Again, written back in 2001 this song was simply about how I thought I was awesome when recording my 'solo' album. It sounded terrible but at the time I thought I was the proverbial man.
Anyway, enjoy! Its a day early I know but I don't think I'll have much time tomorrow to upload. 0 Comments
Shop Sessions
Wednesday, 27 August 2008, 09:29
My favourite band at the moment Boris Smile recently recorded some live tracks for this thing called Shop Sessions. I'm still on my holidays but managed to have a quick listen and its super cool beans. 0 Comments
SONG 19 - SHOES ON YOUR FEET
Friday, 22 August 2008, 05:50
Here it is, part 2 of 3 in my 'Youth Revisited' series.
Written in 2001, the original was a pop-rock number around a stupid premise that, given the choice I would rather wear shoes with no socks rather than socks with no shoes. The full title of the song was Shoes on Your Feet are Better than Socks on Your Feet. It does what it says on the tin...
My holidays are going great. Thailand is an amazing country. I'm here till Monday then head off down to Singapore. Good times! Enjoy the song and I'll see you next Friday for the final part of the series. 1 Comments
SONG 18 - GET UP AND DANCE
Friday, 15 August 2008, 15:09
Well, unfortunately I've run out of time and will have to release the pre-recorded songs a week early. A shame really because this week's song was going to be the best thing you've ever heard...
Anyway, may I present part 1 of 3 in my 'Youth Revisited' series. This is called Get Up and Dance:
This song was written about 7 years ago when I was young and naive. The original title was 'Get Up and Dance (Ode to Neal)'. Can't remember exactly why I dedicated to my best friend Neil but I'm sure there was a good reason. I was going through a big Andrew WK phase at the time too, to the point where I referred to myself as Matthew WK, so this song was pretty much a rip off of his songs (which all sound the same by the way).
If you're wondering what this week's song was going to be, it was about water. I was going to do a song for Do The Green Thing, about the importance of using tap water over bottled water. I'll hopefully get this recorded when I get back from my hols in 3 weeks. 0 Comments
13:48
So the plan was foolproof: Pre-record 3 songs for when I'm on holiday, and record a song as usual for this week.
I left it a bit late, but I knew I had time to record this afternoon before flying out. But right now I'm a bit screwed. My audio interface refuses to work meaning I can't record :(
I'll try and get it up and running but time is not on my side. I may just have to use one of the pre-recorded songs for this week and hope I have the time and energy when I get back to get out a song.
Updated the links, fixed a few broken ones and just some general tweaks that you probably won't notice.
I've pretty much finished the 3 songs I'll need for when I'm away. Just need to finalise the mixing. Then I actually need to write this week's song... I know what I'm writing about, but just need to sit down and rock it out.
It seems to be some kind of epidemic. People are literally losing their heads. Scary stuff thats straight out of a horror film. There are actually 2 versions of this song: there's this one and then there's another which is a bit more graphic. So graphic that it actually disgusted me. It was a sad song about a murderer who feels like no one understands him, but after listening to it back it was just horrible... really horrible. So I decided to put out the slightly nicer version. 2 Comments
Apologies in Advance
Tuesday, 5 August 2008, 09:38
I've decided on the topic for this week's song and its none too pleasant, I apologise now!
It involves your head; more specifically the lack of it. You'll understand on Friday.
Also, I'm going on holiday for 3 weeks on the 15th and I have several options:
Take a break and not do a song for 3 weeks
Buy a laptop and do the songs on the road
Pre-record 3 songs and make them available at the time
Whilst option 1 sounds quite relaxing, I'd feel like I was cheating myself if I did this. This project is called 'Song a Week' after all.
Option 2 would be awesome if I had enough spare cash to frittle away on a new laptop. Plus if I was to get a laptop I would go with a MacBook which are a fair bit pricier than your standard Windows based laptop.
So I'm going with option 3, final answer. And in order to make things a bit easier on myself I'll just be re-recording songs from my 'back catalogue'. It'll be 3 songs that I wrote back in 2001 when I did a *chuckle* solo album called 'Songs in the Key of Matt.E.Boy'. The 3 I'm doing were actually used in a band I used to play in called Zoidberg so really this will be the 3rd time they'll be recorded. Lucky you!
Chef dude was a nick-name my brother occasionally went by in his youth. The name came about after an incident with lasagne... and well, you should ask him about it someday. To be honest it's not terribly interesting. One of those 'you had to be there at the time' stories. He gave me a chef's uniform one day and I ended up wearing it for a gig when I was younger, and I called myself 'Chef Dude'. It's kind of stuck with me all this time. 3 Comments
Thursday, 28 August 2008, 06:23
SONG 20 - I KNOW I RULE
The final part of 'Youth Revisited'. This is part 3 of 3 and is called 'I Know I Rule'.
Again, written back in 2001 this song was simply about how I thought I was awesome when recording my 'solo' album. It sounded terrible but at the time I thought I was the proverbial man.
Anyway, enjoy! Its a day early I know but I don't think I'll have much time tomorrow to upload.
Wednesday, 27 August 2008, 09:29
Shop Sessions
My favourite band at the moment Boris Smile recently recorded some live tracks for this thing called Shop Sessions. I'm still on my holidays but managed to have a quick listen and its super cool beans.
Friday, 22 August 2008, 05:50
SONG 19 - SHOES ON YOUR FEET
Here it is, part 2 of 3 in my 'Youth Revisited' series.
Written in 2001, the original was a pop-rock number around a stupid premise that, given the choice I would rather wear shoes with no socks rather than socks with no shoes. The full title of the song was Shoes on Your Feet are Better than Socks on Your Feet. It does what it says on the tin...
My holidays are going great. Thailand is an amazing country. I'm here till Monday then head off down to Singapore. Good times! Enjoy the song and I'll see you next Friday for the final part of the series.
Friday, 15 August 2008, 15:09
SONG 18 - GET UP AND DANCE
Well, unfortunately I've run out of time and will have to release the pre-recorded songs a week early. A shame really because this week's song was going to be the best thing you've ever heard...
Anyway, may I present part 1 of 3 in my 'Youth Revisited' series. This is called Get Up and Dance:
This song was written about 7 years ago when I was young and naive. The original title was 'Get Up and Dance (Ode to Neal)'. Can't remember exactly why I dedicated to my best friend Neil but I'm sure there was a good reason. I was going through a big Andrew WK phase at the time too, to the point where I referred to myself as Matthew WK, so this song was pretty much a rip off of his songs (which all sound the same by the way).
If you're wondering what this week's song was going to be, it was about water. I was going to do a song for Do The Green Thing, about the importance of using tap water over bottled water. I'll hopefully get this recorded when I get back from my hols in 3 weeks.
13:48
Sod's Law
So the plan was foolproof: Pre-record 3 songs for when I'm on holiday, and record a song as usual for this week.
I left it a bit late, but I knew I had time to record this afternoon before flying out. But right now I'm a bit screwed. My audio interface refuses to work meaning I can't record :(
I'll try and get it up and running but time is not on my side. I may just have to use one of the pre-recorded songs for this week and hope I have the time and energy when I get back to get out a song.
Watch this space...
Tuesday, 12 August 2008, 20:40
Site update
I've made a few minor changes to the site:
Updated the links, fixed a few broken ones and just some general tweaks that you probably won't notice.
I've pretty much finished the 3 songs I'll need for when I'm away. Just need to finalise the mixing. Then I actually need to write this week's song... I know what I'm writing about, but just need to sit down and rock it out.
Ta ta!
Thursday, 7 August 2008, 18:02
SONG 17 - I'VE LOST MY HEAD
I think I have lost my head. This song is about decapitation...
It seems to be some kind of epidemic. People are literally losing their heads. Scary stuff thats straight out of a horror film. There are actually 2 versions of this song: there's this one and then there's another which is a bit more graphic. So graphic that it actually disgusted me. It was a sad song about a murderer who feels like no one understands him, but after listening to it back it was just horrible... really horrible. So I decided to put out the slightly nicer version.
Tuesday, 5 August 2008, 09:38
Apologies in Advance
I've decided on the topic for this week's song and its none too pleasant, I apologise now!
It involves your head; more specifically the lack of it. You'll understand on Friday.
Also, I'm going on holiday for 3 weeks on the 15th and I have several options:
Take a break and not do a song for 3 weeks
Buy a laptop and do the songs on the road
Pre-record 3 songs and make them available at the time
Whilst option 1 sounds quite relaxing, I'd feel like I was cheating myself if I did this. This project is called 'Song a Week' after all.
Option 2 would be awesome if I had enough spare cash to frittle away on a new laptop. Plus if I was to get a laptop I would go with a MacBook which are a fair bit pricier than your standard Windows based laptop.
So I'm going with option 3, final answer. And in order to make things a bit easier on myself I'll just be re-recording songs from my 'back catalogue'. It'll be 3 songs that I wrote back in 2001 when I did a *chuckle* solo album called 'Songs in the Key of Matt.E.Boy'. The 3 I'm doing were actually used in a band I used to play in called Zoidberg so really this will be the 3rd time they'll be recorded. Lucky you!
Friday, 1 August 2008, 17:45
SONG 16 - CHEF DUDE
Chef Dude is in the house! Click the play button below to hear his tale:
Chef dude was a nick-name my brother occasionally went by in his youth. The name came about after an incident with lasagne... and well, you should ask him about it someday. To be honest it's not terribly interesting. One of those 'you had to be there at the time' stories. He gave me a chef's uniform one day and I ended up wearing it for a gig when I was younger, and I called myself 'Chef Dude'. It's kind of stuck with me all this time.
Inspired by the wonderful Jonathan Coulton I have decided to embark on my own epic adventure of recording 1 song each week for the next year.
I've spent too much time procrastinating for the past few years and never doing anything with my spare time, and so this was the obvious solution. By doing this I hope to become a better musician in general, and learn a whole lot about music production.
Whilst I've always been musical I've never studied musical theory for any substantial length of time. Even when playing cello in my early teens I would commit songs to memory, learning by ear rather than digesting the sheet music in front of me.
This continued when I played in various bands as a teenager. I started out on bass and though I had lessons, very little theory was taught to me (although I did learn to play slap bass, for which I am thankful). Ok, so thats a technique rather than theory, but you get the point! I then picked up the guitar, and self taught by doing what a lot of teenager probably do; learn to play their favourite songs. This is all well and good, but when your entire CD collection comprises of nothing but punk and metal, I found myself somewhat limited in my song repertoire. Only in the last few years have I expanded my musical horizons and at risk of sounding corny, its really opened up my eyes. Ears. Again, you know what I mean.
So thats it. A year long voyage to discover more about music, write songs I've always wanted to write, work night shifts as a broadcast operator and hopefully not have a breakdown in the process!
