William The Arsonist

here's another song from October Mountain, William the Arsonist.. we first wrote about him in the song The Apple (from the second round of song-a-day), but it wasn't very clear. i suppose it never is, anyhow.

i had it in mind (in our mythical alternate reality) that the human population would plummet with the coming of angels, human babies not being valued anymore.. and the cities would empty as civilization reshapes itself around the rapture.. and the angels take over the cities, but they don't like the steel and glass buildings, so they construct giant aeries (?) around the buildings, using the structures as a skeleton for epic towers of wood to nest in.

william kinda sets off the revolution.


William the Arsonist

when i was young i grew up towards the sun
i felt no fear, i was a perfect son
you gotta grant me that.

my hands were small, but not my vitriol
i stopped the sound, i burned the cities down
all the planes will come down hungry.

i finally found a way to hold me up
the perfect pill, i couldn't get enough
clean the cobwebs from the room

we culminate, lets be the end of this
we'll make a thing, lets build an arsonist
all the dogs give up your barking

when we grow up, lets grow up towards the sun
we'll live with pride and never once let on
you gotta grant us that

our lives seemed small, but not our vitriol
we claimed the ground, and pulled the heavens down
all the angels come down hungry

there's this line i keep drawing
and i can't see where or when
i've secured the coin of vantage
i can't possibly offend
i'm no milquetoast

and the morning finds you tired
sporting someone else's brand
how much longer till you remember?
you've been missing your friends
i'm no milquetoast

as for the music, Kathy Lee played the flute parts for us.. and Mattie did the viola, (including the solo before the outro!) big thanks to them. we're pretty poor and didn't pay them or anything, so hopefully it wasn't too bad for them. emily wrote that cool verse riff, with the alternating turnaround in 7 and 9.. i had the big guitar break and outro.. but it was a long time ago, so the details are fuzzy. i remember wanting a big freakout at the end, but it gets pretty muddled pretty quickly.. lots of drums and cymbals rolling around, crazy guitars, choruses of vocals, bass, piano, trumpets, viola.. see? muddled.

The Lords of Holiday

we just got back from colorado, where emily and i were hanging out with my family.. it was pretty great, up in the mountains with lots of sun and just enough snow. good times with dogs and kids out in the fresh air. yeehaw.

we had it in mind to finish up October Mountain before we left, and maybe post the whole bit.. but we couldn't, and while we were gone i'd been thinking about it and such.. i think i gotta just post what we have, and it may not end up being the whole album.. some of those songs are so difficult, and we're both kinda tired of working on them. oh well.

two of the songs for October Mountain are connected to the same world that The Eleventh Hole (and a few song-a-day songs) takes place in.. the near-future imminent apocalypse world where Amy and Mary run around sniffing glue and battling angels with the help of Half-Starved and You Make Me Sick. (ha!)

the first one is The Lords of Holiday, which is about the 'rapture' - in this case, angels are born to human parents, quickly taking over most of the world, until a human rebellion begins to fight back (that's where Half-Starved and You Make Me Sick start to shine). the angels are the lords of holy days, or something. get it? ha.

as for the music, i had an opportunity to go over the Erik Becker's place and record drums with Paul Tuthill's help.. and i had 5 or 6 songs in mind, but i wanted to try and get as much drumming as possible ('cause i like playing the drums, you know). so i wrote this song pretty fast, just for something else to play drums on.. so i think it turned out pretty neat.

i really like the guitar solo at the end of this one.

The Lords of Holiday

tomorrow i think we'll post the other song in this storyline, all about William the Arsonist. ha!

We Hate Songs

We Hate Songs

this one is kinda self explanatory..

You Are Not The One

it's been a busy few days.. i have been working for ben and i had band practice, and emily has work and stich 'n bitch.. so we ended up missing a song yesterday.. a terrible blow to morale, i tell you.. we barely even got this song put together, even though i spent all day today working on songs.. sheesh.

You Are Not The One

now emily's asleep on the floor while i watch Aliens.. good times.

Glass Collapse

i know you fall to pieces.

even if you're sorry, can it ever be enough?
don't whisper - i can hear you well enough.

i'm pretty tired of pretending to like you.
i'm also sorry i said i love you.

i know you broke the window.

Glass Collapse

i had a bit of this guitar part a few days ago, but today on my lunch break i came home and wrote a bunch more and recorded a couple of takes.. and then after work emily and i sat around thinking about stuff.. i put on that little phase guitar bit, and wrote some words.. emily came up with some neat singing bits and played a weird keyboard/string part.. i think i kinda messed the mix up, enough that i might actually go back and try and fix it.. but i got deadlines, you know.

in addendum:

i did go back and revisit the mix, and i think it's much much better now.. maybe my favorite of songaday3? crazy talk.

The Lines That Stop

we just got done recording Nerd Alert #5, a sunday afternoon tradition of sorts.. and then i dove into this little song, which emily started this morning while i was at work.. pretty awesome stuff, i think, i really like the lyrics, i'll try and type 'em out here but we, just saying, started a movie and the burritos are ready and blah blah..

The Lines That Stop

the king hen show was pretty great last night, with some neat bands on the bill.. plus we did pretty well, sounded tight and what-not.. i saw a guy play guitar with just his left hand for a bit, and a bass player do something similar, eye popping neat stuff, and it got me thinking. i should practice the guitar more.

ha!

No Virtue

saturday night, and we're just wrapping this up.. and we got a full schedule ahead of us, so we're kinda running late. i'm playing tonight at the Towne Lounge with the King Hen, that should be fun.. i played there with the New Mexican Revolution not too long ago, i like that place. thumbs all the way up.

anyways, this is what we did today, between videogames and dog walks and fixing the guitar strap and all.. emily did most of the work, with all the guitar and moog and stuff, and she wrote most of the lyrics. i was moral support. and i played videogames.. ha!

No Virtue

another song that made me wish i could put real drums on it.. it would've been a more explosive flaming lips kinda song, i think.. modern psychedelic rock, yo.

Between the Fence Boards

Between the Fence Boards

in a hole between fence boards
i could see your shoulders fall
in a backyard full of defeat the earth is slowly rising
it's just the rain pretends to fall

with my ear against the sheet rock
i could hear the whole phonecall
to keep yourself from breaking down, you said -

"we're all slowly dying, we're all made to fall"

when we get back to where we came from
i'm gonna let them hear it all:
how the joy was fits & starts
why was loneliness so painful, while the loving rubbed us raw?

ahh friday.. good times. emily and i both worked today, so it was a bit of a crunch to get this done on time. luckily, she has the next two days off and is bound to do some good work.. i started this one a few days ago, with all the guitars and banjo and such. i got sad for a little bit while i worked on this song, 'cause i really wanted to put drums on the middle part.. oh well. today, while i came home for lunch i wrote the lyrics for this on top of a melody emily had.. i think it worked out kinda nice. and i really like the little acoustic guitar solo, and the crazy chimalong bit.. thanks matt! love!

now i get to drink wine and watch tv.

yeehaw, friday!

Birthday Melancholy

this is what i did today:

Birthday Melancholy

ha!

i had the first little acoustic guitar bit first, a few weeks ago.. i'd brought it to King Hen practice, thinking it was all dark and ominous, but it didn't seem to go anywhere, so we dropped it. happens all the time, no big deal.. but last night i started playing kinda idly, maybe television.. and when i woke up this morning i made some coffee and started recording. it has a bunch of odd tuned electric guitars that i play with a violin bow, i really like doing that stuff but it's pretty hard.. lots of mistakes and starting over and such.

i kinda stopped there, leaving it as an instrumental, hoping emily would come home full of inspiration and vigor.. but she's all concerned about looking for a job and she had been working all day, so she didn't have much to offer.. so i wrote those lyrics really fast and we sung 'em. done and done. ha!

A Talking Monster

i've been reading about this artist, Vasarely, in a book emily brought home a few weeks ago.. and i find it strangely fascinating, i'm really into it, i like reading about his life and his art and the development and such, but it's pretty funny - 'cause i don't care much for his art.. oh well.

this is a song i started awhile ago.. maybe a full week, but it stalled out pretty quickly. i had the words and idea for the second half, but i couldn't marry it with anything, and i've been trying to leave more space in everything. i have a real easy time of just layering all the instruments and sounds and such, and it's much more difficult to just leave things sparse..

A Talking Monster

so once i came up with the verse ideas, it was just a matter of writing a bunch of words and finding phrasings and such.. i kinda like how it turned out, but in some ways it's not weird enough. part of SongADay 3 is to be much more bizarre and challenging and experimental, less poppy. that's tough, it turns out. emily and i are good at indie-pop.

Siafu

today isnt much of a day, it turns out.. emily and i are both a little sick, and the weather outside is grey and dismal.. even working on songs has taken a significant amount of energy and discipline, and i love working on songs.. geez.

we ended up finishing the outro for Nerd Alert episode 3 first, which is a good accomplishment.. and then moved over to another song i started yesterday, but it was a dead end.. so we switched gears completely and worked on this song, about these crazy african ants.

Siafu

i've always been fascinated by ants, ever since reading Godel/Escher/Bach.. which is a pretty cool book. bottom up organization and what-not. they sorta defy explanation.

anyhow, hopefully emily and i can regroup and feel better and get a song for tomorrow conceived, recorded and put together, i feel we're always behind schedule, despite having songs everywhere. wow.

Not In This Form

this song started off with the main keyboard part, and then the vocals.. emily can't wait for Lost to start up, and she's been looking for a job.. and while we cleaned the house and cooked dinner emily figured out the big crazy outro bit with the piano, which is my favorite part of the song. we decided not to muck it up with anything else, as i really liked all the space it had.. but it might've been even better with a shaker part. the world may never know.

Not In This Form

does anybody even watch ugly betty? does erik becker even have a job anymore? the world may never know.

Take Aim At Horses

sunday is Nerd Alet Nerd Alert podcast day..

Nerd Alert, Nerd Alert Podcast Homepage

so i spent a good deal of the after noon working on that, with jonpaul and mark. it's mostly a comic book discussion, but it's pretty funny and the conversation can range quite a bit.. movies and television, libraries, on and on.. and it's got the leaning towers doing intro and outro music, with a few little bits of music and such in the middle of the show. fun stuff.

but this morning, first thing, i woke up and wrote most of this song... Take Aim At Horses, which emily and i finished up just now.. i really kinda like the chords up front, it has a difficult G# to Bmin to Emaj thing, or something close to that. pretty stuff.

I Have Mono

i think that I Have Mono
the winking eye explains
a sadness when your lover calls you names
but you love them just the same

i only wanted to stay focused, to see what i could do
now i see that i'm neglectful, too
i didn't care enough for you

i kinda hope that i have mono
that might help explain the weariness
why the daylight 'causes pain
but i want daylight all the same

i only wanted to stay focused, to see what i could do
but now i see the movies almost through
i didn't care enough, it's true

i really liked this little chord progression, i wrote it on the acoustic guitar a few days ago.. sorta Eb/Gminor thing, with an odd phrase... maybe five times, or something. so it was kinda hard to write lyrics for, but i think it worked out.. today i put the guitar solo bits on, which i really liked, i'd broken a string on the guitar last night at the show, so i hard to work around that a bit.. (god forbid i put new strings on..). and the end is a few open tuned guitars being bowed, and a few tracks of moog..

Despite What They Say

friday, whoo hoo! i go to work for the Mercury a bit, then the King Hen has a show tonight at the Satyricon.. i don't have too many good memories of that place, but it goes through changes, i'll keep an open mind. in any case, it should be a great day.

if for no other reason than this song - Despite What They Say

i really like this one.. emily did most of the work on this one. we started on the little chord organ thing that's so outta tune with everything else. the whole second half came together last night, in a fit of inspiration/frustration.. good times. i really like the lyrics, i may come back and type 'em in, but i gotta run..

My Djinni Woke Up

today seems like a pretty good day.. i slept late, emily and i both have the day off, no real obligations. it could be great. the only problem? emily is working on her resume, in Word. i suppose all computer programs make more sense the more you use them, but how often do you work on a resume? so it's pretty frustrating.. all those built in margins and bullets and whatnots. and then years go by.. and the learning curve starts all over. blah blah.

emily spent a good deal of this early evening working on tomorrow's song, which is pretty neat.. i gotta finish it up and mix, but it's pretty cool.. but here is today's song:

My Djinni Woke Up

i read a short story a few weeks back about a religious man in the desert with only one friend, a djinni he'd see every few years.. and this djinni had an odd way of granting wishes, taking advantage of superficial passions and such. it was a pretty good story that ended with some kid becoming a suicide bomber, and nobody was happy. ahhh wishes.

Vocation

today is Leah's birthday, i'm pretty sure.. and while we're pretty dedicated fans, we weren't able to put together a special 'leah birthday' song. sorry, but i think she'll be alright.. in addition, emily gave notice at her job yesterday, which is pretty good news.. i've always enjoyed quitting jobs, even if looking for a job is worse than having one.

or something..

emily wrote this song, and i think the words have floated around for a little while.. a few weeks, at least. i like 'em..

Vocation

you get the idea

happy new year! happy new year!

my head hurts.. which i wouldn't describe as surprising, but it hurts none the less. i don't know what other people do on new years eve, but i drink and play halo3.. good times. ouch. now it's all college football and coffee..

here's a ditty.. it started with the guitar and the keyboard over the middle section, them emily got out the violin, turned it into something cool.


you get the idea

well i graduated college
i've been on the road sometime
i've learned theres more important things than paying your bills on time
i guess the collar is a comfort
i can appreciate it's shine
but you dependence on the leash is no concern of mine
it's not impressive, but you might as well keep on trying