06-27-2005, 02:02 PM
Wow...this is cool...
Monday, June 27, 2005Song by Song
Song by Song
SHAKE IT OFF (Walkin' with the King o' Funk)
RB - Musically this began in my basement as did almost all of these songs. It was a straightforward funk number that I worked up with the Hip guys during the "Music @Work" sessions. When it came time to cut the track both Pat and Doug asked 'why would you want to change what Gord Sinclair and Johnny Fay have done?' Good point. Paul Langlois also plays the lead guitar line as I was holding down "the Jimmy Nolen thin sound".
CN - I once sat kitty corner to Edgar Winter on a flight. The man cuts some serious space with that aura. He fell asleep and did the head bob like any of us do. Here was a titan of the funk rock asleep and revealing the same childlike vulnerability we all possess. Robbie had this amazing James Brown-ish track to work with and we just switched the identity of the sleeper and imagined ourselves onto a new flight.
FULL FLOW ANGRY BOY
RB - Another basement riff brought to life by the Hip cats. Particularly note worthy and problematic are Paul L.s creepy guitar bends. Neither Craig nor I could satisfactorily recreate Paul's part, and we couldn't do without it, so we used the 'demo' and chopped it up to get the song structure we desired. Lyrically it stemmed from another of those conversations about what we find amusing and absurd about the contemporary music scene. This time Craig set his sights on the clichés of heavy as exemplified by 'modern rock'. I actually made a few lyrical contributions on this one though Craig put his delicate little foot down over my closing chorus lyric; "Here I sit - heart intact - Paid a dime - got a nickleback."
CN - There is a certain breed of rock musician who never outgrows the phase of life when you were really mad at your mom. You screamed and yelled and threw your wah wah pedal at the wall of your room and put a hole in the sheet rock. This is a bit of a tribute to the angry boy in all of us hairy rock adults.
NO ONE'S WATCHING
RB - Several years ago I got a Joe Pass Epiphone jazz guitar. An hour later I had the bulk of this tune, as if the music was trapped inside the instrument waiting to be kissed by a frog. We had been discussing pop music’s downward age trend and the domination of the airwaves by teen queens. It just seemed like it might feel good to kill one of them off in a song. Creepily enough some of the images Craig describes in the song’s 'tragic video shoot' did appear in one of those videos that there is no escape from (short of turning off the TV). The spoken word section is performed by a young gal who should be a teen queen as she has the required goods and writes terrific songs - Samantha Moore from Colborne, ON. Look for her record.
CN - The prefab pop teen can never escape the public eye until death. You are always painted with that brush. It must be worse than having the same role on a successful sitcom for too many years. People only know you as what you played on TV. We imagined a radio falling into the bathtub of a teen diva and sending her to heaven in a pop-up video dream sequence. I said to Rob, “It could be Britney Spears dying in a bath tubâ€
Monday, June 27, 2005Song by Song
Song by Song
SHAKE IT OFF (Walkin' with the King o' Funk)
RB - Musically this began in my basement as did almost all of these songs. It was a straightforward funk number that I worked up with the Hip guys during the "Music @Work" sessions. When it came time to cut the track both Pat and Doug asked 'why would you want to change what Gord Sinclair and Johnny Fay have done?' Good point. Paul Langlois also plays the lead guitar line as I was holding down "the Jimmy Nolen thin sound".
CN - I once sat kitty corner to Edgar Winter on a flight. The man cuts some serious space with that aura. He fell asleep and did the head bob like any of us do. Here was a titan of the funk rock asleep and revealing the same childlike vulnerability we all possess. Robbie had this amazing James Brown-ish track to work with and we just switched the identity of the sleeper and imagined ourselves onto a new flight.
FULL FLOW ANGRY BOY
RB - Another basement riff brought to life by the Hip cats. Particularly note worthy and problematic are Paul L.s creepy guitar bends. Neither Craig nor I could satisfactorily recreate Paul's part, and we couldn't do without it, so we used the 'demo' and chopped it up to get the song structure we desired. Lyrically it stemmed from another of those conversations about what we find amusing and absurd about the contemporary music scene. This time Craig set his sights on the clichés of heavy as exemplified by 'modern rock'. I actually made a few lyrical contributions on this one though Craig put his delicate little foot down over my closing chorus lyric; "Here I sit - heart intact - Paid a dime - got a nickleback."
CN - There is a certain breed of rock musician who never outgrows the phase of life when you were really mad at your mom. You screamed and yelled and threw your wah wah pedal at the wall of your room and put a hole in the sheet rock. This is a bit of a tribute to the angry boy in all of us hairy rock adults.
NO ONE'S WATCHING
RB - Several years ago I got a Joe Pass Epiphone jazz guitar. An hour later I had the bulk of this tune, as if the music was trapped inside the instrument waiting to be kissed by a frog. We had been discussing pop music’s downward age trend and the domination of the airwaves by teen queens. It just seemed like it might feel good to kill one of them off in a song. Creepily enough some of the images Craig describes in the song’s 'tragic video shoot' did appear in one of those videos that there is no escape from (short of turning off the TV). The spoken word section is performed by a young gal who should be a teen queen as she has the required goods and writes terrific songs - Samantha Moore from Colborne, ON. Look for her record.
CN - The prefab pop teen can never escape the public eye until death. You are always painted with that brush. It must be worse than having the same role on a successful sitcom for too many years. People only know you as what you played on TV. We imagined a radio falling into the bathtub of a teen diva and sending her to heaven in a pop-up video dream sequence. I said to Rob, “It could be Britney Spears dying in a bath tubâ€