Last time we released a new song by Steaming Mulch they said they were going to come back in to the studio soon. It usually takes them a while to get together and bring a new idea in for recording, so I was very pleasantly surprised when they said they had a new tune ready. The entire song was finished pretty quickly. The band usually has a basic song idea and comes up with the parts and riffs as they work on it. The new song already had the basic structure and instruments decided before we started recording. This made the recording process a bit different than usual, but just as much fun. After we finished recording they said they wanted to have a video for the song. Another great surprise as we usually use a static photo for their videos. As with their static photos they said we could do whatever we want. Ah, carte blanche to create! So we put together some footage for the song. They, of course, came up with the song title – pretty much keeps with the style of title they usually come up with. Hope you all enjoy listening to the song and watching the video as much as we enjoyed creating it.
Here’s Steaming Mulch and their new single ‘Whisper Beneath Me After Proto Essential’:
We’re finally back with another episode of Messin’ With The Music. It’s been quite a while since we were able to get together to start working on tunes again due to the pandemic. It feels great to be recording again and Mule Skinner Blues was a song we’ve been looking forward to finishing. The song has a long history. It was written and first recorded by Jimmie Rodgers in 1930. His version was a pretty straight forward blues tune. He originally titled it ‘Blue Yodel #8’ but it became commonly known as Mule Skinner Blues (or some variation of that) as time went by. Many artists have covered this classic song. The next well known version was by Bill Monroe in 1940. He picked up the tempo a bit and turned it in to a classic bluegrass style tune. The version we used as a template is Dolly Parton’s amazing 1970 version. We pretty much followed her lyrical take and song structure.
Instrumentally we have two different acoustic guitar parts, one hand played and the other picked. To add some flavor we added an electric guitar with some effects and a bass part that has a few effects too. There is a mandolin backing these parts and a banjo riffing throughout the song. There’s also a snare drum and floor tom holding down a beat in the deep background. All of the instruments are a platform for the vocals which are really the heart of the song. As always with Messin songs we recorded ‘straight through’ tracks for a live, loose feel using the same mic and sound path for all the instruments. We want to get the feel of everyone standing around a single mic playing the song.
Here’s Electrostatic Rhythm Pigs playing ‘Mule Skinner Blues’:
Spring has officially arrived. Flowers are blooming, Temperatures are rising. Trees are green. The pollen from the trees is so thick it’s like walking through fog……..well, that last part isn’t great but we need to accept the bad with the good. So let’s move on to the tunes. Listening to new music is always good. This month we’re going to start out by comparing two selections of music. What we see is that good music can be found in songs that have either a small amount of instrumentation or a large amount. Another comparison between the songs is the length. Some people like their music in short, easy to digest nuggets. Other people like the journey and changes that come with an extended piece of music. I’m firmly in both camps. As usual, I feel if you put limits on what you’re going to listen to, you end up missing some amazing songs.
Let’s start out with the ‘macro’…
First Up: Squid – ‘Narrator’
Stylistically Squid would fall in to what most people term ‘post-punk’ music. You can see their basic instrumentation in the video. Two guitars, bass, keyboard, drums, vocals. As you progress through the song you will also hear a number of samples as well as a second vocal (featured player Martha Skye Murphy). The first part of the song is pretty classic post-punk. Short bursts of notes from the the melodic instruments. Very angular guitar lines instead of held chords. The bass and the keyboards follow suit. As the lines clash you pick up some dissonance between the instruments. The vocals work the same way. Not a whole lot of melody to the vocal lines. A lot of the impact of the vocals is rhythmic. The drums keep the steady beat that the other pieces work around. Fans of eighties bands like Gang Of Four will find this familiar. By now you may have looked at the length of the song. 8:35????? Unfortunately a lot of people will see that length and bail. But the point of the song is the journey. As you get to the halfway mark the song goes through a breakdown in to less instrumentation. The remainder of the song builds to a climax using repetition, noise and ambiance. This song is definitely a journey. Stick with it, you’ll pick up different things in the background every time you listen. It feels like you’ve finished reading a story when it’s done. A great video mirrors the music.
Next Up: Old Leatherstocking – ‘Death And The Lady’
If we’re looking for the opposite of the style we heard in the first song, you’ll find it in Old Leatherstocking. A simple, traditionally Appalachian banjo and vocal song. The focus in a song like ‘Death And The Lady’ is it’s presentation and simplicity. This is how a lot of music really began. You’ll often hear a song like this presented as just vocals, without any instrumental backing at all. The banjo mirrors the vocal line, driving home the dark tale being told. This song is played using a two fingered banjo technique, not the three finger ‘Scruggs’ style banjo most people are used to hearing in Bluegrass music. Again, the banjo here is used to double up the vocal melody as compared to being a featured melody and rhythm line in it’s own right. The power behind such a simple presentation is amazing. It brings the chills and conjures up a lonely walk through a graveyard at night (put on headphones and try that sometime – I find it inspiring). The video perfectly fits the song. A single static shot of the performance. Death singing a tune. The polar opposite of our first selection. And both songs take you on their own amazing journey.
Finally: Remember Sports – ‘Pinky Ring’
This song would fit comfortably in between the poles of the first two selections. The song could be filed under indie/pop/punk if you were looking for a genre to list. Classic instrument line up of guitars, bass and drums. The mix is well done with a clear, distinct place for all the instruments and the vocals. During the choruses one guitar follows the vocal line melodically. There are a lot of bands creating this style of music. What makes one song like this different from the tons of others I hear? For me it’s a couple of things. First, it’s the recording quality and mix. I really like the way this song is put together. Second, does it bring on some kind of emotional feel? ‘Pinky Ring’ has that sad, wistful feeling of something that was lost in the past. Finally, what really caught me was the video. When I’m listening to new music I’m almost always going through videos. I saw an online review of the band and started searching. I came across this video and went ‘wait a minute…..’ ChurchHouse is located in the Allentown, Pa area. I grew up around here and spent weekends and vacations going hiking and picnicking in the Pocono mountains. Much of the video is shot in Boulder Field in Hickory Run State Park. We used to go there and see how fast we could run across it without killing ourselves. We still go there occasionally. Always cool to have a video trigger childhood memories.
Retro: Urge Overkill – ‘Sister Havana’
Urge Overkill delivers a big dose of power pop with their 1993 song ‘Sister Havana’ from the album ‘Saturation’. This was always a fun song to play live, with it’s wonderfully crunchy guitar barre chords and straight forward, head banging beat. It’s the kind of song that could be killed with a bad mix, but ‘Sister Havana’ has the placement of drums, guitar, bass and vocals to tie everything together. The most important part of any song is the writing. But the difference between success and failure is often found in the studio and final mix. This song is a good example of how making the right studio choices can determine the entire direction of a song or career.
We’ve finally been able to get back in to the studio to start working on recording. We decided to start with a live video performing one of our original songs. ‘Details’ is a song we first created when we had the band Conduit. The song had a bit different origin as it was written from the bass line up. So for the album version we started with bass and then vocals with the other instruments being added afterwards. Writing this way definitely gives a song a more rhythmic feel. The song was originally on the Conduit album ‘Superior Olive’. You can find it and the other songs on the album on our Soundcloud account – there’s a link on the blog page. You can also find more about Conduit on our label site – Velvet Wrinkle Wreckerds. For this version we recorded guitar, mandolin, banjo and some percussion first. These tracks were recorded in live fashion – no punch in, straight through tracks. Since the song was written from the bass and vocals, we decided those would be the instruments we would play on this video. The video is also ‘live’ – no edits. As an FYI – you can ‘follow’ our blog. Just scroll to the bottom of the post page and fill in ‘Join The Mailing List’. You’ll get an email whenever we do a post. You wont be swamped with emails – we do a couple posts a month. As always comments, questions and suggestions are welcome.
Musicians end up working together as a band for many reasons. It could be a group of friends who decide they want to learn to play to be like their favorite band. They pick up instruments and learn to play together organically. It could be musicians from several established bands deciding they’d like to work together on a project. Some bands are put together using ads in online sites or fanzines. One thing you need at the beginning of a band is some kind of shared direction in the type of music you want to make. Not having a shared vision is why the vast majority of bands fall apart before they even get started (that and personality conflict – the great destroyer of any shared project among humans). So most bands that get off the ground usually have some agreement on the type of music they create when they begin. The interesting part takes place after the band has been together for a while. That’s when a big decision comes to the forefront. Do we continue with the style of music that initially made us popular? Do we try different styles of music we’ve become interested in and risk losing our diehard fans? This is the crossroads moment. And there’s no right or wrong answer. Either choice could push a band forward or make it fall apart.
Let’s take a look at a band that I think made some great decisions in their changes in direction and still maintained and even grew their popularity. For this example we’re looking at the Talking Heads. For clarity, when I talk about changes in musical style, it’s not always ‘macro’ changes. The band didn’t move from rock to jazz then to classical. They remained under the huge umbrella of ‘rock’ music, which can sometimes be so broad as to be a meaningless term. But they made very noticeable sonic changes without a change in personnel or instrumentation. And they remained popular until the decision was made to retire the band name (a decision that was not universally wanted by all the band members – another common band situation).
Talking Heads started out as a ‘punk’ band in the CBGB’s scene – although the definition of what was ‘punk’ actually seemed a bit wider then than it is today. I certainly wouldn’t compare their version of ‘punk’ to a band like the Ramones. Their first ‘hit’ song was ‘Psycho Killer’ from the album ‘Talking Heads :77’. This song did have many attributes of the early punk scene. Simple guitar parts, relatively open and separate instrumentation. Musically crisp and choppy. But even this early song had a bit of ‘funky’ to it.
The second album was ‘More Songs About Buildings and Food’. The single from this album was a cover of the Al Green song ‘Take Me To The River’. This version still had a more ‘rock’ feel to it. You can hear the same instrumentation from the first album. Simple arrangement that had a lot of separation between the instruments – there was certainly added keyboard presence matching the guitar in this song. The band was moving forward but was still maintaining the basic feel they started with. This song would be changed and expanded in their live show as the band moved forward.
The next album for the band was ‘Fear Of Music’. We start to see the beginnings of a shift happening. They continued to work with Brian Eno as a producer. The sound started to move more in to what was referred to as ‘post-punk’, another term that had a wide and often quite amorphous definition. There were a number of ‘post-punk’ bands that started to move in to more ‘funk’ territory, especially the bands’ rhythm sections. I always felt that a lot of Talking Heads underpinnings relied heavily on Tina Weymouth’s bass. Her playing and the placement of her bass sound in their songs was a great influence on my taking up bass and the way I would mix songs in the future. Stand out song here was ‘Life During Wartime’. You can feel the musical direction changes here – one foot still in post-punk while moving in a different direction. Changes were happening and the band’s popularity was increasing. I think one of the reasons for growing success was that the original line up was still together and the band members all bought in to the changes. Now we can start talking about the band ‘growing’.
The band’s musical growth continued. Their next album was ‘Remain In Light’. They delved in to more afrofunk and polyrhythmic beats. They also did some changes in their studio methods, recording long jams and picking the best parts to ‘loop’ as the basis of songs. A number of accounts state that friction had started in the band. Some members felt David Byrne exerted too much control. Most of the band members were also working on individual projects. This is where a lot of bands will fall apart and go their separate ways. It appears in this case that the changes in studio style and recording helped extend the band’s life. A great example of the style achieved on this album is heard in the song ‘Crosseyed And Painless’.
The band moved musically again for their next few albums. Although they were a successful band, they hadn’t achieved real ‘mainstream success’. That changed with their next album ‘Speaking In Tongues’. Although they retained the rhythmic underpinnings of their previous work, ‘Burning Down The House’ was a more rock oriented track that broke them in to the general public consciousness. On the next album, ‘Little Creatures’, there was another stylistic shift. They moved in to ‘pop rock’ territory with the single ‘And She Was’. I think that the continued growth and change the band experienced was really what kept them together for their last few albums. I imagine achieving commercial success didn’t hurt either.
Commercial success can be a two edged sword. In one way it keeps a band together, because some form of commercial success on your own terms is the dream for most musicians. On the other hand, once you become financially independent it’s much easier to go out on your own and make your music as individual and esoteric as you want. That seems to be the case with Talking Heads, although it appears David Byrne was the main catalyst for the idea that the band wouldn’t ever by reuniting again in their original form. Their final album ‘Naked’ was a mixture of several different styles from previous projects although it did have a commercial hit in ‘Wild Wild Life’. I think they’re a great example of a band who over their career experienced change and growth in their musical direction while maintaining an original lineup. They’re also an example of a band who didn’t feel the need to stay together after this growth stopped just to keep the money flowing. I miss hearing new music from them, but I’m happy they didn’t put out numerous albums of mediocre material once the magic was gone.
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