Release date: May 15, 2007
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Monument to My Own Magnificence
(No One Else Is Gonna Do It)

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I hope it’s obvious that this title is tongue in cheek. While it’s true that, for most of us, we are our own biggest fans, the idea that we deserve self-erected monuments is ludicrous. (Of course, it’s ludicrous to build a monument to just about anybody but that’s not the point.)

This long track is broken into four marginally-related sections. First we have an ambient wash of sound. I find this works best when listened to on headphones in a noisy environment. Waiting for the train at a station next to a busy highway is my location of choice. I had considered overlaying found sounds, but then I decided, why not let listeners do that themselves. Since headphones (earbuds, anyway) don’t really drown out the external world, why not welcome it in?

Next is a solo, improvised piano section. This is pretty much presented exactly as I played it, although I later transposed it down a whole step (to put it into the same key as what follows) and removed two (count ‘em, two) bum notes. (Ah, the wonders of MIDI.) I did not edit this portion in any other way though. I’m quite proud of it, for what it is. I’m no pianist, but I must have been channelling something that night, because it really came together pretty well.

This leads into the first real “rockin’” theme (of ohhh so many) on the album, bringing to bear just about every obnoxious prog rock signifier I could muster: electric piano, Minimoog-style analog synth, fat bass (think Taurus pedals) and heavy drums, and a truly glorious 25/8 time signature.

This devolves into something a little more modern yet almost as geeky. I took some random static I accidentally recorded with a defective cable earlier in the sessions, found a rhythmic pattern in it, and turned it into a rock groove. Sort of. It ends, mercifully, after a single measure of the return of the analog synth. Don’t worry… there’s plenty more to come.

Formulation for Stimulation of Mastication
(Here’s Something to Chew On)

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Here we go. One of several titles employing rhymes and/or alliteration, and bad puns. This is also the first real “song” on the album. (OK, depending on your definition, it’s probably the only real “song” on the album.) No vocals of course. (Sweet Lord, no.) But it actually has an identifiable form! That would be ABABCABC. Not exactly the kind of thing that would work as a Genesis song title, but close. There are even two (two!) fairly decent solos, first on guitar and then electric piano. I’m beside myself. This was the last track recorded for the album.

Gary Numan (Is Not Quite Human)

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I had considered doing an Alf Clausen-esque take on “Cars,” but it sounded too much like the original, which isn’t really worth emulating that closely. So in the end, I was just left with this kind of cool funky techno groove filler track, and this title left amongst the dregs of my title list. (Yes, I compile lists of potential song titles… even — especially — when I’m not actively working on a new album.) It seemed a reasonable enough pairing, so I went with it.

Every Stroke of the Oar Seemed to Enrage the Missouri
(A Minor Theme and Variations [in A Minor])

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This was one of several tracks that, early on in its development, I envisioned becoming the 10-plus-minute “epic centerpiece” (notice I refrained from calling it a “masterpiece”) of the album. OK Scott, whatever. In the end impatience (if not prudence) prevailed and I wrapped it up in under 5 minutes. I still manage to squeeze in some synthy (yes, that’s a word, as far as you know) noodling, some proggy (yes… and Yes) noodling, some more, uh, noodly noodling, and wrap it up with Coldplayey (ugh… it’s a word now!) noodling. Rock on.

A Deficiency (of Truth)

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My wife (apparently) coined the phrase “a deficiency of truth,” although she now claims not to remember it. (Is she being untruthful? You be the judge.) This track is an homage to my days exploring freeform jazz and the wonders of 1960s electric keyboard technologies with Bassius-O-Phelius. Yes, you get 16 whole bars of honest-to-goodness multitracked, freeform improvisation! I should also acknowledge that the opening shamelessly rips off the beginning of the song “Atlantic” by Keane. It’s not exactly the same. But the fact that I need to emphasize the “exactly” says it all.

The Emperor’s New Brain (Think About It)

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The emperor didn’t actually have any clothes. I’m just sayin’. At any rate, this was another brief synthesizer idea that never totally got off the ground, but I liked it too much to leave it out. Plus, I liked that title too much to leave it out, too.

Heavy Water (Deuterium Oxide)

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This was the first track recorded for this CD, aside from “1.618,” which was actually kind of a “standalone” project I worked on last year. This is the only track to feature my clumsy (and, therefore, looped) drumming with actual sticks hitting actual drum heads. (OK, electronic triggers, but the physical act of drumming is the same.) The drum tracks and the first couple of layers of guitars were recorded in Pro Tools before I committed to the switch to GarageBand for the remainder of the project.

I was listening to a lot of Joe Satriani at the time I recorded this. Not that it necessarily shows… except maybe in my marginal attempt at a “flashy” guitar solo.

Waiting for the Future (to Become the Past)

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Upon finishing the final mix of “Heavy Water,” I immediately set about recording this track. I had not yet acquired my USB MIDI controller keyboard, so I was forced to input MIDI-based parts in GarageBand by either manually “drawing” the notes into a grid on the screen with the mouse, or by using the novel (if not entirely workable) “Musical Typing” feature in the software, that turns certain notes on the computer’s keyboard into a 1 1/2-octave musical keyboard. Nifty… if there weren’t such an infuriating lag in response time. Anyway, it worked well enough for this. Basically I just randomly mashed the keys for a minute, used the “Align to 1/16 note” feature to give it a semblance of rhythm, and then duplicated the track to various instruments. Voilà ! Instant avant garde jazz quintet! I know this is difficult listening, even for fans of “Five Percent for Nothing”. Hence the title and the mercifully brief running time.

Waltz for Reese (Elbow Chin)

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So then we have this title. What can I say about this title? Well, the song is a jazz waltz. The title was originally just “Elbow Chin,” because of a gaunt-looking picture of Reese Witherspoon I had seen in one of my wife’s throwaway entertainment magazines, where her chin was reminiscent of an elbow. There you go. The song itself is relatively straightforward; I had simply been lamenting the fact that despite my “jazz pedigree” (if you will — I played jazz tenor sax in my high school and college jazz ensembles), I basically haven’t touched the genre in any of my solo stuff. That’s mostly because I’ve been too intimidated by the complexity of the music, or more specifically, my inability to play any instrument besides the saxophone in that style. But this little organ riff just appeared while I was noodling around one night, and it just went from there.

L’Étranger Plus Étrange (The Stranger Stranger)

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I’ll just come out and admit that this is my favorite track on the album. I just love the interplay of the “real” (OK, real-sounding) instruments with the Moog-style analog synth and “bitcrushed” electronic percussion. It’s fun and over-the-top, just like the song’s title.

Love Spatula (Over Easy)

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1.618

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Most math geeks and artists of a certain temperament will immediately recognize the significance of the number in the title of this track. It is the rounded value of φ (phi, better known as the golden ratio), representing the ratio a/b = a+b/a. The ratio crops up frequently in nature, and is the limit of the Fibonacci sequence, which along with the circle of fifths is the fundamental building block of this composition. Each note in the circle of fifths is played (and then rests) for a duration built upon the increasing values of the Fibonacci numbers. The result is a gradually shifting, and increasingly dissonant, concoction of sound, embedded throughout with a fractal-like representation of the golden ratio. I’ll leave it to one particular person I know to work out the various interesting points within, but suffice to say the piece is wonderfully eerie as background noise, regardless of your awareness of its mathematical underpinnings. I’ll just have you know that I did actually sit at the keyboard and play each note for the precise duration used herein. OK, just once each, and then looped, but that did mean that while I only played the first note for a few seconds, I had to hold down the twelfth for a full ten minutes, watching the measures tick away precisely in the Pro Tools timeline and hoping I didn’t miscount.

Morgantown Expressway

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Somewhere in a New Mexico Landfill…

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