Music
Latest
Postcard from Antigua - a song about searching for your bliss. Recorded over email. We came up with the thematic idea and the rhythm in person together, then Peter recorded scratch guitar and vocals and sent it over to Ben; he did the bass and drums and Peter redid his tracks (plus all the oohs and aahs in the background and the chorus harmony). Then Peter obsessed about the mixing for a while...
"My Head Hurts" Era
Ghetto Mama - an impromptu recording of the song that kicked off the album. This is the second recording - the original was in the key of B.
Give and Take - another Ben composition, with Robin Trower inspired guitar layered on top
Scene Lovin' - Sheila's only composition, 7 string guitar and harmonic
She Loves Me Not - Evolution of a computer composition by Peter. This song was played as an instrumental with Victor two years earlier; it features constantly changing time signatures and several different musical themes.
Canned Quarters - features a bassline by Ben; the guitar part evolved from following the bassline to the Paul Gilbert inspired piece heard here. Peter's grandmother passed away during the recording of this song. A clip of her talking about a musical toy she gave him as a child is sampled at the beginning.
Sheila Song - early Ben and Peter composition
Start Again - another song by Peter; this track finishes the album and talks about the author's state of mind
Peter's Solo Compositions
Don't Wake the Machine - first "song" using many VST instruments. The 7 string guitar and 6 string string bass are real but fed through Amplitube. The drums are samples over a midi track. Same for the organ.
Way Back in Time
You Make Me Bleed - we spent as much time recording this one as taking pictures of ourselves recording it (digital cameras were a novelty way back then, you know?). Dimitri came up with the lyrics on the fly, and we only did two takes. Because the song needed to be "harder" I tuned down a half step, but the bass didn't. Luckily the bass cabinet was so flabby sounding it's hard to tell. Mixing was accomplished by locating the "musicians" at different distances from the karaoke machine on which we recorded. Despite this, Victor couldn't restrain his drumming and it dominated the mix at the end.