Well, Ive been absent the past few weeks mainly due to moving, but mostly due to being unmotivated. I think it’s starting to creep back into me, so I shall post here to get back into the habit. It’s nice to be settling down after the move, so I’m looking forward to doing more recording in the evenings. I probably won’t take either of these too much farther, but here they are regardless!
Author: Greg Johnson
March 2007 EP : First Pull Up, Second Pull Down, Third Take Away
How did March go by so fast? Well here we are at the end of our third month of our year long EP series, hello.music! We proudly unveil this month’s release, First Pull Up, Second Pull Down, Third Take Away.
This month we made it a point to increase the amount of cross-country collaboration and development in our songs. Really, only Mike’s and Aryn’s tracks are brand new, but we finally managed to start trading tracks back and forth for editing and recording. Hopefully you should see more and more of this… teamwork… as we move along this year.
So, sit back and relax. Take a listen to the album, download the podcast, and follow our monthly development and provide your comments here on the blog. And above all else, enjoy!
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Temporary Setback :: January 2007
Clouded Spaces, Falling Skies :: February 2007
First Pull Up, Second Pull Down, Third Take Away :: March 2007
Ancient Telephones :: April 2007
The Cavalry Arrived Again :: May 2007
Designed In Anticipation Of His Centennial Years :: June 2007
The Rundown :: July 2007
The Ninth Great Fire :: August 2007
Empty Bottles And Dog-Eared Books :: September 2007
I Can Fix Things In The Morning :: October 2007
We Are Full Of Useful Noise :: November 2007
The Last Duel :: December 2007
hello.music- night time road
This song is in it’s early infancy, but I wanted to post something before the month turns the halfway point. I had hoped to do more with this tonight but got distracted by the John Denver special on the PBS pledge drive.
hello.music round six – Love is Ticking
Here’s another rough start for you to check out:
I think this one, and my last post, have some potential, but they need a lot of fleshing out (i.e. removing mumbled lyrics for actual words, etc). Mike’s coming over to my place tomorrow, so perhaps he can help me finish outlining these. Anyways, not much to say here, except that this is my debut recording of the autoharp. I plan to go on tour with it next month as part of my solo act away from the hellocomein group… since we are now famous enough to split off for solo tours. Then after that, we will have the hellocomein reunion tour that will be kicked off with our appearance at the 2008 Grammy’s. So exciting that we will be back together after all those years of intense drug use and in-fighting. Busy times ahead for us!
hello.music round five — Flying Trapeze
Alrighty. After some time away from the basement, here is my latest effort:
I didn’t want to take it very far before getting some feedback from yous on the chord progression and verse melody. So, this is intentionally pretty rough at this point – Lots of copies and pastes. It should be enough to get the gist, though.
It’s about a kid who gets tangled in the trapeze at the circus.
January 2007 EP: Temporary Setback
“Monthly EP,” you say?
Here’s how this thing works. Each weekish, we like to post on the blog tidbits of music that we have each been working on for comments and critiques. This we call hello.music. But to keep our progress from being so open ended, we decided to do a monthly compilation that includes cover art, several tracks from the month, and some random notes. For Temporary Setback, Mike took charge of the EP title and tracklist. Aryn did the cover art, and I wrote the liner notes.
This month features six tracks that range from the acoustic loveliness of Mike’s “We Sang Modern English” to Aryn’s rockstar live recording of “Make Sure.” And “By Looking Out My Window” is my attempt at playing the concertina. Hopefully as we go along this year, you will see more and more collaborative tracks appear as we figure out how best to remotely record and share music with each other.
That is all for now. Feel free to leave comments here, and let us know what you think.
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Temporary Setback :: January 2007
Clouded Spaces, Falling Skies :: February 2007
First Pull Up, Second Pull Down, Third Take Away :: March 2007
Ancient Telephones :: April 2007
The Cavalry Arrived Again :: May 2007
Designed In Anticipation Of His Centennial Years :: June 2007
The Rundown :: July 2007
The Ninth Great Fire :: August 2007
Empty Bottles And Dog-Eared Books :: September 2007
I Can Fix Things In The Morning :: October 2007
We Are Full Of Useful Noise :: November 2007
The Last Duel :: December 2007
hello.music round four – By Looking Out of My Window (The Concertina Song)
With no further introduction, I proudly present:
By Looking Out of My Window (The Concertina Song).
[audio:https://hellocomein.com/soundbox/hellomusic_greg/By%20Looking%20Out%20My%20Window.mp3]Be on the lookout for posts coming soon about the refurbishment of my ebay concertina, which for me involves using a craft store hot glue gun on rattling surfaces.
hello.music round three – Slowly Yes
I think I like this minimal version
[audio:https://hellocomein.com/soundbox/hellomusic_greg/Slowly Yes_minimal.mp3]better than this crappy one, but to be honest I hate both at the moment.
[audio:https://hellocomein.com/soundbox/hellomusic_greg/Slowly Yes_2.mp3]I think I need to work on some other songs for a while.
hello.music round two – Slowly Yes
Here’s an update to my song from last week. It’s still electronic. It still has the Circuit Dialogue patch. It still has somewhat of a postal servicey feel. I decided to worry about those textural issues at a later date and just work towards completing a song with real live verses and choruses- imagine that!!!!
Needless to say, I present you with Slowly Yes again, now featuring one verse. Hooray. Before you judge too much, I should tell you that I recorded this at 1:00 in the AM, Christmas morning; the verse line is a whisper because I didn’t want to bother Santa as he was putting our presents under the tree. I swear I heard creaking floorboards 20 minutes ago, and if you listen carefully, I bet there is an artifact in the recording. Maybe I can use the mp3 as proof of Santa Clause, similar to what John Travolta did in the 1970’s classic Blow Out with reel to reel tape. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend (it’s occasionally on the channel 62 Sunday afternoon nothing-better-to-do lineup).
Listen here: Slowly Yes version two
[audio:https://hellocomein.com/soundbox/hellomusic_greg/slowly%20yes_1225.mp3]Questions:
- Do you like the verse melody, or should I try again? Sorry about all the lame vocal effects by the way…
- Verse length OK? Chorus length? How many verses I should have?
Here are the lyrics right now, feel free to comment/edit/add:
(Intro with verse progression)
Slowly, yes, is my answer for you, because I know you well enough to call this.
Slowly, yes, is my answer for you, because I know you well enough to call this.
Slowly, yes, is my answer for you, because I know you well enough to call this.
All of the options were failing her when she tried to comply
with an answer that satisfied a simple step: no regrets.
Like a hiker who disregards a faded blaze, ’cause this mountain’s a maze.
Downhill for water, or uphill? “There’s space for a fire, they’ll see me higher.”
hello.music round one – Slowly Yes
Here is my entrance fee for round one of hello.music. It’s a couple midi things, a bass line, and the beginnings of a vocal line. A few musings:
- Need to stop using the “Circuit Dialog” synth because it’s featured in just about everything I do in GarageBand
- The chorus needs retooling because I want the line “a temporary setback” to follow the last “I know you well enough to call this…” of the chorus
- Need a verse melody
- Bridge.
- I would like to alternate verses with Jenny Lewis. Then we will fall in love.