FAWM Blog #5: Collaboration nation pt. II

You can find my up-to-date FAWM page here:
http://fawm.org/fawmers/emkeev

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Two (to three) more are up. With one in the works. ANTICIPATIONNNN

On Monday, I was supposed to jam with Matt, but I felt like crap. So that didn't happen. :( Sorry, Matt.

On Tuesday, I felt less crappy. So I hauled m'self up to Philly to jam with THE OTHER OTTER! (Which, incidentally, makes it sound like I am also an otter. I like band names like this. Local band My Friends also has this effect: "Hey, come listen to My Friends!")

The Other Otter, anyway, is a band/collective/group of awesome folk. Folks. Folk? People. HUMAN BEINGS! Bryan and Angela and Josh, who joined us a little later. We wrote a couple of songs... I'm excited about BOTH of them. In different ways. "A Song About Physics" (mp3) was created by means of a writing game; each person was supposed to write a one-line response to the last line written, then pass the paper on around the circle. Rules may have been bent, but it was in the name of awesome songwriting, so I think we will be forgiven. This was a very thoughtful and constructive process, which I enjoyed thoroughly.

And then Josh came home. Josh is the third of the otters. Otter. o.o He laid down some ideas involving chords and breaking glass, Bryan said something about downtown, there was some intense strumming and headbanging and... oh crap, it's not up yet. It'll be worth it. Promise. (EDIT: IT'S HERE!!) This process was really more... um, de-structive?? But TOTALLY EPIC. There was a whiteboard involved, though. And I am pretty sure I laughed from about 9:30 until forever. I'll be surprised if I made it through any of the takes without giggling.

Now we're up to Wednesday. Which ended up being, GUESS WHAT, another collaboration session. Rather impromptu. Shane and Stefan came over, tea was involved, songs were written. "The Errant Whistler" (mp3) came about thusly: Stefan said the penny whistle sounded totally sweet on the Christmas album, I picked it up, he played the guitar. We just made things up for ten minutes until we had that tune. Shane happened to walk in on the best take and started flippin' whistlin', not knowing we were actually recording... THANKS, buddy... but it sounded cool and so we kept it and named it appropriately. Which is kind of lucky, actually, because it's kinda hard to name instrumentals.

You will not find this one on my FAWM page, as I had just "won" by posting "The Errant Whistler," but Shane and Stefan marked this down as a collab: "Viva" (mp3), an instrumental/vocalized trio with 2 guitars and 1 bari uke (more or less baby guitar). I like how it came out. I do think we ought to do another recording - the whole night was so laid-back that we just kinda'... meh.

Yeah.

Um, so, I guess technically I won.

But it doesn't feel like I did. I only wrote 8 on my own.

I am therefore determined to finish writing 6 songs on my own, in addition to whatever further collabs may happen.

Also my birthday's coming up and I'm not sure I even care... I just want to write songs. Make music. I still have so many ideas. I still wanted to write more electronic stuff. Aggghhhh!

Work has noticed the effects of my songwriting. "You look tired." Yes, well, I am. But I love what I do.

For the record, though, I DO plan to sleep more than 4 hours tonight! Yippee!!