Finally, new tune! This one works in some harmonica (be kind, I just started learning it this week). I’ve actually been playing a *far* more upbeat version of this for the past month, but am not really feeling like I could carry that off with any conviction at the moment, so you get the tension-strung edition instead.
American Girl – MP3 download
Backstory: Today in the lab, I found myself listening to some of the old local Detroit bands in my music collection. It got me feeling a bit nostalgic, especially when some tracks came on from an old friend’s punk band, the Bourgeois Filth. Shortly before the band split, he’d given me a demo tape of some very rad, very different stuff the band was working on, but I must have lost it years ago… I can’t even remember the last time I had a cassette player, let alone anything to play in one. I still have their sole CD release, but this afternoon I really wanted to listen through that old tape again.
So anyway, tonight I Googled around a bit. The band’s old webpage is still up on AngelFire (Seriously? I had no idea AngelFire was still around…), but hasn’t been updated since their reunion show 9 years ago. Seems like they never got much attention outside of Detroit; I really can’t seem to find anything useful on the Internets about them. What I did find, however, was an old-school German FTP listing of MP3 sites that probably went dark a decade ago. Including, I think, my old dual Pentium Pro basement server. Near the top of the list is an entry for ftp://216.25.7.132/, sharing albums from such fine musicians as Nine Inch Nails, Green Day, Orbital, and the Bourgeois Filth. I’m reading through this thinking, “Wow, that’s exactly what I used to listen to…” when I notice one of the band names: Semblance of Self. That was the name I released my own material under! Seriously! As much as I’d like to think that someone found those tunes cool enough to bother mirroring them on their own FTP server, I really can’t believe anyone did. So… someone’s still linking to an FTP site I ran during the 90′s, and specifically mentions my old band name. Bizarre!
Tragically, I still can’t seem to find anyone who had a copy of that Bourgeois Filth tape and bothered to encode it into MP3s 
Update: Since a few of you have expressed interest, I’ve uploaded the original Bourgeois Filth album. If anyone has MP3s of their last demo tape, I’d love to get a copy!
Two songs in one night! Incredible!
Actually I’m cheating: just like with Ol’ 55, the guitar on this tune was recorded a while ago. Tonight I just redid the vocals. Unlike Ol’ 55, these vocals were done post-martinis, though at the moment I’m not certain if that makes any obvious difference. I suppose we’ll see in the morning.
Update: Oh god. Oh god. Yeah, gin makes a difference. I’ll try redoing this one some other time, I’m removing it for now.
Glisterine – MP3 download
I recorded the guitar track for this over the summer. It was the first piece I recorded in Cubase that I was really happy with, but somehow I got distracted from recording the vocal track and left it alone for a couple of days. By the time I came back to it, my computer’s monitor had died a tragic death, just a few months shy of the warranty expiration. Kudos to Viewsonic for promptly shipping a replacement, but it didn’t arrive until I’d left for a two-week trip to visit family in Detroit. The day I returned to Corvallis was moving day… I spent the next month living out of a suitcase, and by the time I finally had my own place again, Twinkle was sick and I was in no mood for recording. So this has been sitting on my hard drive for months, waiting for the inspiration to come back and finish it.
Last night I went out with Erica and her friends to catch a bluegrass show at Fireworks, and by the end of their first number I had my inspiration back. How that woman could sing! This evening I finally loaded up the old project and finished it off. The original Tom Waits demo of this tune is one of my favorite songs, and I know I can’t do the original any proper justice, but I think it’s an appropriate tribute to the man whose music inspired me to really focus on song-crafting again.
Ol’ 55- MP3 download
It’s nearly 1 in the morning, and instead of prepping for tomorrow’s 9am user study, I can’t seem to pull myself away from my guitar. This tune has been ringing in my head for a few days… I tried to record it yesterday, did about 20 takes but there didn’t seem to be any feeling behind any of them. Today I got what I wanted almost straight-off.
So here’s my second try at recording in my new home studio. This one is (intentionally) a lot rawer than my last attempt, just me and an acoustic guitar. I’ve been learning how to use the EQ in Cubase, which was able to knock out the hum of my furnace in the background, plus (I think) make the piece sound a little richer. Comments and suggestions are more than welcome.
Romeo and Juliet – MP3 download
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been experiencing horrible performance from Cubase 4. Audio was popping and crackling like mad, and since it had been a few months since I’d recorded anything, I was going crazy trying to figure out exactly what changed on my computer that was causing the issue. It seems pretty obvious in retrospect, but it was the on-access scanner included with Norton Antivirus. For anyone else experiencing a similar problem, try adding your top-level Cubase project directory to the list of folders excluded from your virus scanner. That seemed to clear everything up for me.
Sadly I’m still having trouble with the MP3 export functionality–ID3 tags aren’t included in anything that comes out of Cubase. Searching around the Steinberg forums reveals plenty of other users with the same issue, though people with the full version seem to be able to hack around it by copying an older version of the MP3 codec from their installation disc. As a lowly Cube Essential user, I had to buy the codec separately and the only version I have is obviously buggy. I put in a support request a couple of days ago but still haven’t heard anything. Pretty disappointing after spending a couple hundred dollars on their software.
For a host of reason’s I’m not about to discuss here, last Friday night was a pretty bad night. The evening ended with me drinking alone in my apartment and watching X-Files DVDs. Not one of my better days, but these things happen. One of the episodes, however, was The Post-Modern Prometheus, and even inebriated, I was keenly aware that it was the finest hour of television I’d ever before seen. The show ends with Mulder and Scully dancing to the tune Walking in Memphis, which I suddenly found myself so in love with that I had to learn how to play it right then and there. It was about 1 a.m. by the time I’d figured it out, so I decided against recording it that night, but I meant to come back to it.
Tonight I finally found the time to lay down the tracks and mix them into something that, at the least, I’m not entirely embarrassed by. Feedback is completely welcome, though I should point out in advance that I’m not a good singer and am very much aware of that. I’m still working on it.
Walking in Memphis – MP3 download
P.S. – My new neighbor totally rocks! She knocked on my door while I was recording this and I thought it was to tell me hey, it’s late, keep it down over there, but no: she was just bringing over cupcakes!
Last week Eric posted about memorization, and our culture’s general lack of it. He was specifically referring to storytelling and poetry. I only had to memorize a couple of [very short] poems in high school, but I recall even that was nearly beyond me, I had a terrible time of it. I do really well with plot lines; the general series of events in a film or novel or history book stick with me for ages, but the specifics never do. Unlike some people, I have no idea when the Treaty of Ghent was signed. I’ve often wished for a mind able to trap these details and hold onto them until they become useful, but I’m afraid that’s not my lot.
Music, however, is a different story. It seems to be the combination of words and melody that does it for me… I’m no good at recalling either until I’ve memorized both, but that usually only takes listening to a tune a couple of times. Seeing lyrics written by themselves doesn’t help me at all, they slide right through my mind. Melodies, by themselves, are the same way. When I was playing classical guitar, I had lots of trouble memorizing pieces for performances. Once I even got halfway through performing a piece before realizing I had no idea what came next, and just stopped (this actually happened twice: the same song, at the same spot, at the same competition. Tres embarrassing.). Once you combine the music and lyrics, however, I’m fine. I’ve recently been playing a lot of tunes that I learned 5 or 10 years ago and haven’t even thought of in years… remarkably, they’re all still up there.
I’m not sure why I have an easy time memorizing these two concurrent vectors when simply one vector alone is very difficult, though I suspect it has something to do with the music reminding of associated lyrics, and vice-versa. No complaints, though. It’s allowed me to build a formidable repertoire of cover tunes which, some day, will be as useful (to me) as knowing the signing date for the Treaty of Ghent.
[Just to be clear, that last bit isn't sarcastic. Chris got a great laugh out of an audience by mentioning that little tidbit, which I'd say is pretty awesome.]
A few days ago I was snowed in; now I’m fogged in. Midwest weather is bizarre. I don’t think I ever saw this much snow in December during the 25 years I lived in Michigan, and now it’s all about to melt because the temperature has spiked to 60 degrees. Flooding in December? What a strange year.
This past week has completely flown by. I put together a draft of our next research experiment, finished off my holiday shopping, and spent an evening building a collection of family photos to fill a cute little frame my sister found for my grandma. I’ve met up with Leslie and her sisters and gone out with Colleen and Jon a couple of times, but mostly I’ve stayed home and visited with family. Christmas was a day-long extravaganza that started with just the immediate family, then migrated to my Aunt’s house to see my dad’s side of the family, and ended with 30+ of my mom’s relatives coming over for dessert and drinks. I think the photos speak for themselves:
Small
Medium
Huge
I can’t remember the last time we had the whole family together like that… with so many cousins, it seems there’s always at least someone missing (and aside from being home for a couple of weeks each December, for the last couple of years that person has been me).
So now I’m realizing that I leave in less than 48 hours, and sort of wishing that I was staying longer. There’s no special someone I want to rush back for this year, and visiting with family has been pretty relaxing. I’m still having plenty of teary moments when something around here reminds of when Twinkle was staying with us, but they’re finally starting to ebb. Thankfully I didn’t take her to the nearest coffee shop, so I’ve had the ability to retreat there when being around the house has me a little too depressingly nostalgic. Yesterday I hid out there for a few hours and tore through a book on audio engineering–at least when I get back, I’ll have some fun new recording projects to try in my home studio.
I was kind of hoping to have a chance to try snowboarding with my little brother Kyle while I was home, but I had research to work on when I first got back, and now the weather has turned all warm. At the very least, I got to take some cool photos of him on a couple of homemade jumps in our backyard.
Kyle pulling a 180
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