Day 324: Bongo Fury

Wow. A productive and happy day. Both feel a little too rare at the moment.

I completed song 45 - Don't Bring Your Bongos To Church, it took 12 hours from initial idea to finished uploaded demo. I think that's a record - Let's Build An Airport and If You're Here This Morning may have been quicker to write, but I think I demoed them the following day. It's a kind of Early Zappa meets Sun Records-era Elvis/Johnny Cash. Gonna try to post it tomorrow.

But for now just say "bring your bongos" out loud - doesn't that just feel amazing tripping over your teeth and tongue?

I also wrote part of a new song today - it's a lullaby/prayer for Christian parents to sing with their kids, as suggested/requested by a pupil of mine this week.

And I've been working on finishing an old song called Silver which is from Judas' point of view.

Liverpool beat Chelsea today which was great news. We're only 58 points behind Manchester City.

Another great song from Jonathan Coulton...he's a real Ukelele player

And Jon Gomm is from another planet - he's like all the best bits of Adrian Legg and Michael Hedges stuck together - with vocals!

Other free songs by Matt Blick

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Day 313: Looking In A Box For Boxes

Sorting through old ideas, digitising cassettes, hoping to work on two more songs one called 'Silver' which is from Judas' point of view, and another provisionally called 'Boxes'.

I'm really being grown upon by Jonathan Coulton's new album Artificial Heart. And Nemeses is probably my favourite song. Only geek-laureate JoCo would duet with someone via iPhone.

And this is also cool, and if you play Portal apparently it will make even more sense!

Blogging Muses has an interesting post called Five Ways To Finish the Song You’ve Been Working on Forever

Free download: Never Be Silent
Other free songs by Matt Blick

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Day 255: Who Was That Masked Man? (Ah, Who Cares)

Eleven Sweets is finished - here it is - Eleven Sweets mp3

My unfinished rap funk metal thing got featured on the 50/90 podcast. Here that is - 50/90 Podcast #6

Just watched Rainn Wilson in Super. It wasn't.

Started back a school today.

Busy.

It wouldn't be my blog without a little Jonathan Coulton. His new song Good Morning Tucson is growing on me and is available for free from Blurt online

Free download: Never Be Silent
Other free songs by Matt Blick

Day 254: Headstock And The Kitchen Sink

Had to head out early this morning to play at the Headstock festival with the young people from the workshop I did the other week. They did really well and there were a few star performers that really impressed me. (Was nice to see one of Nottingham's best cafes, Homemade keeping the bacon cobs coming). Then off to Shabby Road for some more recording.

I wrote Eleven Sweets right at the end of FAWM. Zeppo told me about her adventures in sunday school and I set them to music. I wanted to get her to sing it but just ran out of time. But we redid it this summer and tonight I added the finishing touches – piano, penny whistle (aka irish/tin whistle), recorder, shaky egg, electric guitar, synth, samba whistle and snare drum. Or 'kitchen sink' as it's known in the trade.

I accidentally hit on a fun way to work without getting bogged down with second guessing or over engineering. Just leave you power cable at home. Watching that little battery icon turn red really concentrates the mind. I finished with 2% left.

I'm really pleased with the way the track has evolved from 'acoustic Green Day' to 'crusty reggae' (see Noah And The Whale for further details). All thanks to a bit of uke and a funky recorder lick. It's still a home demo with a 6 year old lead vocalist but now it's a lot more fun!

Hopefully I'll have the mix up tomorrow, but starting back at school might knock me out!

Jo Co Bo Rap

Really enjoyed this piece from American Songwriter about Queen's Greatest Hit. Both the videos are worth watching. The Beatles were their 'bible' and Freddie wrote out all the vocal parts? Impressive. The guy was a true musical genius.

Revisiting Jonathan Coulton's Thing A Week I have to lay some love on I'm Your Moon. Not many  people could write a song about the downgrading of Pluto from the point of view of Charon and create a love song that people would sing to their newborns and request at their weddings. And once again, click here, find the smily face and you get a free download. He's a nice guy. Maybe you should give him some money anyway?

You Like Sarcastic Signs?

So do I. No, really.


Free download: Never Be Silent
Other free songs by Matt Blick

Day 253: Bulgarian Feedback And Failing To Write About Nothing

A while back I was slogging my way through recording and arranging Never Be Silent and put a rough mix up on the 50/90 site to get some second opinions on a thread titled Bulgarian Feedback. As well as a lot of cool advice a number of people said Bulgarian Feedback would be a cool title for a song. But only one man was cool enough to make it so - Johnny Cashpoint.

Bulgaria has fallen and there’s terror in the air.
Conquering invaders have arrived with questionnaire:

“Please rate our occupation on a scale of 1 to 4
Where one is sheer perfection and four is very poor.

How’d you find the food? (Please only rate food you can find.)
During interrogations were our men polite and kind?

and this classic couplet

Promised to provide a service that’s both harsh but fair.
Just ‘cos we’ve over-run you doesn’t meant that we don’t care.”

Listen to the song and read the rest of the lyrics

Jonathan Coulton wrote about his excellent song Mr Fancy Pants*

 It’s almost like this song was generated by the non-thinking parts of me, by the systems level utilities - sitting down and typing gibberish until something gets traction. Strangely, it was the first time I tried this technique during Thing a Week, and I wish I had surrendered to it earlier. I relied on it quite a bit for this new album, and it often led to much more honest and personal expression than I could have gotten to otherwise. It’s very hard to write about nothing for very long, and the real stuff sneaks out of you when you’re not looking.

It reminded me of my song Let's Build An Airport. I started with a weird title, which was actually the title of a children's book and what flowed out of me (oooh don't sound like a reel arr-teest!) was a reflection of the escapism and frustration I was feeling inside. Like Coulton I want to try that more often.

I'll be posting the new recording up soon, but for now here's a live recording I did at the FAWM Over Party at the Vauxhall Griffin Pub in London. (Note: the audio starts before the video)

*You can listen to Mr Fancy Pants on the page but why don't you go here
Find Thing A Week Four
Find Mr Fancy Pants
Click on the smiley face next to Mr Fancy Pants and get a FREE DOWNLOAD
See all those other smiley faces?
You can thank me later


Free download: Never Be Silent
Other free songs by Matt Blick


[If you're subscribed to this blog via email, you will have to click on the post's title to watch any video content (the link will take you my site).

The Best Music Business College Is Free

During the school holidays I’ve been creating a dedicated download page where you can browse the songs by topic, get chord sheets & mp3s demos (all free) and read story behind the song posts.

I’ve also been listening to the CD Baby Musician Podcasts and have found them incredibly interesting, thought provoking and helpful. If you’re an independent musician, whether as a singer/songwriter, a band member or a worship leader who writes songs, I'm sure there'll be things there that you’d benefit from.

I feel as though I’ve been taking classes at a music business college!

My favourite episodes have been with people who have really made the new music business (internet based, instant access, free downloading) work for them.

People like Jonathan Coulton – who wrote and released a ‘thing a week’ every for a year. Some odd experiments, but a surprising number of excellent songs. He gave them all away for free and still made lots of money.

As did Corey Smith, who grosses millions of dollars per year. While only touring locally.

Pianist David Nevue plays house parties, sells shed loads of CDs without a label even before he did any touring.

One other cool podcast is with Duff ‘Rose’ McKagan – who quit Guns n Roses cut his hair and did a degree in business, then grew his hair and formed Velvet Revolver.




Related Posts: Trent Reznor music biz lecture

Trent gives it away

The music business is alive and well,

the record industry is dead already.

There is a difference.

The view that if people give away recordings for free (or heaven's forbid 'steal' it!) musicians will die out or be forced to live on corporate sponsorship is a fallacy perpetuated by record companies desperately trying to justify their existence.

This video presentation explains far better then I could why that's just not true. You'll be hooked in the first 10 minutes, or your money back.

Here's some stats to whet your appetite.

Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails release an album without the backing of a record company giving much of the music away and selling the rest for varying prices from $5. They gross $1.6 million in one week. ($750,000 in the first 30 hours).

In 2001, Corey Smith quits his teaching job, gigs relentlessly and gives all his songs away for free. To date he has made $4 million.

Jill Sobule asks fans to invest in her upcoming album. She raises the $75,000 budget in 53 days.

So what are you waiting for? Free your music...

Dave Kusek saw it first

Related Posts: Copyright Mythbusting 

ThruYou and the thorny problem of airspace