I can’t seem to sing today, which precludes my entering a Trio into the public record, but i will disclose two new untitled songs: 1‘s lyrics were blogged and 2‘s weren’t. Enjoy.
by krisis
my music
I have this mass creative urge and i don’t know where to focus it.
I used to have these days all the time when i was younger… i’d feel like i needed to output my thoughts somehow or else i would just endlessly spin in place for a whole day getting absolutely nothing done. My relief for this emotion in the olden days was either writing or playing with my G.I.Joes. Writing then was fiction rather than songs and blogs, so both forms of expression allowed me to create personas other than my own and then intermingle them all together in a storm of creativity that i could reflect upon later. If i was really stuck for resources i’d funnel all that creativity back into a pre-made creation like a novel, but that wasn’t ever wise because i could devour those books in a matter of hours and they would only leave me more hungry to create a piece of my own.
Songwriting was the perfect cure for the whole mess in two ways. The first was that even my longest song clocks in well under six minutes, so now i have a library of hundreds of facets of my own personality that i can trot out one after another, delve into deeply, and then end with a simple resolving chord (or lack thereof). The second was cover songs: the perfect way to focus my energy into someone else’s creative work but to still come out with my own product. Cover songs are much more productive in the long run than my old alternative of writing fanfics, which are inevitably not only totally invalid when held on their own but also totally the property of the originator of the universe the writing occurs in. Cover songs are not my own, but my interpretation of them is, and i’m always allowed to climb into the feelings a song portrays for a single performance, during which it’s as valid as any of my own songs.
However, my guitar occasionally fails me and i likewise have been known to fail it, whether it be due to a broken string or a lack of physical motivation to play. In some of these instances i’ve been left listessly strumming a G chord (or the remainders thereof) trying to get up enough rhythm and momentum to have a go at a song, but otherwise all of my energy would be wasted. That’s where this log came in last summer … a way to make sure that none of my creative energy would have to go to waste, and also a way to integrate my other creativity into one tangled web of personal thoughts and experience. However, as i become more and more comfortable with my guitar and my own voice (as a lyricist, as a blogger, and as a vocalist) i’m again branching out into other artistic and creative endeavors, which in turn can seem quite fruitless because i never created a mechanism to tie them back into this log. Shortly before this log came about i wrote half of a novella that ran over 100 pages, but it was hosted elsewhere on the internet and was based on years of other writing, so i left it to itself rather than ever mentioning it. During the run of the log i’ve continued to chip away at the novel i began six years ago in my endless churning loop of revision after revision to the same essential chapters, but it never manages to see the light of day. More recently i’ve been reviewing music somewhat consistently, and that i have managed to integrate into this domain at both jla and cor (though their participation with this page is usually limited).
It’s easy to see that i’m presented with several problems tied into this new creative urge of mine. The main issue is that i feel like any content that isn’t integrated into this log is essentially being forgotten before it’s ever found, and also that it’s liable to simply fade away from beneath my fingertips if i don’t sew it into my daily fabrication. I’ve been known to be hesistant about posting to the Ani Discussion Board, Shafted, or even the BlogVoices at Wockerjabby because i’m afraid that one precious paragraph of mine will fade into the ether of someone else’s site to never be retrieved again (a fate that blogger often forces onto posts of this epic length and breadth, which leaves me rather paranoid at the moment).
So, i have an obsession to track everything i do, and to tie it back into this very page. Is there any doubt about why i want a webcam? But, anyhow, i often lack in the motivation, organization, and programming skill it would take to seamlessly integrate all of my creativity into Crushing Krisis. However, where i fail in those latter two aspects i’ve been excelling in the first, and so things just like cor have been cropping up everywhere offering me and alternative for dispersing my creative output. Sadly and somewhat ironically all of these venus seem to be detracting from their intended nucleus: this very log.
And, so, i am left here with this mass creative urge but with nothing to blog and a currently irreplacable broken guitar string. And, i’m wondering what’s going to come out, and how i’m going to record it for posterity if it’s something worthwhile.
{some of the links in this entry have additional blog-length exposition that will show up in most browsers when you hover over them. enjoy.}
So, yeah, i keep telling people that i’ve written a whole new album in the space between “hold on me” and today (the latter being referred to lovingly by Hillary as “the creepy fingers song”). Now, i don’t honestly think that i’ve got some masterpiece on my hands, but it’s almost like a signpost indicating forward movement when you have enough fresh material to record again, even if you don’t like all of it. The first time i managed to write twelve songs (twelve songs you’ll never hear, to be sure) it was a momentus occasion because i had an album, even though at this point i’ll probably never play any of them ever again. The funny thing about this new album is that it’s a whole hour of the same song … “Hold On Me” shares some of the same lines and subject matter with the song i posted only a few minutes ago.
I’ve obviously mastered the art of writing “the kiss-off song,” as Gina eloquently puts it, and now what remains it for me to write some other songs to flesh out the emotional landscape of my work. Obviously i just have a surplus of ‘breakup’ feelings floating around, and while i can focus them into many facets of break-up song, and i can’t seem to focus them into anything else. However, musically i’ve been all over the board, from the acoustic rock of “Hold on Me” to the fingerstyle guitar of the two untitled songs to folk bop in “Because” to 3/4 jazz in “Unstrung” to ballad in “Colorblind” to tenor guitar in “Either/Or” back around to punk rock in this new one. So, the trick is to now hang on to that broadened musical pallette, but manage to feel something else. Here goes…
you said i needed to find some hobbies just because i’ve been carving our initials into everything with an exacto blade. those wretched letters look x-ed out better than i know how to, but we were never going to be forever and ever – so whatever. Cause things you said mean even less now that you’ve fessed up: breakdown. breakup.
i intend to wash the sheets again because i like to see my bed empty. And i’ve got two boxes full of your cds, clothes, and pantyhose that my roommate told me to throw out the window just like we had thrown them on the floor so long before. But, you told my best friend that i’d lost it over you because you’re a manipulator, and you can bitch all you want but i won’t see you later. Cause things you said mean even less now that i’ve cleaned up: breakdown. breakup….
breakout of this shit cause like a broken record i’m skipping over my making tracks and you know the motivation i lack is why i’m so stuck on you and i never should have fucked you just because i was bored out of my mind that’s what toys are for and playing around just got us lost and we found out how to extend our claws and dig deeper than The things we said that mean even less now that we brokeup. Breakdown. Breakup.
I’m supposed to be friendly to you as if it makes a world of difference; i’d rather flirt with your best friend across the room for all the bad mojo it’d bring. And with all this salt in our wounds we should be alcoholics, eating the worm at the bottom of the bottle for every time we speak too soon. But this is just my defense mechanism and my words must just be dumb just like optimism. But things you said mean even less now that i’m fed up: breakdown. breakup. brokedown. fed up. drowned out. fucked up. breakdown. breakup.
In two weeks i’ve played outside for Spring Jam, in my supervisor’s office at work, for a room full of “dykes,” and in a tiny bar adjoining a good place to get wings. Each performance had its own little quirks, but tonight’s was definitely my favourite in many ways. Firstly, i had the crowd stacked in my favor with mucho peeps from the Player’s House. Secondly, i was really well rehearsed and not at all nervous. And, finally, all of my songs sounded good – even to me (which is a rare thing).
The set (a whopping hour long) follows, with minimal comments. A trio sneak-peek should be up sometime this weekend.
Other Plans (great opener, still love it),
Punk (crowds seem to pay attention to this; a shame it’s only 2 minutes long),
Deadweight (surprisingly coherent),
Ziggy Stardust (Bowie: random fun),
Relief (doesn’t seem to do much live),
Buildings and Bridges (Ani: by request!),
Under My Skin (wow, a crowd that didn’t know all the words…),
Bridge (“this is as close as i get to playing a solo”)
Dilate (Ani: huge and fun),
Give (hard to do live, but satisfying. thnx rabi.),
Crashing (broke a string; steve of The Conditions filled in while i got this ready),
Lost (quick and painless),
Like A Prayer (Madonna: not the best closer for a bar full of drunk men when you don’t know all the words, but all of the girls helped out by singing along).
My set was between a Drexel gal doing mostly covers and a massive two-hour (still going as i write) set by Justin (of dead susan fame) and Geoff. I think the owner invited me back for next week, but i’m sorta drunk on starvation so i don’t have a very clear memory of it. If i am playing next week, i need to learn some more cover songs. God help us all… g’nite.