I write this in the midst of a nasty flu bug. Without giving any gross details, I’ve spent the last 48 hours in my apartment watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and drinking Gatorade.

A few weeks ago, I got together with a few Harlowe bandmates and worked on a few of my songs. I have a number of fragmented ideas that needed either a thumbs up or a thumbs down. With their help we fleshed out a new song and arranged a new version of an old one. Since Brittain Ashford has been recording her new record at the house, drums with quality microphones allowed us to easily put our arrangements to tape.

They’re still a work in progress- Mark left on tour before he could add vocals to one of the songs. But they’re both far enough along to share.

Bob Reynolds: Drums
Mark Robertson: Electric Guitar, vocals
Andrew Campbell: Bass, vocals
Me: Acoustic Guitar, vocals

New Song: Madness

Old Song: Untitled

Let me know what you think.

Also, Harlowe and the Great North Woods is playing this Sunday night at Ella St. Social Club here in Portland.

Alright, time to open another Gatorade and watch more Buffy.

I have a wonderful recording setup these days. The time it takes to grab my microphone, open up Logic, and press record can happen in less than one minute.

Yesterday I was looking at something I’d written and decided to work it into a melody. I grabbed my guitar, played around for a few minutes, then recorded it real quick so I wouldn’t forget.

I didn’t intend to add other instruments and make a song out of it.

Gin and Lies v.1

Put me in a cage
tell me I’m dead
I never want to see the sky again

I held onto the airplane
I thrashed against the side
My body was breaking

I drank gin and body of lies
and everybody died
I held a gun for the very first time

Fired 6 shots into the side of a barn
Felt blood flow and the feeling was warm
My body was breaking

If you’re wondering how a picture of me and Ryan Knight with our shirts off relates to this song, it doesn’t relate at all.

I just get the impression that blog posts without pictures are boring, so I like to scan my wife’s flickr account and link something.

This picture is of us in Krabi, Thailand, stinking it up in a hot, humid mosquito net watching Tropic Thunder on a netbook. That might sound cool, but that specific night ranks as one of the top five worst nights if my life. Illness + cramped, muggy quarters + clogged, filthy toilet + sleeplessness = Terrible.

Maybe the picture does relate to this song.

Here’s a song that my wife Kim wrote a few years back. I don’t know what melody she had in mind, I found her lyrics and chord changes and recorded it before asking her. Actually, I’ll post exactly what I found:

C          C
I dedicate all my nights
Am                 G
To call your name, to know your face
C                 C
So where are you? Where'd you go?
Am            G
In my arms or in my
C            C
Rotting soul

C                  C
I'll carry you and that August day
Am                     G
In the back of my mind and to my
C               C
Swollen grave
Am                     G
Where all the children sing so
C               C
Loud and brave

C                C
Who's gonna care when we all die?
Am                         G
When you've got the bullet in your brain?
C                C
Who's gonna stop and wonder why
Am               G
No one is saying "I'm so happy
C                C
To be alive"

C              C
And after they all say goodbye
Am               G
Who's gonna open the champagne and say
C                C
"Cheers to life! Cheers to love!
Am                         G
Here's to all those things I've been
C                  C
dreaming of."
Am                          G
Yes, here's to those things I'm
C                   C
Dreaming of.
Am         G
This is my ode to
C                    C
Life and love.
Am            G

You can hear what my version sounds like, or you can record your own and send it to me. I show you mine, you show me yours.

Loud and Brave

Kim wrote another song, actually recorded herself singing it, then made a video for it. You can find it here on her blog.

Also, I didn’t get any response for the last song I posted. I know the lyric says, “find love in the graveyard,” but I swear it’s not about anything morbid or disgusting.

This is the first song of a new download category called, “Song Sketch / Works in Progress.” These will usually be simple recordings of songs I’ve just written or songs I’ve written in the last year and feel stuck with the progress. In the case of this song: I like what I have, but it doesn’t seem like a lot. Maybe you’ll agree, maybe you’ll think it’s fine.

Eastern Side v.1 (2009)

Here are the lyrics as they are in the recording.

calm down on the eastern side
feel up and down your spine
find love in the graveyard
feel that moonlight coil

calm down on the eastern side
calm down on the eastern side

she’s gone away like dawn
she’s gone away like dawn
she was bright
but she died

fall light on the eastern side
fall light on the eastern side
fall light on the eastern side
fall light, fall light

P.S. – Happy Birthday, Mom.

Six years ago I agreed to play music at a Valentine’s Day party for friends. Chris Rider joined me with accompanying keyboard and we called ourselves Fanatical Friends. That was the only show we ever played. All the songs were stupid, but there was one that I really liked and later recorded on a Tascam 4-track. I never felt comfortable playing it again because it never seemed relevant; it was never Valentine’s Day. And for being a love song, it was pretty pessimistic about love.

every love turns out bad
every love turns out sick.
we don’t have to turn out that way.
we don’t have to turn out that way.
I love you so damn much…
won’t you be my Valentine?

Last year, I tried to record the song in a new way: I changed some of the lyrics, played it slower and made it more depressing. Today I was listening to both for the first time in over a year and I can’t tell if the newer one is any better. I’d be curious to hear what anyone else thinks. When I spend any decent amount of time on something I always lose perspective. Without a bandmate or reliable friend to tell me it’s a turd, I’ll keep on trying to polish it.

Valentine’s Song (2003)

Lay by Me (2008)

Oh yeah, the songs have different titles. Obviously.

*edit* I don’t recall why I say “bitch” at the beginning of the first song. It was a long time ago, maybe that was funny in 2003. I don’t know.

*photo added 10/21/09 – I’d forgotten we wore fake mustaches. Thanks, Bre