2/29/08 New Album: MY HEROIC CADENCES

Firstly, happy February 29.

Secondly, with the smell of last November's album, You Get The Idea, still in the air (take a whiff.....mmmmmmm) I just completed and posted a new album, My Heroic Cadences, on www.flippingthepig.com. 

Thus, I blog.

Is 'blog' a verb?

I'll 'splain more later.  Bedsheets beckon.

7:23 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Make A Video, or I'll Cry

Dear Santa,

For Christmas, I'd like somebody to make me an animated Flash video for the song, "Must Be Nice." 

Thanks,

Jeff

4:22 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

11/08/07 New Album: YOU GET THE IDEA

Album's done.  All new songs are at www.flippingthepig.com.  It's free.  Download away. Time for a nap.

10:24 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Crap’s A-Brewin’

Eleven new tunes. Soon. Like, real soon. Some minor tweaking on a couple and then all that mixing down-type stuff and then the real soon part. The new album will be of the "download it off the website for free" ilk, though actual burned CD requests are always politely.....shit.....it's late.....I can't think of the word.  If you ask, you get one.  Why the long wait between albums? Why no 'for real' CD this time? Basic death, disease, and famine excuses.  And now, I sleep.    

10:29 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

FREE CD
Category: Music

One free CD of the latest Flipping The Pig album, Pout, will be sent to the first 50 people who send me their name and mailing address. Unless I run out of envelopes before then. I think I have about 50 envelopes left. We'll see.

1:31 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Smilies and Winks and Wes Farrell

I have a degree in writing.  Well, a minor.  A minor in English. Actually, I realized after the fact that I already had qualified for status as an English minor, with all the writing courses I'd been taking at the time. 

I digress.

I used to be able to communicate without the use of them, but over the years I've developed an online addiction to sideways happy faces and sideways winks.  I don't know what started it or, more importantly, what accelerated and solidified its place in 90% of my writings.  I can at least find consolation in knowing that my constant "hee hee"s have morphed into the more subdued and elegant "heh heh"s.  Maybe it's that mesmerizing balancing act I do between Big Giggly Imp and Brooding Arty Semi-Educated Fuck. (I prefer the former.) Regardless, it's now an undeniable and accepted part of everything I type in www-land. 

And the music?  Oh, yes, the music.  While in the midst of jobs, living arrangements, and family stuffs, there has been music, both in the listening sense and the creation sense. 

Creation-wise: I laid down the drum track for a new song that so far reminds me of Jellyfish via Queen (i.e. Shirley Bassey with louder guitars) via The Partridge Family (maybe due to the bouncy harpsichord). Out of the buckets full o' songs I'm working on so far, it's a toss-up as to what the organization will be.  Realistically, I'll have something ready by early/mid-2007.  Spare time's an elusive scamp, so says the fatty who spent the previous evening drinking wine and watching sitcom reruns.

Listening-wise: I drove to Canada to buy the latest Sloan album, Never Hear The End Of It, when it was released and it's been in regular rotation since.  After a few listens, I've tried to listen to other new releases, but it pulls me back.  It won't let me go.  I am its bitch.  I will do anything for it.  Such is love.

Cheers!

10:29 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Cleavage Disclaimer

I'm not looking at your cleavage, whoever you might be -- standing or sitting there with your chest doing all sorts of cleavage-like things.  Please trust me on this. 

Okay, fine, I might look at it once or twice because it's there, but it's no different for me than looking at your elbow.  The thing is, I have a lazy eye. Wore a patch when I was a kid. Double vision. And so on.  Once, many years ago, I was talking with a friend and she gasped, "Oh my god! Your eyes just crossed! That totally freaked me out!"  Since that fateful 1987 high school exclamation, I've been very hesitant to look people in the eyes for an extended period of time. 

During lengthy conversations, I'll look directly at someone briefly but then look away.  "Away" often being "down."  "Down," in relation to many a female's eyes, is generally where exposed cleavage comfortably rests. 

I don't even notice where my eyes are directed until the discomforted other party zips up her sweatshirt or buttons up her blouse or throws a towel over herself.  At that point it'd be futile to take her hand and gently say to her breasts, "It's okay, I'm a big girly man."

Thus the need for the dislcaimer.

Fear not.

As you were.

11:29 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Music Theory

There's a scene in the Beatles parody, 'The Rutles,' in which Eric Idle's character is demonstrating his songwriting process.  He sings part of a lyric and then hits random keys on the piano until one sounds good.  Then he sings the next word in the lryic and sloppily pounds on more random keys, repeating the word, until he finds a note or chord that sounds right. Damn funny to watch. Probably because it hits so close to home.

10:16 PM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

Nothing musical

Profile views: 333!  The number of the Bea! I momentarily nod somewhat in the direction of Iron Maiden. And the Andy Griffith show. 

That is all.  Run to the hills, Barney.

8:55 PM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

Ear-based sounds

It's amazing how many of my lyrics are written in the bathroom.  It's a good place to think.

There's at least two albums' worth of new material to record so far, with some other straggling bits here and there.  I know, I know, you're thinking, "Christ, Jeff, it's been five months since the last album! What are you waiting for?" 

It seems to be about half power pop-oriented and half gloomy/dissonant/generally cranky (the songs are cranky, I'm not).  Oh, and a couple country tunes, as well.  Who knows how the hell it'll all end up.  Not for me to decide. I can say things are (comfortably so) getting weirder, louder, softer, and, well, I'm happy with it.

My whole life, I've been drawn to music (and any other artistic(?) venture) that surprises me.  If I can hear something by a band and think, "What the fuck were they thinking???" (complete with multiple mental question marks), that's darn near aural bliss to me.

More on the new shit later.  Right now, dinner's ready.  Food wins.

Love and such things to all.

9:19 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment