Starving Artistry

A Radiohead Christmas

// December 1st, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Music, Uncategorized

Well, I’m still tracking some stuff for the EP i’m planning on releasing at some point. I decided on what key to play some of the songs in, tracked some scratch guitars, and tracked bass for one. I even remembered to tape myself playing the bass part so that I can possibly put together one of those “video song” things (don’t know what I’m talking about?).

Anyway, a couple of years ago, Matt and I were talking about recording a Christmas album to release to friends and family as a gift, and I still think it’s a fun idea. We had this pretty awesome version of some song going… but then my hard drive crashed. And now I can’t remember for the life of me what we were doing. So in an effort to recreate whatever we were working on, I started playing some different chords around “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

Then I realized the progression I was playing was very close to Karma Police by Radiohead, so I tried playing that chord progression on its own with the God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen melody over top. Worked surprisingly well… until the chorus. So maybe I’ll figure it out further, maybe I won’t. But it’s still kinda neat, so I taped it. Here’s Karma Police if you need reference.

Jammin w/ da Drumz

// November 24th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Music, Uncategorized

So today started off relatively nice. Met up with Annie for lunch at Panera…. partially for the company, but mostly for the cookies she owed me:

After all my work was said and done for the day though, I came back to get to work on some music. Was sorta workin on some new lyrics but I hit a writers block on that front… I’m afraid of recycling too many melodic themes and whatnot, so I called it quits on that and started working through some of the drum tracks I’ve been putting together.

Part of my “creative process” I guess, is to play along with the drum track after I’ve written it. It helps me feel how authentic it sounds, and gives me a better feel for the tempo and whatnot.  So tonight I taped my process and am sharing a clip of me playing through one of my new songs called “So you Say.” By no means a great performance, but for those of you who care, it’s a little insight into how I work through my songs until the final product is produced.

I’m kinda going for a bit of a retro sound. I dunno. Obviously all the songs on my EP will not be in this particular style, but I kinda dig it. I actually came up with the little melody for the chorus when I was visiting my sister in St. Maarten this past summer. It took until… August I think until I finally developed the rest of it. It came pretty easily to me, and as my Judo Chop guitarist Matt Berry says, “If it doesn’t come to you in 15 minutes, it’s not worth it!” Definitely some truth to that.

Anywho, Enjoy:

Pulling Up Some Old Material

// November 22nd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Music, Video

So while I was cleaning my room, I was looking through some old folders on my hard disk and found some old LOTC songs that we recorded back in college. And as I was listening to one, I realized it actually matched what’s been going on in my life, and how I’ve been feeling so I quickly recorded an acoustic version of it to share w/ y’all. Scroll to the bottom of the post to give it a good listen.

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Anyway, so I decided to try to record it on my new Canon 7d, but with now flip around LCD, it’s super hard to focus on yourself. I ended up throwing on my super cheap 18-55 f/3.5 – 5.6 lens, just ’cause I needed a wide angle shot to fit in the frame. I really think I’m gonna spring for that f/2.8 lens though…

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I didn’t even play through the song before recording it so there’s definitely a couple of points where i was guessing and hoping I’d play the right chord… afterall, I haven’t played the song since 2005!

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Anyway, check out the make-shift tripod i set up on my desk:

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Note that I used my floor samples (to outfit the theoretical basement in my theoretical house) in addition to a computer game (Quake Wars if you must know) and my postsecret books.

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Anyway, here’s the video and the song. Click on the link to the youtube page to hit up the lyrics.

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“New” Recordings

// September 23rd, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Music

Well, several months ago Orange Line went into the studio to record some new tracks. I wrote these with an emphasis on pop-sensibility, but you can hear how we try to make things interesting with tricky time signatures and whatnot.

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I’m finally uploading them so my friends can take a listen to them! I happen to like them very much, but it’s unlikely they’ll see any official release, so here you go… on my blog! Download them, listen to them as much as you like! All I ask is, just drop me a note and let me know what you think! Enjoy:

Free Music

// July 27th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Music

So I’m in the process of uploading older music to the site so people can download whatever they want, when they want, for free. Added a “donate” button for good measure.

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I’m thinking about adopting this payment scheme for my next project. More info on that in the future. Meanwhile, I’ve uploaded just about all of the Face to Glass material. Check out the link:

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http://blog.ben-powell.net/music