Another music-writing marathon

December 23 and 24 I mostly spent writing a little piano piece as a Christmas present for my piano-playing Aunt Kelly, and December 26 through December 31 I was learning it, to play at the annual gathering of Communists and left-wing activists at my aunt's house on New Year's Day. (My mom had gotten me to play the New Year's thing as a favor.) This pretty much occupied all my time and attention during that period -- learning a piece in five days is nontrivial, and I also had to practice some Bach and Scott Joplin for that event.

The writing was the hard part though. The idea to produce a piece under a deadline was inspired by the earlier success of my 24-hour album in spurring my creativity (and also by the difficulty of buying for my aunt, and my aversion to shopping). I wasn't as excited by the results this time but the piece has its virtues. Writing for classical piano is hard, especially when it's for my aunt who's kind of picky. It's good to know I can finish something like this in two days.

I called it Kelly's Bagatelle as a hedge in case it didn't turn out well (in my judgement or my aunt's)... who cares, it's just a bagatelle.

KellyBagatelleLiveRecording.mp3

Disappointments

I've been going through a disappointing stretch, which is part of the reason I haven't updated this blog for awhile. First of all, I sent out a bunch of emails to booking agents trying to get shows for an East Coast tour in January, and got no responses. Bleah. Part of it may be that I waited too long to send the emails; two or three months in advance would have been better. So I might try again later (I had wanted to do January to coincide with my friend Michael's vacation). Another thing that helps is if you have contacts with people in other cities, and that comes with time: playing more shows and meeting bands from out of town. I also haven't had any luck booking more shows in Michigan.

The second item of disappointment was my first paid gig at the Crofoot on Friday 12/12. It was this bar gig... people were mostly sitting talking at the bar and ignoring me. I got good responses for a few songs but overall I felt uncomfortable. One issue was that there were sound problems and my lyrics were hard to hear. Also I had forgotten the power cord for the mannequins so that effect was missing. Mostly people paid attention to me when I got hyper and crazy, but I felt like there were diminishing returns on that, driving me to ever more drastic craziness... it felt sort of desperate. So the last song, "The Crazy Man Dance", I pretty much cut loose... I drew people from adjacent rooms, coming in to see what the commotion was. My sense was that people weren't excited or into it though, they were just gawking. I want a balance in my shows, I like making people a little uncomfortable or weirded out, but I also want them excited and drawn in. So I think the balance this time was too much towards the former side.

Perhaps it just wasn't the right audience. The question has been on my mind: exactly what are my goals for this year? I don't want to make a living off of this. I'm not aiming to be MTV famous. So after the last show it occurred to me that a big thing to connect with the audience for my music. The theory is that some people out there would be especially receptive to my music, and I just want to get noticed enough so that those people can find my stuff.

One thing to note about the Crofoot gig was that I got so worked up during "The Crazy Man Dance" that I entered some kind of altered state of consciousness. There was this moment where I wasn't really aware of my surroundings. My body was moving by itself without me willing it; I felt like I was removed, floating in space somewhere, with a warm light around me. All my worries about how the gig was going were suddenly gone and I felt very happy. It may have been related psychologically to some religious experiences, which I suppose in some cultures are partly induced by dancing (e.g. Whirling Dervishes). It would be good to have more, and more prolonged, experiences like this... hopefully while not alienating the audience.

Works in progress

The goal I set a few weeks ago, to have rough versions of all my coddlefoe material (i.e. lyric-oriented stuff, including the stuff I do live), got abandoned, for two reasons: I had to refocus my attention on trying to book gigs for my planned January tour, and I expanded the list of songs I wanted to include on the coddlefoe CD. After the unpleasant Crofoot gig I didn't want to think about let alone listen to the coddlefoe material for a long time, so to recharge my batteries a bit I started playing around with old predominantly instrumental odds and ends I had started a long time ago. Going back and hearing these funky beats that I've forgotten about is one of the best parts of this music-making project. These things are all in various stages of completion, from being just a few beats and riffs, to being fully fleshed out songs needing only some detail work and mixing.

Here's some of those old things which I've worked on in the past week.

Victims Are Responsible
Evolved from a funk jam that rambles through several sections of sharply contrasting moods and tempi. I omitted a first section which needs a lot more work.

Lucifer Over Lancs ripoff
The bludgeon-like riff from The Fall's "Lucifer Over Lancs" was stuck in my head, in a slowed down form. Includes some funny weird vocals.

When Will My Mind Move On To Something Else
A stiffly funky march.

Um, I sort of wanted to keep posting works in progress, like once a week... good exercise for me and gives people something to listen to who visit this blog... on the other hand I keep holding back from posting more because I don't know that these incomplete things are worth sharing. I'll see how I feel next week.

Back to high school

So I see a post on the Detroit Music Scene MySpace group advertising a series of shows at this teen arts center called The Woods, I imagined something like the Neutral Zone in Ann Arbor. My friend Damon (of the famous-to-devoted-indie-rock-fans band The Swirlies) once told me that high school kids make the best, most enthusiastic audiences and I should seek out venues catering to them, so I decided to see if The Woods would book me. I sent them my usual email:

Hi,

I have a one-man band act... it's me rapping and singing, darkly witty lyrics, over funk beats that I build from loops in real time...
blah blah blah, just describing my act, the mannequins, etc. This morning I saw in my inbox I had a reply -- always good since venues don't bother replying if they don't want you. Here's the reply:

Do you go to AAW? I am not impressed or amused by your "dark witty lyrics". They are not appropriate for our concerts.

Ouch. Then I looked back at their myspace site... it looks like it's not really an independent teen center as I had supposed, but the Arts Academy in the Woods, a high school. Here's an excerpt from their blurb:

Art (and Music) in The Woods

Is it possible to simultaneously raise arts awareness in our community and encourage the creative pursuits of youth while providing a safe, all-ages environment for the audience?

Come Nov. 21, you can ask fans of Red Star Redemption, Wave Eats the Walrus, Maceri and The Sheeny Men. They are the inaugural acts lined up for The Woods -- a fresh, bi-monthly concert series and art fair dedicated to the advancement of the arts in metro Detroit.
...
We hope you’ll come and experience the local art and sounds of generation next!

So I guess this was put together by some sort of teacher or principal or other responsible molder of young minds. It looks like they only listened to my first song on MySpace, the one that goes "I kill babies to keep the house clean." (According to MySpace no one has gotten to any of the other songs since I reinstated my account. I think I'm going to change my first song.) I thought the "Do you go to AAW?" part of the email was funny, like they want to find out who this kid is so they can put him on their shit list. The blurb does make it sound like they're primarily looking for teen bands but other things they said, and the bands they booked, suggest otherwise. Actually I checked those bands out... Maceri are awful cookie-cutter MTV-ready pretty-boy alt-rock (no I'm not bitter... that's what they are!)... The Sheeny Men are kind of blah, self-seriously "soulful" blooze-rock, maybe not terrible live or if they were friends of mine or if I liked blues-rock... Red Star Redemption similar quality in a pop-rock vein, though they're a teen band so I can't be too harsh... Wave Eats the Walrus surprisingly good, moody indie-pop with interesting, semi-orchestral arrangements. So whoever put this together I guess can't tell the difference.

Every once in a blue moon something happens like this to remind me how much high school sucked.

"Plan for Salvation" lyrics

In this last push to get this CD done one of my main tasks is to finish the lyrics on a bunch of old raps that have been sitting around incomplete for months and years. I want to get all my old raps out with this CD, this is the place for it. Tonight I finally finished lyrics for one song that I started a couple years ago (or almost finished it... I still might add / change a bit, especially the chorus). I'm excited enough about it to want to post it. The parts in parentheses are rapped by the mannequin backup singers.


Plan for Salvation

The sermon that you're preaching (Not winning many converts)
It's getting a reaction (that's generally adverse)
All about heaven (a favorable habitat)
Who wouldn't want to go there? (There's just a little caveat)
Your plan for salvation (hinges on dying)
Wake up and smell the coffee! (Your eggs are frying.)
No one wants to go there (It's really very scary)
People and death (is like a vegan and dairy)

Chorus:
It wouldn't have this appeal for you
If life were not an ordeal for you

(Morality declines) as the economy rises
(People make money) from other people's vices
(Playing on your weakness) you know you really want it
(The hottest young porn stars!) You broke down and bought it
(Everywhere you turn) kids fucking on TV
(It's so decadent) and yet so alluring...
(The world is disgusting) So full of iniquity
(A level of depravity) not seen since antiquity
(If there was someplace elsewhere) I'd go there in a second
(Open up your Bible) a paradise beckons

Last night I had a vision (it filled me with awe)
The ultimate repository (of divine law)
A towering palace (big as a planet)
Divided into ten wings (one for each commandment)
And further subdivided (into floors and rooms)
For finer applications (of the golden rule)
And each of these rooms (overflowing with files)
Combined all together (it'd reach a trillion miles)
And every little paper (for each eventuality)
A detailed instruction (leaving no ambiguity)
The scale was mind boggling (truly breathtaking)
I thought that my brain cracked (I felt myself shaking)
I thought I was in Heaven (or at least a suburb)
Until I saw the Devil. (He smelled like burning rubber.)
He told me (The palace that left you so impressed)
(Has never been finished.) Really quite a mess.
(Millions of instructions) still needing to be filed
(And that's where you come in) he said with a smile
(The task will be difficult) and probably unending
(But the Big Guy wants it) you know he's unrelenting
(Always making new rules) and no signs of slowing
(And someone needs to file them) I'd better get going

Naturally-occurring paradox

Recently I was surfing the 'net when I was distracted by this loud bass from someone playing music in my apartment building, not an unusual occurrence. After a moment I realized it was one of my songs, from the 24-hour album, which my friends upstairs were playing. It was "I Would Be Disturbed If It Weren't So Funky." I was a little disappointed that they were playing that song as it was one of the thrown-together time-filling jams towards the end of the album. I mean, it came out well for a thrown-together time-filling jam, but still. I was thinking that they probably chose to play that song because of the attention-getting title, and they would be disappointed when the song failed to be as interesting as the title. The title was really too good for the song; it would be more appropriate if the song had a title as humdrum as the song itself. But then, I thought, in a way the title's poor fit with the song makes the title as crappy as the song itself. So it's actually a good match for the song... but of course that means it's in fact not a crappy title after all. This is the first time I can recall coming across a paradox in real life as opposed to something that someone just made up. Is the title good or not? is a much more concrete question than whether some sentence that refers only to itself is true or not. Though I think the title paradox is more easily resolved than "This sentence is false."

On the other hand, I'm kind of feeling like the album title was a bad title for a good album... thus an even-worse title.

Goal

After the 24-hour album exercise I decided I want to start setting stronger goals for myself. My first goal is to finish as much as I can of the coddlefoe album I've been chipping away at (mostly home-recorded versions of the songs I do live, plus a few unfinished raps that I want to finish), get decent (not necessarily final) versions of each of the songs that will be on the album, and post it here in two weeks. If that goes well I might make a regular practice of setting goals and posting the results here.

It will be good to get that CD done... really it's been lingering around too long, I don't want it to go into next year. It could be a good way to help find audiences. I haven't been pushing myself on it to avoid jinxing the creative process but the 24-hour album showed that I can push myself and still have good results.