Hannah Boo - 5th installment of the Kickstarter Campaign Collaboration Reward

Here is the 5th collaboration from my Won Over Frequency Kickstarter campaign in which a Backer provides me with lyrics which I then turn into a hit song.  The inspiration for this track was provided by Maya Peart, who gracefully recounted the life and final days of her beloved pure bred Bullmastiff, Hannah. 

Regarding the music: 

I don't know why I return to hymnal harmony when trying to communicate pain, but I do. That being said, I purposefully kept it from following any expected direction, so as to simulate the sea-legs of profound loss. To represent that hourly oscillation between numbness and hysterics, I used a man vs. machine theme throughout the production: authentic snare and ride cymbal paired with electronic kick drum; synth strings and rhodes with acoustic guitar and electric bass; unfettered lead vocal with robotic vocoded harmonies. 

Regarding the lyrics:

It is a heavy thing, paying homage to someone this special. It is a heavier thing still to take on the voice of the grieving. If I weren't still knee-deep in my own grieving over Lumas, I'd venture to say that this sort of emotional co-opting is downright morally reprehensible. But lucky for me, Hannah's parents are dear friends of mine and myLumas, and were wonderful enough to trust me with something this sensitive. I really struggled to marry the subjective snapshots laid out in the verses with the objective rhetorical questions posed in the choruses. I know that the specifics of Hannah's death are not entirely clear to a listener who did not know her, and I grappled with whether or not to remedy that. In the end, I felt that vacillating between the details of injustice and a desperate lunge at gaining a larger context turns out to be a pretty accurate depiction of what coping with a loss of this magnitude looks like. So the song remains a dichotomy, optimized for her parents.

Hannah Boo

Well I suppose you were the silent type

but oh oh oh dear, you made a riot out of my tiny life

and nosed your way into every space

the anti-graceful, full of grace

you stoic bulldozer

how could you leave me with this mess?

And why do the biggest hearts break easiest?

Why do the smallest hearts survive?

Is it that love defies naturally selection

or that the big hearts keep the small hearts alive?

The way it went down was so hard to take

we'd been through hell and back but things felt ok

when the call came through we were both far away

Darling Hannah Boo, we never abandoned you!

I tried to be still but I'm not built that way

I couldn't take control or make the call - I had no say

Now I can't fill your space

I can dwell on the best, forget the rest but

why do the biggest hearts break easiest?

Why do the smallest hearts survive?

Is it that love defies naturally selection

or that the big hearts keep the small hearts thrive?

Maybe I'm wrong,

maybe I'm right

maybe my small heart tripled in size

just knowin' you,

just lovin' you,

myHannah Boo...

A Turning Point

As some of you may know, a year and a half ago I stopped touring to work a full-time job in order to get out of steepening debt and to finally afford the gear that I need to reduce costs on future projects. Thanks to an artist endorsement with the kind folks at Auralex Acoustics, I've finally completed my tracking room, mixing room, and vocal booth. I also recorded a quick Before and After comparison of drums, rhodes, and out-of-tune piano. Note: these drums are not close-mic'ed; I set up two Shure KSM 137 condensor mics (set on "omni") in the middle of the room, about 5 feet away from all 3 instruments. I made sure they were in exactly the same place for the before and after recording.

Now I just have to learn how to play music. 

Tracking Room - before

Tracking Room - after

Mixing Room and Vocal Booth

Chameleon Video - The most epic looping with Ableton

Here is the most work intensive performance video I've ever done. 

You can get the mp3 and lyrics here.
You can get the Ableton workfile that I used to perform this song here. Bare in mind that much of its programming is dependent upon the midi controllers that I used to perform it (Behringer FCB010 Footcontroller, Akai Professional MPK25, and a simple Midi out/in patchbay made with Max MSP by the saintly Brian Cass) to run the dummy clips. If you want to get savvy with this sort of thing, I advise you to explore the Ableton Forums and Brian's very useful macpro video tutorials.

It took me 3 months to arrange, rehearse, shoot, and edit.
It would mean the world to me if you'd share it with folks that would appreciate it.

I wrote the song in 2003 for a friend who wanted to do a boyband project. At the time I was fully aware that there existed a legendary funk odyssey called "Chameleon" by Herbie Hancock (all funk-obsessed musicians are required to fill 20% of their 3-hour set at the Block Island club with a rendition of the Headhunters jam). Over the years I played it live often and toyed with the arrangement a lot over time, but  I never really officially released it. So let's pray that this ridiculous rendition, with its highly offensive lyrics and discomforting subliminal imagery, is the song's final resting place.

Close Your Eyes - 4th installment of the Kickstarter Campaign Collaboration Reward

Here is the 4th collaboration from my Won Over Frequency Kickstarter campaign in which a Backer provides me with lyrics and I turn them into a hit song.  The original lyrics for this track were provided by Bryce Carter with contributions by his friend Todd. "The song was inspired by ideal summer moments, simplicity, space, and Carl Sagan."

Regarding the music: 
Since nostalgia seemed to be our most prominent theme, I opted to revisit the 50's aesthetic and arrangement-motifs of my hit song Coffeelocks. I'd worked out a few drafts in very different directions (most of them more downtempo and simpler instrumentation), but none clicked very well for me until I started down the doo-wop road. I used this recording as an opportunity to premier several new toys: my new M3 Hammond Organ / Leslie 45 (captured with a lovely pair of 421s ---- thanks Michael @ Sennheiser!!!), my theramin, my signature series Jay Turser electric bass ($65 value), and a beautiful pair of Cascade Fathead II-sp ribbon mics (thanks Rob @ Parson's Audio!!!). It's amazing how much less work one must do in the mixing phase when one simply utilizes the proper gear.


Regarding the lyrics:
Bryce sent me some lyrics back in mid December, and it took me several months to set aside the proper time needed to carve them into a workable structure. Once I got in there, it was quite a challenge to rework the cadences while maintaining the imagery. One of the more subtle but crucial alterations I made to the narrative was to make it past tense, which better suits the idyllic summer retrospective. I've interspersed my final lyrics (in italics) with Bryce's original lyrics so you can see the adaptation.

Close Your Eyes (Sweet Love)
Step into the lake on a warm summer night

We walked to the lake on that warm summer night

You laugh and tell me not to splash

You were laughing, you were begging me not to splash

The water is calm, we walk palm to palm

And the water was calm, I was pulling your arms

And hop in the rowboat to relive summer past

into the boat, as I'd done so many times in the past 

(Close your eyes, sweet love...)

Close your eyes, close your eyes, sweet love

We paddle past the dock and the shore waves goodbye

Out past the dock, where the shore disappears

The stars light our way from the sky

and the sun's closing eye was just a dent in the sky

The sun's not awake, he's done for the day

I was worn like a gown but could not settle down

But you're wide awake, the night sky in your eyes

I's as lit as the stars in your eyes

(...they swim above us.)

omitted

Worry settles to the bottom while we float on the top

Our troubles had tumbled to the floor of the lake

We lay down to look up above

as we lay on our backs in the craft up above

The stars are painting scenes that only we see

if the stars carved a scene from the space in-between

On a canvas of sky with a paintbrush of love

then the night was a canvas, and the paintbrush was love

(She told everyone what she saw...)

Close your eyes, close your eyes, sweet love

set adrift as the stars swim above us

It's time to head back but we circle around

We made to head back but were all turned around

Sometimes the stars beg you to stay

like the stars, in there way, still had much more to say

But you must listen close if you're to hear what they spoke

So we listened real close as to hear what they spoke

The stars are in us, we are they

but the stars were in us, or perhaps we in they

(...a candle from space)

Close your eyes, close your eyes, sweet love...

Expensive Love - live in my pajamas

Here's a new video I shot while experimenting with my new TC-Helicon VoiceLive Play vocal harmonizer/effects processor:

Expensive Love
There's a drip in the tub that I just can't fix
and I can't find a rug to cover up the skidmarks from where your feet kept losing ground.
You were carving up a tomb from the home I found.
And I could afford the surgery,
and I could absorb the cost of drugs,
but I just needed some sort of guarantee that you'd see me through.

Dear Lu,
loving you is so expensive
loving you is so expensive, darling
loving you is so expensive, baby
I knew you had to go but didn't know it'd be so costly

You got a little bit sicker when you came on tour,
but still you stood right by my until your legs were sore,
and it was hard to leave you out in the van some nights.
Sometimes you gotta do wrong to make a longterm right.

But then you got much worse when I took the job;
I had to leave work late and get up at ungodly hours to get out of all the debts I owed.
Maybe you couldn't see the man for the brand new clothes,
but everything else was much improved:
We ate our weight in brand name foods.
I became the father you never knew

But it was too late

Dear Lu,
loving you is so expensive
loving you is so expensive, darling
loving you is so expensive, Lumey
I knew you had to go but didn't know it'd be so costly


loving you is so expensive, baby
loving you is so expensive, darling
loving you is so expensive, Lumey
I knew you had to go but didn't know how much it'd cost me

Over Breakfast

I suppose I had no business saying those things to Julie.

She was just doing her breakfast thing, same as any other day

reading the back of my paper aloud over eggs, tomatoes, and sausage

knowin' full well I wasn't halfway through Landers and dead set on gettin into Marmaduke before Daryl show'd up

But as ma says, 

Eggs ain't eggs without somethin gettin broke

and that front page article on the Carter Parking Garage Killer had worn Julie paper thin.

She puffed out a tearful monologue

punctuated by toast shrapnel, 

I just don't… I don't… I can't understand how a person can just… KILL nine people… for no REASON. It's, it's… it's SENSELESS. You just NEVER know wha---

Well, I understand how a person could do that, I shot back from behind my paper. 

Wasn't more than four seconds of silence before I knew she'd never forgive it

I shoulda tipped the paper but I just couldn't look at that face she was surely makin

lookin like a rich walrus on tax day

Damnit, playin out these tired routines was enough to turn a man sterile

What I mean is… I can see---

Her chair bit into the floor as she clinked our dishes into a pile.

I can't believe you can just sit there… JUSTIFYIN… the killin of innocent folks, Wayne, she sputtered downward into the sink

like I was lookin up from the gunk.

I didn't say it was right, Julie Rae, I said I can understand it.

Well, I just don't know what to think about that. I suppose you think that's typical behavior, do you?

It was an awkward way to stick it to me, but I knew what she was gettin at

(when you've earned this much interest on a relationship, 

ain't no conversation you're gonna have that isn't colored by something you said while under some sort of influence - be it love or whiskey)

that, right there, was her thinkin back on that time we was at Billy and Michelle's 

and I was tellin them about how I'd found that sheep's skeleton up in the canyon when I was 12

kept it in a sack under my bed for months

'til ma'd found it and made me throw out the whole damned sack cause of the ticks

and I was really gettin into that story cause Billy was laughing and callin me Wayne Dahmer

and suddenly Julie was tearing towards the bathroom ballin her eyes out and wailin bout 

THAT AIN'T NORMAL WAYNE. AIN'T NO KIND OF WAY FOR A KID TO BEHAVE

Michelle chased her in there, no doubt stokin the fire like a woman does when she's tryin to put one out

THAS TYPICAL BEHAVIOR FOR ANY BOY SCOUT, JULIE RAE, I hollered after her, 

rollin my eyes at Billy 

and Billy rollin em right back 

Come the next mornin she was all kinds of sorry

made a big hash even though her head was poundin

but after that she watched me different

Like before I was a sheepdog

now I was a malamute.

What I'm sayin' is I can see how a man can end up in that place... 

where something senseless... makes sense. 

Ain't you never stared at somethin till it blurred? 

Er said a word so many times you stopped believin it was a real word? 

She didn't answer, but I knew she had

Ain't you never done that same thing with livin? Where you… 

where you and the world stop speaking the same language for a little while?
Like everything you done up to this point don't bring you any closer to understanding the next point yer supposed to shoot fer?

Like you stop believin in all that buddhist shit 

momentarily… momentarily, Julie

and you realize that maybe you ain't One with anything, 

ain't attached or related to nothin: 

not yer daddy, yer momma, yer fellow man

not the one you love

not the law

not even the ground.

You just a bunch of cells that got lost out there

and everything else is a bad dream.

Ain't you never been so lonely that you stopped believin the word "lonely" even exists…

cause ain't no one coulda understood it rightly before you?

She was frozen at the sink, 

hands on my dirty plate, 

water spillin over the basin

like I had my .38 to her head

Daryl blasted his stupid horn in the driveway in his stupid regular way

I walked over and turned off the water,

tried to kiss her forehead like usual

but now there was no usual

she'd be askin me to move on soon, I s'pose.

Got me wondering if maybe that's just a place the female mind can't ever go

Like maybe a man's heart has a drawer in it that women just don't have

and shouldn't never open. 

SXSW 2012

Nu Shooz cover "I Can't Wait"

Two weeks ago I was asked to cover "I Can't Wait" by Portland band Nu Shooz (now known as the "Nu Shooz Orchestra") for PDX Pop Now and the Oregon Historical Society's "Let It Rain!" compilation, which features Oregon-based artists from the present covering songs by Oregon-based bands of the past.

Here's my version:




Here's the original:



Here are some fun facts:

• The life cycle of "I Can't Wait" by Nu Shooz is an interesting one; the version that brought the band international acclaim was not that featured on their March 1985 release, Tha's Right, but a none-too-altered remix by Dutch producer Peter Slaghuis. Portland radio station KKRZ immediately embraced and spun the original version and Portland listeners drove it up the local charts, but it failed to garner much love elsewhere until Slaghuis "Long Vocal Dutch Mix" was released on Injection Records at the end of 1985, and still didn't really land on American audiences until a full year after the original version was released, when the remix was included on their Atlantic release, Poolside, at which point it rose to #3 on the billboard charts.
• In addition to the original "American" version and several existing remixes, Nu Shooz released two more versions of the song in 2006 on an "Unplugged" EP.  For my cover, I took the ideas from each version that were the most appealing to me and put my stamp on them. To accentuate the theme of anticipation, I accelerated the tempo gradually over the span of the entire song. To suggest patience in the face of anticipation, the rhythms of each of the song's main elements are slowly assigned to increasingly longer subdivisions, giving them a decelerating effect, so that the end of the song is almost a shuffle.
• This is the first recording of my newly purchased 1976 suitcase Rhodes
• This is the first mix from my new home studio
• This track features Sky Cooper on guitar
• This track was mastered by Gus Elg at Sky Onion Studio
• This is the first time I've successfully sampled Robocop