Foot Fist Cowbell

Foot Fist Cowbell may only exist because of a Will Farrel sketch on SNL years ago that made "more cowbell" the new "Free Bird!" It's one thing to say something needs more cowbell and an entirely other thing to actually make that happen. Not so much a dare but an extended mostly not serious exchange of such jokes that prompted me to put this together. After I committed to the project and put up a demo, I took a suggestion from my friend and added a shit-ton of side stick for the hell of it...

And then a week later I added the guiro.  

The Weak Force

Couldn't sleep and trying to finish a project that should have been done last week so of course I'm messing around with other things. Started with going over some of my earlier tracks to make them a little more listenable, part of which was fixing the distortion on a bass which sounds pretty bad.

I couldn't get anything to work, so as I often do when a sound is giving me shit I subbed it for a piano so I could keep moving forward, then started running it through the distortion fx chain. This gave me the idea to start a new track where I would run two pianos through guitar cabs and distort the living crap out of them until they basically sounded like guitars... which is how I ended up here.

 I've also been thinking about a pair of songs called "The Weak Force/The Strong Force" that will compliment each other utilizing similar motifs and contrast using song sets from opposite sides of the spectrum. This is an early clip from a demo I'm working on for this project, still working out the parameters, still trying to get a handle on the distortion.




Also, wanted to say thanks for everyone who enjoyed the intro for the Christmas Pod. The feedback has been mind-blowing. Thanks to everyone who dropped an email or mentioned it on twitter or even thought it and haven't gotten around to telling me yet. It means so much.

Clear Lucid No

Trying to put a couple of things together here.  Gooey melodic synths for lying in bed and staring at the ceiling as you drift off into a daytime sleep, and a floor rattling bass line that buzzes the carpet under my feet when I play it on my computer here at home... one of those things that reminds you that music can be more than just noise.

I originally intended to put some wobble bass into this but once I got to the point it didn't really work with the vibe I was going for so I went back and used the temp track that was keeping the space for the wub warm...  that's just how things work out sometimes.

Clear Lucid No by Remedial M-Theory

Brap Lubba Boom

This is the second time I've collaborated with my dad on a track and by far the most fun I've had making music.  He's been retired for a few years and taking it pretty easy, as he should, but he always comes through when I want to work with him on some music.  All I have to do is get the ball rolling and wait for whatever awesomeness he comes up with.  Then he has to wait for me to put it all together.  Next time we do this, it's going to be something completely insane... that is a promise I can keep too.

Brap Lubba Boom by Remedial M-Theory

From the Vault - Quebec Charlie

I initially wrote  Quebec Charlie  in 2006 for the closing credits of  a film project I had been percolating for some time.

Oh yes.

It's true.

I was an aspiring filmmaker, but that was before I started writing music.  To this day there are far too many people in my life who only know me as an aspiring filmmaker and keep waiting for me to put away this silly music hobby so I can get back on the horse and fulfill their dreams of knowing someone who made a movie. 

But I digress...

Quebec Charlie is either interesting or uninteresting (depending on how you look at it, I suppose) because it demonstrates one of my heaviest musical influences outside of my parents, Clint Mansell.  If you don't immediately recognize the homage or tribute then you'll never know what the hell I'm talking about, but that would only put you in the vast majority anyway.

Just Like Everyone Else

Remember today.  This is the day I literally became the last person on Earth to get into dubstep.  It was only a matter of time before I did something with it.  I've been avoiding it because it's so damn ubiquitous and in my own limited experimentation I've never been too impressed with my results.

Dreamed is a recent test sample I did as an example of down-tempo dubstep.  You'll get what that means when you hear it.  This is a very early version of the track so it's not completely polished but that probably goes without saying... it's the old "work in progress" shield from potential criticism, I suppose.  What can I say?  I gotta stick with what works for me.

Dub gets a little tricky with my setup, mostly because it kills the living crap out of my CPU.  Also because it just kills the living crap out of my CPU.  That aside I've also recently switched the way I wub which has been problematic.  Initially I was using automation maps to control the amount of wobble I was putting on instruments (I did this on the X-Gays Podcast intro) at any given time.  This can amount to hundreds of clicks of a mouse for a pattern that is only a few bars long and every little change you have to listen to and test before you can be sure of anything.  Massive pain in the ass.

But it was a fantastic learning experience that helped me realize just how frustrated I could get with a music project before I wanted to chuck my computer out the window.

I've since moved on to a much more practical process which takes much less time and I can hear the effects as I create them but this has its equal share of problems since my mouse is complete crap and doesn't always seem to believe what I'm even doing most of the time.  All this means is I need a new mouse and I can quit my bitching.  That or a midi controller with a nob I can link to my low frequency oscillator.  I really should get with the program and update my hardware... this USB abacus while hilarious isn't really doing anything to help me.

But I digress.

Dreamed is a very simple demo track and my first attempt at wobbling with my shit mouse.  Listen carefully and you'll hear when it sticks a few times.  The idea was to put it into something where one would least expect it, which is getting harder and harder to do, I think my moms church choir is doing dubstep...  But as it's a demo there is only a temp drum track and the levels aren't quite right and even though it doesn't do much, I kind of like how all the sounds come together.

The X-Gays Podcast Intro

"The X-Gays is a monthly podcast dedicated (mostly) to all things X-Men, hosted by two very, very gay men - Jason Brock and Brian Andersen. Each month Jason & Brian dive into Marvel's X-Men family of comic books to offer gleeful reviews, oh-so-colorful opinions, a special spotlight on a beloved x-character, an award-worthy dramatic reading, and a special look at one non-X-title."
                                                                                                                           -TheX-Gays.com 

Episode 10 opens with an all-new theme song featuring the voice talents of Jason Brock singing to music made by yours truly. I've never done anything with vocals before, luckily Jason did all the heavy lifting in that department writing his own lyrics and creating a vocal melody that took the music I wrote to a whole new level.

It's a huge relief to see this one escape into the world, it's been in the works for more than 6 months. I guess this could be considered a nod to dubstep (sort of) but mostly I just wanted to make something light and fun for the guys. I used low frequency oscillators simultaneously on a bass AND treble synth which is something I had never tried before. Jason and Brian contacted me at just the right time as I was in the midst of a house music fury and they wanted a track that their listeners could dance to.

UPDATE!: well, this one only lived for 3 episodes but that is because Jason Brock has left the podcast to be on X Factor.  break a leg, Jason!

From the Vault - Gunning for Jimmsy (2007)

Originally completed in 2007, Gunning for Jimmsy from the Wormfood album was at the time about as close to rock as I could get.  I was always entranced by the Guitar solo in The Ramones "I wanna be Sedated" and wanted to take a shot at something like that.  I played with panning the sound around to give it a little oomph beyond the repeated one note because try as I might it was hard to be satisfied with the results.  That's what I get for trying to do something specifically as opposed to letting it happen organically.  Between the simple baseline, one note guitar solo and the presence of absolutely no chords whatsoever in this song,  despite my efforts to hide the raging minimalist inside it still manages to sneak out from time to time.

I don't like how the soundclick player looks so if you really need to hear this song you're going to have to do it here or click on the song title above.

Blast from the Past

Tell 'Em Steve-Dave brought back the original TESD: Overkill "Creeped" theme for episode 111.  It's one of my personal favorites so I really enjoyed the chance to delve back into that one AND my kids got to reprise their roles with their creep voices.  Everybody wins... here come the nightmares.

Right Ming Agenda

It was nearly a year ago that Bryan Johnson chopped up a single episode of PuckNuts and put together every utterance of the word "right" by Ming Chen and played it in an episode of TESD.  It was particularly funny to me as I had at one time been working on a mix of Malcolm Ingram saying "essentially" on Blowhard but even for that I was going to have to use  nearly every episode he had recorded up to that point (it was a long time ago, I think there were less than 15 at the time) for it to be as long as this train wreck.  It was also pretty funny for... whats the word again?  Oh yeah... EVERYBODY.

Right Ming Agenda was slapped together at lightning speed directly after listening to episode 59 of TESD.
From time to time I would remember that I made it and wonder where it ended up.  For some reason I saved it in a folder for another project and pretty much lost it from that moment until now.  I can't tell you the last time I even thought about it though... Last night I stumbled across it while looking for something else and then spent the next twelve hours or so wondering if I should bother putting it up.

   Right Ming Agenda by Remedial M-Theory

No Sleep Till Provo

Had to do something to liven things up around here.  I told you I was going to start rocking again.  Now I'm off to the 3rd shift.  No Sleep Till Provo.

   No Sleep Till Provo by Remedial M-Theory

New Track - Goodbye

Goodbye is a remembrance of my Grandfather who recently passed.  Not anything I was planning to do but sometimes these things sort of happen.

   Goodbye by Remedial M-Theory

Work in Progress - Provo Noir

Something else that falls a bit more on the easy listening side of things.  I think I've been dreaming of elevators or The Fugitive or maybe both...  It's not quite there yet, not completely done with the middle section, really fighting the urge to put some cello in there.  This is one of those tracks that will keep me up for days with my mind working out what needs to happen.  We'll see how that works out.  Time to start rocking again.

Provo Noir by Remedial M-Theory

New Track - Sunrise

Been working on a lot of new music but haven't had a lot of direction... it's easy to get lost in your pseudo-work sometimes.  In the last month I've probably doubled the number of unfinished tracks in my projects folder.  No big loss I suppose.

Sunrise is the product of another insomnia fueled Saturday morning creative purge coming on the heels of a gray winter rain...

As of two hours ago, no part of this song existed.  It came together pretty fast, the only thing I don't like is the progression of the bass line, way too generic.  I'm going to let that stir in the brain pan today and see if that doesn't change some.  I created all the loops myself using Sytrus in FL Studio, which seems to be my favorite toy these days. 

   Sunrise by Remedial M-Theory