Bugolgi Apparatus

Let's pretend it's groovy Let's pretend it's alright Nothing comes from worrying Let's enjoy tonight Tomorrow comes the struggle Tomorrow brings fire Against trouble without blinking We fight for our lives Let's take another drink Sing another song Search for the humanity Amongst this twisted bunch Tomorrow comes the reckoning Tomorrow we meet god Dressed in our Sunday best Hearts warm with blood

Just finished a workshop with the very talented Martin Briley. He spoke of the importance of "melodic shapes", referring to vocal melodies. The penny dropped. In recent years I've been writing this sequence: Lyric idea -> Chords -> Vocal Melody Whereas he's suggesting this : Vocal Melody -> Lyric -> Chords Duh. That's why he has gold records and why my mom still helps me out.

to be ridiculous  fun to play with to work without reason Ice cream together Listening to our favorite music  It's very important Its where I get off  It's a trick  i know how it's done  It still holds I still do that I'm still there a slow fascination  measured in years

...suddenly melts away all at once. It's like I followed a breadcrumb trail back to my reasons for doing this and I'm at peace with all the psychological stuff. My musicianship has galaxies to go, but I don't doubt myself as I writer. I put lyrics and chords together. I sing the songs and that's enough for one person. Amen .

In Professor Rose's Music Appreciation Class... So...I've never made a million dollars. I'm a middle-aged dude with no money in the bank. Why do I write songs? It's obsession.

I've created workarounds. At some point, I learned that songwriters were not musicians, per se, but if one could fit lyrics, a vocal melody and a set of chords together, one could always find enough musical monkeys to make a song sound like a song. I used various metacognitive strategies after something would spill out of my unconscious- should I change the rhythm? Use new inversions? Change the key? The tempo? Pull my guitar out of the recordings? I'd like to think that I hid my tracks pretty well, although they all probably sound like my songs, regardless. Some chord suggesting apps have pro-longed the feeling of endless fecundity, but now, after 200-300 songs, I think I gotta finally surrender to the music police. I can't surprise myself anymore with my current knowledge base. This is where some people hang it up. Other people realize, this is where it's time to learn. The challenge with learning is that our lives move too fast at times to pause them or stop them alt...

It was a rocky relationship. It reminded me of a teenage romance I had with a fretless. I somehow got it in my head that, without theory, switching to a five-string bass would give me more possibilities. It was a sexy instrument; I liked looking at it. When I picked it up though, I got confused and stayed that way. Was the low B-string too fappy? Possibly, but no, it was rather that the instrument stopped being intuitive for someone who played by ear. I thought I'd be sad, but now I feel relieved that it's gone.

Like a mixtape, you try different orders and combinations of songs. "Am I creating a fully cinematic experience?" Your creativity works in two parts. You spill out the guts of the id, then the ego goes picking through the morsels, looking for bargains. You rewrite some choruses here and there. You reverse the entire ten-song sequence, imagining responses from an unknown audience. You fall asleep thinking you need to write two more songs in the third person to convey a much more certain sense of place. However, upon waking, you see that things have held together and your creative half hasn't received the word yet from your editor half that the turkey is done.

singing is embarrassing for adults kids on the subway won’t shut up singing is for children  yet somehow we never forget  static builds up everyday everything shocks us strange who are these singing people  what is this feeling that won’t go away we’re barely here  here in one piece conversation takes us   then we need to sing vibrating insides  to feel alive as the night spins dreams  that haunt our lives we grow up we put things aside we sacrifice for a productive life we remember being happy children then have them and educate them  residual effects remain in us we think of singing as entertainment but what if it’s as necessary as eating, sleeping, or love? Abm(maj7) | Abm9 | Dbaug | Gb G# | A#7 | C# | Gb7 Bb7 | F7   B7sus4 | Dm7 

you'll grow up  into these blues decades cut,  loneliness names you open your mouth  hear the sound your voice becomes  these songs about heartbreak  just guess pencil in the spaces  you'll later color in you desire experience alas,  there are no child prodigies  in this business decades rolling  with these blues for a few years  of best work you’ll return then  to the wind  to become a notion  for someone else

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUsk8ASkPcIvvQxg3HWu5pVQ&v=lP30lTBfnmU

These chords will not yield up a song. I'll go to bed early and attack them in the morning while they're still asleep.

I have no scientific basis for this; in fact books like This Is Your Brain On Music would claim it’s your adolescence, but I’ve noticed that when I’m working out songs in my head, my template seems to be the decade of my pre-adolescence (the 70’s) rather than my adolescence (80’s). In fact, I consciously avoid anything that sounds like the 80’s regardless of the fact everyone says my music reminds them of David Byrne or someone else (perhaps that’s just the sound of restless white dudes without a schooled music background. Anyways, for me the platonic ideal/default setting is mid-tempo funk with jazzy chords and horns and strings. Like everything on AM radio or Sesame Street back in the day. 

Will the mixing engineer do the work? Will the guitarist accept $300? Did you approach the right vocalist for the track? Can you afford you credit card payment this month, plus the effects boxes? Will your job leave you too exhausted to practice? Will anyone come to the show? Will someone other than your friends come to the show? Does any of it matter? Work in a way that doesn't leave you broke. If you're really compelled to do this, the indifference of most people shouldn't phase you. If you continue to improve yourself, be inspired by other artists, research, practice and question your practices, things should run (relatively) smoothly. I think only the writers last, though. It's too problematic to be a drummer or a bass player, schlepping around refrigerators for gigs for too many years. The back gives out. Writers don't have a choice, or many other options. They're fucked :).

our insides are legos try to snap me off I slip into a thermos leaving an oil spot I love your latex fetish it doesn’t go deep enough mile-long reefs in oceans compounds found in rocks drawn to sharp designs molded into love plastisphere spans continents orbiting planets as space junk unconditional, unconventional let’s block around the clock bullet proof,telepathic- the plastic inside of us

Pink Money I'm an artist You're an  Industrialist  We're the same!!! You with your money Me with my paint!!! We make things happen You with your factories Me with my openings I like the dinners  at your house My kids like to eat I'll give you validation  you could, ahem,  maybe buy something  I'll put you  in my work You could imagine you're me I'll work hard to  seduce you  Even when you see through me It's a virtual world of pain,  loneliness,  And poverty You could feel it for yourself In my painting On the bidet in your aviary  In a better world,  we'd be comrades in solidarity  In this world We play monopoly with pink money

So we had this argument in public  and we know each other very well-  we’re more like two cats playing  than a married couple.  And I go home angry and start writing.  On my itunes, I mostly have ripped obscure  indie soul singles from a friend from Chicago.  I hear a familiar two chord strut  that I can never seem to exhaust.  The lyrics come out as easy as  pulling the tape off a package: “Let’s have a contest/holding our breaths/the winner is the loser/of what you can’t guess/lucky if you had it/free as a child/if you never get it again/you’ll surely die/race to the place/who’s more grown up?/everybody lies /when they’re adults/too proud to beg/to scream and crawl/how long can you live/without love” And there’s been a riff floating around my head  for the last month and I take it down  and of course it’s only a few notes.  I read something once that suggested that memorable riffs...

http://youtu.be/JkupZLf9jzU

It's important to remember that someone can be a brilliant, incredible singer or musician and be the last person in the world you'd like to be locked in a hotel or van with. The level of emotional expressiveness, plasticity, and range that makes them great at what they do often means that they're less than polished in other areas of their personal development. The same cannot be said of a lyricist ;).

You're an intelligent person With a nice record collection Yet when you make music Something happens It's not a question  Of talent- Something meaner and stupider  Comes out of you I don't care if you're successful  So was hitler. When you put out a dumb vibration Life catches up to you You do a bad thing Like a corporation eating the planet And it becomes your thing  Against the world, beyond ridiculous Because your music Doesn't make something interesting It doesn't make  something curious  It confirms the worst in everything And it's very successful  You don't need the money You don't need success  You need to be able To live with yourself  because I can't ...

Amongst poorly  designed things We construct  relationships the world does  its thing we go about  our business all I ever need is you to be here nothing else matters take my passwords climates change rains cleanse left to your own devices and dreaming nights slow dancing  on broken glass  on the surface of a planet  entirely made of gas

I've played with a number of musicians in bands and as a solo performer. I know very little theory so I often rely on a more learned musician to be my musical director and inform me when changing a note or two in a chord would make more sense for an arrangement. I should be the worst musician in any ensemble I play with because I'm a songwriter, fuckface, not a musician. I had a recent experience where I started to recycle some old rhythm tracks àla Lee Scratch Perry, (never released band recordings of aborted songs), working with Marcos Cunha. Marcos is a damn fine multi-instrumentalists who's played with many A-list Brazilian talents. I've had the honor of having him on bass ukelele in my group, but here he was jamming on an assortment of synthesizers and it was nothing short of magical. We have very similar tastes in music and honestly, it's been a while since of played with someone of his caliber with his TASTES. Tastes matter. The lines he created were alive,...

close up of a mouth eating breakfast long shot of cars stuck in traffic cut to a man on a train scratching the scab on his face zoom in on you in the mirror putting on your makeup it’s serious pan to your ancestors tilling the soil  forward a millennia they’re sold as toys follow a conversation of a middle aged couple struggling with a handle  on a world they can’t control trying to feel romantic without a sense of desperation surrounded by advertisements for electric cars wide shot of a crowd leaving the subway  armies of phones glowing like insects we track a girl of nineteen texting her parents for money at this point in the action I do my walk on  evoking kitsch Russian ads for tampons I smile then I look in your face you scream and run away ( I give chase on my Segway ) zoom out as this song plays in the background life looks beautiful the world is cruel all captured in  ...

A new set of songs. I've written 300. Why write more? There are always new thoughts, new travels, new books, new people. I must expunge them from my consciousness. I contrive to write using various tricks: 1. Different chord sequences. 2. Different grooves/rhythms/tempos. 3. No nostalgia. 4. No imaginary romance. Without a theory background, new ideas come from listening to large amounts of music and an active dialogue with other music quacks. Ron Kane, Eric Gregory, or Suely Mesquita in my case. My late father and grumpy older brother, in other ways.  I cheat. I use software and books to tell me what chords fit in a key. I ignore them, then follow what feels rock and roll.  I reverse engineer a punishing melody until it leaves me alone.  When 10-12 of these nightmares are over, I try them in various orders and tempos and occasionally switch keys to suit my voice. I then let them bake for a few months, reappraise the songs. Do I have the u...

I just wrote a completely different set of lyrics to a song that I wrote a dozen years ago. When sequencing the album it was a part of, I realized I had to many of one kind of song- mopey coulda, woulda, shoulda numbers and that this balance didn't reflect the sort of work I wanted to put out. Although I couldn't articulate what was wrong with the mix of songs I had at the time, I knew I experienced an uncertain feeling whenever I listened to the sequence. I thought the problem was my vocal approach. After trying to sing one of the doomed songs a few dozen time, the slow realization that the problem was with the writing took seed. It's impossible to sing a poorly written song well. This also happens when the lyrics don't jive with the tone of the music. Sometimes you write something where the emotional tone is off- Georges Moustaki once write that good songs must feel true emotionally. Something hasn't jived between the lyrics, vocal melody and chords. Perhaps y...

Link:  goo.gl/DtZSEh  You Invented Sex (Gaulke/Gaulke-Corner-Prol) you were so bored you couldn't feel any more everything  fell into parts you felt so cold the work was hard so you  made something up you invented sex it seemed like a good idea though I had thought of it first you gave it wheels    think of the people hurting in this life that could be healed with this thing taking off their clothes getting so close  if they knew what would disappear you invented sex what a scary thing maybe it will never work maybe it's too weird touching each other dissolving all fear how could anyone return to their work?

put on your red dress I'll wear my pressed shirt meet me at the place I'll bring records we'll share the bread with yesterday's soup go on take the lipstick and those flat shoes we'll go cakewalking like our betters do they've got things we got moves cakewalking  on the avenue night throws off the day the mood's rising like the moon teasing appetites being the street life twisting the city  as we unwind putting everything beneath our feet dancing on our liberties hands in the pants of the city a swift kick after a squeeze

I want a life as bright as these chords I play I want to live my life in a musical way-- Birds singing, a milkman whistling, a fat happy maid Pancake-flipping oh yeah I go to work against reality Battling the world with my bare feelings My heart never leads me astray Just as long as I continue singing I'm playing the part of an underachiever In an out of town run that goes on forever You could be the disaffected lover Whose heart swells on an orchestra cue Dancing our way past the fear That anything wonderful's not real Harmonizing on a melody That worms its way into your dreams Spotlights, pink tights, alcoholics Costume, scenery, nervous breakdowns  We're switching scenes like hand puppets Up until the curtain comes down song link

"Life doesn't happen in major chords," said Martin Gore of Depeche Mode in an interview once. It’s a challenge to use them…to appeal to the universal without sounding too preachy, didactic, or too simple. If you stay small, the work lacks resonances. I don’t think there’s a formula to this, more of a recipe that is constantly reworked.   It’s knowing when to strike the universal chord that balances the whole piece. When you change directions of the tempest you’ve created. Yeah, so you bridge your most intimate, subjective experiences with the force of the powerful mathematics. That’s the meat of it. 

Nina's page: https://vine.co/inkyviolet from our show at Spike Hill https://vine.co/v/MuHeXeX9eX7

....I just entered this music competition on a friend's suggestion and was accepted in the first round. Although how many other rock/pop musicians there are in the Bronx, I doubt very many: http://www.thegreenespace.org/series/battle-boroughs-2014/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CErVlusaFr8