Thursday, August 23, 2012

What, no menthol?

For some reason, Dan Waldkirch channeled Ennio-Morricone-western-style music for his backing track about the amazing Dennis Nedry from Spielberg's Jurassic Park which was actually a great if unexpected choice for that character! When I started writing and singing my vocals, I found myself randomly affecting an Antonio Banderas voice - this made me laugh, so I ramped up the accent. After a few days I listened to the mix and realized that the lyrics are totally unintelligible, and sound like I'm singing in Portuguese! That made me laugh even more, so I left it! Its fun to try and decipher what I'm saying - you'll never guess it!
Jim's backing track for Gremlins was more challenging - at first the track reminded me of 'Screamadelica'-era Primal Scream, and so I thought about doing a fey Bobby Gilliespie impression, but when I started writing, I found that I needed to sing over the lush female backing vocals in the track and ended up with a sort of kinky Disco-funk approach and stupid lyrics. Re-watching Gremlins wasn't much fun though, and gave me almost no inspiration apart from the title/chorus 'Bright lights, bright lights' which is what Gizmo says when he's accidentally exposed! I did discover, however, that Gremlins is a Christmas movie!
I also had a trip down memory lane writing lyrics with Kelly for Mike Webber's lovely backing track about Dawson Leary (from 'Dawson's Creek') whose personal philosophy is closely linked to Spielberg's catalog of movies. A brush-up on Wikipedia reminded me of the key story-lines, which I had managed to conglomerate with 'The O.C' and a few other teen-dramas!

Monday, August 13, 2012

Mola + Godlights

I finished my tracks! I got to work with two great pieces -- those of Barney and Tim.

For the Godlights track, I immediately recognized the opportunity to do a big choir, which I always love doing but haven't done in a while. I believe I ended up with 28 vocal tracks, singing 7 or 8 separate lines. The chords were so simple I thought I should have an almost haiku-like lyric. Here's what I came up with, a minute or two after hearing the song.

Light of God
Light of Steve
Either way
I believe in you.

I think it's sort of cryptic yet positive. I like it.

Mola Ram was a TON of fun and it's really crazy. Usually I try to avoid following the rhythm of the instruments for IML tracks, as I think most people consider their backing tracks "accompaniments" and not really a main melody. But I really couldn't resist with this one, as the first few lyrics just came right away. It's all really fast, and I tried to give it a Mr. Bungle vibe where there's no dead space in between lines. Unfortunately the lyrics aren't very understandable if you don't read them first, but I think that's fine. Turned into a sort of progressive hardcore punk song. Really happy with that one.

Anyways, I guess my work is done -- can't wait to hear the rest, I think this album will be deliciously weird!

Friday, August 10, 2012

Tootles (I looked it up. It's with a 't')

I've completed my song track assignment. I've had to turn it in early as I'll be on holiday for the next two weeks. It was a difficult brief, but I think I've managed to do justice to the style of the backing track. I can't really think of a better name for this track than "Tootles", so I suppose I should just leave it at that. I've never seen the film Hook and never really cared to, but I did find a YouTube video of the famous (I suppose) scene where Peter hands Tootles his lost marbles and in his joy (and with the help of some fairy dust) he is able to fly out the window to return to Neverland.