i have a cover of a nine inch nails song, ruiner, that is time-stamped to mar 27, 1999. i'm going to choose not to upload it (it might be the *only* completed track that i skip) for two reasons:
(1) it was never released anywhere else.
(2) the sampling and vocals are both terrible.
i did the cover for two reasons. first, i really wanted to get on a nin remix disc. all caveats aside, it's an interesting piece of music that i'd pick over a lot of the more recent nin remixes. second, i wanted to do a cover of the guitar solo. that's the primary thing that drove this specific song.
so, it's this meandering 14:00 mess centered around myself doing a lengthy adrian belew impersonation. which is sort of masturbatory. and i definitely picked up on that. now, the song, ruiner, seems to be about erections on some level. how did it get so big? i dunno, trent. so, masturbation. penises. me under the age of 20. you can see where i went with this.
there's about five minutes of penis samples, sequenced in a narrative that goes through such twists and turns as explaining a 5 foot penis as the result of a nuclear accident and shaming the listener for listening to such filth.
if it was my own song, i could shrug it off. but this is a cover. i don't feel comfortable unzipping this....
sorry. i should stop before i begin.
as i'm sorting through my work, though, it stands out as an important track in my development. you'll notice two things in my description of the track: 14:00, lengthy guitar solo. da fuck? everything since the cassette demos (which, until last month, meant everything i'd released) was relatively short, starkly focused and mostly free of solos! what urged you to meandering prog all of a sudden and out of the blue?
now that i've uploaded those demos, it's a little more clear that the "meandering prog" (the terms 'pronk' and 'psychedelic' are better descriptions) is where i was, musically, to begin with. rather, it's the fairly short drum machine period that sticks out. and, that's what happened. writing songs based on drum machine patterns enforces a level of discipline. the machine doesn't tangent. using a drum machine like the ry30 to record music is like composing at boot camp. it's very strict! introductions, bridges and endings must conform to the tyranny of the beat.
once i was done the two demos, i pulled myself away from it. i need to be clear: i liked the way it sounded, i just needed more flexibility to express myself. and i've really rejected the idea of working with drum machines ever since. today, i use a number of different strategies for percussion, including an electronic drum kit.
so, i started creating loops in the wave editor out of samples instead of in the machine. instantly, i had total freedom. i could do a six minute keyboard solo to open the track, if i wanted, and there was nothing the machine could do to stop me! ha!
the pendulum swung almost immediately. hard. going forward for the next little while, 14:00 is more like the average track length.
i just can't upload this, though.
