Onto the cover....
I've emphasized the "metal" in this version of "Metal Heart." From the noisy drum loop to the biting guitar harmonics, it's certainly not the pretty original from 'Moon Pix' or even her bluesier version on 'Jukebox.' I did a version more akin to that original, but I might as well have flown in Mick Turner from Australia to do the guitars. This one's a bit different. As always, let me know what you think...
Download file here:The FMTana-"Metal Heart"
It was the best of shows, it was the blurst of shows>
No ground is being broken to say Chan Marshall is enigmatic as a live performer. Saw her at the Troubadour put on an amazing show after Moon Pix came out. (Probably one of my favorite Troubadour shows ever.) She was fronting a three piece. The issues were evident when the guitarist had to follow her off-stage to coax her back for an encore. Saw her a couple years later at McCabe's Guitar Store by herself, supporting her first covers album. With no one to keep her on track, she wandered through songs aimlessly. The audience treated her like an 8 year old at a piano recital, encouraging her with uncomfortable applause and shouting for her to keep plugging away. Not such an enjoyable time. Especially coming off the Troubadour show where she was astonishingly good. I haven't seen her in a while, but just from what I've read and from current eyewitness accounts, it seems she's not the same skittish kitty from those first few tours.She can pull off bangs>
There's no need to go into whether I think Ms. Marshall is a looker or not. She is a top shelf songwriter with one of the best voices on the planet. She is above such discussion. I will say this though: Most girls cannot pull off bangs. Chan Marshall can pull off bangs. I will leave it at that.If you could sing at my funeral>Yes, it's macabre, but the only thing I want a say in for my funeral, much like my wedding, is the music. I want to be able to pick the music. And I think there are a few vocalists who sound like angels. Or I hope angels sound as good. One is Mimi Parker from Low and the other is Chan Marshall. I'm not sure what songs I'd want from the Cat Power catalog. Maybe "Good Woman" or "Half of You" from You Are Free. I love her cover of the Velvets' "I Found a Reason." "The Moon" from The Greatest has some applicable lyrics. I think "Colors and the Kids" might be too much. (See below.)It must be the colors and the kids>"Colors and the Kids" from Moon Pix may be one of the most devastating songs in my library. It's an open wound of a tune. It's the simplest piano with the clearest tone. No effects. Absolutely clean. You can actually hear her take her foot off the sustain pedal at the end. And then there's the vocal. It's as utterly exposed as a performer can get on a record. And it's beautiful to behold. That song alone would make Moon Pix my favorite record of hers. Luckily the other songs on it are pretty incredible as well. Including the song I decided to try a cover of.
As usual, click the pic Up and to the Right for a few Cat Power selections.
Or "How I Went To a Foreign Land And Then Got Sick, So That's Why It's Taken Me So Long To Update."
I am not one apt to travel. I am instead one apt to settle in. So going time zone upon time zone upon time zone from home is not natural to me. And despite having a very lovely time, it was obviously not natural to my physical body as well. My body let me know that. And then after my body stopped kicking me in the body, the jet lag rolled up its sleeves and got in its shots.
But I think I'm through it. So onto Willie.
As I did with "The Secret" (see below), I took one of G.A. Studdert Kennedy's World War I poems, "Today Thou Shalt Be With Me", and crafted a song around it. I like this one, but it wasn't easy to pull together. As easy as the melody and arrangement came, the recording process was as difficult. Largely due to the culprit pictured above: the Beast. Because of it's aged electronics and makeshift construction, it's temperamental. I'll leave it at that. I did cheat in this exercise by using the title of Kennedy's poem "Today Thou Shalt Be With Me" as a sort of chorus and also in the coda. Although, since I came up with this exercise, I consider the rules to be fairly malleable to my creative whims. I might start working in Bill Callahan lyrics in the future. Whatever sounds good.
(And whatever works as a segue to "The Up and To the Right" section as I'm tipping my cap to Smog, whose influence is very evident in the sound of The FMTana. At least to me it is. Click on the pic for some tunes.)
And here's the Woodbine Willie tune I've been blah-blahing on about:
Download file here:The FMTana-"Today Thou Shalt Be With Me"
I have something in the works that I wanted to have done before I left on vacation, but it's just not quite there yet. So in the meantime, here are some indie summer tunes from '09 thus far. Go here.
1) Grizzly Bear - "Two Weeks"
2) ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - "Ascending"
3) Cymbals Eat Guitars - "And the Hazy Sea"
4) Japandroids - "Wet Hair"
5) Crystal Antlers - "Andrew"
6) Blank Dogs - "Tin Birds"
7) Passion Pit - "Little Secrets"
8) Harlem Shakes - "Strictly Game"
9) The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - "The Tenure Itch"
10) The Shivers - "Only In It For the $$$"
11) Jay Reatard - "It Ain't Gonna Save Me"
12) Future Of The Left - "Arming Eritrea"
13) Beirut - "My Night With The Prostitute From Marseille"
14) Suckers - "It Gets Your Body Movin'"
Slacking. Even with nothing to do. I'm not going to compose a big post on what this particular artist (Fugazi) meant to/means to me. Because it's basically one big idea that overshadows every other big idea: DIY.*
*this, despite the fact that i do have some very nice fugazi-related memories: like a large contingent of interested participants piling into my minivan and driving from syracuse to rochester to see fugazi play for $5 (natch), which was the first time i met one of my best friends from college and future roomie, paige.
Never has the concept of DIY been so effective and easily done than in the age we're living. I can record a song in my house with my computer and crappy guitars and put it on this blog and a kid from Utica, NY can download it on his computer. I have the means of production and the means of distribution. Not only am I a one man band. I am a one man recording studio and record label. Just like that.
15-20 years ago as an un-radio friendly hardcore band, it was a little tougher. There weren't mp3s or iTunes. There were 1000 7"s to be stuffed into 1000 hand-pressed sleeves. And mail. And word of mouth. And snow up to your teeth. Both ways. Uphill.
Still, no one streamlined the DIY ethos as effectively as Dischord Records. And because of them and Mr. Ian McKaye, we got a lot of great bands and a lot of inspired and inspiring record labels (Simple Machines, Merge, Teenbeat, etc.) Thanks up and to the right.
On to the tune...
I've been picking this one out on the Beast for quite a while now. I didn't stay true to the original bassline at all, which is the song's calling card. But my intent was that this version wouldn't lack the intensity of the original, even though it won't get 5,000 kids jumping up and down, pumping their fists. I think I like it. As always, let me know what you think.
Download file here:
The FMTana-"Waiting Room"
Years ago, I found an old book at my parents’ house called “Rough Rhymes of a Padre” which was a collection of poems written by G.A. Studdert Kennedy, a British military chaplain during World War I. Originally written in 1918, it was handed down through my mom’s side of the family. I ended up packing it up with me and taking it home. (Not sure why at the time. Maybe because the US had just invaded Iraq. Maybe because the lyrical form of the poetry was simple and appealing. Maybe a combination of the two. Don’t know.)
Kennedy was widely known as “Woodbine Willie” for his penchant of giving Woodbine cigarettes to British soldiers along the Western Front. His poetry largely focuses on those soldiers and the daily horrors they faced on the front lines of WWI.
For me, aside from the subject matter in Kennedy’s work, this project is a fairly simple one conceptually. Generally speaking, the way I’ve always written songs is music first, lyrics second. The “Woodbine Willie Project” is an attempt to do the opposite: lyrics first, music second, which, for me, feels almost as awkward as putting on shoes before socks. Hence, I would probably refer to this project mostly as an exercise, since I’m working some very underdeveloped muscles. Writing with my left hand instead of my right, and so forth.
Kennedy’s poetry works well for this exercise because it does have a naturally lyrical feel and is conducive to melody and structure. I picked Willie’s poem “The Secret” for my first piece for no particular reason. Aside from liking the poem and liking the vocal melody that came to mind. I kept it to 3 chords, which is very punk rock for the World War I era, but apparently Woodbine was somewhat punk rock as a pastor. He once told a congregation that “he would like to take a great sledgehammer and smash every stained glass window in the church, and then go out and celebrate the Eucharist in a field with a tea-cup and plate.”
As always, let me know what you think.
download file here:
The FMTana-“The Secret”
My cover of Archers of Loaf's "Backwash." Let me know what you think.
Download file here:
The FMTana-"Backwash"
Onto the cover....
