Ed Makes Things

Track Three of Four. File this carol under the “inevitable” category. I’ve been a drummer for over 13 years (as of this post), so it’s a given that I would eventually take on “Little Drummer Boy” one of these years. There were a few good places for jokes, and I couldn’t resist – like, say, pretending to be Joseph and grumbling about frankincense during the first verse. And, of course, you know what’s going to happen right after the line “I played my best for him”…

“Little Drummer Boy” was the surprisingly difficult tune of this year’s batch. The tricky part with this one lies in its structure – in the “arrangement” (read: piano reduction) I found, the vast majority of the chord changes happened in the middle of a measure, not at the beginning. I threw in two extra beats at the end of each verse, kinda for balance but also just to be a jerk. Either way, it was quite a bit of work but completely worth the effort. Enjoy and amble on back next week for Edmas 2010’s “thrilling” conclusion.

Little Drummer Boy

Previously: Angels We Have Heard On High ; We Three Kings

Track Two of Four. This is the last carol I started work on, but it fit the best in this spot (for some odd reason, the carols with the fastest tempos in these projects always seem to work best as track two. See “Up On The Housetop” and “Jungle Bells” from the two previous years). I looked at the title on this year’s carol list… and thought “What in the world am I gonna do with this one?” Luckily – it’s amazing what one can concoct when feeling a little under the gun – ideas began to form immediately. This tune is normally in 6/8 time, but I forced it into a fast-paced 4/4 here… except for the last chorus, which I decided to play straight. The surf-rock/espionage/James Bond part… well, to be honest, I don’t know where that idea came from, but I’m glad it’s there. It also served as a flimsy excuse to use a vibra-slap. Can’t go wrong there, right? Enjoy and I’ll see you here next Thursday for Part 3.

We Three Kings

Previously: Angels We Have Heard On High

Track One of Four in this year’s Christmas music… and also the first sacred carol I’ve tackled. Truth be told, I had deliberately avoided sacred music until now. However, when I realized I could throw in a few jokes and have some fun without feeling like I was gonna burn in hell for it, I felt it was ok to do so. I had to record this one, too – I’ve always kinda liked it for some reason…

I like opening these Christmas EPs with a more straightforward (by punk standards) track, and this is no exception. One of my two Christmas recording traditions – the “Brian May” – is found here. The vocal fugue-type thing at the end of the song was made up on the fly at the tail end of this song’s tracking. I’ll probably isolate that part in a separate post some time this month… Enjoy and come on back next Thursday for Part 2.

Angels We Have Heard On High

I get suggestions for songs/lyrics/albums from all sorts of people. I imagine most musicians get them. But since I’m not the brooding, introspective, deeply personal songwriter guy, I tend to give others’ ideas the light of day. Case in point: While hanging out with one of my best friends over a meal a while back, she suggested that since I had already made “Dancing for Patriotism,” why not “Dancing for Communism?” Naturally, the gears started turning immediately…

This track here is late in the album and one of the last tunes to receive lyrics. I was down to three tracks… so I turned them into a loose-fitting suite and created a new character: Marty, The Napoleonic World of Warcraft Player. This is Part One, where he gets overambitious and winds up killing the entire guild. For the record, I’m not sure who “The Colonel” is… Enjoy!

Seeing Red (Demo)

If you follow the memes and the viral stuff that pops up on the internet, you may be aware of the Willow Smith track “Whip My Hair”. Upon seeing the video myself, I realized that… wait a minute… they’re headbanging! In the Walkoff Walk Liveglog yesterday, I wondered aloud, “Should we tell them Slayer patented that move 25 years ago?” That’s when the inimitable Matt T. came up with an idea… and I believe he presented it somewhat like this:

“WHIP MY HAIR SLAYER”

Well, 24 hours later, here it is. Enjoy the madness.

Whip My (Slayer) Hair