Introduction
October 13th, 2009I just wrote the About Me section and I’m gonna repost it here as an introduction for what this blog is gonna be about.
“Hello Internet,
My name’s Chris Miller and here’s an idea I had: go into the closet and find forgotten, old band recordings to put on the Internet and put up recordings of songs I’ve never released as well as songs I’m recording today.
I guess it’s not that evolutionary of an idea, but here’s the part I’m excited about: I thought it would be fun to share both the polished final products of song writing as well as the rough, early sketches of songs.
One of the things I’ve been trying to do lately, as a creative exercise, is to write and record a song from nothing to final product in one short session. Sometimes these songs are terrible, but sometimes they turn out pretty cool. My hope is that I will post these session songs on a regular basis. I won’t post everything, I’ll be sure to leave the exceptionally terrible stuff on my hard drive.
One other thing. I’ve been writing and recording songs both alone and with bands for over 10 years, and most of the time I’m not always completely proud of the way things turned out. So, I’m here to acknowledge that some of the stuff on the site makes me cringe when I hear it. A specific example: my drumming for ‘my life cinema.’
The point is, I’m swallowing my pride and putting it out there, because it isn’t doing any good in my closet or on my hard drive.
Oh yeah, what is El Gato Guapo? I suppose I’m retiring the Green Hills Alone moniker and picking up a new one. Green Hills Alone was about writing songs on acoustic guitar in the simplest way possible. El Gato Guapo is about writing songs in as many different ways as I can. For those of you who didn’t take Spanish in 8th grade, El Gato Guapo means “The Handsome Cat.”"
SOOOOO,
To start things off I’ve uploaded 3 EPs with more to come in the near future.
I have the 1999 Boys of Summer master but it’s on cassette. I have to find a tape player with stereo outs so I can bring that demo into the digital world.
And for something that nobody’s really heard. I present a song I recorded on June 7th, 2009. I liked the music but had no lyrics so I quickly scanned my computer for something and apparently found some stream of consciousness prose about not feeling creative. Awful, right? Since the song was only 40 seconds I just repeated the block of lyrics a second time. Now you know how lazy I can be.
Thanks for checking this out. The site still needs a lot of work, but I was eager to share what I had so far. I also want to acknowledge the other musicians who share creative credit for a lot of this music. As the site develops I hope to share a little bit about each of these bands and also tell you what these other musicians are doing now.
Oh yeah, thanks to Kim for setting this up. She designed this site and is telling me how to update everything.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Hey dude! I have the Boys of Summer in digital format. I’ll AIM it to you if you’d like…
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Chris Miller Reply:
October 14th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Cool, how do they sound? I was hoping to convert the recordings through Logic and see if I can clean them up, but that’s dependent on finding a tape player to borrow.
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October 14th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
This is awesome. I have the My Life Cinema mp3’s but never knew the track titles.
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Chris Miller Reply:
October 15th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I didn’t know them either until I found the CD insert in my closet. I was prepared to upload them as “Song 1, Song 2, etc…”
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October 16th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
You understand you have an entire 23-song album not represented here, right? I guess, “I’m not always completely proud of the way things turned out” doesn’t begin to describe it though does it?
But you do have some quality old songs that I like that aren’t here either. I think my favorite omission is the one that starts with, “There’s nothing in your eyes…” Oh, and the “what’s the use in poetry” gets me too. Actually, I think I wrote both of those into the same movie.
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Chris Miller Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Haha, there’s a lot of stuff that isn’t up yet. I just don’t want to burden the world with all my bad music at once, I want to spread it out slowly.
On the downloads page there will be a growing list of songs I recorded from 2000-2005. The two you mentioned will eventually be up there.
And actually, the 23-song Ken & the Rippers album is not the thing I’m most nervous about putting up. I’m more uncomfortable with the 6 song Chris Miller Tape #1 I made in 2000. I haven’t even been able to bring myself to listen to it in a couple years. Yikes!
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October 17th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Hey Chris, this is so cool! I’m really excited for this project and I really like that you’re focusing more on the songwriting process; songs themselves are awesome, but it’s also really interesting to see where they came from.
Can’t wait to hear more!
Fera
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October 29th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
You do have to put the the dancing song up though. I don’t think I am alone in that request.
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Chris Miller Reply:
October 29th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I will. I’m thinking I might upload all the old songs at once, maybe next week.
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