This video has been in the works for the past few weeks, it was pieced together over several sessions when each of us had time to get together. I brought together Ryan Stiles, and Shep Shepherd for the first time to collaborate on a piece, although they were never actually out at the house at the same time. I basically built this track from the ground up starting with laying down several acoustic tracks to a metronome to get the structure set, and building from there with drums and percussion. After the drums were laid down I went over top with several Electric guitars which ended up taking the place of the acoustic tracks that I had started with. The second session was with Shep, who in a break from his busy school schedule ran out to the house and within one hour from his first listen got his bass down on the song. Ryan finished up the track the following week with his sometimes smooth, sometimes blazing hot sax licks. The sax, to say the least sets the song off, and really gives it a great jazz sound. I’m very pleased with the final product and hope to work with Ryan more. For never playing together before I think this piece was nailed by all involved. Let us know what you think, and please enjoy “Tiger Blood” responsibly.
This past weekend Mary Helen and I loaded up the car with the essentials, including 2 Djembes, shakers, tambourine, didgeridoo, and a guitar, and headed up I-65 to visit our beautiful friends Tiffany and Alex in their new home. We had a great time which included a couple nice walks, a cozy campfire, lots of music playing, good food, and better company. I took some photos, as well as some video that I edited into a short mini documentary of our trip. Take a deep breath and enjoy these tranquil images of our wonderful weekend away at the Zen Forest.
/r/Music on reddit.com hosted a song writing contest that I, along with my grandpa and Shep entered. It was a fun change of pace to create a musical piece within a set of rules. The basic idea was that the song had to be written within that one week, it had to be 2:30 – 3:30 long, and the “theme” needed to be Egypt. After an initial brainstorming session with my grandpa we decided that we wanted to try to make a catchy tune with a hook that appealed to the human aspect of the recent events in Egypt. We thought a love story told by a man who is trying to get in touch with his love interest who is in Egypt protesting would be a sort of universal story that many people could relate to. I began working on the music, and my grandpa started on the lyrics, by the next day I had recorded a verse, pre chorus, and chorus, as well as an instrumental break section, and my grandpa had a sheet of (way too many) lyrics. We sat down with both the music and lyrics and crafted the arrangement including 3 verses a couple hooks, and an instrumental break with no time to spare, our song clocked in at exactly 3:30. We sat it down for the evening and decided to pick it up first thing the next morning starting with the drums. I really wanted to get a good sound out of the drums because every good pop song has to have a driving beat, so I went all out on micing up my set. I put two large diaphragm condensers over top one pretty much facing down over the snare, and the other one off to the side of the floor tom facing towards the snare also. I miced the top and bottom of my snare, as well as each tom and the bass drum. I was really happy about how the drums came out, they sounded big and live, and really made the groove of the song work. We even decided to make some of the snare hits echo off like a dub sounding track, some were also reversed and echoed. After I recorded the drums to the click track I miced up the old Fender deluxe and did a few electric rhythm tracks and the solo. I overdubed many of the little guitar accents with the acoustic guitar, and rerecorded the entire acoustic rhythm track that i had pieced together from when we were first figuring out the arrangement. By this time the song was really starting to come together. We got the vocals on there and did several backup tracks with my grandpa singing harmony with himself. We had an idea to put some sounds of the protests in the song so I set up a mic on the tv and recorded the world news, there just happened to be one little spot where they had the crowd chanting with no reporter talking over it. I cut that section out and looped it and it just happened to fit exactly with the instrumental break of the song. It was great because right at the moment when the chanting comes in the music gets a little darker and I feel the mood of unrest is really conveyed by this change in the song. By this time Shep finally rolls in and gets to hear the song for the first time. I plug him up and he really brings the song together with a nice bass line, he really knows how to play off the drums in a way that makes the the rhythm of the song infectious. To finish it off Shep and I recorded our own backup vocals on the hook, and as an after thought we recorded my grandpa doing a Zappa-esque deep “yeeaaaa” on one part of the hook. I consulted Shep on some of the mixing and that was that. We had a great time creating the song, and we entered it in the contest. The voting on the contest was kinda whack and the community seems to agree the reddit system of upvotes and downvotes isn’t the best for conducting a vote. But all in all it was worth it because we are really proud of the finished product that we wrote and recorded in two days.
This past weekend was a blast! Saturday my buddy Shep came over and we started brain storming for a composition to record. Within an hour or so we had it fleshed out and began recording the acoustic guitar and Djembe as well as the bass. After those initial tracks were laid down we decided to pause for the evening and go into town to find some fun to get into. We met up with a group of friends at Mariah’s and indulged in hot wings and beer and enjoyed the company of our friends. After dinner we went Bowling and ended the night on a high note in anticipation of continuing the recording the next day. After mulling the composition over in my head while sleeping we decided to scrap what we had done the previous day and start anew with a slightly altered bridge portion. This was probably the biggest production on a video I have done yet. Including the drum set added quite a bit of work to the production side, but I think it really turned out well. I really dig the laid back jam in the middle where the trombone first comes in. The buildup with the cymbals really has a great vibe to it. We both had a great time collaborating on something together and hearing the song take shape in such a short period of time was very rewarding. Stay tuned for the next video I have some great ideas and collaborations coming up in the next few weeks!
On a whim my grandfather Jim and I decided to make a short video entitled “Sodepody” featuring a ukulele and a jug of moonshine whiskey. This was brainstormed, shot, and edited within an hour. This is our first attempt at comedy. Hope you enjoy!
The weekend is over, and I’ve kept my goal of making a new video every week of 2011. I plan to try to continue this pace as long as I can. This time I worked in collaboration with my grandpa, Jim Buchanan, to make a nice little instrumental piece. This music could work well in a movie, and I think it would be a pretty sweet job to make music for films. I decided to take the musical production down a notch this go around with a pretty minimalist vocabulary of instruments. A single acoustic and electric guitar, various shakers, Djembe, and a bell were all that we used in order to leave some room in the composition for the instruments to breathe. I thought it turned out pretty successful and am pleased with the lonesome, moving, and airy sounds we got on tape. More to come soon!
I’m taking my girlfriend to see Ween for her birthday in Nashville. This will be my 4th Ween show, and I’m already stoked about it. Ween is pretty much one of my favorite live shows. I aspire to someday make a limited edition screen printed show poster for them. I wonder how I could hook that up?
Had a pretty good time last night as part of the crowd at Tidball’s open mic night. Got to see some friends I haven’t seen in a while, and hear some good music, and of course some not so good music. My friends in the Quarterlife almost didn’t get to play, but at the last min they got to take the stage, and I must say their sound is very original and on another level than any of the other performers that night. The only bad thing about going to open mic night is the smell that penetrates everything you wear into that place. I went home and promptly took a shower.
This is my second video/music project of the year. Filmed during one weekend I started this one off with an acoustic guitar followed up by the shaker, large black Djembe, and the banjo. The next day i finished it up with a Franklin Chord organ (thanks pepa), electric guitar, and two more djembe drums. I have many more ideas that im just itching to get out! Thanks for watching!
Here is a video I made to start off the new year. It is completely improv. I started with the large black Djembe and continued on with the other small djembes, shaker, tambourine, didgeridoo, and lastly the acoustic guitar. Hope you enjoy!!
"If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on."
