Where Have I Been? (From a Daze and Friday)

It's been a long while since my last post. Yes, my goal is to record two songs each month, yet, I only recently posted my two songs intended for April. That means I am currently four songs behind: two for May and two for June. Further complicating my dilemma, we are more than halfway through June.

NEVERTHELESS! I will still record 24 songs for 2011. The reason for my lag in recording was my preparations for the all-important MCAT, followed by the imposing application to medical school.

'From a Daze' is written by Ace Enders and a Million Different People. I have long considered Ace to be the musician most like me. His guitar, singing, and lyrical styles are very similar to mine, so I was glad to pay homage to him. I had to return the keyboard, so I quickly recorded the opening organ part and I like how it turned out. I tend to hide little tributes to other bands in my recordings that might only make sense to me. I am emulating two Guster songs in the opening of 'From a Daze'. The first is 'Lightening Rod', which opens with a lone organ. The other is 'Two Points for Honesty', in which the opening chorus is sung over tremolo-plucked strings.

I actually recorded 'From a Daze' in April and had it ready for release. I merely got sidetracked on the aforementioned projects and that kept me from sharing it online.

'Friday' was recorded over several weeks. The opening banjo line was recorded in April, all of the electric guitars were recorded by my brother Tavis during our short visit home in the beginning of May, and everything else was finished by Abby and I last week.

'Friday' is a new approach in my project. It was not selected at random, but rather I received so many suggestions that I make a version of it, that I gave in. I decided I wanted the song to have an epic feel, covering as many song genres as I could. I also wanted to feature different vocalists as well. The song structure is as follows:

Folk - Pop-Punk - Pop - Metal - Pop-Punk

Since I knew I could count on Tavis to deliver an awesome metal breakdown, in terms of both screaming vocals and shredding guitars, I wanted to contrast that section with a softer female voice before. This proved more difficult than expected. Though Abby is a wonderful singer, she had trouble singing Rebecca Black's autotuned monotony during the bridge. If anything, Abby tried to make the melody, well, more melodious. This really got to her and at one point, brought her to stressful tears. We had to set the effort down for a day. The next day, Abby was able to get everything down quickly. Now we laugh that Rebecca Black made Abby cry.

Tavis gets credit for all of the electric guitars and for the metal vocals. Abby sings in every chorus and in the bridge. I play the acoustic instruments, bass, and the organ in the breakdown.

Now it is my goal to get caught up!