Forgery League

The song-a-day revival continues! (It’s an occasional project / working method I started a couple years ago - here’s the little manifesto-to-myself that I wrote back then.)

Feels good to be back in the saddle. Here’s the latest piece, working title “Piltdown”. Curious little one minute boogie.

2006_0629_piltdown.mp3 (1.1 megs)

Working order: drum loop - guitar - bass - lyrics/vocals - new drums. The guitar playing is definitely very David Byrne.

I haven’t been letting myself get away with just sketching in “la la la” melodies instead of lyrics. And I notice my subject matter (if you can call it that) is shifting a little bit too… though some themes continue to run through almost all my songs.

Also, from earlier in the week, a little snippet of me messing with the Filter Queen, using it on everything in sight:

2006_0626_glimmers.mp3 (700 k)

Today’s bon mot — “Like a fish in the headlights.”

Yeah, it’s holy crap in the morning. But I finished a little songlet!

2006_0628_margins.mp3 (1.4 megs)

Apparent musical inspirations: listening to Nomeansno earlier today. Trying not to be straightforward with drums or bassline (playing the hihat stops was a pain in the ass). Recently I was chatting about bass playing with someone who’s been a producer for ages. “Never on the one!” he said. Guess I took that to heart tonight. Broke out the Fender for this too - it felt pretty neat to play something with that bright, fuzzed punky bass sound for once.

I figured it was time I wrote some freakin’ music. To that end I’ve started a “song-a-day” project (inspired by a similar thing I saw on someone’s web site).

Ground rules: A piece of about a minute in length, every day; more, if time allows. Anything goes, from pop song to noise collage. If unable to make quota, finish a song, or get to the studio, for that matter, don’t sweat it. Also, rehearsing or jamming with other musicians counts as points toward Song-a-day quota.

What I hope to do is combine the best things from all the other methods of composing that I’ve used in the past. In particular, I’m thinking of the Frequent Mutilations I did at the radio station where I volunteered - hour-long soundscapes for a weekly program; I was one of about five regular contributors. The combination of deadline, limited sound sources (I had next to no instruments and effects; my chief weapons were DAT feedback, tape delay, hand-spliced loops and playing things at half- and quarter-speed) and limited time in a dedicated environment (four-hour blocks reserved in the production studio) seemed to be a real boost for my resourcefulness. Yeah, there were plenty of pretty dull moments in my Mutes, but there were enough cool bits that I compiled a CD of ‘em.

Doing a song every day means I have to work fast, and toss out the rules I tend to set myself otherwise - no recognizable samples, synth patches must be original-sounding, avoid clichés at all costs, and so forth. It also just plain gets me off my duff and writing. Scouring my piles of field recordings, my MP3 collection, my vinyl, for sounds to use. Browsing through the Cubase plugins for things I haven’t yet tried. Sounding out song melodies the way I used to do, singing nonsense words as placeholders and then forming them into something more cohesive. Probably most important: Working in broad strokes and leaving the finicky detail work for later.