The Grim Reckoner

One of my favorite songs by Radiohead is "Reckoner" found on the album In Rainbows. It is a hauntingly beautiful song about death.

Reckoner
You can't take it with you
Dancing for your pleasure

You are not to blame for
Bittersweet distractor
Dare not speak its name
Dedicated to all you
all human beings

Because we separate like
ripples on a blank shore
(in rainbows)
Because we separate like
ripples on a blank shore
(in rainbows)

Reckoner

Take me with you
Dedicated to all you
all human beings

Blue Room Studio Session

During one of the many recording sessions in the Blue Room studio.

Just 'Cause You Feel It, Doesn't Mean It's There

WEll I had a bit of a setback with the broken tooth I was presented with last week. Got it repaired this morning and it's almost as good as new. I knew I wasn't going to get any vox work done with the tooth and all the lisping it was causing... I guess maybe I should have done something vox-wise... at least to have something. Who knows, maybe it would have added a little something to the songs. heh.

What Does It Mean?

What does it mean if you're drinking Jack straight from the bottle? Depravity? G N' R status? Or was that Night Train? Does it matter? Most of the work on the solo album these days has been me and the acoustic guitar... bangin out chord progs and riffs. I've laid down tracks for 3 songs with just the acoustic and part of me is sorely tempted to just leave it that way. Sure it sounds a bit rough and unrefined, but I'm kinda diggin' that sound... raw, emotional. I hate turning on the radio now and all you hear is this over-produced (and over-compressed!) bubblegum-pop, emo, or pseudo-badass garbage. How did we ever get here? Who thinks this stuff is a good idea? Anyway... massive digression. It's kind of funny how there's all this equipment in the studio and all the different effects, plug-ins, drum-machines, synths with about a million different settings, etc... sky's the limit... and yet there's this urge to just go minimalist. We'll see what happens at the end of the day. I'm pretty excited to see how the songs will transform and change during the process... Some of them already have. Maybe I'll bounce a song or two in their acoustic stage and put them up on the myspace page...

We need a new National Anthem...

And who better to do it than Radiohead!



Yes... So, I'm still stuck in Radiohead-land
so it goes...

Jellofish

Tequila jello shots... 3 flavors: orange, lime and apple... apple was the best! G-man and I sat in the studio for a couple of hours working on some stuff... We were supposed to work on vox for NLOM, but I wasn't up to it. I've been working on the lyrics and melody for a month now and every time I try something it's all rubbish... I got to the point where I couldn't stand it anymore and I've decided to shelve it for the time being... I can't force it... you can't force that stuff. It's channeled or something... comes to you and until it does it won't work. Musically I like the song a lot... the chord progression, arrangement, a moving bridge and outro.

So, I've been listening to the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows, non-stop for the past week! Absolutely amazing! It's really moving... makes me want to chuck all my stuff in the garbage, throw my hands up and hang my head in shame... never touch another instrument again in my life... but at the same time it is such a breath of fresh air... inspiration... muse! I had to stop everything and just listen. Stuff started happening to me and all of these ideas were coming... now just to make sense of them and try and put them together...

Don't get any big ideas...

I spent a few hours in the studio last night trying to hammer out some new material. Tweaking knobs and buttons and whatnot. It's amazing the amount of time spent that results in absolute garbage... or so you think and then you come back to it a month or two later and you think "oh yeah, wow this is good stuff". Anyway I was doing all this stuff last night and had some decent stuff come out... then I really latched onto something... very moving and touching. The best part is that it is very simple and easy... no frills or massive complexity... just two notes. Brilliant! I played those two notes for like 30 minutes straight and just zoned out. It took me somewhere else and you can tell when you tap into that "thing"... It just moves you to another place.