Musicus Updatus

Apologies all around for the lack of recent blog activity; my day job has seen me editing and updating everyone else's blogs to the detriment of my own, and I've been busy with my own projects as well. That's sort of the point of this post.

I know the last post I made was light on content and heavy on self-plugging, so I'm going to try and fill in some of the blanks I've missed recently. Of the personal projects I'm at liberty to talk about right now (there are more coming that I can't really discuss until they're ready to go), the music stuff has been top of the list. Those of you who know me and follow my online activity are aware that I recorded a rough demo of original songs under the name Alexander James at the end of 2008, entitled The Yonge Street Sessions, with my good friend and sometime producer Adam Grant. The recording quality wasn't great; we recorded vocals and guitar on a single track through my little board and into Garage Band, so we couldn't really do much in post and unfortunately the only mic I own (a gift from my ad-hoc P.R. agent Maggie Chu) is fine for live performances but isn't terribly suited to high-definition recording. However, the point of recording the demo was to send a big chunk of my best original work to the Songwriter's Association of Canada for registry (to copyright my work with a reputable organization, so in the event someone else steals it and makes a fortune, I can sue for rights and presumably win), so I was happy with the final product for that reason. The Yonge Street Sessions has been distributed to friends and family for word-of-mouth proliferation and as a thank you to their continued support of my music, and the feedback I've been getting has been largely very positive, despite the shaky sound quality.

I've mentioned before that I work in advertising (sort of), and as a result a lot of the people I work with are talented artists of all stripes, many of whom are musicians or at least music afficionados. Circulating TYSS around the office has led to a number of new musical opportunities, one of which was realized this week. Our company's resident sound engineer, Aaron DeGroot, is only in his early twenties, and already he's an extremely talented music producer with a real ear for detail and a passion for creating extremely high-quality work on a very small budget. TYSS reached his desk and he expressed interest in doing some work with me, especially because the downturn in the economy has led to a deficit of hours at our day job (read: he's bored and wants a project). On Tuesday of last week we got together at the studio he operates out of his home and re-recorded two of my favourite tracks from the demo that hadn't turned out as well as I'd hoped, namely Year Long Day and State I'm In.

I have worked on multimedia projects with Aaron in the past and I already knew we worked well together, but I was pleasantly surprised to note that, despite coming from very different musical backgrounds, we shared the same vision for the production of these two songs. State I'm In is a roots blues-rock number I had originally envisioned as being played with a full band, but given that most of my shows are played solo and acoustic, I had to tool the song to that effect. For the new recording I borrowed Aaron's electric and threw down some fills in addition to the acoustic rhythm, and thanks to the glory of multi-track recording, the track turned out great.

I'm told by friends who dig what I do that Year Long Day is probably going to end up being the "single", so I agonized some over what to do with it. I ended up keeping it essentially as it was, but recorded some harmonies to include on key points of the song. Unfortunately, my inexperience with multitrack resulted in my accidentally upping the tempo, changing the song from an alt-folk ballad into what one friend termed "a lost Barenaked Ladies track"; also, while the harmonies worked technically, it sounds very strange to loop my own voice over itself. As a result, YLD is still a work in progress, but despite its nitpicky problems, I still rather like the way it turned out.

The truly cool part about working with Aaron was that I found it very natural. I am not an experienced studio musician (probably 95% of everything I've done has been live) but Aaron made it very easy to learn about the process. It's going to take some work on my part and just time and experience in general, but I'm very excited to learn more about how to actually MAKE music and not just come up with and play songs. His advice on composition was also very helpful -- he made prescient points without being overbearing, and from what I understand that can be a rare commodity working with independent producers. I was honoured to work with such a talented guy; I don't know if he has anything resembling an online portfolio for his work, but once I get some links together I'm going to post them here. You should definitely check him out.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the support and input of my good friend Randy Burlton, who originally showed up to watch a soccer match and wound up making some great suggestions on both tracks. And he carried the beer.

If you happen to be interested, you can hear the new versions of both songs at my Myspace music page. For some reason, Blogger has issues with embedding Myspace URLs, so here it is again:

www.myspace.com/alexanderjamesmusiconline

So that's part one.

Part two of the music projects actually has its roots in an unusual, six-degrees-of-separation kind of friendship that is already several years old. Back in 2005 I was living with a close friend and her fiancee, who introduced me not only to the aforementioned Adam Grant but also to another buddy of his, a talented guitar player from Port Perry called Sean May. The first time I hung out with this guy I had no idea he was a musician, but I was struck by his off-beat sense of humour and his acute musical knowledge. We hit it off and eventually it came out that we both played guitar.

I was far from being a disciplined player at the time, but when I heard Sean play for the first time I realized it wouldn't have mattered -- the cat is a killer musician who would have blown me out of the water even if I was at the top of my game. We started jamming together whenever he was in town, usually for a party or get together hosted by Adam, and eventually it became a bit of a tradition that people would ask us to play this-or-that song while we were fooling around.

A year or so went by with he and I playing more and more regularly at parties, and by this time the idea of forming an official two-man acoustic band with the aptly nicknamed Guitar Sean (I knew a lot of Seans at the time and had to differentiate between them somehow) was beginning to surge to the forefront of my interests. Sean introduced me to a genre of music with which I was unfamiliar -- in some circles it's called filk, though I prefer the term Sean and I have since coined: nerd folk. It's exactly what it sounds like -- folk-oriented music whose lyrical content is in some way influenced by what a lot of people would call nerd culture: science fiction, fantasy, gaming and the like. I wouldn't identify myself as a classic nerd (though I have interest in some nerd topics), but Sean definitely fits the mould -- the only thing keeping that boy from taping his glasses and wearing a pocket protector is the fact that when he plays guitar it's like audial sex.

At any rate, after some discussion we decided to make the band official and dedicate ourselves to developing a unique style based on the nerd-folk premise, so to that end I came up with the somewhat obvious name "Nerds With Guitars" (mostly because I thought the abbreviation N.W.G. was a cute homage to early rap artists N.W.A. because we're basically their polar opposites). The name stuck, and before long the parties at Adam's started to morph into pseudo-concerts featuring "Guitar Sean" and "Big Al" (a nickname I picked up due to some serious weight gain around the same time). We developed a small word-of-mouth following that has been steadily growing since then.

To date, almost all of our recorded work has been cover-based, though we do try to put our own spin on the cover songs we play. More recently we have finally found time to start writing our own material, based on the original premise of nerd-folk. Believe it or not there's a huge subgenre of people that are really into this style of music, but sticking strictly to nerd topics isn't quite enough for Sean and I. The result of our efforts is turning Nerds With Guitars into a filk-ish outfit with a healthy dollop of guitar comedy (the likes of which can be seen in artists like Stephen Lynch or Flight of the Conchords, two of our major influences). The combination of nerd-folk and guitar comedy opens doors for us that would otherwise be closed -- "regular" musicians would be out of place playing at a comedy club or comic convention, but we'll fit right in. With Sean planning a move to Toronto this year, it looks like this project is finally going to start taking off, and I couldn't be more excited. Currently, N.W.G. plays monthly at Adam's "what month is it and what excuse can we come up with" house parties, but as we're working on original material we hope to start playing out and about in the coming months.

Once again, if you're interested, you can check out some of our stuff at the other Myspace page:

www.myspace.com/nerdswithguitars

Everything up right now is live and as recent as February 2009, and while most of it is pretty standard cover fare, if you listen closely you can see where the humour comes in. Like I said, there's really a lot of stuff coming down the pipe in the next couple of months with this project, so hopefully I'll have more to report soon.

If you've read this far, you deserve a medal. In a lot of ways this was just a really extended link-whore post, but honestly, this is where my heart and soul have been going the last few months, and where they're likely going to stay for the next while, so I felt it deserved some fleshing out. I'm really excited about expanding these music projects into the professional realm, and I finally feel like I'm starting to get somewhere on that front. As it stands right now, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for solo venues because Sean doesn't live here yet, so if you know of a good place to start looking or if you're aware of a like-minded band looking for an opening act, please feel free to let me know. You'll get a shout-out when the record goes platinum. No, seriously.

Thanks for reading; next time I post I'll try to write something funny or otherwise engaging. Promise.

In brief (link whore session)

Sorry, I'm linking and running here because it's almost 1am and I'm still not quite fixed after this bout of head cold I've been writing about the last few days. I've been beating my head on the wall trying to learn CSS and HTML and whatever the hell else you need to know to make a halfway decent webpage, and all I've come up with so far is a monochromatic Myspace page with a couple of songs posted. But, if you're interested, you can check it out at www.myspace.com/alexanderjamesmusiconline. I really didn't want to go with the Myspace page because after six months of this job I can safely say Myspace is the worst social networking site ever, but it seems as though every other two-bit musician has one, so being as I'm also a two-bit musician I bowed to peer pressure.

Conversely, my Facebook music page is still up; unfortunately it has a URL that is not at all conducive to business cards. So click that link instead.

And, finally, there's nothing up on it yet save an introductory video, but I plan to post videos of covers and originals on a dedicated YouTube channel I've set up as well. Yes, this is LinkWhore Central today, and I apologize, but I promise to have proper content back on this page soon. Besides, if the big redesign of the blog hasn't tipped you off, I kind of like to play music. Maybe you'll like it too.

Thanks for your patience; I'm going to go die now, and hopefully be resurrected in time for work tomorrow.

Confessions of a reforming music snob.

Guess what time it is. Go ahead; I'll wait. It's like magic, that I'll get the urge to throw down in this stupid little writing space, and when I look at the clock it's almost always around the same time. Patterns and lines drawn in the sand, I guess; time has a way of looping back on itself and bringing us around to the symbols that matter.

I'm feeling a little pensive. I've written at length about music recently, but I've been talking like a reporter, updating a mostly non-existent audience about the comings and goings of my projects. I don't want to do that today, not at this time of day and certainly not on this particular day.

I have never understood how people can take music for granted. At times I'm even guilty of it myself -- you're at the mall or in someone else's car and a song comes on that you patently don't like. For me that can be a lot of different things, and it becomes a distraction -- an irritant -- something to be spat out and disposed of. What a crime on my part, and on yours.

Okay, so not every genre or artist is going to appeal to everyone; it's not supposed to and it doesn't have to. But being judgmental never got anybody anywhere. It bothers me to no end that people have such specific tropes in mind when they think of musical genres: the big one is "country". Apparently, digging country music bears the stigma of also owning a home on wheels, at least five belt buckles the size of dinner plates, enjoying huntin', drankin', and other things that end with apostrophes, and being married to an existing family member. What nonsense. Clearly, "country" is a genre label that is as broad and general as any other application of the word. I don't like a lot of what you might call the "new" country; Garth Brooks has never held any appeal to me, nor has Mr. Achey Breaky Heart -- you know, Hannah Montana's dad. But there are SO many other styles and subgenres (if you want to call them that) out there, it would be foolish and -- as I said -- borderline criminal for someone to paint with such a broad, misleading brush such a rich musical tradition full of genuinely talented artists. Translation: liking country doesn't make you a hick, and in fact you're the uneducated peon if you think Shania Twain is the alpha and omega of the genre.

But alas, I am obliged to swing a little mud my own way on this point. I have a slight tendency to be a little judgmental when it comes to music I deem unworthy or lacking in some way, and sometimes I'm right -- at least insofar as my own criteria are concerned. For example, if I say that a rap song praising the street credibility garnered through the purchase of a pair of "Air Force One's" lacks any semblance of inspired artistry from a songwriting perspective, I don't think too many people would disagree with me. That's not art: that's a shoe commercial, and I'm not interested in debating the nature of art as it relates to advertising -- Hendrix never had to defend his choice of bell bottoms in a song. It's NOT art. Sorry.

See what I mean about that judgmental streak?

But going forward I try (I really do) to see the bright side. Okay, does "Air Force One" say anything important? Not in the slightest. Does it have a danceable beat and is it catchy? I guess it is -- I don't dance, so I'm not an authority on what constitutes a danceable beat, but I am a musician and I know catchy when I hear it, and that song is catchy as all get-out. So in that respect, it fulfills its function in the musical pantheon -- let's face it, to paraphrase Brendan Fraser in Airheads, "Purple Haze" doesn't exactly have much to say either, lyrically speaking. Not everything has to be some kind of important statement or rich story; sometimes it's enough for a song to rock, or in this case I (begrudgingly) admit, it's enough for a song to groove.

I like to think of myself as being in self-imposed elitism therapy.

Then there are those musical genres that I don't necessarily dislike, I just don't get. The music makes no sense to my ear, and like so many of my forefathers who listened to the Beatles and heard only discordant clashing, I just can't wrap my head around the sound enough to make music out of it in my own head. It makes so little sense to me that I can't even properly label the genre(s?)...I've heard the terms "emo", "screamo", "scene", "post-punk" and a host of others bandied around, and I'm sure none of them are correct, but hopefully you get an idea of what I'm talking about. Like an elitist asshole I have listened to a lot of the better-known bands of this dubious genre and have in the past labeled it self-aggrandizing horseshit, full of middle-class white sorrow (read: self pity) mixed with pubescent rage against perceived authority establishments. Trite, immature nonsense, I figured.

Did I mention the part where this makes me an asshole?

Once again it's unfair of me to pass judgment on a host of musicians I only know peripherally, if at all. If I'm going to live the examined life, and definitely if I ever want to be taken seriously as a musician myself, I have to drop the pretentious bullshit (the same pretentious bullshit of which I'm accusing this entire genre) and do my research. As it turns out, there's more to the "emo/screamo/whatever" genre than I had originally allowed for -- big surprise. The genre is a wealth of incredibly talented technical guitar players, drummers, bassists, keyboard and MIDI players, turn table artists, and even singers and lyricists -- a fact I'd passed over because of the screaming (I can't always understand what lyrics are being...well, screamed) and the fact that many mainstream singers who actually sing seem kind of whiny to me. But for every sub-par Dashboard Confessional lookalike there's a tight, talented rock-influenced outfit like this one or a really surprising artist who's actually in line with some of what I do myself like this guy, and when I find out about them I feel like an even bigger prick for painting the entire genre with my dislike for what MTV tells me is representative of that music scene.

This is me, trying to stay real at 3am. I have a proclivity towards arrogance (as displayed by my use of words like "proclivity") but I try very, very hard not to let that affect the most important parts of my life that aren't people -- namely, the music (mine and yours). So I'm finally asking something of the folks who read this blog -- take a look at my profile if you don't already have a good idea what I'm about, see what I'm into musically and then educate me. Send me a suggestion or a link to something I've never heard of -- it can be in any genre, just tell me why it's cool and I'll check it out and probably write about my thoughts on it. Bonus points if it's you or a friend of yours -- I like to know musicians personally.

And since I haven't link-whored myself yet, for more information on what I do and why I'm so interested in not being critical of other people, check out my temporary music page on Facebook. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.