Hustle Beach

Here are some facts either directly or loosely connected to this week’s song, “Hustle Beach“:

1. Thanks to my pal Ron Warner, this track represents my boldest step yet into the world of MIDI recording, in which you record not sounds, but rather data that you can manipulate to your heart’s content as the days go by.

2. While I like to think that the new system made the rhythm track a little tighter, I fell victim to a common syndrome of MIDI novices: I quantized everything, and as a paradoxical result, things sound probably more rickety than if I’d left them alone.

3. In other technical news, I discovered Half-Speed Recording on ProTools, which enabled me to do the entire song as a duet with a charming and attractive chipmunk.

4. I attempted a perverse merger of a laid-back genre (reggae) and setting (beach) with an extremely uptight subject (my neuroticism surrounding the notion of hard work, work ethic, etc.).

5. The lyrics represent my attempt to write more directly. Every line was scrutinized to make sure that I could understand what it was about. This is how I’d like to write from now on, so any feedback about the lyrics would be extra-appreciated.

6. Like David Foster Wallace’s essay “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” the lyrics deal with the dark side of resort culture (employees sick of plastered-on smiles, heart-attack victims washing up on the shores of all-inclusive resorts, etc.).

7. The chorus rips off three songs at once. They are, in descending order of theft-size, “Victim of Love” by the Eagles, “Finally I’m Yours” by Andy Pratt, and “Martha My Dear” by the Beatles.

8. Similarly, the background vocal at 2:53 is lifted from “Soul Sister” by Allen Toussaint.

9. While I conceived of this song a few months ago, it was probably M.I.A. who inspired me to do it now, via her new song “Hussel”: “Hustle hustle hustle / grind grind grind / Why has everyone got hustle on their mind?”

10. The Cubs are in the playoffs!!!!

11. We joined Netflix this week. So far the best movie of the experience has been “The Thin Blue Line”, an Errol Morris documentary about a wrongly-accused cop-killer from Dallas. With a creepy score by Philip Glass.

Please Me

This week’s submission has a some history behind it. Last summer, way back in ‘06, Bobby Conn, booking agent Derek Becker, producer Blue Hawaii, Detholz!’s Karl Doerfer and I started having weekly meetings, with the intent of starting our own mp3 record label. We’d exist as a modern-day Brill Building or Tin Pan Alley or Motown: a songwriting factory, studio, and label all in one. It ended up being a too ambitious to exist in this world (at least for now…), but, in trying to envision what sort of music this idealistic project would make, I came up with this song, “Please Me“.

The idea was to do one-off collaborations with people that you don’t normally play with. The personnel here: Snokilla, the amazing singer of much-missed Chicago band Jitney, on vocals; H. Carl Lowendorf (Sprinkles, Pornado, Platonics), my erstwhile roommate and one of my guitar heroes, on the axe; the inimitable Ben Schultz (Sprinkles, Platonics, Ofays UK) on drums; and yours truly doing odds and ends to fill out the song. It’s a heavy, sultry song, swinging in an old dress made of canvas.

The recording is about a year old, and the song itself is a year older still. When I wrote it, I was sitting at the piano trying to do some kind of variation on the great Nick Drake song “Fly”, which begins with the lyric, “Please / Give me second grace”. I was trying to use the word “please” in the same way, if that makes sense. I envisioned it as a moody piano ballad, but, as was the case with “Is This Love”, I couldn’t help dirtying it up as the recording process went along.  I don’t know what will become of this recording, but I’ve always liked it a lot, and I wanted to share.

After two listens, I think that the new M.I.A. record is the real deal… fantastic, original lyrics as always, and a very progressive production style. Even if you yourself make music that sounds very different from hers, she throws down the gauntlet and makes you think. In other news, I am prepared for the Cubs to break my heart soon, but in the meantime, it was an exhilarating weekend to be a fan, as they crept ever closer to stealing the division that no one wants, the clownish National League Central.