New Post New Name?

So I've been thinking that maybe I should change the name of this blog since I no longer record a song a day, in fact I'm extremely lucky these days if I record a song a month. That said, I'd like to start blogging more with my opinions on books, music, movies and still the occasional song or a news about the band, so the new name could be more generally reflective of that. If you have any ideas (you 3 who read this) feel free to send them along.

So after all that talk about how I don't record songs anymore, I did actually get one done tonight after about an hour and a half of work. I wrote 3 or 4 songs over the summer for the band and I'm hoping to get demos of all of them recorded at some point here. This one was the first of them and if it sounds a little different from all previous ones, that's because it was recorded onto two tracks! I'm getting very high tech now. It actually sounds different though because instead of my acoustic this song is being played on my new, beautiful Epiphone Dot. The song is called Daedalus Wept Bitterly and I hope you like it.

Daedalus Wept Bitterly

NOTE: A little housekeeping, it seems my web-hosting services won't let you simply play the song online and is making people download stuff. Just think of it as a free gift!

New Demo

Accordion Walled Classroom Setting

This Is Not A Politcal Blog

This is not a political blog and that said, when I talk about what I did yesterday I will attempt to bring it back to music. Yesterday I went with several of my friends into Boston to see Barack Obama speak at a rally at the World Trade Center. With a minimal amount of gushing, I would like to say that the man made me a believer. I think the time is right to have a candidate with perfect comedic timing and that candidate is Barack Obama (seriously the man makes jokes, he's enjoying himself). The way I tie this into music is that of all my experiences in life, the rally was most like the first time I saw Against Me! play live. This is before they went all hypocritical and changed their sound to suit a more commercially viable audience (Note how I did not use the reactionary 'sold out'), back when they believed and you could believe with them. That was the show where I found myself singing along with the man next to me, smiling and nodding to each other even though we had never met. Last night after a particularly important point I yelled "Yeah" at the same time that the man standing next to me said it. We turn and acknowledged each other and when later as the rally built into a fervor and the man muttered to me "He has to win" it seemed normal. I waited in line for 3 hours, my calves and back were dead, and in that line I talked and made friends the way you can in a crowd of just under 10,000 people who all have the same goal for just a brief time. This is what punk music has always meant to me, in the face of cynicism and the status quo joining with other people, however different, who share our veiw to support the cause we believe in.
To that end I've decided to make my first musical post the new song that Kid Omega is doing. The song is called Elysion. This is the original acoustic demo I did.

Elysion

Riff Numero Tres

Today's recording is another riff because as the semester winds down, I am less and less inclined to sit down and record a song. I would like to give special thanks to Greg Burton, for showing me how to play the D7 chord that comes in towards the end of this so

***The Wonky D Riff

I'm Back!!!! and it's a little lame

Whew! So yeah I slightly longer hiatus than I said I would but now I'm back. Today's recording is another 'just-a-riff.' This is a little riff that I came up with while I was home. It sounded better originally on the instrument I wrote it on which was the only one left in my room; a 5 string Egmund acoustic. I actually liked the song better when the guitar was missing its 'D' string because it separated the two low strings from the three highest making a banjo or dulcimer like sound. I furthered this effect by playing with a metal pick. Unfortunately all that is rather moot because on this recording I'm playing my Washburn, freshly tuned, with all its strings. And of course I'm not letting metal pick anywhere near my good guitar.

The Riff!

P.S. I would also like to thank my wonderful and highly literate parents for doing some necessary quality control for me.

There's a story behind this one.

The story is that Sufjan Steven's label, Asthmatic Kitty, is doing a contest where you write and record a christmas/holiday themed song. Then you email them to him and he (or someone) picks a winner. The prize is that Sufjan has recorded his own christmas song and if you win, he gets the rights to your song and you get the rights to his. That's right, you own a Sufjan song and you can do what you want with it. I'm sure there's more information about this contest to be found on the label's website but I'm too lazy to check. The point of this is that my guitarist Greg (star of yesterday's post) is in the midst of writing a song for this contest and for the past couple of days I've been toying with the idea of writing a song about Greg writing a song. This is mostly because I like the phrase "Song for Sufjan." So I wrote the song in maybe 2 hours today so its really not perfect and it ended up being more about my band and sort of my hopes for it and whatever and how I think everyone in my band is really awesome and my idea of the best thing ever is being in a band with them and playing music.

To clarify some of the cast who appear in the song:
Greg - my roommate and guitarist in Kid Omega (but you knew that)
Sean - is the percussionist in Kid Omega
Beckie - another one of my roommates who takes really great photos (sometimes of our band) and has a blog

So yeah here's the song:
A Christmas Song for Sufjan

Brand New Song

Get it? It's a pun because today's recording is a cover of "Play Crack The Sky" by the band Brand New. I'm really clever I know. The song is from their album Deja Entendu. And thats about it for tonight. I'm posting kinda late which is funny because my classes for today got canceled meaning i had all the time in the world.

***Play Crack The Sky (Brand New cover)

Big Ted

The real name of this song is Big Ted the Outlaw. It's kind of a joke song I wrote this summer when I was trying to write country sounding songs. The original lyrics had a little more of a pro gun control theme to the last verse which I changed when my father pointed out that it was a rare country song that failed to glorify firearms.

***Big Ted the Outlaw

Fields of Magnetism

Hopefully (emphasis there) sometime early in the new year, I'm going to see the Magnetic Fields live in Somerville. By way of hoping for that today's recording is a cover of their song "I Don't Really Love You Anymore" from the album titled simply "i". A word of warning: i can't even come close to doing Merrit's incredibly deep voice so I ended up shooting for a more falsetto as my girlish range requires. Wow thats depressing to have to put in writing.

***I Don't Really Love You Anymore (Magnetic Fields cover)

Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers

Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers has got to be a depressing band to be in. Everyone I know who's heard/seen them will agree that they are an amazing band. Unfortunately this is a small list, hence the depressing part. They must know they're awesome but also notice that nobody else does. I think their name is responsible for this simply because it's so easy to misspell. Is it 'ph' or 'v' in Stephen, how many 'l's and 'g's in Kellogg etc. Or maybe that's just me not being able to spell. regardless if you ever have the chance to see this band live do it regardless of cost or difficulty. They are the ultimate "opening act who easily outshines the headliner" so it doesn't matter if you don't like the band they're playing under. You can leave and it will still feel worth your while and your money. This leads me to today's recording; Flower in Rain off of their self titled release.

***Flower In Rain (S.K. & 6ers cover)

Against Me!

Against Me! is a very special band to me, their recent departure from greatness not withstanding. Seeing them playing in South Burlington, wedged in with so many people I physically couldn't move and screaming along even to songs I didn't know made me suddenly realize what it meant to have ideals about things like community and activism. But thats a gush-fest for another time. Tonight's song is a cover of Joy off of Searching For A Former Clarity. I love its simplicity and while I consider the album it came from a sort of calm before the storm that only hinted at the over-produced mess to come it is indicative of the powerful songs that made up the majority of 'Clarity.'

***Joy (Against Me! cover)

A Real Decemberists Song

As of now I've decided to continue posting through the weekend but I might be forced to ease off as I run out of things to play. So today's song is as I said a cover of a song actually by The Decemberists. It's called We Both Go Down Together and it's off of their album Picaresque. Honestly that's about all I have to say today except to apologize because I'm pretty sure its not a very good recording today. I don't actually know i was in such a hurry I never listened to the final take. It was like the 15th try and at that point if I don't notice myself screwing up while I'm playing it, I figure it's good enough.

***We Both Go Down Together (Decemberists cover)

It's Original! (sort of)

Why the 'sort of' you ask? Well partly because this song isn't anywhere close to being finished. Towards the end of that second verse I was kinda making up lyrics and I'd like to get the rhythmic pattern of the lyrics a little more regular. Also I'd like the song to be less of a complete and total rip off of The Decemberists. Not sure that last one can happen but if Colin Meloy wants to sue me he's going to have to hang out with me albeit in a courtroom. And I'm always down to hang out with Colin Meloy (it's true I've met the band and they were awesome. I asked Chris Funk about his gauges and my friends thought I was cool because I talked to Nate Query about basses). Anyway here it is:

***Anne Marie

Oh yeah. The guy I'm talking to in the beginning is my roommate Greg. He plays guitar with me in Kid Omega and we're discussing the company who manufacturers my recording device. Apparently it's Japanese. We're cool we know.

The First Non-Song

What I mean by "non-song" is today's recording is just a set of chords I'd like to take out to dinner, maybe a movie and then if things go well someday put some words to. It's kind of a C walk down with the C on the A string becoming a B and then an open A before it all ends in a G chord. Hope you like it.

***Non-Song I

Hometown Fantasy

Today's recording is a cover of a song that has never caused me much confusion until i checked to make sure of the album it was on. The song is called "Hometown Fantasy" and is from the album Home Volume 5. This album was a split Ep with Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie / Postal Service) and Andrew Kenny (American Analog Set). This song is one of Kenny's.

***Hometown Fantasy (Andrew Kenny cover)

Bull Monkeys

So my girlfriend and I just finished Bull Durham. Pretty good but I have to be honest despite how immature i may sound, there was a little too much love and a little too little baseball. If he's holding a bat on the cover, I'll need to see him swing it at least 20 times before the movie's over. This goes for gangster movies too. It's like a gun in the first act (If you don't get that don't worry, it's for my father). Otherwise, pretty good movie. 3.5 out of five (bonus points because Kevin Costner is consistently badass throughout and I like to reward that).


And now to the business at hand. Today's recording is another cover, this time of a song by the band The Mountain Goats. It's off of their album Protein Source of the Future....Now!
If you haven't guessed yet the song is called "The Monkey Song." (Even though the one in the picture looks kinda like an orange teletubby)

***The Monkey Song (Mountain Goats cover)

Success!!

So the good news is this idea is going to work. I've found web space to host mp3's from and so now i can post them for you, my non-existent readers. The bad news is that in all of this i haven't been able to better the recording i was going to post. So its a fairly bad job. Oh well, gotta have a baseline right? Today's recording is a cover of a song by a country musician named John Eddie. The song is called "If You're Here When I Get Back" and it's off of his album called Who The Hell Is John Eddie?

***If You're Here When I Get Back (John Eddie cover)