As I tend to do when I am procrastinating have free time, CW and I have been busy recently recording some new material. For those of you who do not know, CW and I played together in a band in high school. You can check out that band’s very tacky myspace page here. Since then, CW and I have recorded a few things off and on, and last week we finished a session at his house in Austin.
I have just mixed and mastered the first of one of those songs, called Weak. You can listen to it here at our other myspace page. And yes, I am embarrassed to say that I have not even just one, but two myspace pages. Warning to sensitive listeners, the song is pretty dark and contains two instances of, uhm, explicit language.
The story behind the song is pretty neat, however. Last summer (when I was in Boston), CW and I started to email song ideas back and forth to each other, and we would work on each others’ stuff. At the time, I was working on some electronica stuff, and he was mainly doing acoustic stuff. We weren’t really sure how to collaborate since our two genres were so different, but then we had this idea: recording a double EP, where one side is acoustic/folk and the other electronica/pop. The key was that the middle song would be a transition from one genre to the other, IE start out acoustic and switch to electronica midstream. Weak ended up being that song. After letting it percolate over the summer and fall, we finally settled on an arrangement we both liked during Christmas break, but didn’t get around to recording everything until last week. But the track is done—one year in the making! Hope you like it, take a listen, leave a comment, tell me what you think. I’ll hopefully finish mixing/mastering the other four or five songs we have and put them up before I leave later this month.
Over the break, my friend CW and I got together and did some recording. I can’t figure out how to get the upload thinger to work, so you’ll have to head over to our beautiful flashy and very much advertisement-filled myspace page. We actually have a couple of songs up there, the most recent is “Make of Us.” Take a listen, tell me what you think. It’s still a work in progress.
Well, I made it back from Boston and am back in Waco. I just had my first day of class in about five months, so that was kind of strange. And this is the first time I’ve been back in Waco for an extended period since pretty much last November, so that is kind of strange too. But it is really nice, I’ve had so much fun seeing everyone and catching up. And it’s nice not to have to be doing the whole “see you in a few months/never goodbye.” It’s almost novel to me right now to say “See you tomorrow!” On a different note, I am kind of concerned about losing the habits I picked up in Boston, such as reading constantly and making lots of music. I haven’t cracked a book in days now, and my guitars are sitting in my room, very lonely and confused. I hope I can keep up those hobbies as the semester progresses!
A few other things: I am converting my bicycle to fixed gear. There was a time when I would say “Fixies are stupid and dangerous.” And now I have one. So I guess that means I am also stupid and dangerous. It’s a pretty big project turns out, lots of little mesaurements to make and such. Hopefully it will be up and running by the weekend!
In my first class today, the professor asked me if I prefer “Robert,” at which point Christy and Molly both turned around with big puppy dog eyes, and I caved, and said, “You can call me Bob.” So, as far as Dr. Hanks and the rest of my Children’s Lit class is concerned, my name is “Bob.”
I found out a few weeks ago that my grandfather has cancer. He’s been doing radiation for a few days now, and will start chemo pretty soon. I am really nervous about it, because chemo is so rough. Also, my old choir director, who I was pretty close with, just had a brain tumor removed today. They found out about it last week, and he had surgery today. It looks like everything went well so far. Thoughts and prayers are appreciated.
And finally: I don’t know what’s going to happen to the blog right now. I am so busy doing stuff, and don’t have enough time to be witty and finely-painted and well-crafted and all that. So, if I post, I post. If I don’t, I don’t. And on that ambiguous note…
So, I know there are a fair amount of Bright Eyes haters our there (ahem, CW). And let’s face it, Conor Oberst’s voice is terrible a little rough around the edges. But I’ll be the first to tell you, that man knows how to write a good tune every now and then.
So, I am pretty much digging his new self-titled solo album (I know, I thought Bright Eyes was a solo project too). It’s got that great alt-country/folk/blues grit that I’ve learned to appreciate over the past few years (see: Wilco, Rocky Votolato, Mojave 3, Sufjan, Fleet Foxes, Iron & Wine, et cetera). If you haven’t checked it out yet, or were just thinking of writing it off as more of that “emo-folk-Bright-Eyes-crap,” well, check out the video below and then reconsider:
In other things I like right now, I just finished reading Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, which was hauntingly beautiful. Waugh is kind of like a British and Catholic version of F. Scott Fitzgerald, so that gets him pretty high marks on my list immediately.
He has a wonderful way of merging his Christian beliefs into writings without preaching, really blurring the line between sacred and secular. Which I think is not only beautiful, but very important as well. It’s kind of hard to explain why that appeals to me so much, but I think that the Christian artist shouldn’t see the world as off limits. Our spirituality is a really sticky thing, all wrapped up in this living that we do, and so art should reflect and express that. It’s like Coldplay’s new album. Even though it isn’t a “Christian” album, it certainly reflects important Christian beliefs and values. The last song has a beautiful line:
No I don’t want a battle from beginning to end
I don’t want a cycle of recycled revenge
I don’t want to follow death and all of his friends
In summary: Conor Oberst reminds me of a battered Fender Telecaste guitar, Evelyn Waugh is the man, and way to go Christ Martin for not boxing yourself in.
My name is Robert, this is my blog about my walk from Maine to Georgia on the Appalachian Trail. I am not afraid of bears, and since I have not seen Deliverance I am not afraid of that either. Read a post or two and leave a comment!
