This is one of the fastest songs I’ve ever written; fast as in tempo, not time it took to write, though I bet it didn’t take me that long to write, because I was full of teen angst back then. It features bmp on the drums, and he could always rock those things. We would always lose it somewhere near the end when we played so fast, but things usually turned out all right.

Things sounded good on 4-track.

I almost put up “America Joe Does the Internet Song,” but was afraid I’d be sued by some WSU teacher for libel. Also, I didn’t want to get blacklisted by some filtering software (I probably already am) when Jason talks about the other stuff in the song. Instead, I went with the gibberish in “Jason’s Funky Song.”

It sounds like he’s beating someone in the background. How did you get so funky, man?

This is the first song off the tape that I got from Josh — The first time the name Kissing Book (ed: I think this is actually 4th Grade Nothing) was named, and it features a lot of Joey Kneiser, on the drums and singing. Kneiser currently plays with Glossary, who are heading West and will be visiting CO and WA. They’ve never been out there while I was there, at least not to my knowledge, you should do yourself (and me) a favor and check it out and report back.

There was a stage when about 80% of the songs I wrote included this E variation, I don’t know the technical term for it, like Emadd9 (I have no idea what that means), but I loved the way it sounded. This song is really fun to play, and Brandon pointed out that a medley of all the songs with the chord is a great way to start the day (like with Folgers in your cup).

At some point, we’re gonna get through all these and I won’t have something to post everyday, so I hope everyone’s enjoying this stuff!

I just hung out with Nathan last night; he’s either moving here, or going to Berlin, he’s not sure yet, but it was good to see him. I’m sure we’ll go to Barcade before his time in NYC is done, though.

Here’s bmp’s words on his song:

And then there was Nathan Smithe (the ‘e’ is silent). This song is brilliant. Listen carefully to the lyrics. The ending is just genius. He screams out “RESOLUTION!”, cuts to a Christian rock band song, cuts back, and rattles off the immortal line “—–”. (I put “—-” because I don’t want to ruin it for you. You’ve go to listen!)

[audio:http://sounds.infiniteregress.org/archives/Christmas%20Lights%20on%20the%20Ceiling.mp3]

The Christmas light thing also reminds me of the Dream Box that he built out of a bicycle box and Christmas lights. It was at my house for a while and I remember trying to sleep in it once, but the lights were all up in my face. I think the song is pretty funny, what band is that? Is this considered fair use?

I’m sick and I need to get to bed, but I wanted to get this up so it would be there waiting in the morning, so I won’t say much right now (maybe I’ll edit this post later), but today you get a double serving, since I’m trying hard to get all these songs out there. These are actually much more recent than the rest of the songs, so keep that in mind, though when I say recent, it’s probably more like 5-7 years.

“Reign Part One” is from Brandon’s project, The Life and Times of You (LATOYA).

“Where to Start” is from Josh’s project, The Greatest American Sport. Here’s what Brandon had to say about this song:

Josh returned my four-track when we were all in Seattle one time. I think it was New Year’s a few years ago when we had a little party at Ali’s apartment. He left a tape in it that had just this one song on it. It’s a pretty great version of Where to Start.

I don’t know if you remember, but “The Greatest American Sport” is “feeling people up”, I think. Josh knows.

I really like both of these songs. The first one feels a lot like bmp’d been listening to a ton of Braid. The second sounds like Josh just being Josh — I don’t know how he does it, but his lyrics always just sound like he’s talking to me about something, which is a gift. It’s a shame he doesn’t write more songs. (Yeah! Take that!)

Actually, I kind of like this song. I don’t remember why it’s called Underdog, nor anything else other than the part about it snowing; I had just gotten out of the Uptown Cinemas, having seen one of the worst movies I ever, Michael Richards’s Trial and Error. When I walked out of the theater, it was snowing pretty hard, and the parking lot was empty. It was about 1130 on a school night and we didn’t have cell phones back then. I just walked in the backdoor and heard nothing of it from my parents. It’s amazing what kind of context the movie gives us — Released in 1997, so I was 17. There must be three guitars on there, leaving no room for doubled vocals on the 4-track, which always makes people’s voices sound better. I don’t know what it would have done for me, as I was singing way below my “good” range anyway.

We’re back into the fray with Harvey, and despite his own forgetfulness of this song, it strikes the most resonant chord with me. I feel the choppy keyboard chorus is representative of the fractured relationship people have with society, and the unintelligible line at the 14 second mark is indicative of an inability to communicate with society on any meaningful level. Our lives our parallel. Harvey, you really touched my heart on this one.

Oh, wait, maybe that was my butt. ZING!

bmp says:

This is probably my favorite pre-Lines&Color Kissing Book song. It’s on a tape with 4th Grade Nothing, early Kissing Book, and Situation No-Win songs that I recorded from either you or Josh. I’ve actually always wanted to write a song like this, where the main melody doesn’t really have a normal pop-song chord structure, but that
structure is built in to the backing guitar.

I’m also enamored with this song, but it has more to do with the drums than anything else — I like the softness of the brushes, but the deep thump of the snare and kick. And that glockenspiel or keyboard, or whatever it is; just steady lines. Is this really technically a Kissing Book song, or something else? I’m not really sure, but that whole tape was stuck in my car for months and months during my senior year of high school, and I can just remember listening, driving to school in the snow. I can’t wait to get the rest of this tape.

If this doesn’t wake you up and get your adrenaline going on a Monday morning, I don’t know what to tell you. I had just moved to Richland, and the first time I went to Nathan’s house, I heard roosters crowing in our neighborhood as I was walking. I remember thinking, “Where the hell am I?” While listening to this, I kind of think the same thing.

Straight from the horse’s (bmp’s) mouth:

It was written about the same time as the When It Pains song that we played. I used garageband to double the vocals, and on a whim I decided to add an effect to the second vocal track which is called “Male to Female,” so it kinda sounds like there’s a girl voice as well. It made me laugh when I did it , so I kept it. Also, there’s some funny effects business that I added at the end of the song, too.

It might be wrong to add stuff onto a song that I wrote and recorded
eight years ago, but whatever. I still have the original.

I think it’s great — The tone is definitely similar to that same song MLB used to play, and the clarity on the second guitar and its staggered movement at the end is really neat.