WEEK 85: Bombinate

Hey guys!

This week's/month's/year's MP3 is a really wacky song from 2005 that I made for my friend Matt Koff's old comedy blog, Word Du Jour (sadly no longer existing on the internet.)

On the blog he taught you a new word every day and then used them in funny sentences. I offered to do some musical word lessons for him. I ended up doing 3 in total. Here's one of them!

I think I shocked him because he thought he was going to get a 10 second thing and this is basically a complete song, with a full band arrangement and even singing back up girls (which are all me.)

"Bombinate" means to hum, so knowing that, here are the surprisingly dark lyrics:


BOMBINATE, BABY!

I bombinate on the way to work (ooh, I bombinate)
I bombinate in the bathroom stall (ooh, I bombinate)
I bombinate in the journey home (ooh, I bombinate)
THEN I BOMBINATE ALL NIGHT LONG! (wow!)

(humming)

I bombinate in the dentist chair (ooh, I bombinate)
I bombinate on the garage floor (ooh, I bombinate)
I bombinate inside a plastic bag (ooh, I bombinate)
LET ME BOMBINATE JUST ONCE MORE! (WOW!!!)

(humming)


Download the song by right clicking here!


Or preview it here:




See you soon!


-Jordan

WEEK 84: Undo (Sally)

Hello everyone!

A super special exciting MP3 this week!

A NEW song from my band Sally. And...

A NEW singer! The wonderful Kristen Gudsnuk! (Special eternal thanks to Meghan O'Neill for being lead singer for the first year of the band!)

This recording is from a practice we had 2 days ago! Will Kastner nailing the drums after only playing the song like twice before ever. FUNKY STUFF!

We are really excited about this song and see it as some sort of future "single." It's currently my favorite song of ours.

This song is about how excited you get when you start dating someone you like, and how crushing it is when they reject you, especially after you've already imagined the entire relationship you two were supposed to have.

Here are the lyrics:

We went to every park in New York City
We visited your relatives in south New Jersey
On the bus we traded headphones
Played each other our favorite songs

These things didn't happen yet
but now I've got to undo
I've got to undo 
the things I imagined doing with you

Remember when you met my friends?
You liked them all, except for one
Then we went and met your friends
They all liked me, except for one

I shouldn't have talked about you so much
That was my first mistake
I shouldn't have talked to you so much
I should have given you a break

I planned the way I'd say "I love you"
The time and place, and weather and clothes
I planned the way that I'd react
To your reaction, however it goes


Download it by right clicking here!

Or preview it first!







See ya!

-Jordan

WEEK 83: Hell It Stays In Hell

Hey everybody! 

Here is another one of the 7 new songs I performed at my latest solo show!

I don't quite have a title for this one, though "Hell It Stays In Hell" may end up being the de facto winner. 

The chorus for this song came to me in a dream. I woke up singing it and recorded it on my tape recorder. I based the rest of the lyrics around it. 

Musically, I felt the song was a bit standard, so I implemented a cool trick where it goes back and forth between major and minor (changing in the middle of each chorus.) So the 2nd verse is all minor chords, then back to major, etc. Fun?

Here are the lyrics.

Grab my sleeve and lead me down
In the boat we'll go
Pick people up along the way
Drop them off and so

All the fools go up the river
All the Hell it stays in Hell

Lovely ladies, angel men
Never done nothing wrong
Not one drop of fun in their whole life
Now they're where they belong

(chorus)

Dump my body out and leave it
Naked, bruised and waiting
I'll be dragged in smiling 
While they shake their heads with pity
But I don't need their pity


Download the song by right-clicking here!


Or preview it!






-Jordan

WEEK 82: Big Delay (live)

Hey everybody!

NEW SONGS! A few weeks ago I performed 7 new (as in: never before played live...some of these are very old) songs at a show at Gizzi's Cafe, and I will be putting a bunch of them up in the coming weeks.

This first one is called Big Delay. I actually wrote the bulk of it in around 2006/2007, but only recently finished it.  It's about a very very troubled relationship I was in, that was fraught with fighting and dying to be put out of its misery.  

These lyrics are VERY personal and autobiographical, more so than usual. My favorite line is "hating every word you heard," because it's a funny roundabout way of saying how bad or cold the words coming out of my mouth were throughout the relationship, but from her point of view.

The line "miles of walking nowhere" is actually in reference to a very specific event, not just a simple metaphor for the relationship. In fact every line is referencing a very specific memory. Like I said, extremely personal.

I also love the melody, the chord progression, the feel of the song...everything. I've been dying to play this live for years and I'm glad I finally did. 

Here are the lyrics.

I left you crying with a fake hug
Swept my feelings under the rug
After all the arguments
We can both agree this once

This man and woman failed
They're in each other's way
Miles of walking nowhere
One big delay

All along I tiptoed by you
Hating every word you heard
And on that day in that strange city
Holding hands seemed too absurd

With tired eyes and anger
Kicked you out of my bed
Tried to show how bad I was for you and you for me and we for us and well...

I'll be full without ever eating
Spend my days in waiting rooms
Anything to keep me strong
Anything to last us long


Download the song by right clicking here!


Or:   Preview it here!






-Jordan

WEEK 81: I Care About You (Demo)

 Hey everyone! 

I know it's been more like "MP3 of the Month" but bear with me, exciting stuff is going to be debuted here really soon!


In a somewhat related note, this week's MP3 is the ORIGINAL late night (ultra steamy) demo for I Care About You.

In recent years this song has become a fast rocking exuberant explosive song, but this demo is a completely different approach. Creepy, quiet, a little disturbing, and intimate. Sung in a lower register, played a lot slower (well I just wrote it), and filled with lots of empty spaces and (intentionally) awkward pauses.

I actually REALLY love this version of the song, it's closer to the true nature of the lyrics. But the rocking version is just so much fun, I just can't NOT play it in that way at this point.

Here are the lyrics!:

I can't say anything too complex, I get stares
I want to not seem so obsessed, but I care

I care about you

I'm dismayed, I've misplaced what you gave me that day
Is it gone? What have I done? Has it run away?

I care about you

If I face the wall
WILL YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME?
If I cover my ears
WILL YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME?

I can't hold you hard enough, cause you squeek
I can't carry you far enough, cause I'm weak

I care about you


Preview the song here!





Or download it by right-clicking/saving here!



-Jordan

WEEK 80: Gudsnuk

I bought 2 new instruments!


A melodica and a glockenspiel. Both very cheap but they sound great.


Here is a little MP3 I made in about 5 minutes, just to celebrate. Named after the great gal who informed me about the instruments being on sale at Amazon.


Download Gudsnuk here!




Preview it here:







Jordan

WEEK 79: Big Bonus

Hey everyone!  Sorry for the long delay!  But I'M BACK.

This week's MP3 is a dreamy spacey nice instrumental called "Big Bonus."  It was somewhat meant to sound like a bonus level in a videogame.  I was planning on using it for Crime Streets but then it didn't seem to fit with the rest of the tracks.


This is just a good example of a really nice riff that I can add melodies on top of endlessly. The only difficult part is keeping it from being TOO overstuffed with counter-melodies until it all sounds like a mess.  But I think this came out nice.  Enjoy!


Download it by right-clicking here!


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Thanks!

-Jordan

WEEK 78: Yous Guys

Hello yous guys!

This is one of my personal favorite instrumentals, from way back in 2003.

Not to be overly sentimental, and not to over-explain (being that it's an instrumental), but this was just meant as a happy ode to my friends. A very sweet and sincere "you guys are so great and funny!" exclamation, with each friend being represented by the different melody lines in the song.

This is one of the rare instrumentals that doesn't keep adding and adding elements, it's mainly just the main melody that just changes. Harder to do than simply building instruments (something that I could do on top of this chord progression for probably a million years.)

The ending, with the pretty acoustic guitar strum and some sort of suspended chord is the most glaringly obvious sentimental touch. Hope you like it!

Download it here!


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Jordan

WEEK 77: The Usual Way (live with drummer)

Hey everyone!

This week's MP3 is a live version of one of my favorite songs, The Usual Way.

Instead of going into the whole background of the song, I'll mainly talk about this live mp3. Took place on May 13th of this year, at Goodbye Blue Monday in Brooklyn.

That's Will Kastner on drums, from my band Sally. This is officially a Trouble's Afoot performance. Will was a superhuman drum man for this show, learning around 15 Trouble's Afoot songs in like 2 days. This was a new song for Trouble's Afoot, but will probably stick around. Also of note is that we had no bass player for this show.

Also of note is that yes, people are talking about french fries at the start of the MP3. That's the nature of a live recording, folks.

Briefly, the song is about feeling like a disappointment in a relationship, and thus in your relationship with yourself. Enjoy!

Lyrics:

So what if I write a message down?

Not like I can say it outloud

I express myself in the usual way

So what if I wait a day or two?

Not like I'm in charge of when I get to see you

I express myself in the usual way

I'm running out.

I'm running out.

So what if I'm feeling sorry?

Not like you can get it out of me.

I express myself in the usual way.

I distress myself in the usual way.

Download it here!

or:

Sample it!

-Jordan

WEEK 76: Trixaxis and Allies Score (AND SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!)

Hello!!!

I have not updated MP3 of the Week in a long while, because I've been extremely busy. I have been busy with music though, so that's OK! And many of the things I've been working on all month will be posted right here!

Starting with this. Last week I was honored and amazed to win Best Musical Score at the 48 Hour Film Festival "Best of NY" show, where me and my friend's short film, "Trixaxis and Allies," was screened.

And here is a piece from the score, the infamous "chase scene" music that invaded our brains for the next week. We could not stop singing this.

I made it using all midi Orchestral sounds. I'm really proud of it, it just about almost sounds like a real orchestra. More importantly, it FEELS like a big Hollywood action movie score.

For the entire score I wanted to be strict with myself - ONLY ORCHESTRAL SOUNDS. I wanted to pretend that I had a string section, and a brass section, and only a few percussion instruments (timpanis, crashes, scary sounding gongs.) No guitars, not even piano or any electronic sounding drums of any kind. Just a string and brass orchestra.

Here it is! I'll post more in future weeks to come!

DOWNLOAD IT HERE!!!

Preview it:

Hope you liked it! Check back soon for more! Lots of exciting new music coming up.

-Jordan