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Post by Jeff on Aug 18, 2006 21:58:27 GMT -5
In case you didn’t realize: This thread contains very old songs written and recorded between 1984 and 1992. I wrote all this stuff between the ages of 14 and 22. Most of it comes from 1989 when I was 19. I had very limited access to musical gear. Generally I had one mic, a $10 Sears job, and a single crappy keyboard. I had no effects of any kind, no compressors or delays, etc… And worse I had no knowledge of how to actually record anything. I worked with my vocal teacher, Glen Hale, on a few songs in 1985-6, but he did all the production work, so I learned very little from those sessions.
The upshot is that these recordings sound pretty bad. Not even my closest friends are under any obligation to listen to this old stuff. When Tyler heard a chunk of it in 1997 he said, “Well, at least now I know why you liked Howard Jones.” That is about as deep as the realizations get here.
But I am going to keep posting the stuff, anyway. After every ten songs or so, I will post a combined set of links to everything that has gone before. I plan to do 3 or 4 more songs tonight. That’s roughly 20% of the material.
Many of the songs have completed but unrecorded lyrics. I will probably continue to record the lyrics before posting the Carpetbagger songs, but I’ll leave Baroquen Record lyricless.
Jeff
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Post by Jeff on Aug 18, 2006 23:46:12 GMT -5
Here is M Will Listen: www.zshare.net/audio/m-will-listen-it-mp3.htmlI remastered the vocal, because I had been a little too proud of my RNC. It's still in there, but this time it is doing its job behind the scenes, like it's supposed to. Here was the image for this one:
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Post by Jeff on Aug 19, 2006 1:27:42 GMT -5
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Post by Jeff on Aug 19, 2006 1:51:56 GMT -5
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Post by Jeff on Aug 19, 2006 5:39:15 GMT -5
Ouch, this one was painful. I couldn't get the individual tracks to synch, so I had to beatmap all four tracks measure by measure. I am way snoozy now. Tube (1989): www.zshare.net/audio/tube-it-mp3.htmlI remember finishing this one and thinking in my little 19 year old mind that it was great! Well, this idea has been done to death by people with much better equipment than I ever had. This is what it sounds like with a cheap mic a cheap synth, and a TV tuned to channels available in rural Oklahoma. BTW: Since everything was beatmapped anyway, I updated the drums a little. I was going for a powwow on the telephone sound. Image:
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Post by Jeff on Aug 20, 2006 4:45:46 GMT -5
Psycho Chick (1989): www.zshare.net/audio/psycho-chick-mp3.htmlWoody says it better than I do: "See, I will always have this penchant for what I call kamikaze women. I call them kamikazes because they, you know they crash their plane, they're self-destructive. But they crash into you, and you die along with them." ~Woody Allen, Husbands and Wives
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Post by Jeff on Aug 20, 2006 15:40:19 GMT -5
Triskaidekaphobia (1988): www.zshare.net/audio/triskaidekaphobia-mp3.htmlThis song is a trifle...much more so than the other trifles I wrote back in the day. I had borrowed Mr. Hale’s 4-track and it was due back the next day. I had a little piece of tape, so I wrote and recorded this in an evening.
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Post by Jeff on Aug 21, 2006 1:32:56 GMT -5
Invincible (1989): www.zshare.net/audio/invinvible-mp3.htmlI am not sure that it’s possible to like this song. I can sort of appreciate it mathematically, but parts of it are even too imprecise for that. I worked all day cleaning this one up. The timing was so off that beatmapping couldn't even save it. I had to chop all the parts up and put them together. Very ouch, baby. But after I got past that 8 hour task, I was able to add some drums. I’ve always wanted to do that, so you might say I fulfilled a dream today. There are words to this song. But they will never be sung.
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Post by Jeff on Aug 21, 2006 2:31:58 GMT -5
In case anyone was wondering. I think the next four will be
I'm Full Independent Worldful of Dreams Moon
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Post by Jeff on Aug 21, 2006 5:42:31 GMT -5
I’m Full (1991): www.zshare.net/audio/im-full-mp3.htmlNeither Kevin Mason nor I were satisfied with this song, but it was our only real collaboration. He gave me the general idea for the progression and a sketch of the break. I wrote the song around that. All the melodic sounding stuff and all the connective tissue is mine. Kevin wrote a poem which he read. I had intended there to be singing. To resolve this conflict, we recorded my idea for a lyric on the chorus. Kevin hated it. So, that was erased and the chorus wound up purely instrumental.
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Post by Jeff on Aug 23, 2006 6:13:27 GMT -5
While there are a number of pretty good songs left for me to mix down, quite a few are just bad and hard to audit. The bad ones will get a warning label assigning it somewhere between one and four bombs, with four being the worst. Warning: 1 Bomb Independent (1989): www.zshare.net/audio/independent-mp3.htmlThe Good: A moderately effective comedy song with a nice message. A nice break and some interesting changes. The Bad: Hopelessly 80s sound, vocal was recorded with a bad reverb effect. Several bad lyrical choices. Be cool. Stay in school.
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Post by Jeff on Aug 23, 2006 7:57:16 GMT -5
This song did not age well. It is one of the ones that I still like, but you have to remember that I wrote it when I was only 15 or 16. I had been listening to DM’s Some Great Reward and had been deeply affected by two songs on that cassette tape (I didn’t own CDs in 1985-6): It Doesn’t Matter and Somebody. This song was my attempt to write a song like Somebody. (You should have heard my go at Master and Servant.) I’ve performed this song all over Oklahoma, including up in the press box at Owen Field in Norman. Worldful of Dreams (1986): www.zshare.net/audio/worldful-of-dreams-mp3.html
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Post by Jeff on Aug 23, 2006 23:40:38 GMT -5
Moon (recorded in 1988): www.zshare.net/audio/moon-mp3-b50.htmlI don’t know the name of this song, only that I’ve never not known it. Here is Jessica giving it her best. She was just a couple of months past 7 years old when we made this recording. I think she did an excellent job. It is so strange to hear Maddie, who is now 11, and Emily, who is four, sing it. Generations pass, and the song changes too. That is what I wanted to do with it. I wanted to show it in new clothes as being both the same and different. But I wasn’t so very talented. Still like this one, though.
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Post by Jeff on Aug 24, 2006 0:01:09 GMT -5
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Post by Jeff on Aug 24, 2006 1:02:51 GMT -5
No Pain (1990): www.zshare.net/audio/no-pain-mp3.htmlQuick and easy, because most of the work was done. It hails from fall 1990, a time I spent most of my days and nights completely drunk. Kim had just broken up with me, and was sleeping with my roommate. I realized that I had really only wanted to be a doctor to please her, and my mom had gotten involved with a convicted felon. My life was nowhere. I remember driving back to Pawhuska from Stillwater on a cold evening in January. My car broke down in the snow and I was so scared. I walked a mere 10 feet before kind strangers gave me a lift into town. This song sounds most like the stuff I am writing now, I think. Though I think I've improved a little. A final note: Lance Hembry, a close friend of my family, listened to this one at my mom's dinner table one night a couple of years before he died.
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Post by Jeff on Aug 24, 2006 2:16:35 GMT -5
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Post by Jeff on Aug 24, 2006 11:57:30 GMT -5
Melancholy (1990/1): www.zshare.net/audio/melancholy-mp3.htmlThis is another song that I recorded during my drinking binge when Kim broke up with me. Perhaps I should say, since members of this board have been concerned about my drinking in the past (Kid AA and all), that this was the only time in my life when my alcohol use really did impact other areas of my life. On the other hand, I was charting the course for the rest of my life during this time: I decided to change my major, I decided what kind of romantic relationship that I really wanted to be in, and I finally found the way to relate to my parents, though I still had problems with their significant others. Most importantly for my purposes here, I also evolved a new musical sound. I think my stuff begins to sound mature right at this point, not that it is very good, but it is different and more sophisticated and precise. I thought of using my favorite etching by Durer ( upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/Melancholia_I.png ), but I went with this instead:
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Post by Jeff on Aug 24, 2006 12:10:00 GMT -5
Holy Cow! Talking about drunkenness made me remember the vocal line that I had planned for Melancholy. I might record it if I can dredge up the rest of the lyrics! The chorus went like this:
There's always something Keeping me hoping When the doors are open I go stumbling
Not great, but I did remember it!
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Post by Jeff on Aug 24, 2006 12:33:00 GMT -5
Wow, I can't believe I ever forgot this song. I think the lyrics were pretty okay. Here they are, as best as I can remember them:
Melancholy
You can find me When I cannot find myself And you can help me If you can help nobody else
And I I gave away so much I’d give away the world If only for desire
But there's always something Keeping me hoping When the doors fly open I’ll go stumbling (Into a brighter night)
In one last vision I thought I thought I saw Some secret mission That fate could not withdraw
But now Everywhere I look Everyone is shut In their own desire
But there's always something Keeping me hoping When the doors fly open I’ll go stumbling (Into a brighter night)
Baby, listen I’ll just give up And don’t go looking For any Secret Word
But now Everywhere is life Everywhere tonight The life that I desire
There's always something Keeping me hoping When the doors fly open I’ll go stumbling (Into a brighter night)
There's always something There's always something
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Post by Jeff on Aug 24, 2006 15:17:44 GMT -5
Melancholy W/ VOCAL!!!: www.zshare.net/audio/melancholy-vocal-mp3.htmlI can’t tell you how tickled I am that I remembered this. If memory serves, Justin thought this song was among my better ones. I hope the Big Man still likes it with vocal. I guess it just goes to show, that even when you live Three Months in Oblivion that you can still get tracers. I am so happy about this!
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