04 October 2011
a farewell to the MEMB.
it just dawned on me that very very soon i will no longer have to see coco, slopp, SmArM, and various other members of the mile end mediocrity brigade. i mean, i don't see them much now, but they are still inserted squarely into my life. that will soon be changing. thank fuck.
it amazes me that they had her in their lives and just dropped the ball. like most of us, she is far from perfect - but goddamn she is a caring, loving, bundle of joy. she named their living space which they took for their 'record label' and probably don't even remember. they probably don't even recall that it was her idea for coco to do a cover of the whole fleetwood mac album 'tango in the night' that he is 'working' on. goddamn, she brought a freshness and honesty to their desperate little world.
exit stage left. soon she will depart. the jealous one will be happy, the smarmy one will not care, and the dumb one will continue his descent into unhappiness at a much faster pace now.
am i glad i met them? yes. i had some damn good times. even though i was aware of their desperation while having those damn good times, i had hope for them as people. as human beings. i got to know kid who was happy and an incredible musician. i saw all the potential he had before his sadness swallowed him up and his friends stood by and pretended not to notice. i met some lovely people. of course i met her. i met nai. i met thomson. i met dan. all brilliant and strange and lovely people. all curious beings doing their best.
anyway, it is over. the last manipulations and lies from a week or so ago were the end of the shit blizzard. everything is lovely and calm be beautiful now. we get to begin again.
good fucking bye #memb!!!!!
it amazes me that they had her in their lives and just dropped the ball. like most of us, she is far from perfect - but goddamn she is a caring, loving, bundle of joy. she named their living space which they took for their 'record label' and probably don't even remember. they probably don't even recall that it was her idea for coco to do a cover of the whole fleetwood mac album 'tango in the night' that he is 'working' on. goddamn, she brought a freshness and honesty to their desperate little world.
exit stage left. soon she will depart. the jealous one will be happy, the smarmy one will not care, and the dumb one will continue his descent into unhappiness at a much faster pace now.
am i glad i met them? yes. i had some damn good times. even though i was aware of their desperation while having those damn good times, i had hope for them as people. as human beings. i got to know kid who was happy and an incredible musician. i saw all the potential he had before his sadness swallowed him up and his friends stood by and pretended not to notice. i met some lovely people. of course i met her. i met nai. i met thomson. i met dan. all brilliant and strange and lovely people. all curious beings doing their best.
anyway, it is over. the last manipulations and lies from a week or so ago were the end of the shit blizzard. everything is lovely and calm be beautiful now. we get to begin again.
good fucking bye #memb!!!!!
25 August 2011
ALIGHT/ALONE
ALIGHT/ALONE [EDIT]
this was the second 'single' to be released by taperecorder (via galactique recordings). this is the version of alight/alone we used for the video. we just edited out the first part of the song. which i sorta didn't want to do - but i had this feeling impatient 'important' people in the music world were not getting to the payoff in the song. it also made the work for the video easier.
HOBO
i made a mix for the bi-monthly galactique dj mix release. i was looking for something to bridge two songs. i wanted a dancer. i decided i would make something to fill in the space. i ended up doing something better. i made hobo. it took me an hour and i think it is one of my favourite songs i have ever made. i left it how it was for the dj mix. later on i found an old video of a hobo who rode the rails. he said some interesting things. i could relate to him a lot. so i sampled him and added it to the song. i figured that this song would end up sitting around forever without a home if i didn't release it soon, so included it in this single.
ALIGHT/ALONE [JAMES APOLLO COVER]
one drunken night in seattle i found myself walking along some old railroad tracks with my pal james apollo. we were carrying old wooden pallets so we could build beds out of them. i was passing out every night in my sleeping on a bamboo mat on a concrete floor in his basement. he was in the middle of a breakup and that was all he had to offer. he was sleeping on the same thing in the next room. anyway, we often talked about collaborating on some music together that week. it took a whole year before anything ever happened. i kept randomly nagging him. finally, i sent him alight/alone and asked him to cover it. within a week he sent me back this beautiful cover.
this was the second 'single' to be released by taperecorder (via galactique recordings). this is the version of alight/alone we used for the video. we just edited out the first part of the song. which i sorta didn't want to do - but i had this feeling impatient 'important' people in the music world were not getting to the payoff in the song. it also made the work for the video easier.
HOBO
i made a mix for the bi-monthly galactique dj mix release. i was looking for something to bridge two songs. i wanted a dancer. i decided i would make something to fill in the space. i ended up doing something better. i made hobo. it took me an hour and i think it is one of my favourite songs i have ever made. i left it how it was for the dj mix. later on i found an old video of a hobo who rode the rails. he said some interesting things. i could relate to him a lot. so i sampled him and added it to the song. i figured that this song would end up sitting around forever without a home if i didn't release it soon, so included it in this single.
ALIGHT/ALONE [JAMES APOLLO COVER]
one drunken night in seattle i found myself walking along some old railroad tracks with my pal james apollo. we were carrying old wooden pallets so we could build beds out of them. i was passing out every night in my sleeping on a bamboo mat on a concrete floor in his basement. he was in the middle of a breakup and that was all he had to offer. he was sleeping on the same thing in the next room. anyway, we often talked about collaborating on some music together that week. it took a whole year before anything ever happened. i kept randomly nagging him. finally, i sent him alight/alone and asked him to cover it. within a week he sent me back this beautiful cover.
COLD SPRING
COLD SPRING [EXTENDED]
this was the first 'single' to be released by taperecorder (via galactique recordings). it has an extended version of cold spring which was something i would sort of do live. go from a poppy little song into something more sinister and techno. i liked doing that. it balanced out the happy. i figured it might be fun to have this on there rather than just the original version.
DON'T FORGET TO WRITE [FT. RAE SPOON]
this is the version of don't forget to write that rae spoon sang on. the arrangement is also different than the album version.
COLDSPRING [FT. RAE SPOON]
this is the version i collaborated on with rae spoon. i loved the different approach to it vocally, but it wasn't how i had heard the song in my head. jeffro (an old pal and the guy i work with in the studio) has always said he regrets not re-recording the guitar parts for this version. just to give it a different feel. ah well,what are you gonna do?
this was the first 'single' to be released by taperecorder (via galactique recordings). it has an extended version of cold spring which was something i would sort of do live. go from a poppy little song into something more sinister and techno. i liked doing that. it balanced out the happy. i figured it might be fun to have this on there rather than just the original version.
DON'T FORGET TO WRITE [FT. RAE SPOON]
this is the version of don't forget to write that rae spoon sang on. the arrangement is also different than the album version.
COLDSPRING [FT. RAE SPOON]
this is the version i collaborated on with rae spoon. i loved the different approach to it vocally, but it wasn't how i had heard the song in my head. jeffro (an old pal and the guy i work with in the studio) has always said he regrets not re-recording the guitar parts for this version. just to give it a different feel. ah well,what are you gonna do?
23 August 2011
JUST RAMBLE & THINK OF GHOSTS
-side B-
MEET ME IN MONTAUK
this was another old mossyrock song slated for that never fully realized album which i salvaged and turned into a taperecorder song. i remember how this one first came about. DP was fucking around with sounds that i had made and stored in my sample bank. she was playing with this bell sound. a little earlier i had done something strange with this echo effect but wasn't really into the end result. i asked her to move so i could try something. i ran the bells thru that effect and soon came up with the main part of the song. i did some layering and arranging of the sound before coming up with a great little beat to put under it. the beats were nice and squelchy and had that glitchy feel i was getting into. anyway, i sat on it for a while and when i listened to it again i felt like the sound was too pretty to be constantly overtaken by the beat. i tried letting the song build from nothing into the beat part but then was struck with the thought that it might work better the other way; have the beats disappear a third of the way into it. it worked! i played with some filters and slowly ran it over the whole mix to give the end part a little bit of swag. it was done. or so i thought. it sat around for a while, looking for a home. we had released a couple of EPs that it didn't make sense on so we figured we'd put it on the new album we were working towards. in the meantime i was asked by chloe harris to make a mixtape for her radio show. i made it and used a bunch of number stations recordings (mysterious shortwave radio stations of uncertain origin believed to be operated by government agencies) as interludes. one of them was used over the end of 'meet me in montauk' and i could never hear the song the same way without it. so for JUST RAMBLE & THINK OF GHOSTS it was added to the final mix of the song. oh, and as much as the song shares its name with something that someone in eternal sunshine says, it came about before that movie was released!
DON'T FORGET TO WRITE
just a short little pop song. the original idea i had was to layer rae spoon singing the words 'don't forget to write' over top of warbly guitars and woozy bouncing beats. i wanted to do something similar with the vocals that i had done with the guitar and mandolin on gatineau. i wanted there to be just hints and blips and glitchy parts of rae's voice building until the full vocals came together at the end. i think i came close. the thing is, after deciding on using the bethany version of 'cold spring' for the album; also planning on using 'on the wall' which bethany sang on; and finally having to use bethany for 'denmark' because rae wouldn't sing the one line: it was starting to seem that it might make more sense and be more cohesive if just had bethany sing on 'don't forget to write' also. so she came down and when i played her (a different arrangement of) the song, bethany pulled out her little book of words and started singing what became the words for the song. she changed a little bit to the title of the song and presto: we were done! just a quick note on the recording of bethany singing; we tended to use two of the best takes and pan them hard right and hard left. giving it a really nice stereo effect. i tried this with some other singers and never quite ended up with the same full sound. dunno why. anyway, the rae spoon version appears on the single for cold spring. i pretty much like them both equally!
ALIGHT/ALONE
i had the idea in mind for 'JUST RAMBLE & THINK OF GHOSTS' for a while before it came together. i wanted to release something on vinyl. i wanted it to be guitary and organic sounding and electronic and vocals all coming together. i had been trying to find one more song to pull the whole thing together. i had fragments of the second part of 'alight/alone' laying around but for some reason just couldn't make it come together properly. while taking the amtrak adirondak back from montreal to new york (a lovely but long 12 hour train ride along lake champlain and the hudson river) i was fucking around with a different song (inspired by a visit from a certain girl from montreal) and realized it shared a lot of things with what became the second half of alight/alone. i began combining the parts and tweaking things here and there. moving parts around. suddenly i had a song. sure it kinda sounded like two songs combined, but it was certainly a whole piece. it still needed some lyrics though, and i was going into the studio within a few days and had no time to go drink booze at the levee to help me come up with some words. a certain sweetheart of a girl i knew had shown me something she had written which contained one of the most beautiful phrases i'd ever read: "mapping a new familiar". i asked her if we could use her words for the lyrics and thankfully she said yes! bethany sang it perfectly. she changed the melody i had in mind a little bit and of course it was way better than what i had come up with. the song was done and i think it fit the album so perfectly. we released an edited version (which was made for the video) and james apollo did an absolutely incredible cover of it using an old four track recorder. i still get goosebumps when i hear what he did with it. they both appear on the single for 'alight/alone'.
ON THE WALL
this is a cover of the demo version of 'on the wall' by the jesus and mary chain. i always loved the faster demo version which i first heard on the darklands 7". anyway, i had figured this was a simple little song we could cover that might actually suit the singer of mossyrock (DPs) voice. i laid out the drums and kept asking and asking DP to find some time to do the vocals. she never ever seemed to be able (or willing) to find the time. in fact, she never ever seemed interested. one time bethany was over (she was living about 2 hours away now in allentown). i was pretty sick with a cold and feeling really worn out. it was winter and brutally cold out. we stayed in and kept recording bits of this song late into the night. she laid out 4 or 5 different guitar tracks on top of one another. then i recorded the bassline. it was one of those simple but badass basslines. then we recorded her vocals. we finished up around 6am so excited about what we had just done. we woke up late the next day and played it back. we were both absolutely happy with it. a few tweaks here and there and we were done! i remember playing it for DP and she was pissed that we had recorded it without her. i think she was more mad at herself but was taking it out on us. anyway, we put it aside and were planning to include it on the unrealized mossyrock album. when i was putting together 'just ramble & think of ghosts' i simply lifted it and re-eq'd it. it was a perfect fit and perfect end to the album.
i always saw 'just ramble & think of ghosts' as a guitar based electronic music album and i had always imagined it being released as vinyl record. at one point i started planning on releasing a vinyl version of the album and a digital version of it. the digital version would be more electronic, have alternate takes, and some new songs on it. we had actually recorded a lot of those songs. the more we recorded though, it became obvious that those songs were becoming their own thing. becoming their own album. i was contemplating releasing the 'ghosts' album in may and the other songs on an album called 'the devil is a busy man' in june. i even went as far as recording the first tones you hear from the opening song on 'the devil is a busy man' (a song called zesty mordant) and including it as a lockgroove at the end of the vinyl version of the album. as time and money dwindled and the big european tour was fast approaching i abandoned those ideas and shelved 'devil'. ooh, also: i got the name of the album from david lynch. rus tamblyn (who played dr jacoby on twin peaks) tells the story of how he asked david what he wanted to him do in a certain scene and david quietly replied 'just ramble and think of ghosts'.
MEET ME IN MONTAUK
this was another old mossyrock song slated for that never fully realized album which i salvaged and turned into a taperecorder song. i remember how this one first came about. DP was fucking around with sounds that i had made and stored in my sample bank. she was playing with this bell sound. a little earlier i had done something strange with this echo effect but wasn't really into the end result. i asked her to move so i could try something. i ran the bells thru that effect and soon came up with the main part of the song. i did some layering and arranging of the sound before coming up with a great little beat to put under it. the beats were nice and squelchy and had that glitchy feel i was getting into. anyway, i sat on it for a while and when i listened to it again i felt like the sound was too pretty to be constantly overtaken by the beat. i tried letting the song build from nothing into the beat part but then was struck with the thought that it might work better the other way; have the beats disappear a third of the way into it. it worked! i played with some filters and slowly ran it over the whole mix to give the end part a little bit of swag. it was done. or so i thought. it sat around for a while, looking for a home. we had released a couple of EPs that it didn't make sense on so we figured we'd put it on the new album we were working towards. in the meantime i was asked by chloe harris to make a mixtape for her radio show. i made it and used a bunch of number stations recordings (mysterious shortwave radio stations of uncertain origin believed to be operated by government agencies) as interludes. one of them was used over the end of 'meet me in montauk' and i could never hear the song the same way without it. so for JUST RAMBLE & THINK OF GHOSTS it was added to the final mix of the song. oh, and as much as the song shares its name with something that someone in eternal sunshine says, it came about before that movie was released!
DON'T FORGET TO WRITE
just a short little pop song. the original idea i had was to layer rae spoon singing the words 'don't forget to write' over top of warbly guitars and woozy bouncing beats. i wanted to do something similar with the vocals that i had done with the guitar and mandolin on gatineau. i wanted there to be just hints and blips and glitchy parts of rae's voice building until the full vocals came together at the end. i think i came close. the thing is, after deciding on using the bethany version of 'cold spring' for the album; also planning on using 'on the wall' which bethany sang on; and finally having to use bethany for 'denmark' because rae wouldn't sing the one line: it was starting to seem that it might make more sense and be more cohesive if just had bethany sing on 'don't forget to write' also. so she came down and when i played her (a different arrangement of) the song, bethany pulled out her little book of words and started singing what became the words for the song. she changed a little bit to the title of the song and presto: we were done! just a quick note on the recording of bethany singing; we tended to use two of the best takes and pan them hard right and hard left. giving it a really nice stereo effect. i tried this with some other singers and never quite ended up with the same full sound. dunno why. anyway, the rae spoon version appears on the single for cold spring. i pretty much like them both equally!
ALIGHT/ALONE
i had the idea in mind for 'JUST RAMBLE & THINK OF GHOSTS' for a while before it came together. i wanted to release something on vinyl. i wanted it to be guitary and organic sounding and electronic and vocals all coming together. i had been trying to find one more song to pull the whole thing together. i had fragments of the second part of 'alight/alone' laying around but for some reason just couldn't make it come together properly. while taking the amtrak adirondak back from montreal to new york (a lovely but long 12 hour train ride along lake champlain and the hudson river) i was fucking around with a different song (inspired by a visit from a certain girl from montreal) and realized it shared a lot of things with what became the second half of alight/alone. i began combining the parts and tweaking things here and there. moving parts around. suddenly i had a song. sure it kinda sounded like two songs combined, but it was certainly a whole piece. it still needed some lyrics though, and i was going into the studio within a few days and had no time to go drink booze at the levee to help me come up with some words. a certain sweetheart of a girl i knew had shown me something she had written which contained one of the most beautiful phrases i'd ever read: "mapping a new familiar". i asked her if we could use her words for the lyrics and thankfully she said yes! bethany sang it perfectly. she changed the melody i had in mind a little bit and of course it was way better than what i had come up with. the song was done and i think it fit the album so perfectly. we released an edited version (which was made for the video) and james apollo did an absolutely incredible cover of it using an old four track recorder. i still get goosebumps when i hear what he did with it. they both appear on the single for 'alight/alone'.
ON THE WALL
this is a cover of the demo version of 'on the wall' by the jesus and mary chain. i always loved the faster demo version which i first heard on the darklands 7". anyway, i had figured this was a simple little song we could cover that might actually suit the singer of mossyrock (DPs) voice. i laid out the drums and kept asking and asking DP to find some time to do the vocals. she never ever seemed to be able (or willing) to find the time. in fact, she never ever seemed interested. one time bethany was over (she was living about 2 hours away now in allentown). i was pretty sick with a cold and feeling really worn out. it was winter and brutally cold out. we stayed in and kept recording bits of this song late into the night. she laid out 4 or 5 different guitar tracks on top of one another. then i recorded the bassline. it was one of those simple but badass basslines. then we recorded her vocals. we finished up around 6am so excited about what we had just done. we woke up late the next day and played it back. we were both absolutely happy with it. a few tweaks here and there and we were done! i remember playing it for DP and she was pissed that we had recorded it without her. i think she was more mad at herself but was taking it out on us. anyway, we put it aside and were planning to include it on the unrealized mossyrock album. when i was putting together 'just ramble & think of ghosts' i simply lifted it and re-eq'd it. it was a perfect fit and perfect end to the album.
i always saw 'just ramble & think of ghosts' as a guitar based electronic music album and i had always imagined it being released as vinyl record. at one point i started planning on releasing a vinyl version of the album and a digital version of it. the digital version would be more electronic, have alternate takes, and some new songs on it. we had actually recorded a lot of those songs. the more we recorded though, it became obvious that those songs were becoming their own thing. becoming their own album. i was contemplating releasing the 'ghosts' album in may and the other songs on an album called 'the devil is a busy man' in june. i even went as far as recording the first tones you hear from the opening song on 'the devil is a busy man' (a song called zesty mordant) and including it as a lockgroove at the end of the vinyl version of the album. as time and money dwindled and the big european tour was fast approaching i abandoned those ideas and shelved 'devil'. ooh, also: i got the name of the album from david lynch. rus tamblyn (who played dr jacoby on twin peaks) tells the story of how he asked david what he wanted to him do in a certain scene and david quietly replied 'just ramble and think of ghosts'.
20 August 2011
JUST RAMBLE & THINK OF GHOSTS
-side A-
GATINEAU
most of this song was recorded along the gatineau river just north of ottawa in quebec. i was lucky enough to find myself in an old summer cabin that had the historic hull-chelsea-wakefield steam train cross right through the property twice a day. you can hear sounds i sampled from it (the steam from the train, a whistle, and the train chugging along the tracks). i made a drum track and then recorded a guitar part and mandolin part over it. then i went in reverse taking pieces of it away. i wanted it to sound like the random glitchy bits at the start build slowly into full guitar/mandolin parts. a few weeks later back in my apartment in brooklyn, james apollo came over with a broken banjo and played some notes over top and it was done. there were a few of songs originally slated to be released by mossyrock way way back before we broke up. some songs i had made for our unrealized album were reworked, retooled, and remixed for JUST RAMBLE & THINK OF GHOSTS. gatineau was one of them.
COLD SPRING
cold spring new york is a small town about an hour train ride north of new york city. it is a great little escape from city life with tons of hiking trails and whatnot. i came home from there one night and recorded that wonderfully retarded little guitar hook. i put a cheesy beat behind it and then forgot all about it. a month later while touring with mossyrock i decided to do a soundcheck song with it and saw everyone in the bar nod along. the next day after a crazy drive from vienna to prague i went off by myself and fleshed it out. i was dating the singer of mossyrock at this time (a definite NO NO) and a few days later she came up with some lyrics that i found to be really annoying but figured they'd do for now. i suggested we get some ooh ooh's in there and bethany immediately came up with the chorus. after the tour our relationship was definitely over as well as mossyrock. we broke up. a good few months later i started working on moving all the unreleased and unfinished stuff i liked from mossyrock over to taperecorder. cold spring was one of the songs i wanted to finish. i contacted rae spoon who i was fond of working with and file shared the song. rae only had a few days to record it before heading to yellowknife for a few months so i had to get lyrics together quickly. one ridiculously drunken night turned into morning as the sun came up and i sat in my kitchen; i took the lyrics that DP (the singer) had come up with and changed them into something more personal. a little fuck you to her. i was drunk as hell and sent them of to rae. i really did like what rae spoon came up with and sent back to me, and even released that version (on the 'cold spring' single), but it wasn't quite what i heard in my head. so i called up former mossyrock guitarist bethany and asked her to come down and record. i remember her asking 'how do you want me to sing this? the lyrics are kind of sad." i replied "i want it to sound like a total happy pop song". she nailed it on the first take.
EVERGREEN
hmmm. this one is a hard one. i had this feeling. i can't describe the feeling. sort of lonesome; sort of lovestruck; sort of yearning. maybe? anyway, i'll start with how i made the song instead of where it came from. i took some guitar playing that bethany had done. some outtakes from mossyrock stuff. i looped bits and rearranged and layered the hell out of it. soon i had this thick lush textured sound. at one point i literally listened to that loop for over an hour. hearing brand new sounds emerge from in between the sound i had made. whatever the feeling was i had captured it. 100%! from there i laid it out into a two and a half minute song. slowly tweaking the main guitar-cum-pad sound and even slowly adding a few new layers to it as the song progressed. i added some blips of bethany vocals to it. i recorded me using an old egg shaker. i added a drum kick from my old shitty groovebox. then i added a bassline from my wonky old bass guitar. then some glockenspiel. et voila. i had my song. some people really don't get it and that is ok. my mum said it sounds like the record is skipping. other people have told me it is their favourite. either way, i love it. it is one of my oldest taperecorder songs. made before all the previously released stuff. it was originally going to be a mossyrock song (and i think first appeared on a tour only EP at some point) but it didn't see a proper release until JUST RAMBLE & THINK OF GHOSTS. there are a few version of the song now. there is sort of a prequel to it called nevergreen (which can be found on 'THE DEVIL IS A BUSY MAN' and the 'evergreen [full on]' EP. there is also a version where some vocals by toof appear at the end (from the 'evergreen [full on]' EP), and a remix from quebecois boy beeker (also on the 'evergreen [full on]' EP).
DENMARK
i wrote the lyrics for this while sitting at one of my favourite bars in brooklyn (the levee). i was feeling strange and lonesome yet didn't really want to be around anyone. it took me a lot of time to write them. like, 10 or 11 visits. which is funny because they don't even seem that great. i drank many a $4 shot and beer (known as a 'sportsman') while coming up with them. the song itself came about when i decided i really wanted to make another guitar song with the guitar bits rearranged. i had done this with a song by mossyrock called 'rain dries & clouds form'. i liked the warbly guitar. it was obviously a guitar but it sounded glitchy. i had been playing around with the chords i used for a few years but never in any sort of serious way. so i recorded them, looped them, and then offset the samples. i was really happy with the end result. rae spoon was going to sing this one originally but objected to the lyrics 'getting fat on my own fear'. i guess rae would have been polarized by the LBGT community for using thew word fat. even if it was just a metaphor. oh well, bethany nailed it. sometime later i asked jenn mierau to record a cover of it for the evergreen [full on] EP and she gave me a beautiful yet spooky stripped down cover that used only a wurlitzer and her voice. i think what she did is absolutely amazing. i should also point out that the song denmark by ocean blue and a magical week i spent in copenhagan played a big role in the naming of this song.
-side b to follow-
GATINEAU
most of this song was recorded along the gatineau river just north of ottawa in quebec. i was lucky enough to find myself in an old summer cabin that had the historic hull-chelsea-wakefield steam train cross right through the property twice a day. you can hear sounds i sampled from it (the steam from the train, a whistle, and the train chugging along the tracks). i made a drum track and then recorded a guitar part and mandolin part over it. then i went in reverse taking pieces of it away. i wanted it to sound like the random glitchy bits at the start build slowly into full guitar/mandolin parts. a few weeks later back in my apartment in brooklyn, james apollo came over with a broken banjo and played some notes over top and it was done. there were a few of songs originally slated to be released by mossyrock way way back before we broke up. some songs i had made for our unrealized album were reworked, retooled, and remixed for JUST RAMBLE & THINK OF GHOSTS. gatineau was one of them.
COLD SPRING
cold spring new york is a small town about an hour train ride north of new york city. it is a great little escape from city life with tons of hiking trails and whatnot. i came home from there one night and recorded that wonderfully retarded little guitar hook. i put a cheesy beat behind it and then forgot all about it. a month later while touring with mossyrock i decided to do a soundcheck song with it and saw everyone in the bar nod along. the next day after a crazy drive from vienna to prague i went off by myself and fleshed it out. i was dating the singer of mossyrock at this time (a definite NO NO) and a few days later she came up with some lyrics that i found to be really annoying but figured they'd do for now. i suggested we get some ooh ooh's in there and bethany immediately came up with the chorus. after the tour our relationship was definitely over as well as mossyrock. we broke up. a good few months later i started working on moving all the unreleased and unfinished stuff i liked from mossyrock over to taperecorder. cold spring was one of the songs i wanted to finish. i contacted rae spoon who i was fond of working with and file shared the song. rae only had a few days to record it before heading to yellowknife for a few months so i had to get lyrics together quickly. one ridiculously drunken night turned into morning as the sun came up and i sat in my kitchen; i took the lyrics that DP (the singer) had come up with and changed them into something more personal. a little fuck you to her. i was drunk as hell and sent them of to rae. i really did like what rae spoon came up with and sent back to me, and even released that version (on the 'cold spring' single), but it wasn't quite what i heard in my head. so i called up former mossyrock guitarist bethany and asked her to come down and record. i remember her asking 'how do you want me to sing this? the lyrics are kind of sad." i replied "i want it to sound like a total happy pop song". she nailed it on the first take.
EVERGREEN
hmmm. this one is a hard one. i had this feeling. i can't describe the feeling. sort of lonesome; sort of lovestruck; sort of yearning. maybe? anyway, i'll start with how i made the song instead of where it came from. i took some guitar playing that bethany had done. some outtakes from mossyrock stuff. i looped bits and rearranged and layered the hell out of it. soon i had this thick lush textured sound. at one point i literally listened to that loop for over an hour. hearing brand new sounds emerge from in between the sound i had made. whatever the feeling was i had captured it. 100%! from there i laid it out into a two and a half minute song. slowly tweaking the main guitar-cum-pad sound and even slowly adding a few new layers to it as the song progressed. i added some blips of bethany vocals to it. i recorded me using an old egg shaker. i added a drum kick from my old shitty groovebox. then i added a bassline from my wonky old bass guitar. then some glockenspiel. et voila. i had my song. some people really don't get it and that is ok. my mum said it sounds like the record is skipping. other people have told me it is their favourite. either way, i love it. it is one of my oldest taperecorder songs. made before all the previously released stuff. it was originally going to be a mossyrock song (and i think first appeared on a tour only EP at some point) but it didn't see a proper release until JUST RAMBLE & THINK OF GHOSTS. there are a few version of the song now. there is sort of a prequel to it called nevergreen (which can be found on 'THE DEVIL IS A BUSY MAN' and the 'evergreen [full on]' EP. there is also a version where some vocals by toof appear at the end (from the 'evergreen [full on]' EP), and a remix from quebecois boy beeker (also on the 'evergreen [full on]' EP).
DENMARK
i wrote the lyrics for this while sitting at one of my favourite bars in brooklyn (the levee). i was feeling strange and lonesome yet didn't really want to be around anyone. it took me a lot of time to write them. like, 10 or 11 visits. which is funny because they don't even seem that great. i drank many a $4 shot and beer (known as a 'sportsman') while coming up with them. the song itself came about when i decided i really wanted to make another guitar song with the guitar bits rearranged. i had done this with a song by mossyrock called 'rain dries & clouds form'. i liked the warbly guitar. it was obviously a guitar but it sounded glitchy. i had been playing around with the chords i used for a few years but never in any sort of serious way. so i recorded them, looped them, and then offset the samples. i was really happy with the end result. rae spoon was going to sing this one originally but objected to the lyrics 'getting fat on my own fear'. i guess rae would have been polarized by the LBGT community for using thew word fat. even if it was just a metaphor. oh well, bethany nailed it. sometime later i asked jenn mierau to record a cover of it for the evergreen [full on] EP and she gave me a beautiful yet spooky stripped down cover that used only a wurlitzer and her voice. i think what she did is absolutely amazing. i should also point out that the song denmark by ocean blue and a magical week i spent in copenhagan played a big role in the naming of this song.
-side b to follow-
26 July 2011
THE LUNCHBOX EP
ZESTY BANG BANG (A LOVE SONG IN THREE PARTS)
the LUNCHBOX EP was my way of trying to inject some humour into my music. zesty bang bang was me just fucking around with zesty mordant. i had performed out at soundwave on vancouver island and played a pretty great time slot where the crowd was going off. so i improvised and turned the mild mannered and moody zesty mordant into a lush textured house song. when i went back to it later i decided to flesh it out. it soon sort of turned into a song comprised of three different parts. i changed the name slightly and then added the 'love song in three parts' bit because i thought it sounded silly.
TWO MINUTE HOUSE SONG (ANTONS DUTY)
this is exactly what the title implies. actually i think it is 2 and a half minutes long. this was one of those songs i made during a brutally cold january in berlin. you can hear bits of anton newcombe drunkenly yelling after a scuffle at 8mm bar. my friend tom and i ended up hanging out, working on music, and getting wasted with him for a few days. i lost when we played 'don't sink the european union' (a game involving a glass of whiskey, lot's of cigarette ash, and a dirty old €2 coin). so all this nonsense kinda went into the vibe of the song. a fun little rowdy house song.
ONE NIGHT STAND-OFF (FT VER6)
i have this friend who is pretty great and goddamn rowdy. i knew her for a few years but once i returned from berlin we had this lovely little torrid two month affair. she was just out of a long relationship as was i. she was moving back to texas and so we decided to make everything over the next two months be just about some nice and easy hanging out, partying like crazy, and some good old fashioned booty calls. she would text me at eleven o'clock at night, right around when i was wrapping up some tour booking, and ask me to meet her at a random bar. which i would. then i would get home when the sun was coming up. it was a lovely, fun, and much needed sleepless two months. one night though, everything turned a bit sour. well, more like crazy fucking insane sour. this was about a day or two before she was going home. we are still friends now but that was the end of our two lovely months. anyway, i tried to make a fun rowdy song out of those times and came up with something i thought was mostly good. the thing was, i couldn't quite finish it. i was on the road performing, my final EP in the 'box trilogy' had a release date that was only a few days away, and i had planned for this to be the third song on it. luckily, i happened to be playing in montreal and hanging out with ver6 and told him that i wasn't happy with my unfinished third song and told him what i was trying to do with it. he asked me for the tracks and and hour later handed me an ending. he nailed it. if you listen at about the 2/3rds point you can hear where his part comes in and everything goes off kilter. that pretty much summed up those lovely two months and how they ended. i wonder whatever happened to ver6? he was a pretty cool guy...
the LUNCHBOX EP was released by galactique on june 15th 2009. it completed the little 'box trilogy' but also was kind of the starting point to me taking taperecorder on full time. mossyrock had broken up after the 2008 autumn european tour (well not officially - it took about five months of not hanging out with no one really talking about any future plans before breaking up 'officially') and i had spent six weeks in berlin just writing new music and celebrating life. i knew in my heart mossyrock was over and had put so much time and energy into it that i was pretty bummed out after the tour. so i went to berlin to get away from music and somehow the opposite happened! it renewed my love for writing music and gave me a total new direction. somewhere in between getting home from berlin and releasing this EP i had booked a festival tour circuit and a bunch of club shows in canada for taperecorder. i guess that was the kind of the beginning...
the LUNCHBOX EP was my way of trying to inject some humour into my music. zesty bang bang was me just fucking around with zesty mordant. i had performed out at soundwave on vancouver island and played a pretty great time slot where the crowd was going off. so i improvised and turned the mild mannered and moody zesty mordant into a lush textured house song. when i went back to it later i decided to flesh it out. it soon sort of turned into a song comprised of three different parts. i changed the name slightly and then added the 'love song in three parts' bit because i thought it sounded silly.
TWO MINUTE HOUSE SONG (ANTONS DUTY)
this is exactly what the title implies. actually i think it is 2 and a half minutes long. this was one of those songs i made during a brutally cold january in berlin. you can hear bits of anton newcombe drunkenly yelling after a scuffle at 8mm bar. my friend tom and i ended up hanging out, working on music, and getting wasted with him for a few days. i lost when we played 'don't sink the european union' (a game involving a glass of whiskey, lot's of cigarette ash, and a dirty old €2 coin). so all this nonsense kinda went into the vibe of the song. a fun little rowdy house song.
ONE NIGHT STAND-OFF (FT VER6)
i have this friend who is pretty great and goddamn rowdy. i knew her for a few years but once i returned from berlin we had this lovely little torrid two month affair. she was just out of a long relationship as was i. she was moving back to texas and so we decided to make everything over the next two months be just about some nice and easy hanging out, partying like crazy, and some good old fashioned booty calls. she would text me at eleven o'clock at night, right around when i was wrapping up some tour booking, and ask me to meet her at a random bar. which i would. then i would get home when the sun was coming up. it was a lovely, fun, and much needed sleepless two months. one night though, everything turned a bit sour. well, more like crazy fucking insane sour. this was about a day or two before she was going home. we are still friends now but that was the end of our two lovely months. anyway, i tried to make a fun rowdy song out of those times and came up with something i thought was mostly good. the thing was, i couldn't quite finish it. i was on the road performing, my final EP in the 'box trilogy' had a release date that was only a few days away, and i had planned for this to be the third song on it. luckily, i happened to be playing in montreal and hanging out with ver6 and told him that i wasn't happy with my unfinished third song and told him what i was trying to do with it. he asked me for the tracks and and hour later handed me an ending. he nailed it. if you listen at about the 2/3rds point you can hear where his part comes in and everything goes off kilter. that pretty much summed up those lovely two months and how they ended. i wonder whatever happened to ver6? he was a pretty cool guy...
the LUNCHBOX EP was released by galactique on june 15th 2009. it completed the little 'box trilogy' but also was kind of the starting point to me taking taperecorder on full time. mossyrock had broken up after the 2008 autumn european tour (well not officially - it took about five months of not hanging out with no one really talking about any future plans before breaking up 'officially') and i had spent six weeks in berlin just writing new music and celebrating life. i knew in my heart mossyrock was over and had put so much time and energy into it that i was pretty bummed out after the tour. so i went to berlin to get away from music and somehow the opposite happened! it renewed my love for writing music and gave me a total new direction. somewhere in between getting home from berlin and releasing this EP i had booked a festival tour circuit and a bunch of club shows in canada for taperecorder. i guess that was the kind of the beginning...
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