5240 Song #5 (for February 2, 2009):
Chinese Water Torture
Well, now! Let's just see who's still standing after getting a whiff of this one! I am joined on this track by Half Zaftig bassist Lizzy Daymont, who actually learned this whole thing.
Thank you for listening! PLEASE consider posting a comment by clicking the comments link below! Thank you, and I'll see you next week!
CONTEST RESULTS: If you hadn't read in previous comment threads, congratulations are due to our 5240 Contest winners, Ron Moses and Sam Reece, who were the first to correctly identify the posters of Racquel Welch and Jennifer Garner in the "Help Is On The Way" video. Ron and Sam should be getting their limited edition CDR's of the first six weeks of 5240 in the mail any day now.
Psst... You wanna get a LOSSLESS version of this track in the format of your choice? Click DOWNLOAD on the widget below and you can NAME YOUR OWN PRICE ($0.50 minimum, they wouldn't let me go any lower). All that's required is a Paypal account!
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Monday, February 2, 2009
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24 comments:
Dear Shawn,
It is frigging unbelievable what you achieve every week. Please explain where you get all this great tunes from. Heaven? God? Life? I hear again some Zappa/Keneally connection.
Thanks again part 5.
PaulB
PS:
What is that music in the background or is that a new quizquestion?
PaulB
Thanks, Paul. The video background music is excerpted from a 12-minute indie film score I did last year.
Good. God. I love Zappa, so this is just about fantastic in my book! I definately dig it!
Songs like this keep me coming back.
Every week something, new, something different, something fresh. The video was ingenious as well.
Way to go Lizzy!!
Hi,
1. > The video background music is excerpted from a 12-minute indie film score I did last year. <
I thought I recognized that, though for whatever reason, I wasn't trying remember something that you wrote. I just thought it was from a movie I'd seen or something.
2. Was written to be the solo section of "Fair Use"? I don't believe you and you can't convince me otherwise.
3. You gotta love the Diamond Dave sound board.
4. Video = funny... try not to hate, love your mate.
The song itself isn't my cup of tea exactly, where the genre or style is concerned, and not that it needs to be. But I can appreciate it from a theory and a "ooh neat, listen to this little knick-knack" point of view.
I'm trying to not to look to far into the future, but it's hard not to imagine what 52 ditties is going to sound like all on one CD in my car on a road trip.
-Witty
Wow! This is really "out there". Definitely FZ and Keneally vibes for me.
Weird, surprising and engaging, and while Lizzy can still hold a bass, I'll remain a bedroom bassist!
Also, no lyrics for me to bitch about ;)
Nice one, mate. Keep them coming.
Hi,
I noticed that you tagged track one as "Artist - Half Zaftig", while the rest of them have been just "Shawn Farley". Clearly, that has to do with the fact that Lizzy and Pete (I love Pete) played on track #1 and didn't, together, on any of the others.
But I wondering if there's any thought beyond the obvious in terms of how you expect the "Artist" to be represented throughout the project. That's probably doesn't make sense.
I guess what I'm saying is, is it important to you, to the project, to Pete and Lizzy, to Half Zaftig, to whomever, that songs where there three of you play be considered H.Z. songs? And do you anticipate that there will be other "artists" or artist-combinations that might require a different "Artist" credit?
Blarg!
-Witty
..oh, and how did you avoid getting a paper cut on your nose while doing that vid??
Very cute, right up my alley (which is supposed to be a Dylan reference, ha ha, never mind).
You really know how to please the weirdos out here.
I can hear the outro vocals of Fair Use after this little song - but I'd love to hear a demo of it, if it exists.
Jeroen
Wow! Many questions! And since there will be no video next week (I'm going to be out of town), I'll start answering them in here.
Yes, this really was originally meant to be part of "Fair Use", when "Fair Use" was still called "Spokane." Poor "Spokane" is now reduced to one last unreleased riff, since I've plundered the rest of it for other things. I think there are some early FU demos that are a lot weirder and had more odd licks in them, but I don't think I ever managed to make one with both the front end of FU plus what is now CWT. The fact that I could never quite bridge that gap is why they are now two different pieces, and it seems obvious now that they should always have been that way.
HIOTW is marked as an HZ artist tune because 1) it is a band recording and 2) Pete and Lizzy got a co-writing credit on that one. They had a lot to do with how HIOTW was put together. We are now working on what will be the next HZ track for this collection, but that one was solely written by me - still, since it's the three of us, I'll probably mark the artist tag on future HZ songs that are part of 5240 as HZ tunes. I guess it's important to me to denote that, even if 5240 is a "solo project", it is still important for folks to know that HZ is still a viable and important part of my musical life. Hope that makes sense to others (it makes sense in my head).
Oh, and if all 52 songs will fit on one CD, I'll eat my hat.
Unless you meant an MP3 CD, then OK, sure. ;-)
Bro, this song was fantastic! I wish it were longer, because I was really digging it! You asked for questions last week (or, was it the week before?). So, here is my question, and it's technical one:
1. You keep mentioning in your blogs that you're re-amping your guitar tracks. Can I ask how you're recording your guitar parts? Obviously direct, but do you use any type of processing inline before the DAW, i.e. compression? And, what re-amping device are you using?
Ken (DatsWite at the Carvin Museum BBS)
Reamping: some others have asked me this offline, so here's the skinny.
Box I use is this: http://reamp.com (though I have the older version)
I've been recording guitars (and vocals) directly into my Grace M101 preamp, no compression, no nuthin'. I compress if I need to at mix time. Actually, I find that with distorted guitars, the gain stage of the amp itself compresses just fine, so most of the mixes I've done are compression-light.
THAT SAID, none of the guitars on "Chinese Water Torture" were re-amped. I used the free plugin "Gtr Solo" from Waves.com (it's free for a year). CWT was my test case. Overall, I like it, but sometimes I prefer re-amping. Future songs will be a mix between the two techniques. I'm learning as I'm doing, I really have no real technical knowledge. That's why I love the Grace pre so much - only two big knobs on it, it's almost impossible for me to mess up with it.
'Fair Use' is my favorite song on LLL, so imagining this in it sends my brain on a Tilt-A-Wirl. Would be cool to hear though. Any chance of an edit with this in it appearing some day?
'Do Not: Disturbed' always makes my day when I listen to it, I think CWT will, too. I'm hoping there's more like this before this project ends.
Great job as always!
Thanks for the quick reply. I've actually been eyeing that Reamp box for awhile now (vs. the Radial). One follow up question: are you splitting your signal into a Pod (or similar) before the preamp for performance's sake?
Just a general comment. Your guitar tones are just slammin' and very tasteful!! Kudos. That's why I'm picking your brain on the reamp technique. I remember making this comment over on the Carvin Museum BBS back when Life Like Luster came out. Did you use the technique on that record?
Again... absolutely killer guitar tones!!
Ken
Sometimes I run my guitar to a small amp if I want to hear it with distortion on, but mostly I'm not even doing that. CWT was a lot easier to track completely clean - I could really hear when I was screwing up. And not every guitar is always recorded this way - a couple of solos (improvised) have been recorded just run through my big amps on days when I go to the space to reamp.
We never reamped at all at Darin's (where we did LLL and previous albums), there was no reason to. You could fire up however many amps as you wanted whenever. I only fell into it because I'm having to track this stuff in my apartment, and I can't be silly loud for too long. I expected to do a lot more of the vocals at the space, too, but I've mostly been doing them here in my apartment. Should be interesting in the summer when everyone's windows are open.
Under "genre" I see that you put "Whatever" for this track.
I thought I'd help.
Classically speaking, this
track should be considered
Q-Bert Jungle Trance-Hop.
And excellently so,
The Genre Doctor.
Hey Shawn, You'll probably be thinkin WTF but were the hell is the rest of that song you have created. Chinese Water Torture sounds like it should be at LEAST 20 min. longer. GOOOD CHIT MAN.......
I shouldn't even bring up the Zappa referrence as that's been said enough.
As for you Shawn, still having HZ as a part of your musical life, I applaud that as I really like the HZ stuff I've heard, and LLL still finds its way into my CD changer.
But CWT just doesn't fit, Fair Use, at least not in my mind, but then who knows what youse-guys were going through at that time.
Sometimes I cannot believe that you've undertaken the fitty-two-fawty project, as it's a helluva lot of work.
Of course you independent musicians are always rolling in the dough, if you're currently working at a bakery that is.
At least you are holding on to whatever sanity you may have remaining and the videos don't show any skitzophrenic tendencies.
I'll figure out how to login one day, but for now, just keep up the good work, and batten down the hatches every now and then, as we don't want you to get blown away.
...mmm...Zappa? Sure. You're crazy nutzo mind? Heck yeah.
I like it. I was also afraid of it.
I also enjoy your video tribute to Charlie Chaplin and INXS.
SMOOCH!
Goddammit baby I accidentally left this comment...
Somewhat disappointed by the lack of interpretive dance, lightsabres or bananas going on on this vid but one can't have everything I guess :P
Sweet Dave impersonation!
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