To anyone who gives a fuck, I'm looking for fellow delinquent rock n rollers. But for now, seeing as I haven't found said folk, it's just me and composition. I put off getting a MySpace for a very long time. I still feel kinda guilty for breakin' down and gettin' the damn thing. But oh well. I've got one of my songs, HOT PURSUIT, up on and Rhapsody. For those of you who happen to stumble upon my humble little page, check it out man! As for APOCALYPSE and my DARK JAZZ numbers, they should be up before too long. These three instrumentals were written in the summer of 2007. HOT PURSUIT, for example, was concieved and blasted onto tape in a mere matter of hours. The latter two, however, took several weeks of tedious composition. DARK JAZZ (if anybody is still reading) was inspired by detective characters like Guy Noir, Dick Tracy, Eddie Valiant and their respective musical conscience, the Prarie Home Companion folks, Danny Elfman, and Alan Silvestri. I recorded three different versions of this piece because I feel it has alot of character and potential. The OVERTURE is simply a statement of the main theme in more of a dark, ominous, symphonic silver-screen medium. When I hear this, I can just picture Marv or Dwight walking the rainy streets of Sin City. I recorded ACOUSTIC with more of an uptown, mellow, calm, smoke-filled bar feeling in mind. And the third version, of course, is pure rock n roll. The next song, APOCALYPSE, came about after I had this primal nightmare that somebody or something was out to get me. Although I could never see them, I knew they were always right behind me. As the musical ideas started to coalesce and become whole, I heard a hint of Bernard Hermann amidst those tritone-laden, fear-driven riffs. The following number was truly inspired by Danny Elfman's work in the Batman and Spiderman movies and Elliot Goldenthal's score of Batman Forever. Thus, I couldn’t think of a title other than SUPERHERO. From the get-go, I heard this being played by a full symphony orchestra. I could hear the deep brass bringing up the lower end with powerful perfect fourths and fifths. I could hear the thundering tympanis and rolling snares marching onward. I could hear the string section blazing through the triplet arpeggios that lead up to this grand statement, with the combined orchestral forces in triumphant celebration of this larger-than-life hero who has come to save the day. Right now I have my simple rock guitar interpretation with the added orchestral percussion, but I'm currently working on a more symphonic version. The bulk of FLESH AND BONE was actually written in January of 2007. It had basically sat on the shelf until late February of 2008, after somewhat of a painful breakup. The song originally had a verse of lyrics questioning the meaning of existence, and whether or not it was really worth it to keep on living. The song's title came from a catchy little chorus that went "All alone/ Flesh and bone/ Through the door/ Nothing more tonight." I decided to ditch the vocals and let the guitars do the singing. I cut the tempo in half down to more of a contemplative mood. I think that's what the song is really about, just sitting back and reflecting on this thing known as life, and what you really want from it. The first four bars or so tries to conjure up a mood of dizzying nightmarish confusion before a wave of depression sweeps over you and sends you into a trance of contemplation. I have classical guitars playing the melodies, an upright bass thumping along, and a mellow organ that sneaks up right as the electric guitar begins to cry out. From there it moans and wails in sadness and sorrow, looking for hope in this world, before it is drowned and silenced in a flood of reverb. The core concept for UFO MADNESS! came about one day in January as I was watching videos on YouTube about alien conspiracy theories. It was your typical Area 51-alien-inerview-strange-lights in-the-sky-our-government's-in-alliance-with-little-green-me n-and-we've-reverse-engineered-their-profoundly-technologica lly-advanced-spacecafts-but-the-oil-barons-refuse-to-allow-i t-to-go-public-because-our-reliance-on-Saudi-oil-would-there fore-render-itself-obselete kind of material. Very good stuff. I used that whole early alien-sci-fi-spook genre as fuel to this song. It also just happens that I was taking a music composition class with Craig Bove (a damn-good composer himself) at CPCC. Over the spring semester I would bring my ideas to him and say "oh, I'm going for a 'Telstar' kinda thing here" or "a Bernard Hermann motif there." He would say "Ditch it... It's too tonal." His thoughts about abandoning tonality altogether really had an impact on the first two minutes of this song (although Bove would probably argue it's STILL too tonal!). But there's two distinct parts. The triple-meter "atonal" first half and the quadruple-meter "invasion theme" second half. Just think of the first half as the journey these alien craft make to earth and the second half as invasion and destruction! Overall, the actual musical influences are Danny Elfman's work in "Mars Attacks!" and Elliot Goldenthal's "Batman Forever" score. As a tribute to great composers such as them, I really struggled to try and bring in that beautiful theremin sound there at the end with my little glass slide on guitar. Also (dabbling more into the film soundtrack world) I've just completed the scoring of a classical arrangement of this composition, which was actually quite fun. You've been marked on my visitor map! Click to zoom in.
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