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“.
Fog Road :: Free Music Podcast
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So this is the last posting from our outside jam session by the fire. Â We had some great recordings from this session. The combination of wine, cigars, and a chiminea makes for a relaxing evening. Â This bass driven jam features some nice vocals and a djembe that carries you through the foggy hills.
07.14.09Streetlights on Asphalt :: Free Music Podcast
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The streetlights kept gleaming on the black asphalt.
Recorded during the same session as Imagine and Strawberry Fields Forever, Streetlights on Asphalt is an original song done during the set. Jeremy and Neil have a solid groove line going on here. It’s impossible not to bob your head to it as you’re listening.
With the lyrics, I went with a straight spoken word style, very similar in style to Jack Kerouac’s delivery on his musical pieces.
Each segment is broken into separate slice-of-life urban stories. Each character is briefly described ending with his/her fate and then separated by the chorus line to hook it all together.
Caught in The Net :: Free Music Podcast
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Here’s a live one with all 3 of us. Â
This one is very heavy on the bass, so be sure to listen with good speakers. Â Neil uses drinking glasses as his drums and the effects on Joe’s vocals echoes throughout the song.
Some very nice spoken word with an ambient beat.
06.9.09Open House :: Free Music Podcast
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A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I watched Jeff Tweedy’s DVD, Sunken Treasure. I marveled at Tweedy’s ability to play songs that felt concise and complete with a great deal of open space and loose structures. He also has a great penchant for writing songs that explore interesting subjects but feel very relaxed at the same time.
After watching the DVD, I started playing around with some song ideas to work on something more relaxed in feel as well. Open House was the result of this little solo jamming session.
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And… :: Free Music Podcast
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The last couple of weeks have been intensely busy for me and I don’t really expect it to let up until near the end of summer. Several projects are in the works simultaneously and just trying to keep up with the day-to-day stuff can often be difficult to do.
I don’t think my situation is unusual. Many people these days, especially those of us living in highly populated metropolitan areas, are constantly on the run. Our minds are constantly turned on and responding. We’re constantly thinking of what we have to do next and with all over the recent advances in technology, life seems to be getting faster and faster each day.
And… is a spoken word piece focusing on this aspect of life. We’re always thinking about what we have to do next. Always piling things on with another “and I’ve got to do…”.
Stylistically, And… utilizes some electronic beats fading in and out of the background much like my attention span as I am trying to juggle so many things. Vocally, I was reminded of some of John S. Hall’s vocal stylings, similar to the rambling slice-of-life stylings that he would perform with King Missile.
Your Island :: Free Music Podcast
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Summer is here and we wanted to kick it off with some dub reggae.
Dub and reggae music has always been a strong influence on me personally. Most particularly it’s influenced my bass playing. I learned the importance of laying down a solid groove line from dub music. Additionally, when I produce I often work with a layered approach and like to use dub-style delays regularly.
Lyrically, Your Island focuses on the need to occasionally step back and take a look at your life to see if you are living in a way that satisfies you. To me, it’s an incredibly important thing to make sure I’m living my life in a way that both makes me happy and that I’m living in a way that helps the people around me. Thankfully, right now, I feel that my life fulfills these requirements and I hope to keep it that way.
I hope everyone enjoys this one as much as we enjoyed writing it.
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Heartbeat Baltimore :: Free Music Podcast
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I’ve spent the majority of my adult life in the city of Baltimore and, although I have to admit that I didn’t like the town much when I first started hanging around it, I’ve grown to really appreciate the city and it’s culture. Of course, like any other city, it has it’s negative aspects. The city’s issues with crime and education are often central issues in media headlines.
However, Baltimore’s creative culture is unique and always interesting. Visual arts around the the city are often the focal point, with a lot of focus on things like found art and urban styles like graffiti. The city’s music is as diverse as it’s people, often with heavy influence from the city’s blue-collar culture and origin.
Heartbeat Baltimore is a song to sing the praises of the city’s creativity and hard work. Played in an aggressive and rhythmic in-your-face style, the song is meant to shout out to the city and point out the aspects of it that have led me to enjoy the time I’ve spent here.
Let It Go :: Free Music Podcast
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Let It Go is a late night experiment.
I was playing around with my acoustic and wondered what it’d be like to just let it go and not pay attention to rhythm or melody…or really anything at all. I just let my fingers move around as they felt like without any concern or thought of where they were going or what they were doing.
In the end, it sounded a bit tribal mixed with some flamenco feel stuff in there. Then I decided to just do the same thing with my voice. I just started singing and shouting stuff in my basement without studying the song or what was going on with it. To some extent, I was able to watch the sound waves of the guitar track on the screen as I recorded so I was able to have some idea of when the guitar would come in and out.
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S+G :: Free Album
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Listen to the new album, S+G
During the last couple of months, our music has focused in two distinctly different directions.
Some of it has been very positive with bright tones and content focused on joy and contentment.
However, other aspects were focusing on very dark subjects, some of which I’d consider to be the darkest works we’ve done to date. These songs have been focused towards specific concepts which we’re hoping to release additional material for in the future but we wanted to go ahead and compile the material together into an album for you to listen to now.
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