Hey y’all, over the holidays we had the idea to record some love songs from the golden fifties “Love Songs for Christmas”. The project was meant to be a little gift for our families and friends. Here’s one of the tracks we ended up with…a cover of ‘I’ve just seen a face’ by the Beatles. Enjoy!
we haven’t posted for awhile…not for any real reason in particular. Songs are still flowing and we’ve been doing some regular jamming with Nilo (drums)…live set definitely becoming more of a real possibility this year..YA!
Here’s a little ditty we whipped up August 11th in my livingroom. Todd just sat down on the couch and started playing this song outta the blue. I recorded the vocals later that day. Todd finishes the track with some awesome soundtrack-esque synths…worship the epic!
Store’s open foos, so if the spirit moves you, go on in via the link to the right.
This dance track has been a year in the making.
I liked it..then hated it, then loved it, then hated it, then again loved it, and finally came to the decision that yes indeed I did like it and was ready to go back in for another final mix. Of course it didn’t hurt that Todd was stoked for it and really wanted it finalized once and for all.
The process began on a regular Thursday jam session when Todd started messing around on the microKorg with some angelic church organ sounds. I was immediately hooked on the melody, and my vocal line pretty much copies it. But it is hard to tell in the final mix as the guitars took precedence…mainly because they push the song much harder and drive it home with their drilling lead notes. The beats took way too long to make but it was well worth it in the end. I was able to beef up all the bass levels consistently without peaking…this was in the hopes of a possible vinyl release someday…yum.
The lyrical content covers apocalyptic themes, family importance, introspection, and the fight to end all fights…the usual meanderings of my brain.
Hope y’all enjoy it…
I remember thinking this while rehearsing “The Bends” by Radiohead back in 1999 for a show at a local venue called Barrymore’s Music Hall. I think it was mostly because of my lack of focus when it came to music, and my reluctance to get stuck with the “cover band” label. We reheased and rehearsed, trying desperately to capture the same vibe as the original, while not paying proper respect to the fact that we had only one guitar at our disposal, and they had three available at any given moment. I struggled and struggled to get Greenwood’s style down in the lead areas and failed miserably in the end.
Such was life in rehearsal at the time. Hearing complex rhythm and lead progressions, and not being able to reproduce them live. Covers were a disappointment to my bandmates and I every time.
That being said, when Derek brought up this competition involving a cover, I was again reluctant. Along with our already busy schedule of writing our own songs, this was added to the plate. It ended up being a great exercise in DIY. We tracked the song in one day (4-5 hours) and shot the video below over one night and one afternoon. Total budget for the project… ZERO DOLLARS.
Dollars aside, Derek and I were both surprised at how this one kinda came out of nowhere. I sat down in a corner at his apartment with the microkorg, set the growling backdrop to the song in a couple of takes, laid down the guitar and bass, and then watched Derek lay down the vocals, drums and mix. I wanted to keep this one really simple, with live reproduction in mind. One guitar, one bass, some drums, some keys and some vocals. No insane effects, no three minute solos or extensive breakdowns. Just a simple beat, with some simple music. I think it paid off in the end, and would recommend to any budding songwriter to lay off all the bullshit trappings when you first start out. Stick to the basics, and play what you know…
Et voila! Sundown – Gordon Lightfoot
-Todd
Very recently our good friend Jacob Fergus, a highly talented photographer and all around visual guru, decided to shoot a music video for us. So over the last weekend we shot our first vid, with Jacob and Jamie Baird. Very simple premise, set to a cover of a Gordon Lightfoot song.
I’m going to post the %^&* outta this vid when ready.
We hope you enjoy it as always.
Long live DIY.
Toddles
http://www.standardvinyl.com/2011/07/08/songwriter-spotlight-derek-mckinley-and-todd-matsunaga/
Our good friends over at Standard Vinyl wrote about us!
Well, we got together last Thurs for our regular sesh… What ended up happening was an inventory of songs… So, we now have just under 40 songs under our belt. It was refreshing to give them all a listen, now that we had stepped away from them for awhile.
I decided it might be fun to put up clips of some of these tracks. I refer to a dilemma above because while listening to them, we also realized that we are all over the place musically… I remember someone once told me “Don’t write all these parts you can’t reproduce live.” While I agree with this to an extent, the thought of creating songs in a limited way bothers me. This is the catch of having the “whatever comes out comes out” motto. I’ll break down the songs below… Then please have a listen.
1. Borrowed Souls: Straight up acoustic song, Derek’s vocals soar in this one
2. Unaware: This song will become something else entirely for the album… Heavily influenced by sweeping northern landscapes music wise. May not do much percussion wise.
3. I have no idea (no title): I won’t lie… I’m a huge fan of Zero 7 – not a far stretch…
4. The Hill: Derek sampled a bass line of mine, and then mysteriously we both proclaimed “let’s do a Gnarls Barkleyish song.. Derek also took this one just shy of becoming a drum and bass song.
5. Minnows: The result of the purchase of a keyboard… Will be completely redone with a baby grand very soon! Had Dave Brubeck in mind on this one.
6. EZ: We wanted a campfire acoustic song… then beats got added and we got stuck lyrically, and musically. Won’t give up!
7. Stars Will Die: 100 percent will make it on the album. This one is all Derek. I recorded some organs, and some 8-bit arpeggios, came back to an epic dance track
8. Caved: More piano tests. I am not a pianist, but I can fake it sometimes. More along the lines of what we’re used to… a quiet ballad building into a huge crescendo.
9. Electric: all the guitar in this one so far is improv, so need to figure out some actual parts. Should be fun. Lyrics came from another track. I have a feeling the end product may not resemble the clip below…
10. Sleep on the Ground: There are about 70 versions of this track floating around. This one we loved, then hated, then loved, then hated… it loves us, it loves us not… Other versions have loud electric abrasive guitars. This one sounds like the theme to a video game
11. Torched: Again… a tough one. Previous version sounded too much like “Bizzare Love Triangle” to me, so discussions will be had…
Dilemma 2: Since it’s just the two of us right now, how the hell are we going to pull these off live!? Do we push on with limited performers in mind? Or continue adding parts to our hearts content. We are in recruitment phase right now. For another blog perhaps…
Anyway, here are the clips:
Cheers!
Todd
Well here it is, our journal’s namesake. This song started out as a small guitar piece with strings, that Derek reversed, and the result was the “death wave” of noise that happens at the beginning. Originally we had put in some really indie sounding drums, but later went with the more traditional sounding Pearl Export Series drum kit for beef, and one hell of a long sequencing session on my part.
I wanted to try to stay away from any sort of distortion on the guitar with this one. Not sure why, I think I just wanted the challenge of making a crazy guitar driven song, without laying on the fuzz. Just an acoustic guitar, with some light arpeggiated electric guitar over top. Derek is the brains behind the guitar effects on this one… like a gibson being played through a cathedral or something. Really cool.
Evening out the high end of the guitars is the severe bottom end bass from the MicroKorg…. At that point we didn’t have the luxury of a real bass, so I sat down at the keys and worked it out. We now have a bass guitar at our disposal, which helps, but I find the korg suits this one just fine.
I think the biggest challenge on this one was putting together the vocal harmonies from the middle to the end of the track. I am by no means a vocalist, and that made for alot of laughs, alternating the low and high parts.
Out of all the new ones we’re about to post, this one is probably the closest thing to “rock”, and it was alot of fun to record. Have a listen, and keep checking back for our newer tracks that hopefully will get the body moving.
Cheers,
– Todd
company of sharks 