petalstain (花弁しみ)

so despite the lack of any activity on the interweb, i've actually been pretty busy and sorta productive on the musical front..

i was real lucky to work on music for some moving images (!) which is pretty awesome.. providence, i suppose - cause i was really hoping to find some way to doing something/anything in that direction. so i got asked to write a bunch of little major chord acoustic guitar bits for a short promo film for the MESD, and i churned out a lot of stuff trying to make sure i didn't screw up. almost all of it was background stuff, so when i listen to it now it seems a little bit directionless - almost unfinished or something.. it's odd to write 'instrumental background music', perhaps..

anyhow, some of the stuff i've been working on has spun itself into other directions.. stuff that would end up unsuitable for the project but sounds kinda cool, so here's one of 'em..

petalstain (花弁しみ)

this is actually two months old or so.. and only one of many things i've been up to, but i think it's the most suitable to share. for the MESD video, it was all acoustic guitars, real simple and pretty stuff.. once we were done with that, i started to tinker with it and introduce all the static-y guitars at the end and play around the electronica bits.. after the MESD gig, i was able to do music for another video project which had a different role to fill, and i think i'll post that one soon. similar and different stuff was involved. ha!

back in school, benkyoo shimashing the hell out my nihongo. lots of hard work, studying everyday for this PSU japanese program, which uses JSL core conversations and all.. blah blah, it's good and bad, sorta hard and unfamiliar, but i'm doing alright. it's nice to be on PSU campus, lots of hubbub. and it's cool 'cause emily and i are going together on the bus every morning , so we wake up together and stuff. sweet.

morning breath

here you go.

morning breath

bloodtest & trying=failing

bloodtest

trying=failing

emi-chan to aaron-kun wa futatsu atarashii uta o kakimashita

it's sorta butchered, but i think it gets the point across. and the verb is wrong, but i couldn't find "to write songs" anywhere.. so i just went with 'to write".

they're both cool little 'gem of a song' songs, kinda linear in fashion with some neat lyrics and such.
i'm a particular fan of bloodtest, which i had very little to do with.. the lyrics are super awesome, and i think emily might've performed all the bits herself! yee haw desu.

we're about to eat hangover pancakes, which sounds pretty pefect to me. school is going well, nihongo no kurasu wa tanoshii desu ga chotto muzukashii desu yo. emily got an 'A' and 'Oustanding!' on her midterm paper in environmental ethics! yoku dekimashita, emi-chan!

hangover pancake o tabemashoo!

The World Over There

another Thomas Pynchon Fakebook song today!

the world over there

this is a song i put together near the end of our time at the Willis house, maybe the last thing we did there.. it clearly benefits from the live drums and loud guitars. i'm pretty sure i did everything on this one, but as i was working on it i had this vague idea about the horns coming in over the second half, making this big triumphant thing (maybe like William the Arsonist).. but emily and i could never really figure out what to do, so it stands as a sorta noisy guitar celebration.

despite all that, i really like this song.. it reminds me of the early Flaming Lips stuff I fell in love with back in the day, ala Clouds Taste Metallic and such. and it has that neat moment where it's in a big slow six for most of the song and then changes into a punk rock two-feel, sorta.. tough to describe, but i like the effect.

moving on - here in Portland, OR the weather has really taken a turn for the better.. high pressure moving in just in time for the weekend, gonna last all week it seems. i'm pretty happy about all that, no doubt. hooray! emily's been working hard in the lab down at PSU all week, this'll be the end of her first week working full-time, so that's a reason to celebrate. and i've been doing work for Ben, actually making money, so that's good news as well. maybe this weekend we'll go out for dinner or something.. ha!

aaron

vulgar song

Over these last two terms (fall 2008 & spring 2009, i guess) Daniel Couch put together the Thomas Pynchon Fakebook, a project to set the lyrics in Gravity's Rainbow to song.. being a big fan of Pynchon, I agreed to help pretty quickly. i should find the address and set up the links, but i gotta go to work in a bit here.. but i wanted to post a little something before i left, blah blah..

anyhow, it was experimental on a few different levels - obviously working with somebody else's lyrics can be odd, but there was also some collaboration (almost all of it through the internet).. anyhow, emily and i put together 5 songs (i think), and contributed to a few more, neat stuff.

a lot of the lyrics in the book are setup in a jazzy singalong context, and they often have an innate rhythm and form to 'em, we basically just added the most obvious music in most cases.. it was an opportunity to do more show-tunes/jazzy stuff, but this may not be the best example.. on the other hand, it's got Danni doing a lot of funny laugh noises all over it, which is pretty funny.. and emily did a lot of vocal pitch shifting stuff. good times.

Vulgar Song

hmm.. i should also find the lyrics and maybe page numbers (ha!).. . but i gotta run.

oh yeah, and i kinda bombed my japanese quiz yesterday, which made me pretty sad. i guess i was just caught off guard, the quiz was pretty easy (despite the fact that i failed it). oh well.

Saddest Songs

another song from the Black Mesa Songs album.. sorta gets me all choked up, sometimes. gorgeous little song with some excellent words, i wish i had written this. oh well, at least i get to listen to it. ha!

while we were working on the album, there were a couple of songs that seemed like little gems - maybe we shouldn't clutter them up with accordions and trumpets and noisy guitar solos and such.. and while we ended up doing that to most songs, this one was too nice to mess up.

on other notes, emily and i started a japanese conversation class last night, which was pretty cool.. i've been studying japanese for a few terms now, at PCC, but it's sorta exciting to have emily as a conversation partner.

ja mata

Hunger For Thirst

hunger for thirst

The New Mexican Revolution finally released a new album, Black Mesa Songs, and I think it turned out pretty darn good. It's got the reliable mix of americana/country/songwriter-stuff, as well as some Tom Waits-style gypsy punk (ala Gogal Bordello). ha!

that sounds funny to read over, like some mutant press release. it's also pretty early in the morning, 'cause i gotta go to work.. which is awesome, 'cause i need money. i've been reading the Grapes of Wrath lately, on account of all the plane-traveling i've been doing, and it's a bit depressing. apparently you gotta have money. hmmm..

anyways, hunger for thirst might be my favorite song on the album, but it's a tough pick.. it's a country tune with neat poetic lyrics, and it's got a nice solo section and bridge. good stuff. on other parts of the album, their is more noise, more instrumentation, more experimentation, but this one is beautifully basic, i think.

I swore today I’d bite everything I said
Half words full of broken letters
I couldn’t explain away the reasons that I stay
Half sounds are for all the better

And you were at your best when I was at my worst
But I could never remember exactly which came first
Even benign smiles could seem so cursed
As I traded in my hunger for my thirst

Words are like leaves that are free, you can’t put them back on a tree
Each one a life of its own.
They might try to fly, or maybe just fall and die
Or wait like a seed to be sown

Sometimes words move like snow or they’ll settle like broken glass
Sometimes they lie in waiting for the moment to pass
So I try to bite down on them break them into pieces,
Let them settle where they will.

yuki geshou 雪化粧

yuki geshou 雪化粧

this is a little something i was thinking about doing in the big snow storm of portland 2008.. and hopefully it's closely related to an earlier piece called "snow day" on here.. a lot of the same things in the same key, spacey and instrumental and increasingly lethargic, almost.. i think this one could've been longer and more spaced out, especially up front. we'll save that for the live version.. ha!

also - wes shirley has a new blog that's pretty interesting - wes's album-a-day review blog!.. he doesn't seem to be held down by any genre or time period or relevance.. but it's all western pop music so far, i think. we shall see. neat0.

the white visitation

the white visitation

emily finally finished this term of school, which is pretty great news.. and i'm sure she got 100% in everything, so we're celebrating. ! and with that celebration we can post this little guy.. another instrumental experiment, which has a neat big modulation from Emaj to Amin.. and i think it worked out alright. it'd be nice to have a cello or something, but i don't.

now that emily has much less stuff to do all the time, maybe we can kick out some jams.

the lonely rocketman

uh huh.

the lonely rocketman

i'm pretty proud of this one.. it wasn't super hard or complicated or what-not.. but it was the most successful experiment of the past two weeks.

happy thanksgiving.

cloud or lion? part 2

here's a few more things i've been up to..

she left
bad dream / wake up
anti-venom

absolutely no luck on the job front.. it's terrible.

i've managed to stay busy, but not by making any money. sad face.

i found a way to control and trigger midi events in protools with this alesis keyboard. ha.

cloud or lion?

i found a dead bird..
bum
indoor pigeon
juggernaut

it's a leaning towers clearance!

these are all little instrumental pieces that we've been working on.. well, mostly instrumental - no lyrics but there are some voices. some of it was put together as sorta marketable tv commercial style experiments. some of it was just experimental, 'cause i gotta keep busy somehow. 'bum' dates all the way back to October Mountain.. and 'juggernaut' is pretty old too, but 'i found a dead bird' was mostly over this weekend.

in addition, i don't really like to crowd a single post with more than one 'song'.. so that part is also new. i'm very experimental, ha!

Creeping Tokyo

Creeping Tokyo

this song has a kinda tricky harmonic structure.. it's got a Bb major, a Gmaj and Gmin, Cmaj and Cmin, and it's mostly in the key of F (as per the good time outro solo).. so i'm kinda proud of that stuff. it's not super complicated, but it is a little bit clever, i think. it's got some guitars weaving in and out playing single notes to build chords, along with the moog and the keyboard, so i had to be kinda careful about the orchestration.. or something. it's just a song.

and it has some funny words -

you're a whore and i would kill you if i could
i'd write a dangerous little tune
a creeping tokyo of doom

it's a war and i'm never calling truce
i've got little left to lose
and i'm not afraid of you

i cut tiny little holes and you'll never be the same again

you're a fake and i'll expose you to the world
show them all how much you're worth
i guess i've always hated girls

you're not safe and i'll crack you in the end
you'll get betrayed by all your friends
i'll never let you sleep again

i cut tiny little holes but you'll never be the same again

evidence, a pop song

evidence, a pop song

well, it seems like good news all around at the house - i've been working a little bit for ben, and i've got an interview scheduled at powell's books for wednesday.. and i'm pretty hopeful for that job. and leah had a great interview for OHSU med school, and the new mexican revolution had a pretty good show the other day, despite wes having two missed up arms from two seperate bicycle accidents (!)... i guess that last bit is both good and bad news. ha!

and emily and i found some time to finish a few more tunes.. this one i wrote mostly while watching a documentary on Thelonious Monk - neat stuff. it's also kinda inspired by the new Blitzen Trapper album, Furr.. which is pretty great.. a full half of the album blows my mind, makes me jealous, all that stuff.. i like it alot.

celebrate

this is.. umm.. day 8 of unemployment, i guess. sad face. i've filled a few applications and sent a resume, but no replies yet. sad face. i feel like i should accomplish more creatively, but i'm pretty bummed out and always feel like i need to be finding work.. which isn't doing much to cheer me up. ha! and then i have 'band practice' just about every night of the week, but it often feels like a waste of time, a luxury.. that's a new feeling. band practice used to be a responsibility, right up there with all the other big time things i have to do. oh well. blah blah. i have written a few bitter songs and what-not.. emily's been trying to help out with a couple of pretty good ones, so i've shelved those in favor of finishing this one..

celebrate

i also have a picture! i'm not sure who took it, but it was given to me by G. Tony Jacobs (the bass player in the picture) and i think it must've been taken by Dan or Colae.. i like it. that's the one Leaning Towers show we've played, for their wedding. for the record, we played two cover songs and Beautiful Creature, an original.. short set, hopefully we kept them wanting more.

rivers run downstream

day two of unemployment, not much to say... i've got band practice every night except thursday, when the king hen plays a show at the Tonic Lounge, so that's keeping my nights busy enough.. and during the day? songs.

i've got a few things that are kinda neat, including two pretty things that just need more lyrics.. yesterdays big effort, "evidence, a pop song" is coming along nicely, i think i can finish that pretty quickly, but for today:

Rivers Run Downstream

this has emily rocking out on the bass - thats always a treat.

mermaid babies

well, i lost my job yesterday at The Portland Mercury.. i'd worked there for a little over four years, first as a distribution driver with emily, and then as an advertising runner. they were always really cool to me, let me take time off for touring and always treated me well, and it allowed me to work just a few days a week and still make ends meet while working on music. fairly ideal situation, i think.. so it's sad that it has to come to a close..

and then, well i didn't want the last song we'd posted to be dayjob, so i figured i'd better finish something else and post it.. this one wasn't the first choice, but i spent so much time working on this other song and i couldn't quite finish it.. well, anyways, i wanted to post something, so here it is..

Mermaid Babies

i like the lead guitar and all the crazy drums on this one.. i kinda thought it was a little like Keith Moon at times.. with a big windmill guitar.. and i kept it short, 'cause i've always like the little short rock tunes.

Dayjob

Dayjob

i'm not sure what happened, but this was supposed to be posted a few days ago.. oh well.

this was all words and chords that i had for a few weeks after the wedding, but it didn't seem nearly substantial enough for a song.. two verses and a guitar solo is all i had.. so i dropped that big D minor change into it and got a little weird, i really like that.. the accordion comes in and the odd drum exchange, neat-o.

ichi ni san shi

ichi ni san shi

well, i finished two songs today, which is pretty cool.. they've both been sorta stalled out for at least a month, so i feel good about closing 'em out and posting them. this one here was one of the first things i did in the basement with drums, but it was difficult to bring together all the elements.. the keyboards and the hundred guitars and all the different parts.. on and on, it was a pain.. but as always, once i could get emily to stop studying and going to school all the time, she came down and recorded some more vocals and keyboards, and it made a lot more sense, sounded a lot better, and so we're gonna call it finished.

hmm.. that's quite a run on paragraph. oh well.

busy week here - last night we went out to see Deerhoof and Experimental Dental School (who are locals now?).. pretty great, inspiring stuff.. but we knew it would be, we've been fans of both bands for awhile now. tonight and tomorrow are band practices.. friday the King Hen has a show at towne lounge, and we haven't played out in awhile. lots of stuff going on..

Pillar of Autumn

pillar of autumn

i wrote/recorded this a few days ago.. with a few very specific ideas.. i wanted the first phrase (all the synth string bits) to be in an odd-time, with a bunch of 3's in it somehow.. so i started fooling around, weaving these little C minor bits in and out of each other, trying to be catchy and simple and odd.

and i also wanted to experiment with this "tense rising string" thing that seems to be everywhere these days.. it's on Lost a lot, and in There Will Be Blood.. i think it's a string section sliding up slowly while bowing, all at slightly different times. so i did that with a few electric guitars and the moog, but it wasn't quite right.. those frets can really get in the way sometimes. then all those guitars, after the climax of that rising action, just sorta of lie there and look pretty in soft relief. which is probably my favorite moment. just floating in space.

so it didnt' really satisfy my experiments exactly.. but it's odd and pretty.