Bookshelf / Angela Hamilton
—Stability Song (Death Cab cover)
Bookshelf
—Only In Dreams (Weezer cover)
Sometimes you just need to shut off the thinking part of your brain and let the instinctual part create what it wants. I did just that and spent a couple of hours doing this old one tonight.
Persistence
Weird thing. For me, anyway.
Usually when I’m underwhelmed with one of my songs, it falls on the scrap heap never to be heard again. I wrote a song the other day that has other plans…
I finished a rough, basic recording of a new one called “A Better Way” and, in the end, it just felt like one I had to get out of my system. Flash forward a few days and it’s still in my head, not just clinging on for life, but making a solid case for its existence. Turns out I’d only written about half of the song…the rest promises some interesting turns.
Anyway, who knows if this one will make it anywhere - I never know - but this whole project is taking on a life and an intelligence of its own.
I’m beginning to feel like Mickey with all of those sentient brooms…
Bookshelf
—Starlings
Felt like recording this one down and dirty, so I did.
Meanwhile, I’m very drum-focused right now, sequencing parts that I’ll go back and perfect later. Living up high in Brooklyn, I’m lucky enough to have power in this post-Sandy quagmire, so I’ve been putting it to whatever use I can before I go back to (real) work…
Progress Report: 3 Songs In One!
Over the past two days, I’ve been working on a musical Voltron (well, with only three lions), the affectionately titled “Trilogy of Terror,” with my good friend and often cohort, Nat Cassidy. It’s three songs jammed together to follow a story-like arc of guarded attraction, resigned despair, and new-found hope. In our live sets, it’s been a favorite of the kiddies (or at least ourselves).
Rather than record a demo for every song, I’ve taken a more cyclical approach, recording each part, then going back and rerecording anything that needs a re-do. It’s a demo wrapped up in a work in progress, wrapped up in a finished product, wrapped up in bacon. Here’s a chart of the process:
The actual process (as opposed to this crop cycle) is slightly less tedious, a tiny bit more coherent. Not much, though.
Onward…
phat beats
These are drums. Some of my new recordings will have sounds that were created from ones like these. I could not be more excited about that. Stay tuned…
Bookshelf
—Army Of Me
Totally forgot this one existed.
A while back, Björk called for anyone and everyone to cover this tune for a benefit CD. Mine didn’t make the cut (quite understandably), but I still dig the result. It was fun to tear apart a song and put it back together all wrong.
Bookshelf
—My Lucky 8 Ball
I’ll keep posting old stuff until I have new stuff.
This one was inspired by a gift of one of those indisputably accurate fortune telling devices you get at Spencer’s. I suddenly saw life as one giant series of litmus tests and quite literally shelved it, as I sing at the end. Novelty or no, not knowing is better.
Bookshelf
—Lights On
What the hell, here’s another one. This one’s an original…a lost song written a decade ago about a friend who was scared of turning 29 (and of living).
