Project 42: Stoner Music
Project 42 was another original music assignment with a theme and a constraint. The constraint - incorporate found sound and/or a field recording. The theme - stoner music. What is stoner music? Apparently, it’s many things. Sure, there’s an actual genre called Stoner Metal, so that counts. But there’s also a powerful stoner vibe to many other kinds of music. What’s more stoner: Dr. Dre or Peter Tosh? Pink Floyd or the Flaming Lips? This is our crew’s interpretation of stoner music.
King Little
by Mike Bettison
Great challenge. I decided to try to catch my dog "Little" barking at the various atrocities outside our house and then tried to style a little song after "It Was A Good Day" by Ice Cube. I tried to make my dog a real baller but it didn't quite come out that way. It was still fun to try. :-)
I had help from a new Fiverr collaborator named "Diastrid" to help with the female vocals. She did a great job.
The Ballad of Ripsto (a tapestry)
by Kelly Duclos
Featuring 'Sounds of the Northwoods', a dubbed cassette I found in a shoebox that my mom had made back in the 90's probably.
Zoelide
by Eric Scott
I am not familiar with “stoner rock.” What is stoner rock? What is rock for that matter? What is a rock if not a stone. I made a rock song that would sound cool if I was stoned. Most of this materialized in my head within minutes after seeing what the project was. Then I spent weeks tinkering. I could tinker a lot more because every time I listen I find something that needs to be retinkered. But it is what it is. Enjoy.
Who is Zoelide? Zoelide was a distant relative of mine who's name I came across in a genealogy book of my mother’s side of the family. I know nothing about her other than she existed hundreds of years ago and her name was Zoelide. I fell in love with the name and it was very nearly my oldest daughter’s name. I always wanted to use it for a song title, but the right song never came along until now.
The field recording comes in at the end. One day I was at a playground in Minneapolis with my kids. I kept hearing what I thought sounded like bagpipes very faintly on the breeze. I grew more and more distracted and obsessed with the sound and finally grabbed my kids hands and said follow me. We wandered towards the sound eventually making it to the wooded area behind the Lyndale Farmstead house where two people decked out in full traditional Scottish garb were playing in the shade of the conifers, one with pipes and the other with a tenor drum. It wasn’t a concert, there was no audience. We sat in the grass and listened, appreciating the magic of it all. And naturally I got some recordings.
found capture stoner
by Grant Eull
In October I had a chance to capture some audio of the Kettle river as it went over some rapids near Moose Lake using the Flip Sampler Audio mobile APP. In the Flip App I was able to make an interesting rhythmic backing track by editing and manipulating the capture with lots of filters and effects. I then imported this into the reaper to complete the sketch. At first I didn't really know how to start a “stoner music theme” but I soon settled on the ACID House sound of the Roland TB-303 because duh, Acid. Kind of a cop out may be. Anyway, to finish the sketch I layered in some electronic drums and a few simple lyrics about “tuning out and chasing the high” and used the vocoder to keep on theme. Overall - this one went fairly quickly. Excited to hear what other sounds everyone captured and how they interpreted the “stoner music” theme.
Say Goodnight to the Night
by Pete Foss
This one was right up my alley and I had a lot of fun working on it. A lot of my favorite music (and also some bands I played in over the years) could probably be described as "stoner rock," but not exactly in the way that people seem to use the term - I usually lean more toward "post rock" type stuff like Mogwai. Anyway, I spent a week listening to some bands I hadn't heard in awhile, and reaffirmed that I am way more into the Melvins than Kyuss, and also way more into High on Fire than Sleep, but I also think Egypt was pretty amazing. When my musical brain was in the right spot, I picked up an acoustic guitar and came up with a riff. Then I put on headphones and started looking for the right guitar sounds, and one thing led to another and I'm proud of the end result.
Found sounds were recorded with a smartphone, and come from a powwow demonstration I encountered many years ago, and also from a grocery store parking lot. Mixing is always the hardest part but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I had a "good enough" instrumental version ready to go before Halloween, but the extension allowed me to tighten a few things up and add some vocals.
Anyway, this was super fun and I look forward to hearing what everyone else came up with!
TRIFOM
by Kelly Duclos (Minneapolis) and Daniel Jöst
(Munich), also known as the band Paper Dam
Here comes TRIFOM by Kelly Duclos (Minneapolis) and Daniel Jöst
(Munich), also known as the band Paper Dam. The title is short for the original title "The Ring In Front Of Me" which Daniel made up to name a folder for a recording project starting with the guitar riff. They don't know what it's all about, but they can come up with some story if you wish. Based on the guitar riff, Kelly recorded drums in his unique style - hit'em hard, but not before hitting delay and distortion pedals.
Vocals were recorded on both sides of the Atlantic, and in Daniel's case his son took over and contributed to a recording for the first time by singing the chorus: To everyone's surprise, the sun has split her eyes, but I don't want to smell the melted pavement. Daniel played some bass and synths then, before Kelly, the Puppetmaster Of Field Recordings, did his magic with his old tapes from back in the 90s and mixed it all. A fun project.
Tazed and Confused
Cory Docken (Drums and Vocals)
Troy Warling (Guitar)
Steve Burnett (Bass and Cubase)
Andrew Charon (Guitar)
It’s been a few challenges since I’ve submitted anything, it’s been difficult for me to make the time but what great inspiration to do a collaboration with some friends. The goal was to get together twice as a group, write the song the first session and record it the second. It’s kind of wild how it all came together naturally. I was finally able to play a wah in a band and I had so many effects on my lead guitar that I actually kind of sounded decent. Troy came to the first session with a couple of riffs in his back pocket that defined our song and him and Cory were pretty key as to hammer out the structure of the song. It’s been fun for me to see Cory as a drummer evolve over the years and have confirmed that he is able to sing and play at the same time. And I love that Steve uses Cubase for recording…classic. It was fun watching him record, troubleshoot the recording setup, hearing him talk about his mics and play bass at the same time. Anyways, some inspiration from Fu Manchu, Jesus Lizard and of course Pink Floyd along the way. Enjoy.
Andrew
untitled stoner song
by David Cox
Hypnotic December
by Barrett Haroldson
An interpretation of stoner music using a bunch of arpeggiators and hypnotic synths - layered with a self-hypnosis record from the thrift store. A total mess but fun to make. Would love to start using more samples and it’s much harder to get right in the mix than I had anticipated.