Every once in a while I stumble onto something I adore. That’s what’s great about IRCMT time. It forces me to sit down and explore GarageBand and make music, and in so doing I occasionally happen upon some beautiful sounds, some interesting melodies, some something something. For instance, I think that reverbed-up glockenspiel that appears in our IRCMT 2009 version of Blood Bank is totally gorgeous.

So, here’s what has happened. This is some ambient (read: quiet, minimal, and doesn’t go anywhere) music that was written and recorded over the space of about thirty minutes or so:

This reminds me that I want to be able to write songs like this. Of the three songs I discovered on the way to finishing Blood Bank, this is the most complete, and in fact maybe it’s completely complete. I will probably make a different version that has strings and builds up in some classic slow-core kind of way. In addition, I’m working on the first great dance song of the 201X’s:

Finally, and to complete the three-course meal of two-chord songs, here’s a song with reverb, my new passion:

I guess you could think of it as having one chord. Don’t pay attention to the words. They were random things that were coming out of my mouth as I was figuring out the melody.

- B

Didn’t watch as many last year, but hey, I had other things going on. If I had to pick 5 to watch again, they’d be Primer, I Love You, Man; Adventureland, District 9, and Funny People. Will try to post more as we go along this year!

01 War, Inc | 01.03.09
02 Little Miss Sunshine | 01.12.09
03 Defiance | 01.23.09
04 Ping Pong Playa | 01.25.09
05 The Class | 02.06.09
06 The Incredible Hulk | 02.24.09
07 Choke | 02.25.09
08 The Happening | 02.25.09
09 The Siege | 02.27.09
10 Waltz with Bashir | 03.01.09
11 Babylon AD | 03.04.09
12 Primer | 03.04.09
13 He’s Just Not That Into You | 03.06.09
14 Bangkok Dangerous | 03.09.09
15 I Love You, Man | 03.20.09
16 Adventureland | 04.17.09
17 Synecdoche, NY | 04.21.09
18 Duplicity | 04.24.09
19 Objectified | 05.18.09
20 Star Trek | 05.24.09
21 Up | 05.29.09
22 Terminator Salvation | 5.31.09
23 Grosse Point Blank | 06.05.09
24 Away We Go | 6.07.09
25 Taken | 06.12.09
26 Year One | 06.20.09
27 X-Men Origins: Wolverine | 08.04.09
28 Sukiyaki Western Django | 08.02.09
29 Inglourious Basterds | 09.03.09
30 Food Inc | 09.08.09
31 Paul Blart: Mall Cop | 09.15.09
32 Watchmen | 10.01.09
33 Miracle at St. Anna | 10.05.09
34 Tokyo! | 10.05.09
35 Bosque de sombras | 10.08.09
36 Where the Wild Things Are | 10.14.09
37 District 9 | 10.20.09
38 Transporter 3 | 10.21.09
39 Orthodox Stance | 11.08.09
40 Julie & Julia | 11.10.09
41 Superbad | 11.14.09
42 Bolt | 11.15.09
43 Finian’s Rainbow | 11.26.09
44 Fantastic Mr. Fox | 12.12.09
45 Up in the Air | 12.19.09
46 Funny People | 12.27.09
47 Up | 12.27.09
48 Invictus | 12.30.09
49 X-Men 2 | 12.31.09

We got one! Another awesome debut for a new comer (see Day 10) and the return of some vets.

Uh, maybe don’t play this one too loud if you’re at work. Shots! Shots! Shot-shot-shot-Shots! I’m glad you can hear James barely keeping a straight face near the end of this sucker.

Shots! Shots! Shots! Shot-shot-shot-Shots! Jell-o shots? Kamikaze?

Kamikaze isn’t even a shot, is it? This song makes no sense.

Just how I like it.

Thanks for all the songs! The deadline is open, so if you have a desire or are still working on something, please, feel free. We’re still working ourselves. But I just go this one on Friday!

Cougar Country is Shane, Amie and Josh and hails from Pullman, WA. Their name is also the name of a local Dairy Queen-type frozen treat place where Shane once honked at a kid making us all ice cream (on accident). He later apologized, but the kid still spit in all of our ice cream.

Just kidding.

He only spit in Shane’s ice cream.

But the song! These guys are a welcome addition to the IRCMT pantheon. The song has a great little twang to it and a great hook, it’s been in my head most of the day. Also, someone is a whistling virtuoso. Nicely done! Oh, and the saw! Well done!

Lastly: Congratulations and welcome to Josh and Randa’s new baby son, born yesterday!

Yay, two more songs! Hope everyone had a great weekend, I spent most of it eating food, hanging out, and finishing this song. I’m posting mine today, and we have one more for tomorrow, and Owl and I still have some to finish.

I love this Thermals song. It’s a lot of fun to sing even though some parts are a little high for me, the first part is right in my range. The funnest part about playing this song, though, is the fact that I got to play the drums again and that I also have a super-sweet new bass that Owl got me for Christmas that I think was really great for adding low-end on this piece. She also makes a guest appearance with the million and one tracks of handclaps (actually only three tracks).

I quit using that AT4033 that I always used for my voice and instead only used SM57’s on this whole recording, and it actually seems to sound a lot better than the really expensive mic. Who whoulda thunk.

I got no songs right now, but expect more. Stay tuned.

Still weirdness happening with the site. Mostly resolved now, I believe, but let me know if you’re still experiencing wonkiness.

So ends the week of Peden madness. B and co. do a smashing job with this Bon Iver cover. Classic LATOYA instrumentation, with that really good sounding double bass from GB. I like how sparse this is otherwise in that department, because the real kicker is the lushness of all the many layers of vocals between the three of them.

I think, correct me if I am wrong, this also marks the second occasion of F-bombs in IRCMT this year. Thus, two different songs when previously in none! We’re going Parental Advisory this year, folks.

Finishing up songs this weekend. More to come. Stay tuned, but also: Have a great weekend.

Some weird things have been happening with the site, so sorry if it’s affecting any of you. Today was another long day at work, and I didn’t have time to post this before I went in (nor in between making some wireframes), and I’m sad about that, because I’m sure someone could have used this song while they were working. Meanwhile, I just kept listening to all our songs on repeat while fiddling with a dropdown design. Yeah, that’s how I do it.

I don’t know what else to say. The slight wah guitar intro and that dumbek and sitar or whatever the hell sounds that are coming through my headphones at the beginning of this song are crazy good. The solid drums and the clapping breakdown at the beginning of the song, I dunno, man, there’s just so much insane instrumentation going on here I can’t even beginning to think how this was all put together. This sounds like a fun song to sing and play; so much energy, I love it. Sean did a hell of a job on this sucker.

And Islands! I haven’t even gotten a chance to listen to this album yet, but most definitely picking it up after hearing this cover and then the original. Nice pick!

(Ed. note Something weird happened to this post, as it got eaten up and disappeared from my db, but luckily I still had the RSS feed copy)

So continues the B-Dogg clan onslaught, which is fine with me because the songs are all just this good:

Direct from Chuck and Marty:

“We again covered an old song but suggest we’re still within the spirit of this year because it was re-released on a massive retrospective of Neil Young’s early (through early ’70s) career. The song is “I Believe in You” and has been altered (duh, you think?) from its almost dirge-like folkie original. Chuck’s bluegrass band colleague, John April, provided the banjo but all the rest is the two of us.”

In retrospect, I would have arranged this song to play right before/after the Built to Spill song AG covered, if only because of the Neil/Dug connection. Not a big deal though.

The production on this is great, as usual, and the harmonies and background vocals are very tight. The banjo at the 3:30 mark goes nuts though, in a good way. I don’t know where banjos got so cool and how that happened, but I guess they were always cool for people that like bluegrass bands.

I do remember how once we played a show and Rick was playing banjo and Sonya said on the live show recording: “I think that girl just showed Rick her boobs.”

I’m pretty sure this didn’t really happen.

I think MLB should get back together in Chuck’s basement and record every single song they wrote, ever. It’d be like a 10-year retrospective. 15-year?

Hello, oldness.

Well, turns out I’ve just been sitting on a bunch of songs for a while, thinking I was running out. Instead, they’d been languishing in my IR inbox, which hadn’t been forwarding to my gmail. My apologies. In any case, that is a pleasant surprise, to have songs ready to be posted! And the songs!

It’s getting a little crazy in here. Amanda’s hocketing the guitar parts! Pretty amazing stuff. I really like how the cowbell sets the stage and the song gains momentum as the vocals double and then… We’re done.

HOCKETING! Blows my mind.

Kudos!

Took off from work a little early so here’s today’s song!

Direct from Josh:

“Here’s song number two, though technically released in 2008 (I didn’t actually hear it until 2009). I actually came across it first while looking for good songs for IRWE, but I didn’t think it really fit the theme (ha ha). Anyway this mountain goat sure can write a hell of a good song. It’s very rare that a character sets it’s claws in me so deep, especially in music and in so few strokes. I’ve listened to this song maybe 300 times in preparing this track and I must say I am in awe especially now. Shit is tight!”

“Anyway so that’s my excuse for breaking the rules. Oh yeah also the whole baby having theme and hard times fits in with us having a baby soon and the world economy being in the crapshack. I did some ghost guitar for B-dogg and feel I am finally getting the hang of this garage band thing. The first version had more dystopian staccato robovocals but R liked it a bit softer, and I’m pretty sure I do too.”

Agreed. Enjoy and have a good weekend folks!

Long day at work. We only have one more song after I post this one, so I’ll post it on Friday, but we will have more for sure, they just need to get finished! Hopefully the weekend will give some folks some more needed time. Me, I got a couple more that I have in the works, but I’m not going to be able to get to them until next week, when I get back to the NW.

Strange to think that this is the first AG song to show up on the mix tape! And also that, regardless of the fact that now that Rick and I live in the same city, we still didn’t collaborate on this any differently than we’ve done on any of our other Admiral General stuff. I’m hoping that changes someday and we get to actually lay down real track at the same time and write songs at the same time, not with days or weeks between!

But the real deal is this: Rick knows what he’s doing with Garageband now. And the thing about that is that it’s really knowing how to put together sounds and instrumentation and manipulate sounds and blips and clips. Really, the best parts of this song are all him: The orchestral slides and moog-like noises; the guitar string sliding sounds are all surprising and really, really rad. But then, once you get past all that stuff and you think the song was really going one place, it goes totally somewhere else and really actually sounds like an AG song. Sounds like something we would do! I love it, and not because I’m in it, but because I got to be a part of it.

Jeez, it’s these dads. Almost enough to make you want to join the club.

It’s songs like this that make me homesick for NYC. I’m sitting here in a hotel room in Tampa and just finished recording vox for one of our songs and I’ve got lippy’s song on repeat and it’s making me a little bit homesick for a million different things and places, but mostly Brooklyn. Matt posted his favorite songs of 2009 (including this original) over on his site.

I don’t know how he does it every time, handing these songs in with spot-on instrumentation and quiet ease, but he does it. The piano is a nice touch; it’s just a calm and little intimate contrast to the original. Always on his game! Maybe it’s ’cause he’s a new dad, too; these fathers are just sharpening their skills so they can teach their sons something!

Oh, I know what it is: The sound of the pick scraping on the guitar and hearing the room and imagining the skeleton trees of winter outside the window of Matt’s house deep in the heart of Brookyn. I’ve never been there or looked out his window, so I guess i’m really imagining the trees outside our own window at our old place in BK.

Aw, fuck.

There’s no leaving New York.

Hi! Welcome back to the mix tape! I’m tired as hell and in Florida all week for work, but it’s been delayed too long. I know it’s Monday and you folks are looking for something to do at work and here it is:

Josh has been saying he wants to raise his game in terms of making music/recording and talking big about making his recordings sound awesome and whatnot and I been thinking, yeah, yeah, just do it it don’t matter what it sounds like, what matters is that you’re doing it and you’re gonna care about it because you’re doing it and that’s good enough for me. But yeah, he did it, he made the recordings sound better and I don’t know which stuff on this recording is from Garageband sounds and which is live sounds, which is, I think pretty awesome.

The guitar sounds great and the harmonies on the chorus! Man. The Pastels track is really good and this cover makes me happy that Josh is trying so hard. And he’s gonna be a dad soon, so there’s that. Maybe he wants to set a good example.

And he is.

Inspired by Kottke.

1. New York City, NY*
2. Seattle, WA*
3. Greenbank, WA*
4. San Francisco, CA*
5. Rohnert Park, CA*
6. Lake Tahoe, CA*
7. Los Angeles, CA*
8. Baltimore, MD*
9. Boston, MA*
10. Pullman, WA
11. Portland, OR
12. Cleveland, OH
13. ?, NE
14. ?, ID
15. Laramie, WY
16. State College, PA
17. Newport, RI

One or more nights spent in each place, and those cities marked with an asterisk were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days. The question marks are places I stayed that I don’t remember the town, and they happened during our cross-country move. Quite a few places this year. Good times.