Aside from assuring Keddiz’ (Keddiz’s? Keddizsz?) future office, what have we been up to?
I’m sure we did something last week. I would sweat to it. I had meant to type “swear” there, but I typed sweat by accident, and have now decided to stick with that. That’s the way I do things around here. You never know where you stand. I have to go to the bathroom and my coworkers just left me again. I thought they were coming back, and indeed they did, but then they left again. I think that my subconscious mind is so obsessed with the idea of voiding waste from my body that it may be determined to make me sweat pee. Is that what is going on here?
At any rate, I can’t sweat to it, but I would swear to it, that we did something last week. And now I’ve rambled for so long that I actually now recall what it is that we did: we tuned my four string bass down like a five string, so my e was now a low b, and added bass and some background keys to “It’s a Snow Day”. That is exactly what we did.
So, last night we picked back up where that left off by loading up “It’s a Snow Day” and then not doing anything to it. Instead we started tracking on “All Right All Right”, which is the rock centerpiece of my musical about a murder at a sideshow, which makes up the center nugget of “Centennial”. I hope to spin this off into a forrealz musical after the album is done. I don’t have a title for it, but right now I’m thinking “Murder at a Sideshow” may be fine in and of itself.
At any rate, the story of how that song came about is almost interesting, so I’ll tell you about it. It illustrates very well the Adapt and Move Forward attitude that has served the Debutantes so well/poorly over the years.
The world knows and loves Nate Sturdevant, aka Nate the Viking. He’s an epicurean, a philsopher, a writer, a rogue. If you never witnessed the live rock fury of the Blowup in Japanese or Nate the Viking Featuring Dave, I’d say that it’s possible that you’ve never seen a real rock n’ roll band.
At any rate, of course we wanted Nate on the record, but we didn’t know where to put him. Well over a year ago we were tracking “Drown in the River”, and we knew we needed drums, so we let Nate take a crack at it.
Through no fault of his own, his take on the song didn’t really jibe with the direction we ultimately went in. His version was Rat Scabies, and we were looking more for Doug Clifford. We ultimately ended up with Andy Hurt, who is kind of like Bill Berry, but looks a little bit like Kenny Aranoff, who cannot be trusted under any circumstance.
So anyway, we had a couple of minutes worth of furious Nate the Viking drummery on our hands, but nowhere to put it. A few months ago I asked Danny to send me a loop of Nate’s drum track, which we named “Nate Loop”.
“Nate Loop” sat in my iTunes for a couple of months, until eventually I found myself humming a little tune to it. This tune became a song, which eventually became the demo “All Right All Right”.
As mentioned mere paragraphs ago, this is the middle of the musical we’re writing. The song takes place immediately after Johnny the Motorcycle Stuntman has sold his soul to Griselda the Fortune Teller (or so he thinks) in order to gain a few more days of living, in which he hopes to solve the murder of aerialist Selene, Queen of the Air.
“All right, all right, sold my soul for a longer life.” The “all right” phrasing is stolen from Buddy Holly. I’ve made my peace with that, I hope you will too.
So anyway, I built a demo around Nateloop, and it became a fairly catchy little number, definitely cast in the Question Mark and the Mysterians vein. If you don’t hear the “96 Tears” in the keyboard, then you are not predisposed to picking up on bald plagiarism.
Danny cleaned up the drum track, making it sound like super thunder, and we then added the bass track. Then we had a “Microphone Shootout” to determine which mic would best catch all the nuances of my wheezing. The newest acquisition won the race. I’m sure Danny can tell you the name of it. In the meantime, just assume that it was very phallic and expensive.
Once vocals were wrapped up we decided to have Glen record the farfisa part. It was then that we discovered that we hadn’t tuned the bass, and in fact it may be as much as a half step out of tune, meaning we may have to redo the bass and the vocals. Ha. HAHAHAHA. Ha. Heh. Hrm.
I won’t fool you, we did a lot of important work last night. Perhaps the most serious of our tasks was our agreement (at least between Danny and myself. Glen remains mum) that the Brian Johnson era of AC/DC, particularly the 80’s output, is in dire need of reappraisal.
Now don’t get me wrong. We all know and love the Bon Scott works. They are irreplaceable, unquestionable works of stupid genius. We know these songs like the backs of our fronts. There will never, ever, be an argument AGAINST Bon Scott AC/DC.
However, aside from the seminal “Back in Black”, Brian Johnson era AC/DC tends to get the shaft, especially amongst the “purists”.
This all came about because yesterday I was feeling like fall, and AC/DC is definitely one of my fall/winter bands. I think it’s because I listened to a lot of AC/DC in middle and high school, and my most distinct middle/high school memories tend to be set in the fall.
At any rate, I brought up the AC/DC catalog on ye olde iThingy, and decided to once again run through a chunk of the Brian records, in particular “Flick of the Switch”, “Fly on the Wall” and “For Those About to Rock”. Something about the F that those boys like.
At any rate, whenever I listen to those records I am astounded by just how good they sound. This is the 80’s, and no other era in recorded music history sounds shittier than the 80’s. Super compressed, thin, tinny, ugly production.
Except for those AC/DC records. They sound immaculate. I couldn’t believe the bass drum sounds. And the guitars, present right there in your ear. They sound like amps in rooms. I know that shouldn’t be hard to believe, since most albums are played by amps in rooms, but these records SOUND like amps in rooms. They really put you in there.
Anyways, one of my favorite album cuts is “Evil Walks”. I’ve always got it on my short list “Cool Songs to Cover Whenever I’m in a Rock Band Again”. It’s a pretty righteous song.
So for no reason in particular I sang a little bit of it last night, and Danny picked up on it, and it lead to a long discussion of the merits of the 80’s catalog, their production, Brian Johnson, and AC/DC in general. Danny also picked out “Night of the Long Knives” and “Inject the Venom”, which just further proves that Danny and I have shared the same brain since we were about 12 years old.
And there you have it. The Debutantes want you to listen to “Centennial” when it comes out, but until that happens, why not give the 80’s AC/DC output another shake? “The Razor’s Edge” isn’t that bad either.
So, once this discussion wound down, Glen was able to give his all in a particularly inspired and well-enunciated vocal take on “It’s a Snow Day”. You’ll be singing it soon.
A Spanish Gourmand
Aside from assuring Keddiz’ (Keddiz’s? Keddizsz?) future office, what have we been up to?
I’m sure we did something last week. I would sweat to it. I had meant to type “swear” there, but I typed sweat by accident, and have now decided to stick with that. That’s the way I do things around here. You never know where you stand. I have to go to the bathroom and my coworkers just left me again. I thought they were coming back, and indeed they did, but then they left again. I think that my subconscious mind is so obsessed with the idea of voiding waste from my body that it may be determined to make me sweat pee. Is that what is going on here?
At any rate, I can’t sweat to it, but I would swear to it, that we did something last week. And now I’ve rambled for so long that I actually now recall what it is that we did: we tuned my four string bass down like a five string, so my e was now a low b, and added bass and some background keys to “It’s a Snow Day”. That is exactly what we did.
So, last night we picked back up where that left off by loading up “It’s a Snow Day” and then not doing anything to it. Instead we started tracking on “All Right All Right”, which is the rock centerpiece of my musical about a murder at a sideshow, which makes up the center nugget of “Centennial”. I hope to spin this off into a forrealz musical after the album is done. I don’t have a title for it, but right now I’m thinking “Murder at a Sideshow” may be fine in and of itself.
At any rate, the story of how that song came about is almost interesting, so I’ll tell you about it. It illustrates very well the Adapt and Move Forward attitude that has served the Debutantes so well/poorly over the years.
The world knows and loves Nate Sturdevant, aka Nate the Viking. He’s an epicurean, a philsopher, a writer, a rogue. If you never witnessed the live rock fury of the Blowup in Japanese or Nate the Viking Featuring Dave, I’d say that it’s possible that you’ve never seen a real rock n’ roll band.
At any rate, of course we wanted Nate on the record, but we didn’t know where to put him. Well over a year ago we were tracking “Drown in the River”, and we knew we needed drums, so we let Nate take a crack at it.
Through no fault of his own, his take on the song didn’t really jibe with the direction we ultimately went in. His version was Rat Scabies, and we were looking more for Doug Clifford. We ultimately ended up with Andy Hurt, who is kind of like Bill Berry, but looks a little bit like Kenny Aranoff, who cannot be trusted under any circumstance.
So anyway, we had a couple of minutes worth of furious Nate the Viking drummery on our hands, but nowhere to put it. A few months ago I asked Danny to send me a loop of Nate’s drum track, which we named “Nate Loop”.
“Nate Loop” sat in my iTunes for a couple of months, until eventually I found myself humming a little tune to it. This tune became a song, which eventually became the demo “All Right All Right”.
As mentioned mere paragraphs ago, this is the middle of the musical we’re writing. The song takes place immediately after Johnny the Motorcycle Stuntman has sold his soul to Griselda the Fortune Teller (or so he thinks) in order to gain a few more days of living, in which he hopes to solve the murder of aerialist Selene, Queen of the Air.
“All right, all right, sold my soul for a longer life.” The “all right” phrasing is stolen from Buddy Holly. I’ve made my peace with that, I hope you will too.
So anyway, I built a demo around Nateloop, and it became a fairly catchy little number, definitely cast in the Question Mark and the Mysterians vein. If you don’t hear the “96 Tears” in the keyboard, then you are not predisposed to picking up on bald plagiarism.
Danny cleaned up the drum track, making it sound like super thunder, and we then added the bass track. Then we had a “Microphone Shootout” to determine which mic would best catch all the nuances of my wheezing. The newest acquisition won the race. I’m sure Danny can tell you the name of it. In the meantime, just assume that it was very phallic and expensive.
Once vocals were wrapped up we decided to have Glen record the farfisa part. It was then that we discovered that we hadn’t tuned the bass, and in fact it may be as much as a half step out of tune, meaning we may have to redo the bass and the vocals. Ha. HAHAHAHA. Ha. Heh. Hrm.
I won’t fool you, we did a lot of important work last night. Perhaps the most serious of our tasks was our agreement (at least between Danny and myself. Glen remains mum) that the Brian Johnson era of AC/DC, particularly the 80’s output, is in dire need of reappraisal.
Now don’t get me wrong. We all know and love the Bon Scott works. They are irreplaceable, unquestionable works of stupid genius. We know these songs like the backs of our fronts. There will never, ever, be an argument AGAINST Bon Scott AC/DC.
However, aside from the seminal “Back in Black”, Brian Johnson era AC/DC tends to get the shaft, especially amongst the “purists”.
This all came about because yesterday I was feeling like fall, and AC/DC is definitely one of my fall/winter bands. I think it’s because I listened to a lot of AC/DC in middle and high school, and my most distinct middle/high school memories tend to be set in the fall.
At any rate, I brought up the AC/DC catalog on ye olde iThingy, and decided to once again run through a chunk of the Brian records, in particular “Flick of the Switch”, “Fly on the Wall” and “For Those About to Rock”. Something about the F that those boys like.
At any rate, whenever I listen to those records I am astounded by just how good they sound. This is the 80’s, and no other era in recorded music history sounds shittier than the 80’s. Super compressed, thin, tinny, ugly production.
Except for those AC/DC records. They sound immaculate. I couldn’t believe the bass drum sounds. And the guitars, present right there in your ear. They sound like amps in rooms. I know that shouldn’t be hard to believe, since most albums are played by amps in rooms, but these records SOUND like amps in rooms. They really put you in there.
Anyways, one of my favorite album cuts is “Evil Walks”. I’ve always got it on my short list “Cool Songs to Cover Whenever I’m in a Rock Band Again”. It’s a pretty righteous song.
So for no reason in particular I sang a little bit of it last night, and Danny picked up on it, and it lead to a long discussion of the merits of the 80’s catalog, their production, Brian Johnson, and AC/DC in general. Danny also picked out “Night of the Long Knives” and “Inject the Venom”, which just further proves that Danny and I have shared the same brain since we were about 12 years old.
And there you have it. The Debutantes want you to listen to “Centennial” when it comes out, but until that happens, why not give the 80’s AC/DC output another shake? “The Razor’s Edge” isn’t that bad either.
So, once this discussion wound down, Glen was able to give his all in a particularly inspired and well-enunciated vocal take on “It’s a Snow Day”. You’ll be singing it soon.