Ed Makes Things

About halfway through “30 Clubs in 30 Songs,” I got an idea for a slightly hidden track – Track 31, if you will. Since we all stand up and sing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” during baseball games, how about I get a bunch of my friends to sing the 102-year-old song on a recording? Sooo…. I did. I recorded the piano and my vocals first, then cut every other voice individually. I gave the singers two guidelines: 1) If you want to be stupid/silly in the intro, go ahead. 2) When you get to “home team”, sing whatever team you want – doesn’t have to be major leagues, doesn’t even have to be baseball, just has to exist. The ensuing chaos is too funny not to share, so here it is. Enjoy! And thank you very much to all who participated in this recording (listed below).

Ballgame

Piano played by Ed. Sung by The Fasano/Garces All-Star Chorus: Ed Klingenberger, Robbie Ellis, Rob Klingenberger, Adam Donnelly, Brandon Fess, Steve Begy, Tom Klingenberger, Karen Klingenberger, Tim Avery, Steve O’Riley, Molly O’Riley, Justin Rister, Leo Medler, Rachael Johnson

Well, we’ve reached the end. This nearly-five-month project ends with a tune that was a no-brainer in terms of both music and lyrics. As the baseball freaks know, this team moved to D.C. from Montreal and they now have their Pitching Ace Of The Future. Sure, he needs TOMMY JOHN SURGERY right now, but he clearly proved his stripes before his elbow gave way. Merry Strasmas, indeed.

As for the music, there was only one place to go. I channeled the DC Hardcore scene (a la Minor Threat and Bad Brains) and wrote a simple tune and played it just a little too fast. The recording process for this song proved to be a pretty good endurance test, particularly on the drums… The ending is also in tribute to Bad Brains, who repeatedly diverged into reggae from punk during the course of their career.

All in all, this has been a pretty wild ride. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy this tune as well as the previous 29.

Washington

There you have it. 30 Clubs in 30 Songs. It’s all over… OR IS IT?! Tune in Friday to find out!

Aaahh, Toronto. Haven’t been in a while, but I like that city. I’ve never been to that ballpark, either, but most people I’ve talked to seem to hate it, so I guess I’m not missing too much. Either way, this song is about that park… mainly because it was SO FRIGGIN’ COOL when it first opened (“The first baseball stadium with a retractable roof! Awesome!”). I also refer to the place by its original name ’cause they renamed it a few years ago.

I had a vague idea on where this tune should go from a musical standpoint. There have been so many good bands out of Toronto, but Rush is by far their biggest musical export. Sooo… mostly instrumental tune rife with time changes, bad Geddy Lee impression, a drum solo, and some musical morse code? Check, check, check, and check. But then Drew (from the most excellent blog Ghostrunner on First) mentioned Broken Social Scene and my friend Leo mentioned Barenaked Ladies… so I worked hints of both bands into the track. Overall, it was a pain to record… and completely worth the trouble. Enjoy!

Toronto

Next up: Washington (Tuesday), SECRET HIDDEN THING (Next Friday)

This was a fun one for me. Knowing the exact city where this team plays (Arlington, just outside of Dallas), the tune here was molded after Pantera, one of my favorite bands when I was in high school. For the music, I threw in a solo like they usually did on their albums (no rhythm guitar part – just solo-bass-drums) and wrote a very active riff a la “5 Minutes Alone” for the chorus (That’s the part a lot of “groove metal” bands forget. They just kinda go “chunk cha-chunk chunk” and overlook the fact that those guys had some pretty serious chops). Oddly enough, this song proved to be more difficult to play on bass than guitar…

When it came to the lyrics and vocals, I must concede that I can’t sing/yell like Phil, so I didn’t even try. I still have a few entries left in this project and I kinda need my vocal cords for them, ya know? Instead, the Pantera-ness was focused on the words themselves. This is a song about “hey, look – this team is good now,” but I made sure to talk tough and use the word “power” a lot (you’d be surprised how often that word shows up in their songs). Overall, I’m very pleased with the results and I hope you enjoy this tribute to a band that completely blew away my teenage ears.

Texas

Next up: Toronto (Next Friday), Washington (The following week)

Alternate post title: “And Now For Something Completely Different”

This track is fueled by probably one of the most astonishing musical discoveries I made even before this project began. Believe it or not, most of the pioneering death metal acts – Death, Deicide, Morbid Angel, and Six Feet Under, to name a few – are from the Tampa Bay area. I threw in the essence of Tampa-based power metal band Iced Earth and I had myself a solid idea. This was a taxing track to record, particularly on the drums (I hadn’t written anything calling for blast beats until recently), but the end result is totally worth the trouble. The “synth pad” buried in the mix at the end is no pad – that’s three tracks of me singing harmonies in falsetto.

The lyrics are a bit of a mish-mash. Instead of one big idea, I took a few small things and worked them into the overall picture. Cowbells (“Your sentence: death by cowbell”), the catwalks in the field of play, and The Thunderdome (the stadium’s name when Tampa’s NHL team played in it). Throw in some evil sounding words – grime, suffer, judgement, punishment – and you got yourself some death metal! Enjoy the madness.

Tampa Bay

Next up: Texas (Friday), Toronto (Next Week)

Hello there. Usually, today would be the “off-days” post and this song would show up on Friday. BUT, since I’m going out of town this weekend, the “schedule” is reversed this week! And, in this case, the timing couldn’t be any better. Just last night, a Cincinnati player got the St. Louis manager all riled up and angry with the baseball quote of the season: “They’re little bitches, all of ’em.” For me, the best part is I wrote this song about the manager and his legendary Angry Manager Face. It’s almost like I planned this…

…But how to set it to music? I narrowed it down to two options: Either really uptempo punk/metal shouting “Angry Manager Face!” or all acoustic-style asking “What’s with the face?” Since I know what direction I want to take for the project’s last four songs (here’s a hint: consider this track the calm before the storm), I actually went with the latter. No drum set (cajon, shaker, and a cymbal played with brushes), a little bit of slide guitar, and here we are. Enjoy the musical (your favorite off-speed pitch goes here).

St. Louis

Next up: Tampa Bay (Tuesday), Texas (Friday)

Well, it’s time to wrap up the West Coast (the last five teams are in either the Eastern or Central time zones) with a fun little ditty from Seattle. The music here was an absolute no-brainer. There are three absurdly important bands to my generation (teenagers in the ’90s) from Seattle: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden. I went after the latter two here (Pearl Jam sits the best in my voice range, but the end of the song is pure Soundgarden – the closing riff is in 5 and the next to last measure is in 7).

As for the lyrics: What is there to talk about with Seattle’s baseball team these days? Griffey retired during the season, Lee has already been traded away, and they have one of the worst records in baseball. Besides Ichiro and Felix, it’d be a real stretch to come up with something if their everyday center fielder (Gutierrez) didn’t have one of the coolest nicknames ever. Thanks to that nickname – “Death to Flying Things” – this song is about him. Enjoy!

Seattle

Next up: St. Louis (Tuesday), Tampa (Next Tuesday)

Before I get to the heart of the post, I must disclose something: I hopped on the San Francisco bandwagon as a kid when they went to the World Series in 1989. I was eight years old, they were winning, and Will Clark and Matt Williams seemed really cool. Hell, Matt Williams was one of my favorite players for a while. But I don’t follow them like that anymore – haven’t for a while. Kinda hard to keep tabs on a team on the other side of the country, you know?

Now, about the song: The music is straight-up thrash metal, as it should be. A lot of early 80’s thrash bands either formed in San Francisco or eventually called the city home… like, say, Metallica. The weird twist at the end is a tribute to Huey Lewis & The News, a band I used to hear a lot as a kid and I consider to be the best bar band you’ve ever heard in your life. The lyrics to this song are about throwing and catching things. Simply put, this team can PITCH… which sorta dictates the subject matter in this case. The first verse is about plunking, which is frankly just me goofing off. Of course, one could say I’ve been goofing off this entire project… which is true, but that’s beside the point. Enjoy!

San Francisco

Next up: Seattle (Friday), St. Louis (Next “Friday” (probably Thursday))

The proprietor of this blog does not condone the practice of plunking batters in real life. He does, however, highly condone said practice in baseball video games.