Category: Music

At breakfast yesterday with my husband (okay, I’ll admit it: we had “breakfast” at 12:30 p.m. and it was pizza), we were listening to the classic rock music pumped over the restaurant’s sound system and talking about songs that would be fun to play.

We got on the topic of Rod Stewart and he brought up, “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy.” We agreed that neither of us would ever be able to hear it again without thinking of Mike Myers’ rendition of the song in “So I Married An Axe Murder,” complete with bagpipe solo.

Which, of course, reminded me that I can no longer hear “Come Sail Away” by Styx without thinking of Eric Cartman from South Park singing it:

So what songs can you think of that are inextricably linked in your mind to a silly version that came out later?

It had never occurred to me to write about this topic, but then Grace posted this on Facebook today:

Of all of the types of music you might expect me to admit to liking, there's one I'll bet you'd never consider: traditional folk music. It's true – the queen metalhead herself has a soft spot for songs like "I Gave My Love A Cherry."

My mom used to sing it to me when I was a kid. It was in lullaby rotation with the theme song from "Branded," among other odd choices.

My mom wasn't a hippie – she was already married with a baby by the time the Summer of Love rolled around. No, the whole folk song thing can be laid squarely at the feet of Burl Ives.

We had an extensive album of Burl Ives singing folk songs that included "Tam Pierce," "Foggy, Foggy Dew," "Leather-Winged Bat" and other aged traditional tunes. And when I say album, I mean album album: a book full of 45 rpm records in separate sleeves.

Because the music was perfectly suitable for kids (except for the fact that some of it was rather depressing), we listened to the songs a lot when I was growing up. You can imagine how excited I was when I first saw "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." (Needless to say, I didn't know about him ratting out his friends to the House Unamerican Activities Committee until much later.)

So even today, I'm happy to stop and enjoy a traditional folk song now and then. Even at the risk of being overwhelmed by patchouli.

Even though my husband is (always) in a bunch of different bands, we've been looking for a project we can do together and I've been responding to ads for bands that need a lead singer. So far, nada.

Responding to Craigslist and Backpage ads is like trying to find a band by tying a message to a helium balloon and setting it free. (See also: placing Craigslist and Backpage ads.)

Most of the ads have deal-breaking parameters for the singers they want, such as "male" and/or "ages 16-20." One particularly offensive ad contained the line, "No chicks, unless you want to hook up." I wanted to reach over the Internet and throat-punch that guy.

Because I have unlimited access to a recording studio, I'm working on
making a personal demo CD by singing over karaoke tracks of songs I
like. Last night I recorded "Heartbreaker" by Led Zeppelin and "You Got
Another Thing Comin'" by Judas Priest. The idea is for me to do a dozen or more and choose the best ones to put on my MySpace page. I don't know how helpful a demo will be for me, but it's one of those "why not?" kinds of projects.

While I was going through old photos last weekend I ran across the set list from a band I was in called White Hot, in 1989 (the height of my blonde, she-mullet days). I showed it to my husband and we started thinking about the possibilities for putting together a "hair metal" cover band with the guitarist from our stalled original project, who already has the perfect look.

Here's a picture of White Hot. You can click to embiggen for the full, grainy detail.

Fun fact about my White Hot days: I went by the stage name B.C. Irons (B.C. stood for "blonde chick" – I was so progressive back then) in the late '80s and early '90s. When I met my husband, he called me "B.C." for the first several months until he got used to my real name.

So anyway, the hair band is one option, and I'm still responding to ads from time to time even though nobody ever contacts me back.

One way or another I'll keep singing – even if my only audience is my husband and the studio cat.

* * * *

Update: What do you know? One of the bands actually e-mailed me back. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Last night my sister and I met up with a bunch of my Twitter and blogging buddies to see a free Night Ranger performance at Old Shawnee Days.

We were standing close to the front and I had my camera, so I took a half-dozen or so photos of the band. Most of them ended up being pictures of Brad Gillis because, as my sister put it, "Hello! Two free tickets to the gun show!"

Lookin' good, Brad, even in my blurry photo!

Here are a couple more that aren't quite so bicep-centric.

We had a great time. The band was tight and knew how to work a crowd. Our Old Shawnee Days insider, @benasmith reported:

which made me retrospectively like them even more.

I was hanging out with Cagey the other day and happened to mention that I'm "auditioning" for an original band this week in the form of taking two of their songs, writing melodies and lyrics, recording my vocal lines over them and e-mailing them back.

She thought it would make an interesting post if I described my songwriting process. I was pretty sure I'd written such a post before, but a little Lijit search revealed that the one I was thinking of was back in 2005, so it's probably not too soon to revisit the topic!

So here's the songwriting method I've developed for myself:

• Listening to the songs over and over and over again. I have them on a CD in my car and they're loaded into iTunes on my home and work computers. The background music to my life this week has been two tight, instrumental, progressive heavy metal songs.
• Waiting for inspiration. With that much repetition, eventually a proto-melody line, some lyrics, or both will eventually work their way into my brain. These particular songs have not come easy, but I finally have a melody line for one of the choruses and a few words are starting to make their way in. Once I get even one full line of lyrics, I'll know what a song is about so I can proceed from there.
• Charting the song structure. Before I can write lyrics for the entire song, I need to know what parts are there, how many measures each part lasts, how many times each part repeats, etc. I also need to decide what's a solo (no vocals) and what's a bridge (different vocal part/melody). For that matter, I have to decide what's a verse and what's a chorus! I have no formal musical training, so the notes end up being a combination of the ABACAB structure and hash marks that represent either bars or measures, depending on what I'm trying to accomplish.
• Listening to the songs over and over and over again. This time around I have Microsoft Word open on my computer and I'm typing in lyrics as I think of them. There's a lot of stopping and starting. There's also a lot of editing going on, especially because I tend to try to jam in too many words and I always need to strip them back during the review process. I'm singing quietly to myself throughout.
• Singing the songs at full volume. This is a vital step because it's very easy for me to write a song for myself that I can't actually perform for one reason or another. Believe me, I've done it often. At full volume, I can tell where I'm going to have problems with phrasing, certain vowel sounds, transitions, etc. Then I can take steps to fix the song before I waste time trying to record something I can't pull off.
• Recording the vocal tracks. Here's a little secret about me: I hate singing in the studio. The microphone is in a weird position, the vocal booth is stuffy, it's hard to put my lyrics where I can see them and sing at the same time, and I'm always picky about how well I can hear myself versus the backing tracks in the headphones. I drive my husband (the studio engineer/producer) crazy. Still, this is the vital part, so I'll bite the bullet and do what I can to get the songs sung as close to what I had in mind as possible.
• Nitpicking the production. After I'm finished singing, my only role in the finished product is weighing in on the effects that are added and requesting a note correction here and there, which can either mean re-recording a part or having it fixed with software.

Today my goal is to start the third step and make my way through the rest of them to where I can record tomorrow afternoon or evening.

Of course, the band may not like what I come up with. They could meet me and decide that I'm too old, fat, etc., even if they like the songs. Who knows? Either way, it's good practice and a fun creative outlet. Wish me luck!

My husband and I have been kicking around the idea of starting another original band – possibly this summer. I'm sure I'll still keep the cover band, but I miss writing and performing my own songs.

In the meantime, I've finally gotten around to doing the Facebook "fake band" album cover meme. Here was the result:

Here's what you do, if you feel like playing along:

1. Go to “Wikipedia.” Hit “random” and the first article you get is the name of your band.
2. Then go to “Random Quotations” and the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3. Then, go to Flickr and click on “Explore the Last Seven Days” and the third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4. Use Photoshop or some other image editor to add text and make it look cool (obviously I don't have any graphic design skills at all).

In case you're curious, a Leptocoma is a type of bird and the full Benjamin Disraeli quote is, "The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own."

After about a year with the band, my husband has decided that he's had enough.

He's struggled at some of our gigs with the effort of playing four rock sets and hauling gear, too. One time he got a leg cramp right before a set started and had no choice but to play the whole thing in agony.

He's 51 years old with diabetes and high blood pressure. He's not in good physical shape by any measure, so it's not too big of a surprise that he's having a hard time with the rock and roll lifestyle. He's ready to concentrate solely on his recording studio and leave the live music behind.

So now we're in the midst of auditioning drummers. It's painful. All auditioning is painful, whether you're the audioner or the auditionee.

The thing is, my husband has been a professional drummer all his life. He spent more than a decade as a studio musician in Nashville. He once toured with James Brown's Famous Flames. Even though he's older now, he's still an excellent drummer with metronome-like timing. Replacing him is not going to be easy.

As much as I'd like to talk him into staying (and I probably could), I don't want him to stay just because of me. He needs to listen to his body and do what's best for him.

I just hope the search doesn't go on too long. My husband will probably have no choice but to play at least some of our December gigs. If we're lucky, another great drummer will step right in after that to start out the new year with us.

So my band, Earthquake Jake, made it through its first two gigs this weekend.

Good things about the experience:

• Enthusiastic crowds. On Friday night, someone inquired about hiring us for a Halloween party. Spyder, Kanga and A Librarian hung out for all four sets on Saturday. Thanks, guys!
• I also appreciated my sister, Zen Zone Chick, coming out and bringing one of her neighbors even though she was sick. Hope you can stay longer next time!
• The band sounded pretty darned good. There were a few minor mistakes, but no trainwrecks. In general, I was impressed with how tight we sounded considering that we've only had our current bass player for a few weeks.
• I learned how to set up the PA and lights by myself.
• Money!

Less-than-good things:

• The crowds were smaller than I would have liked. That was partly
  because the bars in question were a good 30 minutes outside of town.
  Still, I invited well over 100 people and it would have been nice to
  have seen more than four of them.
• I'd forgotten how unpleasant it is to play all evening in a bar where people smoke. All my carpeted speaker cabinets smell nasty now.
• The smoke plus my cold or allergies (or whatever it is I have) started to affect my voice by about the third set each night. On Friday night, we had to skip "Famous" by Puddle of Mudd at the beginning of the fourth set because it's really high and I didn't think I could hit the notes.
• We weren't able to use our full PA because either the crossover wasn't working or we didn't know what we were doing when we tried to hook up the sub. We'll have to get that figured out between now and the next gig.
• On Friday afternoon, I spent $96 on speaker cables alone. At $100 per night, it's going to take me months just to break even.

We're taking break from band practice this week, but we'll want to learn another four or five songs fairly soon to beef up the sets. A couple of them were a bit short of the ideal 45 minutes, even though they each contained ten or eleven songs.

It was really a lot of fun to get to perform again. I'm looking forward to booking more gigs – closer to town, ideally – and keeping the band busy until the weather gets bad. Now I just need a better rock wardrobe…

All summer long, I’ve been buying songs from iTunes and combining them with music I already had to create mix CDs to listen to in my car. Since a few people have been asking me about my musical tastes, here are my Summer 2008 mixes so far:

Disc 1:
Megalomaniac – KMFDM
Symphony of Destruction – Megadeth
Hold On – Korn
Side of a Bullet – Nickelback
Ten Thousand Fists – Disturbed
Breath – Breaking Benjamin
Walk – Pantera
Engel – Rammstein
How Long – Hinder
Painkiller – Judas Priest
Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With – King Crimson
Blackout in the Red Room – Love/Hate
Stuntman – 24/7 Spyz
You Could Be Mine – Guns N Roses
Animals – Nickelback

Disc 2:
All My Life – Foo Fighters
Heading Out To the Highway – Judas Priest
Shine Down – Godsmack
Peace Sells – Megadeth
Last Resort – Papa Roach
Stupify – Disturbed
The Stone – Ashes Divide
Psycho – Puddle of Mudd
Hell Yeah – Rev Theory
Heroes – Shinedown
The Trooper – Iron Maiden
Sikamikanico – Red Hot Chili Peppers
Almost Honest – Megadeth
Fire – Scooter
Down With the Ship (Slight Return) – Scatterbrain

Disc 3:
Cult of Personality – Living Colour
Famous – Puddle of Mudd
Hold On – Korn
Before I Forget – Slipknot
Under the Bridge – Red Hot Chili Peppers
Animal I Have Become – Three Days Grace
When I’m Gone – 3 Doors Down
Everlong – Foo Fighters
Fire – Jimi Hendrix
Between the Hammer & the Anvil – Judas Priest
Nothing Else Matters – Metallica
Mona Lisa Smiles – Jane Child
Trigger Happy Jack – Poe

My tastes aren’t 100% hard rock, but that’s what I like to listen to when I’m driving, especially in nice weather. Any suggestions of what I could buy with my remaining $10.17 of iTunes credit?