infiniteregress.org

Aubade

bmpmlb — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 19:32:24 +0000

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:

Aubade - The Life and Times of You

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:

The First Great Dance Song of the 201X's - The Life and Times of You

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

The One Chord Song With Reverb (Working Title) - The Life and Times of You

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

Movies 2009

tim — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:00:42 +0000

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!

IRCMT 2009 (Day 11)

tim — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:01:39 +0000

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

Shots! (LMFAO Feat. Lil Jon) - The GTL crew Juwanaman James Smells Wells Feat. Harvey Smalls and the franchise of french fryes

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.

IRCMT 2009 (Day 10)

tim — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:04:37 +0000

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!

Home (Edward Sharpe and Magnetic Zeroes) - Cougar Country

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!

IRCMT 2009 (Day 9)

tim — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:00:23 +0000

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.

How We Fade (The Thermals) - N. Timothy Salazar

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.

No songs!

tim — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:58:28 +0000

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

IRCMT 2009 (Day 8)

tim — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:16:48 +0000

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

Blood Bank (Bon Iver) - The Life and Times of You (Feat. Hermano y Hermana

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.

IRCMT 2009 (Day 7)

tim — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:00:57 +0000

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.

Switched On (Islands) - Extraordinary Rendition

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!

IRCMT 2009 (Day 6)

tim — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:56:34 +0000

(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:

I Believe in You (Neil Young) - Muck and Charty

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.

IRCMT 2009 (Day 5)

tim — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:53:38 +0000

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!

Undeclared (the dodos) - Amanda Peden (feat. Muck and Hermano)

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!