Space Age Band Reunion

A music video for "Frankenstein"

Here's our music video for "Frankenstein" filmed at the Maker Faire last weekend. It seemed particularly appropriate since Frankenstein's monster might be considered a prototypical DIY project, and would fit right in with the robots and devices made of junk. Enjoy.

"Picture Yourself" video

Over the weekend, my cousin Kris and I filmed the music video for "Picture Yourself." We did this at my new place in San Jose----I wanted to get some footage of the place before I started moving everything in. I suppose it's appropriate because the song talks about future events, and this empty apartment is going to be filled with objects from the future.

Freight & Salvage open mic

On Tuesday night, Maya, Steven, Ciana and Kate played at the Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse's open mic. We went on stage at around 10:30, Maya delivered a great introduction for us, and we played "Picture Yourself" and "My Kind Idea." By the time we played, the audience was a lot smaller than when it opened, but we still got a decent applause. One guy came up to us afterward and told us that we were his "highlight" of the evening. We look forward to playing there again!

Berkeley and Powell Street BART stations

Lisa, Kate and Maya at the Powell Street BART station.

The last few weeks, we have been taking our show to the public. On the evening of the 11th, we went to the Berkeley BART station and played until we were too tired/hungry to continue. We learned that we should start playing our high-energy songs right when a BART train pulls into the station and brings us a large crowd. We got the best audience reaction from "Siki, Siki Baba."

Tonight (Halloween night!), we played at the Powell Street station. At first, we played outside, where we were up against a "Thriller" dance number, the police and a fight between two homeless people. Then, we moved it indoors to the corridor between the two ticket machine areas (there were other musicians at the prime locations). We ran through our set list a couple times, and played a few songs we hadn't played for a long time, including "Jambalaya" and "The Sound of Silence." A fellow busking group stopped by and listened to "Scenic World" and "Pompeii," calling the former a "refreshing" song and the latter "a blend of pop, rock and even a little bit of soul."

Live Oak Park

On Sunday, it was Kate, Lisa, Steven, Ciana, Russ and Devin. We played our set. Somebody gave us chips and cookies. And we had a little debate about whether to invoke "Twist and Shout" at the end of the "Dead Parents" bridge.

Dolores Park

We played at Dolores Park on Sunday to celebrate Maya's birthday. Russ, Ciana, Steven, Lisa and Maya were there. In addition to our regular set, we worked on "Night Life," "Parish," and a cover of "Eleanor Rigby."

How to mic our band

Here's something to consider about regarding our live sound: using a single condenser mic for vocals and multiple instruments. The linked article says,

This “old fashioned” technique has made a comeback; for example, many bluegrass and folk bands utilize the one-mic method with surprisingly good result, typically using a large diaphragm cardioid condenser . . .

One obvious advantage of the single-mic technique is that the stage looks cleaner. Gone is the forest of mic stands, booms and cables.

Instead, you have a low-tech, old-fashioned look that fits in well with the music. Setup is much quicker as well: just place the mic, plug it in, adjust position, and you’re done.

So I'm thinking it might be worth getting this vintage-looking condenser mic. I'm guessing we should have two of these shared mics during our performances; three of us can huddle around one mic. I already have one condenser mic and a dynamic mic (less sensitive) that we can use, too. If we figure out a setup, then we can go confidently into any venue and just plug in and play, just making sure that the speakers are placed in front of us, so we don't feed back.

Bird Noises

BP/P is now on twitter. We'll use it to keep you informed about when, where and how awesome our practice/parties are. That way you can come and listen!

Find us at: @swarthynoise

http://twitter.com/swarthynoise

Pictures from the Vasona gig

As reported in an earlier post, we played a show at Steven's company picnic at the Vasona Park. Here are the pictures from that event:

Warming up before the show.

This gentle slope worked quite nicely for our first step towards the Greek Theatre.

We need to get Devin a keyboard stand!

This is from our performance of "Nightclub Desperado." Devin's holding the sheet music because it wouldn't stay on the music stand.

Lisa's Garden Party

Russ and Ciana are back!

Today, we attended Lisa's Garden Party at Mosswood Park. Lisa, Russ, Ciana, Steven, Tani and Maya were present. We played through our usual set and resurrected some old tunes from Russ. Our friends were there to cheer us along. And there was a lot of food.

"Twenty-Five" video: a little thought bubble

Inside this bubble our bicycle rider will be thinking about 25 and all that it means...

Updated 9/4/2009: Added a speed limit sign to the beginning.

"Twenty-Five" video progress

Check this out, I built a light box using a cookie tin box, a piece of glass from a picture frame, some duct tape, a ruler, and a portable fluorescent light! This device is going to help me with tracing the animation for the "Twenty-Five" video.


And here are the first seven seconds of the video:

Vasona Park

Today, Vijay, Devin and I played at my company's picnic at Vasona Park in Los Gatos. Didn't bring my camera because it was having a technical issue this morning, but I'll try to get some photos from my coworkers and post them here.

Great fun was had by all. Our audience was constantly changing, but during some songs there were about 30 people who watched us. Highlight has to be the "audience participation" portion when we handed out all our percussion instruments and had the audience members play or clap their hands to "Scenic World" and "Siki, Siki Baba."

The set list: 1. Picture Yourself, 2. Airplanes, 3. Pompeii, 4. Twenty-Five, 5. Marcher, 6. Nightclub Desperado, 7. Idea, 8. The Unqualified Opinion (The Auditing Song), 9. Scenic World, 10. Siki, Siki Baba. Encore: The Unqualified Opinion.

After the show, Devin and I went for a ride on Vasona Park's Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad. That was a blast.

This was Vijay's last band practice/party with us before heading back to school. Thanks for playing with us and we hope to see you again soon!

"Sylvia" music video

Here's our official music video for "Sylvia", using NASA footage from the latest space shuttle mission.

San Jose Municipal Rose Garden

A view of the fountain at the center of the Rose Garden.

This was our first practice at San Jose Municipal Rose Garden, and by some happy coincidence, we ran into a meeting of the Santa Clara Valley Fiddlers Association, an organization best described as Band Practice/Party with several dozen older musicians.

What BP/P might look like in 30 years.

We took over a picnic table off to the side of the SCVFA meeting, but soon attracted the attention of folks who might not be used to seeing a group of twenty-somethings rocking out on a variety of acoustic instruments.

This guy is seriously rockin' out on the recorder.

Vijay and our guest fiddler.

Steven, Vijay, Kate and Devin practiced our set for the show at Steven's company picnic on August 15. We also played "Siki, Siki Baba" in response to a request for mariachi music. (I guess we figured that Balkan brass band music is close enough...)

A familiar sight at a Band Practice/Party. That ukulele belongs to Kate.

We had a jam session with a guy who played some pretty intense violin solos in the key of D. Then, Devin and Steven got sidetracked into a jam of The Who's Tommy. Kate played and sang a couple of folk songs on her ukulele. Finally, we found ourselves playing Beatles tunes, including "I Feel Fine" and "We Can Work It Out."

That's Devin with his harmonium.

"Airplane"

We've been playing "Airplane" for a while, so I thought I'd post a recording of it. For some reason, I felt like going all out with this particular arrangement. This recording uses different sounds from my keyboard and synthesizer, tons of echo, double-tracked lead vocals and three-part harmonies.

When we play it live, Lisa plays the three-note figure at the end of each line on her banjo, Devin and Maya play the long notes, and I play the guitar.

The melody to "Airplane" came to me in May when I was at home building a replica of Damien Hirst's "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living." Funny where you get your inspiration from. As I recall, the lyrics came soon afterwards and weren't difficult to write. I've been wanting to write songs that didn't have a particular message, but just painted a picture. I decided to make this one about an overnight, probably international, flight. Possibly going to, or coming back from, a honeymoon.

Kate pointed out during a recent band practice that "Airplane" uses the same chord progression as Sixpence None The Richer's 1997 hit, "Kiss Me." I'm okay with that, because I happen to be a big fan of that song. In fact, I think we should play the two songs back-to-back.

Lyrics:

You and I
Oh my
An airplane
Red eye
A glass of
Cabernet
A glass of
Champagne

The outside
Late night
A plastic
Spotlight
The cabin
A cradle
The engines
White noise

(instrumental)

You and me
So sweet
In soft clouds
In dreams
Your head on
My shoulder
My head on
Yours

(instrumental)

Kite Festival

Steven, Maya, Vijay and Kate played at the Cesar Chavez Park today during the Berkeley Kite Festival. Played through our set and started working on a cover of "I Feel Fine" by the Beatles.

"Dead Parents"

Russ offers his thoughts on "Dead Parents":

Firstly, I have a terrible memory, so this is likely to be more storytelling than anything actually that happened. "Dead Parents" was a slog of a song. From the beginning, it was a combination of a poppy hook and hyperbolically depressing lyrics. A sob story love song. After the initial riff and some bits were written the band jammed around with the song on a number of occasions. Every time we played it we came up with some amazingly innovative way of juxtaposing poppy harmonies or 80s era hand claps with increasingly somber lyrics. And as many times we forgot or misremembered all the parts we had written. It was a jumble, a mangle, a song trying to find its adequate expression amidst a number of interested and differing parties. And with only shabby direction from the initial song writer.

Even this recording is just one more version of the song. The this-time-recording. Now Devin's mandolin riff gets to rollick along with our young lovers in their depressing escapades. But the song would be nothing without the hand claps.

The lyrics start us off in an unequivocally sad moment. Maybe there isn't a good reason for this, but there is certainly a power in hyperbole. What it occasions is an odd moment for two people to meet, a moment for the girl to assert radical independence, an independence that will be undercut but only on the terms of this newly emerging relationship. Otherwise the song is full of teenage, love-lorn longing. Midnights spent pacing streets alone when it feels like rain even when there hasn't been rain. Days spent next to phones and ringing phones that you can't pick up. Romance and obsession. In the end it is a look at hyperbole in love and the fragile, tenuous "out of sight" that can still manage to persist within it.

Who played on the recording? Russ (lead vocals, guitar, mandolin); Steven (guitar, backing vocals, percussion, melodica, handclaps); Lisa (handclaps); Molly (backing vocals, handclaps); Maya (viola, handclaps); Devin (lead mandolin); Hilary (cello)

Lyrics:

I met you the day that both your parents had died
You leaned into me and told me that you’d never cry
That all that you’d ever needed you had inside
I am to admit, I certainly sounded like lies

(Chorus)
All I needed to know
And all I had left to show
Was the look in your eyes
The dream in your mind
And I wanted to be
And I wanted to see
All you could be
All that you are
Wanted you more
Than I know you are
You are the heart
You are the land
The only girl
That I could stand

I was lonely, on my own
You’re the only, one I phoned
Deep in my heart I was calling out for your love
So I wandered the streets until I had had enough.

(Chorus)

You’re the one that got this right
All we have is one more night
You and me and the out of sight
All we have is one more night
To get it right.

You were always, on your own
But when I called up, no one’s home
Nobody loves you like I said that I would
Nobody loves like that, nobody could.

(Chorus)

"The Drifter"

"The Drifter" is about somebody who wanders home the day after an extremely hard night of partying. This is not something I've experienced, so I can't say I really connect with the song. Also, I never really liked the way the music turned out. However, it is included on the album at the insistence of my bandmates who think this is a great song.

I wrote the music near the end of March 2008. The yodeling part was inspired by "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music. After I finished the music, I wrote some filler lyrics in five minutes, and recorded a demo for the band. At the time, Lisa had been raving to me about the remarkable life of Stede Bonnet, so I thought, maybe I could turn it into a pirate song. The song went like this:

When I was in town
A rich and favored child
I was sentenced to be loved and forgotten
My stuffy civil life
With oh my nagging wife
I desired more of an adventure

So I gathered up a crew and leased a boat
And then, we set sail from the coast
Towards Aruba, Martinique, and Kokomo
We're sure to put on quite a show

[instrumental]

This week we'll plunder five
In my matching suit and tie
We'll show them what nobility's made of

We're the pirates from a new and fancy mold
With cannons plated in gold
If you work for me, ten coins I will bestow
On you, everyday we're afloat

Yo-ho, lay-ee-oo...

I've seventy hired men
I manage now and then
When I'm not below heating my kettle
Would they ever leave?
That's a silly inquiry.
They have got the brawns, but I've got the money

So we sail into the waves of history
And we'll do this articulately
If they say I'm weak, well, fine, just let them say
But my friend, Blackbeard, will shut them away

Yo-ho, lay-ee-oo...

Despite such great lines as "They have got the brawns, but I've got the money," we decided that the original set of lyrics were stronger. I tweaked them a bit to form a story, and then brought it to rehearsal. There was a bit of a group effort on the arrangement: Ciana and Russ figured out the "Egyptian" countermelody during the chorus, Devin wrote the trumpet lines at the beginning of the song, and Molly wrote her vocal harmonies.

As fun as it was to play, "The Drifter" is really not my best songwriting, and I thought it was sometimes repetitive and boring. So, I decided to make it a little silly, and loaded it up with sound effects like the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine." I brought in my friend Hana to play a harp line to transition from the bridge back to the verse.

Who played on the recording? Steven (lead vocals, guitar, percussion, melodica); Molly (backing vocals); Maya (viola); Devin (trumpet); Hilary (cello); Hana (harp)

Lyrics:

The night I wasn't home
I was a little stoned
I was tripping out to the beat of a disco
Whatever happened next
I bet it was complex
I woke up in the heart of San Francisco

With me and you and everyone we know
From all of the places we've found
All the smiles and eyes and sparks from long ago
They spun like a merry-go-round

I walked along the shore
I walked along some more
I found it hard to talk and hard to swallow

With me and you, and people I don't know
We played on this big haunted ground
All the smiles and eyes and sparks from long ago
They spun like a merry-go-round

Yodel lay ee ooh
Yodel lay ee ooh
Yodel lay ee ooh

Yodel lay ee ooh
Yodel lay ee ooh
Yodel lay ee ooh

So then I reached the park
As it was getting dark
I was introduced to a stomach in peril
My senses came to light
As the world sank out of sight
I found my rented home in a street oh-so-narrow

Oh me and you and everyone we know
Flew out of the old lost and found
All the smiles and eyes and sparks from long ago
They spun like a merry-go-round

Yodel lay ee ooh
Yodel lay ee ooh
Yodel lay ee ooh

Yodel lay, yodel lay ee ooh
Yodel lay ee, yodel lay ee ooh
Yodel lay ee, yodel lay ee ooh