Your New Home

New song can be downloaded in high quality mp3 here.

To be fair this is actually something that I worked on and had up on the Myspace in a different form a few months ago.

The song has gotten a remix and a 100% brand new vocal track. This time I replaced the dopey vocal effects with proper enunciation so you can hear the whole story.

What hasn't changed is the song is still a silly stream of consciousness homage to late 80s Touch and Go records bands.

Enjoy. The picture is unrelated. It is from a goat farm I was on last week before seeing Alice Cooper and Heaven & Hell. I threw the goats at the goat and it just kept staring back at me, trying to suck my soul out through my mouth as I breathed. Goats are freaking Metal. I see why people associate them with the devil. Weird freaky gorgeous lovable creatures. Click on the picture for the full size version where you can really see the F'ed up eyes. There was also a newfie on the farm which is the most ginormous puppy I have ever crossed paths with. Although still technically a puppy the dog weighed over 130 pounds. And was wet and stinky. My friend Vince in order to try to not get dog slobber all over him raised his hand up when the dog came running. Apparently this is the command for "hug" so he got a lot more than he bargained for with a face full of newfie. Pretty rad dog anyway, even with the stinkiness and all.

Yes, this was the third time I saw H&H in the last six months. What can I say? I never thought I would ever get the chance to see Sabbath with Dio so I took every opportunity that presented itself. No, there were no surprises, in fact they cut four songs from the set. But who cares? Alice and Dio in the same night? Freaking awesome.

Also unrelated- went to the LI Roller Derby championships yesterday. It was a fun night because of the company but the game wasn't particularly notable except they kept the music going the whole time, not just in between periods. Watching girls beat the crap out of each other to "The Trooper" was freakin' sick. Even though the announcer tried to ruin it by singing along to the guitar harmonies. Actually no, that just made it all the more Metal. We were also coincidentally super close to where my parents live. We passed their house a couple of times and I took everyone in the car to the old diner hang out Shyer and I used to go in high school, On Parade Diner. It is all fancy now. WTF? It was also empty on a Saturday at Midnight. Where do the kids hang out now? Are they all at Syosset House?

New Song- "Under the Wires"

Also up on the Myspace.

High quality mp3 HERE

Right click to download or left click to stream. If you are on a Mac, God willing you know what to do with a link.

While wrestling with a very ambitious song "Exposed" that is far from ready for public consumption, I kinda crapped this out very quickly. That is not to say that there wasn't any sweat or tears over the arrangement or the mix, but the basic structure and lyrics came in a flash. As people who have worked with me know, I love simple arrangements with dense sound layers. This song started as just acoustic guitar and vocals, and I added all the orchestral parts one by one. There are high strings, brass, stringed bass, and some synth pads. The "tropical" guitar is electric, although in context it sounds almost like a very bright acoustic guitar.

Should I add percussion? I am inclined to say no, but I was experimenting with a few hits that I thought sounded pretty good, but also made the song sound a bit Flaming Lips-y. Anyways, give it a spin. New Scream Bloody Virgin on a lazy Sunday.

In case you didn't know tonight is the season premiere of Curb Your Enthusiasm!!! I am so psyched. Hopefully divorce has given him some great material.

Also if you live in the UK you are probably already watching the IT crowd. If you live in America you probably don't know what it is. Find a way to watch it. Season two is already three episodes in and they are the funniest things I have seen all year. Find them as torrents, or if you know how to spoof your IP, they stream on the BBC website for UK IPs.

I hung out with some goats yesterday, and the most ginormous puppy I have ever personally had the pleasure of petting. Stories forthcoming..........

Real Album Title

Has been selected. I'll reveal it soon along with the new SBV logo.

I need to finish up two songs and record 3 or 4 more. I wrote two of them today after house cleaning.

Scream Bloody Virgin in 2007, yo!

Potential Album Title

Scream Bloody Virgin- Permanent Failure

Nope, hold the phone. Here we go.

Scream Bloody Virgin- Meaningful Hangovers

Hmmmm looks a bit hokey in print. Might be better as a lyric in some Jeff Tweedy-ish kinda song. Must chew on it a bit.....

Healthy Body, Sick Mind

A few random life thoughts.

#1- There are two kinds of hypochondriacs in the world. Those who spend their lives at the doctor, and those who fear the doctor. Both kinds constantly diagnose themselves over the internet. I am of the latter. Which is why most people who go to a doctor's visit and get a clean bill of health just go on with their day, but for me has been a week long celebration. In fact some of you reading this may have already gotten IMs or texts with the news. Everything is tip top, good cholesterol is high, bad cholesterol is low, just need to shed a few more pounds. Rock!

#2- It is mostly Lee, but there has been chatter in my ear about starting a Scream Bloody Virgin band. I imagine I would call it Scream Bloody Virgin. I don't think I would try to do it full time, the last thing the world needs is another failed local band. However I could see doing the random one-off show. What do people think? Anyone want to be in a theoretical/hypothetical band?

#3- I am trying to step up my social life a bit in anticipation and fear of video game season. The addition of the Wii to my life has brought me a lot of time playing Paper Mario and Resident Evil 4 when I should be making music or being out of the house. When guests are over Mario Strikers Charged gets broken out. Now on Tuesday Bioshock comes out, a first person shooter based on the writings of Ayn Rand. No, really. I pre-ordered the special edition that comes with a figurine and a soundtrack CD. No, really. Also in the next couple of months we are being cursed with Halo 3, Metroid Prime 3, Stranglehold and Eternal Sonata (an RPG based on the life of Chopin). What the hell am I going to do? I may need to take a week off of work just to play games.

High Quality Scream Bloody Virgin mp3s

Ok, thanks to Ben Lebo, I have a simple working solution to distribute high quality music.

Find the new songs not destroyed by the cruel algorithms of myspace HERE

Or individually:

Cast off your Virgin Thorns

Basements of Xanadu

There are a couple more track on the main page.

Even more music up on the MySpace

I gotta look on forums and see if there is any way to "master" music to sound better after the MySpace conversion process. The results can be somewhat depressing.

Anyways, there are now two new songs up. In addition to "Cast off your Virgin Thorns" I have put up something that has been germinating the last few months, "Basements of Xanadu." The tune is the sort of mish-mash of influences you should expect from me at this point. I'm getting closer to the Eno ideal of voice doubling. I am definitely better at it now than when I started and put up that first song "Edge of the Galaxy."

Anyways, I will be happy to send out higher quality Mp3s to anyone who asks. I am pretty bummed by how Xanadu converted over.

New song up on the MySpace

It is called "Cast off your Virgin Thorns" and can be heard here.

Lyrically, and you can probably hear this in the performance, the song was very cathartic. It is about someone I know, but not someone confirmed to read this blog, whom I care for very much who can't seem to get their life together. In the never ending quest to find the easy path this person makes their life much more difficult than it needs to be, and often this affects my life adversely. At a certain point if you can't find the angle, you need to stop making excuses and just get out there and do what you need to do. No one likes to work. No one likes to feel like a sheep. But we do what we have to do in order to support ourselves and keep our lives moving forward. Life is all about trade offs. Do I love performing advertising operations all day? Hells no. But I found something I am good at that pays me enough to do all the things I love and doesn't erode away at my soul. What more can you ask for? Well, some people don't want to put in their time........

It is not reasonable for me to be this judgmental or to be confrontational about how someone lives their life. This is why despite the recommendations of people around us I do not. How can I say to someone "I have trouble looking you in the eye because the way you live infuriates me and causes me undue stress and frustration?" But as a song? Gold, Jerry! Gold! An open letter written in bile.......

dysgrace

New song up on the myspace. Check it out here.

I'm pretty proud of where I took this one. I didn't expect it to turn out this guitar heavy. A lot of the vocals were recorded before guitars were added to the mix. Discipline has never been one of my finer traits and shit, I can add layers indefinitely. Knowing what to take away or never put in was as important as what to add.

I think I'm getting the hang of the new gear. We'll see where the next one goes.

This was unexpected....

The singer of Gods of Fire wants to adapt Burn, a song I wrote about being angry at Sebadoh, into a full on Metal tune. If you haven't heard the song yet you can find it here.

I am down to try it, but there are some interesting concerns. Jason said if it stays as a Scream Bloody Virgin track (my solo nom de plume) then the song is a "waste."

Is it? Just because I don't see myself "pushing" my solo music in the same way we "push" the band am I wasting a good song by keeping it for myself? Do I owe the Gods of Fire first crack at my "A" material? Although I am very proud of my latest GoF contribution The Dying Wizard, Burn is probably one of the more interesting things I have come up with lately, especially lyrically.

Really I just want people to hear my music I guess. Being precious about my songs has never particularly helped me. I am a bit nervous by what kind of changes would be made to make the song ready for Power Metal, but it is also exciting to think of a song entering the Gods of Fire repertoire that is actually about a subject that doesn't involve dragons or monsters or villagers.

At the very least I guess this is permission to try to write a little more "maturely" for the band. Stay tuned, things can get interesting.