Heave Media

You're Only As Good As Your Latest Song

Another Day On Earth writes and records a new song every day – and HEAVE gets a weekly update on this adventerous project.

Hi. Since January, and due to a severe chemical imbalance, I've been writing and recording a song each and every day. This has caused me to somehow lose friends but gain weight. I post the tunes on a blog, but I'm using this space to review the week's songs. I promise to be scathing when necessary, after all, like any of us loathsome "creative types," I am my own worst critic:

Saturday, June 27th - latchkey kids of the world unite

Well, if I was doing a "song titles only" review then this would rank in the higher echelon. The Smiths mixed with the bane of 1990s parenting? I deserve a cookie cake or an Orange Julius for that one. Otherwise, it's a fairly simple folk song. I have some "go to" song types I gravitate towards when I don't have a lot of time, or I just feel wasted and pathetic. It's pretty ok, though. I like it alright. I like the, "No, I don't." refrain. It reminds me of Lennon, Julian, though - not John. Ok, so actually John. The end could use a loud, disgusting solo. I think it was late and I didn't want to hear neighbors stomping.

Speaking of latchkey kids, I was one. For a time. I'm not sure how long, though. You know how childhood all blends in together by a certain point. I have vague memories of sitting at home, alone, gorging on something or another and watching "Transformers." Once, and yeah I know this sounds bunk but I have since confirmed it with my dad, I came home and went straight to the bathroom. Too much school cafeteria beefaroni, you know. I had this paranoid urge to open the shower curtain. I had never done that before, although now I do it quite frequently. There was a guy in there. I had interrupted some dude robbing the house. I did the most heroic thing a ten year old could do at that point, scream and run away. I ended up at my neighbors. The guy made off with some jewelery. Moral of the story: It's dangerous being a latchkey kid.

Older song it reminds me of: aging indies

Sunday, June 28th - caeser's ghost

This one doesn't really work for me. I love the first fifty seconds or so a lot, then the mix no longer sounds cohesive and it makes me angry so I shut it off. I've been having trouble getting pleasing tones from the amp and I've been using. My equipment set up is, how can I put this, about as depressing as coming down off of adderal. I think if I totaled all of my equipment up, it would be worth about one bucket of that new grilled chicken from KFC (which is more expensive than you'd think).

Still, I know that is no excuse. Some of my favorite things in the world were made for less. Look at Daniel Johnston, or early Mountain Goats. I know. I know. I don't mind trying to squeeze something out of nothing on most days. Sometimes it just gets me down. I used to be quite the gear-o-phile. Old habits die hard. Still, the first fifty seconds are good. And I think the tune is solidly written, and it has some sweet ass solos. If reincarnation exists, I'd like to be reborn as a sweet ass solo. Knowing my luck I'll get reborn as some amateurish strums along to John Mayer on a Wal-Mart acoustic guitar. Great.

Older song it reminds me of: umm, ocean

Monday, June 29th - strawberry rights

What can I say positive about this song? Well, it has never killed a nun. That I am sure of. Also, I accidentally recorded some kids playing outside at the beginning. That part is pretty cool. Otherwise, I think it sounds like utter and total shit. Not even a B side. Not even anywhere on the alphabet. I don't know. I can't even judge it honestly because I only got ninety minutes of sleep the night before and I did it in a rush because I wanted to lay down and just have the day be over and done with. It's funny like that. If my day is particularly shitty, it forever affects my feelings about the accompanying song. I just keep thinking about all of the things I could have done but just didn't have the energy for. So, in effect, an average song becomes a failure in my eyes. Did I use both affect and effect properly? That shit is hard.

It doesn't work the other way. If a day is great it doesn't necessarily make me think the song is great. However, if a song is great it does repaint the day a little bit. I'll think "Wow, yeah that's the day I made that song. Cool day." Forgetting that I found a roach in my nachos and also received a court summons for failure to pay back. Gene Roddenberry said it best, when he said "Humanity is awesome and weird."

Older song it reminds me of: i coulda been the wind

Tuesday, June 30th - i don't trust you, but i still like you

This is part one of a "trilogy." Which means that the songs connect ala the back side of Abbey Road. Making pop songs that connect is one of those tricks that is really easy to pull off but looks fancy. Like turning the distortion and overdrive as high as it can go and then just running your fingers all over the fretboard of a guitar. Wow, loud gutteral noises! Awe inspiring. Basically, if the songs are remotely close key wise, or tempo wise then it will work. It also works if they are very far away key wise or tempo wise. Actually, there's really only one or two ways it can't work. So next time you listen to Olivia Tremor Control, think to yourself "I'm on to you guys!" Great band, though.

Otherwise, this gets my coveted "Favorite Song of the Week" award. What does it win? Oh, why the fame and fortune that comes with managing a moderately to barely successful blog, of course. What able bodied song wouldn't want that?

Older song it reminds me of: i don't believe you

Wednesday, July 1st - get bored

You know that one about the best laid schemes of mice and men? Yeah, well.

To congratulate myself for yesterday's song, I decided to go out drinking. And then after that I decided to go out drinking. And, finally, after that I decided to go out drinking again. I think I smoked more cigarettes than the entire Rat Pack in 1958. Who knows what else I did. This is a family website (Wait, is it?). Suffice to say, this song did not come out as I had hoped.

Sure, it's part two of this trilogy thing. But that was the easiest part. The feedback that ended the last song wanted a song that started in "A," so I did just that. The only problem was, I was too zonked to make sure this song was any good. Initially, I was going for "Smiley Smile" era Beach Boys. Instead, I got a live Beach Boys show in 1997 with John Stamos on drums. This is kind of a lie. I was too zonked to even add drums. So even worse, a live Beach Boys show in 1997 with John Stamos standing around and looking stupid. Brian Wilson is, of course, nowhere to be found.

Older song it reminds me of: road 2 heaven

Thursday, july 2nd - moshun sickness

Ahh, purposeful misspellings. In the proud tradition of Teenage Fanclub's "Neil Jung," Ice Cube's "Amerikkka's Most Wanted" and, um, the band Wavves. I don't think I've ever had the titular motion sickness, though. This is probably because I can count the times I've been on boats on one hand. Odd, considering I grew up in Miami. But you know how it is, I treated the beach and the water like an angsty teen treats their parents. I wanted nothing to do with it. Besides, Morrissey only sang about the beach if it accompanied selfishness and impending tragedy. I wasn't gonna fall into that trap. No way. Nowadays? I miss it like a bitch, of course.

So yeah. This song. It's pretty cool. I kind of like the wall of gross noise I created to be the music track, and the wah wah solo at the end makes me feel pretty good. The vocals are a drag though. They just aren't present and crispy enough. Yeah. I don't really know what crispy means in this case either. It just felt right. Sorta like when studio engineers use the word "warm" to mean just about anything good in the whole damned universe of sound. They dangle it out there like whiskers from God.

However, a minor caveat. This song is not the third part of the "trilogy of doom." I decided to take some time off to do artier fare in between blockbuster sequels. You know, like Sam Raimi with "Drag Me to Hell" or George Lucas with "More American Graffiti." I'll let you know when I get back to it. Maybe tomorrow. I promise it'll be warm.

Older song it reminds me of: zoning out again

Friday, July 3rd - neath the sun

I lied! This isn't the trilogy concluder, either. I believe I owe you an explanation: In April, on April Fool's Day actually, my computer blew up. This led to a few weeks of scrambling around, recording stuff at other people's houses, hell even on a tape recorder. I almost played a song into my voicemail one day but thought it was a bit pathetic(Plus my voicemail is so backed up it would take me an hour to get to it.) Somewhere during those weeks I fell a day behind. So when I say this is July 3rd's song, it was actually made on July 4th. Get where I'm going? I couldn't very well finish up a trilogy on America's birthday. That'd be like getting a penis piercing on Yom Kippur.

Another thing about the computer crash, right when it exploded, I was hard at work on a realistic and dry financial analysis talk show that was to be my April Fool's joke. It had a soundtrack and a heartfelt "I am giving up on music" intro and everything. It was to be my shining moment in tomfoolery. And now look at me. Serious as AskJeeves.

The song. The song. The song. The song kind of sucks. The guitar sounds amazing, somehow. I don't even know how I did that. The rest I did on the fly because I wanted to go look at fireworks and dream of a public health care option.

older song it reminds me of: you sorta set me free

That's it for now. See you next week. Wish me luck.

Posted by Lawrence Bonk on Jul 06, 2009 @ 12:00 am