Songs and Sonics

Well, it’s taken multiple crazy web server issues and wild goose chases to locate old backup DVDs, but it’s finally here — the Really Really Weird Remix Contest!

Almost everything you need to know about the contest can be found on this page:

Note that there are some new tidbits on that page, like what criteria will be used for judging your remix. And here’s where you can download the raw multitracks.

However… once you download the tracks, there’s some additional information you ought to know about the tracks themselves.

The files that are part of the second mix have the prefix “midsection_”. It’s recommended that, at least until you’re familiar with the tracks, you make two different mix sessions and work with each half separately.

In the Girls Aliens Food version of the song, the main song mix is interrupted at around the 2:57 mark with the midsection mix. When the midsection mix ends, the song cuts back into the main song mix, at the main song mix’s 3:17 mark.

The “door slam” file is tacked on to the ending of the album mix. The door slam is not meant to go at the beginning of the mix, as it would be if you imported all of these tracks into a DAW; it’s meant to be inserted wherever the song ends.

Naturally, you are not expected to stay true to the original mix (in fact, it is encouraged that you don’t) — but this information is meant to help make sense of how the tracks were constructed, should you want to use the original mix structure as a starting point.

Most of the tracks are mono, though a few are in stereo. The tracks in stereo are marked with the word “(stereo)” at the end of the name.

What is the BPM for this song? Good question. The Me and My Arrow EP and Girls Aliens Food album are the first Simple Carnival releases where I used a click track. However, I didn’t want to make things sound too slick — I wanted to keep a connection with the lo-fi sound that was established with the previous EPs. So I varied the tempo of the click track very, very slightly, speeding up or slowing down things in the way a conductor might lead an orchestra.

So what does this mean?

It means your job as a remixer just got a lot trickier. Although these tracks line up with one another in a DAW, they don’t collectively line up with a steady tempo grid. And I have been unable to locate the original Pro Tools session that I used for recording the song, so I can’t tell you the initial BPM. By the time I imported the tracks into Reaper for mixing, I paid no attention to the BPM or grid anyway.

If you have any questions about the files, please post them as a comments on the Really Really Weird Remix Contest page or as a comment at the bottom of this post.

Good luck with your remix!

There’s no interview this week on Songs and Sonics. Instead, I’d like to take this opportunity to announce a Simple Carnival remix contest.

What? A remix contest? Are you serious?

Yep. Here’s the deal. In the very near future, I will be making available the raw multitracks for the Simple Carnival song Really Really Weird:

You can remix, mangle, and twist these tracks to your heart’s content. (They will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.) Submit your final 192 kbs mp3 file, and whoever makes the mix judged the “best” (whatever that means) by a panel of judges will win the grand prize…

The grand prize consists of a Simple Carnival t-shirt, a Girls Aliens Food CD, and one of the actual instruments I used on Really Really Weird: a circuit-bent Casio SK-1 sampler.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Casio SK-1, it is widely considered to be the holy grail of circuit bent electronic instruments. (And if you don’t know what circuit bending is, here’s an introduction.)

When you flip the switches and buttons that I’ve installed, the SK-1 can mangle and manipulate audio like nobody’s business. Similar modified SK-1s go for upwards of $250 on eBay.

There will be three runner-ups. Each runner-up prize consists of a Simple Carnival t-shirt and a Girls Aliens Food CD.

I’ve recorded nearly fifty songs as The Simple Carnival. And I’ve realized that I’ve only used my SK-1 for about four seconds on one song (Really Really Weird). So I want to donate the SK-1 to someone who will put it to better use than myself.

Also, have I mentioned that I have an album called Girls Aliens Food coming out on October 1st, 2008? This contest is admittedly one way to get the word out. I mean, why not?

A panel of musical judges and I will rank the submissions. My vote counts just as much as the other judges, though I’ll be the tiebreaker if necessary. Our votes will be kept confidential. Don’t send us angry e-mails if you don’t win anything. I would love to give SK-1s to everyone if I could — in fact, that would make a great platform for a presidential candidate. Unfortunately, I have only one instrument to give away, so I ask that everyone who doesn’t win something to please be a good sport. We still love you.

All submissions must be in by midnight EST on November 30, 2008. The winners should be announced (hopefully) a week or two after that. If we end up getting two billion submissions, it might take more time to listen to everything.

They are (in alphabetical order):

Mathieu Bournazel from Purple Submarine Orchestra	Rob Gibson from Mister Fusty	Pea Hix from Optiganally Yours	Mike Langlie from Twink	Matt Williams from The Brigadier

I’m thrilled to have these terrific musicians/songwriters/producers participating, as I listen to their music all the time (and you should too!). Because these folks have generously volunteered their time, it’s always possible that the demands of real life might interfere and take precedence over this contest. Judges may come and go as the contest progresses, but I really hope these guys stay.

Yes, but anyone who was interviewed here at my blog, Songs and Sonics, is not eligible to win. The judges are also not eligible to win. Also, only one mix can be submitted per person. Sorry.

The remixes will be regularly rotated on this special MySpace page:

Bookmark that page, send a friend request, keep checking on it. Subscribe to that page’s blog. Read the comments section. That’s where most of the action should occur. Please keep the comments and the competition friendly; I don’t want to turn this into a backstabbing Survivor-like excursion. It’s only a toy keyboard, folks.

There is also the remote possibility that I’ll release a CD-R/album download with some of the remixes on my Sundrift Records label; by submitting a remix, you will be agreeing to the possible inclusion of your mix on such a release. (Naturally, you will be credited as the remix engineer for your track if that happens.)

Only if you have the legal permission to do so. If you’re not sure, the rule of thumb is, commercial sample libraries: yes. James Brown records: no. Don’t let the judges knock you out of the running because we identified some commercial CD snippet that you shouldn’t be using.

But don’t let that rule inhibit you from going wild with your remix. Record new parts if you want. Put the song in a different key. Change the tempo. Autotune the heck out of my voice, or remove my voice altogether. There is nothing to be gained by staying true to the original mix. We want to reward creativity. Just keep it clean and don’t do anything that the copyright police would disapprove of.

Not at all. There are scratches and sticker residue on this instrument. I bought it secondhand and never meant to give it away or make it look presentable. But it’s a useful/functioning piece of gear, it makes terrifically weird noises, and it was used in a Simple Carnival song. What more could you want?

They’re not online as of this writing. I still have more work to do to get them together. They should be posted next week.

See that little sidebar thing on the right, near the top of the page that says “Mailing List”? Put your e-mail address in there and click the “Send” button. After responding to the confirmation e-mail, you’ll receive a message the moment a new article is posted on Songs and Sonics. I post only about one article a week, and I don’t share your address with anyone. The next article should contain information on where to download the tracks.

So tell your friends, post about it online, let everyone know: Songs and Sonics wants to hear some really really creative stuff!

In a world overrun with lifeless Autotuned vocals and perfectly Pro Tooled grooves, Florida-based singer/songwriter Marc Sirdoreus — who performs as Marc with a C — is like a breath of fresh air. His cassette 4-track recordings are unapologetically lo-fi. They’re imperfect by any technical yardstick. But, as everyone says (and rarely follows through with), the recording quality shouldn’t matter. At the end of the day, it should all be about the songs.

And in Marc with a C’s case, what terrific songs they are! Classic mid-’60s pop melodies and jangly guitars run up against witty ruminations on nerdy girls, teenage angst, and dating someone for their record collection. Marc’s songs go beyond the typical singer-songwriter vocabulary; they’re often astonishingly direct, delightfully funny, and painfully honest. The effect is not unlike having an enthusiastic best friend telling you about something amazing that happened to him the other day.

Marc with a C’s latest release is called — and oh man, the spambots are really going to find this blog now — Linda Lovelace for President. Don’t ask. Or, actually, I’ll ask, in the interview below.

Since 2002, most Marc with a C releases prominently featured Mr. Sirdoreus’s songwriting. This time out, Chris Zabriskie (live drummer for Marc with a C and a fine songwriter in his own right) contributed three songs, though it’s still Marc playing all the instruments on the album. The recording is appropriately rough around the edges, but it’s very much alive, very human, and brimming with lyrical gems from start to finish.

“I think everyone thinks I’m their little secret,” says Marc about his fans. He’s right. And you’re about to be let in on the secret as well.

Marc: That’s difficult to sum up. My first album, Human Slushy, was pretty polished — for me, at least — and the second full-length was gearing up to be a big ol’ arena rock affair. However, that second record was more the sound and performances of the producer than my own ideas for Marc With a C. At the eleventh hour, we ditched all of those recordings and started fresh for what eventually became Bubblegum Romance. A much more stripped down, lo-fi and fun affair.

Chris Zabriskie really helped push me in the direction of making the album sound at least a little bit like the shows felt, and his offer to pick up the production duties sold me. If you play the original sessions for the first draft of that album against what was eventually released, it’s pretty clear that I had little to no input on what was being done with my songs. Chris helped me make the most important decisions of my musical life, for sure.

After those initial albums, I stayed pretty bare bones with the production, doing it on my own. I like to think each album has its own theme, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever done better than a record I put out in 2007 called Normal Bias. It was one complete thought, and sequenced in the order it was recorded in — meaning that you can hear my voice going out by the end of the album. I sang a lot over those three days.

It’s actually pretty simple: though I thought that there was certainly an undercurrent of spiritual turmoil running through the lyrics of the tracks, I mostly wanted to try and make an album that was simply a really cool collection of pop songs. This backfired, of course. At the end of five straight days of recording, I plopped down on the couch to watch the film that the record takes its title from… and was shocked to find that all of these songs could serve as lyrical counterpoints to that film. Besides “Jessica, I Heard You Like The Who,” mind you.

This album also carries the distinction of having what are possibly the two longest songs I’ve recorded to date: the title track and “Satellite.” This surprised a lot of people, as I’ve sort of built my teensy little career on three minute long pop songs.

You know, my wife said the exact same thing about the song. That one had been kicking around on various demos for years, and we could never fit it into the grand scheme of whatever album we were working on at the time. The song was literally on Bubblegum Romance when we sent it off to the duplication plant, and I believe that Chris Zabriskie had to make some frantic last-minute calls when we decided to remove it.

That’s a hard one to answer, and this response will totally seem like I’m pulling your chain. The lyrics are fairly esoteric, and that’s because I was combining elements of the film with another subject altogether: the original beta testers of Quantum Link, which eventually morphed into America Online.

I saw an early tester going onto the service and becoming very involved with seeing how far the chat room personas could be taken, eventually reinventing himself as a woman. After this heterosexual man spent hours/days/weeks/months pretending to be a flirty girl named Nikki, there were some very notable changes in his behavior that I wouldn’t feel comfortable elaborating on. I would imagine that due to our ability to become a different person in a virtual world, there may likely have been a rise in multiple personality disorders.

How this related to the film for me is hard to explain, but in it, you see Linda trying to become a real actress, pretending that she had been forced into her porn career — even though it was the only reason anyone knew of her in the first place. And in the plot itself, she makes her freewheeling sexuality very, very well known while also attempting to sell herself as a wholesome and virtuous leader. For reasons that likely make no sense to anyone but me, I saw major connections between the film and what I’d witnessed firsthand. The lyrics in the song itself probably give no clues either, but it feels really good to sing about, and I’m very proud of that one.

I don’t actually have one. If I’m going to do some recording, I gather up the needed instruments from around the house, put them somewhere that won’t bother anyone else, and go to work until I’m tired of listening to the song. This is a picture of what my setup looked like when I did some simple acoustic demos a few days ago, and yes… that is my living room.

That drop-out in “Born Vintage” was actually present on Chris’s home demo of the song. He’d gotten up to answer the door and he left the drum machine running. No one was there, so he sat back down and finished the song, leaving in the “blemish.” I thought it was a really cool counterpoint, so I kept it in my own rendition of the tune.

I never really think of anything I’m doing while recording as a trick, so to speak.

Sometimes, I’ve been drinking and I try to sound sober during vocal takes. It usually works, so I think that might count. Often I’ll use as much tape as I possibly can before I start losing clarity on the magnetic strip, and then I’ll layer the last remaining parts onto a computer after transferring the material. The bad part about this is that the basic tracks end up submixed, and you can’t really go back and change anything you dislike later. You have to sort of be married to what you’ve committed to tape to finish a song in this fashion.

It’s always different. Sometimes I’ve simply got nothing to do, so I’m plunking around with a guitar, improvising lyrics. If something sticks out, I’ll drop everything and work on the idea until it’s finished.

Lately, the work has gone like this: I don’t smoke in my house, so I’ll go to the garage or patio to indulge my habit. I almost always have a notebook within reach, and I’ll scribble things out with no real purpose. Sometimes I end up with fully formed lyrics, other times I’ll just get maybe a scattered verse out of it that I’ll later use as a middle eight. And there are days when I wake up and simply feel like completing those things, so I scour notebooks and see which ones hold up the best. But often, if I don’t immediately have a melody in my head to go with the lyrics, it’ll never be finished. I do finish quite a bit more than I release, though.

Ah, would a gentleman tell a secret like that? I’m not sure. I can say that in my dating days, gals without good taste in music didn’t last long on my meter of interest. I can also say that in the past I’ve been more guilty of trying to get into the tape decks of possible girlfriends than underneath their clothes. Some actually found that more offensive.

I will honestly answer “no.” I’ve also been told that I can convince myself of anything, no matter how far-fetched, melodramatic or simply untrue it may be. So… I might have done so without realizing. I often don’t write about something nowadays unless it’s in the pretty distant past, but writing pop lyrics is really nothing if you’re not making mountains out of molehills, no?

I guess it’s really a fair mixture of both. I do my very best to only sing lyrics that I can stand behind, and I’ve been known to retire songs when I no longer relate to them. But honestly… the craft of the song itself is just as important to me as what I’m saying in it. Should the lyrics ever become more important than the entire unit as a whole, I’d probably be better off writing pamphlets than pop tunes.

Oh, yes. I was actually threatened with a lawsuit once. It seems that a gal wasn’t happy that I mentioned her by name in “Blowjob Queen,” but the joke is really on her. I thought the song was a stupid throwaway, but I decided to play it live to sort of underhandedly get even with her for being so ridiculous about the whole situation. Now it’s requested at nearly every show I play.

I attempt to steer clear of things that would upset my family, but that doesn’t always end up as a hard and fast rule. It’s more that I’ll write about anything I need to express at that moment, but just how much I’ll perform it after the fact remains to be seen. There are really personal songs that I haven’t performed live for years, (”Well Fucked Sailor” from my first album is a great example), but I still really love that I got the chance to express those sentiments. But when it comes to playing in front of a live audience, that’s when any sort of fear about my writing comes into play. Seeing facial expressions while people listen, you know? Sometimes performing live is a bit like being a film director that is expected to re-enact the audiences favorite scenes from your pictures.

I didn’t receive this advice directly, but… I was watching a documentary about Mystery Science Theater once, and one of the writers said something to the effect of “we don’t worry about making sure everyone gets it, just that the right people get it.” That sentence is constantly in my mind when I’m creating anything.

I don’t know. It’d have to be for a label that I already really liked, and the producer would have to be a perfect match. I’m mostly into the lo-fi recording side of things because I don’t think that the songs I make up call for much more sheen than I give them. I’m not shooting for mainstream radio play, I don’t want People magazine rooting through my garbage, and best of all… If the recordings are “warts and all,” then the listener knows exactly what I sound like, not so much what an experienced producer can make me sound like.

For the first time in a while, I’m not totally sure. I’ve made quite a few recordings in the last decade, and I think it’s time to take it on the road again. You know, enjoy what I’ve made and watch others hear it for the first time. As far as writing goes, I’m not exactly in a hurry to finish another album. I’ve written a few new songs, but they’re quite long, melancholy and esoteric. Of course… that’s the exact same thing I said right after we finished making Normal Bias, so… anything goes at this point.

Vinyl records.

My family.

Religious confusion.

Death.

Bubblegum.

Codeine.

Showering.

Limitations.

Insomnia.

People that let me ramble until I eventually make a point.

Marc with a C’s web site | Marc with a C’s MySpace page | Buy Marc with a C’s albums

There won’t be a big article this week, as I’m preparing a special Songs and Sonics project… I should be posting about it in another week or two.

In the meantime, here’s a record player made entirely of paper. Enjoy!

If the present day were the golden age of Looney Tunes cartoons, Mike Langlie could easily fill the shoes of an electronic Carl Stalling.

Mike’s recording project, Twink, is toy piano-fueled electronica. It’s delightfully bonkers, and a perfect soundtrack for stories involving… bunnies. In fact, bunnies figure prominently in Twink’s CD packaging, web site artwork, and song titles.

Bunnies? No, not Bugs. And not Playboy. This is kid-friendly music with an avant-garde edge, equally enjoyable for adults and children. Mike began experimenting with toy pianos after becoming disillusioned with the rock band scene: “The more I played with [the toy piano], the more fun I had — something I was missing in making music,” he says. And toy pianos seem to naturally lead down the path to… bunnies.

However, there’s another level to Twink’s playful sound — something slightly sinister seems to be lurking underneath instrumental songs about rainbows, blindfold bird races, and toadstool tea. The hints of darkness are fleeting; they won’t scare off the kids, but they’re enough to keep adults off-balance and intrigued.

Twink’s just-released album, A Very Fine Adventure, is aptly-named. From the clever packaging and gorgeous illustrations (Mike is a skilled visual artist) down to the music itself, Twink serves up twisted orchestral toy piano goodness which surprises, delights, and sometimes amazes. In fact, I can’t remember the last CD I’ve heard that made me smile so consistently throughout.

Mike’s already got some insightful interviews on his web site, and, true to Songs and Sonics fashion, we won’t be rehashing the subjects covered in those articles here. Instead, we’ll talk about A Very Fine Adventure and Twink’s previous remix collaboration release, Ice Cream Headache, along with some previously unreleased sound clips from that project.

Oh, and one last thing: Mike also has an excellent blog, Yip Yop. It’s chock full of cool, quirky, funny things that you might find worthwhile. Kind of like Twink’s music.

Mike: As a kid, I’d keep myself busy making my own cereal boxes and cardboard cities. I didn’t know what a designer was, or about art-related careers. It wasn’t until college that I actually considered pursuing that path. But even before then, I’d done my share of freelance work for posters and things.

I do web and print design for a living, and in my down time I’m usually juggling several projects for myself or friends. I’m glad I got to be a part of the ‘zine years. I miss that tactile-ness since the web took over. Nice packaging wins me over every time, which explains my haphazard CD collection. I’ve done a lot of album covers — it’s one of my favorite things. Honestly, at least half the reason I make music is to create the packaging and related goodies. Mp3s are quickly killing that market, but I continue to put out discs anyway.

The covers were printed by a company called Vitagraphics. I always freak out and lose sleep anytime I get a job printed, especially when it’s something complicated like a die-cut. They were very patient and helpful with all my neurotic concerns.

For a while now, I’ve gotten the discs themselves made by CDMan in Canada. This was one of those projects that required lots of manual assembly at home, which I enjoy. It adds more personality than just a pre-packaged product.

I come from the school of “whatever works.” I’m no purist in recording, and love using the studio as a creative tool. Toy pianos can be pretty noisy, not to mention hard on the ear at certain pitches, so I tweak the heck out of a signal to smooth things out. I’m a pretty mediocre player, and am rarely satisfied with my own performance. It’s not uncommon to stitch a tune together from lots of takes or chopped up parts. Sometimes songs are written from pasting random bits in a different order. I’ve got a background in electronic music and audio collage, so it’s a natural way for me to work. These days, most of my tracks are made with the program Reason. It’s not meant for live audio like Pro Tools, so I treat all my recorded parts like a remix. It’s kind of a backwards way to do things, but I like the process.

Most of my toy pianos look a lot nicer than they play. There are a few that I rely on the most, and the rest make little cameos here and there. I try to use every one at least once, even just a couple notes, shaking it, or using it as percussion.

Most often, it’s a particular instrument that determines the direction a song will take right from the beginning. Some are tuned strangely or are missing keys, or have a few notes that sound so weird that I just have to use them. Songs like Flytrap and Lost in the Mysterious Mist were done with really wonky pianos and couldn’t have been written any other way. I try to dig out all of their personalities and embrace the quirks.

You got it! For such a terrible game it’s got some great sounds. I’ve always loved the sound of Atari 2600 and am in heaven now that the chiptune movement is in full swing.

This disc doesn’t have so many nuggets like The Broken Record (an earlier Twink release) but I did manage to include bits and pieces from whatever electronic toys and old children’s records were at arm’s length. What the Dickens is built on a loop from a cracked 78 with no label. A bunch of tracks are sprinkled with circuit-bent or malfunctioning toy keyboard rhythm sections.

That’s a weird and totally unconvincing pan flute sound I’ve been determined to use for a long time. I believe there are no bad sounds, it’s all in how they’re used. Of course, I listen to bands like Merzbow. That sound reminds me of Peter Gabriel’s early 80s stuff.

It’s one of many sounds I’ve collected for Reason’s soft synths which is so weird that I had to give it its own song.

I guess this is my World album, appropriately enough. I’m always looking for different directions to take the toy piano. And working with electronic music tools, I try to add elements that aren’t the typical techno-ish sound, though I like that too. Friends that I’ve collaborated with have turned me on to things like Caribbean and reggae. I like mixing different elements together to keep things interesting, especially to me.

There have been at least a couple of tunes where the main piano chosen didn’t have the range needed to hit all the notes. I’d record one note from two or three other pianos to fill in. It’s a maddening exercise of layering tons of tracks to complete a seemingly simple part. I’ve also gone back and forth with a couple of collaborators, each of us re-recording our parts several times because we just couldn’t get out instruments in tune. The worst is living in a busy neighborhood and having a good take blown by karaoke or someone fixing their motorcycle. That’s another reason I tend to work in chunks.

It really ran the spectrum. Some people kept the parts as-is and embellished with arrangements. Some came back totally unrecognizable. Some were more typical collaborations that built up gradually over turns.

The ones that changed the most are Peanut Butter Crunch (with Ergo Phizmiz), Plastic Spoon (with Evan Morris), Strawberry Swirl (with nonnon), and Dreamsicle (with Bardacid). Everybody did a good job at extracting the true essence of each track. Many were real surprises at first, but then seemed like they were meant to be.

Here are some before-and-after examples.

Dreamsicle is notable for being based on a 4-note Little Tykes toy piano.

Tom Glazer is great. He was prolific in a wide variety of styles. His albums ranged from circus to science themes, and even his silliest songs never spoke down to kids. They Might Be Giants even cover his tunes.

I wouldn’t call it the worst, but Little Marcy (the religious singing puppet) never ceases to astound me. Simultaneously fascinating and abrasive. I recommend her to everyone, and am usually not thanked kindly.

I don’t know if there’s a common thread to what I listen to. I haven’t heard music on the radio in years so I’m probably very out of touch. Some bands and artists I dig right now are Ratatat, Venetian Snares, Daniel Higgs, Birdy Nam Nam, Johnny Dowd, Lykke Li, anything by Danger Mouse. I’ve gone through phases that I return to: 1980s West Coast skate punk, 4AD goth and dreampop bands, John Zorn’s Tzadik label, German industrial, ambient techno, 1950s yodelling cowboys.

It seems like I mine the past more and more for interesting stuff. For Christmas, I gave Karen two great CD collections of early 78s. People Take Warning is all murder ballads and songs of calamity. Victrola Favorites has a ton of strange crackly wonders from around the world. It doesn’t hurt that both sets come in incredible packages.

Since the duo FM3 released their Buddha Machine, a plastic iPod-sized device with several looping ambient pieces and a built-in speaker, we’ve been collecting ones with actual monk chants that inspired it. Some come shaped like little idols with glowing red LEDs in their foreheads. One has its own trippy light show. They’re fun to get going a few at a time and Karen even uses them in her live set-up as sound sources to manipulate. We love finding odd musical toys like the pling plong or Japanese Knockman toys. Bleeplabs’ Thingamagoop is a big hit in our house.

I appreciate hearing familiar things done in unexpected ways. Another thing that appeals to me is the ability to conjure other worlds. The first album I bought as a kid was Kilroy Was Here by Styx. The whole theme fascinated me, a story developing through the songs and the band members as characters. But it’s not limited to concept albums. Certain pop songs can transport me somewhere magical.

Absolutely, right from the start. I always have at least a vague idea of the kinds of places I want an album to explore. Along the way, some songs seem to write themselves and take things in unplanned directions. A lot of thought goes into the track order. It can add a whole new context to the songs, changing the overall mood of a sonic landscape. You can play with the song-to-song dynamics to set up different suggested scenarios of conflict, resolution, punch lines, etc.

The first Twink album was a fun experiment in telling an instrumental story. The picture book that comes with it doesn’t follow the music exactly, but they share a similar journey from beginning to end. I try to do something similar with each disc, even if the world is just in my own head.

After almost every piece I wonder if I’ve reached that point, but fortunately I’ve still found new things to try. If I really think I’ve hit the limit, I can always record them being broken as a grand swan song. Maybe they know that and learn new tricks to keep me from going to that extreme!

Old photos found in thrift shops

Mechanical music machines

Colorful mismatched socks

Japanese candy packaging

Cheap electronic gizmos

Mysterious late-night shortwave radio transmissions

Mini golf course architecture

Paper and ink

Serendipity

My best friend, my wife

Twink’s web site | Twink’s MySpace profile | Mike’s Yip Yop blog

There are a few requirements I have for conducting a Songs and Sonics interview with someone. Beyond enjoying the artist’s music, an ideal interview subject should have most of the following:

An album to sell.

A real web site. (A MySpace page doesn’t count.)

A bio.

A history of interviews.

I recently stumbled upon The Sonic Executive Sessions, who had… none of the above. But after about ten seconds of listening to their music, my unwritten rules quickly evaporated. I had to talk with these guys!

Despite the jokey appearance of their MySpace page (complete with Anchorman references and monkey pictures), upon hearing what they do, it’s clear that the Executives are a musical force to be reckoned with. This is seriously accomplished pop, in a Steely Dan sort of way, with a strong Beach Boys undercurrent. Jellyfish fanatics, Ben Folds aficionados, and admirers of the artists parodied in the Yacht Rock video series take note: The Sonic Executive Sessions could very well be your new favorite band.

Christian Phillips (guitar, keys, vocals, and principal songwriter), Ryan Aston (drums, percussion, and occasional backing vocals), and Tim Hamill (recording engineer, guitar, and whatever’s left) are the studio assassins with the playing, singing, writing, and recording chops that even the most staunchly low-fi indie musicians secretly wish they had.

The Executives don’t play live. They don’t even have an album. Instead, they cut their tracks when there’s down time at Sonic One (Tim’s impressive recording facility in South Wales), and post the results on their MySpace page. In an alternate universe where the lowest common denominator doesn’t rule the mainstream, these songs would instead probably be at the top of the charts.

Christian was my contact for this interview, and he says that any plans to release an honest-to-goodness Sonic Executive Sessions album are up in the air. If an album does happen, I have only two modest requests to ask of the band: one, please get someone to build you a real web site with a good bio, and two, let me be the first in line to purchase your CD.

Christian: I got into session work purely by accident. Ryan and I were in a band (The Millionaires, and we were very Beach Boys-like) that got a lot of label interest. But instead of getting a deal, we ended up as a backing band for Sony. After that happened, the work just didn’t stop. But the writing stopped for a few years.

No. I play by ear (my dad was the original bass player in The Ivys, who became the mighty Badfinger). I wish I could read and had more knowledge of music theory — it would come in very handy for some things.

I’m just lucky that I’m able to hear and explode chord progressions in my head. But I’d much rather be able to write them out. I’ll record all the parts and give the separate lines to singers to learn. Some of them will write out their own parts.

Lots of children’s television. That’s fun to write for. Most of my work is writing music for TV: signature tunes, incidental music, that kind of thing.

My main instrument is guitar, and then vocals I guess. Anything else is a bit hit and miss, but I’ll try and play it if you need it — unless its violin, trumpet, or bagpipes!

Any time I’ve had the chance to work in Abbey Road. Studio 2 is a magical place. It still looks like the Beatles are there and have just popped out for a break. You won’t believe what it’s like to actually play the Mrs. Mills piano.

That’s becoming more frequent these days. Of course, it works the other way around too, where people who may have been inaccessible before are just on the end of these wires. For example, Tim recorded an album a few months back and the band had Dio to sing a few lines for them. They did it in their home studio and sent it over. Exactly like the Alessi Brothers did for us.

Yeah, how cool is that? I love the sound they make, and to have that happen on a song you’ve written… Amazing.

Best: Making a living out of what you do. Worst: Some of the awful stuff you have to work on for some of the rudest, most arrogant people you could ever meet.

About seven, I think. Not many. It tends to be like, “Tim’s got a few days free — better go write a song!”

I was listening to Born to Run. Somebody gave it to me and said, “You have to listen to this — it’s Phil Spector times ten.” Not being a fan of “The Boss,” I stuck it on reluctantly — and really liked it.

There are some lyrics in the first song, Thunder Road, that got me thinking how you can write about a person or place, and it gets frozen in that moment. Whenever we go and listen to that song at five or fifteen or fifty, the song never changes… but we do. Pet Sounds, for example, I was born listening to that. It has so many reference points in my life like when I was fifteen and used to run home from school every dinner break so I could listen to that and Spilt Milk and then run back. So that’s what made me want to write that song.

I wanted to write a song where the chorus was as for away from the verse key as I could get and then get back. And make it sound easy. I don’t know if I got the last bit. Brian Wilson did this all the time.

So that was the idea — to write a Smile-type tune with some nice modulations which turned into a Steely Dan 70’s slice of Yacht Rock. How did that happen? I guess I got carried away with the chords!

For the recording, we got Nigel Hopkins in to play Fender Rhodes and Pablo in on bass. I like everything to be real on our songs and there was no way I was playing those parts live!

He has no second name.

No. Ryan went in first with Pablo. Nigel came in later to replace my keyboard with the real thing. You have to appreciate that I’m spoiled when it comes to these guys. They really are amazing musicians, and I’m so lucky that they live a phone call away.

Eventually, Probyn Gregory from Brian Wilson’s band will be playing the brass on it. Can’t wait to get it finished, but he’s kind of busy at the minute.

Nope, it’s all me triple tracked. Takes about one to two hours to do, but Tim’s a patient and fantastic engineer.

Ah. You really have done your homework. That’s a bit more involved. That’s more than me. You’ve got to have four of you to recreate that sound! It takes AGES.

OK, here’s the secret. Take a four part harmony. Start on the lowest notes you can sing. All (at least three) of you sing the first part in unison. Triple track it. Sing the next part and the next and the next and the next until you can’t sing any higher. You’ll have about sixty parts or so. Play them back and its Queen. Dramatic vibrato on some parts help with the sound, but not too much because the harmony will become a bit unstable.

Oh, and try to do it with an English accent — something us Welsh guys struggle with!

The Gabe Dixon Band… and LOADS of John Williams soundtracks. I’m scoring a film at the moment — it’s a Christmas TV movie. The budget for the music is small, so it’s just me at the Mac trying to make it sound like the London Symphony Orchestra in Abbey Road.

Perhaps the Eagles/Steely Dan episode when Michael McDonald gets a rock chucked at him. They’re all VERY FUNNY. Please don’t make me choose, Jeff!

No, but I bet they are out there.

Well, maybe. I guess Toto and their ilk were and/or used a lot of studio players. So if there is a thread, it would be there on tunes like Cold Front, where I had to get guys in who can play like that.

But it was Roger Manning from Jellyfish who dubbed us ‘Yacht Rock.’ I was a bit offended at first because I didn’t know what it was. But when we went to find out what it was, everyone I loved was there, so it stuck. I’m glad we have a bit of the Yacht in us.

The sun (we don’t get it much here)

Anything that makes we want to try harder (Rufus Wainwright does this a lot)

Anything that makes me think there’s no point — may as well give it all up now (Brian Wilson does this a lot)

A good biography by someone who’s old enough to write one (David Niven’s The Moon’s A Balloon is a good start)

The fact that there is music out there that I’ll never get to hear that’s probably amazing (so I have to find it and hear it)

Standing on the Empire State

A new chord

Singing harmony (There’s something very special about singing with people)

An old cliché, but you can learn something new every day

Writing a list about the ten things that inspire you (A cop out… Sorry, but I ran out of ideas!)

The Sonic Executive Sessions MySpace page | Christian Phillips’ MySpace page (contains a couple extra songs) | Ryan Aston’s MySpace page | Tim Hamill’s MySpace page (contains a couple more Sonic Executive songs) | Sonic One recording studio