The Newts Of Night

Here's a fun little experiment!! I have friends who are talented in the Electronica music scene, but I'm not terribly well versed in it myself...I find that I keep hearing things in a more concise, song-formed structure. So this was me just fooling around with MIDI and loop collage, but I like the way it turned out. Recorded, as you might imagine, very late at night. I think the textures are hypnotic and pleasing, but I'm biased. And anytime I can get a digeridoo happening in a song, it makes my day better!! Anyhow, hope you enjoy it.

Another Fool

Jumping slightly out of the sequence of YouTube postings for this one, just because it felt like the right song for the day!! I wrote this song while on the road touring with Michael Katon, on a borrowed guitar in someone's basement apartment we were staying at between shows. I like the way the lyrics turned out, and I'm pretty happy with the overall recording! I did this one quickly for my Song-A-Week challenge, so I didn't think too hard about things, which was really helpful. Keys and Percussion are done with loop generation software, and Bass, Guitar and Vocals are all me. I double-tracked the Vocals in parts of the chorus. On the guitar solo I think I was aiming for a Carlos Santana sound, but sort of wound up in Earnie Isley's "Who's That Lady?" territory. Of course the aforementioned are geniuses, and there are so many of my friends who are brilliant guitarists who can play rings around me! But I feel that I can pull out a nice melodic solo now and then, and this one was pleasing to me, and a first take, too, which was nice.

The song itself came from a conversation with a friend of mine who was waxing cynical about the nature of love, saying that it was all just chemical in nature and really just an illusion. I kind of though he was protesting a bit too much, and that there was some back story that might explain his opinion. And, actually, there was. We all get hurt at some time in our lives, we all get our hearts broken, but I still think that love is real, and worth it.  

Lyrics:

ANOTHER FOOL

He says, “Love is a lie of nature, sent here to wreck your mind

A genetic time bomb, it sets you up and then it leaves you blind”

He’s talking like he’s so immune, like he’s already seen it all

But I’m thinking that pretty soon another fool is gonna have to fall

He says, “Yeah, it’s just a fact of science, man, all the proof is strong

It's just a chemical stimulus, and it doesn't last all that long"

He likes to think that he's so in tune that he'll never ever hear the call

But I'm thinking that pretty soon another fool is gonna have to fall 

Gonna have to fall, gonna have to fall

Gonna have to fall, gonna have to fall

You can hide in your own cathedral,

You can lock the doors to your keep

And you can bury yourself in your guitar -

Love it knows your scent and sound

And it's gonna track you down

Doesn't matter who or where you are

In a secret room where he never goes, there's her picture there

There's a secret part of himself, whispers out that it's still not fair

But time's gonna heal his wounds and it's gonna break down his walls

And I'm thinking that pretty soon, another fool is gonna have to fall

 

The Strange Parade

I do like this one!! This is a song I wrote some time ago, partially inspired by the Anime movie Paprika by Satoshi Kon, the brilliant director who also created Millennium Actress & the wonderful Tokyo Godfathers. I highly recommend his work, which really stretched both the field of Anime and the art of storytelling in major ways. He sadly passed away in 2010, but he leaves a fascinating and moving legacy.

When I wrote and recorded this I originally did it just on the acoustic guitar, tuned in an open tuning (I think DGDGAD), and with a shaker loop to keep my timing honest in case I wanted to add something later. MUCH later, I added a percussion track. Later still, when I was working on my Crazy Project (I was challenging myself to finish a song a week), I contacted my old friend Paul Vornhagen to help with a flute track. Paul is a wonderful guy and a fantastic multi-instrumentalist, an accomplished Jazz musician and very knowledgeable about Latin music, and Cuban music in particular. He agreed to come in and laid down two takes of flute, both of which were great. I took a bit from one and a bit from another, edited that just a little, but very little.  I re-recorded my vocal (I'd had a scratch track I put up just before Paul got there), and added a bass part, and that was that!! A little mixing and mastering stuff and I was finished.

The theme of this song is something that I feel more and more as time goes on...we're all haunted. If you live long enough, you will be. Time presents us with ghosts, in the form of memories, of old feelings that appear in the middle of the night to surprise, scare or delight you. I think the best thing we can do is to be aware of their presence, because then you can try to deal with them accordingly. Either embrace them, fight them or let them go, but don't ignore them. That's the dangerous option!!! 

Nocturnal Dreamwalk (Theme From "The Vampires Of Cleveland")

Here's an experimental bit from a while back...I was having fun with heavily echoed guitar and strange female vocal loops, and it turned into this kind of spooky thing that I rather like. Loops, keyboards...I was taking loops of my own playing and incorporating them in the mix, I'm pretty sure that the bass is all mine, and the various layers of keyboards...the guitar was all played live, with the Cubase plugins providing the spacey echo. I enjoyed working with these singers, although I have no idea who they really are. This sounds very soundtrack-y to me, hence the name. Alas, "The Vampires Of Cleveland" was never produced!! But you never know, it might be, sometime.

Cynthia has told me that at some point I should release an instrumental album. Being as no one seems to have interest in either albums or instrumental music these days, it would have the advantage of being doubly obscure!! But I might just do it. Heck, who knows what I'll do.

Shooting Stars

In my ongoing attempt to get all my videos up in an accessible space, I'm putting up this one...hope you like it! Early this year I decided that I'd try to finish a song and a video every week for a month, just to get myself back into the studio. It's a project that's actually still going on, although I'm not quite at that level of productivity now. Shooting Stars was the first of that attempt...written some time back, I had actually found that I'd done some of the rhythm tracks long ago and forgotten them (drums, bass, organ)...which speaks to my organizational capacity or lack thereof! But anyway, I still liked the sound of them, so I built the rest of it up off of that, and I think it works...I was keeping myself going with the time constraint that I'd agreed with myself on, so any bumps and flaws, well, that's all part of what's going on.  As I say, you don't like it, go do your own darn tune!

This song is another one I wrote about my friend Alan Leis, a pal I used to play music with back in the early Jurassic period. A talented drummer and a sweet guy, he could pretty much pick up any instrument and make some music with it, something I was pretty impressed with. We had many adventures, musical and otherwise, and then drifted into our separate lives. He passed away much too young, and reflecting on that I wrote this song and the song Technicolor Summer, both about my memories of him and my musings on time, life and the Universe. Yeh, I wish he could have hung around longer, it would have been interesting to talk about things at this juncture. Miss you, man.

I'll be going up the timeline from now on with this vlog, posting these videos in the order that I originally put them up on YouTube, with what commentary I can include. Please let me know if you have any questions about anything, or if you enjoy these, or if you'd really like me to just stop it for gosh sake. You've got my number.

                            
                                            THE SHOOTING STARS

                                  Up in the hills in midnight Michigan

Watching as the meteors cut the air

They start to burn up when they hit this planets’ sky

I can’t help thinking now how they seem like you and I

We flew in on fire in our Technicolor past

Even then we knew that ride was never gonna last

Your accelerated fall was sure something to see

You were always faster then than I could ever be

You were always so much more than me

I’m tired of fightin’, I’m tired of  cryin’,

I’m tired of bitin’ on this cold iron

I know up in the sky another eye looks down on me

And I’m afraid of what that eye might see

The shooting stars are falling fast and free

When it all came down we were still young in a young world

Never thought I’d get this old at all

Here in the cold autumn with the strange celestial glow

I wonder if I missed the place that I was supposed to go

How will I ever know

I’m tired of fightin’, I’m tired of  cryin’,

I’m tired of bitin’ on this cold iron

I know up in the sky another eye looks down on me

And I’m afraid of what that eye might see

The shooting stars are falling fast and free

I haven’t always been the man I thought that I should be

Wonder if it matters anyway

When I finally flame out and my soul turns into smoke

I might get to see you and to share that final toke

And appreciate the joke

I’m tired of fightin’, I’m tired of  cryin’,

I’m tired of bitin’ on this cold iron

I know up in the sky another eye looks down on me

 

Chase That Chicken

Here's another song from the as yet (at this time ) unreleased album "Atomic Weasel Ball". I did this just so Cynthia could have a little video documenting her first chicken flock...but I had the song already, so it seemed like a natural fit. More loopery, as was evident on much of AWB. I would like to do a more elaborate video someday, with special effects, people in chicken costumes dancing around and me in salty overalls and a straw hat, but this'll have to do for now. Chickens, by the way, have got to be some of the dumbest animals nature ever provided, but therein lies some of their charm, I guess. And the fresh eggs are marvelous!!

CHASE THAT CHICKEN

You say you're lookin' for something to do

I've got something just for you

Tired of livin' out on the farm

You say that the country has lost it's charm

Here's a thing that'll change your mind

Leave that old ennui behind

You might think it's a little strange

But hear me out till I've had my say

Chase That Chicken

Feathers flyin' everywhere

Chickens flyin' through the air

Try it once and you will see

Get a taste for fine poultry

Chasing chickens gives a boost

Better than the books of Marcel Proust

You might even surprise yourself

And get like Gonzo and The Swedish Chef

Chase That Chicken

Chase that chicken all around

Chase it till you get downtown

Chase the one that you like best

Buy that one a party dress

Take that chicken to a movie show

No one else is gonna have to know

Chickens, yeah, they're gonna blow your mind

And you'll have to shift your paradigm

Chase That Chicken

The World Outside

Here's a song from a while back, from the album "Atomic Weasel Ball"...that's STILL unreleased!! I really was gonna put it out, but so much was happening in my life at the time I was finishing it that I put it aside and let it sit. That said, I still think it's got some pretty cool stuff on it and I promise to get that going very soon. Your waiting will be rewarded...by more waiting, as Dave Brockie from GWAR used to say. Anyhow, I'm fond of this tune, and I like the way the video turned out too. I originally wrote this with my wife Cynthia's mother in mind, as she was going through some very difficult times with dementia...she asked me once at breakfast if I was the one who had come to pour milk in her eyes. I assured her I had no intention of doing that, but the phrase stuck with me. So partial writing credit to Ellen.

The album "Atomic Weasel Ball" was started shortly after "Arphus", and was kind of a reaction to it, I think. I'd been working on playing almost all of the tracks myself for so long, and I was pretty sick of hearing myself and my own licks. This was when I started doing songs that were all, or nearly all, created from loops, mostly just for fun at first and without the intention of making finished songs. I had really resisted the idea of this early on, because A. I hadn't actually played those bits and B. I didn't want to be "Led by the nose" with the pre-recorded material. But as time went by my perspective changed. True, the easiest thing to make with loops was bad-sounding Hip Hop, but with some time and work I found that I could create tracks that sounded very musical. And I'd certainly used other musicians before for tracks! These guys were just not in the room at the time. I'd had to edit studio musicians tracks, too. The other part, the being led...well, I'd been led by my own licks and limitations, and using some other people's  was helping me generate new ideas, ones that neither I or the artists who made the loops had had before. It was all in the juxtaposition of different small bits, and the manipulation of them...some are cut in even smaller pieces and shuffled, some are modulated to different keys, some are reversed, and many are all three...and there are a lot of other manipulations. It's really a bit like collage, in a way, except in an audio format. So for good or ill, I started getting kind of loopy. This song is all loops...I'm not actually playing any other instruments than the Acid Pro 6 and the Cubase 5. Oh, and singing.

 The lyric content on this song is, as I've said, about aging, and about memory loss and confusion, and about my hopes and ideas of reality and afterlives. It looks from the video as though I believe that after we die, we apparently turn into birds, butterflies and sunlight. And who knows, perhaps we do. I still like the quote concerning reality from Robert Anton Wilson..."I don't believe in anything, but I have my suspicions". I certainly have strong suspicions!! I have plenty of anecdotal evidence from my own experiences, but proof...well, all I can say is that we'll all find out someday. As I said in the song, I really don't think there's anything to be afraid of. I don't think the Universe hates us. In fact, it may be quite the opposite! All the best to you out there.