Kindling for the Master: the Malkmus Cover

Ok this is several months old but I have nothing new so I am going back a bit. One of my all time favorite songwriters is Stephen Malkmus. For those unlucky enough not to know, SM was the leader and primary songwriter for the greatest indie band ever. they were called pavement and they were the bomb.

I am something of a regular on the Malkmus message board (the only one i post to really) and there is a nice little community of bookish, very funny, and interesting posters. Many of us are musicians (or like to think of ourselves as that). Many of us went in to cover pavement or malkmus songs. There have been two collections so far. This song comes fromt he second. maybe I will post the first at a later date.

Download the song here

(if you are not familiar with the original, grab it HERE)

So, “Kindling for the Master”…

This song is from the album “Face the Truth”. An album that has divided malkmus fans. It is an album that was recorded in his basement and is mostly “just him” without his excellent backing band, The Jicks. The album was a hodgepodge of all different styles. From sucessfull (and failed) expirements to standard “jicks” tunes. Some hate it, some love it. I think about 60% is ace and the rest is good for the rubbish bin.

This song is, in fact, in my opinion, one in the later category. After the first round, where i covered a song I really wanted to, I had no desire to cover any other song. Someone (I think it was you, swede), suggested choosing the song I liked the least, and cover that one.

Stephen Malkmus’s Version

This falls into the failed experiment category. Its something of a techno weird-out. it’s all fake drums, keyboards, quirky guitar parts, sampled vocals (or at least processed vocals) and it all really doesn’t go anywhere. It’s not even a good failure. Its just bland.

Malkmus vs. Britney

There is a whole side story that i will not go into. (see the Spears 50 Post game link on kebabdylan.com) but… when I started working on this version, i was working on covering “piece of me” by mrs. spears. I quit working on it, to do this song. so i decided to imploy the same methodology to Malkmus as I was using with Britney.

My Version of Kindling

In short, here was my challenge. keep the lyrics and melody, but rewrite – entirely -  the music. It was what I was doing with the britney song, so I decided to do it with this one.

The song starts of with an intro. This is a pretty obvious example of what I was trying to do. The intro in the original song is pretty much just static G chord with a simple 4 note melody (b-c-d-g).

I kept the melody but the chords are changed to:

G | D#m | Em | D#m | Bm | C#+5dim  | E/C+5dim

There is the guitar part along with several midi tracks orchestrating it. The original is primariy midi, so I wanted to make sure I had a lot as well. and i do.

Next it kicks into the chorus which melodically is just a two note melody, which gave me a lot of freedom to do pretty much what I wanted to do with it. In Malkmus’s version, it is a one chord chorus. In my version it is a very active, somewhat non-traditional, progression (with the two note melody on top). The progression uses several diminished notes and turns out to be:

A | G | B | Bb | E | Eb | D

The main verses also deviate from the original. I honestly do not know what they original is. Once I got the melodies down, I stopped listening to the song. Main verses turned out to be:

Em | Em7 | Ab G  | Eb

The one part that returns to the original is the last part where the basic chords are  E G A. It is out of order, due to my not listening to the song much. oops.

I did throw in a nod to talking heads with the synth part. Filling in the space I took the basic melody and bent the notes with the little bender thing on my keyboard. Making many of the notes go slightly out of tune. I got a sound that resembled Houses in Motion -  the bumble bee sound, as my dad once called it.

The last part is just guitar parts building up to the conclusion, which turns out not that different from the original.

Download the song here

Ziggy 2000

This week I am taking a sidetrip down memory lane. I have mentioned the detholz in past posts. Not only friends and great musicians, but a great band. They do a halloween show that is a must see if you live in chicago land. I will post a detholz related song at the end but this is about my first detholz experieince. One of legendary preportions…

Ziggy

I was at a conference in sunny california about 6 months ago. The reception had a hollywood theme with impersonaters walking around. Your regulars, marilynn monroe, clark gable, etc…

Did I mention Clark Gable? He had a “could not be natural” tan and gave off an overall creepy vibe. Several of us noticed it and it became the subject of conversation. That’s when I said “It reminds me of the scariest David Bowie impersonater…”

That is when, Brian, who I have worked with for 4 years, turned to me and dropped the bomb. “Oh, Ziggy 2000!” Who is Ziggy 2000 and what does this have to do with the Detholz?

The first detholz show I saw was in chicago at the Big Horse Saloon. They were sandwiched between Alison Kenady and Ziggy 2000. I could write an entire post on Miss Alison as well. It was a memorable night. (just one anecdote: For one song, she used a drop-d tuning along with her companion on 12 string. I took a good 5 minutes to get that done. only to play one song and then 5 more minutes to tune back up to e).

In the words of my work mate, responding to my lifting my jaw off the floor and shouting “do not tell me you know who ziggy 2000 is !!!!”

“yeah. I never saw him, but I friends that did. they said they couldn’t describe the show other than its the scariest thing you will ever experience”

That about sums it up. Here are some of the things I remember.

• “Do not forget to tip your mexican bartender” said repeatedly throughout the set. It was a mexican resturant.
• Ziggy, floating above a bundle of balloons singing Major Tom
• A feeling of complete panic everytime ziggy got near the audience (especially anywhere near me).
• Jim Cooper, getting up to go to the restroom (requiring one to walk up near the stage), and Ziggy shouting “Where the f#$k are you going!” – a frightened Mr. Cooper half jumping and looking at us.
• Ziggy 2000, rolling on the floor with a 8×12 glossy of Donald Trump
• Ziggy 2000 simulating being felated by said 8×12 glossy of Donald Trump

did I miss anything?

What I also remember from that night:

• hearing sunburned in the sun for the first time and just being absolutely floored by that song.
• hearing Mr. roboto with detholz treatment
• pretty much not being able to follow anything they were doing on guitar
• meeting up with old college friends
• figuring out who Jim Cooper was in college (oh, its the neil young guy!)
• did I say being blown away by how good the detholz were?

To this day, that show lives in my memory as something special. The detholz may have been upstaged by a psychotic bowie impersonater, but only by a little.

The other show that has a special place in my heart is the one and only Jukebox of the Dead show I have been able to attend in chicago. I still remember the chills as they opened with Susudio. I remember, Jim barking out the words to live a virgin, with eyeliner melting down is pale corpse like face (nice combo there).

I am hoping to attend this year. If you live in the chicagoland area, you need, and I mean you really need, to go to the show. Get tickets. It will probably sell out again like last year. here is what you need to know:

Jukebox of the Dead IX
“Detholz! FLEX!”
w/special guests Aleks and the Drummer & Hood Internet
Friday, October 31, 2008
Empty Bottle
1035 N Western Avenue
Chicago, IL
Buy tickets at www.emptybottle.com

A Heavenly Way – my detholz tribute

And here is a link to a song I wrote called “A heavenly way” which was my attempt to rip off completely the Detholz! It’s many years old and imitates the “classic” detholz which included, ridiculous time signatures, dissonant chords, erratic chord changes, odd runs, and slightly off kilter lyrics.

None of which, at the time, did i have any experience with. So I challenged myself to write something like that. I will leave it there except to say the lyrics for the verses were based on the lyrics for Michael W. Smith’s “friends”. On of the worse songs every. I would take a line from that song (which had long flowing lines) and remove words to make a short line from it. IE. “packing up the dreams god planted” = “packing up god planted”

here is a link: http://tinyurl.com/3osn83