Compiled by: Jackie Lam
Are you ready for some mind-blowing music from a few local heavy hitters? Tonight ends our January residency with The Monolators, who will be joined by Walking Sleep and The World Record. So swing by LaBrie’s in Glendale to catch three amazing bands wrap up a great month of free music. It’s your last chance to try some free assorted homemade pretzels while downing some super affordable booze. Doors open at 8:30 am, 21+. Here are some free downloadable Mp3s plus back story:
The Walking Sleep Hunter from Walking Sleep on “Let It Go On”:
Our track "Let It Go On" started as a rip-off, but then molded itself into something totally different in execution. I remember driving home from work on Fletcher when KRTH101 spun Aretha Franklin's version of "Say a Little Prayer for You." I was enchanted by the call-and-response verses and immediately wanted to do something like that with Sara. The lounge-y bass line came as some sort of Zombies "Time of the Season" rip and it really set the space. Somewhere along the way I decided the vocal line was too dynamic for me to sing lead on, and it should really be handled by Sara who was pretty new in the band at that point. I wrote a verse and chorus, and Sara put together the lyrics for the rest of the song and wrote a bridge.
We worked out the arrangement a few different ways and ended up editing it down further in mix. Daniel decided to turn the snares off kind of do this soft mallet intro, which was cool, and our friend Fil sat in when we were mixing to lay down the Doors-esque organ solo. Of course, the obscenely-long-for-a-Walking-Sleep-song guitar solo was something I thought would really make a cool multi-tiered ending for this one. It was written out and I basically play it the same way every time. Additionally, there even was a sort of slow jam outro recorded and we were going to fade it out, but the track was just getting too indulgent at that point. Haha. Anyway so that's the story. I really like this track; it's probably my favorite on Measures.
Free Download: Walking Sleep – “Let it Go On”
Eli of The Monolators on “Silver Cities”:
Here's another song from our new Silver Cities EP--the title song. Actually there's two versions of this song, the full-band Monolators version and an earlier 4-track version I recorded in my garage with a
Casiotone keyboard, a bass guitar, and liberal amounts of phaser pedal. The earlier version isn't a demo per se, it was a track off of a solo EP I decided to throw together back in May 2010--but then Mary and I decided to remake the song as a Monolators track, an' I'm glad we did. For the curious, you can download the original version, along with the rest of the EP (I'm kinda proud of it) here:
The song more or less summarizes an incident from a few years back when Mary and I attempted to ride the Los Angeles subway to and from a Bjork concert at the Nokia Center downtown. We missed the last train back and had a to take a cab. Why do the trains stop running so early? We were INCONVENIENCED. The rest of the song veers off into one of my paranoid sci-fi Fritz Lang-esque fantasies that I'm so fond of. Anyone want to make a paranoid sci-fi video for this song? I'd pay you in pie! Really I would.
Free Download – The Monolators – “Silver Cities”
Andy of The World Record on “Serious”:
This song was started with no real idea in mind, just playing and seeing what magical sprites might spring forth. The first two lines came out randomly and I thought they were good against the chords, so I tried quickly to write as much as I could in the same mode. The rhymes were pretty corny (avocado / mr roboto) and I intended to fix them later, but when I finally got around to working on the song again I had gotten too used to them and couldn't let go. Now I think without them the song might be too melodramatic. Close one!
It's loosely based on a friend I had in high school in Phoenix whom I admired and whose family moved away, taking him with them. That's jumbled in with some other similar stuff from long ago.
This was the opening track on the S.M.D.E.P., and appears as track 3 on the Guitars Forever CD with trumpet, played by Ted Schumacher, replacing the vocals in the "solo." Will Courtney sings the high harmony and plays some guitar as well. It was recorded and mixed in our practice space.
Free Download – The World Record – “Serious”
Comments