APRIL 28 2024 TRACKLIST CHECK-IN:

Right now I have like 9 songs that are pretty close to done. And then like 4 that are barely put to tape.

HE MIGHT

He Might is probably almost at the finish line. I don't know if I like the bass clarinet take, particularly in the instrumental break. It also sort of disappears when other things are happening. A lot of these songs are not easy for me to sing, and I probably recorded these vocals years ago, so maybe they could use a new take?

BRANDS BRANDS BRANDS BRANDS

This one is pretty close too! I have new vocals that I have to edit or at least sift through. I want to see if I can do some (digital?) harmonizey things with them where I put another track an octave lower at types. I do not know if this will work, I will need to get Decabuddy running on this computer. I might need to redo the autoharp. I might need to redo the acoustic guitar for the 100th time. I might need to redo the electric guitar, or replace it with something else (synth?) that sounds nice for texture. I kind of am missing something in the higher registers in the choruses.

ONCE A DAY

I am probably not going to change Once A Day as much as I thought I might. I do think there's a lot of stuff I could do better on it, but I think I would probably just get cleaner takes of vocals, and woodwinds, and maybe guitar. Honestly I've been a little afraid of touching this because I don't have the harmonizer plugin on this computer yet.

MY BROTHER, HIS BROTHER, AND HIS

I recorded new vocals yesterday, and I'll need to sift through those. The old vocals were put through a lot of stuff, crazy spring reverb and soulcrushing compression & autotune, I don't really know if there's a reason why besides that it sounded cool. We'll see if they make the cut. I recorded the accordion solo and I wrote and recorded a draft of the glockenspiel too, but probably I should do that again.

MILLENNIALS ARE KILLING

Haven't touched this in ages either, I did some things to the drums, we recorded a tenor sax, I might have done another vocal but I probably didn't keep it. I'll have to look at this sooner or later.

GREY WATER

Oh MAN this one is sounding nice. Yesterday I did vocals but they will have to be sifted through. There's a couple things going on in the vocal, switching from one to many voices, jumping up an octave for a little bit... There's one trombone problem that I need to find a way to fix. I need to make a decision about this bass clarinet track too.

MAN INTO HOLE

Oh. Literally haven't touched this since I hit export 2 years ago. I think I could make the saxophones and mandolins a little nicer, and I could probably sing a better vocal. There was some percussion thing that felt a little off the last time I listened.

BAD JOB

Of the ones that are underway, this one is the most unfinished. Actually let me come back to this.

DROP THE KNIFE

This one emerged out of the aether last month, a song I didn't think I would ever finish writing or recording just because it has too many ideas. I slowed it down by like 30bpm (it now clocks in at a respectable vivace - 157) and somehow put a million acoustic guitars in it when it was primarily Casio-driven. It still has too many ideas - verses 1 and 3 are like a 4-on-the-floor rock groove, verses 2 and 4 are more of a 6/4 clave groove. Anyway this song sounds great and it's almost done - I'm waiting on some friends to get me vocals, saxophones, and violins. Back to what I was saying:

BACK TO BAD JOB

It is kind of a miracle that Drop The Knife coalesced because I had so much spaghetti to throw at the wall. Bad Job is kind of the same way, I have like 5 potential directions for how I want the verses to sound and I am sort of attempting to get away with trying all of them. There's a banjo that I love, there's persistent envelope-follower guitars meowing, I want the bass to be from a casio, but also on an upright bass, but also I have some bass harmony things that would only sound good on a bass guitar. I have plans for woodwinds and arco strings, I want a pipe organ in this but I don't think I'll get to play one anytime soon. This song would sound nice with xylophone - it's currently at my friend's apartment though, but it's in C major so I could play it on my tiny toy xylophone too.

I suppose it feels like a miracle any time a song gets written. But some songs need more provoking than others. It took forever to write the lyrics to Bad Job, and I'm not 100% pleased with them but I am very happy to have this song Written. Maybe it'll morph before it gets recorded. The sax solo is great but I wish I were a more expressive sax player, I wish I could really make it honk & growl. And the keyboard solo at the end is still only in my head, where it's been for like 5 years, so I should probably sit down at the synthesizer and start pulling it out of there.

WHAT ELSE

I have 4 songs that I am pretty sure I will finish for this project.

INTERNET GIRL (THE AARON CARTER COVER)

I haven't started recording this but I've certainly been playing it a lot more on drums in particular. I realize I want more of a Max Tundra feel in the percussion. I am not a good enough drummer to do this without manipulation. But I think if I sit down with like FL Studio and write out a drum track for me to learn and record then that's a good starting point. I should do that soon.

BABY DON'T WANT

Another that has been agonizing to flesh out - like with Bad Job, I have a little piece of this song that I think is strong enough to justify the amount of work it's taking to finish. I feel like I have a bunch of directions for the musical content of the verses all recorded but I haven't yet laid it all out as a Song. Daunting.

ASTERISK

Like with Drop The Knife this was one I was reserved to maybe never finishing but when spending time at a piano recently I laid this out. Very satisfying harmonically, nice and simple to play on a piano but I'm probably going to redo the whole thing on woodwinds. Slow and full of space, an outlier for me. Have to write more words.