Tripecac - Fruitine

Yikes. Okay, looks like a month and a half away from the keyboard makes me rusty. Well, I wanted to have guitar, and here it is. Mission accomplished, I guess. What about the bad vocals? Ummm... And the slopping timing? Errrr.... And of course how about these liner notes? They are not much help! Oh well... At least this clunker takes the pressure off the next song!

Starts off with the same chords as an IPECAC song, but then turns funky. I don't know why I called it "Ekimo". Sorry!

This is simple electro-jam. It was fun to create, but since it doesn't have a melody, it won't be that memorable. My favorite part is the toms near the end.

For some reason, the sax part sounds sluggish. Hmm.

Anyway, the title is a pun on a phrase from a movie we saw recently.

Is this about procreation? Or just escape? Into juvenilia perhaps?

I turned 33 the day I started the song. Getting old, I guess. Does it sound like it?

I had just finished updating the IPECAC web site. For some reason, I got some of lyrics and the "ding ding ding" chant stuck in my head. I felt compelled to turn them into a song, so here it is: a silly, sloppy ode to IPECAC.

At first it was a capella. I then added the drums and bass line, and gradually filled in bits until it no longer sounded empty (although it still sounds mindless and overly repetitive). I guess that's house most songs are created, right? So no insight here; sorry!

The lyrics exaggerate a bit (like most of mine do). You see, we actually did have friends, and we ultimately chose them (and girls) over IPECAC. Perhaps this song was wishful thinking? You know, like: what would have happened if we had stayed down there in the basement?

I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm still down in the basement. But hey, as long as I keep churning out songs (good ones and bad ones like this), the basement's a fine place for me.

I was trying to make a simple melodic song but as soon as I started playing the EP I lapsed into this jam. Maybe the next song will be more obedient.

I added vocals as an afterthought. They're completely improvised. They actually detract from the song, except when I'm chanting. So, I mixed them very low. And now you can barely hear them. They're more like ambience now. Oh well.

Simple groove. The last song ("Unintended Jam") was too busy for my tastes. I wanted this one to be minimal.

The idea is that we leave the city to go up north. As we head north, it gets colder; the music gets louder.

I really like the bass drum sound. It reminds me of "Beso".

The thumping drums at the end represent a heart beat. Or footsteps. Trudging off into the snow.

When I started this, I was intending to make it a pop song. Same as the last two, you know. But each time, I ended up creating rambling jams with no strong melody. They have decent atmosphere (in the headphones at least) but no real presence.

I think I'll need to change my template (yet again) after this song. I'll need to find something more immediate, more "small" sounding. Right now everything sounds so desolate, sluggish, and, well, cold.

This song's title is supposed to continue the theme of an arctic expedition. You see, I want to get to the "Igaloo", which will be this album's first real "pop" song. But I'm having trouble finding it. And I'm starting to get worried. Am I stuck wandering around aimless electro-jam land? Or will I finally find a cozy home base?

I really need to find a home base in order to feel like this album is worthwhile. Even if it's the last song on the album, I'll be happy, because all I want is to be able to go into the next album with confidence. Fruitine is exploratory, but the next album has to be focused. At least, that's my plan.

So I need to find my pop song, my "Igaloo". Something to anchor me, something that will produce happy memories. Where is it?

Where is that !%@# igaloo???

This started off as a 17 minute vocal improv. I played keyboard drums at the same time. My "rule" to myself was that I could not record any additional vocals. I then made several passes at editing the song.

During the first pass, I made minor timing adjustments to the vocals. I tried to get them on the beat, or at least get rid of the really timing bits. This involved tweaking the midi drums and splitting up and shift the vocals. It was tedious, but didn't take too long.

The second pass was more fun. I layered other instruments on top. I enjoyed this because I got to create a catchy good and perform lots of solos. Fun, fun, fun! I also chopped out some of the unpleasant vocal sections. I got the song down to about 16 minutes.

The third pass was a pain. Here's where I mixed the instruments and vocals, and added fades to all the vocal clips. I tried really hard to edit down the song, but it was still 15+ minutes long. At the end of a long day, I recorded a first draft.

I then listened to the first draft a couple times. There were some catchy moments in (mostly, the choruses) but also lots of annoying, boring, and/or cheesy bits. At that point I decided I needed to another pass.

The fourth pass took three more days. I removed more of the bad vocals and added solos to the boring (or quiet) sections. I mixed, mixed, mixed, and snipped, snipped, snipped. After 8 hours of editing, I had managed to get the song down to under 14 minutes. Yeah, I know, all that work to shave off about 10% of the time. Sigh.

A day later, I made a fifth pass. It took me another 5 hours, but I managed to shave off another couple minutes.

A day after that, I made a sixth pass. All I did was remove 2 measures near the end and fade out sooner. Hopefully this will be the last edit.

Anyway, here it is, in its current incarnation. It's not perfect but hopefully it won't irritate me so much that I feel I need to make yet another pass.

In the future, I think I need to either:

• learn how to edit more aggressively
• stop creating long improvs

I started this on Valentine's Day for G. It's a heartfelt love song, but it also has a slight twist and some inside jokes.

The singing is, well, um... Hey, at least I was trying to pull of some nice harmonies. If they don't always work, well, let's just consider this a demo. An eternal demo. Just like the rest of Tripecac.

The mix is a little muddy and bass-heavy. I like the [fake] guitar sound, though. Also, the vocals during the middle sections sit nicely in the mix.

Although this song sounds a little mellow and even downbeat, it was a lot more fun to work on than "Igaloo". I wasn't afraid to re-record vocals this time, and liked the fact that the song had a clearer structure. The solos were fun, too. Lots of fun! Maybe it helped that I was inspired by a very special someone. :)

I felt pressure to finish Fruitine before an upcoming ski trip. The surest way to eat up lots of minutes (with minimal stress and time investment) is to create a long jam. So I did.

And it's a mess: lots of instruments clamoring for your attention, lots of Tripecac cliches. Chaos, slop, repetition galore. Hmm.

The best thing about it is the title. I wanted something self-deprecating (like "filler") but at the same time I wanted to emphasize that I actually do enjoy making long jams, especially when they are energetic. They're fun to create, but not necessarily to hear later. Anyway, I called it "philer", as in an enthusiast. As a bonus, the title sounds like filer, which refers to my tendency to document and organize everything.

Hooray for the title, boo for the music!

The title is a contraction of "bad headphones". You see, I was having headphone problems the day I started it.

Well, this is another "filler" song. I needed something long enough to make a big dent in the remaining minutes for the CD.

This time, however, I decided to go loopy instead of jammy. I changed the template to be less muddy (in part to reduce the distortion in the headphones) and kept the instrumentation pretty sparse.

I wanted to finish this album before a ski trip. On that trip I plan to do lots of cross-country. Hence the title.

I needed something long. I was a little tired of the crisp sound on "Bedphones" so I decided to do another jam like "Philer". So again we have the muffled production. Sigh.

On a whim, I decided to add guitar. It made sense, since the album started with guitar too. Also, think about it: fording a stream, cross-country skiing... see the similarity?

Anyway, I later added vocals, on a whim. I figured I might as well throw everything into this one finale. So it's full of noises and Tripecac cliches. Some of it's new, some of it's old. Some is ugly and some is beautiful. It's sort of like a walk in the countryside.

The manic section at the end was a last minute attempt at getting the album to end on an upbeat note. Does it work? I don't know. It was an afterthought. In fact, there's lots of afterthought in this song. More afterthought than thought.

Okay, time to go get ready for that ski trip!