So whatever happened to those songs I mentioned back in November 2007 ?

Interference. Hasn't gone anywhere. It's still around and will get a live airing in August.

Pretty Little Thing. I played this live last year but it didn't quite click. It works well in the studio so I haven't given up on it yet. The lyrics need some work though. I've got enough perspective now to be able to overhaul that particular engine.

The Sky Is Falling. I forgot all about this one. Of course no work has been done on this. I recently started work on a song called ' Waiting for the Sun' which is a comment on the recession I've heard about. I think I'll join these two songs together and see what the hybrid looks like.

Man In The Moon. He's still around. My demo was too syrupy. I'm going to go back to a 50s style with tremelo guitar and brush drum kit. That was my original idea and I was right first time around. I've stopped playing it live because I have too many melancholic songs and frankly who wants to listen to that all night ? Leonard Cohen has that market sewn up.

Devil & The Deep Blue Sea. So far this song has been very well received at gigs. I'm pleased with it and want to record it with a string section. It's on myspace in basic demo form. I recorded it yesterday for balconytv.com so as soon as they upload it to youtube I'll link to it from myspace.com/imadethebbc

Dive. Is still there. If I had a longer slot at gigs I'd perform it. I did a demo that someone said had a 'Jimmy Webb' feel off it (probably the Wichita Lineman string line is what did that). With perspective I can see this sitting comfortably on an album and providing me an uptempo song for gigs.

(Gonna) Be Alright. Isn't it funny how a bit of inspiration on a Saturday afternoon can lead to a cracking little song. I tried this one at a singer-songwriter night and got the (small) crowd to sing along. There's a simple demo on myspace if you'd like to take a listen.

Namebadge is still there. The problem with that song for me is that I was in a different place when I started work on it. I need to be pissed off to really get back into it. That's when the graft will have to kick in.

One of those Days is another that I want to re-write. Musically it's there and the chorus is fun.

Who's Calling The Shots seemed like a good idea at the time. 'nuff said.

Words Don't Work was written because I had booked my first gig and needed to write something. I don't think that'll be seeing the light of day again.

Now that I've looked at this I realise that since Christmas I've not written as much as I wanted to. I can think of only one strong song (Holding On) that I've written. With 2 weeks in the South of France coming up I'm hoping to remedy this situation. I'll never be prolific but I do need to start finishing some of these sketches and moving on.

Quote

Mr. Tambourine Man

 

I haven't been blogging much lately because everything I want to say I've been putting into my songs.

I'm hoping that by Christmas I'll have demo' d all of the songs for this album I want to make. It's taking longer than I wanted but I'll have to learn patience I suppose.

Everything is written in my notebooks and usually on guitar (though there's one that I started on Banjo so who knows where that might lead ?). I have a Dictaphone from Radio Shack and have been filling those little tapes with songs as they progress from a nugget of an idea through to completed verses and choruses. Dan P. has been a good sounding board - keeping me confident that I'm not going to make a tit of myself. I've played about 4 or 5 of these live at open mics and have learned a bit from that.

Once I've worked through a few attempts on the Dictaphone and have listened to the results on the iPod while driving I get a better idea for how I'll start to arrange them. Garageband is a brilliant brilliant tool for me and I've demo' d a few bits on it already. There's a couple of simple guitar + vocal demos on my MySpace site.

So far I've got the following

Interference. Words are a poor tool for communication. Who's jamming your signal ?

Pretty Little Thing. It's about my pretty little thing who laughs because she can. Do you remember being a child and just rolling around on the floor laughing because you could ?

The Sky Is Falling. This is an interesting song because so far all I've got is my Dictaphone demo with the banjo and a vague idea that it might be about the tabloid press. Very influenced by Simple Kid.

Man In The Moon. If I ruled the world I'd get Richard Hawley to record this song. This is the first time I've written a song that I can imagine someone else recording. I'm hoping this will be similar to some of his material from Coles Corner.

Devil & The Deep Blue Sea. Our eldest girl is growing up fast. I have to come to terms with the fact that her expression of needing me for 'stuff' is changing. I can't save her from monsters and bad dreams anymore.

Dive. Was written in April at Bore Place with Danny Higgins (the link is to my blog entry about that magic weekend). Since that weekend I've added an introduction and a middle 8 (which I wrote last Friday !). I changed the chorus melody ever so slightly.

(Gonna) Be Alright. Appeared on a Saturday afternoon and has been with me ever since. A very simple song in A minor telling us that the glass is half full.

There's a couple of others that need a bit more graft before they're ready. I might never do anything with them.

Namebadge was started when we were on holiday in France and I really really want to do something with this because I've got something to say and this song might be saying it.

One of those Days is a bit too whiny and self indulgent so I'm thinking of rewriting it to become 'One Of Those Girls' because the chorus is good and I don't want to lose it.

Who's Calling The Shots is written about a friend. Who's wearing the pants in that relationship ? This one needs more work, it's a bit too obvious to be honest and I can't convince myself.

Words Don't Work I performed at my first gig back in June. My mother-in-law is challenging. In so many ways. What part of fuck-the-fuck-off don't you understand ?

I played a singer-songwriter show tonight. Each artist gets to perform 3 songs in front of a crowd mostly made up of other singer-songwriters, their friends and a couple of tourists.  Tonight I was really confident getting up there and relaxed into the performance. I even sang 'I hate it when I forget the words' in the middle of one of the songs which got a laugh from the crowd. On the second song I tried something I've always wanted to do: '... join in !'. That can either be a complete disaster as 1 person timidly hums along or, as was the case tonight, everyone joined in. Well fuck me ! That was a nice experience.

I've been getting some really nice feedback about my songs at these open mic/singer-songwriter sessions. With my confidence increasing I think I'm almost ready to do a full 20-30 minute gig mixing my own songs and a couple of carefully chosen covers.

I left the venue smiling.

Why then do I feel a bit anxious and generally unhappy ? Is it the rush of adrenaline giving way to an emptiness ? What must it be like to perform in front of thousands of people and then try to come down from that rush ?

If you're reading this and you're curious about my songs then go to my myspace site where you can watch and listen.

I think I need that holiday :-) Off to France at the end of next week.

Musician Makes Tunes By Borrowing Others - WSJ.com

So what exactly is the difference between Girl Talk (aka Gregg Gillis) and Negativland ?

About 16 years, a chastened record industry and an army of lawyers I reckon.

Musician Makes Tunes
By Borrowing Others

By JOHN JURGENSEN
June 27, 2008; Page B7

Under the stage name Girl Talk, musician Gregg Gillis dissects hit songs by other artists and stitches the bits together to make his own propulsive dance music. While it is common in the music industry to sample a couple of older records to create a new track, Mr. Gillis samples up to a dozen for each of his songs. And he does so without permission from the owners of his source material.

Last week Mr. Gillis released his fourth album, "Feed the Animals," which consists almost entirely of samples from some 300 songs. The release highlights his unusual place in a particularly litigious music industry: So far Mr. Gillis and his record label haven't been sued, they claim. That is partly because sales of his previous albums have been relatively small so far. "Night Ripper," the 2006 album that helped him break through with fans and critics, has sold only about 20,000 copies. But his rise also shows how attitudes are shifting in the industry. As traditional music sales plummet, a growing number of bands will put up with unauthorized use of their music if it will expose them to new fans.

"Is it worth spending the money suing people for what will amount to nothing? Or is it better to embrace it and say, our music is being used in something pretty cool," says Charlie Brusco, who manages the 1970s rock band Styx. Mr. Gillis used the group's hit song "Renegade" prominently on his new album. So far, Styx hasn't taken action.

On another Girl Talk song, the music from Faith No More's 1990s hit "Epic" gets woven with hardcore rap lyrics. Mike Patton, the band's former frontman, says, "It is an honor to collaborate with Busta Rhymes."

Sampling, the technique of using part of another artist's recording as a building block for a new song, has been one of the most contentious issues in popular music, going back to the rise of sample-heavy hip-hop music in the 1980s. The practice abated after sampled artists successfully fought back. Now, at a time when artists routinely pay to license samples for mainstream releases, Mr. Gillis is unique.

"The sheer number of samples he uses, and the fact that he is not a chart-topper with oodles of cash, makes it basically impossible for him to secure licenses for everything. Fair use is his only recourse," says Jim Gibson, director of the Intellectual Property Institute at the University of Richmond School of Law.

The growing popularity of the Girl Talk sound, which finds pieces of the Carpenters, Metallica, Beastie Boys and more grafted into a single song, has helped Mr. Gillis make a rapid ascent. Last year, he quit his day job as a biomedical engineer. Now, concerts sell out and this summer he is booked at Lollapalooza and other music fests. On his new album, Mr. Gillis makes himself a bigger target by presenting samples in a way that invites listeners to name that tune.

"It's all purposely Top 40," he says. "It's more of a challenge to take something so familiar and twist it into a new entity."

That "twist" is the crux of Mr. Gillis's defense. Despite its provocative name, Illegal Art, Mr. Gillis's record label claims that the music it sells falls under the protective umbrella of "fair use." In other words, Mr. Gillis isn't violating the copyright of the popular songs he uses, the label says, because he is transforming their identity by dicing them up and putting them into a new context.

Many acts haven't let up in the copyright fight. Representatives of the classic rock band the Guess Who say they actively search for copyright infringement of songs like "American Woman," sometimes by following tips from fans. But in the Internet age that quest seems like a game of Whac-a-Mole, says Lorne Saifer, who manages songwriter Burton Cummings, who owns the rights to the Guess Who catalog, including "These Eyes," which Mr. Gillis co-opted.

"We'll chase it down. What more can you do?" she says.