This Wednesday, May 3, on my @WFMU radio show I’m excited to bring you a live set from Sacred Bones recording artists Constant Smiles! Here’s a little preview… my show starts at noon EDT, I’ll air the session at around 1pm.
Discovered this underground garage/weird/punk rock label out of Belgium called Belly Button Records and there are SO MANY artists and albums on it (many are made by one dude, the owner) that I dig. It's so wild to see amazing garage rock is still out there being made.
I stumbled across the label via Instagram, strangely, a band called Plexi Stad who have an amazing new album called 'Probation Baby', and other awesome bands on the label are Mitraille, Moar (the guy who owns the label), Roda Lits, Warm Exit..
THEN Bandcamp suggests OTHER bands/artists I end up loving like Cereal Killer and Fruit Tones.
New, rough, raw, punky rock and roll via Belgium. Who knew. I'd been LOOKING for stuff like this. I always am.
[Verse]
Truth and justice, It's not fair,
Right here, Left there,
Come 'round, Go square,
Either way baby, I don't care.
[Chorus]
I want to hold you tight,
I want to lock you up,
I want to tie you down,
I want to pick you up,
In a flat world, flat world, flat word, it's a flat world.
Flat world, flat world, flat world, it's a flat world.
[Verse]
Hot mustard, cool ice,
Fixed result, roll the dice,
Truth be told, pack of lies,
Raw fish and white rice.
[Chorus]
[Verse]
So close, miles away,
Don't talk, just say,
Bright night, today,
I love you, my babe.
[Chorus]
[Verse]
Truth and justice, it's not fair,
Right here, left there,
Come 'round, go square,
Either way baby, I don't care.
Digital audience
gazing into screens
Wandering through playlists
Shuffling their streams
Digital busker, laying track after track
Sharing his beats, never looked back
Take after take, gotta get that mix jumping
Drop that beat! Feel that bass pumping.
He’s not on the radio
No records, tapes, CDs.
He broadcasts on the Internet
It’s all done digitally
Digital busker, laying track after track
Sharing his beats, never looked back
Take after take, gotta get that mix jumping
Drop that beat! Feel that bass pumping.
Thoughts he plucks from his mind
get played right in your brain
Digial sounds in the bits he writes
What we think becomes the same
Digital busker, laying track after track
Sharing his beats, never looked back
Take after take, gotta get that mix jumping
Drop that beat! Feel that bass pumping.
With my teenage mind blown in the early years of the 1990’s by Nirvana’s album, Nevermind, I endeavoured to write my own grunge song.
It’s called Flat World. It has nothing to do with flat earthers, and the name was a reference to living in blocks of units, or ‘flats’.
When I wrote this, I had nothing to record it on, so recording it, to me, meant writing the lyrics and chords down in an old exercise book. Listening to it meant pulling the guitar out and singing it. Indie music in the early 90’s, you know what I’m saying?
I do hope you enjoy one of the first songs I wrote, my teenage attempt at a Cobain-influenced grunge song, Flat World.
I used to work with this cool lady and she would always take an interest in my songwriting. Every Monday, she’d ask how the weekend jam sessions went and if I’d recorded anything new. The weird thing was, anytime I had something uploaded for her to listen to, she’d listen to it through, and then tell me that it’s “not her kind of music” which is fair enough, but it always bemused me that she would take such an interest if she didn’t like what I was making.
One day, I decided to write her a song that she’d enjoy.
Spotify and Apple Music were playing at work all the time, so I knew what sort of songs she was into. Classic Rock. Australian Pub Rock in particular. She was a single mum in her 50’s, a strong, hard woman, an Aussie battler.
I wrote Proud Woman in a weekend, and recorded it at home on borrowed equipment. A mate I regularly jammed with did the vocals for me and when it was done, I uploaded it to my SoundCloud and gave her the link when I got to work.
She liked it.
The experience taught me the value of an audience of one. Even though the recording is rough, the focus on writing a song for one person with the aim that they - that person in particular - enjoys it, and I think it gave me a different perspective than when I was either writing purely for own enjoyment, or simply going with some random song idea.
If you’d like to listen to it, here’s the SoundCloud link. https://soundcloud.com/dgarmusic/proud-woman #indiemusic#songwriting#rock#introduction