So the "story behind the song" series continues with track 2, Dream Of A Gentle Apocalypse.  What can I really say about this one?  It is literally based on a dream I had - at least the vague recollections I had of it the next day.  I obviously was in a bit of a strange mood when I fell asleep for my mind to come up with this kind of imagery but the strange thing about it was that it was by no means a nightmare.  I remember waking up the next morning feeling somewhat disoriented by it but it had not been frightening, just strange and very surreal.  I also remember all the images passing by very slowly and quietly, not the chaos you would expect from an apocalypse and that's where the idea of the "gentle" apocalypse came in.  I wasn't inspired to write anything down initially but after a few days of thinking about it a couple of verses came to mind.

I was almost going to leave it at only two verses but a while after the initial dream I had another one that was a bit similar and had a "judgement day" feel to it.  I have a feeling this one was inspired by the book I was reading at the time, "Riven Rock" by T.C. Boyle which is based on the life of Stanley McCormick (quite an irony but no relation to me as far as I know) who had suffered from schizophrenia and had been tormented by "the judges" his entire adult life.  And so the third verse was conceived as the final reckoning for all of this chaos and ended the song in a more logical way I think.

And that's pretty much it.  I had already sketched out some of the music during an earlier experiment and adapted it a bit to fit the verses etc.  I think this is one of the strangest pieces I have ever created and reflects heavily on the influence of film scores in my music.  Perhaps there will be more like it to come in the future!

This is the first in a series of posts I will be doing about the songs on the debut E.P.  Track number one is of course the title track "Shock & Awe" and the inspiration for it came after hearing about music being used in torture sessions in Guantanamo Bay without the consent of the musicians who made it.  When this became public, most of the musicians whose music had been used were, as to be expected, pretty damned pissed off and rightfully so.  If you're not familiar with the story you can read more about it here:

Performers Angry About Music Used In Gitmo

But the song isn't specifically about this situation even though it was the initial thing that got me thinking in this direction.  As I was reading about this I remembered hearing something about how music blasted out of loudspeakers on helicopters had been used to scare the enemy in Vietnam and then some other movie images of soldiers getting "pumped up" by certain kinds of heavy, aggressive music came to mind.  In general I started thinking about how music can be used in what I consider to be negative ways.  The title itself is taken from a fairly recently coined military term for going into a battle with so much firepower and force that the enemy is basically shocked into submission.  Quick and relatively painless is the idea.  Except for the innocent civilians who tend to get in the way...but that's a whole other tangent.

Anyway, I had this riff that seemed almost like something that could have been turned into one of these songs that the military likes to use so I thought, hell, why not?  Except this one will have twist and turn it back on itself!  So after the verses which seem like something a bunch of grunts would get a real rush from, the whole thing turns against them in the final refrain, basically saying "Hey you suckers!  Gotcha!  This song is not what you thought it was and maybe you should think again!"

I wouldn't call it an "anti-war" song as such, but more of a statement against aggression of any kind especially when it is so uncontrolled that it results in the death of innocent bystanders.

The fact that the vocals went into a kind of rap or spoken word form was really just a spontaneous experiment that I ended up really liking.  Hope you do too.  All for now.

So after a bit of a delay the big day is finally here and the debut release "Shock & Awe" is offical and a free download will be available until the release show on June 26.  Yes, the entire EP will be FREE for a limited time which seems to be the way everyone is going these days so why swim against the current?  And how do I really feel about this free music future?  I have to admit that I have very mixed feelings but I have also decided not to waste too much time and energy worrying about the financial aspects of what I am doing.  I'm having a lot of fun making this stuff and there appear to be some people out there who are digging it so why complicate things?  The last gig was also really fun even though there was only a small crowd.  The sound was fantastic and the staff at Madame Claude were great so what more can you ask for...

Anyway, on to the point.  The EP is done and released and I am quite pleased with how it turned out, at least for a first attempt with this new production strategy.  I chose the title based on the track I thought had the catchiest name, "Shock & Awe" and I will explain what the song is about in the next post.  After that I will write a post about each of the 6 songs every few days to give a bit more background and hopefully make some sense of it all.

Speaking of album titles, I probably could have called this EP "Delayed" not only because the release date was delayed but now the release show date has been re-scheduled for a week later as well!  No big deal, a few unexpected things came up this week and in the end it was decided that June 26 would be better and a live big-screen broadcast of the World Cup will be part of the festivities.  If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!!!