Things I Tell Myself

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

Thank You, Mr. Briley

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.

A Slow Fascination

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

Stage Fright

...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

.

Explaining Myself

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.

Impasse

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 altogether. We're adults. We're supposed to be experts. But it's all about the feeling, right? The music can't lie. If you can't feel it, no one else will. It's time to learn, to school yourself. There are apps, tutorials, youtube clips...no reason to embrace the arrogance of ignorance.

Saying goodbye

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.

The Segue

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 (Gb?)

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 

Desperation Points

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

Would you rather be alone, or in a crazy relationship?

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

Retreat (never surrender)

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.

Musical Mother Tongue

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. 

The Waiting

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 :).

The plastic inside of us

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

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

Recently

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 are usually only that much, so I didn’t second-guess myself. 

I tried some hip-hop loops from pro-tools 11, 

threw on some bass, had my friend 

Kevin play some bone and replace the loops, and bang, it seemed done.

I then sent the song to a friend for mixing, 

but was having second thoughts. It went on too long. 

Another friend thought it was too repetitious. 

My mixing friend was missing his deadlines with me as usual, so I cut a slower version, working with a Saxophone/Keyboardist. 

Much funkier. Suddenly the urgency of rushing the song out was lost. 

Why? When I reflect on it, it is because I didn’t care for the overdubs. I appreciate friends helping me out, but they’re not always gonna treat your baby like it’s theirs. The Sax guy nailed the thing, and my love for the first version faded. OK, stack that one on the fire on top of the other bodies, waiting for mixing. 

-- 

Teaser

http://youtu.be/JkupZLf9jzU

Musicians are Idiots

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 ;).

Why Do You Make Bad Music?

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 ...

Traffic Islands

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

Taste Matters

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, dirty sounding things that just took my compositions to a whole new level. Playing with technically gifted people ain't enough. Particularly if they have shitty record collections. This was better than sex.

Shot Order

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 spinning solar system

framed by 

an indifferent universe

Writing

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 urge to make them public? Do they compel me to embarrass myself in front of an audience with them? Good. 

Now, I'm broke. These moronic NYC musicians want to be paid, regardless if it's only Nina and her friend that come to my "show." I must write more, use my guitar like a knife to cut something out of myself. 

Writing vs. Waiting

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 you feel as a singer that you can't fully own the rage that you've written- it's not in your palette or perhaps it's not true to your life experiences. I'm finding myself more and more ditching whole sets of lyrics when this happens.

Anyways, it's the metacognition that pays off. I rewrote several  completely new lyrics for the exiting music (keeping my all-time favorite albums in mind as a reference) and felt that I got the right balance of the kind of songs (first person narratives, prayers, work-chants, cathartic rants, etc.) that I'd like to hear on an album I'd buy. I put it on the shelf for a little more time to make sure I still feel this way later.

Some people feel that songwriting is some mystical non-reflective process, but as Suely Mesquita pointed out on the book we collaborated on, there's really two parts to creativity- the unconscious/inspirational part, then the learned, experienced, editing part.

You Invented Sex

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?

Cakewalking

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

In a Musical Way

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

Major Chords

"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. 

Vines from Hien (doesn't rhyme)

Nina's page:

https://vine.co/inkyviolet

from our show at Spike Hill

https://vine.co/v/MuHeXeX9eX7

Battle of the Boroughs...

....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/

Bob Gaulke ハード遊牧民 (Disco Nomads)

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