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Current mood:  quixotic
... (WHICH IS NOT MY NEW RECORD); MY NEW RECORD I'M MAKING IN OCTOBER (WHICH WILL BE MY NEW RECORD); MY FAVORITE BANDS THESE DAYS AND HOW YOU COULD END UP WITH A PENIS ON YOUR BATHROOM WALL; AND MAKING LIVE ORCHESTRAL ROCK RECORDS
hi all.
about the new release, 'supersunnyspeedgraphic, the lp'.
it's very simple. we took the existing tracks that were done for the ep's, along with 'bitches ain't shit' and 'still' and threw them on an album for mainstream release. it's not my normal 'just for fans' sort of move. it's for the people who missed it being in stores, and it's for posterity, so that i have a solid album in my hand, not just my ipod, that represents a particular era. sort of a selfishly motivated release since i'm sure sony won't see many sales of it. just for my collection.
i expect there will be some bitching from a few hundred of my closest friends who stick by me each step, buying ep's and b-sides etc.
and to you i will apologize. and i certainly wouldn't ask you to buy the record expecting anything new or earth shattering. for various reasons, if i'm going to put this era into a collection, it needs to be done now. so i say, yeah, put it out.
i will also say that every song on the album has more energy now and sounds better than it did to me on the ep's. i had a chance to listen through tracks and pick alternate takes with hindsight perspective, which is sometimes good and sometimes dangerous. haha. in this case, it came in handy. a few times i found some earlier overlooked takes that had more mistakes but better energy. sometimes there had been tracks muted that we brought back. a few overdubs happened. i got corn mo to drop in after he did bonnaroo and sing a few lines on 'get your hands off of my woman'. we re-did the tracks on 'songs of love'. i love this neil hannon song and felt that it was a little stiff originally and deserved more heart, so i did some surgery on that. 'learn to live with what you are' has a large string section now arranged by paul buckmaster and sounds damn classic. michael brauer lent much more aggressive mixes, much taller. all in all, an improvement and now i have an album to show for that period of time from 2002-2004 that i spent coming off tour for days at a time to record.
but it's not my 'new album' and i've expected all along to mostly catch grief and a few bad reviews about how i'm going backwards bla bla. and that's quite alright. meanwhile, the people who still don't know how to use computers, and they actually exist believe it or not, will be able to buy the music in a store. most will probably think it's a new album, you'll be surprised. and anyway, it's worth it to me to have the opportunity to have this as an album for the long run.
i'm really glad so many of my closest friends bought the ep's to begin with, in case i never thanked you for that.
anyway, i'll be in the studio in october. i've got bits and pieces of songs, as i usually do by this time. and i just bought an assload of cheap synthesizers on ebay. i'm not sure i'll use them. haha. maybe the whole thing will be that. who the fuck knows... mainly, i'm just inspired right now. sometimes i feel there's nothing going on in the music world that means much for me... and those times it's harder to make music. but right now, there's a lot of great stuff going on and it makes me want to toss in my two cents worth and make an album. 'silverman' was about being relaxed, letting the songs do the work. a not needy kind of approach. i feel like blowing shit up in the studio at the moment, so i can't promise that the next album will make any sense at all as an extension of 'songs for silverman'. i will likely toy with bringing in 100 piece singing groups, to songs with only piano, or only piano except it's 8 pianos at once, my cheap synths...
whatever excites me to hear. and i've got a list of favorite musicians i want to work with which i will likely exhaust. hopefully sometime by the end of the winter i'll be making sense of mess i've created.
speaking of neediness in music or lack thereof... amanda of the dresden dolls, my new favorite band of all time, mentioned that she felt many people thought their music was TOO needy. hmmm... i told her to give me a list of who these people are and i will fly to their homes with a sharpie and draw dicks on their bathroom walls. see, after years of touring, i never succumbed that particular touring pastime . i never drew dicks on walls. but last year, i had to try it. i drew a dick on a brand new clean white dressing room wall. and you know what, it felt good. so i want to draw more, and amanda will hopefully tell me who's houses to go to. feel free to leave a message with your address if you have any criticism of the dresden doll's music at all. and i will come draw a dick on your wall.
same goes for anyone who doesn't like the streets new record. or anything sufjan stevens does. there are a few others, who if you have a problem with, will draw the fiery wrath of my sharpie.... anyway, the dresden dolls will be making a few appearances with me in australia with the orchestras. if you comment with something nice about my favorite music, then i will draw a small child looking in wonderment at a beautiful butterfly (with a big dick)
the other project i've been kicking around is a live orchestral cd. we worked really hard to make it happen on the australian tour, but in the end, it became too complicated and risked fucking up the gigs. so we'll do it in america instead, in the next year or two. there are a good new 10 orchestra charts for my songs since last performance with baltimore this year. including 'jesusland', 'not the same', 'carrying cathy', 'mess', 'alice childress', 'gracie' and so on.
i've been working with some of the best talent of recorded music history on planning this, guys that helped shape the way we make records who are excited about making this sort of collision of rock and orchestra. i would like this cd to sound punchier and livelier than any orchestra cd you've heard. that's quite a task. and many of the older charts from the WASO dvd have been revised as well. we've been trying to make the arrangements rock without a traditional rock band. making the orchestra the rock band. it works sometimes and then there's still some rethinking to do in other areas, but when we've cracked the rock code and we're breaking the law with the orchestra, i'll be happy to have that recording in my collection. i'm also interested in helping revive the orchestra. it's such a cool institution and we wanna do what we can to keep it that way. i wouldn't look for this orchestral cd any time soon, but we'll probably have it recorded in the next 12 months.
over and out.
ben
8:34 AM
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