new song?

so, i’ve got a backlog of about 45 songs now where i have pretty much the whole song written, but no lyrics yet. this is why i started doing those acoustic demos years ago. when i had just a dozen or so songs in various stages, i was having trouble keeping track of which was which just by memory. recording demos definitely helps me keep them straight. and now that i’ve got protools at home, my demos are quite a bit more polished than plain acoustic guitars and vocals.

i’ve also got about 11 new finished songs waiting around for my next album, or maybe the next velmas album, depending on how things with that go. but the last month or so has been pretty good to me, songwriting-wise; i finished 2 new songs in december. i had a pretty busy fall and didn’t get many chances to work on tunes. but last night, i think i might have finally finished another one which i’ve been sitting on for about 2 years now.

i’ve been calling it “butani”, since when i came up with the music and melody line originally, it reminded me of bush, taproot, and nirvana. (i like to name my demo songs like that, with something about how i wrote it or what it sounds like to remind me which song it is. the few instrumentals i released on my acoustic cds retained those names… benchy was written while sitting on a park bench. lakeside was written while sitting by chautauqua lake, etc.) but back to this tune – it more reminds me now, in parts, of veruca salt, nirvana, and black sabbath. for the bridge section, i came up with a pretty heavy instrumental break which rocks. think “past tense”, but with a sabbath break in there and you’ll get an idea of the feel.

there’s definitely a bigger range in my newer tunes. there are a few of the “heavyish alternative rockers” (think perhaps past tense, silenced, one more day), but i’ve also been listening to a lot of guster, BNL, brian vander ark, harvey danger, incubus, and silverchair (their newer stuff is just as awesome as their older stuff), and that’s been rubbing off on me. so i’ve written my first “love song” (sorta), a couple mellow acoustic pop ballads (one with xylophones in it), and i even wrote a couple songs on piano. i’m kicking around the idea of uploading some sort of samples of my demos to the web here at some point. but for now, i’m keeping them under wraps.