i like this song as a song but i have NO DAMNED IDEA how to arrange, perform, or record it. acoustic it's missing intensity. i can't make it work with drums and bass. this version with electric gtr and kbds is barely listenable. if there's one…
reminds me of the mountain goats. perhaps it's perfect the way it is. The guitar has flourish and restraint. The lyrics are smart and the vocals play with vulnerability, though perhaps expanding on the emotion shown by the singer could give the whole song more of the depth you are looking for by adding instruments.
i like this song as a song but i have NO DAMNED IDEA how to arrange, perform, or record it. acoustic it's missing intensity. i can't make it work with drums and bass. this version with electric gtr and kbds is barely listenable. if there's one…
Embarrassingly I assigned the wrong channel while recording drums and lost some stuff. Should be more low-end drums. Oh, well. Such is life in February.
Dedicated to everyone that's written a lazy article or book about the characteristics of my generation. Lift up one finger, let's have another go-around.
This is a cover of a song by Sister Savage, from her kickin' 2010 RPM Challenge album, Juped 2k10. It also introduces the genre of acoustic crossdressed spacecheese (these damn kids today with their flying cars and their hyperspecialized genres…
I think I left a dishonorable discharge on the back of her Fleet uniform last time we hung out, but she hasn't sent me a dry cleaning bill yet, so at least I've got that going for me.
Inspired by the David Brooks book "Bobos in Paradise" and an article I read on the so-called "Prosperity Gospel", which is one of the weirder religious movements I've heard of.
There's no way I'm actually going to finish RPM 2013 in February (my weekends are booked solid and I don't feel like rushing) but I'm still going to do this album... and probably finish in late March or something. This is a rough mix of 99 Bottles.
This is the cautionary tale of a guy that becomes addicted to coffee to fit in with his friends, investigates harder drugs, and decides to give himself low-level lead poisoning and toxoplasmosis.
It's funny you should say that; I realized during recording that I subconsciously ripped the main motif from "In Limbo". Most of the melodies are based on 12-tone contrapuntal transformations of the first 4 notes, and I think that's also how most of the melodies in "In Limbo" were developed, so a bunch of fragments in this song end up matching fragments in that one...
(they were armed cars -- though it's a post-peak oil world somehow i still have everyone driving cars everywhere. so much for concept album, geez al. also, the lyric was intended to be "two armed cars", but it's funny to picture "two-armed cars". they might also be, as xkcd would have it, "sweet ass-cars").
rpm 2011
Taking taking all her money
Taking taking all her sweat
Taking taking all her money
Taking taking all her tears
What do you give back? (shark attack)
Taking taking all her love
Taking taking all her life
Taking taking all her love
Taking…
You know, son, when you turn up the amplifier that high it creates a harsh and unpleasant sound. If you turn it down a little it lets the natural beauty of the guitar tone show through! And then maybe you wouldn't have to strain your voice so much to sing over it!
rpm 2011
Making music everyday alone in my dark hole
Pumping out my silliness for not a single soul
Stinking up the internets with links to stupid songs
Oblivious that no one clicks and no one sings along
There’s a word for people like me…
rpm 2011
If I scream louder
Could you understand
If I scream louder
Will I be a man
If I scream louder
Would it become more clear
If I scream louder
Would it ease your fears
Screaming at the top of my lungs
If I scream louder
Will my point get…
i've decided to be an infectious disease.
i've decided to be the answer,
the reconstructor.
reanimating that which is dead inside of you.
and if i pretended that i must have a holistic cleansing,
i have proven that it cannot be,
change must spread…
Final version
Day 28
Anyone else still writing songs?
this is the result of trying to listen to too many mixes in one day. Sometimes it's just easier to record something else.
One of my favorite things about finishing the RPM Challenge is that I know you'll have an album finished, too, that I can hear.
Day of rest is exactly right. I'm just loafin' this weekend!
Also, I definitely recommend checking out the Gormenghast novels if you have some time on your hands. They could be described as "fantasy novels", set in a medieval castle lost to time... but they have a Kafka-esque sense of the absurd and a sort of social commentary perhaps informed by the search for meaning after the horrors of World War II.
That part at the beginning reminds me of my friend who is an excellent saxophonist. In our college bands he had a few parts that were wild like that and really threw himself into them.
I'm really enjoying the album. You make great sounds, and melodies out of them! Congrats on another RPM finished!
Starting out as a simple and awe inspiring invention, progressing to a more chaotic and demanding machine driven future. - people becoming enslaved to these devices. Feeding the machine.
Phone samples were recorded from the output jack of my…
from the album "the Hardest Blow" featuring vocals from Dana Detrick-Clark
I can't see your sorrow, innocent and blind
Better luck tomorrow, leave this all behind
I think I'm feeling something, but I'm not sure what it is
Maybe you could…
Well, I had this crazy idea that *maybe* Buddy Guy was using some microtonal inflections in his cover of Tramp (which are what the "blue notes" are and thought it would be cool to cover it with my fretless guitar. As it turned out it was my ear…
Lyrics:
Love is a mild catatonia
When you suspend your disbelief.
It can beat you down, it’s like pneumonia.
It’s something you catch and don’t release.
It’s a debt without restitution,
A series of rules that you must break.
I might…
Comments on Al's left hand's stuff
reminds me of the mountain goats. perhaps it's perfect the way it is. The guitar has flourish and restraint. The lyrics are smart and the vocals play with vulnerability, though perhaps expanding on the emotion shown by the singer could give the whole song more of the depth you are looking for by adding instruments.
city steve!
Solid singing, and I like the lyrics. You can tell there was thought put into them.
This song makes me happy...though I couldn’t catch all the lyrics. Maybe it’s just the limitations of my earxtremities...
@fudgetusk Sort of -- I imagine we got to the weirdness similar ways (i.e. naturally by being weird people).
I listened to this with invisible glassine closed-ear headphones that were connected via IBM 3270 terminal adapter to my OpenBSD 6.2 Thinkpad 42p.
Did you record this with a cylindrical glassine entity worn over your middle finger or what.
I think I left a dishonorable discharge on the back of her Fleet uniform last time we hung out, but she hasn't sent me a dry cleaning bill yet, so at least I've got that going for me.
I especially liked the title, but one thing I noticed was that you may want to try it in a different key, to make the male vox a little more fluid.
Recalibrate...the mass spectrometer? The perforator? What
Better than expctd
Spooky, like a zombie bookie coming back for his money.
thanks for the kind words!
It's funny you should say that; I realized during recording that I subconsciously ripped the main motif from "In Limbo". Most of the melodies are based on 12-tone contrapuntal transformations of the first 4 notes, and I think that's also how most of the melodies in "In Limbo" were developed, so a bunch of fragments in this song end up matching fragments in that one...
this is incredible. so early seventies heavy metal.
cool song. would love to hear radiohead give this one a go.
dig it! great song.
Do you like hard rock and metal songs? Hit me up.
Very pretty.
LIAL like it a lot
Comments made by Al's left hand
Cool contrast with the last track. You have lots of sounds up your sleeves!
This is such a cool sound.
(they were armed cars -- though it's a post-peak oil world somehow i still have everyone driving cars everywhere. so much for concept album, geez al. also, the lyric was intended to be "two armed cars", but it's funny to picture "two-armed cars". they might also be, as xkcd would have it, "sweet ass-cars").
You know, son, when you turn up the amplifier that high it creates a harsh and unpleasant sound. If you turn it down a little it lets the natural beauty of the guitar tone show through! And then maybe you wouldn't have to strain your voice so much to sing over it!
I love the "epic fail", that's hilarious. This album rocks it.
if i scream louder will i lose my voice?
It happens that Jess (other half of my band/marriage) was reading a Rumi book this February. We like your album!
Everything has a programmer and everybody needs a hacker. Hell yes.
One of my favorite things about finishing the RPM Challenge is that I know you'll have an album finished, too, that I can hear. Day of rest is exactly right. I'm just loafin' this weekend!
(this one too)
This track, to me, just epitomizes the RPM challenge.
Also, I definitely recommend checking out the Gormenghast novels if you have some time on your hands. They could be described as "fantasy novels", set in a medieval castle lost to time... but they have a Kafka-esque sense of the absurd and a sort of social commentary perhaps informed by the search for meaning after the horrors of World War II.
That part at the beginning reminds me of my friend who is an excellent saxophonist. In our college bands he had a few parts that were wild like that and really threw himself into them. I'm really enjoying the album. You make great sounds, and melodies out of them! Congrats on another RPM finished!
Nice vocal styles!
I picture carving an ice sculpture while listening to this. Totally cool!
YOU HAVE INCORRECT PERSONAL OPTIONS
Great vox! And other stuff too!
There's certainly a kernel of something really good here. I'll stay tuned!
Listening to this album tonight I'm struck by its pace. The songs unfold just right.
Love the instrumentation.