The Song-a-Week Podcast

SAW 2009 #25: Downstream by Chris Devine

2009-08-05T11:36:00.003-07:00

Enough with the zigging.

Zag.

Also, I know the lyrics are a little ... weird. But they're not so important; it was all about basing a long around a different kind of rhythm and tempo and such than my usual. It was fun.

In the future, none of this will matter,
Tried to make sense, but my thoughts had all been scattered.
Now the future's growing lean, while the past only gets fatter,
And falls down to the floor with a silence-smashing clatter.

And I want to know
How the river knows
Which way to go
Take me downstream now.

In between the thought and looking for the answer,
The moment came in the rhythm of the dancer.
The leader of the band, the dreamer and romancer,
Dispelled the chaos outside, growing like a cancer.

And I want to know
Where the river flows,
Find out what it knows
Take me downstream now.
Take me downstream ...

False presumptions,
Make assumptions,
Never say you're wrong ...
'Sorry'.

SAW 2009 #24: You Already Know by Erik Matthew Hendel

2009-08-05T11:34:00.001-07:00

From the podcast feed:

EMH contemplates the idea of being set in one's ways, especially if the ways aren't that beneficial.

Fun with statistics ... and music charts!

2009-07-01T14:00:00.003-07:00

So now that the first half of the year is written in the history books, it's time to look back at the year in SAW music, and assess the one thing that everyone most concerned about: Which songs are most popular! Because if there's one thing I've always said, it's that the artistic merit of a song is how popular it is.

OK, so maybe not, but it's still interesting to look back at the year in numbers and get an idea where we've been. It's some small consolation for the fact that we're well behind our weekly pace of late.

To figure out the number of downloads, rather than counting the number of hits, we take the total data traffic for the song, then divide it by the file size of the song, to get a sort of equivalent number of full downloads. This helps cancel out the effect of people who 'hit' the file but didn't actually listen or download.

So the top 3 downloads for each month were:

January: #1 - Distortion by Chris Devine, #2 - Stand Up by Richard E. Moore, #3 - Attach Another Line by Erik M. Hendel

February: #1 - Only When I'm With You by Chris Devine, #2 - Always Too Much by Richard E. Moore, #3 - Chance Has Favored You by Erik Matthew Hendel

March: #1 - This Conversation by Chris Devine, #2 - Salt Bones by Richard E. Moore, #3 - Before I Fall by Richard E. Moore

April: #1 - Cathedral Prayers by Chris Devine, #2 - Go Through Me by Richard E. Moore, #3 - Disgrace by Erik Matthew Hendel

May: #1 - Difficult Goodbye by Erik Matthew Hendel, #2 - Leaving by Richard E. Moore, #3 - There Are No Words by Chris Devine

June: #1 - Firing Line by Erik Matthew Hendel, #2 - I Wanted to Be by Chris Devine, #3 - Natural Disasters by Chris Devine

The busiest month for downloads was March, followed by May, which is ironic because May and June were the slowest months for music creation, with only three songs posted during each month.

The top five downloaded songs for the first six months of 2009 were:

#1: Attach Another Line by Erik M. Hendel
#2: Distortion by Chris Devine
#3: Stand Up by Richard E. Moore
#4: Only When I'm With You by Chris Devine
#5: Where the Grass is Greener by Son of Rust

In another special mention, Son of Rust wins the title for the highest average number of downloads per song. While that's due in some part to Son of Rust just being so fricking cool, it's also a factor that SoR has, so far, contributed only the one song and has hence had fewer opportunities to throw out a dud.

In a related story, Chris has contributed nine songs, Erik has contributed seven, Richard has posted six and, as previously mentioned, there has been one contribution from Son of Rust.

Here's to a creative and exciting second half of the year! If you have any comments or questions about the chart or the music itself, or simply want to vent and hurl ridicule, comment here and I'll see what I can do.

SAW 2009 #23: Natural Disasters by Chris Devine

2009-06-29T10:55:00.003-07:00

This one was just a bit of fun, really. Going into it, I just wanted to find an excuse to slap together a bunch of samples and see what would come of it. Didn't know what samples, didn't know what the music should sound like, anything ...

So with a whole bunch of twiddling and poking around in my CD collection for samples that would sound interesting, especially out of context, I came up with this. It should be noted that I was listening to a lot of KLF/JAMs/Timelords this week, gave a cursory reading of the first part of the JAMs' The Manual (fascinating read!) and also listening to Edelweiss's 1989 hit 'Bring Me Edelweiss', a sample-heavy European hit reputedly created by following The Manual's instructions and borrowing the melody for its chorus from ABBA's 'SOS'.

Since there are no actual sung lyrics, here's the musical and spoken word samples (in the order used):

I've got to have your word on this (Leonard Cohen, from The Best of the Columbia Records Radio Hour)
I've been on drugs for 20 years (Consolidated, from Friendly Fa$cism)
I've been on drugs for 20 years

(Ashley MacIsaac fiddle tune -- 'A' part only, twice) (from Fine(tm), Thank You Very Much

Thank you, thank you, thank you. (Consolidated, Tool and Die
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I've been on drugs for 20 years
I've got to have your word on this

Using natural disasters (Shawn Colvin, from The Best of the Columbia Records Radio Hour
I've got to have your word on this
Using natural disasters
I've been on drugs for 20 years
I, I, I I I I
I've been on drugs for 20 years
I've got to have your word on this
I've got to have your word on this
I've been on drugs for 20 years
Using natural disasters

Only to feel the music (Consolidated, from Tool and Die
Only to feel the music
Using natural disasters

(Ashley MacIsaac Fiddle tune - 'A' part once, then repeated with each bar reversed)

Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

SAW 2009 #22: Firing Line by Erik Matthew Hendel

2009-06-29T10:06:00.002-07:00

From the podcast feed:

Still behind schedule, but destined to catch up (someday), SAW plows forward with this EMH contribution. Enjoy the Bruce Springsteen inspired vocal performance in this rocked up acoustic gem of mixed metaphors.

SAW 2009 #21: I Wanted to Be by Chris Devine

2009-06-04T14:43:00.003-07:00

The Song-a-Week Podcast took an unintentional two weeks off, and it's all my fault. A few things led to the absence ... I knew I would miss the first couple days of my week as a result of my vacation, which would just be ending that Friday, and I wouldn't get a start till at least Saturday.

So come Saturday night, when I came down with the flu it was anything but good news for the SAW. Under the best of circumstances, it's hard for me to get back into my normal groove that quickly. As it was, I was totally useless through the weekend, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ... Finally, I went back to work on Thursday but really wasn't well until at least Saturday.

Then I was beset with the same problem I've had for most of the year so far: Writer's block. I couldn't think of anything. Still, I had faith that I would, so come Monday I promised my co-conspirators that I'd crank out two songs in time for next week's contribution from someone else (anybody else ... please!) and set fruitlessly to work. My earnest attempts at songwriting, even my usual tricks for getting myself out of a rut produced nothing but a REALLY annoying drum beat.

So it came as some surprised yesterday, then, when instead of leaving to attend a neighborhood association meeting as I'd committed to doing I instead stayed home because inspiration had finally struck, and there was no way I was going to take the chance that it would fly away.

Two and a half hours later, it was done. No spectacular arrangement choices, and musically the song bears a lot of resemblance to many others I've done before. But I kind of liked the lyric.

The song is a semi-intentional take-off on Dan Fogelberg's 'The Higher You Climb', including the fact that it starts on a few pick-up notes. I actually didn't notice the similarity until about halfway through the writing, but once I noticed it it was hard to get away from. I also noticed some similarities between this song's melody and the melody of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' (Hence the bridge that doesn't sound like a bridge that says 'Hallelelujah, the Canadian sang ...')

Production-wise, nearly every instrument (including the voice) is drenched in reverb, delay, and, in most cases, chorus. Honestly, I tried leaving them off of certain tracks, but they ended up sounding really out of place, so I turned it all back on and just let the thing echo like a little boy trapped in a well. It suits the soul-searching theme of the song, I think ... calling up to the universe and all that. Hope you enjoy! The next song should be along within a couple/few days.

The longer I go, the less I believe.
The farther I fall, the less I can see.
You may think that you know, but you cannot conceive
How badly I've lived up to what I wanted to be.

I've walked through the darkness between heaven and hell,
And a parcel of memories made me want to stay there.
And what to say of despair? Just that I knew it well,
And the closer I come now, well, the less I could care.

Hallelujah, the Canadian sang.
If I could say it and mean it, well, I could lose everything.

I am humbled before the vastness of space and time,
How little this matters and how little I mind.
With the deftness of spring, and a small dash of crime,
I can try to remember all that I left behind.

The longer I go, the less I believe.
The farther I fall, the less I can see.
And I think that I know that I got a reprieve,
For how badly I've lived up to all I wanted be,
For how badly I've lived up to what I wanted to be.

SAW 2009 #20: Difficult Goodbye by Erik Matthew Hendel

2009-06-04T14:42:00.000-07:00

From the podcast feed:

Erik is very late with his submission for this week's SAW, and though he'd like to solely blame his malfunctioning computer for this tardy tune, procrastination is definitely a co-conspirator. Enjoy the nonsense!

SAW 2009 #19: Leaving by Richard E. Moore

2009-06-04T14:39:00.001-07:00

From the podcast feed:

Chris finally gets a break with this song from the NyQuil-addled mind of Richard. He blames illness for a lack of polish and weak vocals ... Honestly, though, he sounds fine!

SAW 2009 #18: There Are No Words by Chris Devine

2009-05-13T09:11:00.002-07:00

Once again (and this is becoming such an old story I shouldn't even bother saying it anymore), this wasn't what I meant to do. After going so experimental and electronic with many of my other songs, I wanted to stay in the same vein as last week's song and go for a more traditional and acoustic songwriting/arranging style.

But as I tried repeatedly to start work on this song, I faced a wall of writer's block more forbidding than almost any other time. My usual tricks failed miserably ... twiddling on the guitar to find an interesting chord progression, sitting with a piece of paper trying to free-associate some odd turns of phrase, playing around with the keyboard to see if some sound I'd never used before suggested a way forward.

With the deadline bearing down on me, I plunked down a drum loop (a pretty straightforward dance beat) and found a synth sound that worked OK with a chord progression that had, miraculously, started popping up in my head. I still had no idea what to do with it.

Still, I forged onward, and added a synth bass line, a couple other parts, etc., trusting that eventually a lyrical way forward would suggest itself to me.

Sadly, it never did.

Fortunately, though, the chord progression itself had a certain melodic quality. I added in some percussion and sound-effect breaks to make stuff interesting, but in essence the song ended up just being a several-time run-through of the chord progression.

It has a good beat. It's peppy. It's (probably) easy to dance to. But I keep wishing I could've done something more interesting. But at least I finished it!

SAW 2009 #17: Naked by Chris Devine

2009-04-29T15:49:00.003-07:00

I'll be honest ... I have NO idea what this song means.

After delving seriously into the experimental (and instrumental) with my previous Song-a-Week contender, I wanted to write something a little more ordinary. I came up with a chord progression that I liked even though it sounded suspiciously Erik Hendel-like, and then proceeded to more or less pull words out of the air without much forethought. I think of this as my 'Dada' technique, ignoring the conscious mind and its volition and plonking down the words that just seem like they belong there. As a result, we have lyrics that at times seem to mean something but, taken as a whole, really seem all over the place. Maybe with time it'll all make sense. That happens to me sometimes.

But if anyone can tell me who the hell the 'wizards of the interstice' are and what they're doing in my song, please do!

The arrangement was intentionally really simple -- acoustic guitar, bass guitar, and a little bit of drum loop-ness. Initially, I'd put drum loops under the whole thing, but since it wasn't recorded with the drums, things really didn't match up perfectly and my attempt to audio-snap things to match them up failed miserably. So I dumped most of the drums, except to work as punctuation.

And since I'd been meaning to include lyrics in my blog posts but had forgotten to till now, here are the words ... I'll soon amend my earlier posts, too, to include the words where the songs actually have them:

The taste of the fruit
Is a bitter pursuit
When with the force of a brute
In an Italian black suit
You shamed me.

Dust from the trail
And the horse's long tail
Make it easy to fail
To see through the veil,
Then you claimed me.

Wizards of the interstice, and pillars of the circumstance,
Given rise to we have, taking stock of what we gave,
Made of flesh and made of stone, made of water, made of bone,
Made for this and this alone, made to bring us safely home.

Too long ago to remember the words
Too long abed to rise up with the birds
So I can act like it never occurred,
Do what I want and not what's preferred.

The hand in the dark
Never leaves a mark
But the hint of a spark
Reveals all that's stark
And naked.

SAW 2009 #16: Miles More Pain by Erik Matthew Hendel

2009-04-22T09:21:00.002-07:00

This song sets the threat of continuing corporate layoffs (a topic that is presently and unfortunately close to my heart) against a metaphor of train travel. And, how I came to be inspired to write in this style is a bit of a yarn.

First, I was reading up on the recorded history of Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" ('cause I can't seem to stop listening to The Swell Season's cover of it lately). If you are familiar with the song, you may remember the reference to Gunga Din (depending on the version you listen to). In Dylan's revised version written after the Byrds' cover of it was released, Bob (apparently) needed a word to rhyme with McGuinn, as he was going out of his way to make fun of him.

Anyway, like what usually happens to me when I am reading on this sort of thing, I can't help but look up other things along the way. I've never seen the movie Gunga Din, but now, thanks to Bartleby.com, I have read the original poem by Rudyard Kipling. And I enjoyed it. And I wonder now why it wasn't required reading in school.

So, I can't say I wasn't inspired by Rudyard Kipling when I set out to write this SAW. (Nor can I say that I wasn't inspired by Dylan, but that is pretty standard for my SAWs at this point.) I wrote the lyrics as a poem first ... I didn't even really have ideas for the music in my head.

Much of this song can be directly related back to what is currently going on where I work ... which I'm sure is similar to what many folks are dealing with right now. The only part that does not is where we introduce the villainous hitchiker (which seemed like a very Dylan-esque idea to include). This character comes from a story my cousin related to me a few weeks back.

Why a train? Why not? Actually, I'm not sure how that popped into my head, but thinking about it now, it seems likely that it is due to my watching Back to the Future Part III last week. You know ... the one where Marty and Doc have to hijack a locomotive in the old west.

Lastly, the phrase "miles more pain" was actually taken from a roster of attendees' last names from a meeting: ... Miles, Moore, Payne, ...

I pore over my destination
'Cause we just inch along this train
Once upon an overnight sensation
But now you're in for miles more pain

Hold tightly to that sage suitcase
You're lucky just to keep your seat
Or if you have the strength, then stand in place
If you still can plant your feet

And when you feel the brake cord rush
See the willing folks jump free
Meanwhile, your closest friend was pushed
Will it be that way for me?

A hitchhiker-stowaway ducks the man
You know that he's from nowhere
He points to you with a bloody hand
He knows untimely fates you share

With fuel of large and useless words
The engine seems slower yet
A fire of paper barely burns
Combustion is an idle threat

Those that purchased my ticket sneer
They want to see the train derailed
They're forecasting that the end is near
But they share in what has failed

So the engineer's unhitched the caboose
And the tracks are steaming in the rain
The law and my word will cut me loose
But you're still in for miles more pain

SAW 2009 #15: Go Through Me by Richard E. Moore

2009-04-22T09:02:00.004-07:00

From the podcast feed:

Says the composer: "Let's see: Melody and title came to me while driving and notated on my cell phone. Not safe, don't recommend it. Debut of my mandolin (if I remember correctly) in the SAW, hello to that - not safe, wouldn't recommend it. That's about all I gotta say about that. Be safe, y'all."

SAW 2009 #14: Cathedral Prayers by Chris Devine

2009-04-14T09:59:00.003-07:00

OK, so this song fits in with something I do very occasionally with the SAW ... I veer off into experimental territory and try to stretch the boundaries of what fits into the concept of 'song' for the podcast. In 2007, I did it with the song I called 'Summer's Chill', which was composed entirely of samples and loops not of my own making. It was instrumental, it didn't have a traditional song structure and, while it did have a loosely defined chord progression it had no identifiable melody to speak of.

Over the last few weeks, I've been listening to a lot of strange stuff on the iPod. The stuff that's particularly germane to this composition is the work of Throbbing Gristle and John Foxx (lead singer in the late '70s-early '80s of the post-punk/New Wave band Ultravox, who in recent years has dived head-first into making ambient music). The title of the track is in fact a really obvious echo of John Foxx's two-album ambient masterwork, Cathedral Oceans.

But listening to Throbbing Gristle, in particular, I was moved to think about what really qualifies as 'music', much less what qualifies as a 'song'. If you've never heard them, they essentially invented the term and the concept of industrial music, except you wouldn't recognize much of what they've done in bands like Nine Inch Nails or Front 242. Throbbing Gristle's output consisted mostly of layers of noise, sometimes with a little bit of melody but mostly not, and sometimes with a little bit of rhythm but mostly not. Is it music, or is it noise, and what makes it so? Where's the dividing line?

With these things in mind, I basically went to town, recording a bunch of random bits of varying lengths. To make things sort of fit together I generally settled on a G minor scale, and particularly a G minor seventh chord, and tried to make anything I played that had an identifiable musical tone fit into that scale and that chord.

Then, in the time-honored fashion Brian Eno pioneered with Music for Airports, I cut and pasted, layered and generally played around with all these separate, independently-recorded bits, repeating some and cutting others into pieces.

And because ambient music is usually a little too amorphous for my tastes, I HAD to add a couple of rhythmic elements -- one a drum track of my own devising, with drum hits on almost random beats and nearly random drum sounds, then complimented it with a modern dance drum loop slowed down to slightly more than half its original speed.

Add a crapload of reverb, weird EQs and other effects and some surprising things emerged -- the swells and emotional tension were never really planned ... They were just the product of where the little snippets happened to land and overlap.

And no, that wasn't a real guitar in there, though it's mostly low enough in the mix that it almost sounds real. I just thought a chimey/echoey U2-reminiscent guitar line might serve as a little tribute to Brian Eno.

Does it work? I dunno. I feel like I could have put more work into it, and it feels FAR too short to me. But as an exercise in breaking out of my usual box, it was a resounding success.

This is pretty much the only song I've ever put together that was meant to be background noise ... I find, anyway, that my attention actually sort of slides off it, the harder I try to listen to it. And that's not a bad thing.

SAW 2009 #13: Disgrace by Erik Matthew Hendel

2009-04-14T09:57:00.001-07:00

From the podcast feed:

Better late than never, EMH offers this take on greed in 2009 ... from the point of view of children (or maybe aliens). Chalk it all up to some weird nightmares - and current, real-world events.

SAW 2009 #12: How True is Your Love? by Chris Devine

2009-03-26T15:12:00.004-07:00

Let's get this out of the way right at the top: Yes, I know the vocals suck. They make me cringe. I also know that the vocals were literally the last thing I recorded for this song, mere minutes before I collapsed into bed for the night from exhaustion.

It was a long, busy week leading up to the evening when I actually managed to get around to writing and recording this song (and yes, this song was written AT the recording desk as I went a long), so I really only had one evening to do it all in. I started right after I got in from my day job, took a 20 minute break somewhere around 10:30 to warm up and eat a frozen dinner, then went back and finished it.

The whole idea had originally been to do an '80s song. Not just an '80s-inspired song, like something the Killers, or Franz Ferdinand, or the Bravery would do, but something lifted part and parcel out of the forgotten-gems file. Then Mason suggested an '80s ballad along the lines of Spandau Ballet's 'True', which was particularly germane since I'd heard the rumor that they'd be reforming (and as anyone can tell you, I'm a HUGE Spandau Ballet fan). And there was this one line that I'd noticed in a bunch of '80s songs that I just HAD to use: "I hope and I pray that maybe someday ..."

I think it ended up sounding a little more like Pet Shop Boys (cf.: "I Get Along"), and as I said up top the vocals really bother me. And I probably should've used a different sound for that keyboard lead line and maybe re-recorded it so it wasn't quite so glitch-y.

On balance, I don't know if the experiment entirely succeeded, but there are parts of the song I'm really happy with. Under the circumstances.

The lyrics:

I hope and I pray, that maybe someday you'll see me,
Walking apart with love in my heart for you
And you'd say

(Chorus)
Come closer, come to me now, and tell me,
All the things I want to hear.
Don't look down.
Tell me now, how true is your love?
How true is your love?

I'm walking along to the sound of the song of the river,
Taking me down to the wrong part of town, thinking all along ...

(Chorus)

I could get drunk here every night,
With my friends and feel all right,
'Cause I'm always wound too tight.

But I couldn't forget how your cheeks were so wet with tears then,
As I showed you the door and I laid on the floor, whispering ...

(Chorus)

How true is your love?
How true is your love?

SAW 2009 #11: Before I Fall by Richard E. Moore

2009-03-26T15:11:00.001-07:00

From the podcast feed:

Richard makes use of hand-brushed acoustic, strummed acoustic, solo electric (x2), three vocals and bass to prepare what might almost be termed a .. erm ... happy song!

SAW 2009 #10: Home by Erik Matthew Hendel

2009-03-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

From the podcast feed:

This number by Mr. Hendel examines the attitude of the modern home owner.

SAW 2009 #9: This Conversation by Chris Devine

2009-03-26T10:52:00.003-07:00

This was another song I wrote in its entirety before sitting down to record. Usually, when I go to start my 'SAW', I have little or no idea what I'm going to do. I just sit down at the computer and start with something ... A chord progression, a melody, a drum beat ... Something that sparks an idea in my head, and then I get to work, usually working on a section till I'm happy, then moving on to the next.

The consequence of that approach is too often that my SAW contributions end up a little fragmented -- a string of only dimly-related songlets, rather than cohesive songs. The songs I write ahead of time and then sit down to arrange and record are much more cohesive in general, and able to tackle bigger lyrical ideas over the arc of the song. But the section-by-section approach is very effective for pushing through writer's block and general lack of inspiration by demanding less of the subconscious and the creative impulse at any one time.

It was while writing this song that (a) I got really bored with the unadorned chord progression in the verse (I like how the repetition helps it build toward the minor-chord bridge to the refrain, but it is, of course, necessarily repetitive) and (b) I started hearing a melody in my head, and it was being played on a fiddle. But it was a pretty simple melody, one that wouldn't take a lot of time to record and wouldn't justify having Becky Wolfe, fiddler in my band, drive halfway across town to record at the Yella Hoose Studio.

So I just had her play into a microphone after one of our frequent Sunday afternoon gigs at the Irish pub and restaurant Lis Doon Varna in Peoria. I had to tweak things a bit to fit the tempo and rhythm of the music (thank you, AudioSnap, the coolest feature of Sonar that I've discovered in a long time!). Plus the original clips were quite noisy and didn't quite match up volume-wise, but I still thought they added a lot to the finished song.

I played it for my bandmates in Inis after it was done, and I think they liked it. We might start working on it for our own performances! Though how Becky's gonna play that bit where I layer both little fiddle snippets at the same time I'm not sure. I'd love to see her try, though!

The lyrics:

This conversation is over and done
And this conversation should have never begun,
But it dropped like a wet towel into our laps.
Now the walls that we built up are about to collapse.
Don't look at me with that tear in your eye.
Don't look around, there's no sea and no sky,
And don't look ahead or the future will fly,
And this conversation was a fraud and a lie,
And I don't understand
At all.

This invitation I wrote, never sent,
But this invitation won't say where it went.
I don't understand all the words that you said,
But I followed the trail just wherever it led.
How can I build up and never destroy,
How can you drone on and never annoy,
What would it mean that I've broken this toy?
And this conversation, it was no cunning ploy,
And I can't comprehend
At all.

Fortunate people and fortunate lives,
Fortunate husbands and fortunate wives,
Wielding fortunate hammers and fortunate knives,
Because they don't understand,
No they don't understand
At all.

SAW 2009 #8: Salt Bones by Richard E. Moore

2009-03-26T10:51:00.001-07:00

From the podcast feed:

Richard pinch-hits this week for Chris, who had to leave town on a family emergency and then for vacation, for which Richard has Chris's undying gratitude. This week, he offers up 'Salt Bones', which he bills as 'kind of a love song to my wife.' He continues, 'I set out to play with finger-picking, and, well, mischief managed.' Oh, dear.

SAW 2009 #7: Chance Has Favored You by Erik M. Hendel

2009-03-26T10:50:00.001-07:00

From the podcast feed:

This contribution was written to be an up-tempo duet, but conflicting schedules couldn't get the other vocalist recorded for this week. So, Erik makes a new arrangement of the song and sings it himself, with a cold. He wasn't doing a Tom Waits impersonation. Really. And this vocal was done in almost one take ... because he couldn't possibly muster up a second one. (This also explains why there are no back-ups or harmonies.)

SAW 2009 #6: Always Too Much by Richard E. Moore

2009-03-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

From the podcast feed:

Quoth Richard: I set out to finally use my Long-Scale 3 String Chromatic Strumstick in a SAW! Hooray me! I actually tooled around with 2 other mellow singer/songwriter type songs, but neither came to fruition, so I returned to an instrumental that I had done late last week. I filled it out, but it still wasn't quite busy enough to be JUST and instrumental, so I put some fitting lyrics on the first part. And VOILA: SAW! I also finally employed my Boss DR-670 drum machine, marking its SAW debut as well. To not terrible effect, I think. But I freely admit that I have a thing or twelve to learn about using it. Anyway, enjoy!

SAW 2009 #5: Only When I'm With You by Chris Devine

2009-03-26T10:02:00.003-07:00

I don't know if anybody else has this, but sometimes I'll have an interesting idea or a weird turn of phrase come into my head that's so intriguing I keep looping back to it for weeks or months until I do something with it.

That was the case with this song. The idea of only truly feeling lonely when you're in the presence of the one you're with was just captivating to me. But it took my about six months to do something with the idea.

This song was actually completely written on guitar. It only turned so electronic when I got really bored with the guitar strum I'd recorded. Now, you can barely hear the guitar in most parts. Listening to it now, though, I'm starting to realize what a rut I've gotten into with the electronic stuff ... a bit of a string like pad, some really '80s-sounding lead line that meanders more or less aimlessly through the song, little or no bass line unless it's sort of another pad. I love doing electronic music (as ensuing and past SAWs can attest). I just need to branch out a little.

I love the vocals on this song. If I'd had the time, there'd have been 12 or 15 vocal parts. As it was, I only had time for four. And all the harmony parts were basically improvised on the spot -- I'd have liked to plan them out a little better, because there are spots where they overlap a little too much, weakening the impact of the thick harmonies.

But at its heart, I love how all my basic ideas came together in this song, and I'm looking forward to taking this one and tidying it up and fixing it a little sometime later.

The lyrics:

Whoa ....

(Up the dose)

(Up the dose)

You pour some tea for one,
Stay on your side of the bed,
And it's only when I'm with you that I'm lonely.

I can put my arms around you
And get nothing in return,
'Cause it's only when I'm with you that I'm lonely.

Talking to your friends all night,
Closed up in that little room,
And it's only when I'm with you that I'm lonely.

(Relentless)

(Up the dose)

I can sit in pensive silence,
And take comfort in my thoughts,
Labor night and day to recapture things forgot.

(This is inappropriate)

I can follow thought with deed
And build a temple to myself,
And never feel the faintest twinge of need.

Because it's only when I'm with you,
It's only when I'm with you,
It's only when I'm with you
That I'm lonely,
That I'm lonely,
That I'm lonely,
That I'm lonely.

SAW 2009 #4: Where the Grass is Greener by Son of Rust

2009-03-26T10:01:00.000-07:00

From the podcast feed:

With this week's SAW, we are pleased to welcome a new contributor, Portland's renowned Son of Rust! 'Where the Grass is Greener' is a buzzing, urgent and oddly tuneful bit of synthpop reminiscent of She Wants Revenge, Nine Inch Nails on a (relatively) calm day or Depeche Mode on a fussy one. Comparisons to Camouflage, Cause and Effect and Information Society, while warranted, don't give SoR enough credit! Learn more at www.sonofrust.com ... you'll be glad you did.

SAW 2009 #3: Attach Another Line by Erik M. Hendel

2009-03-26T10:00:00.001-07:00

From the podcast feed:

For week three, yet another former Haiku Rd. alum offers up his song, 'Attach Another Line'. This song seems to be about a girl, but it is really about an addiction to that series of tubes we call the Internet. Or, if you like, it could be about cocaine ... or a girl.

SAW 2009 #2: Stand Up by Richard E. Moore

2009-03-26T09:57:00.003-07:00

From the podcast feed:

Welcome back for another installment of the Song-a-Week Podcast! This week, former Haiku Roadster and current Portland, Oregon, resident offers up his song, 'Stand Up', without further comment. Punctuated by various bursts of guitar noise and echoey background vocals, the song's arrangement is spare, bordering on ascetic. Stay tuned for next Wednesday, when we learn if 'EMH' stands for something only Star Trek geeks would get, or if they're the initials of a Phoenix-area singer-songwriter-guitarist-etc.