Yesterday was a really busy day, and Easter, and all of that stuff. So, here I am this evening making up for it with post #2 of crazy music madness! Tonight's entry is of the most recent album I have released. It was supposed to be a full album, but what happened was a song would get done here, another one would get worked on there... not 100% coherent.
See, all the previous 10,000 Lakes albums were done on tape. One of the main themes of a 10,000 Lakes album was the idea that something could be recorded fairly quickly, ranging from one night with all the instruments, lyrics, and a tape recorder, to a more laid back approach, and completion over a month or two.
This one was done over a three year period, and not by analog means. The early versions of some of these songs came about in '05, and the last recording was done in '08. I was involved with a podcast at the time, as well as producing and recording rap music. So I had gotten comfortable with recording higher quality music, and doing other creative things.
After waiting for so long and realizing that this project should stand on its own, I finally put together the 6th 10,000 Lakes release, "Pots, Pans, and Ceiling Fans. And here it is:
Here's a bit of description of each song:
1. Metropolis - this song, along with Hairbrush and Discount Biscuits, was done all in one evening session in '06 or '07. The idea was to create a full album, but these three songs were all I ended up with. It was a good start, including randomness and irony.
2. Hairbrush - In the 3-song session, I wanted to make the most surreal song possible given the musical style. And of course, add some power chords. On "Cat Hospital" I had mentioned a fictional Carlos Santana song called "Hairbrush," so I made it into a real song.
3. Fishtank Mountain - By song 3 or 4 on all of the previous 10,000 Lakes albums, there was a folksy song, or a ballad. This song fit into that category. I also had become a very big fan of Wesley Willis by this time. His signature style was to repeat the song title four times as the chorus, and end the song with an advertising slogan. I only used the first half. It ended up being the most popular song I've ever made. Here's the live in-studio version:
4. Discount Biscuits - Wrote the lyrics to this song at work. That's where the lunch menu stuff comes in. I wanted to do an all-keyboard and vocals song in the style of "Tablecloth" from "Cat Hospital," and "Rough Noisy Bowl '82" from "Minnesota Hat 1982."
5. Pots, Pans, and Ceiling Fans - This was the second song I recorded for the new album. It was recorded in a snap session in '05 along with a song called "Brisketron" which was not included in the album. It had to be re-recorded several times using the keyboard solo from the original mix, to sound just right. The idea behind the song was hidden meanings and ridiculous puns. The first lines are a riff on an Audioslave song. It then delves into wordplay, jokes about instructions on household products, and of course some funky guitar stuff.
6. Squeegee In Hand, Windshield Far Away - recorded in 2008, this was the eventual cap on the whole album. It was a bit of a style-copy of "Mambo #4" in the long-song, jam-band sort of recording. The title came from, of all things, the MySpace page of one of my other projects, Dr. Tissue. On MySpace, if you had a band page, you could fill in a tour schedule complete with location, time, date, other bands, the name of the show, etc. So it was a perfect opportunity to come up with ridiculous band names, festivals, venues, and prices. For example, a festival in Antarctica at 5 a.m. that costs $79,000, featuring Dave and The Robot Arm of Classic Rock, and 9000 Mermaids With Tambourines. Anyway, one of the "band names" was Squeegee In Hand, Windshield Far Away. So that's how that happened.
:-)
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