Careful, or Mike’s smooth voice and sexy innuendo’s about Christmas will get you.
Does this groove remind you at all of ‘Dick In A Box’? There had to be some inspiration pulled from Michael McDonald…with a little Boyz II Men and Bobby Brown thrown in the mix.
I decided to just go ahead and lay down an acoustic performance of a song I’ve been kicking around the last couple of weeks. Just ship it out and see how it does.
This song is called ‘South Hero’ and it is an expression of how living in the city sometimes makes me feel like I’m compromising on all of the things that used to be so important to me. Now it’s all about keeping up and trying to navigate through the noise.
The chorus is a fantasy of Vermont. Where I’ve been going with my girlfriend Alyssa these past two summers to just be the way I used to be, want to be and am supposed to be. Every time I play this song, I’m singing to her.
The lyrics:
South Hero
This town is holding on to me.
It brings me down to compromise
on all my plans I’ve held since I was just a starlit night
in my father’s eyes.
But city lights, they burn right through the sky
on every night when the stars should shine.
I’ve closed my eyes to hide from all the signs.
They list a price, they steal my mind.
So I’ve been thinking…
Our hearts are waiting on us to make up our minds.
Let’s get out, just get out
While we’ve got time
Let’s run, baby…
Run for the hills
The wind will take us to our better selves.
Lay me down in those fields
where the clouds we name are the only thing that’s real.
Your soul is tired ’cause work takes everything
you used to have to feel alive.
Walk for miles through suits and heels and noise
to pay the price of what you can’t enjoy.
So I’ve been thinking…
Our hearts are waiting on us to make up our minds.
Let’s get out, just get out
While we’ve got time.
Let’s run, baby…
Run for the hills
The wind will take us to our better selves.
Lay me down in those fields
where the love we make is the only thing that’s real.
I’m going naked. These video blogs are happening. As in I’m making them. They’re all the rage maybe? I don’t care. I’ve convinced myself that it’s what I need to do.
The Help is done at least for now and that means it’s time do what I’ve been wanting to do for about 5 years now, which is to transcend being a bassist and to expand my identity to higher levels of musicianship.
I’ve been writing my own songs for a while, but making that ultimate leap just…never happened. It’s the attitude. I don’t have it yet. The challenge of being able to truly believe it when you say the words “I am a songwriter and these are my songs” is by no means an easy one.
So the video blogs begin! I’ve decided to do them and I’ve decided to document my progress in my writing, my musicianship and my job as candidly as I can. I’ve realized that I keep telling myself I will share my music when it’s finally ready, but that never happens and maybe never will. If it goes well, it brings attention and energy to each of these work streams in my life. So, here it is.
Whether or not this is actually for sincere, artistic reasons or some sick inner exhibitionist motive remains to be seen. Until we figure that out, be nice to me, Internet.
I added some music files to the page for you to listen to or download. They are each songs from the last phase of The Help. Before things fell apart, we were writing a pretty incredible album by my standards. These recordings are the best of what I can give you to share where our music was going.
“Animals” (recorded September 2009)
This song was the medium through which we captured the dark emotions we were each feeling. This entire recording is built off of a demo track from a room mic recording which is still in there, buried deep in the mix. After Alex laid down a vocal track and did some synth work, I created a drum track and soundscape out of objects all around me. If you listen closely, you can hear me banging on a desk, bouncing a basketball, scribbling on and tearing paper, and giving my best buddhist monk impression. The overall effect of everything put together is jarring and captures the harmony and dissonance of what we were all feeling at that time.
“Radioactive” (recorded May 2009)
This is a room mic recording of us practicing the vocals for Radioactive, which was the first ‘single’ sounding song of the last batch. This song was mainly written by Alex Gaynor and it’s some of his finest phonetic writing to date. The challenge of this song was in getting the four part harmonies tight, which was the purpose of this practice. Alex and I kick off the song with Greg and Mark coming in shortly after. In the verses, Mark and Alex harmonize and then Greg and I rejoin for the choruses. You can see a full-band live rendition of this in an earlier post.
“The Spider” (recorded December 2008)
I love this song. We recorded this at Berklee for someone’s student project and we had a 4-hour session starting at 2 am. I live for that and so does everyone else who was in that room with me. Before we recorded this song, I was having an ongoing conversation with my girlfriend, Alyssa about a Red Hot Chili Peppers song we were covering at a lot of shows called ‘Aeroplane‘. The bass line is nasty. NASTY. Alyssa challenged me to write “my Aeroplane”. This would be that song.
I spend a lot of my time working with effects and finding new ways to manipulate my bass sound digitally but when it comes to recording, I really value taking time to produce organic sounds to create a sonic landscape (this is what we were really going for with ‘Animals‘. A tip of the hat to Diego Stocco for what he’s done to his upright bass in this video! Keep watching through to the end, because the sounds really start to come together to make a nice sonic texture.
So my band, The Help recently moved into a new home where we set up a recording space in our “dining room”. We bought a spankin’ new microphone and one week into the new lease year, we’ve got a demo on our hands! It feels great because we’ve been writing for the better part of a year and not producing recordings at all really.
During that time, we were on a semi-regular show schedule that was just periodic enough that we kept performing our old material. It was pretty frustrating to be hitting the stage with old songs while we were expanding our musical minds, identities and what-have-you off the stage. It began to feel like we were misrepresenting ourselves every night we played. So now that we’ve moved into this new home, we’ve used it as a catalyst to get on the recording aspect and through that, begin to share where we are as people and musicians.
This song, ‘Animals’ has a lot of meaning for me personally as I feel it captures the frustration and isolation we all began to feel independently and collectively. There were times when I really was not sure if The Help was going to make it through the dark period and I know I’m not the only one in the band who felt that way. The fact that we’ve gotten to the other side and we’re releasing material again is a HUGE sigh of relief for me. By all means, let me know what you think!
Listen to and download our new song ‘Animals’ at the following link:
dig it.
You Can't Take It With You
Press play. Hear the music swell forward, anxious and wanting, elevating your heartbeat with every stomp and clap. Finger-picked acoustic guitar smoothens the edges of the music as it crests into a wave that thrusts your ears into the many, many thick, calm and serene rewards of You Can’t Take It With You. An album overflowing with moments that feel so very lush, with moments that are here and now and nowhere else.
This is As Tall As Lions.
This latest album (released August 18th) from the Long Island quartet, nearly two years in the making, achieves sonic landscapes as arid as desert and dripping wet as jungle all encompassed within a flow that feels as natural and evolving as the passing sun. There is a sensibility in the writing and production that evokes images of closed eyes and shared smiles in the engineering booth. They worked hard, that much is clear. Did they get what the worked for? Well, it’s difficult to throw full support behind something, but it must be said: yes. You Can’t Take It With You by As Tall As Lions is a positively stellar work of music.
The opener, ‘Circles’ is an immediate departure from the wintered cityscape texture of their previous album, Self-Titled. The song is kinetic and it is a statement piece. It immediately comes alive with a pulse that feels like a more organic nod to Radiohead’s ’15 Step’. The coarse rhythm of the stomps and claps flower into a satisfyingly thick harmony laden chorus. A guitar solo that absolutely screams and pulsating harmonies mount the energy higher and higher culminating in an abrupt ending. It leaves the ears suspended mid-air to be utterly smacked by the entrance of the next track ‘Sixes & Sevens’. This is Rock Music, ladies and gentlemen.
The title-track, ‘You Can’t Take It With You’, with it’s glistening textures and opening Spanish Phrygian melody, is a desert mirage in the heat of this album’s mid-day sun. The heavy verse precedes a lush chorus drenched in the sweat of an acid trip. At songs end, a dramatic color change triggered by the line “give me your consciousness” may very well dilate your pupils.
‘Duermete’ is where the labor becomes that of love. The song is warm and damp, a deeply personal celebration of introspection. It’s a love song of for the present, no matter how difficult it may be. Its delicate piano-driven hits bounce into the thick of four-part harmony to close out the first half of the album.
The split in As Tall As Lion’s You Can’t Take It With You is quite apparent from the four-minute ambient interlude that follows ‘Duermete’. From here on it out, it feels like the B-side with it’s enjoyable, but alas, significantly less memorable tracks (excluding ‘The Narrows’). While this album was perhaps abrasive on the first listen, it was compelling and on fire from the minute one. Since that first listen, it has aged well as its distinctly foreign flavors soon became familiar and ultimately soothing. The music stays warm until the nightfall of the B-side, and even then, remains endearing. As they are not profoundly technical musicians, As Tall As Lions rely on their ability to turn what in lesser hands may be just sounds into pure music, a gift which may only come naturally. In their lyrics, they are hopeful where others are lonesome, even in their darkest of subjects such as the existential crisis:
What a life, what a lie
We’re living here on borrowed time
And life’s what happens in between the planet and the…
You either live it up
Or don’t live it down
So don’t be giving up
Or let it bring you down
It’s hard to say how far-reaching this album will be. It’s melodically driven pop-rock, but with a very distinct flavor. One can only hope this album spreads to as many heads as possible, since those are sure to become home to expanded minds.
dude is the man
Passion Pit (l-r): Ian Hultquisk, Ayad Al Adhamy, Nate Donmoyer, Michael Angelakos and Jeff Apruzzese
Recently, I checked in with Nate Donmoyer, drummer of Passion Pit, as he took a break from their current tour through Europe. Since the release of their album Manners, Passion Pit has seen rising numbers at each of their shows both in Boston (nearly swept the Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll) and nationwide. For more information and for music, check out their website at: http://www.passionpitmusic.com
WC: Let’s ease into this by telling the story of your musicianship and your perspective on the genesis of Passion Pit.
ND: Well it’s funny because I’ve seen both sides of the band, from helping booking them play one of their first shows at Basstown at the Great Scott (which i was a DJ at) and interviewing them for my blog to a few months later being asked to join the band. Who knows Will, maybe you will be playing bass in Passion Pit before the New Year.
WC: Who would you pin as the primary musical influences for yourself? For Passion Pit?
ND: Personally, any and everything influences me, from music I completely copy to artists I listen to in order to learn what not to do. Right now though, I’m obsessed with dance music and most of it comes from Europe. The band is more heavily influenced by all things “Pop”, while there’s a heavy synth based element really, we are aiming for The Beatles and Beach Boys and all other pop that has stood the test of time.
WC: What is the writing process for Passion Pit?
ND: Michael is the songwriter of the crew, and he brings it to us to flesh out in the full band live setting. In the studio, him and I work in a little bit [of a] risky way by not really having finished songs walking into the session, like say a rock band would do. It’s expensive but we got a pattern down with Chris Zane, the producer, and Alex Aldi, the engineer, where we built the album like a Lego building. Each song is a room and we built every piece of furniture one Lego piece at a time. While one of us was grouting the tile in the bathroom another was picking out the matching bath towel set.
WC: How has your approach to writing and drumming evolved in a band that employs a lot of electronic textures in it’s sound?
ND: It’s kind of a dream come true for me to be in a band setting that allows [me] to program and sequence a lot and still get to play behind the kit. I always practice to either a click or dance music so doing it on stage is actually more comfortable to me then playing click-less. It’s kind of a crutch actually, where I start getting paranoid about speeding up or slowing down, all I have to do is wait for the next click.
WC: I find that your music lends itself well to hip-hop. Can we expect any cross-genre collaborations in the future?
ND: Actually, there [are] quite a few projects in the works. Maybe not all as Passion Pit, but there are a few MCs we are getting in the studio with very soon…but I don’t like to jinx things, so we’ll see.
WC: Through your experiences with Passion Pit and The Peasantry, what tips can you give for generating buzz?
ND: Oh man, those experiences have been so different, we worked really, really hard to just scrape by in The Peasantry. We put tons of our own money and time into that. Which [is] why I can appreciate how lucky we have been in Passion Pit. While I can’t explain why the experience was so different, in both cases we found it most beneficial to not shove it down everyone’s throats that we are in a band and have an EP, but to make friends, honest genuine friends. And they are the ones that spread the word, if it is good music, which is the most important factor.
WC: How has the rapid rise to fame affected your ability to hone a successful live show?
ND: I would not say we are famous, haha, but we have been thrown into situations way over our head, and with a lot of luck and a lot of anxiety we somehow have risen to the occasion. It’s crazy how long you will hole yourself up in a rehearsal space when you know you have to headline the first night of Bonnaroo in a few weeks. We still take time out on tour to rehearse in different cities and work out new versions of songs and tweak instrumentation, even though we play with each other two hours a day including sound check.
WC: In past interviews, Michael Angelakos has mentioned his falsetto style of vocal performance as the most divisive element of the band’s sound. Passion Pit had to cancel a show in July in the Netherlands after he lost his voice. Is this style of singing a struggle to maintain night to night? Is he sticking with this signature sound or contemplating a change of style for the next album?
ND: I think his voice is one of the most defining elements of the band, however he has been messing with using his chest voice again, there are a few radio sessions floating around where I don’t think he uses his falsetto once. In the end, the band’s goal is good songs, so it shouldn’t matter how you sing it.
WC: How have you been received in Europe? How does that differ from how you are received in America?
ND: It’s surprisingly similar somehow. American crowds do dance more as a whole, but while we have played cities two or three times stateside, we just played Holland, Belgium, and Spain for the first time and when we look out in the crowd, it’s impossible to tell where you are, save for the occasional euro-mullet. Oddly enough, Ireland by far brings out our best crowd. I got strangely emotional watching the crowd react to ‘Sleepyhead’ (there is a Gaelic sample in it) at Oxegen Festival. My middle name is Patrick, to give a hint, so it was this bizarre overwhelming feeling of acceptance, almost like coming home for me, which is completely absurd seeing as no one in my family has lived in Ireland for 30+ years and I’m 22…
WC: Passion Pit has been hailed as one of the most successful bands out of Boston in recent memory. How do you represent the city and its music?
ND: While we love Boston, Mike is the only one who still heads back there on days off. I’ve moved home with my parents in Maryland, and the rest of the guys have scattered; but there is no city I feel more comfortable in than Boston. Honestly, I feel as though Boston can be found in the dance element of our sound. While the common believe is that Europe is the dance Mecca, and for the most part this is true, there is no scene in the world like Boston’s Dance/DJ scene. I feel it’s because there is so much heart put into every event, and nights like Make It New, and Heartthrob, Thunderdome, and Bassic are full of people who genuinely love the music that’s being blasted there. And one more important detail, the DJs are really good…like massive in Europe and Japan but play Middlesex Lounge good. One day I hope I can afford to move back.
WC: Would you say Passion Pit is part of a greater musical movement? If so, what does that movement represent? What does Passion Pit represent?
ND: This is a big question I don’t know if I can answer alone or so lucidly. I think our generation as a whole has embraced simultaneity. You can get whatever you want from where ever you want all the time. The deciding factor in choices is no longer what scene or genre but whether something is good or bad. I think our album reflects that in that we go through a wide range of styles and influences so hopefully there is something in it for everyone. That movement is Pop.
