May
11
2010
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Swimming with Sharks :: Live Music Video

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The fourth and final video recording we have from the Greene Turtle set is a improvisational performance of Swimming with Sharks. I’d written the words to this about a week before the show, reflecting on a very difficult work project I’d recently completed over the winter. During our set, Jeremy switched into jamming on this chord progression and I immediately thought the words might work with the progression so I just started singing along to it.

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Apr
27
2010
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Streetlights on Asphalt :: Free Music Video

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The second video from our set at the Greene Turtle. Here’s a live version of Streetlights on Asphalt.

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Written by Joe in: Video,Vocals Originals | Tags: , , , , , |
Dec
08
2009
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Notes :: Free Music Podcast

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Notes is a spoken word piece, speaking to those that forget the importance of music. As I’ve grown older, I’ve noticed people around me pay less and less attention to music in their lives; the passion for art and music dissipates over the years. When I was younger and I’d play a song I’d worked on for someone, they’d really pay attention to it. They’d find parts that they liked or disliked and give me real feedback on it. However, now, many times when I play something for someone, I can tell the passion for it is gone. They tell me “sounds good” or “I like it”, but I can tell they barely even registered listening to it.
So Notes is a piece that specifically speaks to these people who have forgotten what soul is. They spend so much time planning their lives that they forget about the things they enjoy about living in the first place.

As to the lack of music in Notes, I thought it was interestingly ironic to speak prose about those that forget the value of music without the accompaniment of music at all.

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Written by Joe in: Vocals Originals |
Nov
24
2009
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Inarticulate :: Free Music Podcast

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Inarticulate started with some ideas Neil put together and then Jeremy and I followed on by layering on top of his original mix. Lyrically, the song speaks to ideas brought up by Sonja Sohn at the most recent TEDx MidAtlantic. When I attended the event, Sonja’s final spoken word piece struck me particularly and stuck with me.
Her project, Rewired for Change, is a non-profit group attempting to help deter violent behavior in Baltimore by stepping in and helping people find ways to help understand and cope with the stress in their lives. In her speech, she specifically mentions poetry as a means of expression for these young people to help them understand themselves and their surroundings, which is something I often think of whenever I’m writing my own works.
In my eyes, violence is born of emotional misunderstanding. Those who go through difficult or disturbing experiences may have difficulty understanding the impact of these experiences. This internal misunderstanding can manifest itself in a multitude of ways, including violent behavior or depression. However, I feel that finding a way to express this internal conflict in poetry, music, visual art or other avenues of expression can help bring to light these concerns and help those experiencing pain to cope with it.

This is the core of what Inarticulate speaks to lyrically. Many people in crushing circumstances often feel that they can do nothing to compete with their environment. They don’t know how to see that there are ways out of pain or depression and into more positive circumstances. Inarticulate speaks to this and notes how something as simple as writing down your thoughts can help break you free of these constraints or at least understand them in a way that helps to reduce of the stress of them.

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Written by Joe in: Music,Vocals Originals |
Nov
17
2009
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Glimmer and Radiate :: Free Music Podcast

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Thinking on warmer days, Glimmer and Radiate is a recording from our last outdoor patio recording at Neil’s house. Like Flowerpots, Neil is playing a selection of found objects from his shed and playing an interesting rhythm here along with Jeremy’s stop/start key stylings. Check out the lyrics I’m singing below the fold.

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Written by Joe in: Vocals Originals |
Nov
03
2009
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King of Broadway :: Free Music Podcast

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King of Broadway is about the power of intoxication. It’s about going out with your buddies, getting drunk at the bar and wandering around in the streets as the night comes to a close. There’s often a mixture of emotions in this wasted state spanning from joy, to sadness to extreme anger, often directed at no one in particular. The song was a great jam and it was fun just screaming like crazy sometimes. In the mixdown, I added a mix of effects, slowly getting more intense as the song progresses, eventually collapsing into a massive train wreck of sound.

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Written by Joe in: Vocals Originals |
Oct
27
2009
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BiedenQue Jam :: Free Music Video

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This jam took place at our friend Tony’s house during the 2nd BiedenQue of the summer. Jeffrey Socha kicks off this funky jam off on the drums with the organ chopping through it while Matthew Hundley rips it up on the guitar. Joe feels the jam and fits his vocal style nicely with it..

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Written by Jeremy in: Video,Vocals Originals |
Sep
29
2009
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Colors Like Alice :: Free Music Podcast

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Last weekend, we got together for what likely was our last outdoor jam set of the year. Autumn is starting to show itself more confidently with each passing day so it may be tough to do any more nighttime patio session at Neil’s house as it gets colder.
It was a great session though, with quite a few great songs. I played a lot more acoustic guitar this time around and Neil even pulled out some goodies from his shed to play some unusual instruments. You’ll hear them in the coming weeks.
This week, we have Colors Like Alice, which is kind of an odd surreal song that I wrote the lyrics to after watching a British production of Through the Looking Glass. Unfortunately, the mix is a little off here as we were using a single microphone to record everything in the area together so it was difficult to mix down properly without separate tracks, but I think the outcome sounds pretty solid.

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Written by Joe in: Vocals Originals |
Sep
22
2009
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Meeting Strangers :: Free Music Podcast

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I’ve been playing this game lately with a lot of Trance and Drum-and-Bass influenced music, and it’s reignited my interest in electronic music in general. My tool selection these days for putting together this kind of music is limited these days but it’s still fun to utilize what I have sometimes to throw things together. I also like warping sounds and making them sound unusual and finding ways to inject them into the music in a way that perhaps hasn’t been heard before.
Additionally, in this song, I approached the vocal parts in a different way. I sang sections of lyrics through the song but didn’t concentrate on enunciation or even being able to understand the lyrics through the music. In this song, I just wanted to work the vocals in as other instruments so I sang the track and ran heavy effects of parts of my voice to give it other textures and sounds. It was definitely a fun experiment to play around with.

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Aug
19
2009
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I am Lightning :: Free Music Podcast

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It’s funny that I discovered Liam Finn’s “I’ll Be Lightning” shortly after singing the lyrics to “I Am Lightning” in my basement. The two ideas weren’t meant to correlate but after listening to and enjoying Liam Finn’s work, I can see how they could be seen to work that way. In any case, this was just something I played around with lyrically. Jeremy laid down the melody lines over top in a similar manner to last week’s song, “Gather the Lines“.

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Written by Joe in: Music,Vocals Originals |

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