I wrote about The Simple Carnival’s song “Effortlessly” recently. It seems to be a song that always gets a strong response, so I thought I’d put the whole thing on YouTube in case you haven’t heard it:
October 26, 2011
October 25, 2011
Trick #31: Thumbtacks
Do you have an anemic-sounding acoustic piano that ought to be disposed of?
Don’t throw it out until you try putting thumbtacks in the hammers.
Not all piano strings respond to thumbtacks in the same way. I did this with a handful of pianos, and, in the best case scenario, it can magically transform a poor-sounding spinet into Superman. This is the sound of the acoustic piano on the Girls Aliens Food album.
(Inexplicably, the better-sounding, higher-quality piano I acquired after Girls Aliens Food didn’t sound that great with thumbtacks.)
October 15, 2011
Trick #25: Take the alternate route
Sometimes it’s a sign.
I’m not superstitious, but sometimes things just happen and you’re forced to route around the damage in order to get work done.
For example, I’d hurt my right hand when making Girls Aliens Food and didn’t want to use it playing the piano.
But I still wanted to write songs.
So “Effortlessly” was written with my left hand:
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You can hear it in how the piano part is written — it’s heavily dependent on the left hand. ‘Cuz that’s all I had to work with at the time.
Many people have told me that “Effortlessly” is their favorite track on that album. I’m glad I didn’t hold off on writing songs that night.
When life happens, take the alternate route.
October 1, 2011
Trick #18: Write from scraps
Write a song consisting of bits of discarded demos. “Hey Lancaster”…
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…was written from the scraps of two different songs.
September 29, 2011
Trick #17: T-shirt titles
Could you imagine your song title being silkscreened onto a boardwalk t-shirt?
The title to “Really Really Weird”….
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…and most songs from the Smitten 3D project were conceived this way.
September 7, 2011
Trick #5: 24 hour album
Write and record an album in 24 hours: http://crapart.spacebar.org/aad/
I used a modified set of rules to create the Menlo Park EP as well as many songs on Sonic Rescue League Vol 1.
September 6, 2011
New song from The Simple Carnival: “Everything That Grownups Know”
Here’s a new Simple Carnival song I wrote called “Everything That Grownups Know.”
This song is part of the in-progress Smitten 3D project. I’m currently working on the 3D video, but I thought you’d might like to hear the song first.
The amazing Chris Belin played drums and timbale on this track. I played everything else (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, Rhodes, Hammond organ, ARP Omni, congas, clave, cabasa, vocals). There’s no samples or imitations of instruments here — it’s all “real” instruments, overdubbed one part at a time.
A digital download (mp3 and FLAC) is available at www.smitten3d.com/everythingthatgrownupsknow.
Even though the mix is a work in progress, purchasing the digital download entitles you to all future revisions of the stereo mix to this song, up to and including the final mix that will go on the DVD (or Blu-Ray, or whatever format Smitten 3D ends up on). When there’s a new mix, you’ll receive a link to download the new version at the e-mail address you used when making your purchase.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the tune!
August 29, 2011
Trick #1: The audio wand
Record noises, synthesizer blurbs, speech, or whatever weird things you can think of on a cassette recorder. Then find a cassette Walkman, remove the play head, and screw it to the end of a piece of wood, so you can hold it like a pen. Extend the wires that were attached to the play head and solder them to the same place they originally were attached to in the Walkman.
Now take the tape out of the cassette you recorded weird noises from, and cut it into 11″ pieces. Tape the ends of the pieces to a 8-1/2″ x 11″ piece of cardboard.
Press play on the Walkman, then run the “wand” over the pieces of tape for otherworldly sounds.
Run the signal through a delay unit with lots of feedback for even more surreal sounds.
I used this trick all over the place on the Menlo Park EP.
Click on the play button to hear an example of the audio wand in action.
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