A Million Years

Download MILLI0N1

The melody for this song came in a dream. It's all Celtic sounding! It's kind of sad. It's in continuing with the same old theme I've been working with for a while.

I stole the drums from Linkin Park.

And the dude talking is Eric Schweig.

Jesus, Mogie; Head-On With A Rock (8 Centuries Long); Not Here, Sir

This is the blog entry where I put in 3 songs all in a row. That's because I got all procrastinatey about putting songs on here. It's more songs that're based on samples of people talkin' in the movie, Skins.

Jesus, Mogie! (She Had A Banjo)

Download JESUM0G1

This is a song about Jesus being all worried about a girl, who has a banjo.

Head-On With A Rock (8 Centuries Long)

Download HEADON01

This is a song about getting hit on the head with a rock, and there being something about 800 years.

Not Here, Sir

Download NOTHERE1

 This is a song about a dude who's announcing that another dude died, but in military-style.

Sorry Herbie/That Was Rather Stupid of Me

This is a song about a man who drops a cake.

Download SORRYHRB

Wake Me Up in the Middle of the Road

GRASR00TSPeople

There's a lot more to this song than, um, would make for a short, pithy description. It's one o' those songs, where I thought it was about one thing, but it has layers upon layers of meaning that my unconscious cooked up, unbeknownst to the rest of me, when I was writing this song.

It's about bein' a blade of grass growing through a crack in the road.

It's about how people sometimes cruise for disaster and then don't even realize it until the disaster is well-under-way.

It's about the dude sayin' "yeah us grassroots people" in the movie.

And there're more layers to it, too, but as I said, it wouldn't be pithy enuff if I tried to describe 'em.

All of the Teenagers

All Of The Teenagers

This song is a part of that weird, ongoing project I've been working on, where I take samples of dudes talking and make them into songs. This is a song about this horrible little house where teenagers go and hang out and do drugs and stuff.

It's weird, cuz I keep thinking, "oh, this song has a good hook." Then I keep remembering that I didn't make it up, cuz it's the dude talking (The dude saying: "All of the teenagers around here use that place as a hangout") who made up the melody. I was just copying it when I sang the chorus hook-y thing. Oh well. I guess I don't care all that much cuz it's fun to make up stuff by copying other stuff cuz you can be lazy and not have to think of new stuff.

Also, this is the second recording with my new little recording device thingy. Little Larry's zip drive finally died, so I had to get a new machine. His name is Timmy.

Not As Politically Incorrect As It Appears On The Face Of Things

I dont talk to NDNs

I must provide a wee bit of explanation here so nobody thinks I'm a big, politically incorrect jerk. The guy in the song who sez, "I don't talk to Indians" is Native American, and he's sayin' it to be all ironic. He doesn't wanna talk to his brother cuz he's in a bad mood, and so he sez that.

This song is another one of those songs where dudes talking in Skins form the basis of the melody and all that. It was kinda nifty, and cool, too, that I stumbled upon a line of dialogue where the dude speakin' actually utters a tritone. Tritones are cool cuz they sound so weird.

The 2 dudes talkin'? Y'know? The 2 samples are taken from the same scene, but they're kinda unrelated (except they're talking in the same key). And the singing part, I dunno how related it is to what the 2 guys are sayin', neither.

See, yesterday, I took a nap and asked my unconscious mind to give me a dream about whatever song I was gonna write that day. The dream told me the lyrics of the first verse (yay). The dream also indicated that I should take dialogue from that particular scene. In a sense, then, all the stuff in this song is related, but the connections aren't apparent to the typical, average, common-garden-variety listener. The connections came from the unconscious, and those types of connections are always a bit weird and loose-seeming. Yesiree.

Technically speaking, although this song was derived from the same process as the ones on the album I'm working on, I know this song's gonna go on a different album.

Stupid Mister Yellow Lodge

All Our Birthdays Everyone

This is a song where one of the main characters (Mogie) feels all bad because he forgot his son's birthday, and he makes the observation: "Y'know, our dad forgot our birthdays, every one." This song is about how his dad (Mister Yellow Lodge) is not very nice. It's weird that it comes out that way - where I'm calling him "Mister," rather than "Sonny" (his first name), as if I'm singing from the point of view of a kid, cuz kids are more likely to call someone "Mister so and so" rather than their first name. It's like the song is from  the vantage point of someone who's the same age as Mogie back when his dad was forgetting all his birthdays.

It's weird because I think I may have completed the album I've been working on, but I'm still writing songs for it. I don't know if this'll be a bonus track or if there'll end up being a whole separate album or whatnot.

I'm a-plannin' on puttin' the whole album on this blog, all the songs in the proper order, and all that, but I gotta do a wee bit of re-mixing of some of the songs (or at least that's my excuse for not puttin' it out there right now, right fucking now).

If you're stumblin' across this part of the blog for the first time, see the earlier entries to see what I'm talking 'bout. Poopity poopy poopy ones.

Requiem for a Busted Windshield

Requiem 4 a busted windshie

A really cool person I know (his name is Kenny) happened to be outside when it was really windy. (Check out his blog: Kenny's Korner). Something odd and peculiar happened; the wind, as it was blowing around telephone poles and such, started making these sounds, as if there were human voices singing and flutes playing. Kenny happened to have his smart phone handy and recorded the wind sounds.

He very graciously sent me a couple of the wind recordings so I could play around with 'em and maybe make some music outta them.

Weirdly enough, this was the very same week that a big rock smacked into my windshield and did enuff damage that I had to get a new windshield. I felt really bad for the old one cuz it died, protecting me and my kitties, who were also inside the car. I was all sad and realized it would be nice to write a requiem song for my busted windshield.

My conscious mind is really slow on the uptake. I kept thinking, what does a busted WINDshield have to do with spirits, talking on the WIND? Duh. Wind, wind, wind, wind, wind.

Dip-shits And Dildos

Dipshits n dildos

This was kind of cool, man. Both of the main characters say "dipshits and dildos" at different times in the movie, so I made it so they're saying it at the same time, and it makes this cool, um, thingy.

This is a reprise of the "So He Can Get Bent Again" song. It's odd, because the "dipshits and dildos" part is kind of crude, but the music over it is kinda...I dunno...sacred sounding? My fear is that people will think I'm being all ironic, but oddly I don't feel ironic at all in the construction of this song. It all goes together in my mind, but I'm not sure why. Other people will probly think I'm all confused in the writing of this song or that all the parts don't go together.

It's funny, because to me, it's sort of a dream-come-true to have multiple male voices singing the same thing at the same time, as a fugue thingy, to accompany my female vocals. I oftentimes imagine my songs having something like that, but since I'm a girl, I have to make do with my female vocals. There's something cool about having low and high voices at the same time making a mix of cool stuff.

Anywayyyyyy.

Damn, hearing this singing of mine (the high harmony part, that is), it makes me realize that if I'd had vocal training, I could be a soprano. Or, I mean, if I had more training. I had 6 months of voice lessons. You probably can't tell. Ha ha ha.

In any event, I'm not entirely sure where this song'll fall in the big, long piece of music, when it's all put together cuz it sounds like it might be a last-song kind of song, the way it's all reprise-y of the first song and all that.

I'm also wondering if this odd, confusing piece of music I'm writing is a requiem. It might be a requiem. I'm not sure yet.

For anyone who's come on board this song cycle at this point in the game, I'd advise you to start out with the entry that has the So He Can Get Bent Again song in it. (In short, this is a weird rock symphony music-version-of-fanfiction thingy I'm doing. A minimalist industrial weird thingy where I'm tryin' to pay tribute to the Movie, Skins. 

Picture With No Song

It's odd because this song-cycle thingy is starting to have accompanying pictures of the characters in the movie and all that. It's becoming a cartoon song thingy. The song that goes with this picture - I'm not sure about sharing this song yet, so I didn't post it, but I liked the picture cuz it's got the 2 characters in it bein' kinda how they are. Or something.

He Was A Ghost

He Was A Ghost

I'm realizing to what extent this album-thingy is turning out to have an industrial flavor. The guy in the picture is driving away from a scene where he pretends to be a ghost. He's freaking out.

Oh, yeah, if you're all "what?" there's a more detailed explanation of what this album-thingy's about in one of the earlier entries down there. Actually, now that I think of it, to get the full impact of this album-in-the-making, it's probably best to start with "So He Can Get Bent Again" and work your way up.

Iktomi/In the Form of a Spider Update Poopy Poopy Ones

Iktomi extended

Okay, here's Iktomi part 2 (it's the same recording as the one I posted yesterday, but with a Grand Finale added to it). Well, actually, it's not a grand finale, so much as it's an extra chorus. It felt poopity-poop incomplete without one. Fartknockers.

The picture is of the same 2 characters as the ones in yesterday's entry, freakin' out about different types of stuff. In case you cain't read my messy writing, they're sayin': "Dude, why do we keep on having these freaky-ass hallucinations?" "I dunno."

Here's another picture of Iktomi, (or 2 pictures of him), but this time he's in his spider form. He shows up as both spiders and as humans sometimes. And sometimes he can be a rock.

In the Form of a Spider (Iktomi)

Iktomi2

Okay, wow. I realized after that last song that I accidentally started writing a rock symphony. Or maybe it's more of a rock opera - I'm not too sure. I was all wow. It's a minimalist rock whatever-you'd-call-it, where I take samplings of people talking in that movie, Skins, and I play 'em over and over and do a song over them.

Of course, as you know, I cain't take credit for that idear. Lots of people might think, wow, what a cool girl for thinking of that. No, nope. I fucking stole the idea from Steve Reich. He's written lots of pieces o' music with people talking and he figures out what the melody is of them and, um, repeats it with instruments or something.

Maybe it's okay that I stole an idea from him cuz I met him in person once. He was the guest Really-Smart-Person at Dartmouth for a term or so. Shit, okay, that sounded really narcissistic, eh. I just name dropped my hoity toity Ivy League education, as well as the fact that I MET a FAMOUS COMPOSER. Shit, yeah, wow, okay, I'm a narcissist.

In any event, my intention with this ever-so-large piece of music I'm working on is to tell the story of the movie, Skins (cuz it's my favorite movie in the world), with minimalist, weird industrial-ish rock music.

This song is sung from the perspective of Iktomi, the trickster spider, who plays a large role in that movie. The picture I used to illustrate the song ain't of a spider, per se. But those 2 characters have a lot of Iktomi in them. I think they're actually trickster figures who think they're heroes. I think that I'm also a trickster figure who thinks she's a hero. I think my life'll get a lot less complicated when I finally recognize my Iktomi-nature. But I haven't done that yet. Thank kind of sucks.

In any event, here's a song sung from the point of view of a spider. The chorus may not make sense to the common-garden-variety-listener, though, so I'll explain it a wee bit. See, I go to sweat lodges sometimes, and when I do, sometimes there're spiders in there. You see 'em comin' down on their webs, descending toward the hot stones.

People who do sweat lodges are really nice to animals, so we all attempt to save them if we can. In the case of the character in the song, well, poor Iktomi ends up trapped in the heat of the lodge. Fuck, I can't believe I was so mean to poor iktomi. I think he probably survives it, though. I think so.

Yeah, no, yeah, he totally survives it, now that I think of it. I mean, he is Iktomi, after all.

Big Man Every Time His Friends Are Around

Big Man EverytimeUrFriendsR

I did another experiment thingy of looping a person talking a sentence and having it turn into a melody, which, in turn, functions as a drone, and all that.

I cain't take credit for the rhythm, man. Dang, man. There was this really cool - I dunno - industrial? Techno? (I'm all dumb about telling music genres apart) - rhythm on a song on a teevee show. I liked it a lot, so I sampled the rhythm, and I thought I'd be all clever and make a new rhythm out of the drum sounds. But what happened was when I rearranged the drum sounds into a new rhythm, it sounded just like the old one. So, in a sense, like, I stole this here rhythm. Poopity poop.

The dude talking (from the same movie as the last song I got a loop thingy from), he's all concerned about his brother showing off in front of other people. That's, I guess, sort of what this song's about. The "big man every time your friends are around." [The movie's called Skins. It's good. You should watch it.]

Fartknockers.

I cain't tell if I'm just mixing up genres and generating a confusing product, or if the mix is more, like, better than that. Cuz I think the big-ass drums go really well with the whole liturgical soundingness of the rest of the song. I could be fooling myself, though. But, I keep on thinking that the song is big, like a big old pipe organ, or something dumb like that. All celestial or whatever. All big, the way celestial things tend to be.

(P.S., my apologies to the dude with the football. I didn't draw him all that accurately - he's actually a hottie hotterson in real life.)

So He Can Get Bent Again

So He Can Get Bent copy

I was, like, watching my favorite movie for the thousandth time, and I realized when the dude says "so he can get bent again," it was musical sounding.

See, I learned from good old Steve Reich that sometimes if you play a person saying a sentence over and over, it starts to sound like music, cuz people use different musical notes when they talk. It can make a nice little repeaty backing track and all that.

Update: April 11 - here's another picture for this song. It's s'posed to be the dudes in the movie, heh heh heh. 'Course, the grumpy guy is hotter in real life. In real life, he's a hottie hotterson from hot land.

The Scale

The scale

Oddly enough, I was psychic when I wrote this song. I had no idea there was a scale that would change two weeks afterwards. Or was it 1 week? This is such a freaky-ass time in my life, that a week feels like a year. Poop.

2 For The Price Of One

I want my money

42

The first song is about not having money (and the inherent suckworthyness of it).

The second song is about the number 42.

The Boring World

The boring world part 1

Oh, dude, I can't believe I wrote a song about The Boring World. Dang. There'll probably be many more to come after this one.

It would take a long time to explain what The Boring World is, yes. Yes, yes. What can I say about The Boring World? I guess the picture above is a pretty good description of it.

Okay, wow, yeah. So, the A-Phrase I got from a dream. That's probably why it's a bit more complex than the stuff I usually write. That dreaming-brain tends to be smarter in some ways than a waking brain.

I'm worried, though, cuz I don't know if I accidentally ripped off another song. I hope not. I'm wondering if I did. If so, then I do apologize to whoever wrote whatever song I accidentally ripped off. Like, whoops.

That's one problem with the dreaming-brain. Sometimes it doesn't give a shit if a song's already been written or not.

I had a cold when I recorded this. You might be able to tell because of the nasal-ness of the vocals. Oh, well.