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.

Hello. Since January, for reasons I will later tell a therapist, I've been writing and recording a song each and every day. This has caused me to experience moments of great bliss, and also to get to know my neighborhood drug dealer a bit better than I'd like. His name is Al. He likes the video game "Halo." Anyways, I post the tunes on a "blog," http://anotherdayonearth.net. 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, July 4th - the mayor of trashville

Once upon a time, I had a hard drive. On this hard drive were scores of songs that I had written, literally gads of songs. Enough to just about fill this blog up, that's for sure. Well, it crashed of course. I lost all of the songs, not to mention the entire first season of "Alf." Every now and again I try to recapture the feel of one that I know is on there. They aren't the same song, per say, because I write so much I can never remember how to play anything more than two weeks old. But they have the same "feel," or they might have some of the same chords or something. I don't know, man. Anyways, this is one such song.

The saying comes from something my friend Adam and I used to say to one another, it's akin to "the king of shit." Like Conan at the end of that one flick where he's sitting alone on the throne looking depressed and pissed that there's no more battles to fight. We even once had a studio called "Trashville." This studio may or may not have featured a mixing console once owned by Michael McDonald. Either that or it was Norm Macdonald, or at the very worst, Ronald. I'm betting on Michael.

This song is kind of cool. It has a dirty Stevie Nicks vibe which was what I was going for. The vocals aren't as present in the mix as much as I'd like but everything else was so loud and it was getting late and I had worked on it for a long time and I didn't want to start a mix over, so I left it. Don't worry; I'm keeping the master for the inevitable "another day on earth 2 - electric boogaloo." Look for it in 2010. Make that 2011. In a related note, does freezing hard drives work or is that just an urban e-legend?

Older song it reminds me of: old haunts

Sunday, July 5th - move around

After mixing hell that was yesterday, I went with an easy and straightforward folk song. I was going to overdub some harmonies or more guitars but I ultimately decided against it. It's just one track of guitar and one track of vocals. Ok, that's a lie. Two tracks of vocals but I made it sound like one. I did something called doubling the vocals, which every able-bodied home recordist learned from Elliott Smith. It was done before him, sure, but he perfected it to such a degree that if there is ever a "recording hall of fame," they should throw him up there in front of the double vocal. I think he would have liked that, actually.

But even though, to me it sounds like I could have done more, I remember the old Joe Meek adage, "If it sounds good, it is good." This is a well-written song and listening to it now, it doesn't make me sick to my stomach, so it must be ok. That is my ultimate barometer of success. Which leads me to my next point:

A lot of people have told me I am too hard on myself in these, but I say, where's the fun in that? If I don't push myself hard, who else is gonna? Besides, nobody likes a blustering idiot talking about how great they are all of the time. They are the people we avoid at parties. Either that or they are Bono. Or Sting. Ugh, Sting.

Older song it reminds me of: whachu whant

Monday, July 6th - forget paris

I'm not entirely sure what this song is trying to do. With that said, I like it ok. I just sang the melody into the beat and wrote the song around the vocals. I heard that's how Michael Jackson did it, rest in piece. It's also how Robert Pollard does it, rest in, um, a bed covered in Pabst Blue Ribbon and cigarette butts.

I was actually supposed to spend some time in Paris this summer. I had visions of buying a cheap nylon stringed guitar at a quaint little shop and writing songs by the Seine like I was Seu Jorge in "The Life Aquatic" or something. The songs would have all been happy too, about food or children playing. Or anthropomorphic rats. Anyways, long story short, I blew it. I'm here in Brooklyn. As usual. I'm probably better off anyways because even though I took French for three years in college, I can't speak my way out of a paper baguette.

Case in point, once I was in Europe with a band I played with in college. I attempted to try my French out with a couple of girls that I happened across. They walked away before I got to the second sentence. They did not find my language mangling charming. Also, they were at a show in which my band was playing. And I was introduced to them as someone in one of the bands. I still couldn't get them for more than two sentences. Those two sentences? Asking them to eat French fries with me over and over, of course. Telle tragédie!

Older song it reminds me of: everything revolves around the sky

Tuesday, July 7th - everyone at once/bricks in time

I finally got out of the house. This song was made with my friend Timmi Oyen (http://anupam.us/) over at his place. It's only a few blocks away but hey at least it's not my room. Plus they have a hookah and an assortment of quality whiskeys, and an assortment of really shitty whiskeys. I drank both.

We were supposed to start at around one or two, but Timmi happens to hold the distinction of being the only person in the known universe who sleeps later than me. He woke up at five. Insomnia aint no picnic, folks. I've been staying up til around 4 am or later since I was about thirteen years old(I blame the author Banana Yoshimoto for this, who always painted insomniacs as great romantic figures.) In high school, it was tricky. I'd literally skip school just to go to my friend's house and sleep on his bed while he was out learning. I couldn't go to my house because my dad developed a habit of coming home for long lunches. Then once I entered college, I started planning my life around my sleep quirks. No classes before noon, that kind of thing. As for how I make money, I became a freelance writer. This way I can sleep until whenever and..so it goes. I heard a rumor that print journalism is in trouble, though. Uh oh. My insomnia may be forced to go on permanent leave after this blog is over. That is, unless a record label signs me and feeds me dollars and high fives.

So yeah, the song. Here was my original intent for the song. I wanted a sort of mix of recent Brian Eno with the sentiment found in the Dinosaur Jr classic "Feel the Pain." You know that line, "I feel the pain of everyone, and then I feel nothing." My lyrics are similar. It wasn't on purpose but once it started heading in that direction I just went with it. I do not believe there is any such thing as ripping something off in pop music. Anyone who says otherwise has never written a song in their life. Either that or they are lying to get money. Like when the writer of "He's So Fine" sued George Harrison due to "My Sweet Lord." Total bullshit. Aren't artists supposed to bounce off of one another? There are only so many melodies in the world. It matters how we readapt them to make a comment on the current state of things. Ok, enough preaching.

Older song it reminds me of: open up and say blahh!/i wish i had a piano/bref

Wednesday, July 8th - subpoena girls

One thing about recording is that things very seldom turn out how you originally intended. For yesterday's song, I said that my intent was Brian Eno meets Dinosaur Jr. I didn't envision it morphing into a bizarre dancehall freakout. Same goes for this song. My friend Myka (http://mykafox.blogspot.com) and I wrote it to be a soulful acoustic number. It turned into something quite different. That's how it always goes. You order a hamburger and you get pizza. Now, for the first few bites you are thinking "Damn, I was really in the mood for a hamburger." But after awhile you realize that pizza also tastes awesome and you should be happy you are eating at all because there are starving kids in Africa. That's recording in a nutshell. It never matches what's in your head, but if you play your cards right it will still sound cool.

However, once in a while you order a hamburger and you get a plate of worms topped with spoiled milk. Those are the days you want to smash your microphone against a wall. But everyone knows smashing microphones is not nearly as cool as smashing a guitar. Although I'm sure Phil Spector smashed a few mics in his day. He also, um, killed a lady.

Thankfully today's had no worms. It was all pizza. The beat is fun and lively and I love working with her voice. It has a very distant "I don't give a shit" quality that I love. And somehow I turned a garden-variety guitar solo into something a lot more interesting with the help of a suboctave generator. However, I left my headphones at Timmi's the day before so for most of the session I ended up stuck with my roommate's five-dollar pair of drug store death phones. That part wasn't so cool.

Older song it reminds me of: don't pass out on me

Thursday, July 9th - the real south

Speaking of musical lawsuits, this song has the same exact structure of something that a band I was in once in put out. We were called Plastic Mastery. Steal us on Soulseek. We were pretty good. So good, in fact, that one time we were served soup in a bread bowl. For free. You haven't lived until you've been comped soup in a bread bowl.

Now, on to this song. I don't know. I hated it when I made it. So much that I never even listened to it again once it was done. I just posted it and instantly moved on with my life. If I have even the smallest bit of admiration for a song I'll at least jam it a couple of times that night just to go "well, at least I made that. I may be short on rent, but at least I made that." Not so with this one. Instead I listened to the new Superchunk EP and watched Norm Macdonald clips on Youtube. I got stuck in a 90s loop. That always happens to me.

But, listening to it now, it's not so bad. It's just your garden variety sad and mystical folk song. I wish I had done more to it but I was not in the mood. I believe, now that I am just halfway done with this project, I am firmly on "the hump." How do I get off of it and start that downward slide to that righteous finish line? Someone send me advice.

Older song it reminds me of: cradle of life

Friday, July 10th - morally gray

This is a good song that just happens to sound like total crap. If I played this live with a band I bet I could get it to sound good. It needs bass but I loaned mine out. I'm bad at getting things back when I loan them out, so much, in fact, that when I loan out books I consider it more of a gift. Basses, on the other hand - don't look a gift bass in the mouth, or one of those singing basses that people hang on their walls. Little known fact: If you Google image search "bass" the fish comes way before the instrument. Sorry, rockers. And a tip of the hat to you fishermen.

Well, the end of this song is actually cool. It kind of comes out of nowhere and sounds like melted death. In a good way. Like nachos with so much gross shit on them they should taste like a messy divorce but instead they taste like true love. That is, until the bathroom two hours later. Jesus man, poop jokes?! Is there I'm at now? Oh well. Another day. Another holler.

Older song it reminds me of: vampires and scumbags

That's all for now. I'll keep making the songs if you keep listening. Actually, I'll do it regardless.

Posted by Lawrence Bonk on Jul 13, 2009 @ 7:00 am