Tripecac - Schmocial

This was the first song I started in Bellingham, probably on my first day of work. I had just been travelling for a couple months, and felt pretty rusty musically. I decided to keep things simple, so stuck to the by now "standard" Tripecac forumla: jazz/funk/reggae. Overall, the song isn't very interesting, but I like the slight swinging feel and the peppiness of some of the solos and drum fills.

During the summer of 2001 I took a long car trip from Virginia up to Alaska and then back down to Bellingham. On the way, I visited my fellow Cope fan Andrew up in Fort McMurray. One day Andrew had to go work for a few hours, and I came with him. His job was at a school, which happened to have a piano practice room (yay!). Naturally, I parked myself at the piano for the next couple hours.

It was during that practice session that I came up with the roots of this song (see the Trex song "Different Mood Same Person"). "C Cm F Fm" is named after the chord progression, which is very simple but seemed unique. A couple months later, after I was settled into Bellingham, I added a melody and some basic rhythms. In 2004 I finally finished it. Long story for a short song!

This dubby jazz/reggae groove lacks cohesion, but some really cool moments. I was experimenting with different delay (echo) effects. The title is a cross between "echo" and "cornucopia".

This is monotonous, pounding trance that tries to sound really "big" via a cavernous reverb. It's slow going for the first several minutes, but has funky drums towards the end. Either I was supposed to work on something, or the song was supposed to work a certain way; I don't remember.

No, your speakers are not broken! This is a heavily distorted guitar/pod loop mixed with some "huge" sounding drums. I recorded it in 2001, and then in 2003 left the audio untouched but added automated effects via Sonar. This is actually a short version of it; the full version is on Extra Extra.

This muddy, rambling jazz groove has its occasionally interesting moments, but loses energy towards the end. There's a longer version of it on Extra Extra. From the title, I'm guessing I started it on my second Friday of work in Bellingham.

The strangest thing about this trancy jazz groove is its title. I think "te" refers to my initials, "chaos" means it was pure improv, and "no" either means "number" or "no" as in "it doesn't work". Also, it's probably not a coincidence that the title starts with "tech" and the music is electronic-sounding. Okay, boring description for a boring song!

As light and fluffy as this tune started off, it ended up being a beast to finish. Work on it began happily enough in 2001 (probably on Labor Day). I thought it sounded really pretty, and looked forward to completing it; I just didn't know how to complete songs back then. A year later I decided to work on it some more, but only managed to add some really noisy guitar. It collected dust for another couple years.

In 2004, when I was systematically finishing my old songs (for Schmocial), I picked it up again. Unfortunately, whenever I tried to work on it, I kept getting blue screen crashes. The crashes were so frustrating that I upgraded to XP and Sonar 3.1.1. The upgrade got rid of the blue screens, but now I had lots of pops and crackles in the audio. I tried mixing once in February, but hated the arrangement (and the noise). The next week, I reinstalled XP and Sonar, finished the next song ("Free Hour"), and then came back and remixed "Labor Day".

Finally I was finished with it; yay! I was worried, though, that my aggravation and impatience had seeped into the song itself. To my ears, it doesn't sound as pretty as it did back in 2001, but at least it's still listenable. Also, maybe my frustration give it an "edge" which keeps it from being really "boring" or "cheesy". It's not too bad. There's a longer version of it on Extra Extra.

This long, relaxed ep groove was the last song I started before 9/11. It seems very peaceful, with no sense of urgency whatsoever. The next day, I started "Memorial". In a weird way, 9/11 was helpful to Tripecac in that it got me focused on finishing music again. I wonder if other people were similarly "shaken" out of their creative procrastination.

I started this mellow, funky jam the same day as "Islence". I originally called it "Junk", but since I already had a song by that name (on Baby Talk), I renamed it to "Islence" backwards. I think it's the first song I started after finishing "Memorial"; that I didn't immediately finish it indicates that I didn't take it very seriously.

This song is slow, mellow, and melodic. Over the years, it became one of the songs I most looked forward to finishing. It also became one of the most difficult songs on which to work, because it kept crashing Sonar; I think its project file was corrupt. The name is a combination of "island" and "silence". There's a longer version of it on Extra Extra.

This starts as smooth, slow lounge-ish funk but then for the bridge turns into a completely different song (with noisy drums) before returning. The beginning, which is almost painfully boring, originally had improvised vocals. Some of those vocals made it onto the semi-reprise of this song: "Alive Again" The bridge is too drum-n-bassy for my tastes. Overall, this song's a bit of a dud.

Here's the antidote to "I've Alive"; it's crisper, funkier, peppier, and makes me wanna dance! It's super-repetitive, with no real melody or "hook", but has some great moments in the solos. The title is a pun; if you can't figure it out, then you're a dumb f**k! [very funny, Trav]

This slow jazz/funk is listenable, but kinda boring. I don't know why I called it "Array"; it doesn't sound number-obsessed, does it? It originally had vocals; I've moved a small excerpt to "That's All". The vocals didn't have anything to do with arrays either. Weird.

For my first year in Bellingham, I didn't use any heat. I've always hated stuffiness, and keep my windows open (or at least cracked) year-round too. When winter came I got very cold, but I never turned on the heat. This song comes from early that first December; it wasn't even winter yet and my toes were going numb. Fortunately, my fingers still had enough life in them to throw together this slow-and-steady funk groove. The playing is a little subdued, except for the drum parts, which I probably added in 2004.

This "reprise" is actually is the original version of "Array". It's short and has vocals. The lyrics don't mean much, but seem appropriate for an album closer.