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.

"Sup?! Since January, because I'm a loner Dottie(a rebel), I've been writing and recording a song each and every day. This has allowed me to appear in a glamorous photoshoot with my cat, and also to get scratched and bitten to death. Cats don't like posing. 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, August 1st - stay down

This is pretty much a boring, paint by numbers song. Still, what counts as "paint by numbers" to me probably differs greatly from people who hear it. This is because I've done something like 220 of these things. I know when I am doing something for speed. Sometimes, though, when I shoot for speed it ends up pretty nice so who cares ultimately. If this was a blog where I ran a five mile dash every day then going for speed would not only be acceptable, it'd be ideal. And if DC Superhero "The Flash" had a blog, then, well, speed would be awesome. Same goes for Speedy Gonzales, Carl Lewis and your friendly neighborhood meth lab. Da dum dum.

Also, this song reminds me: I am in dire need of plug ins for PPC Macs. I switched to this computer around April and all of my favorite blips and blaps are nowhere to be found since I switched from a PC. But, guys. The TV commercials tell me that the PC guy is a square and the Mac guy is some super cool gentleman, like an artistic Bill Murray for the 21st century. Is this not entirely true? Do commercials lie?

Speaking of, isn't it strange how the Bill Murray of the 20th century(Aka just Bill Murray) has become some kind of mischivious spectre for our generation? I have so many friends and acquaintances with totally seperate stories of Bill Murray wreaking havok in one way or the other. He stole someone's wallet at a bar. He gave someone a noogie on the subway in Japan. He showed up at a party and got drunk and sang showtunes. He's like a fun-loving gremlin. Can this all be true?

Older song it reminds me of: everybody knows not to holler all at the same time

Sunday, August 2nd - -mystical-bullshit">mystical bullshit

This song has an almost early Modest Mouse feel, or maybe Folk Implosion. Just junky ass folk with a beat you can almost dance to. It's really simple. The whole song is the beat, one guitar track and one vocal. The choruses have a second distorted vocal and the outro has a couple of more guitars. That's it. But adding more would have taken away from the "junk vibe" and as you all know, I love junk. Wait, I don't mean hard drugs. Well, ok sometimes but definitely not heroin. I have been known to abuse Z-Packs, though. Ahh, lovely lovely Zithromax. Shine your heavenly light on me.

Older song it reminds me of: blues without the blues

Monday, August 3rd - chuting bros

This song is ok but it sounds so tinny and empty that it kind of makes me sick to my stomach. I don't even know what happened. It started out okay, but then, somewhere along the lines things got screwy. You know what they say about good intentions and the road to somewhere or something. Actually, can you remind me? I'm not so sure myself.

This happens to me about once a week, a mild mannered song that should be sort of a jammer. Just sounds, for lack of a better word, wrong. This is when I chalk it up to the sad state of affairs that is my equipment, but it could just as soon be me. Sometimes I know something is a bit out of tune and I just don't care. Slacker rock, you know? I'm too busy watching "Gummo" and pasting my flyers around town to care about such minor quibbles as staying in tune. Besides, tuning can be dangerous.

Case in point: Back when I had a real studio, and didn't rely on karaoke microphones, I borrowed this amazing Guild acoustic guitar from a buddy. It's the same one on the cover of Nick Drake's "Bryter Layter." It could sound better than just about anything on God's green earth. However, it hated staying in tune. It really hated it. So much, in fact, that I couldn't get it to stay in tune for the entirity of the four minute song I was using it on.  I tried over and over and over again. I tried into the night. Tune. Record. Tune. Record. I never could quite get it. It drove me a bit crazy. Everyone else left. Alone, it drove me even crazier. Tune. Record. Tune. Record. In the morning, friends came back to find me on the floor, surrounded by knives, cutting into the guitar in an attempt to get the strings to have more breathing room, um, or something. I had a wild look in my eyes. I barely remember any of it. I never got the damned thing tuned. See? Dangerous.

Older song it reminds me of: yr move

Tuesday, August 4th - never my loathe

I hate the Association. Nothing makes me happier than to trash their memory via song and picture! Yeah! Let's nail those posers! Everyone knows about the intense rivalry between them and their more talented rivals, The Left Banke. It was sort of like Biggie/Tupac, only wussier. Nobody got killed, but one time Michael Brown of the Left Banke did exclaim "Why I never!" to one of the members of the Association after his seat was stolen at a poetry reading. Pretty intense stuff.

Yeah, that's all fake. I actually love the Association. I got the idea for this song during a walk, and it just made me laugh. The title is funny enough on it's own to me without the "Never My Love" distortion, so I had to run with it. The song itself has nothing to do with the source material. It's just a fun lofi rock song. It sort of sounds like a loud Magnetic Fields to me. And I got to finally use one of my alltime favorite lyric notions, which is to remind someone you just broke up with that they have some of your records. I love when songs do that. Plus, it has a solo running throughout the whole song. What's not to like about that? Solos rule.

Older song it reminds me of: get tight

Wednesday, August 5th - geekjoint

When I was a kid, in that bastion of culture south Florida, my friends formed a band named "geekjoint." Now, for those of you who were never kids in a suburban hellhole, a geekjoint is a joint with cocaine sprinkled on top of the weed. Classy, I know. The funny part is, it probably doesn't even work. I think cocaine needs to get hotter than that in order to burn, thus crack was born.

Geekjoint was the first band I was ever friends with. They weren't very good, probably, but to me it was just neat being able to watch people practice and stuff. Besides, as a new guitar player, it gave me something to aspire to. It gave me the drive to finish learning Green Day's "Insomniac" and Nirvana's "Territorial Pissings." Maybe I'll cover one for the blog one day. Don't hold your breath, though.

Anyway, after a few shows, GJ went the way of just about every other South Florida band. They were finito. I went on to forming my first band(if you can call it that) with one of the members. We had the brilliant foresight to name ourselves "The Fucking Assholes" and to name our debut album "Greatest Shits." We covered the Lemonheads and had a song about the cast of "Who's the Boss?" We were probably the worst thing ever made. It was fun.

Oh yeah, this song. It's just a simple acoustic number about drug abuse. Whatever man, it's the 90s.

Older song it reminds me of: that golden sun

Thursday, August 6th - theme from i hate you radio

My friends Myka and Myq are comedians, of the funny variety not the "asshole in 10th grade science class who makes farting noises for an hour straight" variety. Actually, that does sound kind of funny. Wait, I sure hope I wasn't that asshole. My memory is cloudy.

Anyway, they tasked me to come up with a jingle for their upcoming radio show together, called "I Hate You Radio." This is what I came up with. It sounds like the Animaniacs theme song to me. It's simple, and short. The piano "gong" at the end of the song is my favorite part. It's the first time actual piano has been used on this blog. I used to actually be a fairly decent piano player(by pop standards, obviously a real piano player would think I was pathetic.) but I left my piano when I moved up here and now it feels like I'm wearing those giant hands they sell at sporting events when I sit down and play one. So, loud gongs are about the only thing I'm good at anymore. Give me two weeks alone with one though, and watch out, I'll be busting out "Let it Be" with the best of them.

Older song it reminds me of: just waiting for a friend

Friday, August 7th - the skies opened up

Not to beat a repetitive and dead horse, but once a week I'm allowed to post something old I had lying around in order to give myself a break. I call this my "mulligan." As in Richard Mulligan star of TV's "Empty Nest." Everytime I post one, I am sure that it'll be the last time. How many stupid old songs can I have laying around, anyways? And yet, somehow, I manage to happen upon more. This one was culled from a four song tape I put out around 1999. It's the last song on said tape, and so, I can say with reasonable certainty that this will be the last one I'm ever able to post. I sure hope I'm wrong. I love vacations. Here is to me being wrong! It sure doesn't look that way though.

Older song it reminds me of: everyone i meet reminds me of someone i used to know

Ok that's it. I'll "talk" to you "next" week. Wish me "luck."

Posted by Lawrence Bonk on Aug 11, 2009 @ 12:00 am