Listening too long to one song

I've noted that both Andrew's and Matt's worthy travelogues have been noted by the outside world for their impressive photo and story boards of their recent adventures. And they are impressive. But what also struck me, especially in respect to my last post, was Chris' efforts at publicizing the wonder that was Debaser (now with the actual recordings! check it out if you're not near children or small animals that may be seriously injured with prolonged exposure).

Listening to the three currently available songs, I think "I hope that those were the ones recorded with the little magic tape recorder on one take." At least that way, I can still pretend. And I think that there was something there, somewhere. The earnestness, at least is clear.

For instance "Why", it starts out OK for the first 18 seconds, at least. The simple fingerpicking, while a bit clumsy, is a nice introduction. Then, there's a spare note from the bass that arrives a beat too early and then we notice that the guitar is horribly out of tune. Things pick up a bit with the arrival of the second guitar and troy's evident but aimless musicianship. The lyrics are also the best of this bunch of songs. I mean , there are still lines like "mother and father never paid him heed/but soon they all will pay" but this is definitely the high point of what is to follow, lyrically wise at least.

Then "Funky Song". Again, it starts out well. The bass line is clear and catchy, but then I kick in with the guitar and it's so inappropriate. It makes me laugh out loud now. It does get better as we settle into the "groove" and the distortion kicks in to make things better/less easier to hear. It goes on for much too long...the final chorus/verse/chorus is really unnecessary...and that entry into the quiet part at 3:30 could be better...and the solo is what happens when you let the tone deaf near musical instruments..but otherwise there's an element of rocking.

It surprised me though that "Green Bathing Suit Girl" has held up best, since we almost never played it. If only we had taken the good parts of this and built on it, well, it probably wouldn't have mattered. Lyrically, this is clearly the worst "when I saw you standing there/I just had to stare/ you're my vision/you're my dream/you're my object of desire/ I'm on fire." OR "when I saw on the beach...desire/you were just out of reach..admire" But while the execution is a little shaky, it has a real energy to it that the others lack.

I'm curious about the Mike's solo song...what is that one? I'm a little scared to find out.

In other music news, I've grabbed most of the New Pornographers new album (which is unsuprisingly excellent) and put it in the artichokes@ account. I've used this thing called Gmail Drive which makes gmail look like a disk drive to the computer, so it's easier to upload and download to the account if you use it.