nixwilliams            

SamSam informed me last week that I have a page at Last.fm (click here to see). This is very cool, even though I’ve never used Last.fm in my life, and I welcome any of you to go and edit my profile and make me seem super-awesome (or completely insane!).

Dream Boy
© Williams 2006

I touch you only in sleep
I want you only in dreams
On your lips only one kiss
In your eyes only one chance
Missed or taken
I touch you only in dreams

And I only touch you in sleep
I only want you in dreams
And only on your lips one kiss
And only in your eyes one chance
Taken or missed
(I only touch you in dreams)

I touch only you in sleep
I want only you in dreams
One kiss only on your lips
One chance only
Taken or missed

I touch only you
Only you
Only you

Download: Dream Boy (mp3)

Background

This was an experiment all round. I was experimenting with having a high voice and ‘singing girly’, kind of like all those annoying breathy, fake-little-girl-voice singers I destest[ed]. I was experimenting with a keyboard I had for a few days. I was experimenting with the possibility of using very few lines, and seeing how many meanings I could extract by changing the order of the words and the feeling of the music. I was wondering if, by using variations on the same lines, I could get away with having a few distinct parts, musically. I really can’t remember much about it – I wrote and recorded it in a day, I think.

Recording

Again, I don’t remember much. I was on the iMac, so I was using ProTools and the inbuilt mic. It has quite a few layers – probably the maximum possible in the ProTools Free. I do, however, remember balancing the keyboard rather precariously on the edge of the bench trying to get a clearer sound! Don’t tell the owner! It was also quite difficult to record the soft, breathy vocals with nice clarity but without too many ‘mouth sounds’ (you know, when you can hear the person swallowing, or licking their lips – I actually like it sometimes, but not for this song). I had to fiddle with the input/output and then compress the vocal tracks a bit afterwards, from memory.

Things I Like

I really like the rocking out bit in the middle. I wish I had a piano so I could compose more with it – I still kind of consider it to be my primary instrument, even though seven years without owning one means that I have lost some of my proficiency and gained a bit more skill with the guitar.

I am also still pretty pleased with the way the lyrics work – so simple, yet (I think) effective. The idea of changing the music rather than the words also worked kinda well, and allowed me to focus more on the progression of the music. Interestingly, I didn’t know how each part was going to go until I recorded it – I did each part separately and chronologically. I like the way the song retains a kind of freshness because of that . . . jamming approach.

Things That I’m Not So Keen On

I probably could have made a bit more effort with the vocals. They’re a bit wavery. I didn’t really warm up or practise or anything. As with so many of my recordings I thought that near enough would be fine ‘for now’. Well, I’m never going to be able to re-record those parts, because I don’t think I can even reach those notes when I squeal!

The flip side of the free, ‘jamming’ quality of the song is that the recording is a bit patchy – the piano disappears in a few places, and I had to give the keyboard back before I got the chance to record more. Oh, well. It’s a product of a very specific time, I guess!

Conclusion

Dream Boy is a music-driven, rather than lyrics-driven song. This is a bit unusual for me, but I still quite like it. I hope you do, too! I also really love having the piano part in there, and it makes me think I should try out the software keyboards in GarageBand (which I know is a completely different thing, but it could be fun). Maybe on next week’s track!

Yes! Share this with anyone you think might be interested! But please link them to this post rather than directly to the download. Thank you.

Adelaide [Part 1]
© Williams 2007

Adelaide thought she was a good girl:
She had pretty hair and liked to keep her knees clean in the playground.
She learned to play Mozart on piano.
And she read the books that girls her age are meant to find amusing.
Adelaide thought she was a good girl,
But her parents disagreed.

They said, “Adelaide, you’re doing it wrong!
You cannot wear that!  Your hair is too long.
Mozart’s for pansies – you should play guitar.
Get out of your books and get into the park
And play football or rugby and get yourself dirty.
Jump higher! Shout louder!
And make us all proud of you, Adelaide,
You made a mistake, Adelaide.”

Download: Adelaide [Part 1] (mp3)

Background

I realised, after going to see The Spoils (who are utterly amazing!) a couple of times, that I actually have quite a deep voice but I’m still using it like it’s a high voice.  I think I’m not using it to its full potential because I’m trying to sing in the same style as I always have (or that I’ve become accustomed to).  I need to face the facts – I can now sing, quite comfortably, an octave lower than I could, but I’ve had an octave and a half cut off the top.  I currently have a fairly neat range of two octaves, from F-F.  But it’s not merely a matter of transposing things down – low voices have different qualities, and my voice now is going to be suited to different styles of singing, accompaniment, music.  I have no idea which styles, but I need to experiment.  This song is one such experiment.

It is also only half a song!  There needs to be a second half to it – possibly a mirror half – but I’m not sure what Adelaide’s story is.  I mean, should the second half be about Adelaide grown up to be a soccer mum?  Or about Adelaide thinking he was a good boy, and his parents telling him to learn ballroom dancing instead of playing video games with his mates?  Or about Adelaide becoming a piano maestro (which would be awesome if I could get someone to play me a bit of Mozart to fade into at the end)?  Or about Adelaide topping her parents and hiding their bodies under the house?

Oh, the difficulties of being defiantly femme in a world that seems to value masculine behaviour more!

Recording

I thought at first that I’d have one vocal line all the way through, with very few embellishments, but I don’t think my voice is strong enough to carry the song.  So I ended up having three main vocal tracks (with different effects, reverb, EQ, etc to make a fuller sound) and the backing vocal (set to GarageBand’s “Ambient Vocals” effect!) to differentiate the second section and lift the mix a bit.

Lifting is one thing I’ve never really had to think about when mixing myself before – my voice has usually been sitting nicely in the top half of the mix.  With the changes in my voice, my mixing technique is going to have to change a bit to make sure things don’t get really muddy and overly bottom-heavy (which, with my love for bass, bass and more bass, is quite likely to happen).

I’m fascinated by the transness of my voice – it seems to me that I’m simultaneously able to sound quite male (the low stuff), but that the higher backing vocals still sound very female/feminine.  I wonder if this is because, like I mentioned at the start, I’m accustomed to singing high stuff with a female voice, so it carries over, whereas most guys learn to sing with a male voice, so they can’t – or don’t realise they can – sing like this?  What do you all think?

What I’d like from you

This site is kind of an important project to me, and I love getting comments – even if it’s just I downloaded and listened to it, I liked/hated/was ambivalent towards it, though I’d love to know why, as well.  I need constructive criticism as well as delightful adulation, otherwise how can I get better?  To comment, click “Comments” under the title of the post, then scroll to the bottom of the page that opens and leave a comment!  I moderate the comments so as to avoid spam, but I’ll approve yours ASAP.

This is the first unfinished song I’ve posted here, and I’d really appreciate some feedback.  Specifically, how would you like to see the song completed?  Ideas for lyrics and/or music and/or mixing?  Do you even like the idea?  Let me know!

As usual, if you’d like to get other people to listen, please link to this post rather than directly to the download.  Thanks!

VB
© Williams and Johnson 2004

What’s that I smell on your breath?
VB
You’ve been down to the pub again with your brother
I still don’t believe you’ve got a brother
You used to only drink red wine
We used to stay in on Sundays
You used to read Virginia Woolf and drink red wine
And that’s VB

You say I’ve changed, but you’ve changed
Maybe it’s a phase we’re going through
You used to watch the football with me
It’s not like I love the Tigers more than you
I just need a room of my own, now
I just need a team of my own, now
I just need a life of my own, now
And anyway it’s Tooheys New

We haven’t held hands since last week
I wonder if you notice that?
I don’t mind if you go to every game
But you forgot to feed the cat
You were the one who wanted happy homes
You promised you wanted to settle down
You were the gold at the end of the rainbow
And where has the rainbow lead us now?

You haven’t said I love you for four days
And when I do you turn your back
There’s more to a thunderstorm than rainbows
I wonder if you notice that?
How about some time to think it over
I’ll go to my mum’s for a few days
You can have the cat for company
I wanted a dog anyway

You say I’ve changed, but you’ve changed
You used to only drink red wine
Maybe it’s a phase we’re going through
We used to stay in on Sundays
You used to watch the football with me
You used to read Virginia Woolf and drink red wine
It’s not like I love the Tigers more than you
I just need a room of my own, now
And that’s VB
I just need a team of my own, now
I know it’s VB
I just need a life of my own, now
Don’t deny it’s VB

Download: VB (mp3)

Background

Wing Commander Johnson and I have written a few genius songs and other things together in our time – she is a poet, novellist, cellist and cheesemonger, and I think all these things come across in her work. OK, maybe not so much with the cheese. I can’t for the life of me remember what inspired this masterpiece, but I think we were riffing off the fact that WGCDR Johnson had started drinking beer and I thought she was a traitor to the non-beer-drinking cause. If my memory serves me correctly, WGCDR Johnson and I wrote the first verse or so, then she went of home and we didn’t work on it for a week or so. I (quite naturally for me) got too impatient to wait, so I finished it off myself and recorded it to show WGCDR Johnson and get her feedback.

I’m a big fan of wordplay and in-jokes in songs, and also of specificity – I’d take a song about someone’s Great Aunt Fran (real or not) over a general musing about families any day of the week. Except Tuesdays. And possibly Saturdays. As I was saying, I like having references in there that are not necessarily essential for enjoyment of the song, but enhance it for the people who find them. To wit, a list of the references so that you all can feel extraordinarily clever:

VB = Victoria Bitter, the state beverage emblem of Victoria. I do love the ad campaign with lots of sweaty men:

You can get it ridin’, You can get it slidn’, You can feel it coming on about 4. A hard earned thirst needs a big cold beer, And the best cold beer is Vic, Vic Bitter. You can get it walkin’, You can get it talkin’, You can get it workin’ a plough. Matter of fact, I got it now. Victoria Bitter.

You can also get it takin’ a vow or feedin’ a cow. Matter of fact, you can see how that becomes an Australian dyke icon, can’t you?

Tooheys New = Clearly not as awesome as VB. Imposters. Anyway, I don’t even drink beer. I much prefer reading . . .

Virginia Woolf = Some writer played by Our Nic in The Hours. She wrote A Room of One’s Own.

The Tigers = Richmond Football Club. It’s proper footy. And I’ve just discovered they make fanvids. Of GARY ABLETT! (Pity he turned out to be such a creep, but these clips show that extraordinaty evolution of him from just another player to a cult figure, and also the evolution of the game from small ovals and dirty crowds to something of a spectacle). Oh, but Ablett played (mainly) for Geelong, not Richmond.

Recording

This is meant to be sung by two people, so when I recorded it I had to figure out a way to differentiate between the two ‘voices’. I ended up doing this by harmonising on almost all of the song, and using a harmony above the melody for the first voice and below the melody for the second. I think it works OK, but I’d love to hear it sung with two different voices! One of the impacts this doubling-up of vocal tracks has is making the a capella bit very big. Probably if I hadn’t had a million vocals I wouldn’t have been able to cut the instruments out from under that section. As it was it would have been too messy to keep it there.

At the time of writing and recording, we were also having a lot of fun in our band (The Northcote Military TATU of Death) playing kiddie instruments, toy instruments that we sourced from second hand and op-shops all over Melbourne. The horrid, horrid drone-y keyboard you hear on this track is one such instrument. It is so crappy that I had to pitch shift half of the notes in order to try to get it in tune, and it still wavers in and out of the right note! I LIKE IT! It’s so gross in places that I can’t help but have a perverse glee for it – I like it when music doesn’t take itself too seriously.

This was recorded on my old iMac using ProTools and the inbuilt mic, which has a pretty cruddy buzz on it. You can probably hear that I’ve been through fairly painstakingly and cut the buzz out from between the lines and words. Obsessive? Me?

What I Like

I like that while it starts out kind of being kind of sterotypically intellectual/bogan (with shades of butch/femme) it does work against that a little bit, too. It’s the football-lover who “wanted happy homes”, and they can still quote Virginia Woolf even as they drink beer, count how many days it’s been since person one said “I love you”, and like dogs more than cats.

What I Don’t Like as Much

It’s not so much something I dislike about the song, but the recording. It’s kind of scrappy, and a bit quiet. This has always been more of a draft than a final version for me – it’s waiting for some other vocalists to come along and sing it. Any takers?!

Conclusion

I really do enjoy this song, its specificity, its Australian-ness, its piss-taking (gently, gently). Clearly it’s a sign that the Wing Commander and I should get back into the business of writing together! I hope you enjoy it, and let me know what you think! (Note: there’s a long-ish fade-in at the start, so don’t turn your speakers up too high!)

Please feel free to share! But link to this entry rather than directly to the download. Thank you.

Cotton
© Williams 2007

Sometimes I feel I’m woven out of cotton
If you rub me I will go soft against your skin
Wrap me up around you and I’ll absorb your sadness
I’ll keep away the nightmares and keep the good dreams in

I’m printed on with flowers and smell as sweet as washing powder
I’m fresh from combing my fingers through the wind
Embroider your words into the corners of me
And I will maintain the shape you press me in

Please don’t look for the loose ends
I have too many of them
Don’t worry me with your distracted fingers
While oh-so-slowly I come unwoven

I’m constantly letting go of you letting go of me
I’m unravelling
Don’t pull too hard
Try to remember you’re not tearing me apart
We’re just disentangling

Disentagling

Download: Cotton (mp3)

Background

I don’t think I need to say much about the meaning of the lyrics. It’s (hopefully) a bit wistful and melancholy without being overblown and angsty.

In my previous life as someone terribly uncool, I lead a couple of a capella groups, was the school choir leader and generally went for all things vocal and daggy. In this life, nothing much has changed! I still love a capella stuff, and vocal layering and harmonies. So, this was an attempt to do something like that – not too fussy, just a simple little thing. Kind of airy and light.

I wrote most of the lyrics without much of a melody in mind at all, jotting down a bit when I was on the tram, playing with words and pacing as I walked home, letting the lyrics wander where they would. It’s more of a song-poem than some other things I write.

Recording

I was very much inspired by Camille, who I was listening to quite a lot at the time. I was (and still am) quite enamoured with her album Le Fil [The Thread], and one of the things I really enjoy about it is that there’s a single note carried through the entire thing – it never stops. It’s the base-note, the ‘thread’ of the album title, that ties everything together. Wow, even the influence is all about weaving and knot-work! I’ve taken that idea of a through-note and used it here – from memory it’s the cathedral organ sound from GarageBand software instruments. The ‘background’ music doesn’t move out of the one chord for the whole song, and this is kinda neat, I think.

Vox wise, I tried to have low, low-middle and high background vocals to complement the high-middle melody. I also, once again inspired by Camille (see Ta Douleur on YouTube), tried to use other sounds in the music – the in-breath/gasp, the “j’mbe-j’mbe, d’mbe-d’mbe” and the “cha-chay, cha-chay” vocal lines. I used different harmonies to differentiate between the first and second parts of the song.

I left it for a while after I did the first recording and mixdown, but over the last couple of days I re-recorded the bass vocals (it sounds much less strained in my new voice!!!) and did a new mix – equalised it so it wasn’t so mid-heavy. I think i may have made the mistake of making it too bass-heavy, though. Please let me know if it’s blowing out your speakers.

What I like

I’m pretty fond of the lyrics, and the shortness of the song. I’m happy that it doesn’t have a chorus or refrain, and doesn’t repeat any line except the last one: disentangling. I think that repeating anything would detract from the wandering quality of the song and would run the risk of becoming monotonous given that there are no chord changes or changes in the backing vocals. I quite like the concept of the music, too, and I like that it gave me a chance to get back into singing a capella style!

What I don’t like

I think it sounds a bit daggy, to be honest, and I felt that way as I was recording it, too. As a result I don’t think I quite had the conviction to pull it off. This is not to say I dislike it, only that I think it needs more to make it stand out, sound-wise. Maybe it needs more texture, or maybe it needs someone else to sing it.

Conclusion

A cute song, and an interesting experiment. I tried to keep it light, and I think it ends up being a bit too LITE, if you know what I mean.

A comment on comments!

A few people have told me they didn’t realise they could leave comments here on this site. . . BUT YOU CAN! Under the title of this post, it says “Comments: 0” (or “Comments: 38” maybe!). Click that, and it will open a new page with the post at the top and a comments box down the bottom. Fill it in and hit “Submit Comment”. The comments are moderated (to avoid spam), so it won’t show up until I approve it. Which I will. So please let me know what you think!

As usual, I’d love for you to share this with people who might be interested, but please link to the post rather than directly to the download. Thank you!