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Childish Gambino Lollapalooza 2014

It's a cover of Shake It Off, by Taylor Swift.  Featuring guest vocals from my girlfriend.

Shake It Off

SA Rockstar Entry.  The challenge: "Pick a song that makes you feel intensely, whether it's joy or sadness or excitement or dread. Something that sparks emotion in you, a song that sticks with you after you hear it, even if you've heard it a hundred times."

The challenge was tricky for me. A song that makes you feel intensely is a treasure. More often than not, I consider such tracks to be perfect on their own. Trying to cover a song of emotional value feels like a dirty thing to do, so I combed through the songs that have made me feel intensely in one way or another in my life until I found one that felt okay to take a shot at. I chose 1979, a song I was first exposed to at a very young age and one of the first songs I ever attached myself to. I didn't quite understand the lyrics, but somehow listening to the song made me feel free in a way that nothing else did at that age. As everyone else grew sick of hearing it over and over again, it never got old to me. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was the first album I ever owned and it is one of many things that inspired me to start learning how to play guitar and eventually write music. 

The usual stuff: 1979 was written by Billy Corgan and was featured on The Smashing Pumpkins' 1995 double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The original track is in Eb major. The cover was moved down 1/2 step to D major to make it easier to play.  Those vocal jumps are going to sound creaky no matter what key I sing it in.

Not much in terms of composition notes: I decided to do this yesterday and started it today about two and a half hours ago. As I was recording this, it was supposed to be a demo/skeleton track with some piano and vocals to cement the structure. Nothing fancy. Just a straight forward comping track and vocals with some harmonies for color. Once I'd laid everything down, I listened back to it and liked it a lot the way it was. I felt that adding a bunch of strings and bass and percussion would bury the sincerity under layers of shallow superficialities, so I decided to keep it simple. 

Not much for production notes either: A bit of polish was applied to the vocals. The piano just has some slight dips so the vocals sit a little better. Everything is running through a send verb. Vox are running through an additional plate verb. The reverb is a bit heavy. I like a creamy verb. I have until the 10th to tweak this up. If I take time to go back to it, I'll probably do some slight edits to the vocal tracks to take out miscellaneous noise and I'll probably tweak up the verbs a little to see how much clarity I can get while still getting a big, sad, empty room sound.

This is what I did tonight instead of going to the gym. Enjoy.

1979 (Smashing Pumpkins Cover)

Agua De Beber

Submission for SA's Rockstar: Almost Too Intense. Cover of Meadowlark by Fleet Foxes.

Meadowlark - Fleet Foxes Cover

We're all doomed. But holidays!! And an amazing sax solo!

WHITE CHRISTMAS - V3

Although dementia mainly affects older people, it is not a normal part of growing old. Worldwide, 47.5 million people have dementia and there are 7.7 million new cases every year. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia and may contribute to 60–70% of cases. Santa is one of those people.

Santa's Memory

Cygnus-X1

Someone sent me the acapella for this track. I've never listened to the original track, gleefully throwing whatever sounded good under it. The production emphasizes distorted and dirty sounding synths with a bit more active envelope manipulation during Nicki's verse. It's got house rhythms, dubstep rhythms, and breakbeat rhythms, with a little smooth, airy breakdown in it before the final verse. I thought of chopping off the ending with the back and forth talking as it seemed more obnoxious than salvageable, but cobbled something together for it at the last minute with a downtempo drum loop, a deep subbass loop, and a piano version of the chorus synths. Enjoy, if you must.

Out of My Mind (BoB/Nicki Minaj Remix)

I have trouble with things. These are my songs.

Likely won't be putting anything else on this page. Soundcloud has been deleting my recent reharms, remixes, and covers, so fuck em.

edit: i'll still put my unfinished junk up here because it suits the site.

Out of My Mind (BoB/Nicki Minaj Remix)

Joseph Ciavattone