On February 5th of this year, I turned 30. It wasn't a huge deal to me, but it's the kind of event that makes one reflect on things. The state of his life, love, and pursuit of happiness, for example. I came to the conclusion that I have a wonderful life. If you're reading this, you're probably one of the reasons that my life is so great. In the love department, I'm doing pretty well too. I live with the two most beautiful women in the world. Only one of them wears Huggies, so that's a plus.
I'm not exactly sure what the "pursuit of happiness" actually means, but making music has always made me happy. With that in mind, I decided to start a music project for my 30th year. I'm going to write twelve original songs, one each month, as a kind of musical retrospective on this first part of my life. Each one will attempt to address a moment from the last 30 years.
Maybe. I don't know how it will turn out. In fact, I'm relatively certain that I won't make any of my self-imposed deadlines or reach any goals of quantity/quality. I reserve the right to change the rules at any time. That's right. It's my show.
I only have one request for the listeners: PLEASE don't make any positive comments about the music unless you actually like what you hear. This really isn't a fishing expedition. I'm sharing it with you because you mean something to me and I thought you might be interested in how I'm spending my late nights. I sincerely hope you like it, but that's not really the point. Again, I'm not looking for compliments on the quality of the recordings or my (admittedly awesome) guitar/keyboard/vocal skills.
Oh yeah, not so crazy about negative comments either.
Thursday, March 4
Friday, March 6
Song #1 - February
Download the first song here
[Edit: There may be a problem downloading the song with some browsers. You can download this and all future songs from here: www.freewebs.com/largeelasticband/tracks.html
Let me know if you have any problems.]
Now what am I supposed to say? I guess I started this blog as a way to talk about my music project and to publish the songs so that they would all be in one place. But I never really thought about what else to put in the song posts. Hmmm. I'm not going to really discuss what the songs are about. I toyed with the idea of putting the lyrics for each song up here. Now I'm not so sure about that. Seems a little personal or maybe just a little too much information. What does that leave? Boring, nerdy, music-tech analysis? You're not that lucky!
Well, I worked on this one for most of February. It's very hard for me to find time to do the vocal tracks because I do most of my recording in the middle of the night when the rest of the house is asleep. So I was frustratingly close to finishing for about 10 days. The drums are a little high in the mix and this mp3 sounds pretty compressed. You can really notice the loss in quality from mp3 format sometimes. Trust me, it sounds waaaaaaaaay better at my house.
This song has a little bit of piano. That won't happen often. I suck at the piano and it makes me sad. Other than that, I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. This is the first song that I've recorded in at least three years. It took forever to get the equipment tweaked and balanced just so. That's never been my favorite part of the process, but once it was over, everything came together. It was really fun.
Next song is already in progress. Should be done on time. I just need to find a marching band, theremin, and a master of the Malagasy valiha. It's gonna be crazy!
If you need the main song download page again:
http://www.freewebs.com/largeelasticband/tracks.html
Right click on the song title and select "Save Target As."
[Edit: There may be a problem downloading the song with some browsers. You can download this and all future songs from here: www.freewebs.com/largeelasticband/tracks.html
Let me know if you have any problems.]
Now what am I supposed to say? I guess I started this blog as a way to talk about my music project and to publish the songs so that they would all be in one place. But I never really thought about what else to put in the song posts. Hmmm. I'm not going to really discuss what the songs are about. I toyed with the idea of putting the lyrics for each song up here. Now I'm not so sure about that. Seems a little personal or maybe just a little too much information. What does that leave? Boring, nerdy, music-tech analysis? You're not that lucky!
Well, I worked on this one for most of February. It's very hard for me to find time to do the vocal tracks because I do most of my recording in the middle of the night when the rest of the house is asleep. So I was frustratingly close to finishing for about 10 days. The drums are a little high in the mix and this mp3 sounds pretty compressed. You can really notice the loss in quality from mp3 format sometimes. Trust me, it sounds waaaaaaaaay better at my house.
This song has a little bit of piano. That won't happen often. I suck at the piano and it makes me sad. Other than that, I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. This is the first song that I've recorded in at least three years. It took forever to get the equipment tweaked and balanced just so. That's never been my favorite part of the process, but once it was over, everything came together. It was really fun.
Next song is already in progress. Should be done on time. I just need to find a marching band, theremin, and a master of the Malagasy valiha. It's gonna be crazy!
If you need the main song download page again:
http://www.freewebs.com/largeelasticband/tracks.html
Right click on the song title and select "Save Target As."
Tuesday, March 18
Song #2 - March
Download the second song here.
If you would like the song download page, click here.
I started out thinking that these songs would be loosely autobiographical. Each one would cover some formative event from the last 30 years. Some of them will be like that, but this one is not. When you listen, you'll understand why I wanted to clear that up immediately. You know how sometimes you get a slightly devious or naughty idea and for some reason you just keep making it more devious and more naughty just for kicks? That's kind of how this song got started.
Coldplay had a secret song on the end of their first album called, "Life is for Living." Coldplay isn't one of my favorites, but they're just fine and I'm surprised by their level of success since people tend to like absolute shit. Anyway, I always thought that song was beautiful, but a little too short. One day, I was trying to think of extra verses and I began to wonder what the lyrics might be like if Chris Martin weren't rich, handsome, adored by millions, and married to a pretty actress. Courtney Love was once asked how she felt about Liz Phair (I'm name-checking a weird cast of characters today). Love said something like, "I like Liz, but I wonder if Liz has ever had a bad day like the rest of us?" That's kind of how I feel about Chris Martin.
That's not to say that I've had too many bad days either, but Martin's lyrics always seem to be so consciously striving for that awwwww factor. I mean, "look at the stars, look how they shine for you." C'mon, are you kidding me? Has the man never been jilted? So I guess this song is my way of imagining what might happen if Coldplay replaced Martin with someone a little darker.
This song came together really quickly. I put the tracks down in two days and cut the mix right away. Normally, I would sit on the mix for a while and fiddle with things, making minor adjustments for days and days. It's always difficult for me to finally decide when a song is finished. I'm not a perfectionist, but I definitely subject myself to harsh scrutiny. So I often re-record tracks incessantly. It's a good thing I was born in the digital age or else I would have burned through miles of magnetic tape.
This time I just decided that it was going to sound a little rough. If there were vocal imperfections, they were just part of the vibe. If something was a little off the beat, then it was meant to be. It just didn't seem right to go for any sheen and polish here.
If you would like the song download page, click here.
I started out thinking that these songs would be loosely autobiographical. Each one would cover some formative event from the last 30 years. Some of them will be like that, but this one is not. When you listen, you'll understand why I wanted to clear that up immediately. You know how sometimes you get a slightly devious or naughty idea and for some reason you just keep making it more devious and more naughty just for kicks? That's kind of how this song got started.
Coldplay had a secret song on the end of their first album called, "Life is for Living." Coldplay isn't one of my favorites, but they're just fine and I'm surprised by their level of success since people tend to like absolute shit. Anyway, I always thought that song was beautiful, but a little too short. One day, I was trying to think of extra verses and I began to wonder what the lyrics might be like if Chris Martin weren't rich, handsome, adored by millions, and married to a pretty actress. Courtney Love was once asked how she felt about Liz Phair (I'm name-checking a weird cast of characters today). Love said something like, "I like Liz, but I wonder if Liz has ever had a bad day like the rest of us?" That's kind of how I feel about Chris Martin.
That's not to say that I've had too many bad days either, but Martin's lyrics always seem to be so consciously striving for that awwwww factor. I mean, "look at the stars, look how they shine for you." C'mon, are you kidding me? Has the man never been jilted? So I guess this song is my way of imagining what might happen if Coldplay replaced Martin with someone a little darker.
This song came together really quickly. I put the tracks down in two days and cut the mix right away. Normally, I would sit on the mix for a while and fiddle with things, making minor adjustments for days and days. It's always difficult for me to finally decide when a song is finished. I'm not a perfectionist, but I definitely subject myself to harsh scrutiny. So I often re-record tracks incessantly. It's a good thing I was born in the digital age or else I would have burned through miles of magnetic tape.
This time I just decided that it was going to sound a little rough. If there were vocal imperfections, they were just part of the vibe. If something was a little off the beat, then it was meant to be. It just didn't seem right to go for any sheen and polish here.
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