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 http://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

The dagger is there where you left it

ok. I am  back. I have recorded two malkmus/pavement covers but that is not for today.

You can download the track at http://tinyurl.com/6l6b28

here is a new song. called “the dagger is there where you left it”. I posted it over at the sonar message boards and its getting some nice reviews. mostly about the song title.

Subject Matter

It is a happy little ditty about child abuse  – or more specifically, the tendency for it to keep “coming back” to haunt/resurface in a victim’s life. I will not go into the motivation.  I will post the lyrics.

About the song

So some interesting things about this one. First. I am ridiculously happy with how this turned out. I rarely don’t like songs that make it all the way to completion, but some make me happier than others.

It is a “big” song sonically. There are a gazillion tracks and yeah some things get lost in the mix but it is not a mess like the last one.

Second, generally songs go their own way when I record because all the arrangements, drums, keys are all missing when I start. This one turned out exactly like I thought it would. I sounds the same as what was in my head before recording. that rarely happens.

And third, i can’t point to anything that influenced the song. generally I can say “sounds like pavement” or “sounds like sonic youth” or some other reference point. All i can say is “the cure? maybe?… if you squint?”

Song Title

as I said, this has gotten some good reviews over at the cakewalk forums. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE mentioned the title. I encapsulates the anger, bitterness, cynicism, sarcasm that the song voices. I am really happy (happy?) with the title and the line of the song it is from.

Songwriting

this started with the very simple guitar part (listen to the first part of verse one). That was it. I tuned up the Low E to F for this one (like the last song) so i guess it’s technically an alternate tuning song. I knew the verse part was in F but I didn’t really have any idea what I was playing. It’s based on the drone of A – E.  The chorus was completely by ear and just tooling around. I had no idea what I was playing until i started incorporating keyboards into it.

Turns out the verse is along the lines of F – C -Dm – A – G (sorta). The chorus changes keys. and I am kind of playing with chords with G D7 C Bm D A G Gm. In the chorus  the bass notes are generally not the root note of the chord (D – D – C – B  – D – Db B – Bm)

Recording

I started by laying down the primary guitars. Then a ton of midi tracks.  Vocals, then lead guitars and the “ohs” midi tracks. I did reuse the distorted guitar dropped an octave with trusty plugin. ( i will have to thank jim cooper of detholz.wordpress.com for suggesting NI guitar rig plugin). I am starting to use that almost exclusively. Used to be a amplitube guy myself.

The midi tracks use a couple of orchestra sounds, the trusty “guitar harmonic” sound which i am smitten with. I use several of the Oh’s sounds during the chorus and ended up using a couple of old school synth sounds as well.

vocals have verse tracks and chorus  tracks (they overlap) and the distorted vox and harmony vox tracks. I doubled the primary guitar, added another distorted guitar sparingly, and too leads for the near end section.

all in all, this is a good 30+ tracks.

Good decisions

I generally double track all my vocals. in this case when I did that, it was bad bad bad. Because in the chorus, certain notes are held for longish period of time, and i am not good enough to hold those notes in pitch… it sounded HORRIBLE. So I ditched the double. and yes, much better.

The build up

Biggest challenge was to create a convincing and non-boring build up at the start of the song. It goes a minute + before any singing. I am still working on it, actually. I am good with long songs but I have become more conscious that not everyone has my patience for my songs. Once it gets going it’s pretty efficient. I am attempting to get in a groove and then as it all just stops, and the singing begins over a single guitar part, the effect, if plan goes as planned, should be jarring. I really like the second stanza and the reintroduction of the pounding rhythm.

so all in all. a big song. I am happy. good song title. hope you like it. here are the lyrics:

do not turn to me and smile
like everything is fine
i will not play your child
no, not when the child is mine

when you had all the power
and my hands were bound with twine
I suffered it in silence
I will not hold my tongue this time

because i have not forgotten
what you cannot deny
when the dagger is there were you left it

i thought that this was over
thought that we had found our home
i thought we stopped the bleeding
thought that we had set the bone

so do not turn to me and smile
everything is fine
when the dagger is there were you left it

because i have not forgotten
what you cannot deny
when the dagger is there were you left it

a bitter taste

so this was going to be the “what a disaster this song was” post but I think I may have eecked out an ok song after all.

Download the song now!

A Little Background

The Historian: A Novel.

So I hate writing lyrics and really have nothing to say to anyone. So I decided to write songs about the books I was reading. In the past I have blogged about “closed circuit” and “break you down” — both songs in the series. (look for “a week in the always” shortly)

This song may have killed that project.

Enjoyable enough, the novel “The historian” was a vampire/dracula novel that was kinda like the “davinci code” for Vlad the Impaler. How do you write a convincing song about dracula? Well, I tried.

Music

The verses are in sets of three’s with each pass building. It’s in standard tuning (sort a). I tuned the low E up to F on this one. The verses are all anchored in A. Primary changes are between A and F by inverting two notes / fingers on the guitar. Then comes some diminished chords and a Dminor thown in. All still anchored by that A bass note.

Then comes the chorus which has my favorite chord to date (the second one). Something like a C#7, not really sure. There is a move between Fmaj and Dmaj and I emphasize the F -> F#. Then comes the second part of the chorus which is half step walk down from C with some math rock timing. — Did I mention this is a ridiculously ambitious song with a gazzillion different parts all working together?

after the chorus you got the RAWKIN Bam bam bam… bam. I did some noodling in there. I wanted it to be sloppy but ended up just sounding clunky so I added the two wailing guitars to distract from the clunkiness.

The ending goes on forever, but I like it. It builds to a really simply little melody that I thought called for repetition. I actually really like that part.

I also added a bunch of midi tracks. The two most important are the pianos. I did my little trick of panning two tracks and playing the three notes that make up the chords in different orders.

What doesn’t work…

The singing. It is beyond my capabilities. In fact, my only goal in the second attempt was to not mess up the vocals “too” bad. It was a challenge. The first attempt at this song, they were so so so bad. They ended up (not horrible) although I am way out of my comfort zone.

Maybe a sign of “bad songwriting” but I find that if something is not working, you can fix it by just layering X number of tracks on top of it. That is what I did at the end. I wanted a nice symphonic ending but it just kinda sucked! So I added guitar after guitar.

The final melody which is a simple one relying on some diminished notes, just wasn’t coming across. That was fixed when I added two distorted guitars with reverb to the end to emphasize the melody (one in each speaker). Although I was just making up for the lack on good arranging, it seemed to work.

I also tried to add this really dissonant in the section right before the second verse that just sounded stupid. (more on that in the what works part)

What works…

I still think after all, that given a gifted sound engineer and someone who could sing half decent, this could be a killer song! I really like the use of diminished chords. The melody (although challenging) is evocative. There are some nice moments. Overall, i am actually pretty pleased with the “song” despite the lyrics.

I like the build. I like the semi-abrupt changes, especially in the chorus. A couple of my failures, turned out to be successes. Two specifically. In the “bam bam bam bam” section (that would be the technical name) I layered a couple of guitar wails over the clunky noodling. which I think worked together really well. The dissonant part that I mentioned earlier. I buried it but you can still hear it. That, I think, turned out well. And even though it was due to serious throwing more and more tracks on, the ending works for me.

There are some odd timings thrown in (which required me to re-record the entire thing due to completely messing them up the first time).

In the end…What we have is a silly song, based on a silly novel that (like the novel) has some potential. There really are some elements that I truly love in this song, but it’s also too big for my little talent or recording skill.

Download the song now!

Hope you enjoy!

Wham Take 2

I have r-etracked all the distorted guitars and the vocals to what I think is a much better version. I no longer cringe (too much) at it. A missed note here and there. Still not super happy with the fuzzed out vocals. But it’s sounding a lot better. And I am pretty much done with it.

Download Everything She Wants

For the distorted guitars instead of banging out the chords on the verses like previously, I decided to try something different. There are 4 (count them, 1-2-3-4!) distorted guitars. I seem to rather layer simple parts over each other than work to come up with one or two more involved parts. It’s either a recording technic or I am lazy. There is one gutiar just playing the bass notes of the chorus. Two guitars (panned 100% in each speaker) playing alternative ocatives – the ones that break into the chorus to start. The 4 guitar is playing a higher scale of notes that is closely linked to the harmony vocals (george’s singing part). I put a nasty chorus and LFO effect on it as well.

Breaking into the after chorus riffage, the bass guitar part plays the origingal bass line, the two panned guitars play the riff (with some shredding between) and the higher guitar plays the riff an octive higher with a different line between.

The vocals are pretty much the same, just sung better.

Download Everything She Wants

Everything She Wants (Wham!)

So this makes it almost 3 weeks in a row (and I even have one more completed track in the bucket)

So this weekend I recorded Wham’s “Everthing she wants”. It has been on my “short list” of songs to cover for years and years. So I decided to just do it with mixed results.

Download Everything She Wants

Before going into the arranging/recording of this song and what I think works and doesn’t work. A little about covering songs.

Why this song?

This, you could file under “semi-ironic cover song”. I say semi because I don’t think I have ever covered a song that I loathe simply to make fun of it. In fact, I never really try to make fun of a song. Have fun with it? yes. But I usually latch on to something I really like about a song and augment whatever is good about it. In the past I have been partial to R&B pop songs (pink’s most girls, britney spears, shakira, tlc’s waterfalls — man, that was over 10 years ago?)

Most of those songs have very nice melodies over what amounts to absolutely no inteligble music. I did a cover of the Car’s “Just what I needed” and by changing the mood of the music, brought to the foreground what sounds to me like some really dark lyrics — but I degress.

So, Wham’s “Everything she wants”. Man, what a bitter bitter angry song. Not that it’s saying much, but this song has always been my favorite wham song. I remember secretly liking it. It falls into the “nice melody on top of nothing” camp. It makes it pretty fun because there is very little there to either work around or ignore. So what I had was a cheesey 80’s song with some nasty lyrics. A canvas to repaint the entire thing. Like most of my covers, I arrange them without listening to the original (or at least as little as possible). Most of these have been in the back of my head for sometime. I had figured this one out musically over a year ago, so I knew the chords. I actually got some of the music wrong on this one! I realized once listening to it again.

What horrible productions!

I did end up getting this song of itunes to listen to it. And its production is just horrible. It’s an ANGRY song, so stop singing everything with such pin point accuracty with a gazillion effects on your vocals. From the very first “yee-he oh!” — its delayed for like a minute back and forth between speakers. And all “oh oh oh yeah yeah yeah”. You are telling your pregnant wife that you don’t love her!!!

And that horrible synth sound? Really, was that necessary? What’s bitter about that?

The Arrangement

My only real jab at this song is the arrangement. I went for the opposite effect of the original. Immediately instead of pin point syncth glibs and glups, you get a very sloppy distorted bass banging out the most simplified element of this song. There is a nifty minor to major chord change and originally I thought the bass should reflect. I decided against that. So pounding bass, slow moving synths, and muted or droning guitars make up the verses.

The other decision I made early on was to not sing ANY of the ohohohyeahyeahyeah’s or corny “won’t you tell me” parts. That was all left to instruments. The vocals would be fuzzed out themselves getting even further away from the preciseness of the original.

What Worked

I have mixed feelings about how this one turned out. I really like the arrangements of the verses. This was the least planned part. I knew the droning guitars would be there. Originally I was not going to use an MIDI. I wanted it to be a “rawk” song. The MIDI when it comes in is by far my favorite part of this song. Juxtaposed with the fuzzed out bass, I think works really well. I also added a MIDI “guitar harmonic” sound underneath the droning guitars in the verse that I really like.

What didn’t work

The vocals don’t sound very good on two fronts. 1. I have a cold and stuggled through it. I had to do some serious cutting a pasting the “two takes” to get a single take without horribley missed notes. I think I salvaged it mostly, but it’s not my best singing. The fuzzed out effects are not what I had in my head either. Not sure how to fix it.

The chorus (what I thought would be the strongest part) is the weakest part. The loud guitars seem to be washed out of any detail. I cut most of the reverb from them — it was work in an earlier mix. Relying on the gutiars to fill in some of the singing parts and then not really hearing them that well make the chorus a little bland.

Download Everything She Wants

I will probably revisit this song in the near future and re track the vocals and work on the chorus more.

Anyway. it’s here. it’s, um… something. get used to it (or don’t listen).

Oh, and THIS…

where would you go

Where Would You Go (aka Kebab Dylan does his best sparklehorse impersonation)Here is a new ditty that I just finished and am very happy with.

Download “Where Would You Go” Now

Songwriting

This song just kinda plopped out as I was writing trenches and warfare (see previous post). The opening chord is the first chord of the chorus of that song.

I was going for simplicity here which I normally don’t do. I wanted a quite moody song with just a very simple chord progression. The verses are just a walk down of four chords in standard 4/4 timing. Having said that, like other songs, this is in FACFAE tuning and I didn’t know “what” chords I was playing at first. It just sounded nice to me.

The element on the verse that I like the most is the chords blend into each other. Essentially it is F D# Dm C#. A pretty strange combination of chords. It’s held together and made to sound “normal” by the singing melody. The chord progression allowed me to hold notes that where shared by the following chord. IE (I would hold the “F” while transitioning from the C# back to the first chord F. Or hold the F while moving from the Dm to the C#.

The other trick is that the way I am playing them, the bass note for each chord is not the the primary chords note. (for instance, the base notes for the verses are actually C A# A G#)

The chorus took a little bit to knock out but from the get go I liked the dropping down a half step into it. Makes it both a new chord introduced but also a logical progression from the verse with its decending chords. The chorus is also some really strange chord combinations held together with the melody. (C Am Gm C# D# D Gm C# C).

The bridge was going to be instrumental and is the most conventional part of the song.

In the middle of the song, it turns from sleephead to sonic youth. I’m pleased with how the “loud” part is transitioned into. Although some of the “music” gets lost in the distortion, the base chords actually sound pretty good just on an acoustic guitar.

The Recording

With this song, I knew I wanted it to be quite and moody. The chords just called for it. I made a concerted effort to keep this song as simple as possible. I generally have never met an extra track (guitar or otherwise) that I have not liked, but I limited myself. There are three midi tracks. one is just a synth pad that smooths out things and two strings. The guitars consist of a double tracked rythem and one extra track that goes in and out. The mid section does pile on the guitars but its short lived.

I also added a bass guitar track (sort of) by using a pitch shifter and dropping it down an octive. I came up with the little bass line and I liked it a lot so I felt I should add it. I’ve been meaning to put bass in my songs for some time. I usually just use some deep midi instrument to fill that space.

To simplify it even more, the chorus consists mostly of one hit of each chord, leaving a lot of open space. The drum track also, I intentionally made very simple. As a result, I think the drums sound better than most of my recordings (my biggest weakness, according to many). I think I am getting better at mixing them to get a nicer more real sound. Still fake as can be, though.

I double tracked the vocals with one track slightly distored (a common trick of mine). and added one harmony part to some of it. I knew this song would be quiet so I went for the quite almost whisper singing style that I think works quite nicely with the whole feel of this song. I couldn’t stop thinking “this sounds like sparklehorse” the entire time and ended up embracing it. For those who are familiar with sparklehorse, you probably know what I mean.

Lyrics

I had a hell of a time with the lyrics. Hated Hated Hated them. I was going nowhere but I knew I wanted to record this song. When I first started working on this, “where would you go if you had to go” was stuck in my head and it made no sense. And it went no where. I then settled on “laughing like girls in the after noon with the blinds open wide”. Once again, made no sense and wasn’t going anywhere.

As you can guess now, this song is completely meaningless. Which leads me to one of my songwriting traits – lyrics. I rarely write “about something”. Almost never ever start off with anything in mind. I generally use images or sounds t evoke emotion that resonates with me (hopefully others as well) but without making any statements or getting personal.

With this song I was struggling through coming up with the words until the last verse where “where would you go” popped back up and I got an idea about what this song could be about. Think illict/illegal relationship at stuffy or religious boarding school in up new york state. I went back and added lyrics to the bridge to emphasis this kind of reading.

Download “Where Would You Go” Now

So I hope you enjoy this one.

3 Responses to “where would you go”

trenches and warfare

OK. So it’s been a while. I have been somewhat out of the loop lately and although I have many half finished songs stacking up, this one cut to the front of the line and I cranked it out over the span of a weekend.It’s called “trenches and warfare” or “OMG kd wrote a 3:30 minute song”

 

trenches and warfare

Two things are a change for me. 1. The brevity, it really is under 3 1/2 minutes which I can’t remember doing ever. and 2. I began writing this song with a topic in mind. I wrote a song “about something”. Usually lyrics come last and they are more about feeling than a subject matter.

As a side note, the first two comment I got from this one was a comparison to dire straits and the beatles. go figure. I don’t understand either.

Common Themes

This song shares the same tuning as “closed circuit” and “break you down” (FACFAE). I am still loving this tuning and have another song half written in it.

Like Closed Circuit, I really didn’t know what many of the chords were as I was writing it. I knew it was in F. But it wasn’t until I started laying down keyboard parts that I fully understood musically what was going on.

And despite the shortness of the song, I still managed 2 (count ‘em 1-2) tangents. They are short and sweet and don’t seem out of place. They are both based on the verse structure but both move away from it in their own special way.

New Direction

As I stated earlier, I began this song with an actual topic in mind, something I rarely do (i.e. never). I won’t go into the details of the subject matter other than to say the song is based on a recently rehashed biographical incident from long ago. As with my less focus lyrics, I attempt to evoke an emotion from the lyrics not tell a story or pronounce great wisdom. I am not bob dylan. One of the first comments I got from this one focused on the lyric, which I find interesting.

Vocals

I think this was one of the easiest songs for me to sing. Others can attest, vocals are hard to deliver well when recording. Even for those that can sing well (unlike me). There is something about when the button is pushed and the head set is on, just a strange situation. This songs vocal tracks were recorded pretty quickly with very few retakes. Even the harmony part on the section prior to the second chorus came easily. I did cheat a bit for the harmony track by playing the melody on piano as a throw away track. I have also come to the conclusion that a.) I may be getting better at singing more naturally and b.) my sense of melody sometimes over reach my ability to sing it.

The last several songs I have recorded were less ambitious with singing melodies and I think I am better for it. the current song I am recording is really really hard to sing. I am approaching it as just a big ole challenge. we’ll see what happens.

MIDI

I am starting to love the midi! This song is 21 tracks with about 10 or so being midi. There are seveal tracks that are just soft synth types that create a nice background wall on which the guitars and vocals are laid. I should really try to be more creative with those tracks, but I’m not. There one keyboard track more noticable and I can’t recall off hand what instrument it was, but I should look it up for later.

trenches and warfare

so sit back and enjoy this short little song…

4 Responses to “trenches and warfare”

Casting Out the Shadows

so I was thinking about whipping out one of the semi-ironic cover songs that I have recorded in the past, but this last weekend I ended up recording a very un-ironic cover of a song written by a co-worker. My reason’s for recording these songs and my approach is pretty similar to the silly r&b songs I have covered so here it goes.The song is titled “No more casting out the shadows” and it is written by a dude named Brandon. He’s from Texas, but we won’t hold that against him. You can hear the original
HERE.

Kebab Dylan – No more casting out the shadows (download)

One reason I cover songs like “most girls” by pink and “hips don’t lie” by shakira is that they do one thing really well. the melodies are totally catching and infectious. but there is absolutely nothing else there. No music, as far as I am concerned. So I take songs like that and then fill in the music around the hooks. Add in really ridicouluos lyrics and you have the trifecta of “good music” (hopefully), catchy melodies, and funny lyrics.

The original, if you didn’t listen, is a very sparse elliot smithish acoustic number. One guitar and a double tracked vocal. that’s it. the guitar is just chords strummed.

What I liked about the song is that the melody, while pretty strightforward, was compelling and fit the lyrics well. I have no idea what this song is about but its slightly ominous to me and the minor melody seemed appropriate. The chords are all strummed up-stream that lead me to thing that there could be some interesting uses of rhythm.

One of the main challenges is that the melody for the verse and chorus are almost identical. The chords and the strumming are also similar for all three parts. so my goal was to separate all three parts into very identifiable parts.

So on to the song.

It starts off with my “ticking timebomb” effect which is simply playing two muted notes back and forth. Layer some synths on top and you got a nice atmospheric effect. It based on the main chord progression (C#m – F#m A). I decided early one to leverage the shared notes in the progression to have a drone going on. In the this section, i keep it based on the c# note and then augment the G# to A. It sounds like i am just augmenting a chord but the notes are actually just the appropriate notes for the current chord. This is used in the pre-chorus “ohs” section as well. the keys are slowing working their way through the progression

For the verses, I decided to emphasis the melody and not the chords, so the predominant part is the vocal line. I first tracked the base chords (muted power chords) so I would not loose focus of the actual progression. I added one small change to the progression ending on E the first time through instead of A. I then added a different rythmic guitar part that becomes more obvious later.

Where the verses emphasize the meoldy, I decided th emphasis the banging out of chords for the choruses. That way the emphasis would separate the parts unlike the original. I also go from a distorted vocal effect to clean vocals for the chorus.

There is a counter melody at the end of the song, and I went ahead and added that melody via keyboards from the get go. I kick it up an octive once the chorus fully comes in to make it more prominent. The chorus is more smooth (less jerky like the verses) so I added on guitar part in the mix that is still baning out in a jerky fashion.

after the chorus I added the one major addition, which is a riff. I just started playing it while i was becoming familiar with the song and liked it so I incorporated it. My favorite moment in the song, for sure, is the transisiton from the riff to a highly syncopated passage that just stays on the C#m chord for 4 measures, and then the transition to a very smooth playing of the verse and melody emphasized by keyboards playing the vocal line. there is a beep-beep keyboard that initiall reminds the listener that this is the jerky part. I also added portions of one guitar part that later becomes a constant.

The last chorus includes the the counter melody forshadows as well as a climax of a semi-screaming octive higher deliver of the chorus. Unfortunately i did not count right and it cuts out half way through.

Then the riff kicks in with an increased “noise level”. As soon as that ends i decided to see what cutting all the keyboard parts (6 i think?) sounded like all by themselves, so i just pasted them after the song ended which I think is a real nice effect.

Kebab Dylan – No more casting out the shadows (download)

so in the end I spent one evening sequencing the drums and laying down the guitars, another evening with the keys and vox, and then an hour or two mixing on sunday and monday. I am pretty pleased with the outcome.

hope you likes…

Time Takes Your Chances Away

Brace yourself for “Singer/Songwriter” Kebab! This weeks song is another experiement. Actually recorded prior to the last song, but still needed some work. My self-set rules were 1. use standard tuning 2. use standard chords 3. no distortion. I ended up with a couple guitar tracks and a handful of midi tracks. The current mix has the guitar parts even lower in the mix that I first had them (I am still working with the mix so I may or may not post a version 2 at a later date).

Download Time Takes Your Chances Away

When I sit down with a guitar I am usually pushing myself to find something new and interesting. Whether it’s messing with tunings or throwing in strange chord changes or odd notes, or building the singing melody into it or work off the singing melody. I certainly am not inventing anything new. I would consider my songs pretty much within the traditional song structure bucket, but I hope that I add a little flavor to that bucket.

The Music

So for this song I gave myself the challenge of writing a song using basic chords in standard tuning. The melody will be sung over said chords. I obeyed those rules for the most part. The outro is a little unusual but for the most part we have ourselves a very straightforward, out of right-field song.

It all started with the opening melody and the words “say what you want to say” From there I just played what seemed completely predictable but pleasant chords. One thing very new for me was that I was struggling with the chorus and ended hashing that out sitting at a piano. I am not a piano player by any stretch, but I’ve become competent enough to be able to tinker. I find the piano is very good for working melody into songs or build chords around a given melody. Whereas the guitar is pretty much a good base to add melody on top of.

That’s about it for music. The outro, as I said, is a little more out there but not really (from C#minor to B i added a Cminor so it is a series of half steps). This song in general is part of my getting to know MIDI exercise and the so there is a lot of MIDI in it. I particularity like the ending where i have two keyboard parts playing the same three notes of what ever chord but in different sequences. They kinda fit together to create a single sound but in different speakers.

The Lyrics

I wanted to mess around with the lyrics a bit due to the song being “not messed with”. The idea was to have a “carpe diem” type song but inverse the mood and meaning. I think of those types of songs as “go get ‘em tiger” positive type songs. And while there is some value to that approach to life, it is also not without issues. It can be an extremely selfish way to live.

So I tried to lyrically have the words start out being that type of song, but the song to actually be somewhat depressing and resigned. The first verse is “say what you want to say, until you’ve said it all” and “take what you want to take, until you take it all” I thought the second line should raise an eyebrow. Not necessarily the best advise to just take anything you want. In the second verse, I go further. the last line is “Break what you have to break”

The chorus is based on something else. I wanted to continue with the reversal of traditional meanings. The lines are “She was an angel hanging by a thread, and I was the candle burning bright and burning red”

Angels are generally symbols of helpers and savers, in this instance the angel is in need of help. Candles are symbols of hope and faith, but in this instance it is more ominous, burning strong and about to consume the thread the angel is hanging on.

Download Time Takes Your Chances Away

Good times!. So give it a listen and please comment, even if you hate it.

2 Responses to “Time Takes Your Chances Away”