Archive for August, 2008
The Cup of Silence: “Life Like a Building”
My friend Jason Staniger made a trip to the Balkans awhile back and has finally compiled a bunch of footage from it into a music video which you can take a look at here. He witnessed a lot of war damage and a lot of beauty while there, and much of that is apparent in this short film.
No commentsMake-Believe Machines: “Weathered Jouster” Lyrics
Quotes and lyrics from yesterday’s Make-Believe Machines song:
“Fallen Shackles of a Weathered Jouster”
“You’ll notice about 80% of all the hits that have ever been out in the marketplace — they follow a traditional song pattern, which is verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, and out.”
“We are like Pavlov’s dog as listeners.”
“And every time you hear a song, look at Billboard and say ‘Oh, that’s so-and-so and they’re chart number 32.’”
“You know how you write better songs? By listening to other people’s hits.”
“What happens when you get in your car in the morning and you turn on the radio and there’s a new song on there and it’s got a 37-second long intro? You change the station, don’t you? You think it’s an instrumental song! What the hell station am I tuned in to here?”
Shackled to a dead horse, long over-beaten
He jousted in the dense fog of the walking comatose
His lance did splinter, now wrought with repairs
But the blunted end has proved more useful
Freedom sparked at dawn’s edge
No commentsMake-Believe Machines: “Fallen Shackles of a Weathered Jouster”
Well, Tuesday is the release date of Moral Calculus. Many thanks to those of you who have been listening so far. There are only two tracks on the album that Rob and I haven’t yet published here, and one of them is this piece.
Here, on the album’s second track we deal with the reasons we write the way we do, rather than in the typical, commercially appealing verse-chorus-verse format. Generally, we think there are musical structures that more accurately represent life, which is what we’re all writing about to some degree. Sometimes life swings around and repeats itself, but other times, we learn and progress from position “A” to position “K” without stopping back at “A” again. Aside from that, having the same lyrical point and riff beaten into your head four times within three minutes can get annoying, much like the parent or other authority figure that told you the same thing over and over again because they thought you were too stupid to remember it. There are enough musicians adding to the heap of commercially formatted music, which, while not necessarily bad, is a bit boring and depressing, considering the vast amount of other structural possibilities. This, of course, isn’t anything new that we’ve invented. It’s just something that has fallen out of the popular eye, likely due to the fact that it isn’t instantly appealing or foot tapable.
So here in “Fallen Shackles of a Weathered Jouster” we lament the prevailing goal of monetary profit at the tragic cost of compromising originality. Yet, by its end, we celebrate our freedom from a dead horse long over-beaten.
“Fallen Shackles of a Weathered Jouster” by Make-Believe Machines.
No commentsMake-Believe Machines: “What the Wind Whispered to the Wheat”
Well, we’re now only one week away from the release of Moral Calculus and here for your shining ears is the final track on the album, which connects directly to the backside of last week’s “Thin Glass Islands on a Clouded Sea”. To get the insect and vehicle recordings for it, Rob and I wound up driving out to the place where Bradford Johnson and I totaled his car by hitting a deer at 55 mph several years ago. There were no deer this time around, but the insects feasted heartily on my pants-enclosed legs. The next day I noticed literally about thirty bites on my body. Was it worth it? Hell yeah, bro. Listen to this sweet-ass classical $#%*. (Also available on Facebook.)
“What the Wind Whispered to the Wheat” by Make-Believe Machines.
No commentsMake-Believe Machines: “Thin Glass Islands” Lyrics
Here are lyrics to yesterday’s Make-Believe Machines track (listen here):
“Thin Glass Islands on a Clouded Sea”
We stowed our hopes into the brightest of dream clouds
And locked them inside our fathers’ wooden ships, cloaked in old shrouds
We struck out across dark waves, straining to make precise of the vague, ancient orders
Searchlights cut the deep
Distract, blindingly
We stare or we sail on
The truth shifts through cracks upon a twisting landscape
While the clock sprouts legs and darts away
Twenty years at sea, and at times it seems we’ve found it
Penned down and circled on our ragged parchment
Through trial and revision…
Well, we can discern some of the dangerous waters,
but the safe realm seems to elude us
We tried to find firm land but the map was too blurred by red ink
We freeze up or we sail on
It seems the land’s thin glass / It seems the trees drink glass
We slip on crack-filled planks
Our minds all draw us blanks
We tried to find the truth, but our ship was too weighed and sinks
No commentsMake-Believe Machines: “Thin Glass Islands on a Clouded Sea”
Well, here we are at the final portion of the album. This week Mr. Ogden and I are presenting the most prominent vocal track on the album. Seeing as though we have lyrics for this one, I likely don’t need to explain the tale behind it. Listen here or on Feastnook.
“Thin Glass Islands on a Clouded Sea” by Make-Believe Machines.
2 commentsMake-Believe Machines: “From Grove to Thicket, Hasten Thee”
I’m becoming rather reliable with these postings now. This is frightening. Just as I promised, here is the next (eighth) track from our upcoming album, Moral Calculus, available September 2nd from our Web site, www.makebelievemachines.com.
When naming these songs, Rob and I had a bit of an unspoken contest to see who could come up with the lengthiest name. I came up with “Punctured Placenta and Post-Birth Peril”, he came up with “The Tragedy of the Sprite, Dragonfly, and Crow” and it only escalated from there. So yes, Rob, you win. Your title is the longest. It’s so long I had to truncate it for the title of this blog post. The full track name of this seven-minute journey is “From Grove to Thicket, Hasten Thee – O’er Root and Under Tree!” The exclamation mark has clearly been inserted to display the joy he feels for having triumphed over me. Listen here or at WhoNeedsTheSkyWhenIHaveTheInternet.com.
“From Grove to Thicket, Hasten Thee – O’er Root and Under Tree!”
by Make-Believe Machines.
Make-Believe Machines: “Spiders Savor a Succulent Fleshfeast”
Although Rob and I originally posted a rough version of this back in January, we are much more pleased with the final product. Why? Because it features a choir of my heavenly voice, obviously.
The writing of this song began as a sort of dry joke. A super-dramatic action-movie-esque piece injected into a mix of otherwise pretty serious orchestral music. Originally titled “MI5: The Death of Tom Cruise”, the violin melody was pulled straight from an old Cardboard Canary joke song called “Hymn of the Demon.” We used to play it in ‘hardcore’ venues where shaven-headed men brandished their barbed-wire tattoos while threatening to kick our amps in half. All of them eye-shadowed and spike-necked vainly attempting to make up for the size of their drug-shrunken genitals. Sad.
But from that lonely place of macho despair, the track built into something of a hybrid between joke and interesting experiment in repetition. Just how many times can we repeat the same guitar riff and keep it interesting by layering other instruments on top of it? Well, count and tell us. Oh, and if you’re saying “What’s with the ending?” please cut off your mouth immediately. The ending sounds odd because it connects directly to next week’s track. It’s like a cliffhanger…only without characters you care about in any way whatsoever. But we know you’re still dying to hear what’s next. Listen here or at SocialWhore.com.
“Spiders Savor a Succulent Fleshfeast” by Make-Believe Machines.
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