Muso's Guide - Columns

HeartSongs - 20180326

26 March, 2018
Written by Marky Edison
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Welcome to HeartSongs, our regularly scheduled (probably) look at songs and the people who write them. We spoke to Dublin-based singer-songwriter, The Pickled Onions, about his recent single ‘Sing To Me’.

“The song is written from the point of view of my two year old Béibhinn. Her imagination is a constant source of inspiration. Some of the lines were inspired from stories we read, and some are straight from the horse’s mouth.

The music for this one came together more or less in an evening but the lyrics took a bit of time to reveal themselves. I recently been trying to set a limit on the amount of time I'll procrastinate on a tune in the interest of getting more songs finished and putting them out there, even if they're not perfect, and I'm really enjoying the process.

More than likely the last couple of tracks, ‘Sing To Me’, ‘Honey’ and ‘Harvest’ will end up on EP number three, or possibly an album, I'll see how it's looking in the Summer. Between now and then, I have finishing touches to put on EP2, The Mines, and send it off for mixing at the Isokon (Kevin Morby, Bob Weir). I found him through listening to Kevin Morby's Singing Saw last year which I loved. Looking forward to working with him when I get my finger out.”

Lyrics:

Lift me up

Higher than the sun

Spin me around

& put a nappy on my bum

You need to look

At this stone I just found

Do you think it's worth something?

I found it on the ground

Where are you going

And can I come with you?

Don't take my sister

She's done a smelly poo

Put on my record

Till I sharpen my sound

We'll watch it spinning

Like a merrily-go-round

Build me a robot

With a smile upon his face

I need juice for my rocket

To take me into space

Slide the rings arounds Saturn

Pic-a-nic on the moon

It's the best day I've had

But it's over all too soon

And I don't want to go

But I know in my head

That the best place for me

Is tucked up in my bed

Mr. Cat to my left

& the Gingerbread mam

Sings to me softly

We're all holding hands

Sing to me softly

We're all holding hands

.......................................

HeartSongs - 20180319

19 March, 2018
Written by Marky Edison
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Welcome to HeartSongs, our regularly scheduled (probably) look at songs and the people who write them. We spoke to Michael J. Schumacher from New York experimental noise/pop outfit diNMachine about their new single, ‘Grilled Fish’.

"The spoken part is Alain Robbe-Grillet, the French writer and filmmaker. His name is where the title of the song comes from. His voice has a poignancy that I like. It's backed, so to speak, by a field recording of a park in Barcelona that I made on a trip there last year.

To me, this section seems to issue out of the first part of the song, like an echo of the feelings in the droning bass line; this introspective quality that I'm going for. It's a moment of contemplation before the interruption by the drums.

A lot of the songs on this record explore combining very unlike things; sounds, rhythms, melodies, testing the limits of coherence. This fits right in with that, but the sections are a bit clearer, and more separated. The textures are simpler; there are two or, at most, three things going on at any one time. Like many of the other songs, this started as a bass line improvised on my Verbos synthesizer."

HeartSongs - 20180312

12 March, 2018
Written by Marky Edison
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Welcome to HeartSongs, our regularly scheduled (probably) look at songs and the people who write them. We spoke to Ross from Dublin punks Boom Child about their recent single ‘I Want To Shift Your Sister’.

“We were inspired to write the song after hearing the story of a young man trying to get the shift ("Shift" is Irish slang for "kissing with tongues" AKA "French Kissing”) and, upon rejection, accused the girl of being a slut. We thought his confusing and contradictory reaction was a great example of sexually frustrated young lads everywhere. So we wrote a song slagging him off. Also, I believe the young man in the story now works in finance or is a senator.

The three of us love pop punk, so that was big influence on the sound. Influences on the humour would be people like Frank Zappa, Presidents of the United States of America (the band), The Toy Dolls and people’s Dads.

The recording was extremely tense. Our drummer Tadhg Lipton produces all of our songs in his recording compound in Dublin, Tuff Lip Productions. He made us record the vocals while submerged neck-deep in water and would threaten to replace us with session musicians on a daily basis. He also thought sleep deprivation would give us a more raw sound but it just made us very tired. He ate jelly tots obsessively the whole way through the recording process and never shared. However, his methods proved effective and we are very happy with how the song turned out.

Some of the ideas we knew would definitely be in the video beforehand; such as the After Eights getting shoved under the door, the ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ reference and our mascot Boomer the dancing cow. When we met up with the German director, Dr. Lippy, the video took on a more improvisational approach. He originally wanted the video to have more controversial material including images of us getting sick into Trocáire boxes and chopping the heads off Furbies. We had to compromise by including a lot of footage of Pope Francis as Dr. Lippy thinks he’s class.”

LYRICS:

You're drinkin’ Diet Coke but you never drank it before

You're shovin’ After Eights underneath the door

I'm not sayin’ it's wrong

I'm not sayin’ it's tight (No no no no no no)

But there's a thousand other things I'd rather do to you tonight Because

I WANT TO SHIFT YOUR SISTER

Ooooooooooooooooooh

You're almost as sound as you were back in verse number one

And I'm not havin’, I'm not havin’ any fun

I'm not sayin’ it's wrong

I'm not sayin’ it's tight (No no no no no no)

But there's a thousand other things I'd rather eat than chicken tonight Because

I WANT TO SHIFT YOUR SISTER

She wouldn't shift me so I called her a slut

I'm really sorry

Ooooooooooooooooooh

(That came out wrong, I've a lot of problems at home, I never went to the debs!)

It wasn't worth goin’ out tonight, going out tonight, goin’ out tonight

It wasn't worth goin’ out tonight, going out tonight, goin’ out tonight (I think it was)

It wasn't worth goin’ out tonight, going out tonight, goin’ out tonight

It wasn't worth goin’ out tonight, going out tonight, goin’ out tonight Because

I WANT TO SHIFT YOUR SISTER

(It wasn't worth goin’ out tonight, going out tonight, goin’ out tonight)

I WANT TO SHIFT YOUR SISTER

(It wasn't worth goin’ out tonight, going out tonight, goin’ out tonight) OooooooooooOHHHOOooooooooohhhhh.... *guttural noises*

Upcoming Dublin gigs:

April 5^th Fibber Magees

April 6^th Whelan’s Upstairs

April 14^th Workman’s Club Upstairs (Acoustic)

HeartSongs - 20180226

26 February, 2018
Written by Marky Edison
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Welcome to HeartSongs, our regularly scheduled (probably) look at songs and the people who write them. We spoke to Tyler from California’s Cloud about their recent single, ‘Two Hands Bound’.

“I wanted to create a song that addressed an immense amount of weight I felt at the time. Specifically, the weight of those first few years into the real world and the work force was the most pressing struggle I had. I was working in the restaurant industry at the time.

My heart goes out to anyone who works in this environment— especially in the U.S. Our relationship to work and to our jobs is increasingly complex and I wanted to focus on this relationship and it’s correlation with love and joy. The song is very pointedly joyous and celebratory, an intention of solidarity.

The lyric I’m most proud of in the song is “Talking is also love”. At a point in time where the weight shifted on and off my chest and every successful attempt in relieving it came with a realization just like that. When I listen to the song, all shades of green come to mind, like sun was poking through leaves.”

Two Hands Bound lyrics;

I fell so low

Some things you’ll never know

How odd to pray

Tried again the other day

C’est la, c’est vous

Got work in the afternoon

Born to die a thousand days

And, oh, to see what life remains

‘cause losing is a way of life

And building is another way of life

Says the man with his two hands bound

Says it all with his two hands

Man made me a wage slave

Time made me a gelatin

A day so nice

You can shake it off sometimes

And love is good

Mostly misunderstood

Like how we talk

Talking is also love

Born to doubt and see what it’s about

And, oh as I dance

I help myself to live

And if I don’t

To keep my self from loss

I lather a friend,

A vial of peppermint!

Says the man with his two hands bound

Says it all with his two hands

Man made me a wage-slave

Time made me a gelatin

Time made me a bitter one

An animal

An animal is what I’ve become

HeartSongs - 20180209

12 February, 2018
Written by Marky Edison
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Welcome to HeartSongs, our regularly scheduled (probably) look at songs and the people who write them. We spoke to Tyler from California’s Cloud about their recent single ‘Wildfire’.

(unlisted / private until Feb 9th)

"This track is a study of the forces of life. I listen to it now with a interesting sense of irony as the state I live in, California, has been engulfed by some of the largest fires to date. My good friend’s home was burnt down entirely, a chimney remained and the outlines of a bathroom.

“Every flame wants to be a wildfire,” sums up my views on life as a sheer force of wild intentionality and the consequences that come with these forces “untamed”. Greed is an easy parallel. I wanted the song to be as chaotic as a flame’s dance and as pulsating as an orgasm which is a big point of focus in the album; looking at this sensation we live with from a distance and with much skepticism, bewilderment, and awe.

The music video is one that I conceived, produced and directed myself. I used a fairly large pool of actors that I’d worked with on a number of short films. The piece was actually developed with quite a narrative which to me still shines through but I found through the collaboration of a fantastic editor, Carson Lund that the story is best told via fractals. A story about weariness for “the third home,” meaning the place you consider home that isn’t your house or workplace. I’ve studied this area in our culture and it fascinates me.

To me, it seems like a total opportunity of commiseration and community. But in my hometown and many many other places I’ve traveled in the U.S., I find that our third homes are in danger of being tarnished by ill-intention not too dissimilar to the greed I spoke of earlier. That’s how this video came to be.”

Wildfire lyrics;

Every flame wants to be a wildfire

Every day needs to lead to something says my mind

Looking back to when it all was better

Hard to see photos of my smiles

I know if I want to live

Something’s got to give

Every night goes on as I’m mindless in it

Every light’s racing towards the ends of everything

Hard to hold photos of the one’s who left us

Every orgasm makes you wonder oh, “is this it?”

This is it

HeartSongs - 20180115

15 January, 2018
Written by Marky Edison
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Welcome to HeartSongs, our regularly scheduled (probably) look at songs and the people who write them. We spoke to Rory from Belfast spacerockers Mons Olympus about their new single ‘Android Bop’.

You can hear their stoner groove here

“After we released our debut album Vampyroteuthis, back in May, the band has been on a kind of hiatus, so this one was actually me recording every instrument. During the recording process for the album, we built a booth around my amp, and together with my octave pedal and bass synth pedal got a really crazy, alien sounding guitar sound. I asked for a moment to play around with it, turned on the voice recorder on my phone, and set it down. The basis of this song and the majority of the riffs came from a minute and a half within that recording. Then I just built the rest of the song around that.

Lyrically though, it's just me geeking out over Blade Runner. The lyrics contain loads of blatant references to that universe; ‘replicants’ and everything. The guitar sound we got initially on the bass synth pedal was a really robotic sound and since the riffs all hover around the same note; it's really droney, almost like a binary or something, which is why I thought it suited a robot theme.

I'm a huge Daft Punk fan so I'm always looking for ways to rehash their ‘robot rock’ thang in a new and original way. So when we got the vocoder it was a perfect opportunity to put that stamp on it. Songs For The Deaf-era QOTSA would've made a lasting impression on me in my formative years too, so I'd say I can hear that in there too. Particularly ‘Song For The Dead’. The drum fills and the way that song builds is a master class. I've always wanted to try and reference that in some way.

And, of course, the overriding theme for Mons Olympus is SPACE! So, having recently acquired a Korg Minilogue synth, it added a nice layer of synthy sheen which takes it into intergalactic cyberspace. The vocoder bits were incredibly fun to do. We recorded those the week before Christmas and I started freestyling a verse about shopping for gifts; which may develop into an Xmas number 1 for this year, who knows?

I'd always wanted to use one and luckily a friend from the area had recently purchased a second hand Roland Juno synth with vocoder capabilities that we used on our album, very subtly in the background of one of the songs. It became the main thing in this song and I'm sure it will feature again. It screams cheese, robot, space and alien all at once, and it's so much fun to use. It's tempted me to take up chain smoking so bad that I require a voice box. But I hate the taste of tobacco, so I just can't commit to that.

Also recording the bass was pretty cool. In the verses I used an envelope filter which gives it a sort of underwater feel. I had to play super gently to get that texture and then when I hit it hard on the stabs, it squelches up and gives a crazy sound. I'd recently went to see Thundercat in London too, so it reminded me a tiny bit of his crazy sound.”

LYRICS

Android Bop

Bop Android Bop

Bop Bop Android Bop

Look up and stare to the left

Unmasking the replicant

Relinquishing self control

Android Bop

Android Bop-Bop Bop-Bop

What are you thinking R2? 'Beep-bloop-bleep'

What are your thoughts 3PO? 'This time you have gone too far'

What's on your mind Rachel? 'You think I'm a replicant, don't you?'

Neurotic robotic disguises

Skinjob the layman despises

I know you're just doing your job

The year is 2049