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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2013 13:56:47 GMT -5
Just listened to Righteous Holly. Sounds like Davie Bowie mixed with The Sugarplastic, good job. I just started reading this blog and it'll take me a while to get through 36 pages but we definitely have a common bond, former live musician that has more fun writing and tooling around at home.
Still using the Fostex? I use Acoustica Mixcraft 5 Pro which is an amazing PC based multitrack at a very reasonable price. Maybe I'll get around to putting stuff up her as well.
In the meantime I'm gonna enjoy reading this blog and listening to all your tunes. I just love listening to the home recording artist. It always inspires me to stir my stumps and get creative. I really miss the old MP3.com, one of the best things that ever happened to the net.
Cheers
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Post by Mighty Jack on Jun 12, 2013 23:19:48 GMT -5
Just listened to Righteous Holly. Sounds like Davie Bowie mixed with The Sugarplastic, good job. I just started reading this blog and it'll take me a while to get through 36 pages but we definitely have a common bond, former live musician that has more fun writing and tooling around at home. Still using the Fostex? I use Acoustica Mixcraft 5 Pro which is an amazing PC based multitrack at a very reasonable price. Maybe I'll get around to putting stuff up her as well. In the meantime I'm gonna enjoy reading this blog and listening to all your tunes. I just love listening to the home recording artist. It always inspires me to stir my stumps and get creative. I really miss the old MP3.com, one of the best things that ever happened to the net. Cheers Thanks. Some of the old songs I've deleted. And there's some other nonsense on this thing - movies etc. I can't stay focused on one subject, It's all kind of a mess. I still have the old equipment, Fosetx etc - it would be easier if I updated everything. But I've retired from touring etc, and just do this for kicks now. Yeah MP3.com was a lot of fun. I miss it too.Ah memories. I didn't realize the old links to specific posts didn't work. I only have a handful of them, but it's a useful feature. How do you do it now? I'm not seeing an obvious place from which to copy a link. It's in that little circular gear looking thing in the right hand corner "Post Options", click on that.
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Post by Mod City on Jun 13, 2013 16:22:34 GMT -5
Gah, of course. Thanks, MJ!
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Post by Mighty Jack on Jun 16, 2013 15:27:30 GMT -5
^Your welcome
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The last time I wrote a song was 2 years ago, in June. I don't know where the urge to pick up my guitar and give it another go came from but.... a sleepless week of writing, recording (and re-recording) mixing (and re-mixing. - yeah I probably should get new modern equipment, it's difficult to get any decent separation on a Fostex) and I had something I could live with.
This morning I decided I should try my hand at making a video. I collected a bunch of pics off Google and 6 hours later cobbled together my first ever music video (actually it's a music slide show). Here's the results.
EDIT: Final version finished. I didn't like my original ending so I did a re-write. Last line is still too melodramatic, but at least I closes things up a little better.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Jun 22, 2013 16:10:12 GMT -5
I had so much fun with the last one, that I created another (now I need to get a camera a shoot my own video for these things)
This was an older song I wrote for the unfinished "Delirum" project, more folk rock - no bass or drums - just me and a guitar. The slides include a ink drawing I did of the woman the song is about, and some superwomen I designed and created. There's also the cover our very own Mr. Atari designed (it shows up at the end). At the start of the piece is a cover I put together.
I wrote some of this at a club we were at, I was watching her make her way back to our table, and seeing guys buz around her, trying to engage her in conversation, ask her for a dance or what not. The lyrics in the bridge was me taking a que from Dylan, riffing on "All I Really Want To Do"
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Post by Mighty Jack on Sept 21, 2013 2:59:23 GMT -5
So I was watching some gal play a Weezer tune on her guitar, and I thought, "Hmm, you know, I've never really written a song with that time signature, with that type of guitar stroke..." And I thought it might be fun to try it.
And it was.
It's not much of a Weezer impression, it's more just me trying on their clothes for size.
If I might be so bold - I like these lyrics, like the phrasing.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Oct 18, 2013 5:41:36 GMT -5
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Post by Mighty Jack on Nov 18, 2013 0:22:32 GMT -5
Avril Lavigne returns with new material that sounds like the old material. So Avril has a new album out. A self-titled affair that shows little to no growth as a songwriter. If anything she’s regressed as a lyricists. Writing –at age 29- the same ‘party girl, I don’t give a damn about anything’ material that she was penning as a teenager. She once again sings about being the “Mother F’n Princess” and rhymes ‘sh--t with it’ for the umpteenth time. That there’s a track titled “Here’s to Never Growing Up”, and another called “Bitchin’ Summer”, pretty much spells out what your going to get. Musically -apart from an interesting shift in the middle of the record- these melodies have all been heard from Lavigne before. Despite this, the songstress is receiving her best reviews in years. I perused one notice after another, expecting each writer to blast her for the general lack of originality and juvenile lyric. But no, it’s been pretty glowing, with one publication even calling it one of the best releases of the year!? And you know what, they are right. It’s an unholy wonderful mess of a disc. At times the lines she scribbles out made me shake my head and think, “I’m too old for this crap!” And the release would seem doomed since she’s inexplicably parried with (and even married) Nickleback’s Chad Kroeger, who produces and co-writes. And still, against all odds the damn thing works. The release opens with the kind of rock anthems she leaned on in tracks such as “Girlfriend” from 2007s “The Best Damn Thing”. “Rock N Roll”, “Here’s to Never Growing Up” and “Bitchin’ Summer” are 3 big dumb thumping teenage party songs that gets everything off on solid, if safe ground. Sandwiched in between them is a pleasant melodic pop number titled “17”, in which Lavigne reminisces over an old boyfriend. It’s the better of the first 4 and recalls numbers from her début album. After this the evil Chad Kroeger lends his voice in the only tune that reeks of that Nickleback stench (Let Me Go). I can’t stand the sound of Chad’s singing, and the couple’s voices are an oil and water mix. This wont win duet of the year, and is the one track that I’ve been skipping. Next begins the oddest, most polarizing and experimental phase of the record. For me it was a welcome respite from the familiar. The best of these is the somber meditation, “Give You What You Like”. While the piece could have used a bridge to break up the monotony and structure, this is the best song I’ve heard from the singer since “I’m With You” back in 2002. It’s also the most unique and least predictable thing I've heard from her in ages. It features an impressive and steady acoustic guitar opening, and Avril’s smoky vocals are her most expressive. There is weariness there, sensual but with a tint of resigned loneliness, which accompanies lyrics that speak of a one-night stand. Jesus H, what an outstanding song! And it proves that she is capable of growth and development. I wish the whole of the album had been like this. It doesn’t last long. From there she shifts to a nasty rocker titled, “Bad Girl”, in which she’s joined by Marilyn Manson. This is delightfully sloppy, loud and dirty. It works wonderfully. Less successful, but still a gas is Lavigne’s foray into Japanese themed Techno pop. “Hello Kitty”. The track has received the most knocks from critics, but I liked it. It made me laugh, reminds me of the shrill and repetitive “Cameo” from Devo. Both these tunes will likely get tiresome after a spell. But at the very least they keep the record from getting stale… even if they do lend a chaotic, unfocused tonality to the release. After this, the singer returns to the pop rockers she knows best: These are not the anthems of the first half of the record. They are catchy and poppy, less raucous, and thankfully they are devoid of the bratty, foul-mouthed party girl attitude. Most are love songs, about lost love, found love and love in between. “Sippin’ On Sunshine” is the most sugary confection she’s ever penned and sound like something Lenka would write (and sell to TV commercials). The sweet, “Falling Fast”, which Lavigne wrote alone, reminds me of her early, early material, where she wrote numbers that offered a hint of the folky. I wonder if this is an older tune she penned in her teenage years? The album closes nicely with “Hush Hush”, a gentle piano based ballad that would have fit snugly in her previous CD, “Goodbye Lullaby”. I don't know who Avril's audience is anymore. she doesn't chart like she used to as her original fan base has grown up to become soccer moms, with jobs and families and bills. They likely don’t relate to lyrics about teenage crushes, flyboys or “raising their hands in the air like they just don’t care.” Unlike the Beatles who grew up as their listeners did, Avril is the Benjamin Button of rock and roll. I can almost see her in her 50’s belting out songs about the boy who ate paste in Kindergarten Personally speaking she offers me very little that I can relate or empathize with lyrically. And if I’m to keep on buying her records, she’s going to have to branch out and mature. And gift us more songs like “Give You What You Like”. Saying that - in the here and now, Avril manages to catch lighting in a bottle. “Avril Lavigne” is ear-catching entertainment, the most enjoyable and complete record from the artist since 2004s “Under My Skin”. That’s a long wait between musical gems. Addendum: I’m so out of the musical loop I don’t even know what’s new and good anymore. (And what I do hear, from the GaGa’s and the like, is neither good nor very new sounding). Is there another XTC or Devo out there, waiting for me to discover them? When I do buy new music, it’s old music (Like Cotton Mathers “The Big Picture”, which I picked up a few months ago). In 2012 the only new release I added to my collection came from Lauren Montgomery, Aimee Mann and Kelly Clarkson. This CD from Avril is the only new record I’ve purchased in 2013. It’s kind of sad in a way. I used to be so hip and in the know.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Nov 23, 2013 6:20:07 GMT -5
I spoke of buying Cotton Mather's Big Picture in the previous post. BP was the 2001 follow-up to the Texas groups brilliant album "Kon Tiki". The LP is a fuller, more polished sounding production, but it's also more chaotic. The choruses aren't as catchy, the tunes often meander. Still, there are solid bits. Some great guitar hooks, a couple of memorable ballads that keep the record's head above water. It's not as great as "Kon Tiki", but it has its moments.
The biggest of which is the song Monterrey Honey. An expansive power ballad that is marked by superb musical arrangement. I like how it weaves in strings and adds instruments as it goes. It reminds me of something Roy Orbison would sing, and there a hint of Lennon in Robert Harrison's vocals.
It's about love, going broke, losing someone and missing them. But it doesn't become maudlin or soapy. I don't always understand the band's lyrics. (What does the opening line to this tune mean?) But there are some striking lines, ones I wished I'd written, like...
"I'm lost where no one can find me, I think of her and my future's behind me"-- I like how they butt "future and past" together.
and...
"Now she's gone - I've marched on, to some secret song that can't drown out her name"
Aw yes, been there, done that.
While I do a lot of skipping on the "Big Picture", this track has been played to death. I hit the repeat button whenever I come to it.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Feb 25, 2014 7:33:22 GMT -5
This feeling is beyond description. I don't know what it's like for other cities/states, where all your sports teams win regularly. Do you get blasé? I wonder if what we are feeling in Washington State is more intense? After all the last (only?) major pro sporting championship came in the late 70s with the NBA Supersonics. And maybe it's made more special because this is the Seahawks first, coming after that painful referee jobbing we received in our previous SB appearance (the sting from that lingered). Whatever the reasons, this has been, well, something else. I have had other teams I like win the big prize, and each win was amazing. But it's different when it's your home team, because for one, it never ends. With other teams you get the after game celebration, the day after sports talk blitz -- later some news about the victory parade and what not… then it ends. It’s over. But when you live there, it goes on. You get the entire parade, not just highlights. You get bumpers on TV, and you see the whole town decorated in team colors. Restaurants, shops and bars are covered in blue and green. Cars have their bumper stickers, magnets and flags. Billboards line the streets. Even the people are decorated. Everyone has a SB hat or shirt… and when you’re out and about, you smile and nod when you see another “12th Man”. Because inside you know you’re all feeling the same thing -- that unbelievable joy. When your home team wins it all, you get to bask in it. The sting of past losses is eased, you remember appreciatively all the fine players who toiled for you valiantly over the years. You can now laugh off that A-hole owner who tried to steal your team away to LA (Ken “Over” Bearing… what an jerk wad) and thank your lucky stars for Paul Allen and all that he did for the team and the city of Seattle. It’s all good, it’s all just flippin wonderful. I’d wish this on my worse enemy. Seriously, every sports fan should feel this. And I sincerely hope, that if you’re a long-suffering fan of a particular team in any sport. And you live in the city or state of that team… I hope you get to experience this, because it’s glorious. Because it’s yours to share and no matter what, no one can take it away from you. We are the champions! God damn, it feels good to say that. During the parade, Marshawn Lynch sat on the hood of the Cheerleaders duck, and threw Skittles to the crowd. How sweet it is!
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