But hey! If you’re still looking for artistic stuff that’s happening at Wheaton, you can hop aboard Spacebus for everything music or enter The Bubble, an online culture magazine for Wheaton. New things and great things, if you know where to look.

From the Scholar Artist Suite, thank you and goodnight!

It was an experiment of sorts, trying out equipment and seeing what we could do. We ended up with a really nice sounding track, so here it is for you to hear -

We actually performed this live a few days later, so maybe I’ll get a video of that up here.

Edit: Here it is, sorry about the horrible piano sound.

I created this sound in Digital Performer that randomly swung around nearby pitches and randomly roamed around volume. It sounds how I might imagine ghosts sound.

Gonna Make You Understand...

Observe part of the test song, codename “RETURN”

RECKONER – [A.C.REMIX]

Radiohead has been doing cool, experimental things with their latest CD, In Rainbows, the most obvious being the pay-whatever-price-you-want distribution method when the CD first came out last year. They’ve had two remix contests now, with the song Reckoner being the subject of the latest one, which stopped taking entries mid-November. Radiohead releases these remix songs as seperate ‘stems’, meaning you get a separate track for each instrument ($1). These isolated tracks are the basis for the remix contest, in which people submit their stuff and try to get the most votes. Radiohead themselves will listen and pick the true winner (in time), though no such prizes announced yet.

So this is Alex’s entry! It’s got a nice, ghostly-alternate feel to it in comparison to the original, so I’d recommend listening to both versions.

For now, let me share this horrible creation Alex and I made in 2003 or something.
It is what it is.

Banana Bread

And may the future hold promise! Every Sunday night.

It’s not perfect, but then, nothing is.

The original to get familiar with:

There Are Much Worse Things To Believe In
Sung by: Stephen Colbert and Elvis Costello

Elvis: There are cynics, there are skeptics
There are legions of dispassionate dyspeptics
Who regard this time of year as a maudlin insincere
Cheezy crass commercial travesty of all that we hold dear
Stephen: When they think that
Well, I can hear it
But I pity them their lack of Christmas spirit
For in a world like ours, take it from Stephen
There are much worse things to believe in.

Elvis: A redeemer and a savior, an obese man giving toys for good behavior
Stephen: The faith in what might be and the hope that we might see
The answer to all sorrow in a box beneath the tree
Find them foolish
Elvis: Sentimental
Stephen: Well you’re clearly none too bright
Both: so we’ll be gentle
Stephen: Don’t even try to start vaguely conceiving
Both: Of all much worse things to believe in

Stephen: Believe in the judgment, believe in Jihad
Believe in a thousand variations on a dark and spiteful god
Elvis: You’ve got your money, you’ve got your power
You’ve got your science, and all the planets going to end within the hour
Stephen: You’ve got your dreams that don’t come true
Elvis: You’ve got the ones that do
Stephen: Then you’ve got your nothing
Both: Some folks believe in nothing
But if you believe in nothing
Then what’s to keep the nothing from coming for you

Stephen: Merry Christmas, Happy New Year
Now if you’ll forgive me there’s a lot to do here
There are stockings still unhung
Colored lights I haven’t strung
Elvis: And a one-man four-part Christmas carol waiting to be sung
Stephen: Call me silly, call me sappy
Call me many things, the first of which is happy
You doubt, but you’re sad
I don’t, but I’m glad
Both: I guess we’re even
Stephen: At least that’s what I believe in
Both: And there are much worse things

Lyrics courtesy of NoFactZone.net

And now, for those interested, the chords to the song, as written out by me. Sheet music, if you will:

There Are Much Worse Things To Believe In

(key is in Db major, later changes to Eb major)

[Intro]   Eb-7   Ab7   Db   Ab7

(ascending upper notes) Db                     Db+
Elvis: There are cynics, there are skeptics

Db6                                  Db7
There are legions of dispassionate dyspeptics

Bb (descending bass notes)          Bb/A
Who regard this time of year as a maudlin insincere

Db/Ab                                             Bb
Cheezy crass commercial travesty of all that we hold dear

Eb- (descending bass notes)
Stephen: When they think that

Eb-/D
Well, I can hear it

Gb/Db                                        Ab
But I pity them their lack of Christmas spirit

Db                                     Bb7
For in a world like ours, take it from Stephen

Eb-7           Ab7           Db
There are much worse things to believe in.

(same chords for second verse)

Elvis: A redeemer and a savior, an obese man giving toys for good behavior
Stephen: The faith in what might be and the hope that we might see
The answer to all sorrow in a box beneath the tree
Find them foolish
Elvis: Sentimental
Stephen: Well you’re clearly none too bright
Both: so we’ll be gentle
Stephen: Don’t even try to start vaguely conceiving
Both: Of all much worse things to believe in

Gb-                           Db
Stephen: Believe in the judgment, believe in Jihad

Gb-                                                         Db
Believe in a thousand variations on a dark and spiteful god

(key change)               Ab-                             Eb
Elvis: You’ve got your money, you’ve got your power

Ab-                                                                      Eb
You’ve got your science, and all the planets going to end within the hour

Ab-                              Eb
Stephen: You’ve got your dreams that don’t come true

Ab-                    Eb
Elvis: You’ve got the ones that do

F- (descending bass notes)
Stephen: Then you’ve got your nothing

F-/E
Both: Some folks believe in nothing

F-/Eb
But if you believe in nothing

F-/D                                                          Bb
Then what’s to keep the nothing from coming for you

(ascending upper notes) Eb                       Eb+
Stephen: Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

Eb6                                           Eb7
Now if you’ll forgive me there’s a lot to do here

C- (descending bass notes)
There are stockings still unhung

C-/B
Colored lights I haven’t strung

Eb/Bb                                             C
Elvis: And a one-man four-part Christmas carol waiting to be sung

(descending bass notes) F-               F-/E
Stephen: Call me silly, call me sappy

Ab/Eb                                        Bb
Call me many things, the first of which is happy

Eb   (descending bass notes)
You doubt, but you’re sad

EbΔ9/D
I don’t, but I’m glad

Db°                     C7
Both: I guess we’re even

F-7           Bb7        G-7      C7
Stephen: At least that’s what I believe in

F-              Bb7/E          Eb
Both: And there are muuuuuuch woooooorse thiiiiiiings

Done!

And hey, an NPR piece covering this song, where they describe it as “the negative image of a Randy Newman song.”

… And a very new year!

Have you heard?

Eric Strom, 23-year-old musician and brother of Wheaton’s own Dana Strom, writes a song every single day. He’s over 100 songs in. And in case you didn’t hear,

Welcome to the world of Daily Song. This is Eric’s official Introduction to Daily Song –

Somewhere in Brooklyn, Eric writes, produces and posts a full song for all to hear. This isn’t just an improv or an idea for a tune; it’s a fully fleshed-out and realized song. Besides the occasional guest, it’s all Eric on guitar, keyboard, electronic drums, other crazy sounds and vocals.

Eric Strom is this guy here, pictured with his mighty axe.

     One can only imagine the creative and technical fatigue it must take to so constantly and continuously create songs. I think the only reason Eric isn’t dead yet is that he keeps the journey fun. The style itself is fun, which can go the folksy route, the pop indie direction, the electro-synth road or the parody-filled path. Most of his songs are very catchy, with a happy riff that gets stuck in your head easily. Producing a song in 24 hours means working with what you have, so in Eric’s case, he has an abundance of electronic drums and synth sounds, with guitar (electric or acoustic) and vocals. It’s a one-man operation, so that just makes it more endearing (as well as down-to-Earth). The genre-jumping is also essential to make it work because no one wants to hear the same song every day, much less write and record it.

  It also helps that Eric has a healthy sense of humor. Most of it is silly, some of it just plain weird. Here are some song names:
- Music Today is Stupid (Day 46)
- OMG, Flies! (Day 71)
- Eric America (Day 78)
- How to Write a Bad Song (Day 15)
- My Friend gave me his iPod Touch (Day 100) 

  And here are some song topics:
- Being pulled over by cops in Vermont (Day 26)
- Two friends deciding to go to a party that may be haunted (Day 53)
- Unequivocally expressing happiness because Obama was elected president  (Day 67)
- An uncooperative anthem about turkey eating (Day 87)
- A bunch of people talking about being new to the city of New York:
New New Yorker (Day 74)

And of course with music, it only makes sense when you hear it, like the silly day 65 song. The only real themes of the songs are self-referential Daily Song things and electronic epics named after ‘Scubacopter’. He’s also got holiday themes, like a week’s worth of Halloween songs, a few Thanksgiving ones and some random election-related ones. Looking forward to the upcoming week of Christmas songs.

     One of the other draws of Daily Song is the Web 2.0 aspect (Web 2.0 is a silly term referring to the increasingly community-based nature of the web these days that hasn’t been seen before, stuff like Facebook). All of the Daily Song songs are under the Creative Commons license, which means people are free to use and share however and where ever they wish, provided they don’t make money off it and credit it accordingly. This is becoming pretty common with musicians these days who utilize the internet as their main source of publicity. Eric also has participation-based songs, such as Text Me a Tune Tuesday. People submit song lyrics and every Tuesday (except for the rest of this December) Eric will post a song with the best submitted lyrics. His website has an option to attach pictures, videos or cover versions for the songs for all to see. Eric’s also hinted at other participation projects, so everyone can be part of the music (yaaaaay!).

And hey, I got AN EXCLUSIVE interview with Eric Strom, which proceeds now:

Eric Strom is ES and I am ME.

ME - So. First question: What’s a typical day like in the life of a Daily Song writer?

ES – When I first started this project, I had no idea how much work it would be. I usually spend 15 to 20 minutes writing the song and a few hours recording it. Because of this I figured that I’d have plenty of time to make a website and tell people about daily song, right? Well.. wrong!

So far, my Daily Song Day consists of writing that day’s song, recording that day’s song, and making the website. I knew a little about technical website stuff, but I’ve had to teach myself how to make a podcast and a website. This was much harder than I thought. But now, I consider my podcast and website more or less done and so my Daily Song Day is transforming to add a new element: telling people about Daily Song – promotion.

It’s always the behind-the-scenes work that takes us most of the time. So, the bulk of the song-making is not the actual songwriting. How did you learn to write songs? How do you approach it and what’s your musical background?

I come from a really musical family – my mom plays the violin, my dad plays the guitar, my grandpa plays the clarinet, etc. My parents had friends over every week for Irish music sessions, all my siblings play instruments – music has always played a big role in my life. My dad started teaching me the guitar when I was about 6 , I started piano lessons when I was 7, violin lessons when I was 9, upright bass when I was tall enough…I guess my first songs were written at home with my brother and sister. I would play the guitar or the piano and we would write a song about my grandma’s birthday and then sing it to her – stuff like that. Then, in high school I got really into music theory and started writing more intricate and musically interesting music. I had a couple of bands in high school too, Space Band and Instant Michelle. We wrote goofy songs and performed them for our friends. In college I initially wanted to major in music. I took every theory class my small school offered, plus piano lessons, chamber orchestra, and other music history classes. Even though I eventually switched to science, I learned a lot about writing music during that period. I also had a band in college, Omega Coke Mirror. Both the drummer and the bass player were into weird time signatures and experimenting with recording so we wrote, recorded, and played many hours of music together. These days I tend to get an idea for a song at random times. I write the lyrics first and then writ music to accompany them. It’s hard to explain my process in detail. I’m constantly thinking of interesting patterns and guitar solos and melodies so I carry around a tape recorder for when inspiration strikes (I sing it into the recorder for later). Lyrics + expanded tape recorder music ideas = Daily Song.

Hope that answers your question.

ME – Ah yes, with some people you can tell that they’ve grown up with music all around them. As for musical (or any artistic) inspiration, I don’t think any musician knows exactly where or why their ideas pop up, but the important thing is to remember it when they do. With you and your daily songs, that becomes a necessity. Now, many people before have probably thought of the concept of writing a song a day. How do you think that challenge is made different in this digital age we live in? How would it work if this was 1995? Also, what software/hardware do you use?

ES – Yeah I know – doesn’t it seem like many people probably have done a song-a-day writing stunt before? After first thinking of Daily Song, my second thought was: I bet it’s been done before!

I played an open mic here in Brooklyn a few weeks ago. After I finished my first song (Day #11, That’s How it Goes) I told the crowd that I was writing and recording a brand new song every day. They actually gave me a round of applause. And then one of them asked out loud, “What do you do? Do you put up a video every day of you playing it?” This was a natural question, since I was the “daily song guy” in a room full of acoustic singer songwriters – I’m not sure if they would care for my Scubacopter Electronica-Epics. I just told them I used Pro Tools.

And I like your question very much, I guess I haven’t realized how much modern recording technology allows for Daily Song. However, some parts of Daily Song would still be possible way back in 1995. For example, I record all my acoustic songs live in the studio – no overdubs or audio photoshopping. I just setup a couple mics, one for guitar and one for singing, and just stand there and play it once through or maybe twice. I’m sure this is already incredibly obvious from my sloppy performances with no shortage of laughter and wrong notes. I just don’t have the time for doing more than one take, or on a good day, two takes.

On the flip side, I do some Daily Songs that couldn’t have happened in the audio recording stone-age of 1995. But let me address this from a different angle. I have always loved music regardless of it’s genre, and after seeing so many of my friends be this way too, I believe that this attitude is part of the culture of our college-age/young adult generation. I think that one of the first things about Daily Song that people notice is it’s wide range of musical styles – well I don’t think that I have some magical genre-switching power, I think I am just a natural product of our any-genre-is-alright iTunes generation. Ya know what I mean? So, I just end up seeing through the genre to the fundamental music beneath – good melody, good form from section-to-section, and the rest.

Anyways, this is made possible in a practical way by modern technical audio recording wizardry. I use Pro Tools and I’ve been using Pro Tools ever since I bought it with money I won from a creative contest from the MacArthur Foundation when I was a freshman in college (I tied for first place with a painting – I submitted a song, of course).

I am 23 now, and I was 18 then, so I guess that means I have been using Pro Tools for five years. At that time, 2003, the original M Box had just come out the previous year which Digidesign was saying “made Pro Tools available to everyone.” And that was true – it was available to me! After I bought that, I saved up $300 for a pair of low-end monitors, Alesis M1 Active MKII reference monitors (speakers for recording). I began with Pro Tools LE 5, but other than updating to the most recent Pro Tools 7, I still use an original M Box and all the same equipment. Unfortunately, it’s not a very impressive studio! The rest of my unimpressive line of gear is a five-octave M-Audio weighted MIDI controller keyboard. This is what I use to play the electric pianos, synth leads, organs, and all the drums. I use a Mexican generic Fender P-Bass for bass parts. For my acoustic songs, I use my mom’s old Suzuki guitar (she has bought a better one). Unfortunately, my acoustic guitar is a little broken, maybe from when I dropped it down the stairs when I was in high school. I need to use a capo on at least the fourth fret or it doesn’t play. That’s why my acoustic songs are capoed so high, controversially high. Lastly, my only decent piece of gear is a seven-string Ibanez electric guitar with custom pickups I added which are very bright.

OK that’s probably enough for now!

ME – Well Eric, we really appreciate your sharing about yourself and the Daily Song journey. Any last comments to you want to give all the listeners or all the intrigued?

ES – Here is my last word to the listeners and the intrigued: If you enjoy Daily Song, please help spread the word about me, the daily song guy! I am just a 23-year old independent musician. I have no publicist, no promoter, and no marketing budget – I am relying on word of mouth and grassroots promotion. Thank you so much!

And that was the last we heard of him. But we really do appreciate the well thought-out responses. There really is no ‘we’, also.

So that’s Eric Strom and his Daily Song project. It’s inspiring to see a fellow young musician trying to make it in this world with his own crazy idea and a great amount of perseverance. I wish him well and encourage others to follow his journey.

Other resources:

An audio interview with Eric – (Done on Day 10)

Example of an honest tune about time travel – Time Travel is Impossible (Day 80)

Example of an electric, brooding landscape – Fate of the Scubacopter (Day 96)

You can subscribe to the daily podcast with iTunes here.

And the snazzy official website for anything else you need, newly designed in celebration of the 100th song: www.ericstromsdailysong.com

And hey, we have a video of it too, with a little different audio and fancy colors.

(If the video doesn’t load, it’s here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnwg4QCkYhQ )

(Oh wow, watching this makes me realize how bad my wrists are positioned. Sounds good but will hurt)

That’s Mike Parham on guitar, Nick Adolph on bass and Master Skillings on drums.

I chose to do this song because it was friggin sweet. It’s just a good song and has some interesting history, which you can read up on here. Douglas Adams rules.

Here’s an interesting find – Radiohead playing a version of Paranoid Android that wasn’t finalized, with an organ solo and some minute differences.

So… anyone at Wheaton wanna give this kind of music a try?