WEEK 23: A.M. (Demo)

Hey Guise.

This Mp3 of the Week may be of interest to some. It's a long lost song called "A.M." I really don't think there's any human being on this planet who has heard this song. I wrote it in maybe 1999, or 2000, though this demo is from June, 2001 (the info I put in at the time says "old song, new recording.")

This was definitely one of the first songs I ever wrote, not just in general, but on guitar. The chords are all made up -- I didn't know what I was playing, I just put my fingers on strings to get interesting sounds, inspired by XTC's methods, probably. I'm still kinda proud of that, it's something I don't do much anymore.

This (EVERY PARAGRAPH STARTS WITH "THIS" AUGHH) is also one of my late night songs about late night stuff. It's basically describing (as poetic as my 17 year old brain could muster) the sounds I hear when I'm up late at night and can't fall asleep. I had sleep problems for a while in high school. Here are the lyrics, which I'm a bit embarrassed by:

It's yellow out the window, and out in the hall
The neon from the clock shines it on the wall
I think I'll let my arm drops, I think my hands will fall

The rain pellets on the roof, the toilet flushing next door
The squeek of the lock, to the footsteps towards their door
The footsteps of the rain, hear the clouds snore

The heartbeat of the pillow, the subtle movements in the mirror
The longer I can focus the shapes become clearer
The farther away the day goes, the more it gets nearer

I wish you were here to sing me to sleep
If I knew who you were I might be put at ease
I promise to dream of you, if you promise to dream of me.


That last verse was probably about my high school crush, or maybe I just threw it in there to make the song about something other than sights and sounds of my room, which seems to dominate a lot of my songs.

SHITTY STUFF: The track skips at one point. The singing is bad because I had big fat tonsils, and I also didn't know how to sing quiet, and I also wasn't sure what melody to sing over certain chords. That last verse makes me cringe a bit.

NICE STUFF: It's kind of a nice, atmospheric little tune, ain't it folks?


Download it here!!!


Or preview it:




-Jordan

WEEK 18: Rain As Of Late

Happy 4th as of July. This week's mp3 is "Rain As Of Late", an instrumental I made in 2006.

I basically recorded the ambient sound in my room as it was raining, specifically the sound of rain on my air conditioner. Then put quiet music under it. I like this a lot. I wish I made it a little longer, but all of these instrumentals were made so spontaneously without any planning, I didn't even know if I'd like it as I was doing it. Put up the volume looooud on this one so you can hear the pitter patter of tiny rain steps.

Download it here!


Or preview:




- as of Jordan

WEEK 9: I'm A Happy Dog

This week's mp3 is "I'm A Happy Dog", a feel good full length instrumental from 2004. A very obsessively worked out instrumental that took me a million years to record. I went crazy arranging the bass line to fit intricately with the drum part, piano thingies, when the acoustic guitars come in and out, the percussion, everything. I'm pretty damn proud of this. It was a big lesson in learning when to drop instruments in and out, to prevent everything from sounding too cluttered. And of course the lead melody line is my ACCORDION. Say hello!

If you turn it up incredibly loud at the quiet part about 1 full minute in, you can hear that it was raining outside! That may not be true, but I remember it being true. You can also hear that I used my lamp for percussion.

Download it here!

And preview the thingy here:




Have a nice life!

-Jordan