Books

The year is ending and I get kind of emotional about it, in a quiet reserved un-detectable way, but do to that sentimentality I feel inclined now to put in a small entry about where my head is at in relation to the things it's interested in absorbing.

On the book front I'll make it simple by just mentioning what I've got on the plate. I 'm about 3/4 of the way through Salem's Lot by Stephen King, and I've been holding there for about 7 months it seems like. I doubt much I'll finish it. People swore I'd go nutty for the man once i read something other than "the Shining"... I don't know, it just doesn't seem like it's going to happen for me, perhaps a different book will do it.

Independent People by Haldor Laxness, this is an Icelandic book which I'm certain I've mentioned many times. I am actually really almost finished, just like 50 odd pages or so, and it's a pretty big, difficult, for me, book. I have really enjoyed it though. My copy has a special purpose, which I'll get around to mentioning once it's fulfilled.

Omoo by Herman Melville set in the waters around Tahiti and on Tahiti so if you'll notice a certain geographical coincidence in my reading at this time you'll get the relevance of my reading. I'm about 1/4 of the way into this one, I print out 10 pages from a free site online, read them on break and then print out 10 more, in this way I hope to obtain the whole book in both brain and paper sometime in the year 2007.

The Last Cattle Drive by Robert Day I just got this in the mail last night, a gift from Ronnie. We had spoken about it on the phone early in the year, and he was kind enough to remember that and find it on amazon and send it my way. I've already dove headlong into this book, despite all the others I am currently in the middle of because it's just neat. So Far it's set smack dab in the middle of my old stomping ground, and was obviously written by someone from the area, this Robert Day fellow. I really get a bang out of reading about western Kansas, it makes me feel like I really came from a place that exists. Wonderful. Thanks Ronnie. More to come when I actually finish.

Ulysses by James Joyce I received this book in the mail this year, and I should have started it by now. Jason was kind enough to send it this way after it became apparent that I wasn't going to be able to take him up on his challenge to this year run the marathon with him. I want to do that very badly for the record. One day a big package arrives in the post, contained within was this book, inside it said, "Run a Different Kind of Marathon". Don't mind if I do.

How Could I Forget? And the Covers of Singe

I forgot one Singe song to be certain, though it never really hit it's stride until Plaything came to be. It's important to note this one, because it shows that Singe and later Plaything would take a break from taking ourselves so incredibly seriously that we would allow ourselves a little break from it all in order to let it all hang out, and when we wanted to do that, we'd jam on a special tune called "My Favorite Goat"

Starting with a country blues type feel, the lyrics, would seep with energy,
"lately something ain't right, somethings gone a miss, I can never sleep at night, without my goat to kiss"

there would be a build in the music and the first climax of the chorus would erupt,

"Woah, way oh, oh my favorite goat, Woah, way oh, oh my favorite goat, Oh my favorite goat my favorite goa-oat"

Stunning. From there it was an improve jam, usually going back to the regular verse pattern at least once more, to describe more in depth the longing that a lonely farm can feel for his recently departed favorite goat.

From that point the song could go just about anywhere, it was the one place that our band really felt at home improvising. While there may not have been any rules it was always strongly felt by all that we must hit a reggae section somewhere in the course of the jam. There were several times when "My Favorite Goat" would stretch long into the 10 minute opus field, at it always felt good.

We played a live version at our last show at the Old Abandoned Tupperware building, and since then the song has been at rest, except for an occasional solo jam, in the privacy of a bedroom.

Singe Also did our share of covers, I'll list them, for memory sake.

1. Shit List - L7
2. Sweet Dreams - Marilyn Manson version of Eurythmics
3. Off The Wagon - L7
4. Dead Souls - Nine Inch Nails version of Joy Division
5. Dancing with Myself - Billy Idol - Perform
6. So What - Ministry - never done live
7. Polly - Nirvana
8. Kill All The White Man - NO FX

Singe Again

So apparently Devin is on the Singe blogging train now too!! Very exciting.

Picking up with yesterdays topic, the dissection of the creation of Singe songs, but with the added benefit of a short conversation with Devin which has clarified for me a bit the early order of songs written. Yesterday I believe the order I laid out was correct except I forgot to mention the song "The Birth of Robert Kling". Which I believe we wrote right after "Cellophane", but it is possible that we wrote it just before "Cellophane" as well. Any whoodle. The musical part began from Joe, who I remember at the time mentioned it was inspired by the Ted Nugent song "Strangle Hold". My GOD! Nuge. Distasteful, but it was always one of my favorite Singe songs so I can't believe I forgot how early it was in the cannon. Devin's keyboard part in the verse is in my mind sort of a Devin signature part, he can feel free to refute that if he'd like, in his own blog. Lyrically I thought I was being very clever with the idea behind it. I had read in the paper that Timmy McVeigh had rented his Ryder truck of death under the name Robert Kling. I thought this was a fine idea for a song using the point where a persons actions through an alias make them into a person that they were not before... something like that. I also remember that I didn't remember the article all that well when I wrote the song so that for at least a year the song was called "The Birth of William Kling". Glad I looked it up again... that would have been embarrassing.

It's at this point that the song writing gets blurry for me, if I had my notebook from the time, which is alive and well at a box in my parents house I could probably figure things out pretty precisely. I am pretty certain that in the order discussed thus far that the song "Dying World" came next. I had felt the need for an acoustic sort of song, and so I wrote a chord progression for the verse, which Joe snazzed up with his usual palm muting and a nice note run fill. He and Devin then composed the chorus together in a rehearsal. Lyrically I like maybe 4 lines in this song, which is more than I can say for the rest of the songs up to this point.

At this time there also emerged a song called "1/1". I had a verse progression, which Joe of course played better than I did, which allowed it to become a song. Devin for his part got very creative with the DM5, making the entire build of the song up from adding in different percussion sounds as we progressed through it. I remember being so very thrilled with the way it worked and sounded. I told a good friend Dan that I believed we had found "our sound" in reference to "1/1".

Singe played exactly one outdoor show. It was a local music festival at the local college. We opened the show at noon. Joe and I had been so foolish as to not bring our amps, opting instead to go through our multi-effect units direct to the board. which caused a bit of a problem for the men behind the board. The real kicker though was that Devin had forgot to bring the DM5, leaving our drum sounds 27 miles away in Russel. Luckily Ronnie had the DM4, and was able to run home a few blogs and bring it back. All things considered it went better than the circumstance allowed, but I remember the Four of us feeling pretty defeated afterwards. SO much so that we drove the 27 miles back to Russell where we ended up rehearsing for several hours after we had played the show. It ended with us sitting with our instruments on the floor flushing out 2 brand new songs, "A.O.S. B.O.S." and "Step Over". Both songs came from a very organic sort of jamming process, except for possibly the Chorus to "A.O.S. B.O.S.", which I believe was a riff Joe had just been dying to use somewhere. For those of the curious nature "A.O.S. B.O.S." stands for Abs of Steel, Brains of Shit. OH MY GOD! The Horror.

Somewhere along the way, and for the life of me I can't recall where, there was a song called "Reach Inside", or as it was originally titled "The Hole". It was our only Drop D number. And that song, I am almost certain, there is no real recording in existence, barring maybe a live from video camera recording or direct to boom box rehearsal recording. Devin and I always thought it was one of our best though.

Towards the end of the early singe years, and just as we were starting to record the album that has recently resurfaced, "Transformation Through Decay", we wrote the song "Wrapped Around Your Middle Finger". I believe it's a Joe riff that started it, and that I'd wanted to use that title for a very long.

As far as I can tell these where the songs that make up the early Singe years.

From there things get pretty blurry, the songs at this point start to get a little less interesting and defined in my memory, which is odd because this is the point that Mike left, and Chris came in, which for me is the point in the band that I really love and cherish. Chris for me was the best thing that could have happened. He was so positive and excited to be in our band. He revitalized the entire process, except for somehow the song writing didn't really go much farther from that point. We learned all the old songs and began adding a few new ones, but for a strange reason none of them gelled in my mind as much. I would imagine that the lack of recordings of the songs makes up a large part of their diminished recollection, that and the fact that we probably were only making music together for another year at this point, therefore they didn't have near the amount of time to gel in the head the way the early ones did.

Of this time, my favorite, was a song called Peel, which we must have wrote right before Chris joined or right after. I really liked the song, but I don't recall much about it's creation.

There was also a song that I know we played live at least once, based on a riff a I had written, called something like "get away". I think the crowd at the old abandoned Tupperware building was asked to name it, and creative forces that they are came up with that...

There was a very heavy song Joe brought a riff in for, which we humored him in the creation of, I can't without the notebook remember anything else about it. Except it was so much heavier then the rest of us cared for.

So that is what I recall for the time being. That's it. That's four years of collaborative creation between five individuals resulting in 10 years later some blog entries and some old recordings. And at least 2 new bands. And all told something like 10 albums since then. That momentum that we started back then, starting with an awful song like "closed mind" hasn't been stopped yet.


So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

10 Years After (Singe)

So this week, since it's on my mind at it's kind of smack dab at the 10 year anniversary mark of that band called Singe, I decided I'll make a concerted effort to pay tribute in the blog this week and next when I have the chance by making a few notes about that time.

Today I'll start with, but I don't promise to finish, with a look back at some of the songs we wrote, and possibly the order in which we wrote them.

The first Singe song was called "closed mind". It was horrid. Vile. I had some impression in my mind that since my god on earth at the time Trent Reznor wrote all the parts in all of his songs that I would/should do the same. I forgot to take into account that Trent had a lifetime of musical training, where I didn't really even posses a define sense of pitch or rhythm. I started by selecting an appropriately annoying patch on the Alesis DM5, and went from there. The songs was really about as basic as could be. Luckily when I presented it to the band they were able to round it off a bit, to leave it just a tiny bit less annoying then it actually was. For the sake of sport, I'll give you the lyrics to the chorus.
"close you mind to the world outside, it's so much better when you don't have to try"
I'll stop , because it gets ridiculously worse from there.

I'm pretty certain the next song was "Something to Know about Edith". This time I had learned that I wasn't, at least musically, Trent Reznor, though lyrically I don't know that I ever figured that out during the years of Singe, I may have at one time mistakenly thought I was Maynard James Keenan from Tool. Anyway, "Something to Know about Edith" began A heavy palm muted verse from Joe, and then he and Devin worked out the Chorus progression together. For my part I just went along, and later playing what Joe was playing on the chorus and then learning a version of the verse riff so I could play rhythm while he hit his wah pedal solo.
The chorus began with the disaffected youth gibbel of "The way you live your life, I cannot understand..." wow... ew.

Next song up was what at the time we believed was our "big hit single", but in looking back it maybe wasn't, or it just didn't age well or something... The song was called cellophane, and I was pretty convinced it needed a good disco beat. I wrote up a really basic progression for the chorus and wrote some bad lyrics that seemed to be in the verses about a girl at school and in the chorus some plea for possibly that same girl at school to see the deeper me. OH MY GOD. I am gagging on my own teenage self here! What goes through the mind of a child? So I brought the verse chords and the lyrical idea, if you can call and abortion an idea, to rehearsal and I showed Joe and Devin and Mike, making sure to stress the disco beat to Devin, who for his part understood that beat all to well. Joe was fancy enough to add his recently purchased Wah Pedal to the chords in the song in a very nice way, thus reall elevating the accomplishment, then he went so far as to write the chorus progression, and thus "Cellophane" was began. Devin then insisted on adding a steal drum line in the verse. This was a battle. Joe and I found it aweful, Devin of course loved to play it. It took weeks to convince him not to play it, in the end Joe and I finally won that battle and he didn't play it. He would occasionally play it in rehearsal to get our goats, which it did rather well.

I start to get less certain at this point in the process which songs came next, we had by this point jelled to the point where we were pretty collaborative and comfortable with the idea of, how you go about writing Singe songs, so they stick less in my mind then those awkward first attempts at creation listed above. I can say I'm almost certain that the next song was "Microscope". Up to this point there is scant reference to Mike, that's because there was scant contribution from Mike. Mike had never played before, he was a friend of Devin's, I think from their jobs at McDonald's. He was struggling to even play what the rest of us were struggling to write. I had even been playing my instrument longer than Mike. With "Microscope" it was decided it was time for Mike to feel really involved, we insisted that he write a riff, and the rest of us would write a song around it... After some chiding he had a riff, but not one Joe felt he could play over top of, so rather than lower his personal riff standard he would let Mike play his little, Bomp bomp bom bomp bomp bomp bom part, then he would do the kind of echo the riff thing so popular it banjo duels. Eventually the two riffs would work themselves into one, and Devin would play on the old Casio sound module Ronnie had given Devin, then I would come in, with some no doubt profound lyrics about something or other. I will now reveal the secret that it was Mike's first song he had some writing in and it was called "Microscope"... get it? Mike-ro-scope!! Ha! I was sooooooo ahead of my time.

I think next was a song called "Anna 217", which was about nothing I had any first hand knowledge of. It was fun none the same. Joe wrote a neat riff, then I was thrilled to death with myself for writing a part that goes over the top of that riff in the intro, sort of even like a lead guitar part... except Joe was such a more accomplished guitar played that his normal verse riff had the authority of a lead part anyway. The chorus was taken from my "lead part" played in a lower octave, with Joe using Wah Wah as a filter and Devin adding really neatly dramatic Drum Hits. We were all pretty damn proud of ourselves when we finished that song.
I'll leave you for the day with the a bit of the lyrics, because I like to punish my self publicly for not working harder at writing lyrics as a teen.
"she'll take you places that you've never been, until you never want to come back again"

I might write more later, but as the song goes, I'm not sure, I never want to come back again for the time being.

Singed Hair Grows Back

This year for Christmas I received a gift that was pure dead brilliant. Devin and Ronnie went out of their way and did a great deal of digging and compiling and creating. The result was a copy of the Singe Album, Transformation Through Decay. Here is a little tid bit taken from this here blog, on
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
titled:
I am Under it

Singe "Transformation Through Decay" - A lofty and mainly un-finished project for the band Singe. This recording contained something like 8 songs which we recorded track by track in Ronnie's studio, Big Sound. This was my first ever opportunity to build an album from the ground up. We began with Devin tracking the drums on his trusty controller, triggering sounds and samples contained in his Alesis DM5. Next, possibly that same evening but I think occurring over at least one other brief session Devin recorded his keyboard parts. I recall Devin, Joe and I being present for the session. After Devin, Joe Expertly tracked his guitar parts with some overdubs for the solos, there was one disappointing moment where I recall Joe really nailing a solo, only for us to realise we had not actually recorded it, Lesson learned about making sure the record button is engaged. We still talk about the solo we lost between Ronnie, Joe and myself. After putting off the un-avoidable as long as we could we had Mike our bass player come in a do a session. He was horrible. I remember looking at everyone else in the room and being certain we were all feeling the same thing, that Mike was done in our band and that it was blatantly obvious. We rushed Mike through every song, One or Two takes each song. If he made a mistake we lied our asses off and told him it was a good take and that the little mistakes could be fixed later with copy and paste. No sooner then we could get him out the door we had Joe hook up one of Ronnie's basses and we re-cut his parts. Sometime around the time Joe did his guitar parts I recall doing a couple, one I remember actually being proud of, a rhythm guitar part on the song cellophane, having never really played or recorded with a tube amp it was a revelation for me to use a small fender that Ronnie had. The vocals were done In a few sporadic sessions. There were several attempts made to get final mixes that we were happy with, and I'm sure somewhere a cdr exists of these sessions, but I have not heard them since the year they were completed, and memory does not even allow me to pin point which year that may have been. While we were mixing the album things came to a head with our bass player, ending with him leaving the fine state of Kansas.

So imagine my complete total utter shock to learn that the master had been found. And that Devin had taken it up to make a cover for it and everything. In addition to that he gave me a wonderful present of the beginning of a Behind the Music style documentary on Singe.

This was an impressive gift. It had a pretty big effect on me. I was actually sort of paralyzed at first at the thought of having to listen to it. The first time I tried I couldn't really do it. I thought I remembered to well. And I had someone else in the room. Didn't help. So I watched the Documentary a couple times and thought a lot about it. Finally late last night I had occasion to run an errand, thus leaving me time alone in the car to take myself back without having to feel mortified.

The mortification it should be mentioned falls square on the shoulders of the lyrics, which I have to keep reminding myself were written by a 16 year old who really had a flare for over-drama. Once I got the lyrical embarrassment out of the way I was able to enjoy the wonderful gift I had been given. So much of it I remembered, and so much of it I didn't. My main surprise was that my favorite song was one I hardly recalled, entitled "step over". It is also nice to note that it was one of the last songs written for the album, thus possibly showing some definite sign that we were getting better at the craft.

The moment that I guess I totally got over any odd feelings that I might have still had about the whole thing came during a song called "Something to know about Edith". A song I had always been particularly unthrilled with. It was the second song we'd ever written actually. Last night when the chorus arrived, and as Devin had let slip, it was a drastically different version then the original, I had to pull over because I was laughing so hard. It was a really intense sort of energy channeling laugh, and my eyes teared up in a happy way that eyes sometimes have. In thinking about it I maybe never really got to finish all my feelings from that point in time. Devin mentions in the liner notes of the album he gave me that he never truly believed we'd make it, and I can see why he says that, but I did believe that we would. That was insanely naive, but in a way I wasn't wrong. Last week Devin sent me an article from the Hays Daily News, it had story about Joe Lanning and his new band. They play all over the area, and from the music I heard they are excellent. It seems like it's the kind of music that Joe always loved to play. I still get to play music with Devin, and I have made a new musical partner who has greatly expanded my boundaries. I've played in front of more people than I thought I would back then, and I'm now intensely proud of the art we've created.

Singe may not have ever sold a record (because we never really finished that one), we didn't ever play in a town other than Hays, and a new singe song will never be written. The present I received was valuable in so many way, Singe is gone, not forgotten. We did write those songs, and we did record them, I might be a tad embarrassed by the over drama in the lyrics, but I can except that I was a young kid with a lot to learn, and luckily I had people around who could help do just that. Now I'm a young man with a lot to learn and a lot to remember, luckily I've got people around to help me do that. Ronnie and Devin, I can't tell you how much I'm touched by what we did together at that time, and all you've done since, and what you gave me as a gift.

Work Work Work

I'm busy, but I've been meaning to post a few things, so since I'm hyper and I've been doing so much today I can't rest so I just have to do this because I can't stop.

Work has been happening with the band. Gig on Friday, not my best work. Gig on New Years Eve is over 2 hours... we will basically play every song we know. WOWZA!

Much more happening also. Saturday we went out to Seamonster, where we lifted some things that needed lifting, and ended up doing a microphone shoot out for Amy. It was as always a pleasurable experience. We tried an AKG C3000 and an Octavia 219, and 319. Hoag being so kind as to loan the best suited to us, thus we shot out those models and not the ultra high dollar no way in hell you degenerates are walking out of here with that type of mic. Get it? Anyway, I'm looking to make Amy track some vocals tonight for the b-sides to the Slut Buffet Mega Single. I also have a notion to do some guitaring this week.









One of the B-sides, Delay, which is brand new has been really fun to develop. It will be a real treat in my opinion to anyone awaiting new stuff from us. Here are some photos I snapped of Amy in lyrical development. She'll probably kill me.

You can see wine, Arthur and a lot of journals went into the process.

Here is Vincent, in the background on the TV is the title screen to the movie "Won't Anybody Listen" I believe it was the inspiration behind actually doing some work on this particular night.

Amy is a boy.

Two helpful kitties.















one not so helpful kitty.

My new Amp.

Sitting on top of my very first amp.

Food Cooked by Some One You Know

I'm hungry. Today we are celebrating Thanksmas at work. My boss woke up at 5:00 am and cooked a Turkey. I cleaned the kitchen at work for 2 hours. There is mas to be thankful for.

I just ate, it was wonderful. It's such a rare treat to enjoy a meal cooked with pride.

There is much to be proud of. My little sister, whom I adore, is currently finishing her last year of law school at Kansas University. Monday morning by way of instant message she informed me she had an interview with Kansas State Senator Janis Lee for an internship. Less than two hours later my phone rang, it was Odd, she got the part! I have been completely ecstatic ever since. I think I'm far more impressed and excited about it then she is. It means even more to me that she will be serving a state Senator who'd district includes my place of birth, our family farm, the city where I attended high school and college, and the landscape of some of my fondest memories.
Adrienne will be handling calls from constituents, and I assume relaying practical information about those calls to Janis. I like to imagine some old farmer from paradise calling her with a grievance, and Adrienne talking the matter very serious, and following through till the problem is solved. Way to go sis! Some one has to be there for the Kansas Farmer, they feed 192 and you.
Speaking of Farmers, apparently that and ranching was Janet Lee's profession prior to involving herself in the state legislature. That is impressive.

I'm full. I'm happy. I'm proud. Way to go people, lets keep it up.

On that note, SG has been back at work. It's been going smooth and easy. Sunday we rehearsed and I got to spend some real quality time with my amp. I ran it through a Marshall 4 by 12, and got to crank it a bit. Spectacular. I'm really going to enjoy the thing. I've named it Lilly.