This one's been a struggle and I think it still needs a bunch of work, but I'm calling the demo done and I'll come back to it. I was trying to do something a bit different and ehhhh I dunno: I Need to Love Myself More and You Less (demo)
Anyway, that's a wrap on the demos for the next record. You can listen to them all here (warning: spoilers). Gonna take a short break and then start hassling friends for feedback and then I'll make a bunch of decisions on what needs to be fixed. And then fix those things.
Tired of staring at this demo, so here you go:
Should be track #8 on Guess Who's a Mess. Only one more demo to go and then I get to start finishing this bad boy off.
Whoops. I found out on Friday that last week I accidentally uploaded a very old version of my Guess Who's a Mess demo. That's pretty embarrassing, I was actually pretty horrified but I think I'm good now. Anyway here's the latest one instead: Guess Who's a Mess (demo 2)
Okay, moving on...
Seriously gotta get moving on these album demos. Here’s one:
The First Thing About Me (demo)
The mix is a disaster, but I MOVE ON. It’ll be the last track on Guess Who’s a Mess.
Here's a demo for track #2 off Guess Who's a Mess:
Usual disclaimers: mix was quick and dirty, I have no talent, etc.
Here's my last monthly demo thing of 2009. It's a cover of a Christmas song my friend JB wrote and that I really like. It's not safe for work, was done in a day and a half and here it is: Fuck You, Motherfucker (It's Christmas) (4MB)
Thanks to JB for the background vocals! Oh and here's the original.
Anyway, that about wraps it up for 2009. I've enjoyed doing the monthly songs but I'm looking forward to taking a break. Thanks for listening dudes, have a good holiday.
This month's demo is actually mostly a song by my pal and guitarist Ben Mullin. He played a demo of it for me and I was like "let me cram my filthy vocals into that and produce it up" and he was like "let go of me".
I Think You're Alright (5 MB)
Last month "Jack" requested twice (1, 2) that I do a cover of Goodbye Horses, the Q Lazzarus song:
Request from Brad if he's up to it. Bunch of friends and I think Clerks 2 is an awesome movie! We wanted to know if Brad would do a cover song of Goodbye Horses from Q Lazzarus. You know the creepy silence of the lambs Buffalo Bill song. Take the creepy out and see clerks 2 to understand the humor in it. Everyone at work loves Bradsux and wanted to see if Brad would attempt a cover of it. Such groups that actually sounded better that did a remix were Psyche. Anyhow just small request.
I listened to the original and didn't like it. Then I noticed it was stuck in my head and I started to like it. Then it seemed familiar and I realized my wife was obsessed with it a couple months ago. So here's my cover:
Goodbye Horses (cover) [6 MB]
September demo: Feel Free! Plastic Surgery! [5 MB]
It'll be track #4 on Guess Who's a Mess.
Tomorrow I'm going to be putting all the demo instrumentals and vocals online on that page so anyone can mess with them before I'm done. Stay tuned, etc.
So I failed again with the monthly demo. My excuse: it's been a stupid crazy busy month and I'm addressing the problem, since I can't seem to keep up anymore. It's not an awful problem to have but it's uncool.
Anyway, I need to make myself pay for my failure, so here's two humiliatingly incomplete things you can listen to.
#1: Every now and then people ask me to make intro music for their shows or whatever. Then their shows get cancelled or do not air. Amber MacArthur asked me to do one last year and the show was immediately disintegrated. Here's the thing I wrote for her:
Intro Music for the Damned [1.6 MB]
#2: Ben and I have been working on the two-person Brad Sucks live show for a while but are bringing a drummer in now. To help him out with practicing on his own we recorded the live set in my office. Direct-in, one take and at very low volume. Here are some embarrassing clips from that:
Crappy Live Clips [4 MB]
Neither are mixed worth a whatever, etc, etc, etc.
July demo: Waste of TV [5 MB]
This is track #7 on the little album I've been slowly putting demos up for. Also as a bonus experiment, there's an album page and a tentative title for it now: Guess Who's a Mess.
I'm not sure what else to do with that page, anyone have any ideas?
The obvious one everyone suggests to me is funding/donations or pre-orders. I'm iffy on that. Mostly I don't want to owe anyone anything creatively (aka I may flake out). And the money I'd get isn't going to make or break the production so it feels pointless.
So what's left? Attention and collaboration/contributions?
June demo: This Meeting [4 MB].
I've been rearranging my office/studio place here with one of the goals being to achieve better quality recordings and mixes. Unfortunately I'm only half done so it's actually worse in here right now. Gotta get me some acoustic foam.
So I failed at finishing a demo for May and I resolved to find an embarrassing enough apology cover to do. Here's a rough cover of Heart and Soul by Huey Lewis and the News (but originally by Exile) to show you I'm sorry. Thanks to Ben for help with the guitars and bass. Heart and Soul (cover) [6.3 MB]
I actually recorded it at the same BPM as the original so it was supposed to sync with the Huey Lewis video. But I can't get it to work and I'm sick of it.
Update: I can't embed it due to "a copyright claim by EMI" but here's the video synced with my cover.
Update #2:
April demo: Model Home (demo) [5.7MB MP3]
Two things about this track:
- It's the first song on a concept album I'm working on. All the songs are roughed out (but incomplete) and the track order is decided. The other song I've released that fits on this album is Thanks for the Add (which will be track 5).
- This is the first song I've done in REAPER. I'm really impressed with version 3 and I'm trying to switch to it from Cubase (more on that later). The mix isn't great on this song but that's not REAPER's fault. It is a demo so I'm forcing myself not to care.
Here's my demo for March. It's extra retarded: I Command You to Be My Woman (demo) [4.5MB MP3]
The story behind it is this: my buddy JB from Songfight! asked some of his musician pals to write songs to surprise his would-be fiancee with just before he popped the question. I spent a month working on a very tender and sincere ballad and then shit-canned it at the last moment and wrote this thing.
Check out the other entries on Songfight. And I'd say wish JB good luck but she'd have to be jerk of the year to say no after everyone wrote all these songs. So I think it's basically in the bag.
This is a song I've had around for a very long time but I could never get the recording the way I wanted. I resolved to do the best I could with it for this month's demo and quit agonizing over it.
I'm still not very happy with the recording – getting the huge wall of sound I want without everything becoming muddy mush is rough. But the month is almost over and I'm out of time, so here it is for now:
Simplifyin (demo) [7mb MP3]
Trying to do a song demo a month in 2009, here's the first of the theoretical twelve:
Certain Types of People (demo)
Update: BFF GrowYoYoRhino has put together a guitar lesson for this song:
He's got it pretty much perfect.