Project 47: Anagram
1. Pick an anagram made out of the words: Basement Sketches
2. Use that as the title and inspiration for your song
3. Write and record the song
4. Submit by September 5th
Ten Beams by Tom Stromsodt
I was walking the dog and I found a seemingly random list of titles. My daughter used her tiny handheld computer to figure out that they were Korean TV shows. I wrote the lyrics of the song based on ten of the show titles with typical tropes and commentary. I asked Jason to play the second guitar solo and it's real nice.
Baste Men by Tom Stromsodt
I watched Louis Theroux's documentary about the Manosphere on Netflix and shockingly, the entire "movement" seems to revolve around tithes, nutritional supplements, and the hard science of being a douchebag.
Kent's Beats Scheme by Pete Foss
This was an interesting challenge. In my normal creative process, the music comes first (and second), and then vocals/lyrics are sort of a necessary chore at the end - and I also make a lot of instrumentals. But this one went in the other direction.
After sifting through a bunch of potential anagrams, I landed on "Kent's Beats Scheme", and immediately knew it would be some kind of storytelling rap song. The original idea was for a sort of of 1980's-production vibe, with just enough swear words to get a parental advisory sticker while remaining viable for radio with just a few bleeps. In the end it turned out a little different than that, partly due to time constraints (synths are quicker than recording instruments!)
Anyway, Kent is a simple kid with a lyrical gift who is struggling to find the right beats. He tries a few different things and then finally blows up. It's supposed to be sort of ridiculous but I was happy with how it turned out.
Dany cut out the Basement Sketches letters and sent me some pictures of anagrams he came up with. Kens Best Seemacht - Seemacht in German means sea power. 'Ken's best sea power' made me think of a guy who epitomises good quality on the deck of a sea vessel. So this is an ode to Ken, embodiment of quality on the open sea. I sent Dany a 20 second voice memo of what the chorus could be and he sent back a fully formed song with multiple instruments. I added a little percussion and was joined by Joe on the chorus. Here's to you, Ken.
Ken's Best, Seemacht! by Paper Dam (Daniel Jöst and Kelly Duclos with Joe Woods)
The Same Best Necks by Colby Heston
I had to pack up all of my studio gear this summer as we were remodling the room that I used so that my son could move into it. The added difficultly of recording and also not feeling particularly inspired by the anagram theme for this project, I decided not to participate but when we got the extension, I chose to hunker down and come up with something.
I ran my guitar directly from my interface into the iPad and used the presets in Garageband. I was going for a polyrhythmic, Phillip Glass feel. Not sure that I acomplished that but here it is. The name of this piece was the first entry when I used AI to come up with an anagram. Best if listened to with headphones.
Two old bandmates of mine from high school and college days happened to both be in town recently and we were able to do some recording for the first time in basically 25 years. Joe was in from Seattle and Jon was in from eastern Wisconsin. We spent some time at the River Lofts adding to a guitar thing I had started. Jon played bass, Wurlitzer and sang. Joe played lead guitars and sang. What started as a nothing ditty with a nonsense title and aimless lyrics turned into a sweet little jam. It was a blast to make this with you boys!
Seeks, the Bent Scam by Kelly Duclos, Jon Teske and Joe Woods
Mesh Net Set Backs by Grant Eull
It took a bit to get a combination of words using Basement Sketch's letters that inspired anything, but I eventually settled on “Mesh Net Set Backs” imagining some science fiction crash of the connected digital world. Doing an electronic song felt like it aligned with this and I had recently picked up a used Native Instruments Jam for NI Maschine that I thought I could use to perform the song live and record inside of my DAW. That plan didn't work. So I was having my own set back as part of this process. I sketched all the sections in NI Maschine and the performance aspect was working, but I couldn't figure out how to record the performance in real time… the DAW just played back the current loops. Anyway, I found a work around in that I could export all the parts as Wavs from each section and then reassemble them in my DAW. This was actually pretty easy and has inspired a new workflow for me if I ever want to lean in and release an OMIEM EP. Once again this project continues to push me to learn new things and inspire me. For this original song challenge I wanted some words, but didn't want to sing or write “lyrics”. Some of my favorite OMIEM sketches use sampled voice audio from “TED talks”or other scientific audio sources. I wanted to do something like that but use my voice not samples, so I decided to have Claude (yes some AI was used) to craft a Science Fiction Short Story. Here are the two prompts 1. “Let's write a fictional science fiction short story about the interconnected world failing due to a series of "mesh net setbacks". What are the possibilities of how this story might play out?” which got me 5 scenarios to choose from - all actually interesting and a couple were very unexpected and entertaining. I decided on Claudes 1st idea - prompt 2. “Lets draft a story on "mesh net setbacks" as 1. Cascading Technical Failure (hard sci-fi) - I'd like the tone to be full of fake technical science language (star trek like) with "Access Denied" being a sub theme. The engineer "speaks" his thoughts aloud as he trouble shoots failers and warns other of the imminent collapse”. / The full story was nonsense and predictable, but it did give me some generic terms I could use as short phrases of audio that I recorded myself reading. Overall I really enjoyed this as a process, but I am not super satisfied with the song itself - if OMIEM ever does release an EP I don’t think this one makes the cut. Excited to hear what other anagram inspired songs come as part of this project. As always, thanks for listening and for giving us all the opportunity to try new things. Enjoy.
Me as Bent Sketches by the Dirtpops & Andrew Charon
Again, Andrew Charon came to assist Shelly & Troy with this submission one evening with the constraint of coming up with the foundation of the song within 3 hours. While Andrew & Troy worked out the music, Shelly worked on lyrics. Shelly took one of her all time favorite songs, Rhinestone Cowboy by Glen Campbell, and typed up the words she remembered, then wrote an opposite or polar perspective of the song, and came upon the realization that she is indeed a Rhinestone Cowgirl. Troy & Shelly found a lovely effect called the Roswell Ringer which falls in line with the genre Shelly created: scifiwesternfolkgoth…it just rolls off the tongue. Troy & Andrew recorded using Logic Pro with a SlateModeling Microphone. Andrew worked his magic with production along side Troy. Thank you Basement Sketches, a fun challenge with a lovely outcome. I predict a fun video in this song’s future.
Best Amen by Bill Fricke
It was difficult to get a decent anagram that spoke to me so I went with two different approaches. For this song, I took the anagram of Basement and it came out Best Amen, which I liked. The song is an homage to the style of Gary Numan ala “Films” and songs from that era.
Abmesse Knechtest by Bill Fricke
For this one, I translated Basement Sketches into German and came up with Abmesse Knechtest, which loosely means, “Measure Out You Enslave” The song started out industrial, but then went in a more punklike direction.
For this, I am invoking my musical alter-ego “Spjork!” He is an Icelandic shepherd who had hit songs like “Cows Have Eyebrows” and “I Wanna Be Your Picnic” He was created by myself and some online friends in the early 2000’s. I wrote lyrics, “translated” them into German and winged it.
