If you live around upstate NY, drop by our local haunt on June 9 to see us perform with a few great bands, including Winnebago Vacation from New Paltz, Fox Hollow from Long Island, and Sun Hat from Philadelphia.
Waltz #1
This is our first waltz, and it’s numbered the first, with the implicit threat that there will be more waltzes in your future. Are you scared? Waltzes are like clowns and can be terrifying for some. But this is just a pop waltz, so don’t worry.
Yes, I am copying Elliot Smith here and his numbered waltzes, #1 and #2. It’s a shame he never got to do a third. “Waltz #1” is a sweet Lydian piano waltz—as perfect as music can be. “Waltz #2” is also great, an Aeolian folk waltz. Both waltzes are backed by strings, as all the big waltzes are.
Elliot Smith was a big influence on me, because I too wrote songs in front of the television while idly picking at a guitar. The old CR tubes in TVs used to hypnotize people, but there was a bit of free will left in the decision. It was nice to set aside hypnosis time each day. As the Inner Game of Music would have it, the TV draws the conscious attention of the Self 1, allowing the Self 2 to flow freely upon the instrument. While the man in the little head is distracted by the shiny box, the God of Muscles takes over and improvises mostly mediocre music with many stumbles and the occasional diamond in the rye.
“Waltz #1” by Los Doggies is in the key of F Major, with one of many appearances of the Six Add Nine Chord. It also features a whale of a bass solo from subPixel. Catch him this Thursday at Commissary in New Paltz.
Newpalsapalooza
This is our next show—Newpalsapalooza. It’s a three day, town-wide music festival in New Paltz hosted by Nachohouse, Mom’s, Law Office, Big Blue, and Snug’s.
Los Doggies plays May 12, 4:30 PM at The Law Offices.
Event Link
Blood-Fires
Here’s another new song, “Blood-Fires”, written on a toy guitar with only three strings to its neck. It helps to add limitations and restraints on composition. The Presidents Of The USA wrote their hits “Gump” and “Peaches” on a three-string. The artist Matthew Barney tied himself with fishing rope to a gallery wall and hung a canvas on the opposite wall, so that it would take a Sisyphean effort just to draw a single line. Beethoven was so awesome, the only thing left for his songwriting to progress was to take away his ears.
Call it the “Moonshadow Sonata.”
And if I ever lose my ears, I won’t have to hear no more.
The three-note chords are found in the verses. A parallel harmony of fourths in the upper two voices is paired with a suspended bass moving in the same direction, while producing sixth and seventh chords along the way. These quartel harmonies built out of fourths are an old trick I stole from somewhere. I go through phases of different chords. In my angsty teenage years, I favored the diminished but mellowed to a major seventh in my twenties. Now in my “late twenties,” I can’t get enough of fourth chords. Straight up the neck with one finger.
“Blood-Fires” is mostly in E Major, as all the best songs are. E Maj. is always a very white key for me, like pure white ivory bones of a virgin tusk surrounded by a ghostly ectoplasm of even whiter vibration.
Purchase “Blood-Fires” on Bandcamp for one dollar.
Come and See
“Come and see,” said the angel, and a thousand trumpets sounded at once, exploding everyone’s heads. When you hear these words, you better be winding up to Heaven already, or else you’ll have to face the leftover schlock on Earth: double dragons, zombie nephilim, and a sword-mouthed Messiah.
“Come and See” is also the name of a blues song in F#.
F# is a nice modern bluesy key; it actually is blue in a synesthetic way. The F appears as an ocean of Mediterranean blue with the sharp symbol (#) like a metal grating on top to keep the waters from overflowing.
Listen to “Come and See”:
Another Chickadee Song
Two birds in my backyard whistle at each other. The first bird whistles a high B♭ to a G, an interval of a minor third. The second bird answers with the same interval, except a whole tone above the first bird, C to A. I guess one bird is a little hotter than the other. Together the two birds create an unintentional song.
Click the score to turn on and off.
And so the verse of a new song was born. It kind of sounds like “Better Man” by Pearl Jam. Was Eddie Vedder also inspired by two chickadees and their aleatoric song?
Here, take a listen.
The title “At Song-Two-Birds” is a play on the Irish comic novel At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien, wherein the mad King Sweeny transforms into a bird-man and recites poetry on the river ford.
A year to last night
I have lodged there in branches
from the flood-tide to the ebb-tide
naked.
Bereft of fine women-folk,
the brooklime for a brother –
our choice for a fresh meal
is watercress always.
Without accomplished musicians
no jewel-gift for bards –
respected Christ, it has perished me.
The thorntop that is not gentle
has reduced me, has pierced me,
it has brought me near death
the brown thorn-bush.
This is the second Los song inspired by the chickadee. The previous song, “Chickadee (New Wave)”, used the wintry whole tone rather than the spring-time minor third. As summer progresses, the chickadee widens his interval by a step or two. The “fee bees” will be happy major thirds by the end of the summer, but for now they are minor thirds as above.
To all you chickadees out there, may your songs find you true love.
