REVERIES

Here’s the second part of the album I made for making things to. Make whatever you want! Again what we want is ambience and a lack of drama, without aspiring to New Age. I had a friend who had a ranch out in the hidden part of Mendocino County, and one of our past-times during an amazing Summer visit there became “rock-hopping”, where you hop down a mostly dried up creek bed, ideally reaching a state where you don’t think between leaps. For some reason this song reminded me of that.

I had the honor of working on the soundtrack for “You Follow”, a story about a woman who goes to find out about her past in India. The main character does a lot of searching and I composed this piece to be her (Nisha) theme. It was a fun and interesting project and I’m excited to go see the opening screening tonight(!)…

A while ago I made my girlfriend Katy an album. She has a certain playlist she’s created for painting and has talked about the perfect music for that kinda thing… meditative and non-disruptive, but interesting enough maybe to be listenable over and over. So obviously I created a  polka/deep-house mashup. And that didn’t fit the bill. So I tried this. Just a live cello performance using some looping, and a very brutish beat to pull it all along. It’s long, and it’s a pretty good quality mp3 if you are into that sort of thing. This is the first of three parts to that album.

A while ago I made my girlfriend Katy an album. She has a certain playlist she’s created for painting and has talked about the perfect music for that kinda thing… meditative and non-disruptive, but interesting enough maybe to be listenable over and over. So obviously I created this flugelhorn polka. And that didn’t fit the bill. So I tried this. Just a live cello performance using some looping, and a very brutish beat to pull it all along.

When my girlfriend heard me play the early version of this she said “that’s pretty is that a Bruce Springsteen cover?”, which I took as a compliment. Nebraska is one of the most beautiful albums ever recorded. I didn’t intend to have the influence be so obvious, it wasn’t conscious, and also, if there is a sound I’d love to pay homage to it’s that one.

Came across this early version of “You Can Get Far” (video from the album REDWOOD SUMMER here). And it reminded me of when I recorded it, at Canyonlands National Park, sitting up on a cliff’s edge. As you can hear not a lot is different in the studio version, just perhaps a nicer mic and the absence of the sounds of rocks scraping underneath my shifting weight. And the view I had was incredible.

This song is made famous by the lovely Skeeter Davis. We made a version of it a while back, with vocals by the also lovely Katy Unger.

Here’s an update from a song I posted a couple weeks ago. I added a cello solo in there. It was imperative to shred. I also added backup vocals toward the end. And hand claps. Always more hand claps. Also as always I prefer the original, what do you think?

The podcast was my main delivery about five years ago. Then facebook happened. The thing about facebook for me now, is that it feels WAY less personal than it somehow used to. Also, I don’t need to share ALL my random songs with ANYONE who likes my facebook page. You, my friend, are here because you are (amazingly) dedicated and I appreciate that. So we’re going to try to get the podcast back on its feet. Here’s a new old song. I wrote the lyrics/melody quite a while ago, and stumbled across it in my lyric book, which happens when I’m playing little mini-concerts of old material. It’s a bit rough, but I like the way it turned out. I’m thinking of adding a little more bowed cello, and perhaps more vocals at the end there…

I’ve been putting off basically everything working on some new music, so much new music in fact that I’m needing to break it down into its respective pieces. This one is on an album I’m putting out that is basically electronic music meets cello. I’ve done that in the past, but the key with this one is that I more or less be able to play it live. Or some semblance of it. With looping that is possible! So without saying much more, here is a new electrocello song. I’m likely to take it down soon, as I don’t want to spoil the fun, but love rewarding you my faithful readers… Take care, enjoy…

B sides are always around in my boxes. I have a lot of ideas that eventually would lead to a melody, but sometimes, like in the case of this one, will never be duplicated because the performance is so unique. So here you go, so amazingly uncut or edited: Here Is Enlightmenent permalink to this post: http://midnightdoor.com/word/?p=558 I was playing around with vocal range in this one, total Mariah Carey inspired (kidding), it’s pretty rambling for sure. I’ve got a “holidays” ish song coming next week, so stay tuned!

http://www.midnightdoor.com/word/media/truenorth.mp3 OK so I’ve been talking about this for a while but now the album is getting mastered this Friday! I’d really like to have any and all of your voices on the backup vocals for the chorus (just the chorus… easy!) of my song ‘True North’ The lyrics are simple and maybe cheesy, but whatevs. They are: “Start a great fire start a great fire start a great fire in your hearth turn a blind eye turn a blind eye turn a blind eye to the lie” The way I envision you being able to do this is to simply open up any audio recording program on your computer (garageband on mac, audacity on PC), put headphones on in another program (say, itunes) press play on “true north”, press record on your audio program and sing along during the chorus into the computer’s mic. Yup, that mic is fine. It’s ok if it sounds treble-y, it will create a roomy ambience, it is the easiest option, and I will fit it in the mix however it goes. I don’t care if you sing it amazingly or not. I want the sound of many voices. If you have a better mic that is fine too. Then you press stop on the audio program. Save the file as pretty much any audio format, and email it to me. No, I won’t hear the rest of the song because you had your headphones on, but don’t clip it down to just the chorus or anything like that so that it is easier to line up with the recording. If you have time that is more than great. If you don’t, I understand. But please just take 5 minutes to do it if you want/can! You will be immortalized forever and most likely a radio signal will send your voice into space. Most likely. You will get credit on the album. You will be irrevocably awesome. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!! Let me know if you think you will. I need it by thurs at the absolute latest (Sorry for the late notice… ) The mp3 is noted here. If it doesn’t show up in this facebook post, go to http://midnightdoor.com/word/?p=467 Thanks Guys!

The albums are coming along. I had the pleasure of recording some drums with Molly from Huff This!. She adds such a rock sound to the tracks. It’s perfect for the feel of the album. So here is a more rounded out version of the song I posted a few weeks ago. This is the sample of the more rock, acoustic guitars and cello based album I’m calling ‘Redwood Summer’. Enjoy! Remember the earlier version of this song? Here is my sample from the electro-cello album tentatively called ‘Half Moon’. It’s the stuff I’ve been playing live lately. Here is a sample of my all cello instrumental album, as yet un-named. Here is where the electronic-instrumental album will be coming from.

  I’ve been working like mad lately and in my late night hours I’ve been burning through my music list. One of the tracks from my old band “The Key” came up and I decided I’m really proud of this whole album, especially in retrospect. Especially in retrospect because I wrote this song about the approach of the US warplanes at the beginning of the Iraq war from the point of view of an innocent kid. Maybe my age, maybe in Baghdad… I still think it fits. The sounds at the end are from a giant (80,000 plus people) anti-war rally on the eve of the war. Before that scumbag W. pulled the trigger. Listen and enjoy… In other news, I’m super busy in life and otherwise. This Thursday I’m playing a show in Sacramento with Aaron Ross & The Heirs Of Mystery at a new club. Go to his myspace page for more details… After that I’m driving down to Los Angeles to do some cello recording with Huff This! They’re putting together their album and I’m super glad to be able to contribute perhaps. In the meantime, good progress is made on the solo cello album, the new cello/beats/vocals album. Those two will probably be released at the same time, in early spring. Yes. That is what is. Hope you’re doing well…

Canyonlands National Park a few years ago… there are these amazing ledges that drop many hundred feet. Stopped and played guitar and recorded this song there…