Notes
From The February Record {as posted each day on the fawm
website}
1. It is all lying beneath
the snow.
began yesterday morning around 10. amidst a sea of technical troubles,
including two trips to a neighboring town in search of the ever
helpful radioshack, i finally finished around 7 at night. admittedly,
most of the time was spent dealing with having the internal compostition
of a luddite, not actually working on the song itself. though
i've done quite a bit of recording, i have very little experience
operating the machines myself, which kept me up until 2am trying
to figure out how to mix and make an mp3. needless to say, a great
experience. the crackling sound {which i agree is too loud} is
the crumpling of a plastic bag. the drums indeed a piece of cardboard.
the swishing, a paintbrush. we do what we can. use what we have.
the guitars, are indeed the heart of my obsession. not terribly
pleased with the mix, but not bad for the first song tracked on
the machine. the learning curve, hopefully tilts upward. i would
write more, as to me this is an important part of the process,
but it is 1pm here, and i've not begun with today's song. the
sun is out, and i hunker. light a fire. watch the snow drop from
the trees.
2. I Will Save You My Son.
the morning was wrought with a seemingly endless trail of technical
issues. while it should seem such a simple task, it took quite
some time to actually convert song #1 {it is all lying beneath
the snow} to an mp3, thusly allowing me to upload. while these
computers of ours offer such a vast world of opportunity, they
also serve to complicate my life a great deal. and more diversions.
a visit from my wife's father and his girlfriend. a walk for coffee,
the snow covered in brown from the cars, as the temperatures rise.
i finally began tracking at around 3 pm, and finished the guitars
by 5:30 or so.
the voice at the end, gently yelling
"hello?," is my wife stepping into the studio {two-story
garage} and wondering if i was upstairs. notice the echo. anyway,
aside from experimenting with tunings, and settling on one, this
song came out rather quickly. as i wrote the lyrics, i was thinking
of several things. david byrne. the fragility of children. christian
kiefer, who will understand why i was thinking of christian kiefer.
anyway, the tired mind rambles. no cardboard box playing on this
one. i recorded a shaker {jar filled with rice} but ended up mixing
it really low. i also recorded vocal harmonies, which only served
to muddy up the mix. as for the aforementioned learning curve,
{song one desc.} at this point i'm not sure what direction it's
heading. i'm sleepy, and want to do something other than record
right now. watch a movie. read. sleep. i thought about mixing
it again, but frankly don't care enough. for me, in this process,
there is something magical about how raw it is. i've become so
accustomed to some degree of perfection in music, that i find
it a great exercise in letting go. perhaps, most likely, full
of good lessons.
in response to the listener who
asked if all of the songs i post would be, i believe it was "ambient,"
the answer is no. i suppose i really don't have any way of knowing,
but one of my goals with this project is to try an step out of
the regualr box that i live in. that said, i have no idea what
will come out tomorrow. isn't that the intention after all? alas,
the ramblings of a tired man. oh yes, apologies for how quiet
the song is. just figured out why.
3. I Did Fall {from grace}
it is friday morning. the sun is out. i have slept, and slept
well. i began early yesterday morning, with the intention of no
strumming guitar whatsoever. no acoustic, only sounds. of course,
the beauty inherent in this project, is that intentions are lost
in the rush of it all. so what began as a pastiche of noise, turned
into another strummed acoustic guitar. i suppose it's difficult
to keep ourselves from the things we love most.
anyway, i ran into quite a bit
of technical difficulties yesterday, namely the computer freezing
and crashing repeatedly, but all said, things were relatively
graceful. i also told myself that i wasn't going to record a bunch
of tracks, thusly keeping the mix simpler as i find my bearings
with the software, but all such notions lost. there were quite
a bit more tracks than ended up left out of the mix. i also told
myself that i would save and use only first takes with everything,
which was/is a bit disconcerting.
for some reason, the mix feels a bit hollow on this one and i'm
not sure why. i like the movement of the guitars in the mix, but
was dying for some drums. ah well. at one point there was a nylon
string guitar solo, that in the end sounded a bit gratuitous,
so it died. i feel like there's too much reverb on the voice,
or rather too much delay on the reverb, on the voice. i also haven't
quite figured out how to use the compression in the program yet,
so all things remain without it. perhaps today. i'm not sure how
i feel about this song compositionally {or the others for that
matter} as i feel i need some distance from it. yes, distance.
the goal yesterday, was also to finish in time to sit by a fire,
watching a film. nowhere in africa. some of the best photography
i've seen in a long while. a great, and highly recommended film.
4. A Boat With Wings.
what a mess. i could write tomes, tomes, volumes of literature,
novels and poems, and collections of vulgarity about what a mess
this was. the end result, sounds nothing like what i had intended,
which is not necessarily a bad thing. the computer problems were
the bad thing. while someone said in an earlier post that i shouldn't
worry about production, that is after all, a large part of this
process for me. songwriting {while not this quickly and prolifically}
is a natural thing. learning how to make things sound the way
i want them to sound, in this world of computers, another thing
entirely, and one of my goals. longterm that is.
anyway, without carrying on endlessly,
my computer fell into a state of overload, and i couldn't record
anything else, or add any more effects to anything. i couldn't
mix using the mixer. i had to make fader adjustments with the
mouse, AND account for a nearly five second delay on any fades,
mutes, etc. that i made. i had intended to re-record the nylong
string guitar, both the rhythm and solo tracks, but it was simply
impossible. i guess in some way, i do enjoy the chaos of them
sort of crashing into each other.....imperfect. i found myslef
laughing at the fact that an ever more "raw" verison
of this song was forced upon me. as if this process isn't raw
enough to begin with.
all of that said of course, i'm
relatively happy with the mix. not terribly fond of the song,
but the mix is okay. i put a ring modulator {as well as many other
effects} on the voice in the verses, and intended to use it as
more of a texture than singing.....which i think it does. not
quite as effectively as i'd like, but such it is. now {after having
spent he last three hours trying to re-boot my computer [obviously
successfully] it is a walk in the sun, crunching the melting snow.
lunch with my wife. lyrically, i love the idea of a boat with
wings soaring over the sea. not magical in the "peter pan"
sense, but magical in a dark way. a boat carrying the dead to
some other place perhaps. images of The City of Lost Children
in the head. dark and golden. other-worldly.
5. Leave Us A Song.
i spent the day wading through a thick sludge of technical problems.
everything from constant computer crashing, one of which left
my computer not working, completely unable to turn on, for several
hours, to mic cables, to preamp failings, etc. after fixing all
things, or at least coercing them into working again, i began
at around five in the evening, and recorded a version of this
with several guitar tracks, one with the capo up high, making
it sound a bit like mandolin, vocal harmonies, and swishing noises.
i mixed it. i hated it. i came inside and ate dinner. i drank
wine. not a copious amount of wine, but enough that i was back
out there at midnight, with two mics set up {one for guitar and
one for voice} with the intention of doing one live take. one,
and no more.
and so it is. precisely what it
would have sounded like were i playing live for you. an albatross,
breaking the early morning sky.
6. Cold Glass Boxes {the
higher orders V.II}
while on a walk in the woods this afternoon, my wife asked me
if what i'd done today, the recording, could be defined as a "song,"
a topic which we discussed for some time. it inherently begs the
question of how we define and classify music in western culture.
ie: does the definition of "song" fall under the category
of "music," and and vice versa. this of course assumes
that we have some clear definition of both, which i would argue
is not the case, and perhaps not even possible.
many years ago of course, people
like terry riley, stephen reich, and glenn gould for that matter,
have done some form of "sound experimentation" which
many would not define as music or songs. needless to say, while
i do not intend to verbally define either of these, {music and
song} i would indeed define what all three of them created, and
myself included today, as music, and moreover as songs.
as for the process, i was intrigued,
and have been for some time, by the idea of making some form of
music akin to dj shadow, or {insert others here} without the use
of computer editing. in other words, attempting to do this somewhat
'organically,' as stephen reich did many years ago by literally
cutting and pasting tapes of field recordings. so, in an effort
to do something entirely different than i'd ever done before,
i went into the studio today with a set of rules:
i was only allowed to use sounds
that had already been stored in my boss loop station foot pedal.
i could record them into the machine, and then mix it, using only
the faders. no computer editing, shifting of parts, re-sampling
of parts, drum track, etc. things therefore landed as they fell.
i moved faders and pan knobs. i made things go backwards here
and there. the only sample which is illegal i suppose is the one
of jeff buckley speaking about music. all others were sounds i
had previously created, {loops of guitar, keyboard, etc} or things
written and read by friends. so there you have it. do i like it?
i have no idea. not really, i would say. i could though, i believe,
create something of this nature that i love, given the time.
7. Light; Trees.
not much to say about this one. it tumbled out. it is a love song,
about my wife, with references to pablo neruda. i've come to realize,
or learn, much about myself as a songwriter through this process.
while i can, without much excruciating effort, pull a song from
myself every day, i do not love them. i like them, but do not
love them. i'm realizing, that my process involves throwing the
clay at a wall, watching it explode into something, and then shaping
it. shaping it over the course of days and weeks, sometimes even
months until musically and lyrically, it takes the form i intend.
these have all happened so quickly, that i feel they have little
to no form. they are ramblings. while this is not necessarily
a bad thing, it is not what i am at all used to. what this all
amounts to i'm not sure. certainly, this has been full of many
lessons for me.
of course my relatively dour mood
about it all, could be partly due to the fact that i watched the
film "ray" last night, which ultimately left me feeling
like a rather half-assed, mediocre, and hopeless musician, living
in some strange and boring bubble. ugh. i guess i do it because
i love it so much. i guess that's good enough. as a matter of
fact, i know that it is. of course, it still doesn't free me from
wanting to be a genius like ray charles. but then who doesn't?
8. Among The Things The
Sea Throws Up {no me hagan caso V.II}
several years ago,
i made a record which was a loose interpretation of Hemingway's,
For Whom the Bell Tolls. the last song on the record is this really
slow piano piece, over which i recite poetry of Federico Garcia
Lorca. it is, without question, one of my favorite pieces of music
that i have ever created. while this one does not fall into that
category, i spent much time writing and singing lyrics, many versions,
none of which fit, and finally settled on the poetry of Neruda.
the poem is titled "No Me Hagan Caso" or {"Forget
About Me."} i suggest seeking out the poem, as it is breathtaking.
raw.
anyway, i suppose if i want to
put this on the record, i should begin the battle for rights {which
i did successfully for the Lorca piece...or i guess i should say
Christian Kiefer did for me, having some experience with such
matters} anyway, here it is, in all of it's illegality. shining.
i also mixed in some sound from a german film, and many tracks
of myself whispering. i never really found a perfect mix, but
time demands that i move on.
9. The New Life.
the
new life. if you've not noticed, there is indeed a narrative here.
perhaps difficult to follow at times, but a narrative nonetheless.
after falling into a state of what seems to be possible disrepair,
the two lovers embark on a new life. a departure from the snow,
and all that "lies beneath....."
a few nights past, we were driving
to another town for dinner. a travis song was on a mix cd i had
made, called "tied to the nineties," which is about
the most upbeat, jump around song i've heard in some time. while
i don't want to like this song, i like it a great deal. {it's
from their first record, called "good feeling"} anyway,
i awoke the next day, {yesterday} knowing that i intended to begin
what would essentially be the second of two acts. i initially
felt that this would be a three act narrative {after about song
two} but got sidetracked in the middle with the spoken word piece.
that changed things. perhaps indicative of the inherent unpredictability
of our lives. so needless to say, i went into yesterday's writing
with the attempt to write something entirely different in tempo,
feel, emotion, etc., hoping to write a song like "tied to
the nineties." i'm not sure if i was entirely successful,
but here it is.
i also decided to refrain from
laboring over the minutea of things, therefore allowing myself
only one take with every track. it is certainly my nature, especially
with something like an acoustic guitar solo, to play it again
and again and again and again {for hours really, sometimes days}
until i get exactly what i want from it. everything about it.
the phrasing, the notes, the movement of it {which in my opinion
is indeed different from the phrasing} the tonality, {ie: what
strings to play what notes on} the arpeggiation {ie: do i pick
up down, up down, up down, or do i fan the pick across the strings,
etc.} the strength with which i play it, and so on. of course
i realize that most listeners don't notice most of these things,
and probably don't really give a shit, but i do. and that matters.
a strange mix in a way, as i'm also drawn to improvisation, which
i think is deeply important in music. i suppose i'm just admitting
that when i record something like a guitar solo {which isn't all
that often} i tend to imporvise about 90% of it, then spend countless
hours refining it. there, did i really need to be so longwinded?
anyway, all tracks done in one
take. i suppose i'm happy with it, considering that. aside from
some harmonies buried in the mix, there is also a semi-hollowbody
rickenbacker close mic'd {not amplified} which i've done before,
but which i left really low in the mix this time, as it seemed
to be cluttering things.
a piano. i'm dying for some piano.
save your money jefferson. save your money.
10. Roads For Only Sons.
some
songs, simply do not want to be heard. they do not want to exist
in this world of ours. perhaps they are otherworldly, or perhaps
they are ghosts. nevertheless, they struggle greatly on their
way here. or maybe they do indeed want to exist, but it is i who
doesn't want them here. this song, is for some reason unbeknownst
to me, one of those creatures. though i was finished with the
song last night, it would not let me go. so i re-mixed it. and
re-mixed it. and re-mixed it. then i played a guitar solo in the
middle, that sounded so much like Carlos Santana it was frightening.
i do not play a paul reed smith, nor do i play solos in that style.
i do not like the way they sound, {the guitars} with the exception
of larry lalonde of primus. and Santana of course. while i find
most of his music rather deplorable, i confess {guiltily} that
i do like some of his guitar playing quite a bit. when i discovered
years ago that he cut his teeth in a strip club, i liked him more.
anyway, that said, you will not be hearing the Santana version.
so after teaching a spanish class
last night, i arrived home to a fire and a wife and a friend,
and the song therefore lay in wait. i slept, then spent most of
the day mixing. mixing and mixing and mixing. ugh. i must have
mixed this fucker fifteen times, never feeling satisfied with
any of them. anyway, it just seemed like muck. perhaps due to
the fact that there were five acoustic guitar tracks {which if
you had ever recorded with me in the past, would know that this
is par for the course...i like guitars. lots of them. my friend
ron guensche, knows this better than any living human, though
he too is wont to do such things.} needless to say, i just couldn't
find a place for any of them in the mix. they had no home. so,
finally, after all was said and done, i set up two mics, and played
it live. sloppily. is that a word? i played it in 6. i played
it in 5. i played it in 7. and finally, how you hear it now. good
god. i mixed it. i do not like the mix. i do not know what the
clicking noise is, as there was nothing clipping. hmmmm. i then
rose from my chair, came into the house, and voila. there are
time constraints after all.
maybe the strangest thing about
this one, was that yesterday morning when i wrote it, i loved
it. it now stands as my least favorite written for this thing.
i do recognize, that that could be entirely due to the fact that
i just argued with it for and entire day, but so it is. i will
shower now, make a cup of oolong tea, and get back to work. hoping
to get the basic track down for another tonight, but a dear friend
leaves town tomorrow, for a long time, which puts me out of work
until sunday. this leaving makes me sad. this moving on of our
lives. it makes me long for gradeschool. middleschool. sleeping
over at someones house, making crank calls into the wee hours.
now, it seems all i want to do is sleep in the wee hours. what
is it with this growing older business. the grey hairs. if you
would like to hear the other version {not sure why i'm divulging
this secret} it too is up on my website.
11. The Red Wooden House.
i
confess to having grown frustrated with the lack of instruments.
i want piano. mandolin. banjo. bass. drums. anything. anything
but guitar. alas. all i have are guitars, and i'm finding myself
in the all too familiar place doing these home recordings, which
is the place where i long for other instruments. it has been some
time since i've done a project at home like this, having been
in a band with bass, cello, and {though a rotating cast} drums.
i guess i've grown spoiled with possibility. needless to say,
i'm in the process of finishing up older projects {one ep with
said arrangement of players} and two full-length records, replete
with drums, bass, piano, etc. anyway, i say all of that for two
reasons: 1. i found myself quite bored yesterday while working
on this, feeling like all of the pieces i've done are mutations
of the same song. while i know this is not true, it just sort
of feels that way. 2. i found a keyboard in the basment last night,
that belongs to my wife's sister. while it is about the size of
a loaf of bread, i fully intend to see what i can do with it today.
all of this said, i am happy with the song, both musically and
lyrically {which is rarely the case}. i usually find my lyrics
to be trite, and just overall mediocre. while i find the words
on this one a bit trite as well, i like them for some reason.
perhaps it is the image of the two lovers finding a new home that
i like. hmmm. yes, these songs of mine are, though at times loosely
so, autobiographical, as is most of the music i make. i just can't
seem to be all that emotionally involved in songs written from
the third person.
anyway, this song has my favorite
drum sound yet, though you may not really hear it all that well,
as i mixed it relatively low. i was holding a large, plastic water
jug {very heavy, arm shaking at the end} and banging it with a
homemade mallet. {a stick with a sock taped over the end} i also
talked my wife into reading some poetry after the first chorus.
she did not like this. the experience or the sound of her voice.
such it is no? we laughed, as we noticed that she sounded like
she had a newfie accent at times, which would make sense, as her
family is from newfoundland, though she did not grow up there.
anyway, it felt good to take two days off {friday and saturday}
and get back to writing. i do wish that i had more time with each
of these, but as i mentioned in the beginning, i have family coming,
then leave for new york on the 24th, so i have four more days
to finish the last three songs. as much as i desire more time,
i also recognize the beauty in being rushed. it creates an urgency,
that could not be replicated.
now, let's see what that keyboard
can do...{which did end up on this song by the way, but very low
in the mix.}
12. They Touch Their Hands
To The Wall.
little to say, amazingly enough. this song
is the part of the narrative where the two lovers move into their
empty, new home, and i imagined them standing there, looking around
at the bare walls. light coming in through the windows onto their
skin. i saw them reaching their hands out, and touching the walls
to feel if it was all real. the emotions of a new place, and the
memories of the old. the exhuberance in beginning something new,
and missing what has been left behind.
anyway, i had no intention for
it to be such a sad song, but it just came out like it did. i
was also limited partly by the amazingly small, and amazingly
broken keyboard, which i was utterly determined to use today.
with enough effects on it, i actually like the way it sounds.
you wouldn't believe some of the sounds that shitty little thing
makes. most of them, absolutely unbearable. anyway, i wrote and
played the keyboard part first, then added guitars, then re-recorded
the keyboard part to be better in time. i admit to being a bit
bored with the song, but that could just be my restless nature.
i feel like i want something more to happen in it, but perhaps
there is a strength in that longing. i also find myself displeased
with the mix, but wish to sit by the fire with my wife and read.
listen to the rain fall. i miss the rain. being from san francisco,
where it tends to rain a decent amount in the winter, getting
used to snow has taken some time. this being my first winter in
ontario, i miss the rain quite a bit. everything about it. anyway,
it was raining today {and continues to do so} which i welcome.
i love. i think the vocals are too loud, and wanted to add more
textures {shaker, drums, etc...} but the rain, the fire, my wife.
having finished song 12, i'm beginning
to feel a slight tinge of sadness for the coming end of this project.
this community. the positive feedback has been a beautiful thing.
ok. i said i wasn't going to say much.
13. Flowers We Will Grow.
so
here's the situation: most of the time, i cannot stand my voice.
i find it grating, mediocre, and usually slightly off-key. i oscillate
with it a great deal though, and try to love it. i try and try
and try. i have been working on it, admittedly rather lazily,
{not practicing enough [hardly at all] and NOT taking voice lessons}
since sometime around 1997, when i recorded my first ep and discovered
that my voice was horrible. incidentally, i didn't sing for quite
some time after that recording. while i readily acknowledge that
i have improved by leaps and bounds since then, i am still left
completely disatisfied. so much so, that over the years i have
stopped singing completely many times, and resolved to never do
it again. the problem though, or the reason i continue, is twofold:
1. i love it. 2. i have been unable
to find anyone else who wants to do it, and i simply can't refrain
from making music because of that. i have over the years, asked
three people if they would sing, whilst i play guitar.
1. greg roussas, a friend of mine
that none of you know, or have heard sing. his voice is incredible.
trust me. he sounds like a cross between morrissey and robert
plant. the reasons we are not playing together are LONGWINDED.
2. kristina forester, who sounds like a cross between tori amos
and god only knows who else. incredible and soulful. angelic.
an even longer story as to why i don't play with her anymore either.
3. jacob golden, who doesn't have a website anymore, but you should
go buy his music at cdnow or something. he got signed to rough
trade, then warner brothers england, they moved him to london,
he toured, but for some reason, completely unbeknownst to me,
never became a rockstar. last i heard he is living in portlad,
oregon, working on a new record. anyway, his voice is stunning.
4. jimmy gnecco, the frontman of a band called "ours,"
who simply put, has the most incredible voice i've ever heard.
i keep thinking that i should just start making instrumental music,
for it is my voice that always leaves me displeased with things.
anyway, why do i write all of this? because i don't like the voice
on this song. simple as that. nor have i liked the voice on any
of them really. such it is. the truth comes out.
needless to say, those of you who
have commented positively on my singing are angels. really, you
are. i mean that, in some non-religious way.
so the second to last song of mine.
water jug stick with sock drumming. five vocal tracks, {3 really,
but two takes stereo mic'd} to try and fix aforementioned problem...they
sound really cool on headphones. guitars, as always. a lovesong.
a song about our protaganists in the belly of their new life,
enjoying it all. a metaphor of flowers breaking the earth in the
springtime. etc. lastly, i had a really hard time mixing this
one. i can't seem to get the right amount of compression on the
voice, so that it sounds good in the quiter parts, AND doesn't
distort, or get too loud in the mix, during the loud parts. i
couldn't get the acoustic tracks {sloppily played} to sit properly
either...hmmmmm. where does this hill take me to i wonder?
14. On The Wings of an
Albatross.
and i reach the end. i don't have all that
much to write about this song, aside from the fact that i would
kill for a full band, and a better mix for all the guitars in
the outro. and of course more time, to record more guitars in
the outro. i could of course write tomes about the process, about
being finished and about wishing that i'd had the whole month
to do this, but i will not. why wish for things that we cannot
have? i am, at the least, proud that i finished. i look forward
to sitting down in a month or so, and listening to the record
in its entirety.
i am currently listening to "like
a song..." by U2, and trying to imagine what it must have
been like to engineer that session. the absolute brilliance. the
edge's guitar solo at the end. fucking amazing. some of the best
rock music ever made i believe. anyway, this song is the last
of my narrative. the couple has settled into their new life, and
the man's confidence returns...he wants to "live as big as
an ocean," the everpresent feeling of invincibility, when
we overcome difficult emotional trauma. the desire to live the
most fulfilling life possible. and the couple, finally unimpeded
by the walls constructed, they imagine themselves flying on the
wings of birds...celebrating. having children. living forever.
anyway, before i find myself writing
the aforementioned tomes that i said i wouldn't write, i bow and
exit. i thank you all immensely for your kind words, criticisms,
suggestions, compliments, and support. i has been, in short, wonderful.
all of it. if any of you are interested, i have a few records
coming out this year, which are in many ways the same, and in
many ways the antithesis of what i've been doing here. certainly
different, in that they have drums and bass and keyboard and piano
and cello and violin. and they rock, more than they are quiet.
they are more like smashing pumpkins or radiohead {though not
really like either of them at all} than these mostly quiet ramblings
of mine. you may keep watch at my website for info.
and now it is a solea from Estrella Morente...another moment of
musical brilliance. {yes, i am listening to itunes} i will try
to check in and listen when i can the next few days, but a visit
with parents and a trip to new york will most likely make me invisible
here. the best of luck to all of you.
big love~
jeff
February, 2005
TRACK LISTING
1. It is all lying beneath the snow.
2. I Will Save You My Son.
3. I Did Fall {from grace}
4. A Boat With Wings.
5. Leave Us A Song.
6. Cold Glass Boxes {the higher orders V.II}
7. Light; Trees.
8. Among The Things The Sea Throws Up {no me hagan caso V.II}
9. The New Life.
10. Roads For Only Sons.
11. The Red Wooden House.
12. They Touch Their Hands To The Wall.
13. Flowers We Will Grow.
14. On The Wings of an Albatross.
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