NOTE: Detholz! play THIS FRIDAY, 5/9 @ Empty Bottle in Chicago with SINGER — a bill not to be missed! Jonny from Detholz! claims they’re one of the best acts in town. And, hey, we’ll be there, too, playing many songs from this very blogosphere.

Read Jim DeRogatis’s writeup here

Welcome to Detholz! Mp3 Blog, Episode XXXVI!

This week, the track is appropriately hot off the press, like a steamy Hot Pocket:

SUBURBANITE

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to hunker down and do a music-geek marathon to finish off the writing process for the next Detholz! album, currently titled “Death to the Traitor” (see previous posts)

Last week might have been a failure, but this week’s track has a little more of that special je nais sais quois…

1. SONG CONCEPT

I’m limited this time on what I can say in a public forum. Suffice it to say it was inspired by a lot of time spent in the suburbs of Chicago– parts of the suburbs one might classify as “dark underbellies.”

Yick. Suburban underbellies are far worse than urban ones.

2. SONG COMPOSITION

Initially, I had planned on writing a song in 6/8, based on the ostinato you hear at the beginning of the song. I had planned a little number in the spirit of John Barry’s soundtrack to “The Black Hole” (hence the reference in the lyrics — love that movie!), which uses large, sweeping ostinatos and big brass melodies.

Instead, well… this came out: a mangled oddity that alternates between 6/4 and 4/4.

The process I used here was very similar to “Ghost of Christmas Palsy” (see previous post). Once the bass line had been established, the rest of the song was pinned up around it. The bass line is basically the same through the song, except that I alternate octaves/registers for color this time. In the end, I think this distracts from the repetitive nature of the song– you’re hearing the same notes, but in different registers, which is a handy little songwriting trick if you’re dealing with long, repetitive passages.

Constructing an interesting melody around material that is so harmonically static is like scaling a large wall. Of late, I’ve been enjoying the challenge– sometimes I go down in flames (like last week’s song), but generally, I’m pretty pleased with this week’s tune.

The “Death to the Traitor” motive (see previous posts) is back, too, in the lead-in to the choruses. This indulged my OCD drive to make every DH! album high-concept. Eek.

I also borrowed a trick from Baby Teeth (DH! sister band — Abraham’s lovely songwriting blog is here) and made the second verse bass and drums only.

A word about the chorus: one of my favorite musical games is to see how much you can get harmonically out of one note. For example, how many chords can you fit around a given G in the bass? This is an excellent exercise if you’re stumped on how to proceed in a particular song. The chorus of this song was written that way– I hit a snag after devising a verse I was happy with. After an hour or so of fruitless frippery, I just played a bunch of chords in which G plays a major part and decided on Eb - F - G minor - E minor. Together with the bass line, they sounded interesting to me.

Incidentally, a lot of the chordal leaps in earlier Detholz! material was mostly the result of this compositional technique.

Anyway, before we get so heady we float away, I’ll leave you here. What do you think? Include on the album? Play live? Or, like last week, off with it’s head?

Tune in next week for another new demo!

3. LYRICS

SUBURBANITE

Beast on the sofa
IN A BLACK HOLE
Pushing that needle
DEEP IN MY SOUL

I took a harder look and
SAW HIM INFLATE
A mountain of body parts
EXPLODES ON HIS PLATE

I called his girlfriend but she’s not around
She took the early train
STRAIGHT UNDER THE GROUND
I called the cops but then they faded away
Under a donut sun
I START THE DAY

Unwrap a processed pie
And say whatever’s convenient:

I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU
I’m half alive and
I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU
Suburban, suburban!
I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU
You’re convenience
I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT

Blood in the kitchen
BLOOD IN YOUR HEAD
Boiling like Ramen
BLOOD OF THE DEAD

I took a softer look and
SAW HIM IMPLODE
Pushing that needle
DEEP IN THE HOLE

You call your friends but they are not allowed
To answer from the hole
DEEP UNDER THE GROUND
You call your friends but they have faded away
Under a plastic clock
YOU END YOUR DAYS

Wrap up your rubber tie
And say whatever’s convenient:

I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU
I know I’ve tried but
I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU
Suburban, suburban!
I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU
You’re convenience
I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT

I’m never gonna die ’cause
I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU
Don’t leave me outside
I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU
Suburban, suburban!
I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU
You’re convenience
I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT

Welcome to Detholz! Mp3 Blog, Episode XXXV!

This week, I’ve scrapped “Attack of the Synthestra” (for which many of you are grateful, I’m sure) and have returned to the Detholz! drafting table to finish off writing songs for the forthcoming record, which is 2/3rd’s complete.

I’d strongly encourage you to listen to this track BEFORE you read the blog below. We need some objective opinions this week:

HAND AND BRAIN
…

So. This week’s installment was enthusiastically rejected across the board by the band.

Andrew (drummer) cited the lyrics as the primary culprit, while Ben (bass player) said that he had a hard time keying into the harmony, even after multiple listens. He likened it to an exhausting swim to shore from far out at sea.

Ha!

It’s impossible to be entirely objective about one’s own material, but after so many years of writing for Detholz!, I can usually tell which songs will “take” and which ones won’t. It’s nothing scientific– just a gut feeling. I knew before I completed this track that it would probably crash and burn into the B-side bin, but I decided to complete it anyway.

1. SONG CONCEPT

In the wake of my friend Kurt’s demise (see previous post), I’ve been thinking a lot about physical and psychological limitations and cognition; how the mind interacts with the body and vice versa– if, in fact, the two are separate entities at all.

A few years ago, I attended the “Body Worlds” exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago — you know, the crazy German exhibit of “plastinated” corpses in various poses– and was struck by a cross-section of a morbidly obese person. There was a thin man hiding in that body the whole time, encased in a thick layer which his body carried around!

Perhaps it’s over-simplistic of me– I’m not a scientist, I’m just the entertainment, after all — but I think that people with certain psychological dysfunctions operate in a similar manner. There’s a regular person buried in there somewhere but often it takes extra measures of patience and/or medication to get to him/her.

2. SONG COMPOSITION

Since I’ve been listening to a lot of cell compositions recently (music that is composed using tiny fragments of melody or harmony that are stretched and molded to form the foundation of the piece), I used some of those techniques here.

The very first bar of this song introduces the harmonic cell that runs throughout the “verse” sections — an augmented chord –> quartal (chord built of fourths) –> cluster. The bass line, melody and rhythms were all crafted around those harmonic changes.

I chose purposely “spacey” patches for this song given its scientific bent. Perhaps this was overkill — funny, I was stuck in a time warp as I wrote this and felt like I was writing “Scientific Eye” (from the DH! first record) all over again.

The melody is largely static and the harmony remains in one key throughout the chorus. I did this to focus the attention of the listener to the lyrics at these points in the song.

Also, as a nod to Bernard Herrmann, the great film/TV composer of yore whose trademark was cell composition, I added an electronic vibraphone patch to accentuate harmonic motion.

Overall, I felt pretty good about this when it was finished– didn’t think it’d land on the record, but maybe in a set list or two at a show. I did not anticipate such a strong “4 thumbs down” from the rest of the band.

What do you think? Redeemable? Is this a song you’d like to hear us play? Or is this one for the cutout bin on a par with our B-side elephant in the room, “Time Traveling Peterbilt Semi” (see previous post)?

Tune in next Wednesday for a brand new track!

3. LYRICS

HAND AND BRAIN

TV is hard on the eyes
TV is making you cry
That world is a dangerous place
Blips on the screen spatter blood on your face

Reach in
Inside your space
Reach in
And stir up the place
Reach in
Hand and Brain

Reach out
Don’t you understand?
Reach out
As the world demands
Reach out
Brain and Hand

A body of work
A body at work
Is overworked, work after work
A clasp of the hands
Is the work of the hands

Mind over matters
Matters on the mind
Are looped by loop, loop after loop
An ache of the head
Is a body at work

Reach out
And kiss that ring
Reach out
To the sound of the train
Reach out
Hand and Brain

Reach in
Through the membranes and glands
Reach in
To find the man
Reach in
Brain and Hand

Reach out
From your heart and veins
Reach out
To the body in pain
Reach out
Hand and Brain

Reach in
Reach out
Hand and Brain

Welcome to the Detholz! Mp3 Blog.

We’re going to pause this week to honor a dear friend of Detholz! who was killed last week: Kurt Hanson.

Kurt was the person for whom the song “Cast Out Devils” was written — it is a song entirely for him and about his life.

I’m posting a free download from the 2006 album, “Cast Out Devils,” here in Kurt’s honor:

CAST OUT DEVILS

Kurt was at the record release show for “Cast Out Devils” back in 2006. We dedicated this song to him from the stage. As our friends told us afterwards, his usual sloppy posture straightened, and he blushed and smiled ear to ear.

All of us deserve a song, but Kurt more than most. He was one of the most extraordinary human beings I have ever known.

I’ve included his eulogy and the lyrics to the song below.

We love you, Kurt.

KURT HANSON - MY FAVORITE MENDICANT
RIP 1973-2008

men·di·cant
Pronunciation ..’men-di-k?nt..
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin mendicant-, mendicans, present participle of mendicare to beg, from mendicus beggar
Date: 14th century
1: beggar
2: often capitalized : a member of a religious order (as the Franciscans) combining monastic life and outside religious activity and originally owning neither personal nor community property : friar

In the summer of 2004, Kurt crashed at my one-bedroom apartment in Chicago for a few days as he was wont to do. I had to step out one afternoon to run some errands, so I left Kurt alone on my couch deeply submerged in one of his dog-eared Krishnamurti books that were like bodily appendages for him. When I returned, Kurt had disappeared but he’d left his calling card: a serious mess. Not your average serious mess, either. Kurt’s messes were always piled high with deep mysteries.

When I entered my apartment, I was met by a mountain of wrappers, crumbs, half-eaten food and a fresh layer of dust on my coffee table. I thought: how does one conjure dust out of thin air? When I walked into the bathroom, the shower rod was strangely askew. And most puzzling of all: there was a small blood stain on my kitchen floor.

“My God,” I thought. “What happened here?” And then I smiled. This was what those who knew him best referred to as “classic Kurt.” He would descend like a tornado and leave a litany of questions in his wake. From whence did he come? Where did he go? And what the hell happened in between?

In the movies, there is a phenomenon known as the “continuity error.” For example, in one shot, a glass of water in the corner of the screen is full. When it cuts to next shot, the glass of water is suddenly empty. Or, in another imaginary scene– say from one of Kurt’s favorite films, “Waterland” NOT “Waterworld,” as he’d be quick to point out — a depressed college professor prepares to battle a man in a gorilla suit. Cut to the next shot, and a stunt double dressed as the college professor wrestles with said gorilla-suited adversary.

If you or I were to watch one of these scenes, our brains would filter out these continuity errors and automatically focus on the most important action in the scene. The average brain suppresses unimportant details and assembles a composite “reality map.”

For my friend Kurt Hanson, no such reality map was possible. His brain was incapable of filtering out the extra sensory static, so it was constantly barraged and overwhelmed with sensory input, unable to organize or filter any of it. This caused him intense physical and psychic pain. Kurt lived in a chaotic and frightening universe in which he spent his whole life attempting to make sense of it, and, if he could, to make peace with it.

Kurt existed in a cosmic question mark. His mind burbled with a thousand different vision quests at any given time– many of them overlapping and contradicting one another. When he had a mind to share some of these, he was a brilliant and engaging conversationalist with a pentrating intellect, and a large measure of spiritual wisdom. Kurt was one of my favorite people on the planet to talk to because I would never walk away from him without my perspective contorted in some new, fascinating way.

We spent many, many hours at Wheaton College, on the porch of the Maplewood house, at restaurants of dubious quality, and on interstate phone calls parsing the nature of his scary universe, the so-called “cultural consensus reality” against which he struggled to survive, and a host of deep subjects on which Kurt spoke with authority and, at times, with great eloquence. On more than one occasion when we discussed religion, Kurt opened doors for me to vast spiritual expanses that forever reshaped and enriched my own limping Christian faith.

I came to think of Kurt as a poor man’s avatar or, as he sometimes jokingly described himself, as a “Mendicant”– only in the truest sense. He was our friend group’s Traveling Friar, making sure we were challenged in our thinking– and helping himself to our food when he was hungry.

When I first met Kurt 12 years ago as a college kid, I found him to be a gangly, boxy-haired curiosity. As we spent more time together, I grew to love him as a close friend and eventually, as a kindred spirit. I could talk to Kurt for hours and share with him in ways that I couldn’t with most other people. And Kurt would listen and sincerely engage, sometimes disagreeing, but always without judgment. Despite his capacity for occasional nastiness brought on by his illness, Kurt was ultimately a gentle, kind soul.

It has been said many times in the wake of his death that there was no one on the planet quite like Kurt. That’s a cliche, perhaps, but in Kurt’s case it was literally true. Kurt was one of the most bizarrely beautiful creatures I have ever met. He was a man split in half– one side of him fully embraced his role as the social misfit, the weird guy at the party, a sort of Buddhist “Hell on Wheels.” And I loved that part of him. The other side — the side buried under the illnesses, the suffering and the pain, was a scared little boy who just wanted to be a regular guy, have a job and maybe a girlfriend. To be, as he half-jokingly would call it, a “man of action.” I loved that side of Kurt, too.

These two halves of Kurt were in constant conflict and that conflict caused him anger, frustration, and ultimately, self-hatred. But I wish he could see you all here, now, with the blinders of his varied illnesses removed. Kurt attracted so many people who loved him — many of whom are among the finest, brightest human beings I know.

To his family, on behalf of his friends, I want you to know how much Kurt contributed to and how much he enriched our lives. Kurt’s life story may not have a happy ending, but as it closes, it is a purposeful, meaningful and strangely beautiful one.

And for my friend Kurt, who is finally at peace with himself, I offer one last quote from one of his mentors, Jiddu Krishnamurti:

“If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.”

I believe many of us understood bits of what Kurt was, perhaps missing a few crucial pieces of information blinking in the periphery. Kurt was ultimately only able to think of himself as a walking continuity error– a man fractured into too many unimportant bits to survive.

Speaking for myself, I believe Kurt perpetuates in a blissful eternity with God today, and that he understands, finally and totally, exactly what he is– and how much he is loved.

***

CAST OUT DEVILS

Pass out outside
Do it
Head is covered under a separation
Germans in the hot night fly through it
Feeling calm, a thousand bombs blasting Britain

Radio, radio
Pick him up and drive him home
The wife is on the phone
From the the hall of the gods of war
In the light of the night grocery store

I think I believe
In life worth living
I know that I need
Space to live in

Dust collects and blood clots in the shower
Stumble backward, lost the medication
Locked it in the car, pry off the sunroof
Swallow whole with milk you stole from the priesthood

Sinuses full of mother and dad
Blowing Krishnamurti’s “I Am That”
Lips of a prophet
Nails of a thief
Scratch for whiskey in the summer heat

I think I believe
In the world of Satan
I know that I need
Space to make him.

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!

Welcome to Detholz! Mp3 Blog, Episode XXXIII!

Also, welcome to April 2008, in which I will be incredibly selfish and depart from regular Detholz! programming to bring you the… ATTACK OF THE SYNTHESTRA!

*cue screaming hordes of Japanese businesspeople flooding the streets in terror (and the trombone section)*

Seriously, folks, I am doing a crash course in orchestration and scoring to image (film, TV, etc.) and need some honest feedback. This is largely “Dark Territory” for me, and my MIDI piccolo is essentially whistling in the digital dark. Since I need some outside opinions, I thought: what better place– what better PEOPLE– to go to, hat in hand, MIDI cables in hat, than the venerable, trusty readers of the Detholz! blog?

So. Every week during ATTACK OF THE SYNTHESTRA, you can expect:

1. A customized orchestration of an imaginary scene/character

2. Discussion of instrument/color combinations & composition

3. Discussion of synthestration techniques (toward the end of the month)

…and so much more! You’ll think General MIDI hisself kissed you full on the lips!

Egads! Run for your lives! It’s ATTACK OF THE SYNTHESTRA Part I: “Willie Feeds”

I. SCENE

Though I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, for the past 6 months or so, I’ve played in an online RPG forum– more like collective story-writing than role-playing, hack, cough– and have developed an old-school-mobster-cum-vampire character. Since I have no images to write to yet and need a lot more practice at orchestration, I decided to use his story as fodder for these initial forays into underscoring a scene.

In the scene depicted here, our hulking antihero prowls the greasy backstreets of Chicago in search of a midnight snack. He pauses by an alley and spots a drunkard mumbling to himself, who immediately senses danger and looks up. Alarmed by the menacing aura of the vampire, the drunkard springs to his feet (as best he can) and makes a sloppy break for it. Of course, the gangster/vampire catches up to him, collars him, and drags him, kicking and screaming into a dark doorway, where he bares his fangs… A few seconds later, the drunkard falls to the ground, devoid of blood. So long, drunkard.

Yes, yes, the scene is a cliche. I thought it best to keep things relatively simple for practice.

2. THE SCORE

Note: I am inches away from owning a new studio system which will endow me with the CPU balls to make these synthestrations sound much more believable. For now, however, I am stuck with what I have. Please listen THROUGH these demos and try to imagine what they would sound like played by red-blooded humans. I’m doing a lot of reading about various orchestral instruments and have attempted to write idiomatically for them. Also, as a side note, let me say: I can’t believe it took me this long to switch to Steinberg Nuendo as my primary Digital Audio Workstation. Being a creature of obsessive habit, I had been using a 4-year old version of Emagic’s Logic Audio Platinum (which is no longer made for PC). It’s really a great program, especially with respect to these MIDI-strations I’m doing.

Those of you who are familiar with Bernard Herrmann’s music will recognize a lot of Herrmann-istic elements in this little score: lots of thirds and tritones, so-called “cell” composition (where large portions of a piece are based on just a few intervals), repeated figures, heavy usage of bass clarinet, contrabassoon and other “darker” elements of the orchestra, etc.

Orchestration is a game of combinations. What I’ve been doing lately is saturating myself in film music– even from composers I don’t particularly care for– to get fresh ideas about orchestral instrument pairings. Herrmann, in my opinion, is the king of film orchestrators– cf. his score for “Torn Curtain,” which famously called for sixteen French horns, twelve flutes, nine trombones, two tubas, two sets of timpani, eight cellos and eight basses…! Also, I have a lot of respect for the late Jerry Goldsmith, who scored “Star Trek: the Motion Picture.” (You know. Sexy bald lady.) The sound of that resonant industrial spring (or whatever it is) was burned into my brain as a kid!

In this little practice score, I’m experimenting with brass pairings– horns plus muted trumpets, trombones bleeding into horn blasts, etc. Other useful combinations: flute and harp (harp goes well with just about any woodwind or string instrument), double bass + cello + contrabassoon + bass clarinet (one of my favorite Herrmann combos), and I’ve just started to get the hang of flourishes in the piccolo, which go well just before or after large stabs.

The muted trumpet represents my vampire character– a stereotypical Chicago mobster turned into a vampire during a stretch at Joliet in the ’70’s. There’s a faux jazz element with the trumpets, walking bass and triangle figure. Underneath it, however, are tone clusters in the strings– first in the cellos, later in the cellos and violas– to let the listener know that despite the whimsical “walking jazz,” that all is not well with the world. This idea is copped from Howard Shore’s excellent soundtrack to “Naked Lunch.”

Is it Beethoven? HELLS no, but it’s good practice, and if a few of you get a chuckle or two out of it, then, to quote our esteemed President, “mission accomplished!”

Tune in next Wednesday for the second wave of ATTACK OF THE SYNTHESTRA!

*Narrator explodes into flames*

p.s. Here’s what I’m listening to to prepare for these, in case anyone is curious or looking for new music. Also, please bear in mind that some of these movies, in fact, suck a monkey teat. No composer in the world could redeem them. Still, if taken on their own or examined for how they interact with a film, I would recommend these scores:

Bernard Herrmann - “Psycho,” “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest,” “The Naked and the Dead” etc.

John Barry - “The Black Hole,” “Man with the Golden Gun”

Goblin - “Suspiria,” “Zombi” [you Detholz! graybeards would love this stuff]

Jerry Goldsmith - “Logan’s Run,” “Star Trek: the Motion Picture”

Howard Shore/Ornette Coleman - “Naked Lunch”

John Williams - “Memoirs of a Geisha”

Denizens:
Last DH! Chicago show of the season TOMORROW:

Detholz! @ Abbey Pub
Chicago, IL
Thurs., 3/27
w/ Panther (Kill Rock Stars), U.S. Girls & Slow Gun Shogun
BUY TIX HERE: www.abbeypub.com

NEW SONGS WILL BE DEBUTED!

PLUS

THIS Saturday, March 30th
BELOIT COLLEGE C-HAUS
Beloit, WI
“If you haven’t seen Detholz! at Beloit College, you haven’t seen Detholz!” - wise grasshopper
VIVA LA BLUE HOUSE!  See you soon, Beloitians!

Welcome to Detholz! Mp3 Blog, Episode XXXII, the last installment in our MARCH OF DEMOS, a month-long look at DH! demos that weathered the gauntlet and made it onto our full-length releases, “Who Are The Detholz!?”(2001), “Jukebox of the Dead” (2005), and Cast Out Devils(2006). All are available for purchase/download at our website: www.detholz.com. As I just discovered yesterday, you can also find Cast Out Devils on iTunes.

As a wise man once said: “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man. So let me handle my business, damn!”

This week, a band favorite from Cast Out Devils, the demo recording of CLUB OSLO

I think I wouldn’t be putting words into the other Detholes’ mouths when I say that, even after 4 years in the regular rotation, we still enjoy playing “Club Oslo.” It’s probably the closest thing we had to a radio-friendly song on Cast Out Devils, with a near-perfect balance of the Three D’s of Detholz!:

DORKY,
DISSONANT,
and DANCE-READY

Reviewers have gone multiple directions on this song over the years. It’s been accused of having a “cheap chorus,” which I suppose is a valid criticism. “Freak out, jump in, jump out,” etc. ain’t exactly Lord Byron. On the other hand, it’s been called “a song for party people who think.” I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I would definitely like to be thought of as a “thoughtful party person:” someone who both throws thoughtful parties and is thoughtful AT parties.

1. SONG CONCEPT

After enduring the most harrowing club experience of my life in Oslo, Norway while on tour with Bobby Conn (I ended up trapped inside the Oslo railyards at 4 AM… don’t ask), I wanted to write a fluffy dance number about that fateful night. I eventually made it back to our hotel on the other side of town, but not before scrabbling through a creek in the dead of winter, spraining my ankle, almost getting arrested, and royally pissing off a concierge.

If there is any “cheapness” to the song, it was deliberate. My experience that night was the culmination of a desperate pursuit of a candy-coated rokkenroll reality at the time. It was a Dark Time for the Empire, indeed. This song, like “Ghost of Christmas Palsy” (see earlier post) was written as a “note to self” — “freak out, jump in, jump out, get out” is intended as a warning.

Incidentally, we’ll be debuting “Xmas Palsy” at the Abbey Pub show tomorrow night! Y’all come, now, hear?

2. SONG COMPOSITION

The demo version is decidedly lighter in the loafers than the version on Cast Out Devils, but it has its merits nonetheless. My favorite aspect of the demo recording is the unintentional interplay of overtones between the guitars and the keyboards during the bridge– it creates a new percussive layer. Listen for it– it’s the 2-against-3 polyrhythm in the keyboards. I did NOT plan on it– it just magically appeared! Try as we might, we could not replicate it on the full album version.

The version on Cast Out Devils turned out better overall — it breathes a little more, and generally packs more of a wallop. Still, I have a fondness for the artificiality of the demo recording– the crappy, direct guitar sound and outdated Alesis drum machine lend it some added charm, in my humble opinion.

A kid at our Subterranean all-ages show the other week said of Detholz!, “Feh, too ‘eighties. Nothing good came out of the ‘eighties.” A friend’s response: “Uhh, weren’t you born in the ‘eighties?” Gales of laughter from his friends! I felt simultaneously gratified and…well, old.

Tune in next week for the first April installment of the Detholz! Mp3 blog, otherwise known as SOUNDTRACK MADNESS MONTH!

3. LYRICS

CLUB OSLO
Who is feeling dumb, who is fun
Anyone, anyone?
Who feels funky beats in easy feet
Properly, properly?

Freak out!
Jump in, Jump out!
I’ve never disco’ed this way!

See if she’s my speed, take a seat
Silently, silently
When our eyes first meet, scope the scene
Naturally, naturally

Tell you God is like an egg
I –
Put my hand upon your leg
You –
And your body says “yes,” but your head says “no”

Freak out!
Jump in, Jump out!
Get out right before you freak out!
Freak out!
I’ve never disco’ed this way!

Denizens:
Last DH! Chicago show of the season NEXT WEEK:

Detholz! @ Abbey Pub
Chicago, IL
Thurs., 3/27
w/ Panther (Kill Rock Stars), U.S. Girls & Slow Gun Shogun
BUY TIX HERE: www.abbeypub.com

PLUS

Saturday, March 30th
BELOIT COLLEGE C-HAUS
Beloit, WI
The student body has spoken: Detholz! triumphant return!
Fall ‘07 was the first semester we’d missed since 2001- thanks to all who campaigned!

Welcome to Detholz! Mp3 Blog, Episode XXXI! We’re continuing with the grueling MARCH OF DEMOS, where we present old, dusty demo recordings of songs that MADE the cut onto Detholz! records.

This week, one of my favorite old demos: THE BODY ELECTRIC

This is one of the oldest DH! songs that made the cut onto “Who Are The Detholz!?” (2001), having been penned somewhere around the end of 1999. As I recall, it was a real bitch to record with the full band given the demanding vocal parts– a lot of hours were spent gargling lemon juice and tightening our BVD’s to hit the high notes in our vocal isolation booth (read unfinished coat closet).

As with last week’s selection, I’ve always preferred the demo to the full band recording of “Body Electric” (nothing against the rest of the boyz). This song was a beast to perform well. I think we pulled it off successfully only a very few times in those early shows– most of the time, it would receive a lukewarm response live simply because it took so much effort to play it. Karl Doerfer (DH! guitarist) has often said in retrospect that he finds the song to be monotonous, which is also a justifiable criticism.

It makes me a little sad to listen to the demo, though, as that sweet-sounding falsetto range has gradually disappeared 10 years, 1,000’s of cigarettes and countless snifters of whiskey later. There’s no way in hell I could sing this song now– I suppose we could call this “Geddy Lee Syndrome” where… well… one just can’t hit those high notes like one used to.

SONG CONCEPT & COMPOSITION

At the time, I had a morning ritual that involved watching at least one episode of classic “Twilight Zone” every morning. I’ve always loved that show; the writing, acting and music are always so satisfyingly over-the-top. In some cases– at least musically– the scores are truly astounding thanks to the brilliant Bernard Herrmann, whose film music I have been rediscovering lately. (He scored many of the early TZ episodes, though not the one mentioned below).

One morning, they reran the TZ episode, “I Sing the Body Electric,” based on the well-known Ray Bradbury story about a made-to-order electric grandmother (Bradbury also wrote the screenplay for the TZ episode). At the time, my own grandmother’s health had begun to waver as she began the initial stages of a 7-year decline before she finally passed away. So, this is really a song for her, though when I was writing it, I was also ruminating on ideas about eternity and eternal destiny– an uncharacteristically sincere song for that period in DH!. This song is still able to evoke an emotional response in me like few other DH! songs can.

Many of the chord changes were lifted directly from incidental music to the Twilight Zone, as I would sit every morning with my guitar and plunk along with various episodes. I’ve always loved the music on that show, though this is the only instance where I’ve consciously tried to emulate it.

More recently, as I’m gearing up to write more orchestral scores, I’ve made a more serious study of the music/orchestration techniques of Bernard Herrmann. If you’re unfamiliar with his music, I would recommend listening to the scores from “The Day The Earth Stood Still,”(the 1st 50’s sci-fi movie score to use a theremin!), “The Naked and the Dead,” (excellent brass writing), and, of course, the soundtrack to “Psycho,” which is arguably the best film score of all time.

But I digress: You’ll hear a lot of the vocal layering characteristic of Detholz! in those days on this demo– we were, as many young, hungry popsters are, obsessed with the Beach Boys/Pet Sounds and enamored of complex, layered vocal writing. The best example of this can be heard on “All For You,” (last song on WRTDH!?) whose vocals were written in a collaborative session by Rick Franklin (1st DH! keyboardist & primary songwriter on “All For You”), Karl and I. Pixies influence is also discernible in the parallel barre-chord ascensions towards the end of the song.

You’ll have to bear with the recording quality here. At 22, I was just learning how to record a workable home demo, so it’s got the usual newbie warts: bottom-heavy, murky mix with lots of noise and hiss. Hopefully, it adds to the charm.  Up to you.

I’ll end today’s post in the guise of Rod Serling who, tight-lipped and stiff, delivered these clipped lines at the end of the episode in question, which sum up well what this song attempts to convey:

“A fable? Most assuredly. But who’s to say at some distant moment there might not be an assembly line producing a gentle product in the form of a grandmother whose stock in trade is love? Fable, sure… but who’s to say?”

Tune in next week for the last leg of our MARCH OF DEMOS…

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!

***

Welcome to the Detholz! Blog, Episode XXX!

(I guess that’s every week, though, right?)

And welcome back to the Detholz! “MARCH OF DEMOS,” where we’re posting demos that made the cut onto our full-length albums all month!

To celebrate the DH! Mp3 Blog’s XXXth (XXXist?) birthday, this week a demo from our covers album, “Jukebox of the Dead,” replete with XXX backstory! Mark Knopfler’s jukebox git-tar classic played at biker bars the world over, perhaps even right now:

SULTANS OF SWING

This is a case where the demo might have turned out a little better than the full band recording you’ll find on “Jukebox of the Dead,” even though this recording is warty, at best. It was made in the Dark Ages before I knew or understood anything about how to record a proper demo, so you’ll hear lots of hiss, over-compression and a very murky, elephantine mix.

Still, there’s some “there” there, I think… more so than on the final album version. Funny how it works that way sometimes…

OK, so rather than chew through all of the in’s and out’s of how this was arranged, composed and all of that musical drudgery, I’d prefer to tell you why I chose this particular song in the first place. It’s an inspiring story from an inspiring city:

Baltimore.

My brother lived in squalor in Baltimore for a brief period when he was attending the Peabody Conservatory of Music in the late 80’s/early 90’s. His apartment window was right above a restaurant dumpster and was home to the smells of burnt animal fat and rotten eggs, to name a few of the more savory ones. He came home routinely to rats as big as cats hanging out in his bathtub, and was known to bash their brains in with a broomhandle when they got out of line.

Ahh, Baltimore! (Actually, Baltimore is one of my favorite cities in which to tour and play shows. Those people really know how to dial it up a notch!)

One sticky summer night, on his way home from a job flipping reams of paper at Kinko’s, he passed by a dank alleyway from which Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing” was blaring at an ear-splitting level– over and over again. Being of a curious ilk, my brother doubled back and peered into the alleyway. A faint light spilled out from an open window on the lefthand side. As he crept quietly up to the bottom of the windowsill, the music grew louder, and he heard regular banging sounds, in time with the music:

Bang-bang-bang! A-Bang Bang, Bang! Bang, Bang!

He peered up into the window and he saw…

How shall I put this?

AUGH!

You know what? Never mind. Whatever you’re imagining, it’s far, far worse. Eliot Spitzer, eat your heart out. Feel free to make a comment and take a guess. There’s a free shirt in it for the most creative response! (And though this is a naughty story, try to keep it clean, people.)

Anyway, this arrangement was inspired by my brother’s sordid tale, and the original version of “Sultans of Swing” has been ruined for me forever. So much for the biker bar.

Tune in next week for a more savory selection (I promise!) from the Detholz! demo file… *shudder*

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)