Episode 2: Why the **** Am I Doing This Again?

FEATURING THE SONGS MIDNIGHT CALLER, A SONG OF SYMPHONY AND SOMETHING ABOUT YOU (A LEVEL 42 COVER)

    After further procrastination, I have finished the second episode (out of 30) of my video journal. If I had to give this week a theme it would be “pop with jazz influence”. All of the songs have a sort of “jazz chord” feel to them.

     One reason that this episode took so long to finish was because putting all of this together is a lot of work for one person. To be honest I have been debating on even continuing with this project. It is a hell of a lot of work! Just recording songs alone is a lot of work, let alone doing video that is sync’d fairly well to music and that has "sparkley". Also, I know very few people (relatively) are going to even pay attention to what I’m doing. The simple fact is that we are saturated with music in the digital age and I am one in a billion people putting stuff online. Although I think that I make pretty darn good music and am a pretty killer musician, I’m not really doing anything that hasn’t been done already. Perhaps I have a knack for combining elements better than a lot of artists. But, everything I do is derived from someone else and I don’t hide that or try to act with such arrogance that I am doing something “so unique”. In short, this is a lot of work for virtually no one to pay attention.

     Then I remembered that the reason that I set out to do this project was to catalog my music FOR ME and as a way to show respect for all of the songs that I have written in the past 20 years.  I also wanted to give a shout out to music that has influenced how I do things. Getting other people to pay attention is trailing both in reasoning. That doesn’t mean I won’t try to get people to watch, listen and download. But, getting the attention of others shouldn’t be a requisite to finishing this project.

     I have also realized that the 6 months to 1 year time frame is a bit unrealistic. Firstly, I will be taking 18 credits this fall in my last semester at the University of Wisconsin along with working part-time. That will be followed by finding a new career. To top it off my 1 year old beautiful, awesome, cool, funny daughter, who put herself to bed tonight (at the age of 1), will be taking up a big huge part of my time since her mom is in school too. I think trying to put 3 songs AND 3 videos out per week is unrealistic. At best I will be able to do that every 2 weeks and will likely be monthly.

     About the songs…..

MIDNIGHT CALLER – Song 04
     This song is one of my favorites. I feel that it shows how proficient of a multi-instrumentalist I am. I wrote this song in 1999. The first demo version appeared on a 7 song demo called, Liquid. I later made some changes and put it on my double disk album , Are U Human?, which was released in 2001. Damn…, that’s a long time ago… Anyway…

     There is obviously a HEAVY jazz influence in "Midnight Caller" and it would not be hard to “tone things down” and make it a proper contemporized jazz piece. There is also a heavy dose of prog-rock and some other stuff. The song is basically about a player facing "intimacy issues". To be honest, I wasn’t qualified to write the lyrics at the time for a few reasons. Therefore, like the vast majority of my music, it is not coming from an extremely personal place.

SONG OF SYMPHONY – Song 05

     I first “conceived” this song in the winter of 2009; right around the time that the video for “Better Learn to Swim” was shot. When I get a song idea, it is usually pretty structured. But, what was different was that I had a verse in mind first and no chorus. The lyrics are almost a scrapbook. Normally, I can just churn out lyrics. This one took a while. The lyric, “I never met a girl who could dance like you before in my head, I just hope I’m not your flavor of the week” was the first thing I thought of along with the verse groove. Although not a highly personal song, I would say three dating experiences helped the cause. Although the title of the song is a bit “metaphoric”, it was conceived of because it rhymes with one of the gal’s names. I decided to never use another woman’s name in a song, after "Gina Ann" a while ago because it sort of…, I don’t know…, immortalizes them to some degree (for lack of a better word).

     Musically, I think some NIN influence comes through at times (think “Sin” perhaps). Obviously, it is a pop song. But, once again there are a lot of influences combined. I wanted sounds to really hit and for the sonic structure to be intrusive. I think if the Virgo Vertigo played out that this would be one of my favorites to play live. I think that came through in the video.

SOMETHING ABOUT YOU – Song 06

     This song is originally by UK 80s pop group, Level 42. They’re currently celebrating 30 years (I think) and still playing out. Bassist/singer, Mark King, is bad ass. This song is one of my favorite pop songs ever. I love how the song is structured and the chord changes. It wasn’t until recently that I appreciated the musicianship as well. I chose to do this song because of how ingrained in childhood memories this song is. This is why you will hear a lot of music from 1980 to 1990 on this video journal; it is related to memories and perhaps this is therapy of sorts.

     I was 8 when this song came out. There is not one specific memory that I relate this song to. But, I relate it to feelings of the times. The cold war was still going on, I had just begun to play music and so my ears were becoming acclimated to sounds, and a childhood crush on a girl at Mendota Elementry school are some of those memories. It was on top 40 radio and I didn’t really buy tapes as a kid (until I started playing guitar). It’s really hard to describe the impression this song made. But, most of us relate a song to an era. If I've made you think back to your 80s past, you get it....

     I didn’t know that it was by Level 42 until 2 or 3 years ago because, once again, I didn’t buy tapes and I was forced to listen to what was on the radio because we were poor and whatever money I came by was going to toys (don’t get me started on toy flashbacks). But, rediscovering this song made me appreciate and stand by my opinion that the 80s had no shortage of great song-writing and musicianship. I will say that I feel that music from the 80s is the best pop music in terms of what pop music is supposed to do.