demo #9 - terrorists

this is another song that i've had written on paper for a few months - maybe a year, but not two.

i wrote the lyrics to the song over the summer, while watching news reports about the bombing at the olympics in atlanta. it's not only about the olympic bomber. it's also about the oklahoma city bombing, and about the ira and about these christian militia groups that seem like they're popping up everywhere and just seem like they want to kill everybody in the name of their religion. why are these christians so hateful? why do they hate us?

i think i'm also taking a lot of influence from bono on this particular track. u2 is something i really grew up with, and has been a big influence on me for pretty much my whole life. my sarcasm here is maybe a little bit more punk rock than anything u2 ever did. but, i think this is fundamentally their messaging.

it's really scary, though. what if these groups take over? i hear they want to enforce biblical law and take us back to the dark ages. they don't seem to be really popular, at least. but, i can't help but feel that our freedom is really under attack right now by these christian extremists.



that was a bit of an epic recording process. it's not the only lengthy track, but it's the longest one, so far.

i had tests this week, so i found myself in the room downstairs venting. it was less about procrastinating, in fact i think i did well on the tests, and more about stress relief. maybe think of it like getting a massage. and, i mean, i'm only in grade 10 - i don't need to spend all my time studying. i can do well on tests with minimal serious preparation.

my english teacher has been hyping up animal farm all year, so i'm a bit excited about it. right now, it's late and i should try and get a little bit of sleep.

demo #8 - the boogeyman

this one would have to have been written in grade 7, because i was still living with my mom. that would make it from 1993 or 1994 and probably the oldest song i have.

when i was a little younger, around ten or so, there was a nightly routine around sunset where my mom would yell at me to go lock the door before the boogeyman came in to get us. but, she'd be a little dramatic about it. kind of a...

mom: shhh. do you hear that?
me: it's getting dark, maybe it's...
mom: it's the boogeyman! go run and lock the door before he comes in and gets us!

so, i'd get up and run to the front door and lock it, peering out to make sure there was nobody there.

i don't think i ever thought a boogeyman existed, but i didn't grow up in an affluent neighbourhood and i was well aware of the dangers of straying too far from home after night. i didn't understand much about drugs or gangs at the time, i just knew that sometimes people died of gunshot wounds outside and didn't want to be stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. it was legitimately important to block off entrance points.

the run had a bit of a rush of adrenaline-based fear to it, because the hallway was dark. getting to the door and back could at times be a little scary.

i've grown out of that, but i still think about it sometimes. the song is a memory of the experience.

overall, life is indeed fairly peachy

it's early on a sunday morning, and i have a new song for you. but, let's just talk a little bit first and put the new song in a separate post afterwards.

that was a bit of a busy week for me. things are starting to turn over at school; i'll have some tests coming up this week, before we swing over to the second part of the semester after hallowe'en. we're going to be doing animal farm in english class for the first few weeks of november, and then i need to focus on my independent study, which is not so independent - the english teacher has insisted i read the grapes of wrath, so it seems like i'm stuck with it. i think he could have picked something worse for me. the exploratory section has switched out of pointillism and into computer science, so i'm not going to be skipping the class any more. french class is still boring. and, my gifted math class is carrying on with no instruction whatsoever that i can discern of...

something else that happened this week is a new korn record. so, what's my story with korn, so far?

korn is something that i was exposed to via a guitar world magazine that claimed they were poised to become the next nirvana. this piqued my interest; while the claim has already become sort of cliched, there was something about the presentation in the article that led me to take it a little bit more seriously. so, i picked up their first record some time last year (mid 1995) on a total whim...

...and did not initially like it at all. i could hear the claim that they were picking up a grunge aesthetic and running with it, but i didn't like the funk or hip-hop aesthetics and i found the vocals to be really hit or miss - they're either effectively harsh or just openly absurd. after multiple spins, i developed a kind of appreciation for the disc. but, i don't feel that i ever clicked with it the way i was hoping i would.

i read an early review of their new record that was overall very negative but claimed they were moving more in the grunge direction that i was looking for, so, i just picked up this record, life is peachy, on a whim, as well. i'm honestly still processing it, but i think i've decided that i like most of it, at least. i certainly think it's a lot more interesting than the previous record, anyways.

see, what i'm finding interesting about the record is how bizarre it is. the syncopation is pretty twisted. there's all kinds of weird effects. it's full of dissonance and broken harmonies. so, it actually offers a fairly open landscape to explore. people are starting to label them a metal band, but i don't really understand that - and i'm certainly not interested in approaching them from that perspective, or in listening to metal. i hear grunge on the record. i hear punk. i hear industrial. and, i hear some hip-hop, too. the hip-hop is exotic for me, but this is otherwise a good intersection of my musical tastes. but, metal? where? and, why? and yuck...no thanks....

i don't know if their proper fan base is going to enjoy this or not, but i think it's a huge step forwards in a more interesting and abstract direction.

demo #7

there's another new track up today..

this is a kind of a tribute to my favourite band: the first track is a kind of a re-interpretation of the coil remix of "the downward spiral", whereas the second part expands the lyrics out. it's consequently a sort of a remix of the song, conceptually, if not actually.

i think that if i ever find a drummer, i'll want to change the lyrics. but, they're ok for now as a proof of concept, even if they're really ultimately just kind of silly.



i have to spend the rest of the night memorizing some shakespeare. what a stupid waste of time. and, what a horrible way to ruin the enjoyment of something that i would otherwise be interested in. why don't we leave drama class in drama class and let english lit be english lit?

i actually know the answer to this: because the lowest common denominator can memorize lines better than it can write essays. it's a conscious attempt to make the curriculum less challenging in order to inflate marks by rewarding hard work instead of ability; essay writing is hard and rote memorization is easy, so we substitute drama in place of english and then curve everybody up. well, almost everybody, anyways. i'm the exception that would rather write the essay and would certainly be graded higher if i did because i won't be fucking bothered to do the manual labour. i don't even feel that this is the right place to question whether this should actually result in the union punishing the teacher or not - i'm in an enriched class for gifted students. like everything else about this school year so far, everything about doing this is absurd to me.

but, i need to hobble together enough of an outline of the thing for a disinterested B. ugh. this is fucking torture...

did i hear this on the radio today?

my dad caught me sleeping in today and gave me a lift to school. i was planning on going, and i was even only going to be a few minutes late, but he may be on to me. busted?

i don't think he'd bust me, though. he'd prod. he ultimately wants to figure out what i'm thinking, because he knows he's better off convincing me that he has a good argument than ordering me to do something. he's not going to yell at me to go to school, he's going to try and convince me that going to school is a good idea. apparently, teenagers listen better when they agree with you; i can accept that claim. and, he likes to remind me that he used to be one. sometimes, i wonder if he still is one.

see, it's not that i disagree. i understand the value of schooling in an abstract sense. i just think that the particular classes i'm taking right now leave a lot to be desired. i'd be a lot more keen if i gave a fuck. i guess that's a tautology, isn't it?

this song was playing on the radio, and it took me by surprise a little. it's one of my favourite records. but, it didn't strike me as single material....?

demo track #6

this is another track that i wrote in the old place, so that would have been probably in 1995. it's one of those songs that becomes increasingly complex over time, as more parts are added to it. in that sense, it's maybe not one song so much as it is many songs crammed together into one song. i remember rewriting the tabs over and over as i expanded the song's complexity.

that said, i also did a lot of effects-based improvisation in the process of recording this track. that is to say that the notes were written when i started but the end result really wasn't. this track also features some synthesizer work which required me to sneak into my sister's room to record, as well as a slowed down recording of a toilet filling up. this is my first use of both technique.

the lyrics to this song were also largely improvised and shouldn't be read much into. the lyrics for the chorus have been sitting around for a while, but i never found a good way to expand them into an actual song. stuff just ended up coming out, at the last minute kind of thing.

that said, i had a lot of fun with this track and i hope i'm able to make more music like this in the future.

sneaking in to use my sister's keyboard

i'm home early today. it was a very conscious choice for me to get here before anybody else so that i could sneak into my sister's room and use her keyboard. fuck pointillism.

i've been working on this song for the first part of the week and it's kind of proggy and weird - lots of guitar effects and a big open space in the middle. i'm going to record a toilet flushing this afternoon, too. i think it will sound really cool if i slow the tape down as far as it can go. it will be this slow water rushing effect - a good backdrop for guitars and keyboards.

it might seem obvious that i should just ask to use the keyboard, but i've done that before and i get weird, possessive responses. i'm breaking some kind of unwritten rule that i don't understand. whatever. i'll do it when she's not around, then. people are very silly creatures, really.

i just need to get a few quick chord stabs in. i think i can bounce the fade later. i've only got an hour, so i need to run and do it..