Sorry I didn't get a song in last week - I was on vacation back home and unfortunately did not have access to any recording equipment. Hopefully in the future my setup can be a bit more portable.
In any event, I ended up adding some distorted guitars to this one. And then I added more. And here I am now, right?
Rob's out of town this week, so this is just me on this one.
So I was sitting around depressed this weekend trying to psych myself up. Â All I need is to feel a little better, right, and then I just get up off my ass and do... Â whatever it is that will better my station in life, right? Go get some cool clothes and some shades, right? Maybe clean up a little bit, eh?
Well that never really let up over the week, and session wizard King Solomon was feeling even worse than I since his cat escaped and hasn't returned yet. So that reflects a bit in what we have here. It's a long song with just piano and vocals (Rob on piano) that laments the necessity of blind eyed optimism in the face of the modern world.
Maybe this is relevant? I dunno.
Enjoy!
So some close friends of mine were married this weekend. The entire time I guess I had my eye on this one girl, and what was I thinking? She was involved with someone, or something. Anyway.
This song is about longing and having an active imagination and filling a little invented reality with vague possibilities, then filling in the blanks with anxiety. I wrote it in the hotel room for the most part.
Drummer King Solomon brings in one of those old plastic organs, drums, bass, and some classical guitar which isn't totally audible if I'm going to be totally honest.
Here's a picture of a dinosaur.
Last weekend was my designated time for making a Hella Gem, but that was taken up by sickness and worry over my cat who I had to put to sleep on Saturday, so I abandoned my personal responsibility for grief.
In lieu of something fresh, here is a demo I literally recorded at work last April, vocals and all. I've been working on re-recording it for a Hella Gem instead of posting this but I suppose that can just wait for an eventual album instead. The vocal performance features cameo appearances by one of my co-workers on the radio and the sound of Projector #8. I used the microphone built into the laptop to record the vocal. Frankly, I'm surprised it is listenable at all.
As to the structure, it repeats the same two basic chord structures but I changed the vocal melody from a "verse" to a "chorus" when appropriate. That's sort of a folk song thing to do, I suppose. Enjoy this super rough cut, with the usual wordless vocal improvisation.
It's called "The Ballad of Danger" because I recorded two songs that day... the other was called "The Ballad of Hope" (and was not nearly as good).
I'm heading to a wedding tomorrow, so I'm going to go ahead and post this.
This song is about my fear that the emotional detachment necessary to deal with the world will dehumanize me.
