Category Archives: Music

We made it! It’s the end of the football regular season! What a long, fun trip it’s been… This week, I close out the regular season with a song in the style of a band I’ve liked but have never really tried: Minus The Bear. I’ve been told I sound like their singer – even fooled my mother once or twice – so why not, right? That and the fact that the first thing I came up with for this tune was the tapping riff in the verses. The song kinda dictated itself from there…

Lyrically, it’s the logical regular season conclusion for our chair-dwelling hero. Instead of sitting at home watching the finale, he and a few of his friends decide to haunt their favorite local bar instead. Drinks are had, their favorite team gets blown out… and you know what? It was a darn good day anyway. Enjoy and I’ll see you next time.

No More For Me, Thanks – I’m Driving

Programming note: The Football Project’s next tune – which will be the last – will arrive shortly after The Game Of Largeness In Indianapolis.

FINALLY! We’ve made it to Week 16 – the last week of the Fantasy Football season! So, naturally, that’s what this tune is about. Our hero gleefully ignores the holiday party he’s attending (maybe he’s even hosting it!) to keep tabs on his fantasy team because it’s in his league’s championship game. Kind of a jerk move, yes, but what can you do? Well, people try to lure him out in the bridge… to no avail.

Now, the music… The beginning bit is one of the first ideas I came up with when I decided to do this project. Nearly four months later, I finally got to use it! Otherwise, this tune is straight-up pop-punk with a part of “Deck The Halls” in the bridge. It’s public domain, so why not, right? And finally, to put a nice little bow on the proceedings, That’s my brother saying “Nobody cares, Ed. Nobody cares,” at the end of the track. Enjoy this here thingy and I’ll see you next week with the final tune for the regular season.

For All The Marbles You Don’t Deserve

Hey, yeah – the Football Project! Don’t worry, I wasn’t neglecting it. It just took a slight back seat to the Christmas music, that’s all. So technically this is a day late, but hey – better than nothing, right?

The musical explanation is simple: I like speed metal. I don’t know if I’m particularly good at it, but I like to partake in it every now and then… like, say, this week! It’s a little raw in spots, but I like it anyway – makes me think of more old school thrash that way.

The lyrics to this one were inspired by recent events around this area where I live. For the second time this season, this past week’s Buffalo home game did not sell out. Therefore, by football rules, the game is blacked out in the team’s local market. I was bummed… mostly because I knew full well that game had the potential to be really entertaining (for the wrong reasons, yes, but still…)! Oh well – there’s always next year, I guess… Enjoy the speed metal and I’ll see you next week.

Archaic Rules and Paid Programming

Well, after a fun little diversion, it’s back to the heavy stuff this week. Lyrically, this one is simple. This song here – as the title may suggest – centers around a football guy who decides to make a change… so he – gasp! – turns the TV off and goes outside. That’s really it. Throw in a few big words to go with the overall feel of the song and we’re good to go!

Musically, this is heavily inspired by an album I recently picked up and loved from the start. The album is called “Traced in Air,” the second release from the band Cynic. In order to get a more accurate depiction, I did take a copy of the main vocal track and shifted the pitch up an octave (but I buried it in the mix more than Cynic does, so there’s that). Also, it turns out I can, in fact, still play some haulin’ double kick drum parts! That’s always good to know, isn’t it? And, as a final note, I think this guitar solo is a personal best for me. Enjoy! See you next week.

Paradigm Shift

This week (a little later than usual, which I’ll explain later) is a big ol’ changeup for the project – a very simple guitar and vocal tune! Recorded with one microphone (the good ol’ Yeti Pro – I still haven’t found a thing it can’t do), no less. The acoustic-type mellow song is something I enjoy doing in the latter stages of a hard rock/metal project like this one… and this felt like the right time to do it (considering I know how I want the next three weeks to go). This is a standard electric guitar in Drop-D tuning, recorded on the neck pickup through a Roland Micro Cube amplifier. A small operation for a small song – only seemed fitting, really…

Lyrically, this one falls into a pattern I’ve hit a few times during this project – the bummed-out fan who still tunes in anyway… probably out of a force of habit more than anything. Since I live near Buffalo, I figure I have to have a pretty high authority on this sort of thing, wouldn’t you say? So yeah – gloom and doom over a mellow guitar thing. To further drive the pattern home, the lyrics at the end are lifted directly from Week Six’s tune.

So there you have it. A nice little acoustic-style number to break up the heaviness… and a few days late because I lost my voice over the weekend (which you can probably still hear the effects in this recording). BUT the show must go on! Enjoy this one and I’ll see you next week with what looks to be a pretty crazy one.

Gloomy McDoomerson