it breaks back to the 6/8 swing with the same cheesy chotch solo that was in the original slower demo. All the other parts come in with the solo, so it's almost like the first demo breaks through at the solo and then the new demo jumps back in.

Future Development

We've done this a couple other ways too, a really noisy blues-boogie kind of thing, and I'd like to try a really over-the-top take on the classic 6/8 feel too. Not sure what else to do with this. Maybe some more inspiration will fall as we get closer to developing the track for a record.

Indie-Music.com Likes Mike Vasas and The Beasts of Burden

From Indie-Music.com

Reviews: Mike Vasas And The Beasts of Burden ~ Self-Titled
Posted on Saturday, April 07, 2007 @ 09:37:55 EDT
Topic: Reviews

Artist: Mike Vasas And The Beasts Of Burden

CD: Self-Titled

Home: Michigan

Style: Passion-Fueled Rock

Quote: "Adding Vasas’ band to rock’s evolving legacy will not be any burden at all."

By Dan MacIntosh

You cannot deny that Mike Vasas And The Beasts Of Burden are going places. Vasas’ passionate vocals on the opener, “Cross the Border” serve as fair warning that his band is something to be reckoned with.

From the electrified blues-rock of “Makeshift,” to the U2-y guitar thing on “Slavery,” to the British Invasion feel of “Bread Beard Read,” it is obvious Vasas has borrowed from the best rock influences to create his music. He’s like a chef who knows exactly what he’s looking for when choosing meat and vegetables for his dishes.

This band is from Michigan, which already has a rich musical tradition. Nevertheless, Vasas doesn’t sound like Iggy Pop, Bob Seger, or any of the other heroes from his home state. Instead, he has a sound all his own, and a voice that is expressive in both the high and low ranges. Adding Vasas’ band to rock’s evolving legacy will not be any burden at all. This group's on fire, with fuel to burn.

demo days - 12 - Wake Up (Slagle response)

This song developed out of a chord progression that I wrote on my parents' piano on New Year's Eve. Lately Mike and I have been really interested in basslines, especially in their harmonic purpose. Instead of considering the bass note to be just one note in the overall harmony (usually the root of the chord), it's possible to understand the bassline almost as a separate structural element entirely, one that is independent of the harmony. Playing standard chords over "wrong" or "unrelated" bass notes yields interesting results, and so the idea here came about when I started playing a simple C major chord with a bassline that outlines an F major triad (ohhh bitonality!). From there I took the idea much further, and the progression became all about modulation. Starts in C, but eventually a B flat in the bass reinforces F major. Soon the B flat becomes B natural and suddenly the song ends up in E major, though the chords here (C major 7th with an A in the bass, then A minor over B; notice that both of those chords contain the same pitches, just rearranged) aren't what you'd expect in E major at all. I'm still not quite sure why this works, but somehow it does. That section is followed by a circle-of-fifths progression that gives way to some chromatic bassline shenanigans that eventually bring us back to C major. The whole thing also happens to be a 33-bar phrase too, which I love. I like the structure of this one: there's no real "verse" or "chorus" to speak of, just a through-composed progression that simply repeats again after it's finished. This definitely rivals the intro of "Broken Fingers" for the title of Most Harmonically Complicated Chord Progression that we've ever dealt with. Not sure which song wins that title in the end; it'd be close. (The "Broken Fingers" intro hits all twelve tones, but "Wake Up" touches on more key centers. Tough call, I'll let you be the judge.)

I knew this would be a tricky progression to sing over, but Mike did come up with a vocal melody that slyly rides the thornier changes. Chorus ends with a huge chord in the vocals on the word "up." We just kept adding pitches to it, and I love the jazzy result.

Really though, I think I agree with Mike that we should still explore the trip-hop vibe that we hit on in the second demo. I really love the chords here but I don't think I can get too excited about the traditional piano pop vibe that is tied to the way I first played it. I'd like to keep the chord progression and vocal melody but place them in a very different sonic landscape. Right now I'm kind of stumped on how to do that, but future sessions should bring new ideas.

demo days - 12 - Wake Up

Song = Wake Up

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!




Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

A great pardon is only lost
on those who hesitate
Leaning rigid with eyes so wide
A pack of rabid cards
Calling bluffs and taking names
What's your game plan?
Where are your goals?
Wine is sour but their smell is worse
The curse is hellish swelling hearts
As carts of victims attend the dance
We pray for just one abstract chance

Wake up
Justify yourself
Don't forget the bridges burning
Wake up



Process Notes = Demofide

I'll let Slagle explain the germ of the musical development. We demoed this a bunch of ways. Version one was piano and this odd, almost calliope-sounding, organ. The groove against the piano was key, and I believe the drums had this jazzy four to the floor shuffle kind of vibe going on, very mid '66. It was nice, and I always picked up melodic ideas from it. Had no idea what the lyrics should end up being.

At some point, we began exploring with the tones, and by the point Brian Richard attended a "idea session," it had morphed from that to a really chill thing. Organ, half-time drums. Eventually, we reworked it again for a third time, and it ended up this kind of trip-hop thing. You can hear part of that vibe right at the end of this demo. I still like the trip-hop vibe.

Writing a consistent, light flowing melody was quite difficult in this song, especially when it starts going around the circle of fifths. Eventually I figured out a melody, and I'm pretty happy with the result, despite not being too happy with my vocal performance...it's a bit shakey. The lyrics were written one day during a lunch break when I was substitute teaching.

Future Development

I think the song needs another verse, but I think the song should stay relatively short. As we develop it, I'd like to try finished versions with fully-developed lyrics/melodies in the different styles we tried before I wrote the lyrics. That way we could see which is most effective with the words/lyrics. Of the ones we've tried already, I think the possibility of turning the trip-hop version into a trip-hop through BOB lens would be pretty cool. So we'll have to see how that goes. I'd also like to try one where the chords are extremely light in definition, maybe played on an organ with just harmonics pulled on the drawbars. That way, we experiment with stripping the song from the musical content almost completely.

demo days - 11 - Red Rabbit (Slagle response)

Now here's a fun one. As Mike said, this reminds me of mid-period Stereolab. I'll never tire of the sort of polymetric/polyrhythmic groove that we've got going here, which is why I don't mind at all that the intro lasts for over minutes before the vocals come in. Mike played this song for me when he first wrote it, and at the time he was just chugging along on his acoustic with a bluesy sort of early rock groove. Someone came up with the idea to try this with a Neu!-type "motorik" feel. While we were hashing that out, Mike was messing around on his keyboard and he hit upon a five-note arpeggio, which immediately caught my attention and distracted me from the sandwich that I was probably making at the time. So we decided to track a synth part with that repeating arpeggio in 5/8 against the 4/4 Krautrock beat. Polymeter of this type creates the hypnotic illusion of constantly shifting accents, and it's just one of those musical devices that I'll always enjoy in any context.

This one's got some great dissonant chords here, starting with the first change at 2:34. The final chord of the chorus is my favorite though (first heard around 3:16).

All in all, this one's a lot of fun, and I think this might hint at a direction that we should explore further for the next album.

demo days - 11 - Red Rabbit

Song = Red Rabbit

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!




Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

There was a red rabbit
running on the green
With women wearing doilies;
and men knocking back caffeine
There was a red rabbit
running on the green
The crowd just giggled
at the failed high wire routine
I was stained with blood, mud,
and fuddy-duddy information
It’s one simple thrust,
must you always doubt my levitation?
There was a red rabbit
running on the green
With women wearing doilies;
and men knocking back caffeine

It shouldn’t be so funny
But it’s a scarlet bunny!
Don’t look at me so weird.
Imagine Hemingway without his beard!
Shock!


Process Notes = Immediate stuff.

Unlike Filthy Grin, which had an incubation period of almost 5 years, sometimes a song just blasts out. Red Rabbit came about from walking around singing the first line of the song over and over. Eventually, I grabbed Amanda's pink guitar (She bought it at Elvisfest in Ypsilanti) and banged out a few chords for it. It's just this old rock'n'roll thing Lyrics are pretty goofy, but that's the idea.

The demo of the track turned it into a motorik type groove. Slagle said he's reminded of Stereolab. The main focus in the song is constant trance-inducing polymeter. We've got the bass doing a DUH DUH 2/2 kind of thing. The drums are definitely doing a four pattern. There is a bubbly synth part that is in 5/4, and another acoustic guitar part in 3/2. When it all makes its way to the final product it feels more like accents then polymeter, which is fine by me. I never get tired of that kind of thing. So that's why the intro of the song is about 3 minutes. When the song finally reaches it's first true chord change (on the words "I was stained with blood"), it's this rather dissonant chord (an Fmaj7) against the grooving A major. I didn't really write the chord change to be so big, because when I wrote the song I had no idea the intro would be 3 minutes. But it's fun.

This track has my favorite kind of organ in it, a really really really distorted Vox. All sorts of crazy overtones pop out if you play close harmonies. Just like Sister Ray said.

Future Development

It's relying on that groove and the intro and the motorik sound, so I think we should try a few without any of that type of trappings. Maybe just a really compressed, clipped wild, rock track. Maybe slow-groove blues number? Or maybe take the listed demo and push it far more into polyrhythm status. We'll probably try each of these.

demo days - 10 - Silence (Brush) (Slagle response)

At this point, I'll go out on a dangerous limb and say that this is probably my favorite of the new demos, which is a little unexpected because Mike and I have talked a lot about avoiding the usual sort of rock structures that lend themselves so obviously to big crescendos. And yet here's this song that starts quietly and builds tension until a big rock-out crescendo. But the real reason why I dig this so much is that the guitar tone really satisfies my Talk Talk jones. Again, played my guitar part here in a single take. We used one of Vasas's distortion pedals (can't remember which one... Tube Screamer perhaps?) and really cranked up the reverb on his Music Man amp. Vasas plays the straighter rhythm part in this one; my part is the noisy one that enters around 1:40. If you listen closely you can hear Mike and I talking through the track, because I still didn't know the chord changes or dynamics or structure of the song, so he had to sort of direct me through it. For some reason I kind of like the voices in the background. We should try that sometime. At times the guitar kind of reminds me of the awesome creepy jangling in "Sour Times" by Portishead.

Organ really gets at the Talk Talk sound here as well. Don't think I'll ever tire of that sound. After the second ghost chorus, the song churns over a circular chord progression that eventually disintegrates into a sort of Krautrock groove with my guitar noodling about on top.

As much as I'm inclined to be wary of such statements, I'll say this anyway: I can't think of much, if anything, that needs to be done differently here. Not saying we shouldn't keep developing the tune, but of all the demos we've done, this is the one that I'd be most happy with if it were released in its present condition.

Goatfish.

demo days - 10 - Silence (Brush)

Song = Silence (Brush)

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!




Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

A southern lull, a lazy evening
A promise floats into my ear
Arching back, your arm extends
I’ve lost my place again

Allusion led, it led me elsewhere
My memory flickers, a shadow
Breathing soft, your arm extends
My lips brush your head

And we sit in silence


Process Notes = thirds all over the place.

Belted this out one day around the same time as 1000 years. I am not really sure if it was written on guitar first or on piano. I wrote the melody and lyrics while playing the chords on the piano, though. I know that much. The original idea was to work up chords/melody that used a lot of third relationships...extended chords like sevenths and ninths and thirteenths. Most of the chords have that going on in them, or if it's the last chord of the "ghost chorus" (a term I've used to document chorus that don't have any music or melody) an absence of thirds. I liked after all that buildup (especially leading to the big 13 chord), leading to an open 5th voicing.

The song needs to avoid being developed to the same setup as Rescue Team, and this demo achieved that. It doesn't just thunderously take off, the lyrics are much more open to interpretation, there's a lot more quietness happening throughout. At some point during the demo it became the goal to do that really bright nasty guitar tone on the one channel, and it works great. My favorite aspect of the track. The drums almost have a latin thing going on in them, which I like, it pulls it away from anthemic rock.

At the end, it kind of scatters all over the place and settles on a Can-like groove. All the little wandering solo stuff Slagle does is pretty cool.

Future Development

I'd like to try a version of this where it is far more glitchy and electro-acoustic in nature, much more like IDM then this ambient rock out thing it tends to lean towards. The song needs to be tested. See what it can do without the usual post-rock trappings.

demo days - 09 - Poor Nancy (Slagle response)

Ohhhh going for that dirty Tom Waits percussion-heavy swamp groove. I'd really like to experiment more with this sort of sound when we record live percussion tracks. We should probably start collecting found instruments from junkyards and roadside ditches. I think the reverb on the vocals is a bit much, but otherwise I'm pretty fond of this'n. Not sure how exactly it'll fit into the sound of our next record, but who knows, we'll figure it out.

demo days - 09 - Poor Nancy

Song = Poor Nancy

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!




Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

I don’t want any mercy from the top of the stairs
I don’t want any mercy from the top of the stairs
All the people got out while there was still time
Laughing, it grew into something benign
Till the neck was stood up on the back of the hairs
And I don’t want no mercy from the top of the stairs

Can’t the dead be left alone to die in peace?
Can’t the dead be left alone to die in peace?
Cars and trucks fill lungs with lead
If you wish upon on a star you’d be offer bled
Man made hope is as rewarding as elbow grease
Can’t the dead be left alone to die in peace?

Nancy, Nancy, your lover fought on that hill
Nancy, Nancy, your lover fought on that hill
History books keep the reign up above
As clear blood scatters from a plastic dove
Pavlovian response, we all know the drill
But Nancy, Nancy, your lover fought on that hill

Send all human correspondence to foreign affairs
Send all human correspondence to foreign affairs
Untapped fears evolve into whales
Unconcerned about cake and all these tiny details
They feed off of you and they feed off of me as we panic through all of our prayers
And I don’t want no mercy from the top of the stairs


Process Notes = From folk to something else

Wrote this on Amanda's pink guitar. Started out as a simple blues vamp based on the rhythm that the electric guitar plays during the last verse of this recording (during "Send all human correspondence..."). It just kind of rolled out. Lyrics, melody and chords. Reminds me a lot of the stuff on Collection on Desktops and maybe a few tracks on The City. Production-wise, it's kind of far away from that. The drums have a lot of incidental percussion firing off throughout...all of these incidental percussion sounds are designed to feel louder than the actual drums or electrified instruments. This is, of course, totally improbable in a true acoustic sense, but I like that about studio work. You can take things that have a certain amplitude profile, like a thumb piano or a shaker, and then artificially alter the sound and dynamics creating an effect as though certain things are louder (or closer) to the listener.

The overall ambience of this recording is extreme volume and slightly dirty sound. This doesn't mean sexual dirty or some kind of thing like that, it means literal dirt, grime, ___core. Whatever you want to call it. Fun distorted bass. The solos get a bit tiring, so I'll cut some of them out in future versions.

Future Development

I'd like to really mess with even more percussion experimentation when we bring this bad boy down to the record. Maybe see about putting more of the band on percussion for live performances too...and having the instrumentation be drums, bass, one guitar, vocals, and lots of percussion, maybe?

Two more reviews of Mike Vasas and The Beasts of Burden

From Pucknation...

"Mike Vasas And The Beasts Of Burden"

Graham Bailey
04/01/2007

2007 Grammy Hall Records
Score: 7 (of 10)

Mike Vasas has been writing, recording and performing music for over 10 years, and has over 10 studio releases in varying styles. In 2005 he formed Grammy Hall Records. Mike Vasas And The Beasts Of Burden is the debut album by the band of the same name.

The first and most important thing about this record is that this is an very eclectic, diverse album. The music ranges from indie, to rock, to blues, to prog, to numerous other genres. Due to being such an eclectic mix at times the music comes off as a bit busy and over-the-top, but one has to hand it to the band for trying to go out on a limb and do something (gasp) original!

Vocally singer Mike Vasas does a fine job on the record, performing both with zest and energy (“Makeshift”), and with a more reserved, mellow tone (“Slavery”), equally well. Lyrically some of the songs are a bit hit-or-miss, as the band seems to relie less on writing something catchy than something interesting.

Overall: A bit hard to put your finger on, but interesting nonetheless.



and...

From Online Rock

Michael Fiegel

Needs more cowbell? While true that the cowbell is among the instruments used on Mike Vasas and the Beasts of Burden self-titled debut (along with the mandolin, dulcimer, marimba and harpsichord), one would be hard pressed to say that this album needs more of anything. As it stands, it represents an eclectic mix of sounds that, to use a cliché, "make beautiful music together."

Mike Vasas has compared to the likes of Neil Young, David Bowie and Bob Dylan (I would add AMC's Mark Eitzel to that list), and the Beasts of Burden cite influences as widespread as The Arcade Fire and the Beach Boys. However, to try and compare the band's overall sound to other artists is difficult -- there's simply so much going on here. The album opener, "Cross the Border," starts out with simple guitar and folksy vocals, but adds layers of sound as it marches on towards a climax. "Makeshift" is a sort of bluesy lounge, Bob Dylan playing at Ziggy Stardust, and "Slavery"'s dreamy soundscape conjures up images of Wilco and Radiohead. Much of the album features thick, rich layers of instrumentation, but Vasas himself seems to shine brightest when accompanied by the slower, simpler melodies of songs ike "Selfish Circles" and "One Day."

Favorite Track: Track 11, "Shells"

demo days - 08 - Raise the Dead (Slagle response)

Ever since I first heard the original demo for this song (which consisted of nothing but a drum beat and a bassline), I had bugged Mike about recording a fully fleshed-out demo of it. Always thought it had a sort of Peter Gabriel feel, and I guess we didn't try to hard not to take it in that direction, so the final product here nails that sound rather well. At first we were a little embarrassed by this, but I actually like the sound of this one.

As for the lyrics, well, that's another story. Mike says he's going to rewrite them.

I do like the vocals here though. Definitely the creepiest vocal he's ever done, a feel which is aided by the the spooky octave effect that we added after the fact. This might be the most "modular" of all the songs we've done so far; too many countermelodies and such to even count. The lead guitar part here contains some of the best work I've done lately. Recorded that using pretty much the same method we employed for "1000 Years." I played a single improvised take and we turned the best moments into repeating motifs, all of which I really like. Hard not to like spacey lead guitar with delay.

Also really dig the elaborate chorus of Mikeys that enter halfway through; meanwhile everything else keeps chugging along as normal, and then we just keep adding more of everything to the mix. Love the moment when the harmonies switch to the F-B7 section at the end, but everything else just stays the same. The structure of this sort of reminds me of a lot of the tracks on Remain in Light. Mike has said he wants to begin the song with the chorus vocals, which would give it even more of a RIL sort of vibe, where this massive polyrhythmic groove suddenly just falls from the sky, fully formed. Then of course we can go to town with the mix, taking everything out and then "unmuting" tracks here and there as the song progresses.

Aside from the angsty lyrics, right now I'm pretty satisfied with this one.

demo days - 08 - Raise the Dead

Song = Raise the Dead

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!




Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

I know I’ve been scaring you by my lack of common sense
I can see your nervousness when you cling to reservations
I believe we’re falling through the shallow ground we’ve built upon
I believe we’re slipping through but only one of us will make it to the bottom

Though your voice is promising…and indeed it’s promising
To my dead-on-arrival passion, break the windows, raise the dead
I don’t think you can help me

I can’t think of atrophy without a little comedy
I can see your empathy is vaguely masked as a common disposition
I have long since cast aside all my joyous memories
If you see me smiling; check your pulse; you may be crying

Though your voice is promising…and indeed it’s promising
To my dead-on-arrival passion, break the windows, raise the dead
I don’t think you can help me

Raise the dead; dead on arrival
Raise the dead: dead on arrival



Process Notes = Metatitles.

The funny thing about Raise the Dead is that it was a song written for the first BOB record, and I brought it back from the song-cemetary to be considered for BOB II. The lyrics will eventually be redone, because as of now they are pretty angsty personal lyrics. I don't have much respect for them, and you shouldn't either.

The music is simple in this track. E minor, C major seven, D major. At the end there's a little bit of modal trickery going switching to F major and B seven. Groove over complexity of harmonic content. But, in reality a lot of harmonic content exists if you analyze the counter melodies and stuff vertically. That'd be silly to do, since it's such a horizontally harmonic kind of piece, but if you wanted to do it, then more would be happening. A lot of the parts were recorded in a single take either by Slagle or I, and then edited, pinpointed, and sequenced by me. Eventually, you cut out enough that the open-mix feel is there despite the amount of little tracks firing off throughout. It's fun.

Future Development

Hopefully as we move towards an official "album release" version of the track we'll get some more polyrhythms and bits of that nature. The vocals that come in at the end...I want to try experimenting with them occuring at the start of the piece too, have more experimentation with the placement of the polyrhtyhmic harmony parts, etc.

demo days - 07 - 1000 Years (Slagle response)

This song has gone through a lot of changes, and we're still not really sure what to do with it. Its current incarnation came about after Mike and the legendary Matt Mepham made a new demo of "Drop in Temperature," an old tune that the Beasts used to play. That new demo was really inspired by "America Is Waiting" and other tracks from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Very busy, very "modular." Lots of little ideas all over the place. I liked it a lot. Somehow we decided to try a similar approach with "1000 Years."

Even though we're unsure of the overall product right now, I'm pretty happy with my guitar parts on this one. They were recorded in a way that has become my favorite method of tracking lately: plug in the guitar, record a single improvised take, then play it back, take note of the best moments, then cut them up and splice them together in different ways. Both the rhythm track and my "lead" track were recorded that way, with very little forethought about what I might play. The rhythm part goes for a sort of mid-period Talking Heads vibe, very clipped and syncopated. I turned all the chords into "add9" chords, then just used the same chord shape up and down the neck. The guitar lends itself very easily to parallelism or "chord planing."

As for the "lead" part, I played a really meandering line that Mike and I subsequently cut to pieces, and we then rearranged those small fragments, placing each one in a separate track. Then of course we decided to reverse them. I think we ended up with four backwards guitar tracks from that, which we then mixed down to a single track. It's got a really "spidery" sound that I dig. This part enters about 28 seconds into the song.

As for everything else... the song has a sort of TV on the Radio feel that I like, but in keeping with that, I think it needs a more elaborate and "outside" vocal arrangement. In its present state, we used a vocal that Mike had sung an octave lower than his usual register, and I don't really care for it, honestly. The biggest problem with this song is that it still feels too anthemic, and we've worked really hard to remove those overly rocking moments from it, but somehow they keep creeping back. I do really like the anticlimax of the chorus, however. Sort of reminds me of what we did with "Slavery" on the first record. When the verse returns, most of the original tracks are left out for quite a while, building expectations and then dropping them completely.

Overall I think it's a great song with a lot of potential. We just need to decide where to take it from here.

demo days - 07 - 1000 Years

Song = 1000 Years

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!




Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

I’ve been going for a thousand years
High time I hit the skids, came to a halt, as the sunset nears
Future’s fourth coming is followed by a fifth of reality
You are too inebriated with the syrupy chalk that flows through me
Walk-in closets filled with coins and hats and a smoking jacket
I never had a problem with blood banks or all their noisy racket
Better mate than sever ties, rope off the shack, a news anchor peers
I’ve been going for a thousand years

But your hair cascades around my face
And you pull me up from that dark place
This is the story. This is the story once again.

I’ve been going for a thousand years
Costly, grossly misunderstood mistakes are hidden in barber sheers
He sits in jail he has failed his coffin nailed possessions for sale
His wife is laughing, her neck giraffe-ing, calculators graphing, in Texas
You get the chair, they cut your hair in Maine, to ease the pain
I ease it open, you sit their hopin’ that I could ever change
Create in me a sheen start that won’t grow gray like the ways of my fears
I’ve been going for a thousand years

But your hair cascades around my face
And you pull me up from that dark place
This is the story. This is the story once again.


Process Notes = The Little Engine That Could Not.

Of all the new stuff, this is the track that causes me the most trouble. It just isn't where it needs to be. But I like it a lot and don't want to lose it.

It came out rather immediately one morning in my office hours at MSU. This would've been around the time of Dr. Kratus's performance, because I had my computer with me in the Graduate Office/Music Ed Resource room. Having my computer with me is no easy ordeal (it is a desktop), so I don't forget when I have to move it around. As a song it all came out pretty fast. I believe I started with a drum pattern in fruity loops, and added a upbeat synth tone ringing out the A. This created a "Motorik" vibe. While this sputtered away into techno-ish oblivion, much to the annoyance of people hanging out in the lounge across the hall, I fiddle around with chord progressions. The original beat is still saved on my computer, and recently I noticed just how much slower it is than the new way we have it here...maybe that's something I should go back to.

Eventually, I settled on a chord progression similar to droney-ish styles Slagle talked about before previous demo days. The chords, strummed on guitar, always had the A note in the bass. This was also reinforced by that upbeat A that continued to thump along. The chords were A B F G D...all against A, all major. The odd ones in there are A B that doesn't lead to E (which would be perfectly normal in A major if it was a V of V but instead it leads to F where there isn't much of a B major relationship with F). I was very excited about the progression. It seemed to fit with the "Motorik" vibe of where the song was going. I played it for my new-friend at the time David Menzo who was working on Kratus's show as well. This was all within a span of about two hours.

Next, I took the progression and figured it out on piano and hammered away at it for a few days singing mumbling rambling melodies. At some point within one of those "piano sessions" I came up with the D part. I was excited at the idea of implementing the progression (starting with D and using the same logic as the A section) with such a relationship to the previous part. D leads to E with D as the bass note. This mirrors the previous progression up a fourth. After that, it avoids perfect pilfering and heads somewhere else...I suppose to make it equal I should've went to Bb but instead I went to Cmaj7 to G. For those of you who have heard this song live, we usually go Cmaj7 to G to A. This somehow avoids the original idea in the progression, although I'm not sure how. All demos also avoid the full progression in the chorus. The original chorus progression was D E, D E (both with D bass) and then Cmaj7 G Cmaj7 G Bbmaj7 Fmaj7 Bbmaj7 Fmaj7 A. So it wandered a bit more. Maybe I should bring that back for the next demo of this.

And there will be more demos, because the one I've got here isn't the best, just the latest. Anyway, lyrics. I think I must've been listening to a lot of hip-hop at the time because the lyrics are pretty dense. Not idea-dense, just a lot of words and lots of internal rhyming and assonance and consonance, or at least that was my goal, most of the time it just ended up rhyming. I was excited about the words too, maybe not as much as the music development, but I like to challenge myself with whacky deliveries and such, and this song was pretty tough. It's the type of song (And I know from first hand experience now that we've played it at a bunch of shows), that if you have a brain fart on stage, you are totally screwed. It just goes and goes to the chorus.

I brought the song forward to the band and it immediately clicked, which should've been my first warning sign that we weren't doing anything special with it. There is a big difference between having the band like a song and having it be played easily, and this was the latter case. It tends to mean that the band is just doing what comes natural, and what is easiest in their conscious minds, which wouldn't be an issue in certain situations, but it was an issue here. We've now basically routed the song into oblivion, into the rock-out cave possibly never to return. I didn't catch it going that direction early on and we performed the song at least 4 or 5 times before I suggested we think about doing it differently. So it's like changing your destination from Portland, Oregon to somewhere in Chile. So, we'll see.

This demo, like Filthy Grin, is a product of a drum remixing. Where a song is recorded one way, and then the drums are cut out, with new ones dropped in. There is a lot of odd stuff going on in this track and since Slagle was a big part of it, I think he can explain what is going on. I'll pass it off to him.

Future Development

May have to go back to original idea, I'm not sure. Biggest option is to really get the rest of the band involved totally in reworking the song. I've thought about a troubador style fingerpicking thing going on, I've also thought about starting with the chorus. A part of me just wants to make this a quick little interlude song with just acoustic and voice, but I'd like to know that we at least tried to do something with it.

demo days - 06 - Spoons (Slagle response)

Not really sure how I feel about this one. Came up with the germ of the idea while crashing at a friend's place in Kalamazoo because I was in the process of moving. Had to be out of the old place, but couldn't yet move into the new place. The result was lots of aimless noodling on my guitar, probably much to Leigh's irritation.

Later I struck upon the odd rhythmic/metrical structure, that seventeen-beat phrase of the verse, and I embellished/changed the chords considerably. The result was an odd progression that shouldn't really work at all. Notice that the meter is what Messiaen would have called a "non-retrogradable rhythm," i.e. a palindrome: 4 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 4. Combined this with another idea for a short chord progression that I'd had in my head for a while but had no idea what to do with it. The second part became the chorus. Mike did a demo of this on piano, accomplished by my dictating to him the actual notes in each chord. To my surprise, he played them on piano in the exact same chord voicings that I had used on guitar! Really odd, widely spaced chords here. I really liked that first demo, especially in the change from the verse to the chorus. Chorus had a great aquatic sort of sound that I'd still like to capture somehow.

This new demo is nothing like the original one. Still not sure what I think of it. As Mike remarked when we were working on it, it's very Dada. Not sure if it really works though. It's very confrontational and absurd, which I like, but I can't decide if it's musically that interesting. I still really like the rhythm though. At the moment, I can't really say what else I think it needs. Maybe it'd work better as an instrumental, or maybe we shouldn't bludgeon the listener with the verse, stabbing the rhythm out as I do with those nasty chords. I'd like to hear them played by a synth maybe, or perhaps a marimba. Something rounder like that.

Edit: Forgot about a few things because I wasn't listening to the demo while I wrote this. I'll go out on a limb and say that this is probably the most "out" demo we've ever done. At 1:20 my best improvised moment on record begins, a sassy whole-tone solo with lots of bends and a nod to the Simpsons theme song. The chorus contains a quote from a piece of music written by Elizabeth Start. It was actually a setting of a poem by Conrad Hillberry, and it was performed as part of the Bugs and Things concert at the Kalamazoo Nature Center. After the second chorus, there's a "solo break" of sorts, in which Mike and I both conjure all kinds of racket via extended techniques such as weaving a Best Buy gift card between the strings (also later plucking the strings with that same gift card). I played the stuff at the beginning of the break (around 2:40), and then Mike picks up when the verse riff returns. I love the weird choirboys-in-a-cathedral outtro, too. And muenster cheese.

demo days - 06 - Spoons

Song = Spoons

Listen to the file in Odeo Format here!




Download the mp3 file of the song.

Lyrics to the Song

long number plea
terrible cell phones
hearing members of the zoo
“we think it's a success”
appetite, fame, retirement and breaking up
bugs and things
broadway kindergarten lovechild
anniversary war spoons
it’s ok to brag
monday and thursday
kids clothes dictionary factories
hate groups drumsticks
student loans ribmeat
firebomb pinecomb
terrible cell phones
survey says
“and the molt begins”
survey says


Process Notes = The secrets of Spoons.

When I came across the man outside handing out newspapers, I asked if this was his day job, to which he replied "it has been night since the Truman Doctrine," so I left in a huff. At some point soon after, my car ran out and I haven't heard from it since. The tokens I used to have for that one arcade place are worthless, not because the place has closed, although it has, but because these were tokens of love and respect, and what good do I have for old lasagne in those collapseable rubbermade containers? In England, containers are used as a form of housing, but they make sure you know that they are NOT collapseable. So What? What? That's always the question I get from people when they ask me about my collection of silverware. Especially strange because spoons are never considered for inclusion. I suppose that is strange, but in my mind, not as strange as the ripest mango or the cleanest tomato.

Seventeen was a good year, I suppose. I was not around for most of it. Although seventeen was in the middle of the Great War, and there was that whole Balfour thing in England where the West kinda did some doublespeak that led to the current Iraesli/Palestinian thing. But seventeen was a good year. As a number, seventeen can be broken down into many things, including 10 plus seven, three plus three plus three plus three and then a four followed by a one, etc. The most apt for this discussion would be two plus two followed by three, three, three, and then another two plus two. Seventeen is a good year.

Wikipedia says "AC/DC are a hard rock band formed in Sydney, Australia in 1973 by brothers Angus and Malcolm Young. The band are considered pioneers of hard rock, alongside bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath.Its members, however, have always classified their music as "rock 'n' roll"." That is not very apt to our current discussion, but is an interesting fact, nonetheless.

Miles Davis wrote a record that had something to do with Blue and things of that nature. Many "educated" college students, particularly those who attended liberal arts colleges, used this record liberally when seducing their mates. I have no experience with this period Miles Davis, although have found free-fusion-era Miles Davis much more successful. Miles Davis shares the name with a music instructor at one midwest liberal arts college, as a footnote.

Future Development

I like munster cheese.