I occasionally get the itch to put stuff on tape. (Well, it’s 2009 now, so I’ll be damned if I’m going to use actual tape. It’s just an expression. What am I, a goddamned caveman?)Anyway, I record stuff once in awhile – it’s sloppy & very unprofessional. I post songs here in a relatively raw form, with the hope that by making my work semi-public, it will somehow spur me to keep at it more consistently, or at the very least convince me that I need to learn how to use all this stupid equipment. Who knows. I don’t know. This page has encouraged me to record six (6)mediocre songs so far this year, which sextuples my output from 2007 & 2008 (err, combined). So I guess that’s…good? If you’d like to hear my full-band stuff, don’t forget to check out good ol’ No-Shadow Kick.
BUT IT GETS GREAT MILEAGE – Here’s a song about my Ford Festiva, god damn it. I wrote it on Monday, demo edit on Friday, and recorded it on Sunday. It features a long, useless multi-tracked guitar wanking outro, which is quickly becoming my trademark. This song was featured on episode 200937 of NPR’s Car Talk, Sept.12, 2009. Here’s the excerpt from the show, which is sort of silly since you can hear the whole song. Did I cheat ‘em? And how! (2:38 – August, 2009)
BUT IT GETS GREAT MILEAGE
I WANT YOU TO MISS ME WHEN I’M DEAD - This is the first new song I’ve written in about two years. ‘New’ as in not-rehashing-old-material. Rather meager output, I’d say. Anyway, I have no idea what this song is about. Consumerism or doing chores or dying or something. This song is a three chord progression played over and over and over again. Strum along at home! (4:18 – May, 2009)
DON’T LOSE THAT FEELING - Here’s another old-song-I’ve-decided-to-re-record. Hearkening back to probably 1993-1994, Haverhill, Massachusetts. Back when I used to write fairly straightforward lyrics, sort of. Apparently. With the perspective of a decade-plus, I can say without embarrassment that I find this song to be somewhat charming – nothing like what I’d write now, so it sort of felt like I was covering someone else’s song. Which is kinda funny. Sort of. (2:46 – Feb, 2009)
MODEL HOME – A weird instrumental track I recorded this past weekend, to be used as background music (hopefully way in the background) in a documentary about Arrested Development.It is appropriately repetitive and not too interesting and oddly upbeat. Ha. I did not ‘write’ it really, I just kept layering crap until it seemed suitably layered. Ho-ho. If you would like to hear this song and see some animation/title work I did for the documentary,please take a look at my portfolio. (2:16 – Feb, 2009)
INTRODUCTION- This is a song I wrote back in the mid-nineties. I unearthed a crappy demo of it on a cassette and decided it was sort of retarded but funny,so I decided to re-recorded it. It is a goofy song very much about sitting around at the Haymarket back-in-the-day (I’m talkin’ old-school Haymarket, with the side room of books), nursing a long cup of coffee and drawing terrible comics. Oh, Smith girls. (2:48 – Jan, 2009)
CAN’T HARDLY WAIT – Here’s a strange sort of hybrid version of one of my favorite Replacements songs. It is a combination of the Pleased To Meet Me album version, the Tim demo version, the Boink! acoustic version, plus a smidgen of me fucking around with stuff. I recorded it because I felt like it. (3:54 – Jan, 2009)
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