Fire and Rain – Better is One Day
Well, I did it again! I was playing around on the keyboard Sunday morning before rehearsal with the song Better is One Day by Kutless when it started to sound like another song… Fire and Rain by James Taylor. So… another hour at the computer with my audio interface and a Karaoke version of Fire and Rain and here you go everyone!
Jesus Will Fix It – 2011-08-14
So, this recording is a good year in the making from my last multi-track recording. In the interim, I have purchased a Lexicon Alpha USB audio interface and a Behringer mixer and started using Adobe Audition to pull off a better version of what I’ve been trying to accomplish and now it has hit it’s target!
This past Sunday our church band put together an arrangement of “Jesus Will Fix It” using myself on keyboard, along with a couple of drummers, bass player, and some lead guitar work –all in the key of E-minor. It was bugging me all afternoon how this arrangement sounded so familiar and then it hit me: Love me 2 Times by The Doors! I managed to find a clean karaoke version of the song and started cutting it up in Adobe Audition to follow the chord progression of Jesus Will Fix It. What you hear took about 2 hours and includes a total of about 10 different tracks (counting 4 vocal tracks). Overall, I’m very pleased with both the hardware and software I’m now working with!
I still remember the first time I put the needle of the record player down on this very strange-looking album cover for the first time around 1984. Hell, I don’t even remember who brought it to me but I had never heard of the band DEVO and the cover art was just so strange I HAD to listen to what it was… I was never quite the same after that. I have been a DEVO-Devotee ever since. The problem was that this album was truly the apogee of the career of the band –and it was my first taste of them! Over the years, I have managed to collect the entire discography for the band and have sat and listened to the entire progression from beginning to end. What I can tell you is that this album is a great example of the value of having a good producer. Roy Thomas Baker was hired to produce this album just one year after the band released New Traditionalists –and what a difference it made. Baker is mainly known for producing a good portion of Queen’s studio albums (along with a laundry list of “who’s who” of major bands of the last several decades).
One of the most interesting things I’ve personally noticed when listening to the older albums DEVO created, was how their song introductions are great and the rest of the song doesn’t quite stand up to the promise of the music the intro gave me. But Baker’s producing created a collection of songs that hold their own throughout. From beginning to end, each song stands up as a wonderful example of how to layer many sounds together and still not sound “messy”. I never tire of sitting down and listening through this album. My all-time favorite is “Speed Racer”…
If you listen closely, you’ll hear very subtle changes in the beat, little sounds and accents but the song still remains clean and clear –you can distinctly make out every little thing! One of the interesting things that you can also hear in this song is the fact that some of the synth sounds are actually out of tune slightly. This adds a special sort of feel that I really don’t hear that often these days…
DEVO attempted to re-create the same production quality with their next album (being self-produced) Shout. There are distinct differences with this album (including the incorporation of a Fairlight CMI computer used in the song creation process) but what is missing is the clean production quality that Baker brought to the table. I will forever wonder what their next studio album would have been with Baker behind the production work…
I know that many bands have a sort of “bell curve” lifespan when it comes to the quality of albums. Oh, no! It’s DEVO is by far the peak of the curve for this band and well worth giving a close listen as it a model of production perfection when it comes to electronic music –and this was done before the advent of a computer in the studio!
Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted a review of any music and I guess I’m due…
The two DJ’s I’ve grown fond of are from a new trend in doing some rather creative remixing work involving either a mash-up of old tunes to make a completely new product as Osymyso does, or pulling the vocal track from one song and the instrumentation from another to create new material as is done by GoHomeProductions.
I first heard about Osymyso from one of my favorite radio shows, Crap From The Past. He mentioned one of the most amazing mixes I’ve listed to in a while: Intro-Inspection (you can listen to it on his Archive Page). He composed a 12 minute song completely out of introductions from other songs. The creativity and simple brilliance put into this mix is amazing!
Go Home Productions has a good 50 tracks on their website of their special formulation of vocals from one song and instrumentation from another. I’m literally re-experiencing the joy of listening to a song for the first time –but with tunes I grew up listening to!! This guy is a true genius at finding just the perfect match of elements from the most un-related genres!! He gained popularity (and caught my attention) from mixing a Jackon-5 tune with Nirvana’s Teen Spirit. Frankly, I much prefer some of his other tunes but it’s still not too bad…
Check out both DJ’s and enjoy!!
Well now I’m mad I rushed to post the original recording a couple of days ago! This version has a few flat notes “fixed” and I added about 3 more tracks with a little bit of ornamental touches to the chorus. I’m really enjoying this process! It’s like having an entire band of guys that know exactly what you want to do (but can only do them one at a time). I’m definitely going to be doing more work like this in the future. I’ve always wanted to “accompany myself” as I’ve had arrangements in my head I’d like to lay down and see how they sound for real. So now I’m on the hunt for a more effective method of doing my multi-track recordings other than using my standard sound card and Audacity software. I’d truly like to be able to record vocals in a latency-free environment so I can hear not only what I sound like but how I sound against all the other tracks already recorded. Presently that is an impossibility. In the mean time, enjoy the new recording! I’m probably going to arrange the entire song to I can layer each of the 11 tracks little by little. I think it will sound nice! Also, I’m probably going to hook up my better microphone and find a way to digitally connect it to my system pretty soon as I’m sure I’ll get drastically better sound quality from that as opposed to my super-cheap headset microphone! Enjoy!
So I’ve been working with Audacity for a few months now trying to make multi-track recordings of my own voice and finally figured out how to work around the latency problems. In any event, have a listen to this recording. I was trying to figure out both a tenor and alto part for our arrangement of Oh Lamb of God where we have a male singing the melody (at a lower register than normally done). After laying the initial 3 tracks, I thought it would be interesting to then add a bass part and then double-up each track to make it more full. What I’m left with is a “Male Chorus of One”!
If you’re interested, the way I got around the latency problem was to lay an initial track of just the melody. I then sang each other part accompanying that first melody track –including a new melody track. Once all the tracks were laid down, I muted the initial track that set the timing for all the others and there you go: a no-latency recording since all the tracks were done while accompanying the same initial track. I’m sure there are other solutions but considering the fact that this project required ZERO investment in hardware (I’m using free software and my old headset), I’d say it works pretty well
Enjoy!
Laurie Anderson may be an “acquired taste” to many. I was introduced to her strange, musical poetry at a relatively young age. “Tightrope” has got to be one of her most memorable compositions to me. The lyrics (and I don’t normally even listen to lyrics) really put me in a reflective place…
Last night I dreamed I died and that my life had been rearranged into some kind of theme park. And all my friends were walking up and down the boardwalk. And my dead Grandmother was selling cotton candy out of a little shack. And there was this big ferris wheel about a half mile out in the ocean, half in and half out of the water. And all my old boyfriends were on it -with their new girlfriends. And the boys were waving and shouting and the girls were saying, “Eeek.” Then they disappeared under the surface of the water and when they came up again they were laughing and gasping for breath…
In this dream I’m on a tightrope and I’m tipping back and forth trying to keep my balance. And below me are all my relatives and if I fall I’ll crush them…
This long thin line. This song line. This shout. The only thing that binds me to the turning world below and to all the people and noise and sounds and shouts. This tightrope made of sound. This long thin line made of my own blood…
Remember me is all I ask. And if remembered be a task, forget me. Remember me is all I ask. And if remembered be a task, forget me. This long thin line. This long thin line. This long thin line. This tightrope. Remember me is all I ask. And if remembered be a task forget me. This long thin line. This long thin line. This long thin line. This tightrope made of sound.
Man, had I forgotten just how much I loved this song as a kid. The musical layers are just amazing to listen to -even now. I didn’t realize that this was a fairly big video on MTV in the beginning of the network. I also didn’t realize that the lead singer looked so much like Rosanne! I had always imagined she looked something like a Joan Jett. Oh well, I’m off to Amazon to by another CD… From what I’ve read, this was a pretty good band that just never got the popularity it deserved other than this one-hit-wonder. I sure hope they’re right ’cause it’s gonna’ cost me about $7 to find out!!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from a fan of modern “hip hop” music. I find most of it devoid of real musical talent or originality. I have noticed a trend towards what I would call “minimalism” when it domes to the production lately and this tune kind of takes the cake for it. but the more I listened to this song (on an otherwise mediocre album) I heard a lot of Kraftwerk influence –and not from sampling either! Sadly, the rest of the album pretty much sux in my opinion with the exception of one or two more tracks so I’m sure this tune was just a fluke -but still… I love this tune!! The strong base, 80’s style synth’s used sparringly, minimal and tasteful percussion progression, etc…
Just got lucky enough to listen to a little internet radio on Live 365 while I haven’t used my laptop for playing MP3’s at work much these days. Came across the amazing band VAST and was impressed from the beginning. To me, it sounds like a hard version of U2 but then again I’ve only heard one album. I’m currently downloading the rest as I type.
In the mean time, Here’s a download of the song “Turquoise” that first got my attention!
I also would point a lot of you to MP3 Sugar for decent MP3 downloads. The prices are amazingly cheap and the quality has been fantastic (fairly high bitrates). The site is Russian and has dubious legal standing but I’ve been nothing but happy with them for the past 8 months. I managed to find the album “Nude” from VAST on their website but no others. Still, not a bad catch for $1.50!!
All I have to say is Kraftwerk is ‘da bomb! I downloaded what I think is a bootleg video recording of a live concert taken from London in 2004. I am just amazed. I mean, I grew up listening to these guys (and they seemed to grow up too) but they still have it. All they did was stand there in the center of the stage and make amazing music. You could hear the crowd just going crazy. All they needed were some keyboards and laptops on the stage. 2 hours straight they played!
Just started listening to this album again. What a masterpiece of sound, rhythm, and melody. I remember being entranced by this work in the mid 90’s and then just lost the album. Managed to find a perfect condition CD on Amazon for less than $3 and couldn’t order it fast enough. This album is still as fresh as the first time I heard it. It still bugs me that he became known as a “one-hit wonder” for the song “Lucas With The Lid Off” considering the rest of the album is just an amazing work. The lyrics (mostly rap) are some of the most poetic and compelling I’ve heard in years and the sound production still has me noticing new things even years later. I consider it an album worth study if you are in any way interested in hip-hop production.
I recently went on a quest to find out what happened to this guy since I would have loved to hear more from him. As it turns out, he now produces for a lot of current hip-hop artists. I was disappointed about this until realizing that he simply had said all he wanted to in music so there was no need to add more. I can respect that. If you are even remotely interested in rap, hip-hop, or modern jazz, I would strongly recommend this album.
I’ve got a few more album reviews for y’all if anyone cares…
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Well I feel compelled to comment here on the song “Left Right” on the latest Chemical Brothers album. It was a collaboration with rapper, and Mos Def’s little brother, Anwar Superstar. Some have already commented online about how this full-on rap track is somewhat “off kilter” from the rest of the album. I don’t think so as the musical variety is what this album is all about. What IS worthy of note are the lyrics for this rap. Now I’m sure there are PLENTY of anti-Bush songs out there but this one just happens to be in front of me at the moment…(hold on to your hats, this is a long one)
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Just got this new album from an “old friend” of a band of mine! I swear I’ve been listening to it back to back all day today. Finally I had to force myself to stop and go listen to something else! This has got to be their finest work yet. As an electronic music fan, I’m also aware of the contemporaries of this band like Prodigy (another band I just love) but it looks like this may be their pinnacle work -unless they top it again. Normally there are at least a couple tracks that I just don’t want to listen to in almost every album but this one is an album I can listen trough completely and just get pumped up!
Still, I have some thoughts about one of the songs and I’ll post them in the next entry…
A lot of hard work! Here’s just a small sampling of the work I’ve been doing the past week:
This is only one of THREE boxes of CD’s I’m ripping at the moment!
I’ve been ripping CD’s and collecting MP3’s since 1997 -nearly the origin of the file format! Back then, we had to use 3 computers to rip a CD. One for converting the CD to individual WAV files, One that ran encoding the WAV’s to MP3, and one where you sat and renamed all the files to the proper format! Now all that is done automatically (and pretty fast might I say). I started with my own collection and have now started exchanging hard drives and CD collections with friends and acquaintances for quite a few years now. Napster, Kazaa, Suprnova.org, ect? They all take too long and aren’t that reliable for quality of consistency of product. I won’t deny using them all at one time or another for the rare or hard-to-find track that is out of print though! I’m presently working on developing a better file storage system. This will probably be the main project of 2005: develop a 2+TB RAID storage system with room to grow. Wish me luck!
Watched Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events this past week and was just thrilled with it. Sadly, it hasn’t gotten that much of a positive review by people that have read the books. It turns out that the movie is a total bastardization of the original books. Many reviewers are furious with the original author for allowing these books to be so mangled with this movie. I guess this won’t have the success as the Harry Potter series did. Still, the production design, cinematography, and acting were just a feast for the eyes. Jim Carry was his normal genius self, the kids were adorable, and the props were timeless. I’m actually glad I didn’t know of the books because I really did enjoy this movie!
Also of note, the sister in the movie is played by Emily Browning who was also the ghost girl in Ghost Ship just a few years ago. I’m even more impressed with the film now that I realize that Emily is actually around 16-17 years old and they still manage to make her look a lot younger.
I was introduced to a couple of songs on this album last year by a co-worker and laughed my head off. I’ve been listening more and more over the past month and I have to say that Jack Black is a rock-‘n-roll genius. I was impressed with his film School of Rock and was aware that he did a lot of his own music but this album is just incredible! He manages to write VERY good tunes while making fun of rock in general. I actually can’t get some of his tunes out of my head. I hear rumor that there’s a movie in the works in response to the album and that I look forward to seeing! If you like rock, you’ll be pretty impressed with this album.
Started listening to to Mr. Bungle recently:
Mr. Bungle – Discovolante (1995)
Mr. Bungle – California (1999)
It was described to me as “circus music and death metal combined”. I thought they were joking but they weren’t! The funny thing is that it WORKS! -at least for me. I almost immediately spotted the lead singer vocals as that of Mike Patton from Faith No More. Turns out, Mr. Bungle was the band he used to get more of the extreme and intense creativity out of his system as Faith No More just couldn’t handle some of the crazy ideas he had brewing. I was also told that in one of the first Faith No More videos, Mike is seen wearing a Mr. Bungle t-shirt! I’ll admit this kind of music isn’t for most -in fact I know of few people I’d even think of suggesting listen to this. But I liked it. I liked the violent changes from style to style. I thought the combination of different sounds worked very well -but I also have to be in the right mood to listen to this one!
On a related note, I also got a hold of Velvet Revolver:
Velvet Revolver – Contraband (2004)
I liked their single “Fall To Pieces” and thought the album would be worth a try. A lot of friends told me they were disappointed with their work and I didn’t understand why until I realized that Velvet Revolver is just a “patchwork quilt” of remaining band members from both Guns ‘N Roses and Stone Temple Pilots! Once again, I started identifying the vocals almost straight off the bat once I started playing the album. STP’s Scott Weiland is just unmistakable in quite a few of the songs (just not “Fall To Pieces”). In addition, you get both Slash and Duff from GNR along with a few more headliners to round off the band. I now understand why so many were disappointed with this album: they were expecting the magic of some of the previous releases from their previous bands. Aint gonna’ happen boys! Still, I thought the album was decent and worth a few more plays on my laptop for the moment!
I recently got the complete Queen discography but hadn’t listened to much of it yet. Well this weekend, I broke out the tracts and started listening to some of those great albums I grew up with over the years.
Queen – The Miricle (1989)
I first got this tape just before going to college in Daytona Beach, FL. I used to rollerblade listening to this album on my walkman in the middle of the night. I had the original rollerblades and would find these beautiful stretches of asphalt to speed skate on in the dark. I sure did look scary then I’m sure -I’ll have to dig up some pictures of how I looked back then, scan and post them here. Man, I haven’t listened to this album in years! Boy does that bring back memories of college…Some good, some bad. Still, it’s just amazing just how much music will re-kindle old memories in me…
I was asked to perform a song this past weekend for a graduation ceremony for people completing a very difficult program for treatment of chemical addictions. I tried to put together a “band” performance but wasn’t able to get the people and the rehearsals in enough time to make it happen so I decided to do a solo performance of an old U2 song titled “Running to Stand Still”. Funny thing was that I’d never paid ANY attention to the lyrics before. I simply liked the song, worked well solo with just a piano (something I can play) and that was that. Well I decided to research the lyrics and the meaning behind them and was simply blown away. Turns out this song was inspired by the horrible stories Bono heard about coming from his home country of Ireland where heroin was ravaging the poor. People were willing to risk life in prison (the penalty for heroin smuggling in Ireland) just to make some quick cash and get the chance to shoot up again. This insanity was remarkable to Bono (not a heavy drug user -if at all) and also to me. I still didn’t want to do the song at the graduation ceremony simply because I considered it a “downer” compared to the more celebratory tunes normally sung there but it was all I had. Turns out, it was an absolute smash! So many people came up to me afterward and said just how much that song meant to them and how each of them pulled something different from the words of the song. I was beside myself. I never would have expected that sort of reaction. Goes to show: God’s still in control!
With that inspiration to continue checking up on the meaning and stories behind U2 lyrics, I was also amazed at another song that I have always liked: “One Tree Hill”. As it turns out, this song was inspired by the death of a great friend to the band that lived in a town in Australia called One Tree Hill. The song makes strong allusions to the the rapture with phrases like “I’ll see you again, when the stars fall from the sky, and the moon turn to red, over One Tree Hill.” (Rev. 6:12-13) -just chilling! …Slowly I’m realizing just how much the Bible plays a part in U2’s lyrics.