Author: h

On the 13th I had an unusually creative day, and I talked about it, among other things, with Cory.

What I didn’t get around to saying in the pod was that Sunday wasn’t just about conceptualizing a new h&s project that ties together some of the old “hiplife” ideas and new dream/404 songs; Sunday was also about the way that that breakthrough cascaded through my other folders and playlists of demos and made other projects snap into place as well. Dreaming up the h&s party/hiplife LP freed up some marginally-h&s guitar songs for a M/S Ride guitar album that mixes Tom Petty / tremolo riffs with Smashing Pumpkins / Small Stone ideas, it might have pulled a couple odd songs out of “Orbital Debris vol. 2” and solidified that as more of an electro project in line with vol. 1, etc.

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Cooky

I was wrong, you were right, you can spell it how you like
Common sense be damned, full speed ahead
Conventions never were your thing
Type those pretty thoughts into the night
Talking hard
I used “proscribe,” you called me out
You know I love to argue, babe
I don’t take prisoners but I’ll fight you fair
Maybe I’m the lunatic you’re looking for

I don’t need to win, don’t ever walk away from an honest debate
Hey, it doesn’t matter, doesn’t mean a thing
When did we stop having fun in here?
My heart, I’m yours
And your sketchy spelling doesn’t change a thing about us
Trust me when I tell you

She doesn’t know your name, I didn’t tell her who was
Talking like a cookbook from the fifties
I just said you were a friend
Anonymous as ever at my job, slacking off
Can we sharpen wits without it being hurtful?
God, I hope so
Kid, I need to feel we’re cool with repartee
Holding back holds us apart

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I was on KKFI 90.1 Kansas City Community Radio this morning with Mark Manning and the Wednesday MidDay Medley! You can listen to the show here but only for the next couple weeks, they don’t maintain a full archive, so click now. My part starts at about 1:02:00.

We also covered Fight Songs on The Long Play Listening Party. Part 1 is in your podcast feed now, or you can watch here.

Plus hear one more song, “The Last Last Time” featuring Cory over at Bandcamp!

A little coda for Only Mostly Dead, these were recorded in the basement after I tore down the OMD setup. They were still done in single takes with no edits or overdubs, though I used a looper pedal for “Stuck On You” (the intro is the loop, and it comes back at the end).

The first full set of Fight Songs masters are rendering now, and I’m going to listen to them tonight. They’ve been a long time coming. Pretty psyched. All the guest spots are in. Mixes are good, if not quite done.

Fourteen years in the making, at least. I thought I’d done a post where I traced out when each song was written as best I could, but maybe I’m thinking of doing that for V for Voice. “Cooky” was new in fall 2008, at a minimum.

It wasn’t planned this way, but I’m almost getting the record out for the 10th anniversary of my wedding to the person most of them are about fighting with!

Following up to my compression explainer post, here’s a short video that explains signal compression extremely well and makes zero mistakes! Watch if you’re new to compression, or if you have any questions about what compressors do.