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 there. Since January, because I read too many issues of Spin Magazine as a kid, I've been writing and recording a song each and every day. This has allowed me to get interviewed by big name publications, and also to relive elementary school as the interviewers harped on and on about how funny my last name is. 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 8th - daytime women

This song has a pretty good beat, for a folk song. I dunno. It sounds ok. It's nothing too great. If I was a lenient teacher I'd give it a "B" and if I was that one asshole teacher we all hated, I'd give it a "D+" and give it a speech about how it had so much potential and it wasn't applying itself. Geeze song! Get with the program.

Once I had a teacher like that, in 7th grade history. It was a "gifted" class, as made evident by the fact that we played more computer games than the non gifted kids. One day that teacher, who shall remain nameless, came into the classroom and had a bit of a breakdown. She delivered this impassioned monologue, the gist of which being that us gifted kids had better get ready for a rough life. Some of us, she said, would do some very special things. The rest of us, she exclaimed, would probably be dying young - suicide or otherwise. She said this to a group of dorky ass 7th graders. Intense lady.

Older song it reminds me of: daytime magic

Sunday, August 9th - something of my own

I don't know the socio-economic background of your average Heave reader, but I'm going to go ahead and guess that most of you are not about to buy a house anytime soon. I know I'm not. Shit, man. Doesn't that sound so far away and ridiculous? Buying a house. Buying a fucking house. It’s the American dream. Still. It would be nice though. Then we could say to people "Hey! You! Get off my land!" Maybe we could brandish a shotgun and have an inappropriately sexy daughter. One day.

But this is a pretty good song. It's got this repeating lofi solo that I really like. And it starts a trend I've been running with lately, which is where I put something really loud and unexpected in the last 5-10 seconds of a song and then fade it out. I love parlor tricks like that. But still, conventional radio wisdom dictates you should blow your load in the first thirty seconds to keep people from changing the station. I'm never going to make any money to buy that house with my current attitude.

Older song it reminds me of: taking pills and listening to the dead milkmen

Monday, August 10th - don't cross yourself

When I write songs, I usually sing dummy words first to get the melody down. My brain, unbeknownst to me, latches on to certain phrases and decides to sing them when I am ad libbing these dummy phrases. The phrase "don't cross yourself" has no meaning really, other than my brain LOVES it. Seriously, those three words together have been in just about every song at an earlier stage, before I wrote actual words. So much, in fact, that I decided to give the phrase it's own song. You've earned it, baby. I really want to think of something bad to say about this song, you know don't want people to think I've gone soft on myself, but it's pretty successful folk number. What can I say. I've been on this week. Don't worry. I'm sure next week I'll have a few sucky duckys.

No, songs are not in the works for other go to dummy phrases, like "Jon and Kate" and "Snausage."

Older song it reminds me of: downwind

Tuesday, August 11th - sorta lost control

This sort of reminds me of that PM Dawn song that was called like "set adrift on memory's bliss" or something. I miss that tiny era of American pop culture that was defined by "hippie rap." PM Dawn, De La Soul, hell even the Pharcyde, come back! We need you now more than ever. I guarantee that if hippie rap makes a comeback we will get health care reform passed within days, "Don't Ask Don't Tell" will be repealed and Glenn Beck will announce he's gone organic and also getting breast implants. Ah, to sleep and perchance to dream.

Oh yeah. This song. Sometimes I forget about that. This song marks the first day my friend loaned me her Korg Delta synthesizer and you can tell I'm making full use of it here. As a matter of fact, I will be making full use of it until further notice. It's pretty cool. It's not overly versatile but what it does it does really, really well. Sort of like Tiny Tim. Actually, after a lengthy wikipedia troll of all things Tiny Tim, I take that back. He was very versatile.

Older song it reminds me of: dumb ole day

Wednesday, August 12th - heaven only knows

Sometimes I get obsessed with songs that have the balls to go shorter than expected. The band East River Pipe does this a lot. Basically, one verse, one chorus and then some kind of simple outro. What else is needed? After all, if you just want the verse and chorus to repeat you can put the whole song on repeat. Itunes will let you do that, so I hear. Anyways, this is my attempt at that. As stated, verse/chorus/outro and then a second outro because I couldn't help myself. FM Cornog of East River Pipe might be slightly disappointed but I think he'll understand.

Otherwise, this is an obvious play off of the Beach Boys mega hit "God Only Knows." You know, true story: In college my dad was a scandalous individual who regularly pool sharked and involved himself in all manner of unscrupulous activities. One day he was in rural Georgia, winning a large amount of money in a card game from a group of unsavory characters. He was standing up to leave, thanking them for their time, when the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" came on the radio. It was, as legend goes, the first time he had heard it. At the same time, several of the card playing gentleman urged him to stay and play a few more rounds, all the while letting him know there were several guns pointed at him from under the table. He complied and played until he had lost all of the money back. To this day he hates that song.

Older song it reminds me of: next judgment day

Thursday, August 13th - wastoid warriors

I am torn on this song. My purpose was to have the synth kick in really, really loud and sort of drown everything else out halfway through. Well, like most things we want in this life, I got it and am now unsure if it's worth having. It may drown everything else out in the "Oh God. I am going to die." way instead of the "Oh shit! Look! A mermaid!" way. Everyone knows mermaids are tons cooler than death. The movie "Splash" taught me that. The movie "Splash" also taught me what a woman's naked breast looked like. My first time seeing some. To this day, because of that, I root for Darryl Hannah just a little bit. Oddly, I also root for Eugene Levy.

This song is one of two about people who get really drunk on the weekend. The binge drinking elite - the valiant vodka virtuosos of this world, kudos to you guys.

Older song it reminds me of: i dunno

Friday, August 14th - drunk aliens

This song is a good example of a problem I have a lot. As you know, I don't have any "real" equipment. So it goes without saying that I lack a compressor. Sometimes it's just really hard to maneuver around something like this synthesizer I'm using without one. Basically, for those who don't read recording magazines like they are holy manna from the Gods, compressors are, among other things, used to keep something at a steady volume. This synthesizer is like a decibel bounce house. That would account for the variants in volume throughout the song. I tried my best to do it manually, but it's labor intensive and just a tiny bit annoying. The compressors I have for plug ins are, in a word, shit-tastic.

In more fortunate news, the lack of a compressor has really forced me to learn to play guitar at a steady level. There's always that. And this song is kind of a dark dance jam. Fortuitousness abounds!

Older song it reminds me of: walking away (if a song could kill)

Ok that's it for now. Be excellent to each other.

Posted by Lawrence Bonk on Aug 18, 2009 @ 12:00 am