All Swear About Murder: "it was a pleasure to burn" production diary

First off, a quick announcement: I've made all of the tracks for it was a pleasure to burn available for free download! I hadn't done this before for a few reasons. First, the album's not done yet and, as twentieth-century as it is, I still prefer albums to individual tracks as a method of distribution and consumption. Second, Bandcamp limits my bandwidth to 200 downloads a month.

But I realized that it was silly and egotistical to make the songs streaming-only. It should be up to you, the listener, how you want to encounter this music. Also, it's a "limit" of two hundred downloads. If I somehow magically break that barrier, it will be a happy problem indeed.

So, enjoy! Grab the tracks as you please, play them where you want on the device you want. Just, please respect the Creative Commons Attribute-Share-Alike license I'm using. Most importantly, thanks for listening!

On with the show: new track, new stories!

Some times, mistakes are fortuituous. Some times, you just happen to know the right people at the right moment. And some times, it's the wrong moment. "All Swear About Murder" fell out of a Google+ conversation I had last Fall with Denise Hudson (whose work you should totally check out, by the way). Well, the title fell off the back of that truck. The story is pure Appalachian Noir.

you were standing in a shadow of blue
a chord in one hand my heart to undo
you were a cipher, a mistress code
a wind-talker in melody clothed
& we sang all night
& whispered the day
you were standing but i heard you croon
a siren sang your secret tune

it was a tryst it was a whirlwind
but all good things must find their end
your études your ivory keys
my six-string down on its knees
i play the blues
you play for you
it was a tryst it was too facile
i was all swear about blue gun steel

i was all swear about your demise
shed not a tear for all your lies
they put me in chains and on the stand
i told the tale 'bout your demands
'bout what you took from me
my ransomed heart
i was all swear about your timely end
but never said a word about our bed

I don't often write murder ballads. But when I do, they don't have a chorus and I use slide guitar.


I made a demo of this song for FAWM. As you can hear, this girl has undergone several changes. When I started writing, I knew that I wanted to craft a song with no chorus. The original draft has a bridge, but it was always a problematic thing.


I took the chance to perform "All Swear" for a local Atlanta songwriters' group and I realized during the discussion session that 1) the bridge was not working and 2) it still needed a refrain of some kind. And hey, the purely musical refrain for "Susan" is awesome, so why not do that again?

Yes, I'm totally borrowing from myself. Or doing a retread of an idea I explored once. Shoot me. If it works, do it twice more. That's the basis of a song, isn't it?

I also changed the order of the verses after the group discussion because I realized that I was starting the story at the end, and that moving verse two to the first slot would make the story more accessible, since it establishes the setting. That first line is the one real thing in this entire song; I really did meet someone for the first time in a shadow of blue. Also, the last line "about our bed" is the zinger twist, so it's good to hold that back.

Recording of the fully-produced track was a rather organic thing. Since I wasn't under time constraints to submit this to a contest, I was able to fiddle with sounds and tones. So there are at least three different guitar tones there (I love that warbly guitar tone, which harkens to the black-and-white wild west sections of Kill Bill Volume 2 for me). And my favorite organ. And a piano. And acoustic guitars because that's where the whole thing started, right?  (Actually, recording the acoustic was a pain in the rear; I'm finger-strumming again and it was so quiet that I had to work mic positions and the gain and blah, blah blah. Eventually, I double tracked most of it just for volume.)

To make a long story short (too late!) The recording process resulted in a series of happy accidents that gave me the cool intro and that dramatic drop-off at the end of the second break.

There's probably some unfulfilled potential with the tempo change that leads into the third verse; could be a moment for a bridge or another kind of break. As it is, this track is somewhat weak on its own, but it's going to make a killer lead-in for "Where You Can Go."

Besides, some times you just have step back, brush the gunshot residue off of your sleeve and go "good enough."

To The Devil: "it was a pleasure to burn" production diary

Professional obligations have eclipsed my musical predilections for the past week, so I have been remiss in posting the piecemeal progress I've made towards completing it was a pleasure to burn. Nonetheless, progress there has been, and below you may find the evidence thereof.

"To The Devil" is one of my unprompted compositions, which means she arrived without call from either a Song Fight! or SpinTunes challenge, nor even during FAWM.

i spoke to the devil but he had nothing to say
cuz i had beat him down, beat him all damn day
Beelzebub came a knockin', came up right to my door
tried to whisper sweet nothin's so i put him on the floor

i spoke to the devil
i spoke with my fist
i spoke to the devil
now he's on my list

course there is what Freddy said about the black abyss
can you win that staring game and make Satan miss?
if this is that hubris thing, then just let me be
if i can make my way there blind, his blood will set me free

i spoke to the devil
Mephistopheles
i spoke to the devil
you want no truck with me

though it winds like a serpent, i can walk the path
sow the seeds of destruction, pick the grapes of wrath
i spoke to the devil but was only talkin' aloud
i am my own hemlock i weave my own shroud

i spoke to the devil
bluffed the father of lies
i spoke to the devil, boy
you better let me pass on by

i spoke to the devil
Mephistopheles
i spoke to the devil and lived
you want no truck with me

This song actually comes from a pretty dark place, so I have trouble talking about it. Let's start with structure and my trademark references.

"To the Devil" is a pretty straight-up rock song. I knew this right from the get go, and so it's lathered in dynamics, bombast and a simple chord progression. In its initial iteration, the whole vocal delivery was rather monotone. I was trying to play it cool, underlying an assured delivery with lyrics soaked in doubt and not a little self-loathing. I wanted there to be a tension between the raucous triumph of the music and the dark introspection of the words: fragile aggression.



I'm very happy with the dynamics of this song, the way it ebbs and flows, but for the new take, I knew that it need more of that. So, I redid the percussion track entirely. (Hooray for EzDrummer!) and put more energy into the chorus. The call/response in that section was a last-minute editing decision; I'm on the fence and it may not survive (entirely) the last edit before I consider the album complete.

References to literature and philosophy abound. Overall, I was thinking of Charlie Daniel's "The Devil Went Down the Georgia" as well as anti-heroes that figure in so much of Johnny's Cash's work.

"Freddy" and his "black abyss" is a nod to one Nietzsche's more famous quotes:

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. (Beyond Good and Evil.)

The second half of verse two is actually a very oblique reference to Oedipus at Colonus, the third and final part of Sophocles' Theban Plays, in which the now-blinded king ruminates upon his dire fate. It's a pessimistic work, even for a tragedy. And no mention of "hemlock" could miss evoking the fate of Socrates, who was condemned to death for basically being a skeptic and "corrupting the youth" of Athens with rational thought, of all things.

The "grapes of wrath," here has nothing to do with the Steinbeck novel, but rather his source: The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Which is, in turn, a reference to Revelations 14: 19-20. I'm just part of a long chain of borrowing.

Personally, I'll manage to say that writing this song was kind of cathartic. It's hyperbolic, of course: my life is pretty good, but I had settled into a kind of mid-winter glum and channeled my shadow into a song that might make Kurt Cobain go "Dude, you have issues."

More music has been made since I've fallen quiet. Come back soon (like, tomorrow) and I'll tell you about more dark shadows that I've summoned.

Other Ways: "it was a pleasure to burn" production diary

During FAWM, I pull from anywhere and everywhere for inspiration: the message boards, other artists, my dreams, my library, even the headlines. And this past February marked the sudden and tragic death of a pop music icon.

So, "Other Ways" is a song about Whitney Houston, or my imagined version of her.


she had other ways

i once knew a woman
she would not tell me her name
she lived down in Atlanta, an' every night
she burned that town with shame
with the voice of an angel
but a soul as black as pitch
should could sing for her supper
but could not love herself rich

she had other ways

oh she had one them mansions
ponce de leon midtown way
an' all that she ever wanted
she had to fight for every day
she was proud of them bruises
she could take the abuse
her nose, her veins, her heart, her tears
all dried up from use

she had other ways

up on the TV there
are a million of her ghosts
the pundits all mourn her passing
the divas raise a toast
so we all held a party
to come 'round and crown her heir
long live the queen of sorrow
from her snow-white chair

she had other ways

I started this past FAWM with the idea that I could generate the most amount of songs by only recording demos. After all, it's not "Album Recording Month," it's "Album Writing Month." The thing is, years of Song Fighting have made it so that recording is part of my songwriting process. It's like a ritual: get the bare bones of a tune down with an acoustic guitar, then open up my recording software and start laying tracks: drum, bass, guitar, (other instruments as needed) vox, lead, backing vox, pretty much in that order most of the time. So, for "Other Ways," I gave up on the idea of just doing a demo. It felt much more comfortable anyway.

As always, there are a few touchstones for the sounds I was going for. Though I had never even seen here in the city, I knew that Whitney lived in my new hometown of Atlanta, and I wanted to stay with a southern-rock vibe, like "Sittin' in the Back Seat." Instead of Tom Petty, this time I drew from some Black Crows, especially with the organ tone and sparse but rocking guitars. The organ actually isn't my usual MDA ePiano, but rather DSK's B3x with a liberal dash of my favorite reverb.

There's a lot of very uncool things about Whitney Houston the real person: drug abuse, spousal abuse, alcoholism. But there's also a lot of powerful and uplifting things about her as well. How strong do you have to be as a black woman in today's society to pull yourself up to the zenith of pop-culture stardom? I wanted to focus that mixed myth of a powerful woman with a shadow that she couldn't shake.

This chorus really stretches my vocals. I can't count the takes it took me to hit those right. (In fact, if you can keep a secret, those four choruses are actually only two takes. When you nail it, you can just copy paste, flip the backing vox any no one's the wiser.) Whoa unto me should I ever attempt this live.

I'm most proud of the dynamics of this song. It starts very strong, and the chorus is very simple, but not facile. And I feel that I've succeeded in maintaining the listener's interest throughout with varying levels of volume and a mixture of instruments. In fact, at the moment, this is the main contender for the first track of the album.

Plenty more brewing for next week. I have my final FAWM composition in the works, as well as another special guest coming on board. See you then!

Sittin' in the Backseat: "it was a pleasure to burn" production diary

For this album, I have a few guests stopping in. The words for "Sittin' in the Backseat" were written by a talented lyricist at FAWM who goes by Shay. I hooked up with her work last year with "No Excuse, No Reason." That turned out so well that I knew I wanted to snatch up some of her work again.

Sittin' in the backseat, leanin' on the window
I can see your lips move but I can't hear you
Over the stereo

Puttin' all your anger down on the floorboard
You don't even realize, starin' into his eyes
You are a victim of your own accord
Upset like the weather ruffled up your feathers
It's a big ole fiery mess; can't feel my feet in this wreck,
An' it's ten seconds 'til we're severed

Sittin' in the backseat, leaning on the window
I can see your lips move but I can't hear you
Over the stereo

Tempers roared like dragon's breath, n' I came face to face with death
Couldn't run the other way; numb to the core, I just prayed
Held on so tight to my breath ...
He loves you, don't you know; promised he'd never let you go
I saw him pull you from this wreck an' I hoped for one more breath
To say I love you so ...

Sittin' in the backseat, leaning on the window
It's getting cold now, I'll see you somehow
Heaven's calling me to go

Sittin' in the backseat, leaning on the window
I don't see your lips move, no, I can't hear you
Over the stereo

A few things drew me to these lyrics. First, I like the story and its ambiguities. You get the sense of a love-triangle here, but how does the narrator feel about that? There's some distance in the chorus that stands in tension with the verses. Secondly, the imagery is great. Shay has a knack for taking up everyday images (like a car ride) and using them as ... well, vehicles for wonderful metaphors. "Upset like the weather ruffled up your feathers" is fantastic. And that leads me to the next thing that drew me to these lyrics: the abundance of internal rhymes. I love unconventional poetic play like that.

Creating what is effectively an accompaniment to someone else's ideas is always a challenge. I'm sure that Shay writes with a certain rhythm, if not melody, in mind, but she's adamant about giving her collaborator's a free hand. For this work, the particular challenge was that there isn't a clear chorus. It's all written in tercets with lots of internal rhymes. Indeed, for a long time I had little more than a tenuous chord progression. Over the course of nearly two weeks (that's nearly half of FAWM), I fished about for a "sound." Was this a folk song? The car motif didn't seem to fit that genre. A country tune? The metaphors were just too poetic for that vein.

With a mixture of counter-culture glee and dread I decided this would be a rock song, and that I'd have to ask Tom Petty over for some crooning and composition advice. It was at this point that I really found the chorus, which in retrospect is obvious: any tercet that opens with "Sittin' in the backseat." To provide some variation, I added a break/solo with a dramatic tempo change.

I finished principle recording for this during FAWM, but there are some sigfinicant changes that I've made since, especially with the vocals:


In my "Tom Petty" state of mind, I was looking for something low-key and rich on the vocal harmonies. As I put these down, I could tell there wasn't enough energy there but I couldn't find a good timbre that fit in the tempo. It felt like I was yelling or just forcing things, especially in the chorus. (You don't hear that in the demo; it didn't work, so it didn't make the mix.) This first recording was good enough for FAWM, but I knew I had to revisit things for the album. I suppose it was really just a matter of time away from the mixing board, and the decisions to put away the Petty-esque smoothness of my original intentions and pick up my signature growl.

Another significant change is the turnarounds: they're gone. I always wanted this song to have a lot of dynamics, but upon review, the turnarounds are just dead weight, especially that piano-only riff after the first chorus. It's very pretty, but it doesn't fit with the rising crescendo of the story, and the slow-down for the solo works better musically and narratively. I was kind of sad to see the first solo go, since it's hard for me to write good guitar solos, but sometimes you have to step aside and do what's right for the song.

I promised a song about Whitnet Houston this week and I'm ready to deliver. Come back soon!

Panacea: "it was a pleasure to burn" production diary

The story of "Panacea" comes from all over the place. But her recording process was a lesson in rhythm and just letting things flow.

From Wikimedia Commons

I wrote this song for FAWM this year (and for the curious, here's the demo). I have a hard time writing "happy" songs; I guess I take myself too seriously. But "Panacea" was one of those tunes that sneaks up on you and goes "Surprise! Take me home!" This is literally what happened; the first few lines and the melody came to me as I strapped on my helmet to ride home. I had to sing to myself the whole way so I didn't forget.


she sits all day in the sun
she's in love with everyone
she plays out in the rain
she's the cure for all of your pain

panacea
i see you

her smile can melt the clouds
her song can draw a crowd
catch a glance from her emerald eyes
watch her soar through azure skies

panacea
i see you

she's everyone's darling starling
when the sunset is drawing near
from her strawberry throne
she always goes home alone

panacea
i see you

Originally, I was drawing from the Indigo Girls, especially their early simple stuff like you can hear on 1200 Curfews. Hence the doubled vox and the bare acoustic guitar. But after cutting the quick demo during FAWM, things changed.

I was always happy with "Panacea," and it was easy to put her on the short list for the new album. While planning the full-fledged recording, I had an epiphany in the shower one morning: she's in 6/4 time. Not 3/4 time, not 6/8 and certainly not the much more popular 4/4. 6/4. It make percussion a conundrum. What does 6/4 sound like? Is there a back-beat? Is the downbeat on 1 and 3? Does it split 4 and 2 (or 2 and 4)? It doesn't help that EZDrummer doesn't have 6/4 samples.

Enter a new songwriting touchstone. I recently discovered Pearl and the Beard, and marveled at their lush vocal harmonies and unconventional instrumentation. For a long time I've planned to record a song in their style, and after one false start, I believe I managed it here. The key, actually, is the wonderful stomps and claps like in Douglas Douglass. (And so, it turns out, there is a back-beat!) It also turns out that if you tweak pre-programmed 6/8 beats, they work pretty well, especially at 160 bpm.

That's right: one hundred and sixty beats per minute. I think this is the fastest song I've ever recorded. It's also one of the most fun, and one whose recording took me to neat and unexpected places once I let it. After the weird time signature, the biggest obstacle was actually the acoustic guitar part. It's fast; too fast, it turns out, for me to strum with a pick. This is important, because recording a clean, clear finger-strummed part is hard. I fought and cried and swore, but in the end, that bloody rhythm won out. Finger strummed in full up-tempo glory. (There's all kinds of mic positioning and EQ to get that lovely tone, if you need to know.) In the midst of my guitar battle, weird and wonderful things happened. My organ tone showed up and wanted to play. A bouncy little bass line grooved its way into the chorus, but insisted on being demure for the verse. I fiddled an diddled with those turn-arounds, and the fake ending was a fluke that made me go "Ooh, nice! That stays."

In the end, the odd collection of disparate parts has come together in wonderful way. "Panacea" part folk ode, part hip-hop sampling and part Brookly hipster groove. Whatever she is, she makes me happy. I hope you enjoy!

FAWM 2012: Week 1

On top of Song Fight! and SpinTunes, I enjoy participating in February Album Writing Month. Each of these organizations / challenges has its own distinct atmosphere. Song Fight! is heavy on the criticism, but frequently in a very constructive way, and there's a lot of buy-in from the entire community to keep things going and continually improve things. SpinTunes, despite being a more focused songwriting competition, has a much more laid-back and convivial feel to the interactions. It's held rather infrequently, but there's a pretty solid core of people who regularly participate as either judges or contestants.

FAWM is something else entirely. If Song Fight! is a perpetual songwriting workshop, and SpinTunes is a Battle of the Bands, FAWM is a giant block party. It reminds me of la Fête de la musique, with everybody playing every which way, what, where and how. The point isn't to craft great songs and hone your skills. It's just to get 14 songs written during the shortest month of the year.

You heard me right: 14 songs in 28 days. It's no small feat. In fact, I've never done it. Last year I think I hit ten, but only had nine recordings. 2010 only got three or four. Nonetheless, it's a great exercise in just getting it done and out there.

So, this the attitude I'm taking this year: write the damn tune, slap it down in demo form and move on to the next. Focus on the bigger pictures - melody, lyric, structure, narrative - instead of the minutiae of a killer drum track or building a third guitar part for the chorus. Attention to the immediate and the particular; I'll come back to the gems and refine them for an album over the some - probably Mayish.

You can visit my FAWM page here. I'll also be posting my demos on Bandcamp, just I can use the handy embedded playlist and you can listen to them right here:

It's the evening of February 2 as I write this, and that means I've completed two brand new songs in as many days. That's pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. (Mind you, I'm going to be busy over the long weekend, so that ratio's going to drop off mighty quick.) But let's savor the moment and talk a little about these tunes.

All Swear About Murder
"All swear about murder" was a typo on a Google+ post many months ago. It was just too good of a phrase to let go, so I plunked it down in Evernote and since then it's been steadily accruing companions from various places, though I must admit that Denise Hudson consistently turns a pretty phrase and I pilfer her disjecta with gusto. I started this with the clear intention never to mention the word murder, and I enjoy the ambiguity of what being "all swear" means. It's a flashback episode, too, starting at the end of the story, with a little plot twist at the end of Act One. When writing the prechorus, I decided the first line was just too good. Rather than jam it into a chorus, I just ditched the idea altogether. Chorus no; bridge, yes. The first line and the entire general grove of the bridge is actually ripped from a cover of a song by The Books that I did for Gift of Music this year, "A Cold Freezin' Night." I liked being able to the turn the original lyric on its head.

Panacea
For some reason, it's really, really hard for me to write happy songs. I take myself too seriously, and I appreciate how much craft it takes to be funny. Being tragic is easier. So, I was delighted when a rather happy little ditty popped into my head on the way home this afternoon. Maybe it was the sunshine after days of rain. Maybe it was the car exhaust as I putted about on my scooter. Maybe Euterpe just had a caprice. Whatever, I took the idea and ran with it, keeping things as simple as possible: straight I - V - IV verse and few 7ths and 9ths for chorus. The doubled vocal track was a last-minute addition; i rather like it, but it'll take some serious honing in revisions. I waffled a lot about having a bridge. The 3rd verse was originally a bridge, but I didn't have anything more to say, and the melody wasn't all that different anyway. (Actually, the verse chord progression was going to be only for the bridge, but it was too good.)