OMINOUS CASTLE

SNOW

2008-01-23T23:33:00.001-08:00

a few days ago, there was snow. if you live somewhere that is not considered part of the southeastern united states then this may be old hat to you, but since i rarely see it myself (and even more rarely see it accumulate to any degree) i got super-excited about the whole thing. i think it's safe to say that it's hard-wired into our brains from the day that we're born that the presence of snow logically leads to one thing more than anything else: building a snowman. (i'll check my facts on that one.) let me introduce you to my friend YOUNG FREEZY.

me and young freezy! my hands felt like they had frostbite after building him.

freezy and my roommate jon! i can't decide which has the cooler hat! i don't know who drank the mad dog present in the picture but i can say that jon has standards as to what time of day he starts drinking while freezy is a wild man.

this is jon's girlfriend linden! she helped me bring young freezy into this world. she is not only co-creator, but also his alcoholics anonymous sponsor.

snowball fight

ANYWAYS. here's a song that is fitting for the occasion! it's actually one of the first recordings i did, when i was in my dad's basement a few summers ago. the sound quality will undoubtedly reflect my level of ability at the time. it's an instrumental and while it's very pretty, it's probably more fitting for soundtracking a slow panning shot of a war-torn battleground, like in one of the ken burns documentaries my dad watches. but when i made it a few years ago i called it "snowball fight" so i'm going to throw it in here.

today is somebody's birthday!

2008-01-16T21:39:00.001-08:00

is today your birthday? i know it's not my birthday. but on some date within the next year, it will be. i wrote a peaceful ditty about how birthdays should ideally be: AWESOME. it's just me and an acoustic and has a pleasant, lightweight feel to it! i'm certainly proud of it.

on your birthday

(is today his birthday? hell no! that's february 11th. thanks wikipedia!)

these are some of my friends in the alabama-based skateboard crew the tuscalosers. they live an exciting life of debauchery that i can only aspire to one day! apparently for this photo they have traded their skateboards for powerful firearms which i promise they are legally qualified to use. they used this song in their skate video and they're good at what they do so i have to give them a shout-out.

i have no place on skateboard myself but after being surrounded by both actual skateboarders and tony hawk video games for most of my adolescence i can safely say that these dudes do 360 west side mcthrusty dragon holds all up and down the ramp with style and grace. anyways! enjoy the song!

autumn island girl

2008-01-09T11:51:00.000-08:00

you ever get a cup of coffee that's had too much sugar in it? you ask for a single teaspoon but it seems like you got three? that's what this song is kind of like. it's so sweet you'll be in a diabetic coma by the time it hits the guitar solo. that aside, it's fun to write things like this sometimes, as long as they're evened out by songs like "dracula cannon" (see post with creepy vampire picture).

i'd been listening to the beach boys classic "surfer girl" a lot when this came about and wanted to make a song in the same vein, but i couldn't find the right subject matter to go on about. it struck me when i was visiting a good friend of mine in nashville; she took me to this neat little eatery and i got an overpriced avocado sandwich called the "island girl". *BAM!* i just took that and ran.

autumn island girl

so on the surface, i guess it's supposed to be evocative of a scene like this...

...but it really owes its existence to this tasty concoction.

more later, including drawings of a hypothetical live version of my band lovingly rendered in microsoft paint.

the sonic stylings of benjamin chapman

2008-01-05T11:22:00.000-08:00

here's another song that me and ben did some time ago. all the things that me and him do together are done in my dad's basement in the wee hours of the morning amidst a haze of thick smoke. the process generally leads to a lot of sitting around and reading ancient issues of spin and rolling stone in between takes. for this song in particular he had the chords and beat me to a vocal melody, so i mainly just handled production. the mix is muddy (like most things from our basement sessions) but as always, he's totally on fire with song songwriting skillz so i think it's still very much worth posting.

your love isn't our love

here's a picture of him, for visual reference. i think this is from his college graduation (maybe?) and is one of my favorite pictures of anyone ever.
many years ago, on my first day at the school where i spent the majority of my adolescence, he was the first person to come up to me and be like "hey, nice radiohead shirt!" and he has since seen me come from awkward kid who could barely hold a guitar to the awkward kid who can kind of hold down frets i am now. here are some things he has done on his own (which i am constantly blown away by):

ben - haunt the crowd
ben - seen you
ben - collecting

just as i moved to atlanta, he's about to move to north carolina with his girlfriend. once he gets in the swing of payin' the bills, i wish more than anything that he gets a computer or some other means of recording so he can keep making more jams. i'm considering holding a telethon to raise money for it, jerry lewis style.

HERO WORSHIP PART ONE

2008-01-03T14:29:00.000-08:00

i kind of forgot to pay my cable bill while in the midst of the holidays so the internet is down in my humble abode. here's to financial independence. so now i'm at work (e2 coffee on moreland, behind the little azio's in east atlanta) and might as well take the oppurtunity to make a "favorite band" post, complete with youtube links.

ARIEL PINK
this dude is a hero of mine. his songs are filled with mistakes, terrible production values and the sort of noises you'd generally only hear from someone residing in an asylum. and i love it. buried under the layers of tape hiss are songs that sound distinctly familiar and pleasant but at the same time have been run through a drug-soaked meat grinder. this guy is a genius. i don't care what anyone says. i greatly admire his prolificness, how unique his output is, and the fact that he records through non-traditional means (a four-track in his bedroom? using his mouth for drums?!). i also like that i can't tell if he's sincere or not; it keeps the listener guessing as to what his intention is with any given song. i saw him live a few months ago.. he's a weird dude. this song isn't representative of his whole catalog but considering that i watch this video over and over it seems right to post it.

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE/PANDA BEAR

there is something magical about these guys. i don't know if it's drug-related or if they sacrifice virgins before they perform but something is up with these guys. i anticipate they will be hugely influential for generations to come, even if they aren't immediately. their music strikes me as refreshingly unpretentious and positive while at the same time being innovative and breaking new ground from album to album. seeing them at the variety playhouse in october was the best concert i've ever seen. easily. i left the venue with a sense of ease and well-being. i called friends i hadn't spoken to in ages to tell them about it. i was blown away. this song is one they haven't recorded yet but are playing live and when they played it at my show, my life flashed before my eyes.

DEERHUNTER/ATLAS SOUND/LOTUS PLAZA
first i heard the music. it was pretty much a perfect amalgamation of everything else i really get into: the sonics of my bloody valentine, the chutzpah of classic bowie, the sneer and force of my favorite punk records. and then i found out they were from atlanta, which was in the next state over from me (at the time, since i live here now) and i was just amazed that something so awesome could come from somewhere so relatively close by. even if they were from antarctica, they'd still be one of my favorite bands and i'd enthusiastically champion anything they put out. seen here is one of my favorite songs of theirs performed live, "fluorescent grey". this song holds a special place in my heart because bradford (the singer) dedicated it to me on my birthday when they played with the fiery furnaces (who are another of my favorite bands that i will get to in the next post).

..and now i have to clock out and go home. i'll make another one of these soon because i can think of at least twenty more bands that i have to say something about to cover all necessary ground.. i hope you guys like yellow magic orchestra.

dracula cannon

2007-12-31T02:55:00.000-08:00

here's something i'm particularly fond of. classic horror-punk band the misfits were just as big a part of my high school years as sleeping through class was and even if i don't listen to "static age" anymore i guess this is a good reflection of my roots showing through what i do now. i think it sounds like the theme song to a saturday morning cartoon until it gets to the trumpet solo, at which point it feels like more of a bullfight.

dracula cannon

since the song was thematically inspired by horror movies, i guess it's pertinent to throw in that i don't really get scared very easily these days, but i was afraid of everything when i was a kid. up until i hit about middle school, i couldn't walk down the horror aisle at blockbuster video without staying up all night with horrific visions of terrible make-up jobs and cheaply animated puppets covered in fake blood. in retrospect, i guess this was largely curbed when i started watching reruns of mystery science theater 3000 and learned to laugh at the whole thing. i still have a special place in my heart for "scary" movies (both well-done and not) BUT...

I AM TOTALLY NOT DOWN WITH THIS DUDE.

the only movie that still scares the shit out of me is the 1979 adaption of stephen king's "salem's lot". any other irrational fears i've ever had i got over long ago but barlow (pictured), the main villain from the movie, still keeps me from being able to watch this movie. i can't watch it all the way through. even if this movie was entirely soundtracked by simon and garfunkel i still couldn't take it. i even named the adorable beagle i was temporarily caring for "barlow" so i could try to associate the name with something a little more pleasant. it didn't work! i think the only reason i can even look at that picture is that i think he kind of looks like billy corgan, which i find hilarious. just imagine that dude whining out "cherub rock" or something and see if that doesn't put a smile on your face. even the pope would laugh at that.

ANYWAYS. that was kind of a tangent. but barlow and his ilk are why i made the song. i'm going back home to atlanta tomorrow and am probably taking a few days off to celebrate the new year/take bong hits with my roommates. happy 2008 everyone.

on the beach again

2007-12-30T02:19:00.000-08:00

here's something me and ben did tonight. when we are left with my pc, a guitar and a microphone for a few hours we generally get a song out and based off of this, we find ourselves left with said items whenever possible. he did the guitar and i did the vocals, because his chord progressions are better than mine and i was the first to an idea for the vocal melody.

on the beach again

the song is named because the first few guitar tracks reminded me of my bloody valentine, which was the only band in the world that mattered to me from mid-high school 'til a year or two ago. my bloody valentine reminds me of the beach, probably because of the white noise of the ocean.

the mix was expedited for the sake of time; it has a muddy quality that kind of reminds me of something that'd come off an old tape. i already have something in progress that we started last night and i hope to finish that soon if spending holiday money doesn't consume all my time over the next few days.

a something at some point

2007-12-29T00:24:00.000-08:00

here's a neat song from a little while ago. it's just me and an acoustic guitar, which is something i never do anymore because i am legally obligated to use a ton of production gimmicks and synthesizer noises on everything i do. i made a video for the song for a student project that involved hand puppets and vaguely resembled a sesame street sketch but it has gone missing to the endless, gaping void of lost shit (which has also recently claimed my fiery furnaces t-shirt and a bunch of old issues of nintendo power from the early nineties).

a something at some point

here's a picture of me from the holidays. it's the first time i held a gun (i'm 22, so you'd think that it would have happened sooner) but a recent viewing of mad max has made me want pursue vigilante law enforcement so i guess it won't be the last.

also note that buried under my prized gray hoodie is a deerhunter shirt. they're one of my favorite bands! i'll inevitably write a "favorite band" post soon. i considered photoshopping myself into the woods or something to say i was hunting deer in this picture for maximum appropriateness, but in reality, i'm just hunting lawn gnomes and "house for sale" signs.

friends from far away

2007-12-27T23:38:00.001-08:00

here's another one! this is from the archives. this one's all me, as 99% of the things here probably will be. it's a sampler exercise more than anything; the drums are a stuttered sample from the intro of rick james' "ghetto life" (should i give that away?) and the little hook that sounds like a distorted synthesizer is a super-processed vocal sample programmed into a melody. so i guess saying that this one is all me is inaccurate.. it's me and rick james. or at least me and his studio drummer. i'll take what i can get.

friends from far away

it feels especially relevant to post this song now, because it's the time of year when everyone returns to their home town for the holidays and suddenly, things in that town appear to be bustling and full of life when they're otherwise dull and lifeless at any other time of the year. i keep running into people that i haven't seen since high school while visiting my family in birmingham (i now reside in atlanta) and the stock question in any of these cases is "what have you been up to?". after answering this question the first billion times or so, i've taken a liking as to approaching it as though i were filling in mad libs or something. "i've become a pool shark in las vegas!" or "i'm a jehovah's witness!" or "i'm kareem abdul-jabbar's personal chef!". the possibilities are endless.

post #1

2007-12-27T21:34:00.001-08:00

and here we have.. a blog. i don't really plan on this being read on a regular basis by anyone so really, i see this as kind of an archive of my music and ideas that i can come back to in a few years when i have stopped making music altogether and reminisce on. i guess you could say i'm not doing this for any particular audience, or even the myself of today.. but instead, the myself of the future.

...

if you have stumbled upon this, i hope you like the posted tunes. help yourself to the complimentary kool-aid and vanilla wafers in the lobby. i'll update as much as possible, but as i tend to be a little unfocused, don't expect any consistency where quality is concerned.

to start things off, here is something i made with my friend ben on christmas day:

christmas 2007

i guess it's not particularly christmas-y, but i like it anyways. ben came up with the chord progression and i did the accompaniment/production. i'll probably sample this at some point in the future and make a real song out of it. maybe with a samba beat!