Attack of the Synthestra 2 - “Willie Steals a Horse”

Note: A close Detholz! confidante (and former Detholz! bookie), Lena, needs your help in an excellent cause. After having her spirit broken by the VORTECS Corporation, the business arm of Detholz!, (just kidding) Lena decided to go into nursing and has worked at a hospital for the past year. Utilizing her training, she will be traveling to Nepal this Fall to volunteer and assist needy orphan children there (no kidding). She needs to raise $5,000 for her trip. Visit this link and donate, would you?

http://teammapleteam.com/lenavolunteerproject/

Any little bit you can spare will help immensely– no gift is too small!  Help Lena help orphans in need!  Thanks.  -Detholz! and the Maplewood Continuum

Welcome to the Detholz! Mp3 Blog, Episode XXXIV!

This week, we continue with our bloody orchestral onslaught of General MIDI madness with:

ATTACK OF THE SYNTHESTRA Part 2 : “Willie Steals A Horse”

For an introduction on this month’s Attack, check the last post.

1. SCENE

This week, the vampire character we introduced last week is reminiscing about his misspent youth on Maxwell Street in Chicago, remembering an afternoon when he earned his nickname. On a dare, he creeps up on a fruit vendor and steals his horse, after which he removes the testicles and sells them to a restaurant in Chinatown (his nickname is “Potatoes,” har har). The scene depicted here is Willie sneaking up on the vendor, then untying and making off with his horse.

2. COMPOSITION

A lot of the ideas from this orchestration come from critical listening to Bernard Herrmann’s score for “The Trouble With Harry.” There’s a lot of call-and-response across the orchestra, which is a great trick. You can repeat the same phrase over and over and it takes on an entirely different character if played by different instrument families in different registers.

The core of the composition is a series of intervals– a major third and a tritone. I take a lot of liberty with the intervallic series, inverting it in a few instances, mixing it up in others. The most blatantly obvious examples can be heard in the quiet middle section of the piece– first in the woodwinds, then in the lower instruments as the piece revs up towards the end.

I purposely chose a brighter, “happier” scenario this week for a challenge. As most of you know, my default setting when writing music is either “Fire and Brimstone” or “Gloom ‘N Doom,” so I decided to take a trip to the Happy Store and see what happened.

The practice and obsessive listening is paying off– I’m finding it’s easier to make good choices vis a vis instrument combinations. One of the most difficult aspects of orchestration is balance– take your run-of-the-mill C7 chord, for example.

C-E-G-Bb

Which notes go where across the orchestra? What notes are doubled? By which instruments?

In my reading about this, I’ve discovered the 1357 rule. This means, in general, you want to give the most weight to the first note in the chord (otherwise known as the “root.”) In this case, C.

C = 1

So, given your average orchestra, you’d put C’s in the bass instruments (like the string basses, cellos, tuba, bassoons and bass clarinets) and in the primary melodic instruments (1st violins, trumpets, horns, flutes and oboes).

E = 3

This is the third of the chord– what gives the chord its character, major or minor, so it’s second in the pecking order. I would probably assign it to the 2nd violins, 2nd/3rd horns, and 1st clarinet)

And so forth and so on. You plug in the rest of the notes according to the 1357 principle until you’ve got a balanced-sounding chord across the orchestra. If it sounds complicated, that’s because… well… it is! I’ve got a lot more practice ahead of me before I master writing balanced orchestral scores.

So there you have it. Tune in next week for the next wave of Attack of the Synthestra, Part 3: The Rape of General MIDI!

Tune in tomorrow…

Dear Blogosphere:

For mysterious reasons involving high-ranking officials in the piano industry, I will be unable to post a new Detholz! blog today.

Tune in tomorrow (Thurs. 3/20) for a fresh cut!

***

Detholz! demo - “Utopiathon”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Detholz! emerge briefly from hibernation to perform a set this Saturday at an all-ages show at Subterranean in Chicago (2011 W North) with our old friends and prog-lodytes, MAPS & ATLASES! And bring your strollers, ’cause it’s ALL-AGES! Buy tix at www.subt.net!

Welcome to Detholz! Mp3 Blog, Episode XIX!

March is a time of transformation, re-emergence and rejuvenation! Transmogrification! Bunnies vigorously mating!

(Well, at least if you live somewhere south of Chicago. )

Therefore, March on the Detholz! Mp3 Blog is the “MARCH OF DEMOS” where your every dream comes true!  Instead of posting demos of songs that were put to death before their time, this month we will examine demos of songs that actually lived to tell about it on our two full-lengths, “Who Are The Detholz!?” and “Cast Out Devils,” and compare, contrast, crystallize… and cruise, baby.

As one of my favorite pundits, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, once said: “The significance of the moth is change. Caterpillar into chrysalis or pyoo-pahh, from thence into beauty!”

So we begin with one of my personal favorites from our records, the demo for UTOPIATHON which, if you’re following in your Bibles, is track 6 from “Cast Out Devils” (2006).

Side note: if you got one of the early editions of “Cast Out Devils,” there is an error on the track listing on the back of the CD. “Utopiathon” and “Chapel of Love” are reversed! Viva la warts and clams!

1. SONG DEVELOPMENT

This song is almost never mentioned by fans or DH! denizens– not as immediately accessible as some of the other songs– but it’s always been one of my favorites. As some of you already know, I have had a day job in the piano industry for 10 years now, and “Utopiathon” was a song written on a piano late at night, when I had locked the doors, closed up the store, and it was just me and the silent, coffin-case rows of grand and upright pianos.

Since I am not a particularly gifted pianist, most of my keyboard parts involve some sort of repeating ostinato-like patterns, usually one clashing with the other. That is definitely the case here. The keyboard part provided the framework for the rest of the song.

Speaking of funerals, the album version is much more dirge-like and somber than the demo, which is at a much brisker tempo with a brighter, more whimsical arrangement. The percussion is purposely minimal, and the string and brass lines you hear on “Cast Out Devils” are totally absent. The keyboard ostinato is in a constant 3-against-2 polyrhythm: the bass/drums augmenting the 3/4 feel during the chorus, the guitars augmenting the 2 (or 6/ feel. The polyrhythmic interplay is not emphasized so much on the album version, as we decided to take “Utopiathon” in a more creepy, less bouncy direction.

The brass and string parts on the album version came to me much later as I hummed along to the demo in the car. In fact, this demo was recorded in 2004 or so, so it wasn’t for another 2 years that I got to hear those lines fleshed out by warm-blooded humans playing real brass and string instruments during the “Cast Out Devils” sessions at Shape Shoppe in Chicago. Quite a thrill at the time, as I recall!

Originally, I thought “Utopiathon” would open “Cast Out Devils” as scene-setting exposition, but that was before “Silence Is Golden” (track 1 on COD) was born.

2. SONG CONCEPT

“Utopiathon” was written during the throes of a major crisis of faith in my 20’s, which I’ve spoken about at length in previous posts. Not an especially happy time in my life. The linchpin of the song is this:

You’re a little boy or a little girl
Born and raised in a beautiful world
There are no windows in this room
Inside it’s dark like an empty tomb

All of us are children, most of us born wide-eyed and idealistic. The image of a child abandoned in a dark room appealed to me as a metaphor for a loss of faith: “Christ is risen, but Christ is gone. And you have been left alone in his dark, empty tomb.”

Utopiathon = the fruitless attempt to grasp the unattainable; an endless, desperate marathon to Nowhere

Man, am I glad all of that is over!

3. LYRICS (album version)

You’ll notice a few little differences between the demo version and the album version. There’s some line about a “prenatal coil” that was, well, kind of ham-handed and gross, so I changed it.

UTOPIATHON

In the afternoon you stop and smell a flower by your shin
On your way somewhere the sun demands information from your skin
You’re going inside, you’re sitting inside the building
Indian style
There’s a wheel spinning clockwise on television
And in your mind, you smile

You’re a little boy or a little girl
Born and raised in a beautiful world
You sit by the window peeking out
Make it up or you won’t make it out

There’s an oriental rug laying on the floor where you walk
There’s some serious men standing at the door, who want to talk
Let them inside, they’re waiting inside the building with your files
Binding you up with cords of love
Injecting the drugs
You sigh and smile

You’re a little boy or a little girl
Born and raised in a beautiful world
There are no windows in this room
Inside it’s dark like an empty tomb

Smile!
(Don’t let me out without it)

I’m late! I’m late!

Tune in tomorrow for our regularly scheduled programs…

Sorry, folks.  Just ran out of time today.

If you’re interested, I DID write a long personal blog: http://www.myspace.com/jimcooper

Watch out.

Klassic Detholz! Reject - “Victory Mansion”

Welcome to Detholz! Mp3 Blog, Episode XVII — and for our regular readers, welcome back to the February Detholz! retrospective!

Today a demo track from the era of “Who Are The Detholz!?” (first Detholz! LP, 2000) that was voted down by the band even before it had finished playing:

VICTORY MANSION

(Thanks to regular Kebab Dylan for forwarding this song to me. I had all but forgotten it existed, and now it has a home! In fact, I’m almost embarrassed to post it, except that Mr. Kebab has assured me on numerous occasions that this song is worth hearing.)

This is a “fresh out of music school” sort of number, and suffers from many of the warts of last week’s DH! dusty, “Cinema Verite” :

1. Painful dorkiness

2. Over-cluttered with ideas

3. Choppy, elephantine construction

4. Forced vocal delivery

5. Crappy lyrics

Even so, as I listened to this for the first time in 8 years, I couldn’t help but get a tad sentimental for those halcyon, more innocent days when Detholz! was a younger, hungrier, unabashedly nerdier band. At 24, I was convinced that we possessed some sort of cock-and-balls formula for “success” and harbored more than a few grand delusions about where the band was headed– that the nerds of the world would line up in force behind us and, by virtue of superior gadgetry and programming, propel us past the skinny Chicago scenesters right to the top of the heap!

Surprise! It’s The Detholz! (We still had the “The” in those days.)

Those were the days of standing outside of The Metro in the cold and passing out handbills to the Creatures from Planet Wrigleyville, CD assembly parties, driving from the city out to the suburbs every week for rehearsal, annual attendance at “Mobfest” [Chicago's music industry bullshit-slingin' dog-and-pony show], shows at the illustrious Elbo Room, the elusive and well-dressed Fabian Guerra and his doomed-from-the-start music mgmt. co., Quest Management, the crazy three-fingered Mexican man who owned the venerable Big Horse [literally a taco stand that would book bands!], bi-monthly brush-off’s from the booking dept. at Empty Bottle that lasted for almost 2 years… ahh, yes, indeed. Those were the days! Some of you Detholz! graybeards remember, I’m sure.

Looking back on all of that, those were actually some of the best times of my life thus far. Make no mistake– I have no wish to relive them. LAWS, no. But you can hear a little bit of that bristling itchiness of early Detholz! in this track.

We were all obsessed with Frank Black’s first record at that time, having just cleared the 90’s and all. “Victory Mansion” was my attempt at the time to emulate Frank Black’s Ethos — wide, death-defying harmonic changes, spacey lyrics, chunga-chunga bar chords in the 5 or so layered guitar tracks, etc. There’s also a curious “Broadway” element that I missed back then– almost certainly a holdover from my recently completed schooling and obsessive need to tie up the musical ends.

Anyway, it’s in the world now, for better or worse. Hope some of you get something out of it, if even just a nod and a chuckle.

Tune in next week for the final installment in our February Detholz! Retrospective!

Jim Cooper score - “BUNNY OF DEATH”

Welcome to Detholz! Blog Episode XXIV!

Today, a departure from the norm… at least if you don’t consider the narcissistic blathering about one’s own compositions the “norm.” Doughty readers: I need your help.

I have polished up my conquistador’s helmet, hefted a makeshift lance under my arm, and am preparing to storm a few windmills After that, I’m diving back into the world of– bom bom BOMMM! Orchestral composition!

So, this week, a practice score: BUNNY OF DEATH

Bear in mind before you listen that this is a soundtrack to an animated film short done by a friend of mine– so what you’re hearing is cartoon music without the cartoon. (I haven’t gotten my friend’s permission yet to post a link to the video, but when I do, I’ll post it here. )

Objective: working to improve not only my compositional chops, but the recording/mixing of convincing orchestra music. Comments/critiques on either “score” are welcome! Here, I used the “East-West Gold” orchestral plugin, which is my current favorite.

1. COMPOSITION

Regressing back to my music school days, this is a loose “cell” composition, based on the intervallic progression: minor 2nd, major 2nd, minor 2nd. Sometimes it ascends or descends, is broken across octaves or instruments, and at other times I gave myself the liberty to diverge from the constraint if it made sense melodically. When composing, I’ve found it useful to limit myself to 3-4 note cells, even if I don’t adhere too strictly to them.

It ain’t exactly serialism, but after having been a pop musician for so long, it’s difficult for me to write music that is completely atonal (meaning ALL gesture and no harmonic/melodic content).

Arnold Schoenberg (the inventor of 12-tone serialism, arguably) calls this approach “developing variation,” and though there is a lot of debate in theoretical circles as to what “developing variation” actually means– Schoenberg himself vacillates on its precise definition– it’s application in this piece is best described this way:

“Whatever happens in a piece of music is nothing but the endless reshaping of a basic shape. Or, in other words, there is nothing in a piece of music but what comes from the theme, springs from it, and can be traced back to it; to put it still more severely, nothing but the theme itself.” -A. Schoenberg, 1931, “Linear Counterpoint”

Bear in mind that Schoenberg equates a “theme” with a “shape,” (at least in the context of the 1931 article) so in the case of my little practice score, the intervallic cell could be seen as a “theme” of sorts, shaped and reshaped as the piece develops. You can hear it at the very beginning in the “Jaws”-like flourishes in the low strings, and in most of the descending lines in the strings towards the end of the piece, to name a few occurrences.

I think Schoenberg is absolutely right in his above quote. The older I get, the more I am interested in presenting more unified musical “ideas.” Oh, and speaking of “ideas, here’s dear old Arnold again:

“In its most common meaning, the term ‘idea’ is used as a synonym for theme, melody, phrase or motive. I myself consider the totality of a piece as the ‘idea’: the idea which its creator wanted to present.” -from a 1930 article entitled “New Music, Outmoded Music, Style and Idea”

I think this is a universal compositional technique. Those of us who aspire to compose music — in whatever genre– would do well to think “wholistically” before sitting down with pen and paper (or with mouse and keyboard). Rather than thinking of barlines, scraps of melody or little chord changes… why not conceive of something in its totality? How will a given piece develop? How can your “scrap” transmogrify into an entire piece? What will that piece sound like?  Or, more simply, what do you wish to communicate?

This is a mistake I hear in my own earlier pieces and with those of many music school students– too many ideas are crammed into too small a space! Because one HAS the chops for a pyrotechnical idea doesn’t mean that every one of those should be slopped into one stew… if you do, you almost always end up with a foul-smelling gruel.

Okay, back down to Earth from the Ivory Tower– a few things I need help on here:

1. To you non-classical types, are these orchestral sounds convincing? Or does it sound too “canned?”

2. To you mixologists, what do you think of the mix here? Clear or muddled? Weak or strong?

3. To you composers/songwriters: does this form work? Does it hold your interest? Or is it a mess?

Thanks for visiting, earthlings! Tune in next Wednesday for another Tune of Surprise!

(Tuna Surprise?)

New Detholz! demo - “Ghost of Christmas Palsy”

DETHOLZ! play one of their only shows this winter– and it’s ALL AGES! THIS SATURDAY, 1/19/08 at AVIE AERIE with our friends, PIT ER PAT and REDS AND BLUE. Mr. Bobby Conn will also be DJ-ing that night. This is a benefit for the lovely Dill Pickle food co-op, and is a great cause caused by great people. For more information, go here : http://dillpicklefoodcoop.org/

Welcome to Detholz! Mp3 Blog XXII!

This week, it’s back to business– another “Death to the Traitor” demo (see previous posts). Feel free to utter a hearty “bah humbug” if you don’t like this one:

GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PALSY

If you DO, however, then God bless you, every one!

I. SONG CONCEPT

As another installment for consideration on “Death to the Traitor” (the next Detholz! release), “Ghost” follows suit in the Grand Guignol tradition, this time chronicling the sad ending of a life ruined by bad decisions.

Without getting too personal, I’ll say that this one is more biographical than other newer songs– a vision of my own death and potential regrets that I put down here mainly as a warning to myself. Hence the Dickensian reference to the Ghost of Christmas Future… this is a picture of a possible future, if my personal Scrooge were to get the best of me.

The gist? “Make Good Choices.”

Thanks, Mom.

II. SONG COMPOSITION

The next few Detholz! songs will be written without guitars — the “Piggly Man” approach (see previous post). This is as much practical as artistic — Karl, the Detholz! guitarist, is in school this semester, so we’ll have to do some shows without him. Plus, I’d like to be freed of my instrument in order to prance about with more reckless abandon!

I attempted to limit myself here to only 3 different keyboard tones — ended up using 4. Not bad, given the shameful lack of restraint I’ve exhibited on another new song, written directly before this one, which I’ll post next week. It almost exploded my laptop.

As with the other installments in the “Traitor” series, the bass line is constant throughout which always presents a interesting challenge when crafting melodies for verse as opposed to chorus. I feel a lot more freedom to write verse melodies that are more improvisatory — as I’ve discussed before, I’m not an especially good improviser. All the same, a little variation in verse melodies helps songs breathe better, in my opinion. There are innumerable examples of this in popular music. In this case, I borrowed a little bit from The Smiths and Morrisey (can you believe it?!?).

The centerpiece of this song, of course, is the bass line. I also wanted, once again, to write a “Hall and Oates” type of drum part — a simple, 4-on-the-floor that remains unchanging throughout the song. I’ve discussed my fascination with this simple approach in other posts. Trim-trimminy, trim-trimminy, trim-trim the fat! It’s an interesting challenge– very tough to write this way, at least for me. With practice, though, it’s getting a little easier and I was satisfied with the result here.

The chorus melody involves a lot of triplets and “staggered” rhythms, which was an attempt at word-painting. Once the “Do It Again’s” were in place, the chorus came quickly and painlessly. Yes, yes, I realize using phrases like that is a cheap maneuver, but… hey, it was exciting to me when the song was working itself out!

Perhaps that’s a topic for next time… lately, I’ve been feeling more and more like a thrall to whatever song is working itself through my system. This one is case in point.

Tune in next week for another brand-new Detholz! demo…

III. LYRICS

GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PALSY

Veiny gums
Hospital slums
Wad of phlegm in the Gerber

State ward
Bed sores
Memories of a pervert

“D!”
The cheerleaders say:
“N!”
The pretty nurse says:
“R!”
Anyone gotta liquor?

Blank stare, Medicare
Thick blood on a hospital blouse
He’s code blue and quiet as a mouse

Do it again
Shake me like a dying friend
Do it again
Shake me to the end
Do it again
Make me shake under the ground
Do it again
Make me shake without a sound

And now the doctor is in
And now the nurse is with him
Shaking her head and his body
I got my teeth in a jar
Picked off the floor of some bar
It’s a long and lonely story

“D!”
My dead ex-wife says:
“O!”
My secretary:
“A!”
How I used to love to liquor/lick her

Had the right pills and marketable skills…
Thick blood dribbles out of my mouth
If you got the shakes, you gotta shake it out

Do it again
Shake me like a dying friend
Do it again
Shake me to the end
Do it again
Make me shake under the ground
Do it again
Make me shake without a sound

Do it again
Shake me
Shake without a sound

Relache

Detholz! Mp3 Blog is dark this week.

Go, spend some time with family or go outside and glisten in the snow.

See you next year!

(If you’re new here, see previous posts for free mp3’s from 2007)

Detholz! demo - “Pilgrim’s Regress - Part I” & “The City of Gold”

Welcome to Detholz! Mp3 Blog Episode XVI!

A day late on this one, ladies and germs. My abject apologies.

This week, we’ve switched off the Jukebox of the Dead and are venturing into a magical land of Fairies and Fantasy with
The Pilgrim’s Regress, Part I (includes “The Conclusion” and “The City of Gold”)

or, if you prefer to skip the scene-setting exposition:

The City of Gold (extracted from Part I)

1. CONCEPT

After a particularly weird and depressing week about 2 years ago, I locked myself in my apartment and cranked out this oddity: the first part of an arguably pretentious concept album for Detholz! called “The Pilgrim’s Regress,” which is essentially the classic Puritan allegory, John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” in reverse. The basic idea is that our protagonist, instead of seeking to gain access to the Celestial City, seeks rather to ESCAPE from the Celestial City and BACK to his home in the City of Destruction.

I had planned on having him encounter all of the stops on the way– the River of Death, the Delectable Mountains, Vanity Fair, the Worldy Wiseman and the rest– all filtered through this “lens of opposites.” I got as far as having him escape from the Celestial City and had begun on “The River of Death” section– only to have the laptop on which these files resided stolen outside of a show. Damn you, Crime Inc.!

“The Conclusion” is a reworking of Bunyan’s Conclusion at the end of the First Part of “Pilgrim’s Progress.” It is intended to set the stage– kind of an overture– where reality retreats and familiar things are transformed through the power of ecstatic vision.

“The City of Gold” marks our hero’s observations in the Celestial City, and he is discomfited with what he is seeing and feeling. The end of the song chronicles his escape through loose bars in the Gate, though that is not spelled out in any lyric.

After playing this for the band and receiving a lukewarm response– in addition to some radical changes in my thinking about religion– I abandoned this project. It will likely remain on the shelf forever (and ever, amen).

2. COMPOSITION

You could view this as a “Proto-’Death to the Traitor,’” (see earlier “Death to the Traitor” post) as more of the minimalist and/or repetitive elements Detholz! currently experiment with began to appear here. I had also just finished recording Bobby Conn’s “King for a Day” album, and that sparked my interest in writing “fantasy rock,” as Bobby had woven all manner of fantastic elements into the musical and lyrical content of that record.

A lot of the source sounds are in reverse– most obviously on “City of Gold,” which was constructed on top of a repeated vocal figure in reverse. The melody at that runs through “The Conclusion” is a reworking of the American folk hymn, “Lord, I Want to be a Christian in My Heart” on a (backwards) reed organ. I had intended to use this as a motive that reappears throughout the record– similar to the “Traitor” motive I’ve discussed in earlier posts.

This was both a sincere and sarcastic musical reference. At the time, I found my faith to be completely empty and devoid of meaning. Though that has since changed, it’s interesting from a personal standpoint to have a musical chronicle of that period.

Anyway, “City of Gold” is a reharmonization/rearrangement of an ancient Detholz! song called “Heaven,” (vintage 2000-2001) which we only played one time, as I recall. The original demo was lost forever when a hard drive crashed, but it was a pedantic “shoegazer” arrangement with washy guitars and a backwards-ballcap type of beat. I was dissatisfied with that version–esp. the lyrics, which were god-awful– but liked the melodies. They are preserved in the newer version, almost to the note.

We posted “City of Gold” on MySpace for a time, and it was generally received well. Andrew (Detholz! drummer) has often pushed for us to play it, so… who knows? Perhaps “Pilgrim’s Regress” will ride again someday.

Tune in next week for more free music, and in the meantime…. follow the yellow brick road! Follow the yellow brick road! Follow the yellow brick road! etc.

3. LYRICS

I. THE CONCLUSION

Draw the curtains
And dim the light
Close your eyes
Depart inside the Veil
Murmuring late at night

A land of giants
Of fairs and feasts
A host of thousands
On a Holy Mountain

Talk in your sleep

Laughter is best left
To fools and to boys
The wisdom in dreams
Comes without so much noise

Talk in your sleep

Asleep in the shadows
Asleep in the sun
Asleep with an animal
Asleep with a gun
Asleep at the office
Asleep in the car
Asleep in the alley
Asleep in the bar

The pilgrims are sleeping
The giants are sleeping
The angels are sleeping
The dragons are sleeping
The preachers are sleeping
The revelers are sleeping
The wise men are sleeping
The King is sleeping

Talk in your sleep

II. THE CITY OF GOLD

The golden flash of transfiguration
Shines from the City of Perfection
The bells ring out from the spires
High above the crowns and the lyres

When they zipped off my skin
A fire burned within
Shot from the eyes of the King
From His invisible halls
A terrible beast sang:

Ah, welcome into Heaven!

Is this life after death
Or death after life?
Squint in the face of this brilliant light
The highways are paved with golden tar
Inside the glittering Gate with a thousand bars

Immortal and invisible
Eyes shoot out golden flames
For a million years
A multitude
Shouts through the Holy Names

In the City of Gold
That precious metal is cold
And the hearts of the righteous
Are eternally old
And we’ve earned the right to
Eat from the Tree of Life
In perfect bodies of light

(I can’t feel anything
I think I’m burning alive!)

Ah, welcome into Heaven!

I think I’m burning alive!

Jukebox of the Dead VIII Recap - “Prelude” & “You: the Power of You”

Welcome to Detholz! Mp3 Blog Episode XV!

Thanks to all who made it to the Detholz! 8th Annual “Jukebox of the Dead” Halloween shows last week. It was, by far, the best year yet. In Chicago, especial propers to Zen Master Lord of the Yum-Yum and the amazing Mucca Pazza marching band, which may be the New Greatest Show on Earth!

To finally cap off Detholz! Halloween proceedings– and for those who could not attend– we proudly present 2 tracks this week to give you the gist:

Jukebox of the Dead VIII Prelude

You: the Power of You

To get the full effect, these tracks should be listened to in sequence.

The Prelude was used under video of the disembodied head of Mister M (James “Jamesie” Mitchell), saying things like “YOU are the Chariot! Arise, YOU! Celebrate, YOU! YOU are the lighting! YOU are the one who can turn IF into BECAUSE!” etc. Given the chaos of the evening, it was tough to hear in the club.

A few musical asides about the Prelude:

1. It is in the dominant key of “You: the Power of You” (”U:PU” for short) — an old “Circle of 5th’s” trick to prepare you for the payoff at the beginning of “U:PU.”

2. It incorporates strains from both “U:PU” and Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” the pretension of which I found endlessly amusing– esp. coupled with the video of Jamesie.

“U:PU” is a mashup of three components:

1. Olivia Newton-John’s / ELO’s “Xanadu” (I took a few liberties with the harmony to “Holzify”it.)

2. Jane Fonda’s step aerobics soundtrack

3. Rush’s “Xanadu”

A challenging set of components to combine, but interspersed with some campy double-talk and guitar lixx ala “Miami Vice,” I think it works. A definitive junket into Meta-Music Land… but hey, it’s Halloween!

Tune in next week where we’ll return to “The Way It Was,” or– to quote the great U.S. President, Warren Harding– “Back to Normalcy!” [sic]